Trump says Capitol riot suspects being treated ‘unbelievably unfairly’

Former president says there were no guns during the riot ‘except for the one that shot Ashli Babbitt’

Former president Donald Trump criticised the way people accused of participating in the riot on Capitol Hill are being treated on Wednesday.

“People are being treated unbelievably unfairly,” Mr Trump said. “When you look at people in prison and nothing happens to Antifa and they burned down cities and killed people.” He also mentioned there were no guns in the Capitol.

“Except for the gun that shot Ashli Babbitt,” he said, in reference to the military veteran whom a Capitol police officer killed during the riot that was an attempt to stop the certification of electoral college votes for the 2020 presidential race. The former president has mentioned her name in recent weeks.

“There was no reason for that,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s comments came during his announcement that he would sue tech companies including Twitter and Facebook in response to their banning him.

A reporter asked Mr Trump about what he did, if anything, to stop the riot given the bans were made largely in response to the attempted insurrection and why he was not able to stop it. Mr. Trump mentioned a Senate report and that “my name wasn’t even mentioned.”

But while the Senate report did not dig into the root causes of the riot, such as Mr Trump telling his supporters to “fight like hell,” the report does mention his name multiple times.