Donald Trump’s own campaign manager thought he was responsible for the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to old tweets unearthed by CNN.
In the days following the attack, Chris LaCivita, who has earned more than $22 million overseeing Trump’s re-election bid, liked and shared tweets calling the rioters “thugs” and blaming Trump for inciting the violence.
In one tweet LaCivita shared, a journalist with the conservative magazine National Review wrote, “Text message from a GOP Senate aide: ‘This is a disgusting tragedy. Someone literally lost their life because of a lie that Trump told, Cruz/Hawley capitalized on, and fringe media echoed. This is in no way shape or form sustainable.’”
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The tweet has since been deleted from LaCivita’s feed on X, formerly Twitter, along with others denouncing Trump’s role in the attacks. But a record of the activity remains on the site, along with screenshots and archived pages on the Internet Archive WayBack Machine.
“Retweets and likes are not endorsements,” LaCivita, who first began working for Trump-affiliated super PACs in 2022, said in a statement to CNN.
After Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election had been rigged, armed militias stormed the Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory. One Capitol police officer died from injuries he suffered during the assault, and four more died by suicide in the seven months that followed. Four rioters also died.
Trump has described the failed insurrection as a “day of love.” Instead of prosecuting the rioters, he has called for jailing his political rivals.
On the day of the attack, LaCivita liked a tweet from a Republican former member of the House of Representatives suggesting Trump was unfit to hold office.
After Twitter temporarily locked Trump out of his account for lying about the election results, then-Rep. Barbara Comstock called on his Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and remove Trump from power until Biden took office.
“Twitter locked @realDonaldTrump for 12 hours. Now the Cabinet needs to lock him down for the next 14 days. #25thAmendmentNow,” she wrote.
La Civita also shared a post from George W. Bush saying the violent assault on the Capitol was “undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes,” and one that described the rioters as “thugs,” CNN reported.
