YouTube removed a video posted by a congressional committee investigating last year’s attack on the US Capitol on Friday due to election misinformation spread by then-President Donald Trump.
“Our election integrity policy prohibits content advancing false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches changed the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election if it does not provide sufficient context,” YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said in response to an AFP inquiry.
“We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and have removed the video uploaded by the January 6th Committee channel.”
The committee, which is in the midst of a series of public hearings into an attack on the US government’s seat on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn Trump’s presidential election results, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
YouTube did not specify which video was removed from the channel, but media reports indicated that the omitted clip contained Trump making baseless claims about the election’s integrity.
According to congressional investigators and former administration aides, Trump pressured his vice president Mike Pence to join an illegal plot to overturn the 2020 US election and whipped up a mob that threatened his deputy’s life when he refused.
The committee investigating the attack detailed how the former president chastised Pence for refusing to participate in the illegal scheme, despite being told that violence had erupted as Congress was meeting to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.
The panel detailed a “relentless” pressure campaign by Trump on Pence as the cornerstone of a criminal conspiracy to keep the defeated president in power at its third public hearing into the insurgency.
The committee maintains that Trump’s pursuit of this scheme resulted in Capitol violence, which resulted in at least five deaths.
