Donald Trump could take another shot at being US president and is unrepentant about the Capitol Riots he is accused of instigating.

At the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference yesterday in Nashville, he described the congressional investigation into what happened as ‘crazy’.

The former president, who is accused of whipping followers up into a frenzy after losing the 2020 election, as a ‘theatrical production of partisan political fiction’.

It was his first public appearance since the committee began its hearings, and he was his same bombastic self.

He still does not appear to have accepted that he lost the last presidential race, repeating false claims about election fraud.

Speaking to religious conservatives at a sprawling resort near the Grand Ole Opry House, Trump insisted he had done nothing wrong.

‘What you’re seeing is a complete and total lie. It’s a complete and total fraud,’ he told the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference.

He dismissed the video footage and testimony presented by the committee – including first-hand accounts from senior aides and his own family members – as having been selectively edited.

He also downplayed the insurrection at Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021, as ‘a simple protest that got out of hand’.

Trump’s appearance at an event long known as a testing ground for presidential hopefuls comes as he has been considering when he might formally launch another White House campaign.

The debate, according to people familiar with the discussions, centres on whether to make a formal announcement later this summer or autumn or, in accordance with tradition, wait until after the November midterm elections.

While allies insist he has yet to make a final decision about his plans, Trump for months has been broadcasting his intentions and continued to tease them yesterday.

‘One of the most urgent tasks facing the next Republican president – I wonder who that will be,’ Trump said at one point, prompting a standing ovation and chants of ‘USA!’

‘Would anybody like me to run for president?’ he asked the crowd, unleashing more cheers.

Ralph Reed, chair of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said: ‘We don’t know whether or not he will run, although certainly given his speech, I think he wanted to let everybody know that that is his plan.”

‘I think a lot of Trump’s future plans are directly based on (Joe) Biden, and I think the more Biden continues to stumble on the world stage and on the domestic stage, people forget about the downside, the dark side of Trump’s presidency,’ said Bryan Lanza, a GOP strategist and former Trump campaign official.

An announcement in the near future could complicate efforts by other ambitious Republicans to mount their own campaigns.

Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who was ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, for instance, has said she would not run against him.

And there also are concerns that a near-term announcement could hurt Republicans going into the final stretch of a midterm congressional campaign that appears increasingly favourable to the party.

A Trump candidacy could unite otherwise despondent Democratic voters, reviving the energy that lifted the party in the 2018 and 2020 campaigns.

Republicans want the November election to be framed as a referendum on the first two years of Biden’s presidency.

They do not want anything, including Trump, to throw them off that trajectory.

A long list of other Republicans have been laying the groundwork for their own potential campaigns.

Some have made clear that a Trump candidacy would have little influence on their own decisions.

They include Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, who has been hailed by the January 6 committee as someone who put the national interest ahead of his own political considerations.

Eyeing a White House bid, Pence is maintaining a brisk political schedule focused on drawing attention to Democratic vulnerabilities.

But his challenges were put into stark relief on Friday, as Trump continued to blast him for failing to go along with his scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

While he denied ever calling Pence a wimp, Trump railed against his former deputy, saying: ‘Mike did not have the courage to act.’