Law Enforcement Thrown Under the Bus by Apologists for the January 6 Capitol Insurrection
It was one hell of a Tuesday on Capitol Hill as the former president’s supporters tried to muddle the picture of what happened on January 6th, and Congressional Committees gave the American public yet another window into how fragile democracy is.
Let me see if I can get this straight: Down is Up, Bad is Good, and Lies are Truth.
We’re supposed to believe, according to right wingers:
January 6th as shown on networks nationwide was actually organized by the FBI.
The police who defended the Capitol weren’t heroes.
Those arrested since the insurrection are languishing in jail cells under inhumane conditions.
Vladimir Putin is making valid criticisms about how police behaved as they were under siege.
The woman shot and killed while trying to break through into the lobby in front of the Speaker’s office was killed by a policeman who lay in wait to execute her.
Let me take these in order, and then I’ll get to reality-based events.
Faux News’ Tucker Carlson joined InfoWars Alex Jones in suggesting that the Jan. 6 Capitol riot could have been, at least in part, orchestrated by planted FBI agents.
(1)"Strangely, some of the key people who participated in the riot on Jan. 6 have not been charged," said Carlson. "Look at the documents. The government calls them unindicted co-conspirators. What does it mean? Well, it means that potentially in every single case, they were FBI operatives."
Would anybody like to take odds on some of those “unindicted co-conspirators” getting hurt in the coming days on account of a lack of understanding about how the legal system can work?
Twenty one House Republicans voted against awarding Congressional Gold Medals to Capitol Police officers for bravery displayed on January 6, 2021.
(2) In an interview on CNN Tuesday night, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) called the 21 “no” votes “a new low for this crowd.”
“They voted to overturn an election. But in their vote today, they kind of sealed the deal of basically affiliating with the mob,” Connolly said. “They now are part of the insurrectionist mob. They brought enormous disrepute and dishonor on themselves in not honoring the brave men and women who defended the Capitol of the United States — everybody in it, but also defending the symbol of democracy in the world, not just here in the United States.”
https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1405244468568145921?s=20
Of the nearly 500 people arrested for participating in the events of January 6:
(3) 181 defendants were indicted by grand juries, more than 130 have been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees, 35 have been charged with conspiracy, 25 were charged with theft of government property, and 30 have been charged with destruction of government property. Four of the first 465 people arrested are being held without bail, 70% have been released on their own recognizance.
I’ll just leave this here.
(4) Don’t play the video unless you have a strong stomach.
https://twitter.com/PaulCogan/status/1405173920605610004?s=20
Congressman Paul Gosar said during questioning of FBI Director Christopher Wray that a police executioner lay in wait for the woman shot and killed as she tried to enter through a broken window in front of the Speaker’s office. Gosar and others are demanding that the government release the name of the officer who fired the shot.
https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1404977058267213838?s=20
(5) Via Christopher Reeves-- And what happens if the FBI or others did release the name of the officer? What happens? Ask Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who continues to receive death threats.
Let’s be honest, the attempt to get out the name of the officer has one outcome: it will inspire someone to threaten and harm an officer who did his job in protecting people from immediate danger. So much for backing the blue.
There is only one person responsible for Ashli Babbitt’s death. That name is Ashli Babbitt.
By the way, Gosar has been identified by one of the primary organizers of the January 6th events as playing an active role in organizing. He asked then-President Donald Trump to preemptively pardon him for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol.
Bonus factoid:
On Sunday, Russian state TV aired an interview with insurrectionist Richard Barnett—notoriously pictured with his feet up on a desk in Nancy Pelosi’s office on Jan. 6—and his attorney, Joseph McBride.
Barnett, a self-proclaimed white nationalist, was introduced as a “colorful” individual, the same expression Putin frequently uses to describe Trump. McBride welcomed Rossiya-1 special correspondent Valentin Bogdanov into his office and FaceTimed his client, who appeared cheerful and at ease at his Arkansas ranch, flashing a big smile and showing off his car collection.
***
There were other major revelations in Congress on Tuesday.
At a House Oversight Committee hearing, Chair Carolyn Maloney revealed dozens of messages given by social media platform Parler to the FBI on Jan. 2 — four days before the insurrection.
"Don’t be surprised if we take the Capitol building," says a post from a Parler user who concluded, "Trump needs us to cause chaos to enact the Insurrection Act."
FBI Director Christopher Wray told the committee he did not “recall” hearing of the posts, suggesting that some were routed to FBI squads investigating domestic terrorism. His takeaway from the hearing was that the FBI needed more leeway to monitor social media, something they already do.
“I hear people talking about new surveillance powers, talking about the possibility of increasing national security powers,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) “It is incredibly important that, no matter the intention, that every time we give our government new powers they are inevitably used to target people that look like me, oppressed people of color and minority groups across our country — not those who attacked our Capitol.”
Over at the House Administrative Committee, Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton disclosed emergency units training with a company called “Northern Red.”
According to his testimony, the Capitol Police spent $90,075 in 2018 and 2019 for an emergency response team to work with Northern Red, which boasts the motto: “For those who have hunted armed men training is never the same,” according to the company website. As Roll Call first reported, the website also displays symbols linked to white supremacists.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee released more than 200 pages of what can only be called bombshell documents, namely emails between the White House and various officials at the Department of Justice.
They are also the latest example of Mr. Trump’s frenzied drive to subvert the election results in the final weeks of his presidency, including ratcheting up pressure on the Justice Department. And they show that Mr. Trump flouted an established anticorruption norm that the Justice Department acts independently of the White House on criminal investigations or law enforcement actions, a gap that steadily eroded during Mr. Trump’s term.
The documents dovetail with emails around the same time from Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, asking Mr. Rosen to examine unfounded conspiracy theories about the election, including one that claimed people associated with an Italian defense contractor were able to use satellite technology to tamper with U.S. voting equipment from Europe.
The Justice Department demurred on an order from the President to file a 54-page draft lawsuit from Kurt Olsen, a private attorney, asking the Supreme Court to invalidate the election results and overturn the election.
***
While House Speaker Nancy Peloisi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have both made statements about the necessity of a more formal investigation into the events of January 6, there is no agreement in place to do so.
And the following item from Reuters indicates why action is needed.
One in three U.S. election officials feels unsafe on the job and one in six reported being threatened because of their work, according to a survey published Wednesday by New York University’s nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice.
The results reflect a reckoning in the wake of election in which the loser, former Republican President Donald Trump, spent months falsely alleging the contest was "rigged" against him. Those claims sparked threats and actual violence, such as the deadly U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6.
***
While the area’s lone Republican Congressman managed to avoid getting entangled in Tuesday’s tsunami of truth-twisting, Darrell Issa was advocating for less security at the Capitol.
https://twitter.com/repdarrellissa/status/1404979125769674756?s=20
Maybe there’s no connection but his idea seems unwise in light of a new federal intelligence report warning about adherents of QAnon, the conspiracy theory embraced by some in the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, targeting political opponents for more violence as the movement’s false prophecies increasingly fail to come true.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, right?
Hey folks! Be sure to like/follow Words & Deeds on Facebook. If you’d like to have each post emailed to you check out the simple subscription form on the right side of the front page.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com