The January 6th Capitol Insurrection Must Not Be Forgotten
A bipartisan report from the Senate on the events of January 6 released this week details many individual acts of violence and other criminal acts that took place.
What it doesn’t include is the admission that events of the day amounted to acts of mass political violence. Believe the report and you’ll have to accept a cataloguing of bad behavior seemingly unconnected to any larger cause, because that’s all the Republican members involved would allow to be printed.
Sources told CNN that in order for this report to have support from both parties, the language had to be carefully crafted. That included excluding the word "insurrection," which does not appear outside of quotes and footnotes.
So there was no description of an “insurrection,” nor was there any suggestion about the goal of the intruders to disrupt the final counting of electoral votes. This report amounts to a carefully sanitized history avoiding discussion of any role in inciting the mob played by the then-president — and by Republicans themselves.
This re-writing of history by the perpetrators has been foretold through the collective amnesia of some politicians who might have found themselves swinging from the gallows if the mob had gotten its way.
Like former Vice President Mike Pence, for example.
The only thing keeping this account from being a complete waste of paper is its documentation of security failures and recommendations to law enforcement.
From the Washington Post:
The report does offer new detail on the insurrectionary nature of the assault. It documents how intelligence officials collected information indicating that some attackers fully intended to terrorize lawmakers and saw themselves as a strike force overturning the election on Trump’s behalf.
But the report doesn’t meaningfully explore the deeper significance of the fact that this was not just a physical attack; it was an effort to subvert democracy through intimidation and violence, at the express behest of the president of the United States, who retains extensive GOP backing.
Nor does the report discuss the extent to which Republican lawmakers fed Trump’s lies about the election for many weeks, or the role of this in inciting the rioters, or the degree to which some GOP lawmakers themselves prompted the Jan. 6 event.
From the New York Times:
An F.B.I. memo on Jan. 5 warning of people traveling to Washington for “war” at the Capitol never made its way to top law enforcement officials. The Capitol Police failed to widely circulate information its own intelligence unit had collected as early as mid-December about the threat of violence on Jan. 6, including a report that said right-wing extremist groups and supporters of President Donald J. Trump had been posting online and in far-right chat groups about gathering at the Capitol, armed with weapons, to pressure lawmakers to overturn his election loss.
“If they don’t show up, we enter the Capitol as the Third Continental Congress and certify the Trump Electors,” one post said.
“Bring guns. It’s now or never,” said another.
It’s worth noting that multiple organizations ― including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security ― failed to fully comply with requests for information. Partially this is because the investigations are still ongoing, but I’d bet on two contradictory reasons for the lack of cooperation.
It’s obvious from reading accounts of events on January 6 that the prior administration did its best to stack the deck against any law enforcement response; I truly believe there are still Trumpian moles embedded in those bureaucracies. I also think there is an obvious interest on the part of various elected officials in sabotaging prosecutions stemming from that day. After all, lots of the GOP caucus wasn’t very discreet about palling around with the people and organizations most likely to be tried for leading the charge.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now saying he wants the question of an investigatory commission to be voted on once again. This would be part of his strategy leading up to votes on bigger agenda items like election reform in order to get Republicans on the record as opposing things polling well with voters. Being able to use those votes against incumbent candidates may be the best offense Democrats can put forward in the lead up to the 2022 midterms.
It’s worth noting that the Inspector General’s office at the Justice Department is conducting its own investigation into why the official response was botched so badly.
Is this any way to run a government? The chaotic nature of the Trump administration and careerists in an institution looking to cover its ass means they’ll be lucky to unravel much of what happened. According to the Senate report, the former president made the Department of Justice the lead agency for January 6, except that the DOJ says this isn’t true. Because there was nobody willing to say they were in charge, the Department of Defense said it couldn’t deploy the National Guard.
Meanwhile, the Capitol Police were also left without anybody in charge.
“According to information provided to the Committees, officers received little-to-no communication from senior officers during the attack,” the report says, adding that, “For hours the screams on the radio were horrific, the sights were unimaginable, and there was a complete loss of control…For hours NO Chief or above took command and control.”
From NBC4 News:
Ten U.S. Capitol Police officers remain off the job after they were injured as they responded to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, multiple congressional sources and a union official tell News4.
Capitol Police officers and the U.S. Capitol Police Labor Committee say many more officers suffered injuries and long-term trauma.
Officers were badly outnumbered by the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol, smashing windows and breaking through barriers. Officer Brian Sicknick was sprayed with a chemical, collapsed and later had a stroke and died. Two other officers took their own lives in the days afterward, and dozens more were hurt— including one officer who had a heart attack and others who suffered traumatic brain injuries and permanent disabilities. Some may never return to the job.
You know what makes it even worse?
Capitol Police intelligence officers knew as early as December 21 that protesters planned to “bring guns” and other weapons to the January 6 demonstration and turn them on any law enforcement officers who blocked their entry into the Capitol. They knew that would-be rioters were sharing maps of the Capitol campus online and discussing the building’s best entry points — and how to seal them off to trap lawmakers inside. But that information was shared only with command officers.
There are bits and pieces of reporting suggesting varying levels of involvement by the former President and his inner circle in encouraging an assault on the Capitol. Given what I’ve gleaned from studying the inner workings of the past administration, I have a strong feeling that prosecutors will be unable to put together a strong enough case to indict anybody who was in government at the time.
Certainly some of Trump's allies believed something big was afoot.
Steve Bannon said on his “War Room” podcast the day before the armed assault on the Capitol that “…all hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. It’s gonna be moving. It’s gonna be quick.”
Roger Stone met with Trump at Mar-A-Lago in late December 2020 and recorded a video just a few days later in which he made clear his expectations that “Wild Protest” on the Capitol steps (a title given to the event after Trump predicted it would be “wild” on Twitter) to become a site of violence. He went so far as to make an urgent appeal for donations for “protective gear” for paramilitary forces deployed on the Capitol steps, believing at the time that both he and Donald Trump would be speaking there.
Then there were the woefully under-reported disturbances in state capitals on January 6, including a scary attack on the governor’s mansion in Washington; violent clashes at the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio; and hundreds of protestors gathered at the state capital in Michigan, at least a dozen of whom were armed with rifles.
It’s clear from the internet chatter released by prosecutors as they’ve rounded up over 475 insurrectionists, that counter-protestors (assumed to be antifa) would be present in DC. Even after the fact, there have been Congresscritters who’ve blamed the day’s violence on some shade of leftists.
At “Stop the Steal” post-election events, Trump’s allies Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, and Michael Flynn often advocated using the Insurrection Act, assuming that military force would be required to keep Democrats from “stealing” the election.
The MAGAts weren’t alone in thinking the military might be called up. Following the use of the national guard and assorted other federal forces to break up a June demonstration clearing the way for a presidential photo opportunity, the idea of using troops even gained support from some elected officials. Senator Tom Cotton wrote an op-ed for the New York Times titled “Send in the Troops.”
Amanda Carpenter at the Bulwark did a deep dive into the mindset of the administration:
As the Oath Keepers secretly made their pre-January 6 preparations, the military community was growing increasingly worried that Trump might use the armed forces to interfere with the certification of the election that he was claiming had been stolen.
All ten living former defense secretaries, including Mark Esper, made a dramatic statement in a January 3 Washington Post opinion piece warning that “efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory” and any civilian or military officials who helped carry out such measures could face criminal penalties.
Now, after the fact, NPR reports that Trump’s impeachment lawyers are representing some of those arrested after January 6.
It’s certainly true that everything about the Capitol insurrection reeks of involvement by individuals not willing to get their hands dirty, but willing to benefit from martial law or other suspension of the political processes as described in the US Constitution.
The more the gang surrounding the Former Guy tries to downplay or whitewash what happened, the more I am assured that there’s more than meets the eye here.
Whether it’s through ongoing Congressional investigations or the criminal justice system, the fact that something extraordinary occurred must never be forgotten.
Every one of the Republicans in Congress who abetted this stain on our democracy --before or after the fact-- must suffer the political consequences. For San Diego, this means never letting the subject go unmentioned whenever Rep. Darrell Issa shows his face.
And the first question for any other Republican considering a run for office should be whether or not they consider the election of President Biden to be legitimate. Dodgy answers like, “the electoral college said so” are not acceptable.
One final note: there’s polling out this morning saying that 30% of Republicans believe Donald Trump will be re-installed as president in August. There is, I’m afraid, a lot of violence implied in that assumption when it fails to materialize.
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Yesterday in Ohio...
https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/1402371056149549057?s=20
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