J6 Truth Finally Has It's Boots On

Thanks to a landmark report from the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, the evidence is in: The Pelosi Select Committee on January 6, 2021, was corrupt.

We’re all familiar with the quote, wrongly attributed to Mark Twain or Winston Churchill, that a “lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on.”

Examples are legion, but perhaps none more so than the handling of the horrific riot at the US Capitol on this day four years ago, January 6, 2021. Today’s certification of the Electoral College vote promises to be less . . . eventful, snowstorm and all.

Let’s posit something we should agree on. The riot of January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol that disrupted and delayed but did not stop an official proceeding - the certification of the Electoral College results from the 2020 election - was as shameful as it was stupid and wrong. Much of what happened was as illegal and the Capitol was ill-prepared. Police were violently attacked and injured, property was damaged or destroyed, and denizens of Members and staff were terrified as the violent, if unarmed, members of the mob made their way through the Capitol and some congressional office corridors.

President Trump’s behavior and actions during and after that tragic and senseless event were often irresponsible, and his response was slow and inadequate, even as he directed the Department of Defense in advance of the day to keep January 6 “safe.”

The events of that day were preventable on several fronts.

“Then-President Donald Trump had ordered 10,000 troops to be on standby for the day of electoral certification, a fact covered up by the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, which was eager to depict an apathetic commander-in-chief relishing in the violence at the Capitol,” wrote The Federalist. Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, was the Pentagon’s chief of staff leading up to that day and confirms that Trump authorized troops before January 6th.

A Democratic House’s partisan, rushed, and fictional impeachment resolution was rightfully and quickly dismissed by the cooling saucer of democracy, the US Senate. Anyone who thinks an unarmed mob of yahoos (even though some violently attacked police with fire extinguishers and other instruments) constitutes an “insurrection” is profoundly ignorant of the law and the dictionary. We’ve had armed insurrections (the Civil War) and rebellions (The Whiskey Rebellion et al.). J6 doesn’t qualify.

As friend and fellow Substacker Thomas Buckley noted on a post yesterday, “Seven hours in January was not ‘Seven Days in May,’” for those of you who catch the reference from a terrific 1964 movie. It hardly qualifies as a coup attempt. A laughable one, maybe.

It is rather remarkable that most American voters saw through all this, including the partisan “lawfare” conducted against Donald Trump during his four years out of office, and returned him to the White House. This suggests that a great many Americans saw through and dismissed the gaslighting.

Let’s also posit that the prosecution and handling of the investigation into events that day by a Democratic-controlled 117th Congress and politicized Department of Justice were corrupt and unlawful, starting with the unprecedented composition of the Democratic-controlled Select Committee. This included covering up or destroying evidence, which violated House Rules. How do I know that? This official report from the US House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, the result of a two-year investigation, tells me in no uncertain terms. They have the receipts.

J6 prosecutions by the now-departed US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves, will be a topic for another day. It will include comparing the intensity of prosecutions of J6 violators to those from the 500+ Black Lives Matter riots from the summer of 2020 and especially the prosecution of the rich and/or famous on the Jeffery Epstein client list.

You didn’t need this report to know that something was badly amiss when then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) rejected norms and refused to seat then-GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) slate of Republican members, especially Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), now chair of the Judiciary Committee, and then-Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), now a US Senator. This unprecedented and brazenly partisan act belied a partisan objective and baked-in result. The fix was in. And Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and co-chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) delivered.

Let’s also posit that we still don’t know the whole story, particularly from a corrupted FBI leadership that has refused to disclose much of their actions on that day, including on that tragic and disgraceful day. Hopefully, we’ll find out more when new management takes over, and the House provides subpoena power to those now doing the real investigative work. Finally.

One last posit: that the lies and coverups that have been foisted upon the public by government officials and the media are no less shameful than the riot itself, undermining basic institutions in which we have lost so much trust.

Pardon me if I seem a little angry. I was furious over what happened four years ago at the Capitol, prompted by a rally that should never have been scheduled and a President who should not have told the 30,000 or so in attendance to march on the Capitol, even “peacefully and patriotically.” Trump’s post-election transition tantrums then were among the lowest points of recent American history. I’m just as angry over the blatantly partisan attempt to politicize it, cover it up, tamper with witnesses and evidence, violate civil rights, and drive partisan narratives without regard to truth or justice.

Not just the months of concertina wire around the Capitol. Not just the months of ridiculous “show” deployments of mostly unarmed National Guard troops taken from jobs and families to defend against another attack that was never in the offing, used as political props, even as the FBI gaslit us into believing more attacks were imminent. Not just the corrupted and unprecedented way the 117th Congress’s Select Committee investigated the events and security failures that day. Not just the heavy-handed prosecution of grandmothers taking selfies in the Capitol that they shouldn’t have entered that day, violating the civil rights of dozens if not hundreds of protestors. Never mind the predawn FBI raids on the homes of protestors that are still occurring to this day.

All of it. I’m also mad at people who continue to gaslight and politicize that to this day, including our mentally incapacitated and thankfully departing President, who stupidly called the J6 riots the “The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” (a historically ignorant assertion that Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku and Osama bin Laden might have thoughts about), a former Speaker of the House, and plenty of former Members of Congress who continue to lie and gaslight to this day. You know who they are, but the chief among them was awarded by President Biden last week. The same Liz Cheney the Subcommittee recommends be investigated by the FBI for witness tampering from her work on the Pelosi J6 Select Committee.

Side note: President Trump can do America a favor by eliminating this now-soiled and discredited Presidential Medal of Freedom and replacing it with one that recognizes achievements that make America a better place, with integrity. Lawfare and undermining American democracy and justice does not count.

This is the same FBI leadership that thinks white supremacy and traditional Catholics are our biggest terror threats, ignoring the threats pouring over our borders over the past four years and the radicalization of terrorists who were neither white nor Christian. Folks in New Orleans, Fort Hood, and Orlando might have thoughts about which religion is most responsible for radicalizing terrorists. It ain’t Latin mass-attending traditional Catholics.

Here are some key excerpts from the Subcommittee’s 128-page report, authored by chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA). For those who think it is just as partisan as the original Select Committee’s work was, you obviously haven’t read the report. Trump-appointed Pentagon officials are cited for their unconscionable delays and coverups. I strongly encourage you to read at least the table of contents, which summarizes several key findings, and the conclusion on page 117, which calls for an FBI investigation into alleged law violations.

From the conclusion:

The events of January 6, 2021, were preventable. For nearly four years, Democrats pushed the narrative that President Trump was solely responsible for the riot at the Capitol—spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a politically motivated witch hunt while failing to legitimately examine how United States Capitol Leadership was unable to ensure adequate protection for Members of Congress and thousands of congressional staff. Incredibly, it would take nearly four years for video footage to emerge of Speaker Pelosi—in a rare moment of true leadership— admitting that she was fully responsible for the security failures that day. While Democrats politicized Capitol security and prioritized personal political futures, the Subcommittee’s unbiased approach to our investigation produced previously undisclosed evidence that undermines the Select Committee’s narrative.

Key findings from the Table of Contents:

President Trump did not attack his Secret Service detail at any time on January 6.

There was no pre-planned off-the-record move to the Capitol in the days leading up to January 6.

Cassidy Hutchinson falsely claimed to have drafted a handwritten note for President Trump on January 6.

President Trump did not have intelligence indicating violence on the morning of January 6.

The Acting Secretary of Defense, Christopher Miller, dismissed President Trump’s January 3, 2021, order to use any and all military assets necessary to ensure safety for the planned demonstrations on January 6, 2021.

The Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, intentionally delayed the D.C. National Guard response to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Although approved by the Secretary of Defense at 3:04 PM, Secretary McCarthy delayed and failed to communicate deployment orders to the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard.

If anyone needs to lawyer up, former Trump White House staffer Casey Hutchinson and her congressional mentor, the former US Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) lead the list. Much of the report targets the Department of Defense’s Inspector General for promoting a false narrative about the deployment of DC National Guard troops to the Capitol. It also notes the failure of the illegitimately organized Pelosi Select Committee to retain records, many of which remain missing. However, among the most alarming confirmations is that the corrupt J6 Select Committee destroyed or hid records.

. . . the Subcommittee learned that the Select Committee failed to archive or provide the Subcommittee with any of its video recordings of witness interviews, as many as 900 interview summaries or transcripts, more than one terabyte of digital data. Concerningly, of the documents that were archived, the Select Committee delivered more than 100 encrypted, password protected documents and never provided the passwords. It is unclear why the Select Committee chose only those documents to be shielded by password.

The failure to provide the Subcommittee with these records raises serious concerns about the content of the records and their contribution to the Select Committee’s narrative. Furthermore, the failure to archive these records rests on Chair Thompson who had an obligation under House Rule 7 to “transfer to the Clerk any noncurrent records.” 42 Failure to archive all noncurrent records, the corresponding transcripts, and the recovered password-protected encrypted files, is in violation of House Rules and obstructs the Subcommittee’s investigation into Capitol security.

As a former Secretary of the Senate, my office maintained official records and proceedings. It was a significant responsibility, from the Senate’s pages in the daily Congressional Record to the official papers of retiring Senators and the handling of classified information. For a brief while, I chaired a congressional advisory committee of the National Archives and Records Administration on Congress’s records. The thought of official records being destroyed violates official rules and is wrong. Congress needs to respond fiercely to prevent this from happening again.

The Subcommittee will publish a subsequent report on the mysterious “pipe bomber” or bombers who left incendiary devices next to the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters. The Subcommittee has no jurisdiction to investigate the Department of Justice’s often questionable prosecution of many protestors where their civil rights may have been violated. A pair of competing videos or movies from that day, one of which shows J6 protestors being subject to pre-dawn FBI raids and others being imprisoned without access to counsel. Civil rights abuses have already been documented, and a $50 million lawsuit by prisoners is forthcoming.

The Subcommittee’s substantial investigation into the pipe bomb will be released as its own standalone report in conjunction with the House Committee on the Judiciary. The Committees’ joint report examines 1) the law enforcement response to the pipe bombs and 2) the investigation into the pipe bomb suspect. The goal of the Committees’ investigation was to conduct a thorough review of the security failures related to the pipe bombs’ discovery and provide transparency–nearly four years later–on the investigation into the individual who planted the devices.

Loudermilk and his Subcommittee’s report is well documented and a vital contribution to the record of January 6th. However, they are not done, and their work must continue. Loudermilk is pushing the Speaker to continue their work via the creation of a “Select Committee” with subpoena powers, a request he made a year ago. Make it so.

Some will undoubtedly suggest that the new Department of Justice should forgo investigations or prosecutions of those allegedly violating the aforementioned laws and rules. Dwelling on the past can divert time and resources away from urgent issues.

While they should proceed carefully, thoughtfully, and deliberately, I disagree. Witness tampering, covering up and withholding evidence, and other actions violating federal law or House rules must be enforced and prosecuted, just as violent behavior at the Capitol on J6 has been aggressively prosecuted. Condoning such violative behavior undermines confidence in our institutions, invites future abuses, and is a bad precedent. While that which gets rewarded gets repeated, so does wrongful behavior that is not punished.

The truth finally has its boots on but still needs to catch up to the lies, gaslighting, and partisanship that reigned in those awful days. To do otherwise is to invite worse. Conversely, the new Trump administration should proceed very carefully with pardons and commutations of those who engaged in unlawful behavior on January 6th. Justice demands that, too.

Recommended read (and viewing): This blog post by independent journalist and former CNN and CBS reporter and anchor Sharyll Atkisson.

Now that you know federal informants were in the US Capitol on Jan. 6, watch the videos