Opinion: Ignoring 1/6 Facts Doesn’t Make Them Less True (Part 3)
Pelosi, Trump, Capitol Security, Babbitt, Antifa, National Guard and More
Want to read a balanced perspective on the news? Please subscribe to A View from the Center for free. I won't clutter your inbox, just send you one or two new posts every week. Also, please follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, where we get into some pretty good discussions. And please support independent journalism by sharing this with friends!
Members of Congress cowering in fear inside the House chamber and then escaping wearing gas masks.
Rioters calling for the hanging of then Vice President Mike Pence coming dangerously close to him.
Secret Service agents protecting Pence fearing for their lives and making goodbye calls to their families.
Former President Donald Trump fueling the fire after the violence began on January 6, 2021, with a tweet attacking Pence.
Trump watching television and doing nothing for hours while rioters attacked the Capitol because he apparently didn’t want to stop his supporters’ last-ditch violent attempt to overturn the election.
That’s just some of what we saw on Thursday, July 21, 2022, in the second prime-time hearing of the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack.
On June 10, the day after the first prime-time hearing, I wrote a column titled “All Americans Should Be Sickened by the January 6 Attack.” After the most recent hearing, “sickened” is not enough. All Americans should be infuriated.
This column will not extensively analyze the 7/21 hearing. Instead, it is the final (Part 3) in a series of pieces I’ve written on the reaction from Trump supporters to the hearings (Parts 1 and 2 can be found here and here). Part 3 will address a series of other questions: Was Pelosi at fault for not more significantly reinforcing security at the Capitol? Did Trump request additional National Guard or was he derelict in his duty? Were Antifa or other left-wing provocateurs responsible for the assault on the Capitol? Did FBI agents incite the riot? Were rioters armed? Was Ashli Babbitt a blameless victim? Were the rioters welcomed into the Capitol by open doors?
As detailed in the earlier pieces, polls show a majority of Americans support the committee’s investigation and believe it is fair and impartial. But polls also indicate that most people aren't watching and that the hearings have only slightly worsened Trump’s standing with Republicans. Meanwhile, Trump supporters keep coming up with every imaginable red herring to distract from the seriousness of what happened.
Pelosi and Security on 1/6. One of the most frequent attempts to distract from the severity of the Capitol attack is to accuse Nancy Pelosi of refusing to increase security in advance of 1/6. One reader goes as far as to accuse Pelosi of making sure “there was less security than usual at an event where all of Congress would’ve attended.”
First, the basic premise is not true. As detailed in a Senate report titled “Examining the U.S. Capitol Attack,” Capitol Police had taken extra security measures, woeful as they turned out to be. Separately, according to the National Guard, “Officials called up 340 National Guardsmen to help. The Guardsmen were assigned mainly to traffic control, Metro crowd control, some logistics support and a 40-member quick reaction force to be based at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.”
Second, multiple reports show no evidence, as claimed by GOP leaders in the House, that Pelosi was aware of intelligence reports of a threat to the Capitol nor that she refused requests for National Guard troops. Testimony indicates that security decisions were made by the head of Capitol Police and the sergeants-at-arms of the House and Senate, and that they concluded National Guard support was not necessary.
Third, even if the accusations against Pelosi were true, how does a failure to add security justify the attack itself? If you don't have a wall and security guards at your house, does that justify someone burglarizing it? Just because police couldn’t stop the rioters, does that make the assault on the Capitol acceptable? Of course not.
Fourth, absent clear knowledge of a major threat, would a reasonable person have massively increased security? Before 1/6, would reasonable people have militarized the Capitol? Would any of you have believed, before 1/6, that hundreds of Americans would violently attack their Capitol?
Fifth, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, who had requested the limited force from the D.C. National Guard, announced on January 5, 2021, that the Metropolitan Police Department would be the lead law enforcement agency. However, in a letter to federal authorities and a tweet, she added that the city was “not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to, and consultation with MPD if such plans are underway.”
None of that should be taken as absolving Capitol Police or Pelosi. The Senate report found massive intelligence failures. Capitol Police bear blame, but the report said “The federal Intelligence Community—led by FBI and DHS—did not issue a threat assessment warning of potential violence targeting the Capitol on January 6.”
Pelosi is also far from faultless. As the top official in Congress, the buck stops with her. She could have demanded far higher levels of security. She also could have directed the 1/6 committee to investigate where the ball was dropped, and who knew what when, which would have strengthened the committee’s credibility. Still, even if the committee had investigated and found that Pelosi exercised terrible judgment, that would not excuse the attack on the Capitol.
Did Trump Request 20,000 National Guard Troops? Claims that Trump requested 20,000 National Guard troops have been widely debunked by a series of articles and investigations. At most, Trump made an offhand comment about 10,000 troops (not 20,000). Witnesses say it was not framed as an order nor was it perceived as such. And, as aides have reportedly acknowledged, he appeared to want the troops as extra protection for his supporters, not for the Capitol.
As amply documented by the hearings, on 1/6 itself Trump refused to order troops to assist the officers at the Capitol, despite multiple requests from his staff, family, congressional allies, and media pals. That stands as further proof that he had no intention of using force to stop the rioters.
Antifa. I’ll start by posing a question to Trump supporters: If Antifa had been responsible for the 1/6 violence, don’t you think Trump would have reacted aggressively to shut down the riot instead of sitting on his butt in his dining room watching TV and doing nothing?
Simply put, no evidence has emerged that Antifa members had anything to do with 1/6. Many of the rioters themselves rejected that notion. Of the 882 people reportedly charged by DOJ in connection with the Capitol attack, none have been identified as Antifa members, including John Sullivan, as some on the right claimed. And FBI Director Christopher Wray rejected the Antifa conspiracy theory unequivocally in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 2, 2021: "We have not to date seen any evidence of anarchist violent extremists or people subscribing to Antifa in connection with the 6th."
Finally, in another of the Trump supporters’ endless contradictions, if they blame Antifa for the attack on the Capitol, doesn’t that acknowledge that the riot was unacceptable? Also, how can they simultaneously claim that they had the “right to revolution” that allowed them to storm the Capitol (see Part 2) because of their allegations of a “rigged election” and then blame Antifa for it?
Ashli Babbit. Trump supporters have tried to turn Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by an officer inside the Capitol, into a martyr and, bizarrely, use her death to deflect from the fact that 1/6 was an anti-democratic outrage.
I wish she had not been shot. But a Justice Department investigation shows that she entered the Capitol unlawfully, and was killed when she climbed through a shattered window and above a barricade at a door. She was warned repeatedly not to do so. The officer who shot her was trying to defend the Speaker’s lobby, adjacent to the House chamber, and close to where House members were trapped. Turning Babbitt into a saint is absurd, and the DOJ rightfully chose not to prosecute the officer.
A few things to consider: Wouldn’t security personnel at a bank be justified in shooting a rioter who’s climbing through a smashed window? Do Trump supporters who advocate for “stand your ground” laws suddenly disagree with them and think they don’t apply here? Do Trump supporters who believed Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self-defense when he shot three men during the Kenosha riots think that it’s not self-defense when a mob attacks the House chamber? And what about law and order? Most on the far right have loudly taken the side of police in high-profile shootings like that of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. But their blind fealty to Trump makes them take the side of a Capitol rioter and twist everything they’ve believed.
Finally, how can Babbitt’s death be cited as justification for the Capitol attack? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Were Rioters Armed? Some Trump supporters keep insisting that the rioters weren’t armed. At this point, there is no doubt whatsoever that they had a wide variety of deadly weapons, including firearms. Even if you ignore all the evidence and argue that rioters were not armed, how does that excuse the fact that they vandalized the Capitol and injured about 140 officers?
FBI “Provocateurs.” Another attempt to deflect from the seriousness of the 1/6 attack is to claim that the Trump supporters were entrapped by FBI agents who had infiltrated the mob and provoked it to attack the Capitol.
Not only do they provide no evidence of their allegations, what was the point? That the FBI would go as far as triggering a riot that threatened the vice president and members of Congress and vandalized the Capitol just to frame Trump supporters in what Tucker Carlson called a “Patriot Purge”? Even if the FBI wanted something so outlandish, wouldn’t there be easier ways to achieve it? Carlson’s preposterous claims have been widely debunked. The same is true for other allegations that FBI operatives organized the 1/6 attack, including those about an Arizona man named Ray Epps.
Rioters “Welcomed.” One frequent comment is that the Capitol’s doors were opened for the rioters and that they were “welcomed into the buildings.” Of course, that lacks all context. By the time any rioter entered the Capitol, hundreds of them had already overwhelmed police and overrun external barricades. Nobody questions that rioters shattered windows, broke through glass-paned doors, climbed into the Capitol, and opened doors for others to follow. Plenty of video evidence exists.
Pro-Trump protesters break windows of the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. Rioters then breached the building in an attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. (Lev Radin/Getty Images)
Did police fail to block other doors where rioters entered? Was a door opened for them? The committee should fully investigate this as well (that does not appear likely). Some Capitol Police faced disciplinary actions for their behavior, and there should be transparency.
However, some of the claims that police helped rioters have been questioned or debunked. And, why does it matter in the broader context of the attack? If some officers stepped aside as hundreds of rioters charged into the Capitol, can you blame them? How does that in any way change the fact that rioters unlawfully attacked the Capitol, using violence to enter the building in various places?
Conclusion. Whether Trump or his “Stop the Steal” team bears criminal responsibility for what they did on 1/6 and the weeks leading up to it will be up to the Department of Justice and, if it files charges, to our federal court system.
However, does anyone seriously think that Trump properly discharged the duties of his office or that he behaved in a way that behooved a president of the United States? People died and about 140 officers suffered injuries, all while Trump watched TV and did nothing. To say it was a gross dereliction of duty is a gross understatement.
I’ll end with the words of the top GOP leaders in the Senate and House in the days that followed 1/6.
Mitch McConnell: “There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. The people who stormed [the Capitol] believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of the president. Having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”
Kevin McCarthy: “I've had it with this guy [Trump]. What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it … It would be my recommendation he should resign … But let me be very clear to all of you, and I've been very clear to the president. He bears responsibility for his words and actions, no ifs, ands, or buts. I asked him personally today does he hold responsibility for what happened? Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he needed to acknowledge that.”
Polls show most Americans, including a majority of independents, agree.
Cover photo: U.S. Reps. Annie Kuster, D-N.H. (left), and Sara Jacobs, D-Calif. (center), rush to take cover wearing gas masks as rioters attempt to disrupt the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2021. (Tom Williams/Getty Images)
Please let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. You can also do so on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/antoniomoraTV1/). Please subscribe (it's free) and share the link: https://aviewfromthecenter.bulletin.com/subscribe.