When 80-year-old House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced her Select Committee June 24 on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and mob scene, she intended to clean up any loose ends from 75-year-old former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. Pelosi and nine house managers led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) lost in the Senate Feb. 6, unable to secure enough GOP votes to convict Trump. Pelosi charged Trump Jan. 13 with “incitement of insurrection,” sealing her own fate in the U.S. Senate, because there was no evidence of a coup d’etat. Good prosecutors know that if you over charge, the burden of proof goes on the state to prove its case. Pelosi and nine House managers couldn’t prove their case that the rioters were trying to overthrow the U.S. government, always a stretch for “incitement of insurrection.” Pelosi wants to undo her failure and find more grounds to blame Trump.
Democrats and the press want to put all the blame on Trump for delivering a speech Jan. 6 at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., before some rabble rousers, who had planned for months to make a statement at the Capitol, including potentially a violent response. Pelosi and nine House managers tried to pin the rioters on Trump’s speech that actually asked all attendees to protest peacefully. But what happened was anything but peaceful breaking windows and breaching the Capitol to make a statement to Congres and the U.S. press. After last summer’s unabated riots and mayhem that went on for months after George Floyd’s May 25 murder in Minneapolis, certain white protesters wanted to make a statement to elected officials. Watching angry black mobs loot, burn riot in U.S. streets for months, white protesters wanted to take their case to the Capitol, that they could also make a mess of things too.
When it comes to lax security at the Capitol, there’s no question that the FBI ignored the warning of potential violent protests at the Capitol. Republicans on any Jan. 6 Select Committee will want to set the record straight that nothing would have happened had Capitol and D.C. police set an appropriate police cordon around the Capitol. By the time the inauguration rolled around, Capitol and D.C. police and the national guard had the Capitol grounds well under control. No incidents happened during the Jan. 20 inauguration. Republicans want to “make the case [Pelosi] should have done more to secure the Capitol, and “attempt to shift the blame away from [former President Donald Trump] and onto the speaker,” said highly partisan CNN. CNN, like the New York Times or Washington Post, agrees 100% that Trump, and Trump alone, was responsible for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Democrats couldn’t make their impeachment case in the U.S. Senate that Trump was solely responsible for the Jan. 6 riots. But for Democrats and the media to make their case, they would have to prove that there was no advance planning for the Jan. 6 riot. FBI officials confirmed that the rabble rousers spent months preparing to make a strong statement on Jan. 6, the day Congress certified the Electoral College vote. Trump told his followers that former Vice President Mike Pence could have stopped Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. Trump was wrong that Pence had anything more than a ceremonial role in registering the Electoral College vote. But there’s no question that had the Capitol or D.C. police taken FBI warnings as potential violent protesters seriously, Jan. 6 would not have happened. Jan. 20 inauguration proved that police can prevent riots.
Pelosi’s Select Committee wants to prove that the right wing Capitol rioters sought to overthrow the U.S. government, the central charge in Trump’s Jan. 13 impeachment article. But with Capitol protesters carrying cell phones, not guns or other violent means, they were not going to complete a coup d’etat or anything close. GOP U.S. Senators couldn’t fathom the impeachment charge that Trump was trying to overthrow the U.S. government. Democrats and the press made excuses for George Floyd’s death last summer for the months of rioting, looting, arson and anarchy. Democrat-led local, state and national elected officials told police departments to stand down, allowing the violence to go on for months. So when an unruly mob breached the Capitol Jan. 6, they were making a point to Congress [the peoples’ house] that white people matter too.
Pelosi and her Democrat-led Select Committee hope to seek evidence to support their cockamamie theory that Trump tried to organize an “insurrection” against the U.S. government. Democrats and the press will find plenty of partisan hacks to agree with their analysis that Jan. 6 was indeed an attempted coup d’etat, designed to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote. Pelosi tapped Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.), who has her own personal vendetta against Trump, to lend the GOP contingent, something completely rejected by House Minority Leader Kevin McCartthy (R-Calif.). “There is no way to appoint these Republicans without highlighting the GOP’s own culability in creating conditions leading to [Jan. 6’s] horrors,” said Washington Post’s Greg Sergent. As long as such egregious bias exists in Congress and the press, Pelosi’s Select Committee will accomplish nothing.
