It's been a year since that pro-Trump mob broke through the Capitol doors and windows, attacked law enforcement and media and vandalized the building as lawmakers were rushed to secure locations. Five people died in or as a result of the attack and 140 police officers were assaulted, along with members of the media.
As it was unfolding, we asked one of the rioters, who called himself "Joe from Ohio," what the goal was.
"The people in this house, who stole this election from us, hanging from a gallows out here in this lawn for the whole world to see, so it never happens again," he said. "That's what needs to happen. Four by four by four, hanging from a rope out here for treason."
quote:
We know who was there
Months later, Tom Bowman and I went back to the Capitol grounds in Sept. for the "Justice for J6" rally. A lot of the people we spoke to had also been there on Jan. 6. And yet, they were echoing the story they had heard on Fox News.
"Those weren't Trump supporters," said a man named Phil from Kentucky, claiming the only people breaking in were dressed all in black.
"So they were black helmets, black clothes, black backpacks who started busting the windows first," said Janie, a nurse from South Carolina, who said she saw members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter committing the violence. She also claimed the Trump supporters were actually trying to fight them off. But when we mentioned we were on site that day, she admitted that she never actually came close enough to the Capitol to see any violence.
We let her know that the Proud Boys were dressed in all black that day, having planned to forego their usual colors of black and yellow in order to be "incognito."
"I didn't know that," she said.
quote:
'An American insurrectionist movement'
Tampa Bay attorney Bjorn Brunvand represents several people who were at the Capitol that day, including Robert Scott Palmer, who was recently sentenced to five years in prison for assaulting law enforcement officers with a fire extinguisher, a wood plank and a flagpole. His is the longest such term yet.
"He believed in the lies that were being professed by former President Trump and his accomplices," Brunvand said.
But he said his client has had a major change of heart since his arrest.
"It went from 100% support for President Trump and the idea that the election was fraudulent at the beginning ... to the recognition that he was misled. He's sitting in a detention facility here in Washington, D.C. and this big powerful former president who said 'meet me at the Capitol', he's too busy playing golf and has no interest in any of the guys that have been arrested," Brunvand said.
He said Palmer took President Trump's words that day as a directive. That he did it for him. And now he feels abandoned.
"Not only did he not show up, he's not there for anyone who were there and supposedly were there to save democracy and save the country. When in fact, they were doing quite the opposite," Brunvand said.
But the idea of Jan. 6 did not die with the day. The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats has been tracking insurrectionist sentiment in the U.S. for a year now. It found that 21 million share the same beliefs that motivated rioters that day.
Donald Trump has already telegraphed the remarks he plans to give at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, the anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
If he follows the script laid out in his announcement of the news conference, he will commit a whitewashing of the day, repeating the lie that the 2020 election was rigged and defending his part in fomenting the insurrection — all while a solemn prayer service is held at the Capitol, in a vivid split-screen moment. And, as Trump castigates Republicans not toeing his line, his event will also serve as a marker of Trump’s extraordinary dominion over the GOP.
One year ago, many prominent Republicans predicted Trump’s behavior on and ahead of Jan. 6 would relegate him to the fringes of the right, shaming the GOP back into the mainstream. Instead, the opposite has happened. When Trump speaks, he will set the table for a midterm election year with him firmly at the Republican Party’s center.
“It’s become almost a religion in the Republican Party,” said Jason Shepherd, the former Cobb County, Ga., GOP chair, who resigned from his local party after it voted to censure Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, one of Trump’s political enemies. “You have your believers, and you have your heretics, and anyone who isn’t willing to follow Trump 100 percent, or wants to question Trump, that’s now the new definition of a RINO“ (Republican in Name Only).
One year after the riot at the Capitol, nearly three-quarters of Republicans still believe Trump’s baseless claim that Joe Biden won the presidency due to voter fraud, according to a Monmouth University poll. Rank-and-file Republicans’ interest in litigating the events of Jan. 6 has faded. And according to a Quinnipiac University survey, nearly 8 in 10 Republicans want Trump to run for president again in 2024.
edit: Liz Cheney's remarks this morning on This Week were scathing, and that's putting it mildly. She talked about the first hand testimony the committee has about what himself was doing while the Capitol was under attack.
I'll post the transcript when it's available.
-------------------------------- When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
Posts: 38221 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010
Her party is dead and gone. It's a fascist shadow of its former self. It's leaders are dedicated to a set of lies that they have elevated to truths for millions of their most loyal voters. And they know that the lies are indeed lies.
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While most Republicans were absent on Capitol Hill for the Jan. 6 anniversary Thursday, one of the party's most prominent elder statesmen was there.
ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl spoke to former Vice President Dick Cheney just off the House floor.
Asked why he came to the Capitol this day, Cheney said, "It's an important historical event," referring to the anniversary of the insurrection. "You can't overestimate how important it is."
He added, "I'm deeply disappointed we don't have better leadership in the Republican Party to restore the Constitution."
Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines
The Jan. 6 select panel has obtained the draft order and a document titled "Remarks on National Healing." Both are reported here in detail for the first time.
Read the never-issued Trump order that would have seized voting machines
The Jan. 6 select panel has obtained the draft order and a document titled "Remarks on National Healing." Both are reported here in detail for the first time.
"This draft order represents not only an abuse of emergency powers, but a total misunderstanding of them.... It’s the legal equivalent of a kid scrawling on the wall with crayons."
