This weekend is a time for celebration. Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the successful defense of the United States government against a violent insurrection.
insurrection : an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
“Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted on Jan. 6 at the Capitol, including about 80 from the U.S. Capitol Police and about 60 from the Metropolitan Police Department” (Three Years Since).
More than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes in the riot, ranging from misdemeanor offenses like trespassing to felonies like assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy. Roughly 730 people have pleaded guilty to charges, while another roughly 170 have been convicted of at least one charge at a trial decided by a judge or a jury, according to an Associated Press database.
Only two defendants have been acquitted of all charges, and those were trials decided by a judge rather than a jury. (Richardson, Kunzelman, Hundreds of convicitons)
The pursuit and arrest of perpetrators continues.
Any celebration must be tempered by widespread acceptance of a contrived mythology about what happened on that day.
A new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll shows a third of Republicans and nearly half of Trump voters believe the false claim that the FBI organized and encouraged the January 6th attack. That's despite one of the largest criminal investigations in American history resulting so far in more than 1,250 charged and 890 convictions. (Welker, Meet the Press)
The mantle of largely peaceful protest adopted by apologists for the mayhem that took place in cities across the country in the summer of 2020 has been apropriated by the mythologizers of January 6. Republicans continue to portray individuals jailed for assaulting police officers as hostages. Elise Stefanik, chair of the House Republican conference, did so again this morning on Meet the Press. Judges and juries have determined otherwise. Claims that the FBI or antifa were behind it all have been thoroughly debunked. Not that such inanity was ever worthy of refutation.
I watched live coverage of events as they unfolded on that day. For the moment, for the sake of argument, accept the contention that most, or many, or some of the people who stormed the Capitol saw themselves as participants in peaceful protest. Perimeter barricades were breached, police attacked, windows smashed to gain entry. Offices of members of Congress were vandalized. How could anyone, even those in the back of the pack following the herd, possibly think this was okay? How naïve must they be? Yes, people can be caught up in a mob, mass hysteria, mass delusion, and do things they would not do under other circumstances. Perhaps these can be argued as mitigating circumstances. Surely they do not absolve individuals of all responsibility. Quite a few knew precisely what they were doing.
Markwayne Mullin is a conservative Republican senator from Okalahoma. To the best of my knowledge Mullin has never been accused of being soft on liberalism. On January 6, 2021, as a member of the House, he was among several Republican House members who helped a sergeant-at-arms block the entrance to the House chamber with a desk. They armed themselves with makeshift weapons and confronted insurrectionists on the other side after a door window was shattered.
Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by a police officer as she tried to force her way through a smashed window into the speaker’s lobby, has been canonized by the faithful as a martyr.
Mullin said the officer who fired the fatal shot later entered back into the chamber and appeared “visibly distraught.”
“I hugged him and I said, ‘Sir, you had to do what you had to do,’” Mullin said.
“He had to take someone’s life, but in return he probably saved a whole bunch of people’s lives,” Mullin said, praising law enforcement as the heroes that day.
But Mullin also says it was then he realized members and staffers were still stuck inside the House gallery, one floor above them, as the fight to keep the rioters off the floor ensued. The evacuation of the gallery had been stalled after the glass of the door was blown out, and people a floor above were told to “take cover.”
Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a former Army Ranger who served three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, had been watching the election certification debate from the House gallery along with other House members, staffers and a host of reporters.
Mullin said he called on Crow, a friend of his, to help evacuate the rest of the people out of the gallery. (Beavers, How lawmakers)
Crow said “when he saw Capitol Police securing the doors around the House floor…he realized the enormity of the situation.” He called his wife to tell her and his children that he loved them. Crow said he then went into “Ranger Mode,”
going down a checklist in his head of what needed to be done: Lock doors. Move people away from entry points. Tell people to leave behind their bags and belongings so they can flee quickly…
Crow, who worried about run-ins with rioters with a bunch of lawmakers, said he waited until police officers communicated over radio where the rioters were in the Capitol before the evacuation of the gallery restarted.
And when everyone else had been cleared out, Crow shouted down to Mullin and the others still on the floor that they needed to get out now so that the officers “had the chance to get out too.”
Crow was reportedly the last lawmaker to escape the House chamber. He and Mullin were among the heroes that day, as were the vastly outnumbered Capitol police.
Prominent Republicans continue to deny the validity of the 2020 election. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Face the Nation and Elise Stefanik on Meet the Press this morning continued to insist that the election was unconstitutional despite the overwhelming rejection of arguments presented by Trump and his supporters in federal courts with judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents and in state courts with elected judges.
Mr. Trump, his allies did take their case, their concerns about the election to court more than 60 times. They lost every time. Mr. Trump hired two independent firms to investigate that. They came up short as well as the federal agency responsible for overseeing election security, CISA, said that the 2020 election was the most secure in American history. But let's move on to the university presidents – (Welker, Meet the Press)
Powerful individuals and groups, including the man likely to be anointed the Republican nominee for president later this year, have not given up on their schemes to take control of the government through election or by other means. Stefanik would not commit to accepting election results in 2024. Johnson has said “we have to make Biden a one-term president” (Breuninger, House Speaker Mike Johnson).
The system held after its fashion three years ago. We can celebrate that and the heroic actions of those who made it possible, but we should never deceive ourselves about the challenges that lie ahead.
Keep the faith. Stand with Ukraine. yr obdt svt
References and Related Reading
Olivia Beavers, How lawmakers trapped in the House stood their ground, Politico, January 21, 2021, updated January 22, 2021
Kevin Breuninger, House Speaker Mike Johnson endorses Trump, defends 'stolen election' claims, CNBC, November 14, 2023
Kelly Garrity, Johnson calls description of him as an election denier ‘nonsense,’ but won’t say Biden won, Politico, January 7, 2024
Kelly Garrity, Stefanik pre-emptively declines to commit to accepting 2024 election results, Politico, January 7, 2024
Alanna Durkin Richardson, Michael Kunzelman, Hundreds of convictions, but a major mystery is still unsolved 3 years after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, AP, January 5, 2024
Heather Cox Richardson, January 6, 2024, Letters from an American, January 6, 2024
Three Years Since the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol, United States Attorney’s Office District of Columbia, January 6, 2024
Transcript: House Speaker Mike Johnson on "Face the Nation," Jan. 7, 2024, CBS News
Kristin Welker interview with Elise Stefanik, Meet the Press - January 7, 2024, NBC News
So well said, as always. Bravo!
Susan