5331 private links
You don’t have to agree with Mr Carlson’s interpretation of the videos, to conclude that the Democrats in leadership, for their own part, have cherry-picked, hyped, spun, and in some ways appear to have lied about, aspects of January 6, turning a tragedy for the nation into a politicized talking point aimed at discrediting half of our electorate. //
The reason for a tightly scripted chain of command and an absolutely ironclad security plan in these buildings, is so that security crises such as the events of Jan 6 can never happen.
The fact that so much confusion in security practice took place on Jan 6, is hard to understand. //
There are other aspects of the Jan 6 breach that seemed anomalous to me from the start. I study the relationship in history of buildings such as The White House and the Capitol, to the US public; I follow the way in which the public is either welcomed into or barred from these structures.
In the media furore around Jan 6, it was erased from memory that the White House itself and the Capitol too have always been open to US citizens and foreign visitors. The interior of the Capitol is open to the public. These are public buildings. //
The violence of Jan 6 and its subsequent service as a talking point by the Democrats’ leadership, risks its use also to justify the closing off of our public buildings from US citizens altogether.
This would be convenient for tyrants of any party.
Leaving aside the release of the additional Jan 6 footage and how it may or may not change our view of US history —- I must say that I am sorry for believing the dominant legacy-media “narrative” pretty completely from the time it was rolled out, without asking questions.
Those who violently entered the Capitol or who engaged in violence inside of it, must of course be held accountable. (As must violent protesters of every political stripe anywhere.)
But in addition, anyone in leadership who misrepresented to the public the events of the day so as to distort the complexity of its actual history — must also be held accountable.
Jan 6 has become, as the DNC intended it to become, after the fact, a “third rail”; a shorthand used to dismiss or criminalize an entire population and political point of view. //
Republicans, conservatives, I am sorry.
I also believed wholesale so much else that has since turned out not to be as I was told it was by NPR, MSNBC and The New York Times. //
Because of lies such as these in legacy media — lies which I and millions of others believed — half of our nation’s electorate was smeared and delegitimized, and I myself was misled.
It damages our nation when legacy media put words in the mouths of Presidents and former Presidents, and call them traitors or criminals without evidence.
It damages our country when we cannot tell truth from lies. This is exactly what tyrants seek — an electorate that cannot know what is truth and what is falsehood. //
But I like the liars who are our current gatekeepers, even less.
The gatekeepers who lie to the public about the most consequential events of our time — and who thus damage our nation, distort our history, and deprive half of our citizenry of their right to speak, champion and choose, without being tarred as would-be violent traitors - deserve our disgust.
I am sorry the nation was damaged by so much untruth issued by those with whom I identified at the time.
I am sorry my former “tribe” is angry at a journalist for engaging in —- journalism.
I am sorry I believed so much nonsense.
Though it is no doubt too little, too late —
Conservatives, Republicans, MAGA:
I am so sorry.
The committee wants those who stood by Donald Trump to face shame, disbarment, personal and professional harm, and potentially prison.
On Thursday, Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder decided it was the time to bring the subtext of the Jan. 6 show trials and related domestic security state activities into the open.
“My guess is that by the end of this process, you’re going to see indictments involving high-level people in the White House, you’re going to see indictments against people outside the White House who were advising them with regard to the attempt to steal the election, and I think ultimately you’re probably going to see the president, former president of the United States indicted as well,” Holder told SiriusXM host Joe Madison. //
An indictment of former President Donald Trump would be a breathtakingly authoritarian turn. It would amount to the U.S. security state refusing to accept “no” from America’s voters yet again. An indictment would be an unelected and unaccountable federal agency overruling voters’ two-time rejection of impeachment through their elected representatives.
This is the core danger of the administrative state: Its now open propensity to go rogue. It is apparently hellbent now on turning the United States into a banana republic.
Democrats called Donald Trump a fascist, authoritarian, and wannabe dictator for chants at his rallies of “Lock her up,” referring to his opponent Hillary Clinton. At the time, leftists pointed out that imprisoning, interrogating, investigating, and otherwise using government resources to harass and prosecute one’s political opponents was the mark of tyrannical regimes such as Vladimir Putin’s and Adolf Hitler. “Democracies don’t lock up political opponents,” the Washington Post editorial board told us in 2016.
That is still true when the ones pushing the interrogations, investigations, entrapments into committing felonies, show trials in unusual venues with no cross-examination or due process, early morning home raids, excessive detainment, and asymmetrical punishments are Democrats. //
Amplifying pre-existing double standards of justice is far beyond troubling, it’s a destruction of the justice system. A country that harshly prosecutes people or lets them off Scot-free based on their political affiliation is a banana republic. //
We’re watching federal agencies use their powers not to catch criminals but to criminalize peaceful political views and actions. We’re witnessing a growing campaign to lock people up for their opposition to the ruling political party, which is not only profoundly un-American but profoundly dangerous societally. This is the prosecution of a political cold civil war that could very easily heat up again in another January 6-like outburst, or worse. //
We aren’t in business-as-usual Kansas anymore, Toto. We’re in crisis times that call for serious leadership, not LARPing as leaders on screens.
Sending billions to Ukraine while China grows stronger and every domestic sector is on fire isn’t serious. Lambasting Joe Biden for inflation while not pledging to pass the policies that reverse it, starting with slashing the federal government’s spending, isn’t serious. Yelling at the FBI director Republicans helped confirm isn’t serious (get better vetting staff, folks). Confirming a Supreme Court justice who obviously hates the Constitution isn’t serious. Not going on a crusade to clean out the FBI and DOJ Agean-stables-style isn’t serious. And pretending the Jan. 6 commission is anything but a miscarriage of justice is disqualifying.
We need the GOP to provide serious leadership, because Democrats are a serious threat to equal justice for all, and that’s going to destroy the country for good if it’s not stopped post-haste. Americans desperately need swift and prudent action to avert even more unthinkably dangerous events. Those who refuse to plan and take that action despite accepting from voters the responsibility to do so will be infamous to history as cowards and traitors.
Just Jim
8 hours ago
Trump pre-authorized 20k Nat Guard troups. That's in writing in a authorization from about Jan. 4. Not only were the troops pre-authorized, the administration did everything they could to stage the equipment for readiness so that, at the moment the local government and LEO requested them, they could be there and geared up as fast as possible. What is also in writing is the rejection by Mayor Bowser and the Capital Police of the use of Nat Guard.
Kash Patel lays it all out here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/kash-patel-govt-docs-shatter-insurrection-narrative-why-did-pelosi-bowser-and-capitol-police-decline-national-guard-days-before-jan-6_4615875.html
Once they finally did request the Guard, they were in place within about two hours, which is the fastest deployment in in history (or since the 1940s). //
Kash Patel: Gov’t Docs Shatter ‘Insurrection’ Narrative; Why Did Pelosi, Bowser, and Capitol Police Decline National Guard Days Before Jan. 6?
In the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard, but official government documents show Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Washington mayor Muriel Bowser, and the D.C. Capitol Police each declined the offer.
“The fact that President Trump authorized security for the Capitol and he ordered the transition of government—he could legally and factually not have been orchestrating a coup to conduct an insurrection,” says Kash Patel.
Why hasn’t the FBI turned over all documentation related to January 6? Were there undercover government agents in the crowd that day? And why was Trump supporter Rosanne Boyland, who died that day, repeatedly beaten by a Capitol Police officer even while she was unconscious?
Kash Patel: Gov’t Docs Shatter ‘Insurrection’ Narrative; Why Did Pelosi, Bowser, and Capitol Police Decline National Guard Days Before Jan. 6?
In the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump authorized up to 20,000 National Guard, but official government documents show Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Washington mayor Muriel Bowser, and the D.C. Capitol Police each declined the offer.
“The fact that President Trump authorized security for the Capitol and he ordered the transition of government—he could legally and factually not have been orchestrating a coup to conduct an insurrection,” says Kash Patel.
Why hasn’t the FBI turned over all documentation related to January 6? Were there undercover government agents in the crowd that day? And why was Trump supporter Rosanne Boyland, who died that day, repeatedly beaten by a Capitol Police officer even while she was unconscious?
As Jonathan Turley noted, they haven’t laid out anything for any kind of criminal case against Trump.
Yet, on the eve of the primetime hearing this week, committee members sound strikingly less prosecutorial. Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) told CNN that “I look at it as a dereliction of duty. He didn’t act. He did not take action to stop the violence.”
It is difficult to make a criminal case over what an official failed to do. //
Brit Hume @brithume
·
This is the sort of information, while not excusing Trump, that the 1/6 committee's Republicans would have insisted be part of the hearings, if they were trying to be fair. They are not.
Just the News @JustTheNews
Trump gave order to ‘make sure’ Jan. 6 rally was ‘safe event,’ Pentagon memo shows. Gen. Milley’s recollection undercuts Democrat effort to suggest president wanted to incite violence. | Just The News https://justthenews.com/government/congress/trump-gave-explicit-order-about-jan-6-rally-make-sure-it-was-safe-event-dod
4:23 PM · Jul 22, 2022 //
Rosie Memos @almostjingo
·
You don’t get to rewrite history @January6thCmte stop editing out “peacefully and patriotically” #Jan6thHearings #January6thHearings
8:20 PM · Jul 21, 2022 //
Then the Trump Pentagon reached out to the Capitol Police to ask if they wanted the National Guard on Jan. 2, but the Capitol Police were turned them down.
On top of that, as Just the News notes, Trump wanted to ensure it was going to be a safe event.
But the most compelling piece of evidence that Trump wanted to thwart — rather than incite —violence is contained in a lengthy memo written by the Pentagon inspector general that chronicled the assistance the Defense Department offered Congress both ahead of and during the riot
In it, the IG recounts a fateful meeting on Jan. 3, 2021 in the White House when then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Trump on national security matters.
The complete passage — hardly mentioned by Democrats at the hearings or the news media covering them — is worth absorbing in its entirety.
“Mr. Miller and GEN Milley met with the President at the White House at 5:30 p.m.,” the IG reported. “The primary topic they discussed was unrelated to the scheduled rally. GEN Milley told us that at the end of the meeting, the President told Mr. Miller that there would be a large number of protestors on January 6, 2021, and Mr. Miller should ensure sufficient National Guard or Soldiers would be there to make sure it was a safe event. Gen Milley told us that Mr. Miller responded, ‘We’ve got a plan and we’ve got it covered.'”
“The Government presenting a person asserting their Fifth Amendment privilege in order to imply to the public that the person is ‘guilty’ of some crime is a McCarthy-esque tactic that offends the Constitution and is unworthy of the United States Congress,” 1st Amendment Praetorian’s lawyer wrote. Given the Committee’s past actions, McAdoo Gordon noted in her Thursday letter that she is “forced to anticipate that the Committee will use the same totalitarian tactic to improperly smear 1AP.” //
Quoting from the Supreme Court, McAdoo Gordon then reminded the committee that the high court has described the Fifth Amendment privilege thusly:
[W]e have emphasized that one of the Fifth Amendment’s “basic functions . . . is to protect innocent men . . . `who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.'”
The letter continued:
“The circumstances in which an innocent citizen finds himself faced with an out-of-control prosecutor, or a mistaken theory of criminality, or an overzealous legislative inquiry — which is the situation 1AP finds itself in — is precisely when the citizen most needs the protection of the Fifth Amendment. For the Congress to attempt to turn that protection into a weapon against a citizen, or a group of citizens, is repellant. I urge the Committee not to engage in such un-American behaviors. Unfortunately, I have little faith that the Committee will heed my appeal. This leaves me with no choice but to pre-emptively speak publicly about these issues before the Committee engages in wholesale defamation of 1AP from its powerful national platform.” //
“And now Congressman Raskin is telling the Times he plans to ‘explore the connection between those groups and the people in Mr. Trump’s orbit.’”
That is precisely what the First Amendment protects Americans from: being investigated because of the individuals with whom they associate. But not only does the Jan. 6 Committee not care, neither does the legacy media. The question remains whether Americans will, or whether they have lost their sense of decency.
Julio Rosas
@Julio_Rosas11
·
Follow
A Secret Service source told me earlier: “FYI, I’m calling bullshit on the Secret Service story. You think none of us would have never heard of this as an internal rumor? No fucking way.”
Peter Alexander
@PeterAlexander
🚨 A source close to the Secret Service tells me both Bobby Engel, the lead agent, and the presidential limousine/SUV driver are prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.
7:32 PM · Jun 28, 2022 //
John Santucci
@Santucci
·
Follow
New: Source close to the Secret Service tells @PierreTABC to expect the Secret Service to push back against any allegation of an assault against an agent or President Trump reaching for the steering wheel.
6:57 PM · Jun 28, 2022 //
So, it would seem that that story didn’t even make it a day without imploding — must be a new record for fake, anti-Trump stories.
This should do in any credibility that the Jan. 6 Committee had left, if any. How can you not do the simplest thing and check with the agents and the other people before you throw these stories out there before the world? The answer is they didn’t care–they just wanted to skewer Trump and the truth didn’t matter, yet again. Why does anyone believe these liars anymore after all the lying they have done, not only over this but over Russia collusion and so many other things.
But even as the lie was falling apart, that didn’t stop Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) from trying to push the claim on CNN on Tuesday, with what little time he has left to push it before everyone figures out that it’s nonsense.
Erin Burnett asked him if he was able to corroborate Hutchinson’s claim with any of the agents, like Tony Ornato or Bobby Engel — the two agents Hutchinson named.
So, how did Schiff respond?
“I can’t comment on other testimony before the Committee,” Schiff claimed. Why not? You’re doing plenty of commenting on Hutchinson’s testimony. The reason he can’t is that he knows he doesn’t have testimony from the agents that backs this whole ridiculous story up. Yet even now, on CNN, as the story was falling apart, Schiff still was trying to work it and deceive the public, and tap dance on the answer. It was disgraceful.
Burnett asked Schiff if he had any concerns that the story wasn’t true, and he said he believed Hutchinson. //
Chelan Jim
2 hours ago edited
Of course the J6 committee is not going to corroborate a witness. The witness was saying what they want to hear. They are going to run with it. They follow the principle "Don't ask a question that you don't want to hear the answer."
The GOP members found that Pelosi repeatedly failed to implement necessary improvements to the Capitol’s security system. //
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi shoulders much of the blame for the security breakdown at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a preliminary report from Republican investigators Reps. Jim Banks and Rodney Davis determined.
The Capitol Police (USCP) were half-staffed on Jan. 6, Pelosi’s House Sergeant at Arms denied multiple requests for National Guard assistance from the Pentagon and the USCP Chief in the days leading up to Jan. 6, officers were poorly equipped and had insufficient riot shields and helmets, and they were never trained to handle a riot even after the riots of 2020, the investigation shows, according to Banks.
The Jan. 6 Committee completely sidestepped the verifiable evidence of systemic violations of election law, illegal voting, and more. //
“The fact is we had already found many more illegal votes than the margin (11,779),” Mitchell told The Federalist, “We didn’t need to ‘find’ anything.” “We already knew which votes were illegal and had been included in the certified total,” the election lawyer said, stressing that, under Georgia law, if the “evidence established that there are more illegal or irregular votes than the margin of victory, the remedy is a new election.” //
it’s unlikely most members of Congress know of these systemic problems with our electoral system. But with midterms around the corner and Democrats likely facing a bloodbath, don’t be surprised if left-leaning politicians and their friends in the press discover substantial problems in about five months’ time.
A federal judge found a Jan. 6 defendant who entered the Capitol not guilty on all charges after he said he was waved in by two Capitol Police officers. The decision lays down the groundwork to push back against the Department of Justice’s charge that the hundreds of people on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021 deserve to be punished.
U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden acquitted Matthew Martin of all misdemeanor charges on Wednesday after he said it was “plausible” that the defendant “reasonably believed” he had permission to be in the Capitol.
The Jan. 6 Committee claims to be above the law as it executes a digital Watergate demanding supporter data from the RNC.
Even the Speaker admits her veto of GOP members is ‘unprecedented.’
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced her plan for a House Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, she reserved eight members as her choice and left five for Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Well, scratch that. On Wednesday she vetoed two of Mr. McCarthy’s choices as unacceptable.
As I have repeatedly stated, violence is not legitimate political discourse – whether in the U.S. Capitol or in Democrat-run cities across the country – and neither is abusing Congress’ investigatory powers for political gain. Media outlets pretending that the RNC believes otherwise are doing so in bad faith, and their lies should be called out for the cheap political stunts they are.
Jordan highlighted the Select Committee’s double standards in issuing partisan subpoenas exclusively to Republican lawmakers as opposed to Democrats, who are responsible for adequate security at the Capitol. While the Select Committee was ostensibly established to probe the Capitol security failures, Thompson has explicitly refused an inquiry into Pelosi’s culpability as the partisan probe absent of Republican appointees remains focused on retribution against political dissidents. //
Pelosi stands credibly accused of unilaterally delaying the National Guard’s preemptive deployment six times preceding the riot that day a year ago, but the speaker also ignored issues raised in a single hearing from the House Oversight Committee held a year and a half in advance.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/16/nancy-pelosi-owns-january-6/
“It is telling that the Select Committee has chosen only to target Republican Members with demands for testimony about January 6,” Jordan wrote Sunday. “I am aware of no effort by the Select Committee to solicit testimony from Speaker Pelosi, House Administration Chair Zoe Lofgren, or any other Democrat Members with responsibility for or oversight of the security posture at the Capitol complex on January 6.” //
Since its inception, the committee, born out of ashes of a failed congressional commission, has focused on punishing political dissidents as opposed to probing the Capitol riot with a legitimate legislative purpose. With no investigation into the security failures that led to several hours of turmoil, the committee has sought to conflate a peaceful White House protest with the violence that erupted at the Capitol before President Donald Trump had finished speaking.
In the process, the committee run by the same bad actors who perpetrated the Democrats’ prior hoaxes have fabricated evidence again, again, again, and again.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/19/failed-impeachment-saga-was-an-embarrassment-for-democrats/
As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 Select Committee plans its colonoscopy-like partisan investigation, few have been held to account for the violent riots that laid waste to a once vibrant, dynamic Minneapolis and many other cities. According to the Major Cities Chiefs Association report in 2020, an estimated 574 violent riots took place in the weeks after Minneapolis burned, resulting in damage of up to $2 billion.
Pelosi made sure the capital was locked down and surrounded by the National Guard and coils of concertina wire, city leaders and governors left citizens at the mercy of thugs hurling Molotov cocktails, helpless as their homes and businesses burned to the ground.
America’s preeminent revisionist historian Nikole Hannah-Jones perfectly encapsulated the elitist mentality in a June 2020 CBS interview: “Violence is when an agent of the state kneels on a man’s neck until all of the life is leached out of his body. Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence.” //
In his Tuesday op-ed, Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote, “What happened last Jan. 6 was much bigger and more important than politics.” Of course it was, because it was about the elitist political and corporate media establishment. They continue to inflate the severity and lasting effects of the Jan. 6 riot because they have an outsized idea of their own influence and importance. The disparity of concern and reaction is telling: when their lives are inconvenienced, it’s a national disaster; when our lives are destroyed, they hand us a shovel.
Any suggestion of a threat to America’s credentialed class is presented as an affront to democracy and a sin equal to the worst treason in our nation’s history. Meanwhile, the destruction of dozens of cities and thousands of lives in middle America has been accepted as a necessary airing of grievances, a reactionary event in the name of social justice that inflicted pain on those who probably deserved it anyway.
It is an iteration of the divide between those who see themselves as rulers and the people over which they rule. It extends from the leftist media that needs to perpetuate democracy’s threat to fight off the ratings implosion since President Trump left office, to sanctimonious politicians who view the public as nothing more than the masked, faceless unwashed who should be grateful that the 2020 riots exposed their racist ways and now can correct them.
Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears To Have Led The Very First 1/6 Attack On The U.S. Capitol //
The story of the mystery man, Ray Epps, featured in Rep. Massie’s video above is in fact far more shocking than even the good Congressman implies in the hearing. It’s a story so strange, and so scandalous at every turn, that it threatens to shatter the entire official narrative of the “Capitol Breach” and expose yet another dimension of proactive federal involvement in the so-called “insurrection” of January 6th.
If Revolver News’s previous reporting points to a proactive role of the federal government in relation to the conspiracy cases against Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, the Ray Epps story that follows suggests a similar, yet more egregious, explicit, direct and immediate degree of federal involvement in the breach of the Capitol itself. //
There is good reason why AG Garland ran from Massie’s question faster than he could find words — and why he couldn’t even keep eye contact as he was dodging Massie’s gaze.
After months of research, Revolver’s investigative reporting team can now reveal that Ray Epps appears to be among the primary orchestrators of the very first breach of the Capitol’s police barricades at 12:50pm on January 6. Epps appears to have led the “breach team” that committed the very first illegal acts on that fateful day. What’s more, Epps and his “breach team” did all their dirty work with 20 minutes still remaining in President Trump’s National Mall speech, and with the vast majority of Trump supporters still 30 minutes away from the Capitol.
Secondly, Revolver also determined, and will prove below, that the the FBI stealthily removed Ray Epps from its Capitol Violence Most Wanted List on July 1, just one day after Revolver exposed the inexplicable and puzzlesome FBI protection of known Epps associate and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes. July 1 was also just one day after separate New York Times report amplified a glaring, falsifiable lie about Epps’s role in the events of January 6.
Lastly, Ray Epps appears to have worked alongside several individuals — many of them suspiciously unindicted — to carry out a breach of the police barricades that induced a subsequent flood of unsuspecting MAGA protesters to unwittingly trespass on Capitol restricted grounds and place themselves in legal jeopardy. //
In our previous reporting on FBI involvement in the events of January 6th, we have been careful to distinguish the case of “Federal foreknowledge” from that of “Federal incitement.”
The case of “mere” Federal foreknowledge of the so-called “siege on the Capitol” is bad enough, and amounts to a national scandal in its own right. Indeed, if elements of the federal government knew in advance of conspiracies to “siege the Capitol” or otherwise disrupt the Senate proceeding on 1/6, the natural question arises as to why they did nothing to stop it. Given that the government and their allies in the Regime media have framed 1/6 as a 9/11-caliber domestic terror event, the possibility that elements of the federal government knew about it in advance, and yet sat back and let it happen for political purposes, is incredibly damning. This would amount to nothing less than the government conspiring, for the most malicious of political reasons, to falsely cast tens of millions of law-abiding patriotic Americans as domestic terrorists.
Given the magnitude of its implications, it is well worth repeating that federal foreknowledge is a virtual certainty. Just weeks ago the New York Times itself begrudgingly acknowledged the presence of a Proud Boys militia member and informant who was texting his FBI handler thought the entire day on 1/6, as well as several days in advance. The Times notes that the presence of this informant, and likely many more, suggests that “federal law enforcement had a far greater visibility into the assault on the Capitol, even as it was taking place, than was previously known.”
One year after a mysterious hooded figure placed two explosives outside the Republican and Democrat national headquarters, federal investigators, corporate media, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 commission are mum about the premeditated act of violence.
What started as “one of the highest-priority investigations for the FBI and the Justice Department,” as noted by The Associated Press, was quickly usurped in the public eye by leftist coverage of the Capitol riot. Instead of focusing on why a suspect was caught on cameras lurking around the RNC and DNC buildings on the evening of Jan. 5, scrutiny of Jan. 6 has largely been focused on blaming Republicans and tens of thousands of peaceful protesters for the actions of hundreds of fools who vandalized the Capitol. //
Yet the lone example of a very clearly premeditated attempt at violence on Jan. 6 has been nearly completely wiped from the memory of the American public. The pipe bombs discovered at the RNC and DNC aren’t mentioned in the press’s “remembrance” coverage of the day, and the federal government has hardly offered any updates on the investigation since releasing footage of the suspect, who was covered head to toe in dark clothing. Even the Jan. 6 commission, which has gone to great lengths to obtain the phone records of private citizens, doesn’t seem interested in pursuing the person behind the explosives. //
This isn’t the first time important information about the events leading up to Jan. 6 has been masked by the media and the government. An explosive report from Revolver published in October detailed how Ray Epps, who was captured on video telling people to go into the Capitol, mysteriously disappeared from the FBI’s Capitol Violence Most Wanted List on July 1.
The FBI had previously plastered pictures of Epps’s face all over its Jan 6. wanted posters. Even The New York Times mentioned Epps’s actions. But Epps was never arrested nor indicted despite hundreds of others who were at the Capitol being charged with trespassing and other crimes.
When Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky later questioned Attorney General Merrick Garland about whether there were government agitators involved in the Capitol riot, the Biden appointee refused to answer.
Republicans are poised to sweep the midterms and wrest back control of both houses of Congress.
But the Democrats’ rulebook was written by Machiavelli, not the Marquess of Queensbury. They are brawlers who use scorched earth tactics to give themselves every electoral advantage. And their principal legal strategist is Marc Elias.
Elias served as general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and in that role was responsible for the hiring of Fusion GPS, the oppo-research firm that created the infamous “Steele dossier.” The false statements in the dossier were used to smear Donald Trump’s presidential campaign of colluding with the Russian government, and were used to justify the FBI’s spying on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
After Trump was elected, Democrats used the phony collusion narrative – enthusiastically promoted by the Democrats’ media allies – to sabotage the president’s agenda by subjecting him to a two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into the allegations of Russian collusion. Trump, of course, was ultimately exonerated by Mueller of collusion.
Elias next worked with the Democratic Party establishment to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic to change state election rules in the run-up to the 2020 election. He was the driving force behind 32 election-related lawsuits in 19 states that sought to overturn state election laws that protected against voter fraud – namely, Elias sought to expand mail-in voting, dilute signature verification and witness requirements, expand ballot harvesting by third parties, eliminate voter ID, and increase the number of ballot drop-box locations.
This year, following as it does the decennial census, Elias is spearheading dozens of legal challenges to various states’ redistricting efforts in an effort to generate Democrat-friendly maps for the next decade.
But these challenges will take years to sort out, and the Democrats are short on time.
Biden’s botched handling of COVID, the economy, the southern border, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan – not to mention his failure to get his legislative agenda across the finish line – doesn’t give Democrats much to run on in 2022.
Unable to meaningfully address the kitchen table issues concerning most voters, the Democrats instead are making the Jan. 6 riot the centerpiece of their campaign. As CNN put it, they are asking voters “to punish Republicans who have either aided Trump’s anti-Democratic maneuvers or stood idly by as his allies took hold of the party” that day.
And that’s where Elias comes in.
In his “prediction for 2022,” Elias tweeted that “before the midterm election, we will have a serious discussion about whether individual Republican House Members are disqualified by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment from serving in Congress.” //
Marc E. Elias
@marceelias
I am making clear that members of Congress who engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States are not eligible to serve in Congress.
The fact that this is so triggering to the GOP speaks volumes. https://twitter.com/dangainor/status/1473724106260496392
2:03 PM · Dec 22, 2021
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment – also known as the Disqualification Clause – was added to the Fourteenth Amendment to disqualify former government officials who aided the cause of the Confederate states during the Civil War, //
To begin, while Elias’s tweet threatens “litigation” under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, courts don’t have jurisdiction to entertain such challenges. According to legal scholars, that section specifies “qualifications” for Members of Congress and the Senate, but under Article I, section 5, clause 1 of the Constitution, “each House shall be the Judge of the … Qualifications of its own Members.”
As Justice Scalia cogently wrote when he sat on the D.C. Circuit, that provision “states not merely that each House ‘may judge’ these matters, but that each House ‘shall be the Judge.’” Hence, the courts “simply lack jurisdiction” to adjudicate Disqualification Clause contests. //
Non-Justiciable Political Question
Even if courts have the judicial authority to adjudicate Disqualification Clause disputes, however, the question remains whether such power should be exercised.
In Baker v. Carr, the Supreme Court held that where the Constitution assigns an issue to the elected, or political, branches to resolve, the courts should not intrude.
This approach – known as the “political question” doctrine – is rooted in the separation of powers and applies here. //
Perhaps most significantly, ambiguities in the text of the Disqualification Clause call into question whether that clause even applies here.
Primary among them is whether the events of Jan. 6 constituted a “rebellion” or “insurrection” – hyperbolic labels that smack more of yellow journalism than legalistic accuracy. Indeed, of the more than 720 people who were arrested for participating in the events of Jan. 6, none were criminally charged with “Rebellion or Insurrection” under the federal criminal code.
If you haven’t checked the weather recently in Washington DC, the nation’s capital is currently getting a healthy dose of snow. Some places have already gotten 6 inches, and there’s more coming as the day drags on. //
It’s very likely the federal government will shut down for the rest of the week.
So why do I care so much about the weather in DC? Because this snowfall could throw a big wrench into the Democrat plan to “commemorate” January 6th at the Capitol Building. As RedState has reported, multiple events are planned with CNN hosting. Those include a speech by the President of the United States.
Will all that happen if no one can drive to get to the Capitol? No doubt, CNN will do in-studio coverage regardless, but some of the politicians who were set to speak could be stuck doing Zoom hits instead of getting their visual on the Capitol steps. Further, it won’t be much of a commemoration if no one else can even show up for the live event. Lastly, if the next bout of snow arrives even a few hours earlier on Thursday than expected (currently forecast for the afternoon), it could disrupt things even more.
I know others think January 6th was like 9/11 on steroids, but I find this entire thing incredibly humorous. The first major snowfall of the year just so happens to cause major headaches for Democrats as they hope to make political hay? You love to see it.