Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks as he was attacking Republican colleagues who did not support overturning the 2020 election before a crowd of Trump supporters who later laid siege to the U.S. Capitol: Screenshot/C-SPAN
Sunday Reader –
By Glynn Wilson –
It’s been two and a half weeks since the traumatic events in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 when a violent insurrection was staged at the United States Capitol building in an attempted coup to take over the government and overthrow democracy itself. While the insurrection was thwarted in the end, there is still a reckoning coming for some co-conspirators who have yet to be called to account, including Republican members of Congress like Mo Brooks of North Alabama.
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The American public can now finally breath a little easier with Donald Trump gone from the White House and Joe Biden safely sworn in to replace him as president.
Trump Departs Washington With No Fanfare, Joe Biden Sworn In as President Without Incident
Progress is already being made to bring back qualified people to run the federal government and focus on getting a handle on our biggest problems, the coronavirus pandemic and related economic recession, the climate crisis, an immigration calamity and racial justice catastrophe.
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The former president has been impeached by the House for his role inciting the violent riot and insurrection. The House will send articles of impeachment to the Senate on Monday, Jan. 25, with the trial to start two weeks after that.
U.S. House Votes to Impeach Trump Again for Inciting Violent Insurrection
Many of the right-wing militia members, those in far right conspiracy groups like Qanon, white supremacists and neo-Nazis, along with racist police officers and military veterans are being chased down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and charged by the U.S. Department of Justice for their crimes on that day.
More Rioters Charged in U.S. Capitol Insurrection
Public opinion is finally turning against the 45th president, and the American people appear to be welcoming the message of unity from the new president.
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But as former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich points out in an email blast to supporters of Democracy for America over the weekend, while the new president and his administration and the Democratic Party are calling for “unity,” Reich says, “we cannot let calls for ‘unity’ become an excuse for letting the instigators of the January 6 insurrection off the hook. There can be no healing without accountability.”
The main organizer of the “Stop the Steal” campaign has said that three House Republicans helped organize the assault on the U.S. Capitol, he points out. Congressmen Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Mo Brooks allegedly “schemed up” the attack that left several people dead.
Worse yet, Representative Mikie Sherrill, a former CIA analyst, says that Republican members of Congress led the attackers on a reconnaissance tour of the Capitol the day before the attack.
The 14th Amendment explicitly states that anyone who has “engaged in insurrection” against the United States Constitution is disqualified from serving in Congress.
“Case closed,” Reich says. “They must go.”
The group is circulating a petition demanding action to protect democracy.
“A violent mob of insurrectionists attempted a coup on our nation’s Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Multiple people are dead. Two Capitol police officers were murdered by the vicious mob. Others were chased, dragged, beaten, or crushed, with more than four dozen officers sustaining injuries,” they say. “Some people even brought zip ties, semi-automatic weapons, Molotov cocktails, and pipe bombs. They came within inches of breaching the Senate chamber before officers were able to get it secured.
“If we allow members of Congress who incited and allegedly planned this vicious attack to remain in Congress, it’s only a matter of time before the next assault.”
As the subject line in the email blast reads, “the insurrection was an inside job.”
I replied to the group, which I have responded to before, and said: “I know. I broke the story.”
Reporting by The Washington Post and other news outlets has now confirmed much of this reporting, but there are still a few outstanding pieces of evidence to be obtained. The Post did take my advice and obtained the Capitol Police radio communications from that day. So far we have not seen reporting on this from The New York Times, even though I alerted them to it in the comments on the one story it ran critical of the Capitol Police for a history of racism and patronage.
So far, The Post has only used a few little snippets on their website of the radio chatter, and have not confirmed the ‘stand down’ order our sources say they heard on the radio that day, including two working as Capitol Police officers.
There is no evidence out, at least not yet, that anyone at Justice is looking into the stand down behavior of House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving and Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger, supervisors to Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund. They all stepped down and resigned after the attack. Will that be their only reckoning?
Sund agreed to an interview with The Washington Post and CBS’s “Sixty Minutes,” but framed the story as an intelligence and law enforcement failure stemming from a perception that bringing National Guard troops in to protect the Capitol was a PR problem of “optics.” Nevermind that nearly 25,000 troops were brought in later for the inauguration, and no one complained of a problem of “optics.”
Sixty Minutes: How did rioters breach the U.S. Capitol on January 6?
Let me point out while I’ve got your attention that CBS’s Scott Pelley on “60 Minutes” is still the only reporter other than me to ask about the “stand down order.” The unconfirmed head of Homeland Security waffled. It’s about 8 minutes in.
Irving and Stenger ran away and hid, refusing to make statements or answer questions from reporters, after it was revealed that they were also in on the law enforcement and intelligence failure along with Trump’s unconfirmed acting Secretary of Defense Christopher C. Miller.
Will the Biden Justice Department let them off the hook? What about the Republican members of Congress?
The San Francisco web news magazine Salon and CNN are now reporting that Two GOP congressmen sought pardons for their connection to Capitol attack.
Arizona Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs reportedly asked former President Donald Trump for pardons relating to their involvement in the events leading up to the Jan. 6 terrorist attack on the Capitol. The president allegedly turned them down.
Itinerant right-wing blogger Ali Alexander, one of the key organizers and a driving force behind the nationwide “Stop the Steal” protests that led up to the rally, claimed in a number of since-deleted videos that he had collaborated ahead of the event with Gosar, Biggs and Brooks in an effort to put “max pressure on Congress.”
When the rioters breached the Capitol, lawmakers were debating the legitimacy of electoral votes from Gosar and Biggs’ home state of Arizona, a challenge endorsed by both congressmen, forcing members and staff to flee and hide. Investigators have concluded that some of the attackers, inspired by unfounded accusations that Gosar, Biggs and Brooks had all parroted, had invaded the building with the intention of kidnapping and executing elected leaders, including former Vice President Mike Pence. Six people ultimately died as a result of the siege, including two Capitol Police officers.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid that aired on Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Trump, as a lead instigator of the failed coup attempt, was an accessory to murder.
“Presidents’ words are important. They weigh a ton. And they used his words to come here,” Pelosi said, referencing Trump’s fierce speech just ahead of the riot, in which he implored the crowd several times to “fight like hell.”
The California Democrat added that if Trump and members of Congress were shown to have collaborated with attackers, they could potentially qualify as accessories to the crimes committed during the siege.
“The crime, in some cases, was murder,” she said. “And this president is an accessory to that crime because he instigated that insurrection that caused those deaths and this destruction.”
While some law enforcement officials, such as D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, have said they plan to look into Trump’s role in the attack as a criminal matter, none have indicated that he may face charges of accessory to murder.
Republicans have not spoken of Trump’s actions in criminal terms, but a number of them have blamed him for the violence, including now-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said earlier this week that Trump had “provoked” the insurrection.
“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said from the Senate floor on Tuesday. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like. But we pressed on.”
Last week, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., told MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace that a lawmaker alleged to have shown members of the mob around the Capitol the day before the riot had engaged in “criminal behavior under federal sedition laws.” While Maloney did not name the lawmaker, he said, “That’s going to be a real story.”
Mo Brooks
On Friday, a Huntsville, Alabama television news station aired an interview with former Congressman and former Democrat Parker Griffith, in which he called on Congress to expel Mo Brooks for his role in inciting the insurrection.
“I just thought he had lost it completely. That he got caught up in the moment and failed to recognize that he was a U.S. Congressman,” Griffith said about comments Brooks made at the “Stop The Steal Rally.”
“Today is the day that American Patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks said at the rally.
“There are a lot of good Republicans that I think are nauseated by Mo Brooks from what he did,” Griffith said.
Brooks could face exile in the business community for his role in the events in Washington, just as the 45th president is losing support from banks and other businesses for his hotels and golf resorts.
“I think our major contractors. Our major military contractors, they can’t take Mo Brooks in a room,” Griffith said.
“If you notice over the years, every time Senator Shelby had an announcement to make, he never invited Mo Brooks to be with him. Contrast that with Bud Cramer, who was a Democrat. Shelby, a Republican, they went out of their way to work together,” Griffith said. “Mo Brooks is not that person.”
Just like 45 himself, Brooks maintains he has nothing to apologize for, saying he was trying to inspire “patriots” for upcoming elections and not inciting violence.
But long-time Democrat Pam Miles, a former member of the Alabama Democratic Party’s executive committee, is furious at Brooks, as are most Democrats in Alabama and quite a few Republicans and independents.
“Mo only has his self interest in mind,” she said. Just like the former president. “He never has a thought of the people of District 5.
“His ugly call for violence against his fellow congressmen and congresswomen is just the latest in his idiocy,” she said. “He’ll say anything to get publicity. He doesn’t have the decency to resign. He should be impeached, tried, convicted and imprisoned.”
Trump Campaign Staff Implicated
Even the mainstream, fair and balanced Associated Press got a break in reporting on these issues, reporting that members of Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol. A review of records would seem to undercut claims that the event was the brainchild of “the president’s grassroots supporters.”
A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House. But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other staff scheduled to be “on site” during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.
Outstanding Questions
Republican staffers for conservative members of Congress most vocal in supporting Trump may now be investigated for unlocking doors for the rioters, as happened in Oregon in December. This should have served as an early warning for law enforcement. Was it simply missed? Or was it purposely ignored?
Rioters stormed the Oregon Capitol in December. Video shows a Republican lawmaker let them in
There is one snippet of video used on “60 Minutes” and YouTube that shows a group of Proud Boys demonstrators getting to the Capitol first — while the rally and march were still going on. They managed to get in one of the Capitol doors with what appears to be no police opposition, although there is a Capitol Police officer standing inside the door.
You can see it here, but we are still searching for a better version of this and trying to find out how they were let in. Yes, some rioters broke windows and smashed in doors, others most likely got in through the underground tunnel leading in from Congressional office buildings. And some of the Capitol doors that should have been permanently bolted shut were apparently unlocked.
If any alert reader sees the video were are looking for, please get in touch and share it.
Meanwhile, are we just going to “move on” and “move forward” and “not look back” to try and unify the public somehow by not getting to the bottom of this investigation? Will there be an official coverup, with the tacit approval of the mainstream press and media?
“I hope today and in the days ahead the president will give us the unvarnished truth. That’s what the American people deserve,” Biden said during the campaign. He accused Trump of lying during the debate based on reporting from Bob Woodward, who showed that Trump downplayed the lethality of the coronavirus early on.
Lie of the Year: Coronavirus downplay and denial
“He (Trump) tried to claim he didn’t want to panic people,” Biden said. “The American people don’t panic — he panicked. And he still doesn’t have a plan.”
Can the American people handle the truth about the insurrection? Will they be told the whole truth? We will see.
Is it not ironic that these “Law & Order” Republicans (when it comes to Black Lives Matter) are now talking about “forgive, forget and move forward” when it comes to rioting white nationalists? They have no shame, no morals and should be expelled just as they would do to you or I. If this does not happen this will AGAIN showcase our two tier justice system.