The Truth Comes Out: 5 Undeniable Facts About January 6

The truth about January 6, 2021, coming in drips and trickles, came in a torrent this past Monday night. There are no fewer than five things that can now be said beyond a reasonable doubt.

The truth is like water. It finds its way out eventually. And the trickles and drips of truth that have come out about what happened with the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, turned into a torrent when Fox News’ Tucker Carlson was given access to over 40,000 hours of security footage—material previously concealed from the public—and broadcast his findings in a powerhouse episode this past Monday night.

You can view the episode in its entirety at this link. There is so much to digest about the events of this entire day, from the runup that followed the disputed election the previous November, to the non-stop four years of assaults that were directed at Donald J. Trump from all angles. And really, it’s not too much to say all of the bad blood that built up during the events of 2020 impacted how people felt about the events of 1/6/21. For some, they just wanted a return to normalcy and saw Trump as preventing that. Others of us saw in the election just one more example of the contempt this nation’s leaders in all fields really have for those they serve (i.e., you and me).

But with the evidence that has built up over the past 26 months, culminating with Carlson’s Monday Night throwdown, there are at least five things that really can’t be disputed anymore, regardless of where they stand. At least not if they want be evidence-based rather than narrative-based. I’m going to go through the five in sequential order, as we came to know and be aware of them.

The Riot Could Not Possibly Be Blamed On Trump

This was really easy enough, and apparent even on that day. The reason? The riot started breaking out early in the afternoon, soon after Trump’s speech. It was literally impossible to walk from the speech to the Capitol and be there in time for the discord. This timeline by National Pulse’s Raheem Kassam makes it clear just how impossible it was for anyone to be listening to the speech (a speech that was frankly dry and boring by Trump standards, as my wife and I noted at the time, before anything happened) and then be so incited that they wanted to go to and riot.

We don’t even have to point out that the president called on his supporters to march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol to disprove this charge. All we have to do is point out the notion of Trump “inciting a riot”, the charge used for the second impeachment is demonstrably false simply because it would have been impossible for anyone to do based on the timeline.

To think otherwise requires blaming Trump for simply contesting the election, as Liz Cheney and others did. But this means saying none of us have rights to air our views about the election and to want it adjudicated where it should be—in the halls of the U.S. Congress by our elected representatives.

In short, to blame Trump for the riot you have to either believe his supporters were bi-locating, or that they have no freedom of speech or of assembly. Neither is view is something that can be considered reasonable.

The FBI Absolutely Instigated This Riot

Watch the man in the tan jacket and red MAGA hat in this video. You have been introduced to Ray Epps. You’ll notice him, the night of January 5, imploring “his people” that they have to be ready to go into the Capitol, because “that’s where our problem is.” It’s a clear attempt to incite people to riot, or at least act in something other than a peaceful manner.

So, what happened to Ray Epps? In light of the arrests that have taken place all over the country since the events of the following day, you’re surely assuming that he’s probably somewhere in a D.C. jail.

Actually, no. Mr. Epps is doing just fine. He was never arrested. Not until protests from Trump media grew too loud to ignore, did the J6 Committee in Congress even bring him in for what proved to be incredibly softball questioning.

So, what makes me not only think that he was working with the FBI, but that there is no reasonable basis to think otherwise? Well, I could start with articles here and here that detail his background. But why do that, when I can simply point out that he had a puff piece written about him in The New York Times!

What are the odds that a hardcore Trump supporter of any kind gets nice words and a lengthy article written about them in The New York Times? Much less, someone who is on public video insisting to equally hardcore supporters that they have to be ready to “go into the Capitol” one night before people did exactly that?

The puff piece from the Times bordered on a public confession of being an FBI instigator, but Carlson’s video showed more. In Epps’ interview with the J6 Committee, he still lied about how soon he left the Capitol.

Ray Epps was working undercover. Not to investigate, but to instigate. And at this point, it’s really not plausible to reach any other conclusion.

Police Officers Were Not Killed On January 6

This one is easy, because even The New York Times had to backtrack on this one a long time ago. It was alleged that Officer Brian Sicknick of The Capitol Police was killed by a Trump supporter, being beaten over the head with a fire extinguisher. It turns out that was a complete lie. He died the following day of a stroke, caused by blood clotting.

If you watch Carlson’s episode above, he further shows that Sicknick is walking quietly around the Capitol, perfectly calm, at the time Democrats and corporate media said he was already dead. He wasn’t killed on January 6. Neither were any other cops. This is not a disputable point.

The Capitol Police Freely Let Large Numbers of People In

We already knew this to a certain extent because of cellphone video that made its way out, but I was still shocked at seeing the official footage, which showed Capitol Police letting huge numbers of people into the Capitol. Carlson goes on to show that these people were peaceful. They took selfies. They were there for the same reasons I was following this process so closely and had wanted to be there myself.  Because we believed in the system and the need to work through it, even when we were angry.

One thing I was not prepared to see was the Capitol Police ushering the legendary “Q Anon Shaman”, a former Navy officer named Jacob Chansley, who was dressed in Viking horns and parading throughout the Capitol with an American flag.

In fact, the police not only let Chansley into the Capitol, they walked around with him. They tried to open locked doors for him. They ushered him onto the floor of the Congress. It was there that he went into the Speaker’s chair and led some kind of public prayer or ritual, thanking the police officers.

Clearly, Chansley is mentally disturbed. Although I’m not sure that he’s crazier than football fans who go shirtless on a wintry night and paint themselves with their team’s color in precise detail. They aren’t criminals and neither is Chansley. No fewer than nine police officers were watching Chansley and not the slightest bit disturbed.

The most ridiculous defense of the police that their corporate media apologists have pushed these last few days is that the police were really “de-escalating” a dangerous situation. Yeah, right. Because it’s standard de-escalation practice to take a man dressed as a Viking up to the podium normally occupied by the Speaker of the House. You see it every day.

The video of the police quietly walking Chansley through the Capitol frankly shocked me. It’s disgusting that he was ever arrested. It’s disgusting that the Justice Department never made this video available to his lawyers, something a prosecutor is obligated to do for defense counsel. And it’s absolutely sickening that Chansley was sentenced to nearly four years in prison, where he sits right now.

 It takes a sick mind to do that to another human being who obviously has some problems. And, based on the evidence, no other explanation is really realistic.

Constitutional Rights Have Been Trashed

Everyone has the right, under the Bill of Rights, to a fair trial. That means getting fair juries, having all potential exculpatory evidence made available to defense counsel, and having that trial in a reasonably quick fashion.

Those arrested because of January 6 have gotten none of these. Many defendants, 26 months after the fact, still sit in the D.C. jails with no trial date set. The judges in the D.C. system have prostituted themselves by not stopping the Justice Department from running roughshod over these rights. That includes the failure to transfer trials out of a town where Trump supporters are universally loathed, and going into a fair venue.

January 6 was a complex day. The video that everyone has already seen does show the  vandalism and other actions that people need to be held accountable for. But it also shows exponentially more people peacefully let into the Capitol by law enforcement, and acting peacefully when they got there.

This corrupt Justice Department has made no distinction. Everyone whose face can be identified by modern technology, who was in the Capitol is a target by this corrupt DOJ, one that won’t be reined in by an equally corrupt Washington D.C. judicial circuit. The innocent are being swept up with the guilty—and even the guilty are not getting their rights to due process and a speedy, fair trial.

The worst example of this is Matthew Perna. A married man and father of two, Perna was allowed into the Capitol. He was peaceful. He walked around. He went home.  And later on, he was still arrested.

The DOJ has been using the “obstructing an official proceeding” charge as the pretext to throw the book at everyone arrested, no matter how petty the reason. The opening of Carlson’s show reveals a DOJ official saying they wanted to create a “shock and awe” effect among everyone at the Capitol, with how aggressively they were going to charge people (sounds like a guy you want in charge of administering justice). They threw the book at Perna and he was facing years in prison.

His reputation in the community smeared, facing a hostile Justice Department and seeing no way out, Matthew Perna took his own life. He hung himself in his garage. Because he was peacefully walking around the Capitol on the wrong day, at the wrong time, at the wrong period in American history. His aunt carries on the fight for justice for others wrongly imprisoned.

To quote the best January 6 reporter out there, Julie Kelly, “his death was needless, but it was not in vain.” Because it was something that opened more people’s eyes to just how vile this Justice Department is, and how filthy that January 6 Select Committee was. And frankly, an alternative conclusion, based on the evidence, is not reasonable.

The Conclusion

Thus, on an incredibly complex day, at the end of an incredibly volatile year, during an incredibly tumultuous period in our nation, everyone—regardless of their opinion on Trump, or on the veracity of the 2020 election—can agree on these, at least if they’re following the evidence—

*There is no way to pin this on Trump
*The FBI were instigators, not simply investigators.
*No police officers died on January 6
*The Capitol Police were letting people by the thousands into the building, including the Q Anon Shaman, and those people were overwhelmingly peaceful.
*The DOJ has trampled constitutional rights and basic rules of procedure in a vengeful targeting of Trump supporters.

These are the facts of the case. Evidence-based people will orientate their thinking about January 6 around these core facts.

For me, they call to mind the end of the 1990 Steven Seagall action movie Hard to Kill. Seagall plays a police officer who is framed by a corrupt senator. Seagall has tape that will vindicate him, but can’t get it in the right hands. In the very last dramatic scene, as Seagall collars the senator, the police storm in. Seagall isn’t sure what to think.

The police officer looks at him calmly and says “We saw the film. We know you were set up.”

Trump—and all of us associated with the efforts to have the election of 2020 revisited in the proper venues—were set up.

“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, but you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anyone hurt. We’ve never had such a thing like this that happened where they can take it away from all of us. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen how others are treated who are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.”

Donald J. Trump
January 6, 2021

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