What do we know about the January 6^th Insurrection?

Let’s start with the legal/constitutional argument that the Eastman Memo wanted to establish: Congress could reject certified Electoral Votes on the grounds of bogus fraud claims. This would be done by the Vice President and order those back to the states. The point was to throw the election into the House of Representatives so the GOP delegations could vote for Trump.

That was part 1. The fight over certification.

 

What happened during the day?

 

Rep Ayanna Pressley reported the panic button in her office had been ripped out. Rep Jim Clyburn reported that his public offices were left untouched, but his private, hard to locate offices, had been ransacked. The House and Senate clerk offices had been ransacked as well. The speculation? Some of the rioters were looking for the Certificates of Certification from the States. Why? Because that was one set of official documents that would declare Biden president.

 

We know that Rudy Giuliani called the wrong Senator to ask for an extended delay to proceedings. He called Mike Lee instead of Tommy Tuberville.

We know that Lauren Boebert  tweeted out that the Speaker had been evacuated from the House Floor. She also gave tours to people prior to the Insurrection as did other FRESHMAN Members of Congress. (How would they know where anything was to show people being on the job for three days?)

 

We know that help from additional police agencies was delayed or stopped. The National Guard was delayed. We know the president was never moved from the White House or deemed to be in danger. WHY?

 

We know that Mike Pence, then vice president, refused to get into a car to leave the Capitol. He is quoted as saying he trusted his agent, but didn’t know the driver. This is a huge red flag for what he was thinking and must be explored.  There is now reporting that he was locked out of his offices at the Capitol during the attack. Johnathan Karl is reporting that there are multiple pictures of him in a docking bay huddled during the attack. That was not a secure space. We know that the Pence’s Chief of Staff was locked out of the White House at the time of the attack. (Recall that parts of Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail was changed around this time.)

We need to know exactly how many calls from GOP Members of Congress were made to the White House. We need to know if McCarthy talked to Trump. We need to know who talked to Mark Meadows. We also need to know if Speaker Pelosi or any Democrat was able to get through to the White House.

 

Other things that we kind of know but still have to look into:

 

Bill Barr resigned as Attorney General right before Christmas. What did he know or suspect?

There were several changes at the Department of Defense right before Jan 6^th. (Recall that the DOD cut off the Biden transition team from access at this time as well.)

The Department of Justice had Trump people looking into elevating the false claims of election fraud at Trump’s request.

(Recall the images of a coordinated team entering the Capitol under the cover of all the mayhem.)

We know there was a command center set up prior to January 6^th at the Willard Hotel where several key players met. John Eastman was there as was at least one militia member, who posted pictures on his Instagram account. (See Seth Abramson for deep details on this.)

The Speaker’s offices were sacked. The Senate was seconds away from being taken hostage.

Mike Flynn’s brother was at DOD at this time.

Where was Erik Prince during all of this?

 

Above all, remember the images of the tent at the White House with multiple TV screens set up. Remember several Trump insiders dancing as the Insurrectionists attacked the Capitol. Trump was in no danger. He was not evacuated.

 

This was the text book definition of an autocoup. Trump tried to illegally retain power after having been lawfully thrown out of office. 

 

WE ARE NOT OUT OF DANGER.

 

We do not know the extent of help the Insurrectionists had from Congress. We do not know what internal security compromises happened. We do not know all the communication between the White House and those who set those events in motion. We do not know who attempted to bomb the DNC or RNC headquarters. We do not know enough.

 

DO NOT FORGET WHAT HAPPENED THIS YEAR!