We know what it was like, what it was like, but we don’t have the full story.
Some alarming details, however, are beginning to emerge. On Monday, with the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, CNN reported that the FBI had received information indicating that “armed protests” are being planned in all 50 state capitals and the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. Capitol officers are under investigation for their behavior during the riot; two were suspended.
So, was the attack on the Capitol a spontaneous event or was it part of something more orchestrated?
There is growing evidence that justifies deep concern and urgent investigations may face blocking barricades.
Still, it is imperative that we find out what exactly happened on January 6 and what may still be happening. Requires a two-level investigation at two speeds.
First, the FBI and law enforcement agencies must track down and detain instigators and determine what may remain on their agenda in the coming days. This is particularly urgent because the day after the attack, when President Donald Trump finally agreed to a peaceful transfer of power, in a video that was recorded at the White House and for which he would have “expressed regret,” he told his supporters ” . Our incredible journey is just beginning. ”
Separately, Congress must establish a bipartisan committee to pull all the threads and see what comes apart.
The generally accepted version of what happened is that a mass of passionate followers of Trump gathered on the day that Congress would certify Biden’s electoral victory. After Trump and his attorneys ignited their anger over the results of the legitimate election in a ferocious frenzy, they apparently followed his instructions and headed for the Capitol. There, the Capitol Police failed to stop them. The failure of law enforcement, according to this narrative, was the result of a mixture of lack of preparation, poor communication, race of perpetrators and, possibly, sympathy for the protesters among some who should detain them.
But is this an accurate account of what happened?
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the day’s events was the failure of the National Guard forces to respond quickly. The timeline is incomprehensible.
At a rally held the night before the riot, participants heard former national security adviser Michael Flynn say that Americans were prepared to “bleed” for freedom. At Wednesday’s rally, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani defended “trial by combat” to define the election. Then came Trump’s instructions: “fight like the devil”. After Trump’s speech and his false promise to join them there, they invaded the Capitol.
At 1:18 pm on Wednesday, several police officers had already been injured, according to a reconstruction of the Wall Street Journal. At 1:41 pm, a “Broken Arrow” alert across the city was released reporting that the protesters had invaded the police. At around 3 pm, The Wall Street Journal reported that at least three senior officials had requested urgent support from the National Guard, Washington, DC, from Mayor Muriel Bowser, from Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, and from Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who has since resigned.
The details of their talks reveal growing anguish and bewilderment when the Pentagon did not approve and quickly deployed troops. Sund told The Washington Post that he pleaded, “I am making an urgent and urgent request for assistance from the National Guard,” he pleaded, “I need to put boots on the ground.”
At the same time, Hogan was trying to get the Pentagon to approve the sending of the Maryland guard, but, like Sund, he says the urgent request had unexplained delays.
Sund told The Washington Post that he asked six times. Hogan, who approved the Maryland deployment, told CNN that it took two hours to obtain the necessary authorization.
With people being killed in the chaos of the Capitol, the troops were nowhere to be seen. Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, director of the Army’s General Staff, allegedly disputed Sund’s account and said in a statement on Monday that authorization to activate the National Guard came about 40 minutes after the start of a conference call between officers around 2:20 pm. , the first National Guard personnel did not arrive before 17:40. When the crowd left, four people were dead, and a Capitol Police officer was so badly injured that he died the next day.
What happened? Why did it take so long for help to arrive?
Many have accurately noted that the social justice protests Black Lives Matter faced much stricter security, but a historian who has seen several protests on Capitol Hill says he saw more security in
other pro-Trump demonstrations. Has Capitol been left deliberately unprotected?
Once inside, according to Rep. Jim Clyburn, some troublemakers
went straight to his office, which is not checked. “This to me indicated that something unpleasant may be happening,” he told CNN.
Investigators must answer questions about why, in the midst of the attack, Trump and Giuliani called senators and asked them to try to postpone the vote to certify Biden’s victory. Giuliani said it was because he wanted the process to be slowed down “so that we can make these legislatures bring you more information”. But should something else happen after the occupation of the Capitol?
If the violence was nothing more than a spontaneous demonstration that got out of hand, why did some of the men who occupied the Capitol carry packages of flexible handcuffs, the plastic restraints used by security forces to detain suspects?
If it was all an unplanned protest that went off track, why did the authorities discover pipe bombs in the area?
And as for the truck, parked two blocks from the Capitol and carrying 11 homemade bombs built in such a way that federal investigators said that if it exploded it would have the effect of napalm. Court documents say the mason jars filled with explosives and the supplies found together may have made a “destructive device”. Authorities say other participants brought weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
There is no doubt that Trump is trying to overturn the legitimate and democratic outcome of the election. His followers believed that they were about to help him succeed. But we need to know if their attack on the citadel of American democracy was the result of overflowing emotion or something more sinister. Something even worse than what we saw in these images that will be recorded in the collective memory of the country. Something that will not end with an impeachment of Trump.
