Sometimes, remarkably, the mainstream media is incredibly curious and thorough at mining information, yet only as long as its probing questions — those it wants to ask — achieve the answers with which it agrees.
National Public Radio (NPR), endowed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other left-wing organizations, has built an impressive investigation into the January 6 “siege,” tracking more than 400 defenders of liberty, now known as “insurrectionists,” in a well-designed, government-style database, complete with details of defendants’ occupation, location, and charges, as drawn from official Department of Justice (DOJ) documents.
The April 23 NPR report cites supposed academic studies, such as the University of Chicago’s “Understanding American Domestic Terrorism,” which analyzes the threat of Americans on the Right, tracing everything from their demographics to what triggers the human “drivers” of the new “insurrectionist movement.”
But the “attack” — or “insurrection,” as it is widely labeled — to which NPR so explicitly refers did not in fact end “with five people dead, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer,” as has been repeatedly claimed. The late Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, may he rest in peace, succumbed to his tragic death by natural causes the day after January 6, though the media relentlessly reported that Sicknick’s passing resulted from injuries sustained during the protests, only later admitting they were wrong.
In reality, only one person lost her life that day: 10-year Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, age 35, who was fatally shot by a Capitol police officer who has since been cleared of all charges and still remains publicly unidentified. Three other people perished independent of the unrest, though their deaths were attributed to the protests: Kevin Greeson, 55, from Athens, Alabama, died of natural causes from cardiovascular disease; Benjamin Phillips, 50, from Ringtown, Pennsylvania, passed as result of natural causes from cardiovascular disease; and Roseanne Boyland, 34, from Kennesaw, Georgia, “died by accident from acute amphetamine intoxication,” reported USA Today.
Despite these truths, the hunt for “domestic terrorists” marches on. Acting Deputy Attorney General John Carlin has boasted in recent days that “The FBI has made an average of more than four arrests a day, seven days a week since January 6.”
Senator Warren Speaks Out
An unlikely ally of dozens of political prisoners who remain incarcerated and deteriorating in solitary confinement is Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Warren has called out the cruel actions toward Americans who are being treated as terrorists but have convicted of no crime. Many of the defenders’ worst offenses consist of their beliefs that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and a stubborn refusal to recant those claims.
Thus the deafening silence of this barbarous treatment of free American citizens cannot be solely pinned on the Democrats.
Politico has reported that “such treatment doesn’t sit well with Warren or Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), two of the chamber’s fiercest critics of solitary confinement.
In an interview, Warren said:
Solitary confinement is a form of punishment that is cruel and psychologically damaging. And we’re talking about people who haven’t been convicted of anything yet.
Exposure of such savage maneuvers should have spurred outrage from Republicans in Congress, but influential GOP leaders who have the power to do something, to say something, to change this incredible negligence of justice have refused to act. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in the days following the protests, certainly did not defend those who entered the Capitol.
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According to McConnell, “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president [Trump] and other powerful people.”
Almost five months since January 6, McConnell remains MIA, as do Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). While every powerful GOP voice should be decrying these atrocities, 48 Senate Republicans just voted to confirm Obama confidante Lisa Monaco as Biden’s deputy attorney general, who perpetuated the “Russian collusion” hoax before and after the 2016 election.
So far, the handling of the “insurrection” hoax bears an eerie resemblance to the long, unresolved 2017 Russian election-interference hoax. At that time, Republicans were also mum and many condemning, including Liz Cheney (R-Wy.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), and Susan Collins (R-Maine), to name a few.
The Prosecution Will Not Rest
One promising sign the “sedition-baiting crowd” has been dealt a significant blow, as first reported by American Greatness author Julie Kelly, is that FBI investigators have had a terrible time building strong cases against these “dangerous” criminals, though left-wing prosecutors have been extremely effective in convincing federal judges to revoke defenders’ bail and to keep them jailed indefinitely.
Last week, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled that Proud Boys Joseph Biggs and Ethan Nordean were “too big a threat to be free before they have their day in court, highlighting ‘new evidence’ from Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors and noting that it did not matter that they weren’t armed on January 6 and did not assault anyone.”
In an April 15 statement, the DOJ applauded its efforts for a job well done:
On this 100th day since the horrific January 6 assault on the United States Capitol, Oath Keepers member Jon Schaffer has pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, including for breaching the Capitol while wearing a tactical vest and armed with bear spray, with the intent to interfere with Congress’ certification of the Electoral College results.
While this may be the best the prosecution can do at the moment, one wonders what tactics of coercion the FBI and DOJ lawyers used to obtain such a confession. Of course, the prosecution’s hope is that Schaffer’s guilty plea will encourage others to come forward.
Do the Crimes Fit the Penalties?
The majority of those arrested, and dozens still detained in deplorable conditions, face allegations of trespassing and disorderly conduct, offenses that clearly do not warrant such outrageous consequences of extensive incarceration.
Consider NPR’s statistical breakdown: Out of 400-plus people arrested, “at least 73 are accused of committing acts of violence, particularly against police. At least 35 are suspected of causing property damage, like breaking windows or doors to gain entry to the building. At least 27 are accused of theft, like the man photographed carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s lectern or one woman who allegedly took a laptop from Pelosi’s office.” (Emphasis added.)
One would be hard-pressed to find such in-depth figures on Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, who consistently “clash” with police in cities across the country, and who stop traffic, and deface and destroy public property, yet get “deferred charges” by order of the Biden administration, allowing them to leave a police station within hours, not months of their arrest.
Intimidated and possibly threatened not to discuss the particulars of their cases, many Capitol protesters are staying quiet. And who wouldn’t be terrified? Rachel Powell, a Pennsylvania mother of eight and January 6 protester, now faces more jail time for breaking a judge’s order to stay masked up whenever she steps outside of her home.
One voice for truth is #WalkAway Campaign founder Brandon Straka, who did not enter the Capitol but was tweeting from outside on the grounds as the protest unfolded. Straka was arrested after his social-media accounts were scoured by the FBI and permanently deleted by Facebook and Twitter. He described his harrowing experience in jail briefly in an e-mail to his supporters:
I was put inside the concrete block room with the metal door and was shut inside for 2 days; with no idea if anybody was coming to get me, or when or IF I would be let out. I didn’t even know what my charges were. It was the most petrifying experience of my life.
Bullying from the Left and a lack of support from the Right gives these protesters every reason to keep their stories undercover. Yet they must appeal and speak up, and record every interaction. And journalists must start to ask the simple questions. These defenders deserve due process. The truth needs to be told.
As reads the beautiful line by Soviet dissident and novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world.”
