Commentary: GOP Must Promise Inquisitions, Not Meaningless Task Forces

Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows

Using the pretext of the so-called insurrection on January 6, 2021, the long knives are out for Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Post-election text exchanges between Mrs. Thomas and Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief-of-staff, recently were leaked by the January 6 select committee to none other than the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, who darkly described the communications as proof that “Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election result.”

The small cache of texts—29 total—shows Thomas expressing frustration at the election’s outcome. There is nothing sinister, and certainly nothing criminal, about the messages.

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Commentary: The Next Jan. 6 Trial Might Expose Another Justice Department Lie

empty courtroom

Federal prosecutors last week scored a big victory after a Washington, D.C., jury took less than three hours to find Guy Reffitt, the first January 6 defendant to stand trial, guilty on all counts.

The Justice Department’s winning streak might be short-lived, however. Prosecutors will have a tougher task with the trial starting Monday for Couy Griffin, the “Cowboys for Trump” leader arrested for his minor and nonviolent involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6.

Griffin was the subject of my very first article over a year ago on the Justice Department’s abusive prosecution of January 6 protesters in which, coincidentally, I asked the rhetorical question, “Where is the outrage over America’s political prisoners?” as official Washington was in a tizzy over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s imprisonment of his country’s star dissident.

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Commentary: Election Overseer Found Democratic National Committee, Chalupa Broke Rules over Ukraine, Then Reversed Its Finding After January 6

Though ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was never charged with conspiring with Russia, he did go to jail for, among other things, failing to register as a foreign agent for Ukraine. The Democratic National Committee operative who helped get him booted from the campaign should be investigated for the same violation, Republican Senators say.

Former DNC contractor and opposition researcher Alexandra “Ali” Chalupa not only worked closely with the Ukrainian Embassy and Clinton campaign, trading dirt on Manafort and Trump, but also Congress and the Obama White House, State Department and even the FBI. “At the center of the [Ukraine foreign influence] plan was Alexandra Chalupa,” GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee has asserted.

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Commentary: The Suicide of a January 6 Defendant; ‘They Broke Him’

Close up of Capitol with Trump and America flag in the wind

Matthew Perna did nothing wrong on January 6, 2021.

The Pennsylvania man walked through an open door on the Senate side of the building shortly before 3 p.m. that afternoon. Capitol police, shown in surveillance video, stood by as hundreds of Americans entered the Capitol. Wearing a “Make America Great Again” sweatshirt, Perna, 37, left after about 20 minutes.

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Commentary: The January 6 Pipe Bombs Look Like Another FBI Hoax

In the 15-minute time span before the joint session of Congress convened at 1:00 p.m. on January 6, 2021, two incidents that set the stage for the day’s ensuing chaos happened simultaneously.

First, a man named Ryan Samsel, after taking some sort of direction from Ray Epps, overran a thin line of police and metal racks in what would be the first official breach of Capitol grounds around 12:50 p.m. (Samsel was charged and has been incarcerated for more than a year; Epps faces no charges.) Joining Samsel were members of the Proud Boys and a still-unknown number of FBI informants.

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Federal Judge Blasts DOJ for False Account of Kamala Harris’ Whereabouts on January 6

A D.C. District Court judge overseeing numerous Capitol protest cases today accused the Justice Department of repeatedly falsifying the location of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris during the afternoon of January 6, 2021.

Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, openly doubted the validity of trespassing charges against Nicholas Rodean, indicted last March on several counts for his participation in the protest on Capitol Hill.

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Commentary: No Shot at a Fair Trial for January 6 Defendants in the Swamp

Large group of people storming Washington D.C. in protest on January 6.

The first set of trials for the hundreds of protesters charged in the Justice Department’s sweeping criminal investigation into January 6 begins later this month. Since the Capitol building is considered the scene of the crime, every trial will be held in the District of Columbia—which means the jury pool will be composed solely of residents living in the nation’s capital.

To say this is a problem for Trump supporters facing even minor charges is a huge understatement.

January 6 defendants already have suffered the wrath of D.C.-based federal judges who’ve imposed unusually harsh prison sentences for low level misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies while routinely berating defendants from the bench.

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RNC Formally Censures Cheney, Kinzinger over Trump Criticism, January 6 Committee Participation

The Republican National Committee (RNC) officially voted Friday to censure Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for their continued criticism of former President Donald Trump and their participation in the Jan. 6 select committee investigating the Capitol riot.

The resolution passed during the RNC’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, and it passed unanimously.

The resolution alleged that the roles of Cheney and Kinzinger on the committee amounted to “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” It also said that as a result, the RNC would “immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party,” calling their actions “destructive” to the House of Representatives and the country.

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January 6 Committee Asks Ivanka Trump to Voluntarily Cooperate in Probe

The House Jan. 6 select committee is asking former President Trump’s daughter and senior Trump White House adviser Ivanka Trump to voluntary cooperate with its probe, committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson said Thursday.

The committee announced its plans in a statement following remarks from Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, according to CNN.

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Commentary: More Trouble for the FBI in the Whitmer Kidnapping Case

Gretchen Whitmer

The media went wild last week after Joe Biden’s Justice Department finally produced a criminal indictment to support the claim that January 6 was an “insurrection” planned by militiamen loyal to Donald Trump: Eleven members of the Oath Keepers, including its founder, Stewart Rhodes, face the rarely used charge of seditious conspiracy for their brief and nonviolent involvement at the Capitol protest that day.

Journalists luxuriated in the news, jeering those of us who had correctly noted that the Justice Department had failed to charge anyone with insurrection or sedition for more than a year.

But the press does not share the same zeal in covering another politically charged investigation: the imploding criminal case against five men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. The kidnapping narrative shares many similarities with their preferred telling of January 6, not the least of which is that alleged militias incited by Trump attempted to carry out a domestic terror attack.

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Commentary: Conspiracies as Realities, Realities as Conspiracies

American politics over the last half decade has become immersed in a series of conspiracy charges leveled by Democrats against their opponents that, in fact, are happening because of them and through them. The consequences of these conspiracies becoming reality and reality revealing itself as conspiracy have been costly to American prestige, honor, and security. As we move away from denouncing realists as conspiracists, and self-pronounced “realists” are revealed as the true conspirators, let’s review a few of the more damaging of these events.

Russians on the Brain

Consider that the Trump election of 2016, the transition, and the first two years of the Trump presidency were undermined by a media-progressive generated hoax of “Russian collusion.”

The “bombshell” and “walls are closing in” mythologies dominated the network news and cable outlets. It took five years to expose them as rank agit-prop.

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Rep. Davis Blasts Pelosi for Refusing to Release January 6 Evidence

The top Republican on the House committee that oversees U.S. Capitol security is blasting Speaker Nancy Pelosi for refusing to release key evidence showing the security planning prior to the Jan. 6 riots and is warning that the police force that protects lawmakers has not reformed itself enough to avoid another tragedy.

“We know there were intelligence analysis failures at the Capitol Police,” Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) told the John Solomon Reports podcast during an interview Thursday on the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riots. And frankly, John, I don’t think those have been corrected yet.

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Commentary: Democrats Are the Real Insurrectionists

Recently, Democrats have been despondent over Joe Biden’s sinking polls. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support. 

As a result, the Left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when they expect to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when they fear losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup. 

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Trump Fires Back at Biden Blaming Him for January 6

Former President Trump on Thursday responded to President Biden holding him responsible for incidents exactly one year earlier during the Jan. 6 riot.

“Biden is working hard to try and deflect the incompetent job he is doing, and has done, on the horrible Afghanistan withdrawal (surrender), the Borders, COVID, Inflation, loss of Energy Independence, and much more,” Trump said in an email from his Save America PAC. “Everything he touches turns to failure.”

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Commentary: Democrats Are Making a Mistake Focusing on January 6

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats seem happy with their totally partisan Select Committee on Jan. 6. They will have activities this week including speeches by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the Capitol.

Let me be clear: Those who broke into the Capitol, attacked police, and threatened members of Congress last year should be tried and brought strictly to justice. Further, Congress should seriously investigate what happened and how we can prevent it from ever happening again. But that’s not what is happening on Capitol Hill this week.

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Commentary: Democrats Gin Up January 6 Hysteria to Pass Election Rigging Bill

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, Democrat leaders in Congress are ginning up hysteria in order to pass a bill that would transform our elections and give Democrats permanent majorities in all three branches of government. In addition, Democrats’ faux outrage deflects from the root causes of the breach which include four years of multiple attempts by Democrats to overturn the 2016 election results, loose election laws, and lax Capitol security.

But to pass their election rigging bill, Democrats first need to eliminate the Senate filibuster. That would allow them to pass the bill with only a simple majority of votes and not the 60 votes needed to overcome a presumed Republican filibuster.

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Attorney Says January 6 Detainee Being Denied Proper Diet, Medical Care

According to a Tuesday report, a defendant from the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol who is being held in a Virginia jail is being denied medical care, and the special diet he needs due to an autoimmune disease. 

According to his attorney Joseph McBride, Jan. 6 participant Christopher Quaglin, charged with assaulting police officers, has lost 20 pounds at Northern Neck Regional Jail. 

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Commentary: The DOJ’s Whitmer ‘Kidnapping’ Case Faces Uncertain Future

Gretchen Whitmer

The U.S. Department of Justice received an unwelcome Christmas gift from defense attorneys representing five men charged with conspiring to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020: a motion to dismiss the case.

The Christmas Day filing is the latest blow to the government’s scandal-ridden prosecution; defense counsel is building a convincing argument that the FBI used undercover agents and informants to entrap their clients in a wide-ranging scheme that resulted in bad press for Donald Trump as early voting was underway in the key swing state last year. What began as random social media chatter to oppose lockdown policies quickly morphed into a dangerous plan to abduct Whitmer as soon as the FBI took over.

A Michigan judge delayed the trial, now set for March 8, so defense attorneys could investigate the misconduct of FBI special agents handling at least a dozen government informants involved in the caper.

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Surveillance Video Allegedly Shows D.C. Police Beating Women on January 6

Recently-released surveillance video from inside the lower west terrace tunnel at the Capitol building from last January 6 confirms what American Greatness has reported for months: law enforcement officers from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Capitol Police led a brutal assault against Trump supporters trapped inside that tunnel during the Capitol protest.

The three-hour clip offers one angle of what happened between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the tunnel, the site of the most violent clashes between police and protesters. It also is the location where Rosanne Boyland, a Trump supporter from Georgia, died.

One clip shows the attack on Victoria White, a Minnesota mother of four who was viciously beaten by at least two D.C. Metro officers including a supervisor:

The video supports what White told me in a series of interviews earlier this month; she was repeatedly beaten on the head with a baton and punched directly in the face numerous times by police. One officer grabbed her by the hair and shook her head side to side. Government charging documents, however, claim White—who is 5’6”, weighs 155 pounds, and had no weapon—was the aggressor:

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Commentary: Lump of Coal Awards 2021, January 6 Edition

Merrick Garland, Adam Kinzinger and Chris Wray

Aside from the pandemic, no other issue has dominated the daily news cycle and collective fixation of the ruling class more than the alleged “insurrection” on January 6, 2021.

The events of that day were a gift to the Biden regime and the Democratic Party—which should instantly disabuse anyone of the notion that the Capitol protest was legitimately an organic uprising instead of an inside job orchestrated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, and the FBI to name just a few accomplices.

Since then, every lever of government power in Washington, D.C. has been wielded in a vengeful way against American citizens who dared to protest the rigged 2020 presidential election. The conduct of those in charge has exposed the moral depravity of the people who populate the power center of the world’s greatest country, showing a stark chasm between the inherent goodness and decency of the American people and the sadistic ghouls who call the shots from the Beltway.

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Commentary: Democrats Promised An Insurrection But All They Got Was a Lousy Obstruction Case

Former President Donald Trump

History, it appears, is repeating itself—at least when it comes to the latest crusade to destroy Donald Trump and everyone around him.

For nearly three years, the American people were warned that Donald Trump had been in cahoots with the Kremlin to rig the 2016 presidential election. Trump-Russia election collusion, the original “stop the steal” campaign—that is, until questioning the outcome of American elections was designated a criminal conspiracy after November 2020—dominated the attention of the ruling class and the entirety of the national news media.

Every instrument of power—the FBI, a secret surveillance court, congressional committees, a special counsel—was leveraged to uncover the “truth” about the Trump campaign’s alleged dirty dealings with Mother Russia.

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Former President Trump Slams Congressman Adam Schiff for Allegedly Altering Text Messages Shown During Committee Hearing

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday slammed Congressman Adam Schiff for changing the substance of a text message that he read during a January 6th Committee hearing.

Congressman Schiff (D-CA-28) allegedly altered a text message between White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH-04), according to a report from The Federalist.

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Commentary: Justice Department Moves to Conceal Police Misconduct on January 6

After months of foot-dragging, Joe Biden’s Justice Department is preparing for the first set of trials related to its sprawling prosecution of January 6 defendants: Robert Gieswein, who turned himself in and was arrested on January 19 for his involvement in the Capitol protest, is scheduled to stand trial in February.

A week after his arrest, Gieswein, 24 at the time, was indicted by a federal grand jury on six counts including “assaulting, resisting, or impeding” law enforcement with a dangerous weapon that day. He has been behind bars ever since, denied bail while Judge Emmet Sullivan delayed his trial on numerous occasions. Gieswein is among 40 or so January 6 defendants held in a part of the D.C. jail system solely used to detain Capitol protesters.

Federal prosecutors accuse Gieswein of using a chemical spray against police officers and carrying a baseball bat. Clad in military-style gear, Gieswein climbed through a broken window shortly after the first breach of the building. He told a reporter on the scene that “the corrupt politicians who have been in office for 50 or 60 years . . . need to be imprisoned.” Democratic politicians, Gieswein complained, sold out the country to “the Rothchilds and the Rockefellers,” a remark the FBI investigator on his case described as an “anti-Semitic” conspiracy theory.

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Commentary: January 6 Police Beating Victim Speaks — ‘I Could Have Died’

The first time Victoria White visited the nation’s capital was on January 6, 2021. Listening to President Trump’s speech—with her teen daughter and three friends alongside her—would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, White thought.

Instead, the day turned into a personal nightmare with real-time flashbacks to her years as a victim of domestic abuse.

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Former D.C. National Guard Official Says Generals Lied to Congress About January 6th

A former member of the D.C. National Guard has accused two Army leaders of perjuring themselves before Congress in an attempt to rewrite the history of the military’s response to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Col. Earl Matthews, a high-level Pentagon official during the Trump administration, has authored a 36-page report criticizing the Pentagon’s inspector general for what he believes is an error-riddled account created in order to protect a top Army official who argued against sending the National Guard to the Capitol, according to Politico.

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Commentary: Select Committee Covering Up Police Brutality on January 6th

The family of Rosanne Boyland, one of two female Trump supporters who died at the Capitol on January 6, just announced they have hired a lawyer to investigate the suspicious circumstances of her untimely death. Boyland, 34, traveled with her friend Justin Winchell from Georgia to Washington to hear President Trump’s speech.

The pair then walked from the Ellipse to Capitol Hill; a photo published in a local Georgia newspaper shows Boyland smiling, wearing Old Glory sunglasses and carrying a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag that day.

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Trump Comes to Bannon’s Defense, Says Contempt Prosecution Proof ‘USA Is a Radicalized Mess’

Steve Bannon and Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump on Sunday came to the defense of Steve Bannon, suggesting the Biden Justice Department’s prosecution of his ex-adviser on contempt of Congress charges was evidence that America is a “radicalized mess.”

“This Country has perhaps never done to anyone what they have done to Steve Bannon and they are looking to do it to others, also,” Trump said, making a likely reference to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows who also has been threatened with contempt charges if he doesn’t cooperate with the House investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

The 45th president suggested his former advisers were being treated more harshly than American adversaries like China and Russia.

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Obama Judge Sides with January 6 Committee, Denies Trump’s Executive Privilege Claims

In a 34-page ruling issued Tuesday night, D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan denied Donald Trump’s request for injunctive relief to prevent the January 6 Select Committee from obtaining privileged information currently housed at the National Archives. In August, Representative Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the committee, demanded “a wide range of White House records of the previous administration . . . [related to] how the January 6th events fit in the continuum of efforts to subvert the rule of law, overturn the results of the November 3, 2020 election, or otherwise impede the peaceful transfer of power.” 

The National Archives notified the committee a few days later it would comply with the request for documents; Joe Biden twice denied Trump’s claims of executive privilege, something without precedent, which Chutkan noted: “This case presents the first instance . . . in which a former President asserts executive privilege over records for which the sitting President has refused to assert executive privilege.”

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Commentary: Very Fine People

Large group of people storming Washington D.C. in protest on January 6.

Jacob Anthony Chansley, who also goes by the name Jake Angeli, was one of the people who made their way into the chamber of the U.S. Senate in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to protest the Senate’s impending certification of state electors who would install Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States. His name may not register, but his image will: he was the fellow bizarrely attired in a coyote-fur hat sprouting black buffalo horns; shirtless, showing his muscular but heavily tattooed torso; sporting black gloves and a red knapsack; face painted in vertical red, white, and blue stripes; and carrying an American flag on a spear.

The disorderly intrusion of several hundred protesters into the Capitol was quickly characterized by the media, and by many politicians, as an “insurrection.” Moreover, the accusation of insurrection was applied to the many thousands of Trump supporters in Washington that day who had nothing to do with the intrusion into the Capitol. And that characterization became the basis for the House of Representatives to impeach President Trump for supposedly inciting the “insurrection” and the impetus for Joe Biden to order 26,000 National Guard troops to defend Washington during his inauguration on January 20.

As it happened, there was no insurrection.

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J6 Detainee Subjected to Post-Lawyer Meeting Strip Search

Capitol Riot

Immediately following an in-person meeting with his defense attorney, Robert Morss, a January 6 detainee held in part of the D.C. jail system used exclusively to incarcerate Capitol defendants, was subjected to a strip search where he was verbally and physically abused by prison guards.

Morss, a former Army ranger with three tours of duty in Afghanistan, was arrested in June and later indicted on numerous counts including assaulting a police officer and disorderly conduct. (Morss is named in a multi-defendant case with others who battled police near the lower west terrace tunnel, where law enforcement officers from D.C. Metro and Capitol police were attacking protesters.) In July, Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee to the D.C. District Court, denied Morss’ release pending trial.

Morss met with his attorney, John C. Kiyonaga, in advance of a status hearing scheduled for Friday afternoon. After Morss returned to the so-called “pod,” prison guards informed him he would need to be strip searched.

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Commentary: The Washington Post Finally Releases Sketchy Details That Raise Questions About the January 6 ‘Pipe Bombs’

Several storylines related to the events of January 6 have crumbled under closer scrutiny over the past 10 months: the “fire extinguisher” murder of Officer Brian Sicknick; the notion it was an “armed” insurrection and a grand “conspiracy” concocted by right-wing militias; claims that the building sustained $30 million in damages, and so on.

In the meantime, the Biden regime has attempted to cover up key aspects of that day, including the name of the officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, which was only recently revealed. Justice Department lawyers continue to resist the release of 14,000 hours of surveillance video and the U.S. Capitol Police refuse to publish an 800-page internal investigation on officer misconduct as well as internal communications before and after the Capitol breach.

But a deep dive by the Washington Post, published last weekend, raises new questions about the alleged “pipe bombs” discovered just before Congress met on January 6 to certify the results of the 2020 Electoral College vote. Like so many supporting scenes, the veracity of the pipe bomb tale is in doubt after the Post revealed eyebrow-raising details about those involved.

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New Capitol Video Contradicts Justice Department, Media Narrative on January 6

Over the objection of Joe Biden’s Justice Department, a lengthy video clip showing U.S. Capitol Police allowing hundreds of people into the building on the afternoon of January 6 has been released to the public.

In July, Ethan Nordean, an alleged Proud Boy member charged for various crimes now held in a Seattle jail awaiting trial, petitioned the court to remove the “highly sensitive” designation on surveillance video that recorded Nordean entering the building with permission by U.S. Capitol Police. A group called the Press Coalition, representing news organizations including CNN, the New York Times, and the three major broadcast news networks, filed a motion in September to intervene in Nordean’s case and make the video footage public.

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Commentary: January 6 and the FBI’s ‘Operation Cold Snap’

Close up of Capitol with Trump and America flag in the wind

The tony, bucolic town of Dublin, Ohio would be one of the last places in America expected to host a convention of white supremacist militiamen. Nestled along the Scioto River, the Columbus suburb’s biggest claim to fame is hosting the PGA’s annual Memorial Golf tournament every summer.

But in June 2020, days after the nation was roiled by Black Lives Matter looting and rioting, a man from Wisconsin named Stephen Robeson sponsored a “National Militia Conference” at a Dublin hotel. (Yes, that was the real name of the event.) 

According to BuzzFeed’s exceptional July 2021 investigative report on the FBI-led plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, Robeson “helped organize the national meeting, and he was enthusiastically pushing people he knew to attend.” The purpose of the conference was to recruit people who ultimately would stoke “political violence” against governors who refused to reopen their states after lockdowns supposedly necessitated by COVID.

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Federal Judge Finds DC Jail Officials in Contempt, Demands Civil Rights Inquiry

In a major rebuke of the Justice Department and D.C. Department of Corrections, District Court Judge Royce Lamberth today found the jail’s warden and director of the Department of Corrections in contempt of court for refusing to turn over records related to the care of Christopher Worrell, a January 6 detainee who suffers from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and a broken hand. He has been incarcerated under a pre-trial detention order sought by Joe Biden’s Justice Department and approved by the court’s chief judge since his arrest in March; Worrell has been in the D.C. jail used specifically to house January 6 defendants since April.

Lamberth scheduled the hearing on Tuesday after D.C. Jail Warden Wanda Patten and DOC Director Quincy Booth failed to comply with his October 8 order to submit the evaluation by an orthopedic surgeon, who determined in June that Worrell needed surgery for a broken hand he suffered in May, and also to submit Worrell’s medical requests related to needed cancer treatments. Jail officials and attorneys representing the department claimed the screw-up was a miscommunication but Lamberth rejected their argument. “I don’t accept that explanation,” Lamberth said. “No one noticed in jail that he’s sitting there in pain all the time? Does no one care?”

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Commentary: The Left Destroys Everything It Touches

What was the purpose for the insane opposition of the Left between 2017 and 2021? To usher in a planned nihilism, an incompetent chaos, a honed anarchy to wreck the country in less than a year?

No sooner had Donald Trump entered office than scores of House Democrats filed motions for impeachment, apparently for thought crimes that he might, some day, in theory, could possibly commit.

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Trump Wishes Ashli Babbitt a Happy Birthday, Calls for DOJ to Reopen Investigation into Her Death

Former President Donald Trump appeared in a video message to wish happy birthday to the late Ashli Babbitt, the woman fatally shot by a police officer at the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 breach. Trump additionally took the opportunity to call for the Justice Department to reopen its investigation into her death.

The Capitol Police officer who fired the shot that killed Babbitt was formerly exonerated by the department following an assessment by the Office of Professional Responsibility that concluded his conduct was “lawful and within Department policy.”

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Commentary: January 6th Defendants and the Court of Public Opinion

Capitol Riot

George Tanios’ fiancée encouraged him to go to Washington on January 6 to hear President Trump’s speech. “You’re gonna regret it if you don’t go,” she said, hoping he could take a break from working 100-hours-a-week to run his popular sandwich shop in Morgantown, West Virginia.

Tanios and I both laughed after he told me that during a two-hour interview this week. (I was in contact with his fiancée, Amanda, as she cared for their three young children while he was incarcerated for five months.)

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Commentary: Whitmer Case Exposes Pattern of FBI Misconduct

FBI logo outside of building

As the first shoe related to the FBI’s involvement in the breach of the U.S. Capitol dropped—the New York Times last week reported at least two informants tied to the Proud Boys were working with the FBI before, during, and after January 6—another high-profile case continues to expose the bureau’s corrupt role in what the government also considers an act of domestic terrorism: a concocted plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation cottage in October 2020.

In fact, Joe Biden’s Justice Department has tied the two events together in an attempt to convince the public that right-wing militiamen, ostensibly loyal to Donald Trump, pose a looming threat to the country. In a recent sentencing memorandum for one man who pleaded guilty in the Whitmer case, government prosecutors wrote, “as the Capitol riots demonstrated, an inchoate conspiracy can turn into a grave substantive offense on short notice.”

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Commentary: An American Horror Story

Close up of Capitol with Trump and America flag in the wind

Thomas Caldwell’s wife awakened him in a panic at 5:30 a.m. on January 19.

“The FBI is at the door and I’m not kidding,” Sharon Caldwell told her husband.

Caldwell, 66, clad only in his underwear, went to see what was happening outside his Virginia farm. “There was a full SWAT team, armored vehicles with a battering ram, and people screaming at me,” Caldwell told me during a lengthy phone interview on September 21. “People who looked like stormtroopers were pointing M4 weapons at me, covering me with red [laser] dots.”

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Commentary: Joe Biden’s Political Prisoners

Capitol Riot

The latest “conspiracy theory” consuming the political Right, our media betters warn, is the idea that the Biden regime is creating a class of political prisoners stemming from the January 6 protest on Capitol Hill. Scoffing at accusations that January 6 protesters are treated differently from other protesters, columnists and talking heads insist it’s nothing more than right-wing media spin.

A rally scheduled this weekend for January 6 defendants has official Washington apoplectic. Dozens of Americans remain locked up in a D.C. jail and at facilities across the country as they await trials that won’t begin until at least mid-2022.

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Commentary: Justice Department’s Foremost Felony Charge Against January 6 Participants May Be on Thin Ice

More than eight months after the worst attack on Washington since the Civil War, as Joe Biden describes it, not a single American has been charged with sedition or treason related to the alleged “insurrection” on January 6, 2021.

As Ben Boychuk explained in his Thursday essay, despite many harsh warnings insisting  the government would build sedition cases, so far Biden’s Justice Department has failed to live up to its promise.

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Appellate Court Overturns Pre-Trial Detention for January 6 Detainee

January 6 riot at the capitol with large crowd of people.

In a stunning but well-deserved rebuke, the D.C. Court of Appeals on Monday ordered that the pre-trial detention of George Tanios, one of two men accused of spraying Officer Sicknick and others on January 6, be reversed.

The brief ruling, which did not include the usual opinion explaining the court’s decision, bluntly stated:

“ORDERED and ADJUDGED that the district court’s May 12, 2021 order be reversed and the case remanded for the district court to order appellant’s pretrial release subject to appropriate conditions, including home detention and electronic monitoring. On this record, we conclude that the district court clearly erred in determining that no condition or combination of conditions of release would reasonably assure the safety of the community.”

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Commentary: The Capitol Cover Up

United States Capitol at night

Judge G. Michael Harvey sounded floored.

During a detention hearing this week for Robert Morss, arrested last month for his involvement in the Capitol protest, a federal prosecutor told Harvey she needed permission from the government before she could turn over to him a slice of video related to Morss’ case. Joe Biden’s Justice Department continues to seek pre-trial detention for people who protested Biden’s election on January 6; prosecutors want to keep Morss, an Army ranger and high school history teacher with no criminal record, behind bars until his trial can begin next year.

But assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Jackson hesitated when Judge Harvey asked to see the footage captured by the U.S. Capitol Police surveillance system cited as evidence in government charging documents.

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Arizona Rep. Mark Finchem in Tennessee: Our Elections Have Been Open to Manipulation and for Much Longer Than We Knew

FRANKLIN, Tennessee — Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem (R-District 11) told a group of nearly 100 gathered in middle Tennessee that it has been revealed that our elections have been open to manipulation and for much longer than we knew, long before November 2020. 

Finchem said that “While many might think it’s a curse, America has been given a gift.”

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Commentary: Time to Confront the U.S. Capitol Police About Its January 6 Lies

The body of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick wasn’t even cold before his employer leveraged his untimely death to stoke more outrage about the events in the nation’s capital on January 6.

“At approximately 9:30 p.m. this evening . . . United States Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick passed away due to injuries sustained while on-duty,” read a press release issued January 7. “Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots [and] was injured while physically engaging with protesters.  He returned to his division office and collapsed.  He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The death of Officer Sicknick will be investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, the USCP, and our federal partners.”

The agency intentionally included the word “homicide” to suggest Sicknick was killed by homicidal Trump supporters. The next day, the New York Times, citing two anonymous law enforcement officials, claimed “pro-Trump rioters . . . overpowered Mr. Sicknick, 42, and struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher.”

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U.S. Capitol Police Officer Who Fatally Shot Ashli Babbitt Will Not Face Charges

The U.S. Capitol Police officer who fatally shot 35-year-old Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt on January 6 will not face federal charges, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

An investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia’s Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section and the Civil Rights Division, along with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division (IAD) “determined that there is insufficient evidence to support a criminal prosecution.”

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As Capitol Defendants Rot in DC Jail, Portland Rioters Get Leniency

While more than three dozen people charged with various offenses related to the January 6 protest on Capitol Hill now rot in solitary confinement in a D.C. jail, Joe Biden’s Justice Department is letting off the hook violent protestors involved in the ongoing siege of Portland.

Politico today reported federal prosecutors are seeking “deferred prosecution” for at least six people charged with disorderly conduct, attacking police officers, and interfering with law enforcement in that city last year. “Some lawyers attribute the government’s newfound willingness to resolve the Portland protest cases without criminal convictions to the arrival of President Joe Biden’s administration in January and to policy and personnel changes at the Justice Department,” Josh Gerstein wrote April 14. “Some of the assaults described in the Portland cases bear similarities to the Capitol violence.”

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Two Men Charged in Assault on Police Officer Sicknick, Who Died After January Capitol Riot

Two men have been arrested and charged with assaulting U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building. The men allegedly sprayed Sicknick with bear spray, but authorities have not determined whether the assault led to Sicknick’s death.

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The New York Times Retracts the Story Asserting Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was Killed by a Trump Supporter

In a quiet but stunning correction, the New York Times backed away from its original report that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed by a Trump supporter wielding a fire extinguisher during the January 6 melee at the Capitol building. Shortly after American Greatness published my column Friday that showed how the Times gradually was backpedaling on its January 8 bombshell, the paper posted this caveat:

UPDATE: New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police.

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