Q Takes the Capitol, a New American Journal graphic by artist Walter Simon, depicts this golden calf of the Shaman of Qanon in his bison horn headdress, flying a flag with the slogan, “Quo unus nostrum it, eo universi imus.” The saying is inspired by the coming of age at sea saga “White Squall” using a lame slogan from the Albatross ship’s bell, “Where we go one, we go all.”
By Glynn Wilson –
The public will get another chance to hear from Defense Department, intelligence agency and law enforcement officials this week in another Congressional hearing called to investigate the violent insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6. It was a historic tragedy for American democracy incited by the former president and commander-in-chief that disrupted the peaceful transfer of power as Electoral College votes were being certified naming Joe Biden as president.
In a joint hearing of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday, members of Congress are expected to question Jill Sanborn, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, about that agency’s intelligence warning on the violent attack.
Also scheduled to testify are Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, who was added at the last minute, along with Melissa Smislova, a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and Robert Salesses, a senior official in the Department of Defense.
Maj. Gen. William J. Walker: Google
Notably absent from the list is Trump’s acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, who demonstrated his complicity if not downright collusion with the commander-in-chief’s wishes and the insurrectionists demands by stalling the approval of sending in National Guard troops to defend the Capitol long after it had been breached.
This is the second hearing probing what went wrong on Jan. 6. In the first hearing last week, Michael C. Stenger, the former Senate sergeant-at-arms, and Paul D. Irving, the former House sergeant-at-arms, came under questioning. But no member of Congress asked any questions about their complicity and collusion in allowing the breach of the Capitol to happen, only about so-called “intelligence failures” and the lack of preparation and training by police that let it happen.
Steven Sund, the former Capitol Police Chief who also resigned right after the event at the behest of House Speaker Nanci Pelosi, tried to blame the entire security breakdown on lack of knowledge of an FBI report that warned of an impending disaster.
Robert Contee, the new Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, whose forces came to the rescue of the Capitol Police and ultimately cleared the insurrectionists from the building and the Capitol grounds, testified about his “shock” that the Defense Department and Capitol Police top officials did not move faster to approve help from the National Guard, especially in light of an FBI report that warned of a “war” on the Capitol.
“An online thread discussed specific calls for violence to include stating ‘Be ready to fight. Congress needs to hear glass breaking, doors being kicked in, and blood from their BLM and Pantifa slave soldiers being spilled’,†the report stated. “’Get violent. Stop calling this a march, or rally, or a protest. Go there ready for war. We get our President or we die. NOTHING else will achieve this goal’.”
BLM is a reference to the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice. Pantifa is a derogatory term for antifa, a loosely knit group of anti-fascist activists whose adherents sometimes engage in violent clashes with right-wing extremists. As we have reported EXCLUSIVELY — in reporting ignored by The Post and The New York Times and everybody else — BLM and Antifa activists were aware of the threat coming on Jan. 6 and made a conscious decision to “stand down” and not attend or engage in counter protests, knowing the plan was to blame them for violence.
I interviewed key members of Antifa on the phone twice that week, who were more than a thousand miles away in a Florida campground. They indicated they had engaged the Proud Boyz in mid-December on K Street and were beaten up and jailed by DC Metro Police officers, while the white, right-wing extremists were allowed to walk away free, a clear demonstration that the cops were on the side of the insurrectionists, not those trying to stand in the way of fascists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis to protect democracy.
Former Capitol security officials blame intelligence lapses for the deadly Jan. 6 riot, even though 35 Capitol Police officers are under investigation and six have been suspended for their role in helping the right-wing extremists get up the Capitol steps and into some doors that should have been bolted shut.
Related: Capitol Police Officers Face Investigation for Role in Capitol Insurrection
Officials from virtually all federal law enforcement and defense agencies have faced criticism for miscalculating the possibility that supporters of President Donald Trump who came to D.C. for a rally Jan. 6 could turn violent and set their sights on the Capitol, where lawmakers were counting the electoral college votes, according to the Washington Post.
But while the paper had the most reporters on the ground and has more substantive reporting on the event than any other news organization, the bulk of its coverage has framed the story as an intelligence and law enforcement failure, ignoring the overwhelming evidence that the breach of the Capitol was an “inside job” by Defense Department officials and law enforcement leaders, acting in tacit agreement with the commander-in-chief, along with Republican members of Congress and their staffs.
While The Post has obtained some of the Capitol Police radio communications from that day, perhaps because I sent them notifications to check it, it has so far only run a few seconds of snippets. Where is the rest of the radio chatter? It could very well demonstrate complicity and collusion on the part of Capitol Police leadership, who so far have been allowed to walk away with only their resignations for their “failure.”
There needs to be an investigation into their complicity, which could possibly come about in an independent commission investigation, unless it too just writes a report on the official coverup.
Related: Congress Moves to Establish Independent Commission to Investigate Capitol Insurrection
The inspectors general of several federal agencies are also investigating the response from officials.
At last week’s hearing, Contee said no one at the FBI called him about the Jan. 5 report from the bureau’s Norfolk office — which had captured a specific online threat.
“I would certainly think that something as violent as an insurrection at the Capitol would warrant a phone call or something,†Contee said, acknowledging that his agency had received the report in an email message.
On Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray defended the bureau’s response, according to The Post, saying it had distributed the report three ways: in an email to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes the D.C. and Capitol police; in a posting on a law enforcement portal; and in a verbal briefing at a command center in D.C.
“The whole idea is they’re supposed to go back and pass it up their chain of command,†Wray said, later conceding, “I do not consider what happened on January 6th to be an acceptable result. And that’s why we’re looking so hard at figuring out how can the process be improved.â€
Police officials, including Sund and Contee, have asserted that they were frustrated by the Defense Department’s slow response as the Capitol was breached, while defense officials have countered that they were hamstrung by a lack of a plan by Capitol Police on how they might help and D.C. officials’ desire to limit the National Guard’s presence in the city on Jan. 6.
This effort to “pass the buck” and blame is a distraction from what actually happened and only serves to confuse the public. We need a real investigation to get to the bottom of this most grievous threat to our democracy in more than 100 years.
Related Coverage
Breaking News Day 5: Inside Job: Were the U.S. Military and Capitol Police Ordered to ‘Stand Down’ to Allow Trump’s Mob to Storm the Capitol?
We know that members of Congress were in on the insurrection. Will they face investigations? Or walk away free?
