The police wanted the same thing the insurrectionists wanted

Bill in Portland, Maine included late night commentary in his Cheers and Jeers column for Daily Kos.

When you tell people who play dress-up soldier that they are on a patriotic mission, they desperately believe it. That’s what I saw today in DC. —Jordan Klepper, The Daily Show

Peter Segel of the NPR show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me on today’s show spoke of hope for the new year and of how bad last year was. He declared the assault on the Capitol happened on December 37th, 2020. Mark Sumner of Kos reported how much planning went into the insurrection on Wednesday. His major points: The nasty guy has been laying the groundwork since the 2016 election. He positioned officials to clear the way for violence. He replaced officials who were responsible for deploying forces in the capital. He did this after the 2020 election. He’s been testing the boundaries of using the military against civilians. He understands how requests for assistance can be thwarted. He planned it to intimidate Congress.

The howling mob Trump unleashed was terrorism in its purest sense. They were meant to cause terror. To Congress. To interfere with the transition of power.

The event was funded by dark money. Nah, the nasty guy didn’t fund this himself. More below. The insurgents were not harmless clowns. One tweeted they were not there for the building, but for Congress. John Scott-Railton tweeted a photo of the one now known as zip tie guy, because he held a handful of them. Ryan Anderson detailed the sophisticated and expensive tactical gear this guy was holding and wearing. It is stuff favored by Special Operations Forces. This was a failed coup.

Planned for months, supported by new officials at the Pentagon, supported by big-money Republican donors, and cheered on by Trump supporters in Congress … this was not a spontaneous or unexpected event. It was a purposely staged event meant to disrupt the final stage of a U.S. election, throw the nation into chaos, and perhaps end with the televised murder of members of Congress.

The nasty guy’s family watched and celebrated.

The only thing that wasn’t planned at this event … was failing. Trump didn’t anticipate that Congress would return to the building and complete the vote count. He didn’t think that Mike Pence would carry on naming Joe Biden as the victor. He didn’t anticipate that much of the American public would recoil in horror. Most of all, he didn’t expect that most of Congress would respond with anger rather than fear.

Get him out. Now. I mentioned dark money. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that funding came from the Republican Association of Attorneys General, the top law enforcement officers for their states. Their money came from corporate donors, starting with Koch Industries and naming several others from whom I may have to cut ties. Why the security around the Capitol was so lax is an ongoing discussion. On Thursday morning Laura Clawson of Kos wrote about how visible the planning of the event was.

This is all in a city where peaceful protests for racial justice were met by heavily militarized police within the last year. We know Washington, D.C., is more than capable of disproportionate response. Yet here the District’s law enforcement agencies, led by the Capitol Police, ignored overt threats of violence targeting the homes and workplaces of top officials, including the U.S. Capitol itself. This was a refusal to protect the Capitol and the Congress, a decision to ignore or embrace the threat. Police officials can either tell us they were too incompetent to have found these public threats of violence, or they can explain to us why they ignored the public threats. Ignorance is not exonerating here.

Within an hour Clawson posted again, reporting that Congress had taken notice of the lack of preparation and was starting to investigate. The chief of the DC police has resigned. By Thursday afternoon Hunter of Kos took up the story. He wrote in part:

It is entirely possible that top law enforcement officials chose to leave the Capitol insufficiently protected so as to avoid angering Trump with pictures of federal officers confronting his crowd. This may amount to treason. There is no way any American can trust any official left in Donald Trump's government. They have repeatedly assisted Donald Trump in crimes; they have repeatedly abandoned their own oaths when faced with a whining, petulant, and delusional madman's latest tantrum. From top military officials to the Department of Justice, from the FBI to Trump's national security advisers—it is now taken as a matter of course, and especially after the mass purge of government officials mounted by Trump's own in-house fascist allies, that remaining officials are the ones willing to damage the nation rather than oppose Trump's orders.

It is also entirely possible they were acting on the nasty guy’s orders. It is possible they accepted those orders because they wanted the same thing the insurrectionists wanted. Sumner detailed how the Pentagon was involved – more specifically very much not involved – in protecting the Capitol. And it wasn’t the Pentagon as a whole, it was the nasty guy’s own people he installed there after the election. And their part of the plan was to keep the National Guard out of action. They weren’t installed to aid a war in Iran, but to aid a war at home. Wrote Sumner:

That the Trump event was going to be a large violent gathering of white supremacists, neo-Nazis, militias, and others intent on a violent overthrow of the American government was clear weeks before the Capitol building was pillaged. And there were preparations for the event that went back to November. Only those preparations weren’t from the D.C. police. The preparations were on the part of Trump, who made sure that the Pentagon would not provide necessary forces to protect the nation’s capital against the assault he was orchestrating.

Sarah Kendzior raised more troubling questions:

They knew it was coming (not surprising because it was announced!) So, beyond the issue of Capitol police complicity: 1) Why were some members of Congress removed and protected and some not? 2) Why were computers open, office doors unlocked etc when they knew this was coming?

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a woman of color, appears to be one of those not immediately escorted out. Kendzior has a link to her story of the insurrection. Several federal prosecutors have pledged to prosecute those who took part in the insurrection. Those prosecutors not in DC are combing through social media for participants from their districts. Michael Sherwin, a US attorney in Washington has already charged 55 cases. Sherwin says he’s looking at all actors and implied that included the nasty guy. However, they lament that so many of the perpetrators were not arrested by the Capitol police. All these people who invaded and damaged the Capitol have a surprise if their case gets to sentencing. Last summer during the Black Lives Matter protests where government thugs made a big deal of protecting the federal building in Portland, the nasty guy signed an executive order demanding those who vandalize government property face the maximum possible sentence of ten years in federal prison. Then the nasty guy’s mob came to the Capitol and vandalized government property. As of Friday morning McCarter reported 159 House Democrats and 22 Senate Democrats are supporting impeachment. Even one Republican – Sen. Ben Sasse – supports it. As for invoking the 25th Amendment, the vice nasty, who is central to making it happen, has disappeared and is not returning calls. I heard he was planning a foreign trip right after the EC certification was complete. I don’t know if that is where he is. Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported that several organizations, including immigrant rights groups, are calling for impeachment. They also call for those who helped incite the mob, such as Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Josh Hawley, be punished by Congress. McCarter reported that the House Democrats conferenced by phone on Friday and agreed to articles of impeachment to be introduced Monday (though people are wondering why wait that long?). Republicans are likely to object, which means the full House will have to gather in person on Tuesday or Wednesday. An important bit of the draft says:

President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.

Hayes Brown tweeted:

Call the bluff. McConnell has just said a Senate trial would take place whether Trump is in office or not. Charge him in the articles, and set the sentence as not removal, but disqualification from future office like I called for.

Katie Hill added:

If the Senate takes impeachment up after Biden is inaugurated, Senators have to show the world that this will never happen again by disqualifying Trump from holding future office.

Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) tweeted:

President Trump incited an insurrection that damaged some our nation’s most significant and sacred federal property. … Most importantly—let us learn from our past. Donald Trump should never become a future generation’s confederate symbol.

Ortiz reported that as part of that Castro is preparing legislation saying federal buildings and other property cannot be named after the nasty guy. There is a Reagan Airport. But there shouldn’t be one for the nasty guy. Some Republicans have said the GOP should break from the nasty guy. Kerry Eleveld of Kos wrote now is the time to do so.

For those who now claim they want to break with Trump and indeed must do so in order to save the party, they can all start by telling the truth to their constituents—that Trump bamboozled his supporters, betrayed his oath of office, and must be removed from office immediately. … If any congressional Republicans truly believe it's time for a different course, they are going to have to take decisive action. These weak whiffs of passive resistance nearly all of them are currently offering are a pathetic mismatch for the present political moment. One would think they might have learned a little something after spending four years registering their discontent by whispering to each other in the cloistered recesses of the Congress. And if they're not concerned enough about the preservation of the country to take a stand, they may want to think about the fact that if the pitchforks come the next time, they won't be coming for Democrats alone. Just ask Vice President Mike Pence.

Because the vice nasty didn’t overturn the EC vote he is considered a traitor to be executed. Staying hidden is probably a good idea. Kendzior tweeted a statement from the Secret Service on Inauguration Security saying the inauguration is secure. She added:

You cannot trust this. One high-level Secret Service member recently left his post to advise Trump on how to better attack Americans. The inauguration should be held in a secure location and aired online and on television. It should not be a public event on a national landmark.

Another way to say this is the Secret Service has been compromised.