During another public hearing on Monday, the January 6 select committee featured a witness so irrelevant that his appearance should prompt even the most ardent defender of Nancy Pelosi’s illegitimate inquisition to question the committee’s real purpose. Former Fox News talking head Chris Stirewalt, fired by the network shortly after the Capitol protest for calling the state of Arizona for Joe Biden early on election night, told his sob story to a presumably slim viewing audience.
The washed-up commentator, however, is the last person with any insight into the events of January 6, 2021. Stirewalt’s performance—similar to the overwrought speechifying by committee members last Thursday—is another headfake designed to turn attention away from the truth about what happened that day and in the months leading up to the brief disturbance that resulted in the deaths of four Trump supporters.
A well-oiled fog machine operated by the Department of Justice, congressional Democrats, NeverTrumpers, and the national news media is once again pumping lie after lie into the body politic in a last-gasp attempt to destroy Trump and the powerful political movement he created.
For nearly 18 months, American Greatness has covered this issue like no other outlet. So, as the committee continues its dog-and-pony show on Capitol Hill this month with an eye toward producing a long list of legislative “fixes,” the Justice Department inexorably moves to criminally charge Donald Trump for his alleged involvement, and the media takes another extended nap on its purported fact-checking duties, American Greatness here provides the definitive list of what people need to know about January 6, 2021, and related hype.
Congress and D.C. city officials, not Donald Trump, were responsible for protecting the Capitol: It is the primary duty of the Capitol Police board—made up of the sergeants-at-arms for the Senate and the House and the architect of the Capitol—to secure the sprawling complex. The federal police force, with a budget of more than half a billion dollars, employs at least 2,000 officers and houses numerous bureaus, including an intelligence unit; the Capitol building should have been well-protected on January 6 during a controversial joint session of Congress with Vice President Michael Pence presiding.
But Paul Irving, Nancy Pelosi’s sergeant-at-arms at the time, and Michael Stenger, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s sergeant-at-arms, repeatedly denied requests by the Capitol police chief for extra help days before the Capitol protest. As the chaos unfolded that afternoon, Irving and Stenger continued to delay numerous pleas to deploy the National Guard. Although more than 1,000 guardsmen were stationed at the D.C. armory on the morning of January 6, they were not summoned to the Capitol complex until well after 5:00 p.m.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser also refused to activate a significant number of guardsmen on January 6. Instead, Bowser authorized a few hundred guardsmen for traffic and pedestrian control. D.C. Metro police officers arrived at the Capitol shortly after the joint session convened at 1:00 p.m.
It does not appear that the January 6 select committee has interviewed Irving, Stenger, or Bowser. (Irving and Stenger conveniently resigned on January 7; Irving refused to testify before the Senate committee investigating the “attack.”) In addition, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) has announced Pelosi’s records related to January 6 were “off-limits.”
Committee members and the media insist Trump bears some culpability for lax security on January 6; according to Kash Patel, chief of staff for the acting secretary of defense during the final weeks of the Trump Administration, the president on January 4 authorized the use of 20,000 guardsmen. But the activation of those troops would have required a formal request by either Capitol Police or Bowser’s office
And contrary to another widely-accepted narrative, Capitol police at several vantage points allowed protesters into the building and, without warning, the building was closed.
No police officers died on January 6 or as a result of the protest: Four supporters of Donald Trump—Ashli Babbitt, Rosanne Boyland, Kevin Greeson, and Benjamin Phillips—died on January 6. Babbitt, an unarmed veteran who posed no lethal threat, was shot and killed by Capitol police officer Michael Byrd around 2:45 p.m. near the Speaker’s Lobby. Boyland died around 4:30 p.m. outside the lower west terrace tunnel where D.C. and Capitol police were engaged in violent confrontations with protesters. Witnesses say Greeson and Phillips suffered fatal heart attacks after being hit with stun grenades, an explosive device used by police outside the building that afternoon.
Eyewitness accounts and extensive video footage show police attacking people peacefully assembled on Capitol grounds shortly after 1 p.m. A Capitol official testified during a recent trial that the department used non-lethal munitions for the first time in history on January 6.
Despite claims by everyone from Joe Biden to local news reporters, no police officer died on January 6. For months, Capitol police and the media lied about the death of Officer Brian Sicknick; the New York Times reported on January 8, 2021, that Sicknick had been bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher, an allegation that was included in the House Democrats’ official impeachment memo. But the report was false; the Times retracted the account a month later. After a lengthy delay, the D.C. coroner finally issued his finding that Sicknick died of natural causes—a stroke caused by two blood clots near his brain.
Four police officers reportedly took their lives after January 6; two Capitol police officers committed suicide in the days following the protest and two D.C. officers killed themselves months later but there’s no proof any of those suicides is tied to the events of that day.
No one carried firearms into the building: On January 7, 2021, Pelosi described the previous day as an “armed insurrection,” a narrative that persisted for months. The public was led to believe gun-toting Trump supporters “stormed” the building with intent to harm or even kill lawmakers in an attempt to overthrow the government.
Now, nearly 18 months later, no one has been charged with carrying a firearm into the building on January 6. Four men were charged with possessing or carrying a firearm on Capitol grounds, including one man who was arrested that evening after the protest ended.
The only person who used a gun on January 6 was Lt. Michael Byrd, the cop who executed Ashli Babbitt at near-point blank range. Byrd was exonerated by the Justice Department and Capitol Police officials; he remains on the job.
The FBI refuses to disclose information pertaining to the use of undercover agents and informants: Numerous court motions filed by January 6 defense attorneys refer to unknown federal agents present at the Capitol throughout the day. The New York Times reported last September that the FBI embedded at least two informants in the Proud Boys months before the Capitol protest; Newsweek recently revealed that Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general at the time, summoned hundreds of elite FBI agents, including the Hostage Rescue Team, to Quantico the weekend before January 6. Contrary to Rosen’s public testimony, according to Newsweek, those agents were deployed to downtown D.C. the morning of January 6 and some had “shoot-to-kill” authority if necessary.
During her Senate testimony on the one-year anniversary of the protest, FBI counterterrorism chief Jill Sanborn rebuffed questions about whether FBI agents or informants engaged in or provoked violent behavior on January 6. She also refused to explain why Ray Epps, a man seen multiple times on video exhorting people to go inside the Capitol, was removed from the agency’s most-wanted list and has so far evaded arrest. The FBI continues to ignore congressional inquiries into her testimony.
As the Whitmer “kidnapping” hoax demonstrated, the FBI is deeply involved in the surveillance and set up of Americans the agency considers “anti-government” extremists. (A Michigan jury in April acquitted two men charged in the hoax after defense attorneys successfully argued they were entrapped by the FBI; the jury could not reach a verdict on two other defendants who now face a second trial.) Further, Steven D’Antuono, head of the Michigan FBI field office primarily responsible for the hoax, was promoted to head of the D.C. FBI field office in mid-October 2020, right after his agents arrested the fake kidnappers and several weeks before the Capitol protest. His office is the lead investigatory agency in the Justice Department’s prosecution of more than 800 Americans now charged for their involvement in January 6.
It does not appear that D’Antuono or FBI Director Christopher Wray have been interviewed by the committee.
The FBI also appears to have lost interest in the so-called “pipe bomber” who allegedly planted explosives outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee on the evening of January 5. News of the bombs prompted the first evacuation of adjacent House buildings and set off panic in the city and news media. The FBI claimed it would conduct an investigation and offered a reward for the bomber’s capture. Nearly 18 months later, not only has the suspect not been caught, the FBI refuses to release any information pertaining to an investigation. Further, the pipe bombs have not been mentioned by committee members or the focus of any public hearings.
The January 6 committee is pure political theater intended to crush the MAGA movement once and for all. And like so many attempts before—the Russian collusion hoax, the first impeachment trial, the stolen 2020 election, the second impeachment trial—Democrats and the media are successfully brainwashing millions of their cult-like disciples who allow themselves to be duped time and again by the likes of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Facts, as they say, do matter—and the aforementioned list is just a handful of indisputable truths related to January 6, 2021, that the other side doesn’t want the American people to see. So share it widely.