So now we all know that the cop who shot lifeless unarmed Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, 36, throughout the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was rewarded with a promotion and a $36,000 bonus.
There have been no sick penalties for his rash actions that day. As a substitute, Capt. Michael Byrd, 56, was held up as a hero of democracy, even if he had a prolonged disciplinary document that features leaving his loaded handgun in a public lavatory within the Capitol Customer Middle, “improperly” firing his gun at a automobile close to his residence whereas off-duty and abusing a Maryland cop who tried to cease him coming into a highschool soccer discipline as a “racist a–gap,” once more whereas off obligation, based on a letter launched final week by the GOP-led Home Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight.
Three entries in Byrd’s inner affairs document are lacking, wrote subcommittee chairman Rep. Barry Loudermilk, (R-Ga), in a letter to present Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger.
Left’s handy spin
Loudermilk is asking questions on Byrd and every little thing else in regards to the Jan. 6 riot that was used so successfully to tarnish Donald Trump and his supporters and that offered the excuse for the Biden administration to weaponize federal legislation enforcement in opposition to them.
The J6 riot was not an rebel however a protest that escalated into an out-of-control riot as a result of then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund was denied intelligence about potential threats that day and denied Nationwide Guard backup that he was begging for.
Within the chilly gentle of hindsight, a brand new Trump administration will make sure that the narrative of J6 is rewritten to mirror the reality of that tragic day as a substitute of the lies spun by Democrat Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s J6 committee.
Sund is an important witness to historical past. Pelosi made him her scapegoat, firing him instantly, however she knew that he had begged for the Nationwide Guard to help his vastly outnumbered troops.
He wanted the permission of the Capitol Police Board, and Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell managed the 2 sergeants at arms who needed to give him the OK. McConnell’s man deferred to Pelosi, and Pelosi’s man stored saying he needed to “run it up the chain to get Pelosi’s approval,” says Sund.
However the Nationwide Guard didn’t arrive for hours, delayed not simply by Pelosi however by officers on the Pentagon who had turn into so Trump-deranged that they believed Trump would repurpose the troops to declare martial legislation and attempt to hold on to energy.
This was a delusion that gripped Mark Milley worst, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, probably the most highly effective navy determine in Washington.
Milley was consistently speaking to folks about the specter of a “coup” by Trump after the 2020 election, Washington Publish reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker wrote of their ebook “I Alone Can Repair It,” which paints Milley as a defender of democracy quite than an emotional weakling defying his commander in chief.
Within the days main as much as the riot, Milley advised his workers that Trump’s strategies that the Nationwide Guard be deployed on Jan. 6 was simply an “excuse to invoke the Riot Act” and name out the navy.
The ebook paints an image of an more and more paranoid Milley fielding calls from unnamed “associates” egging him on in his delusion.
Milley got here to see Trump as Hitler. “It is a Reichstag second,” he advised aides. “The gospel of the Führer.”
Milley appeared to get radicalized after the June 2020 riots at Lafayette Sq. in entrance of the White Home, which bought so violent that Trump and his household needed to be evacuated by the Secret Service to an underground bunker.
Milley’s Trump grudge
Trump two days later ordered Lafayette Sq. to be cleared so he might reassure the general public by showing at St. John’s Church, which had been firebombed the earlier evening.
Milley was extra upset on the criticism he acquired for showing in a presidential photo-op in his uniform than he was about the truth that the president needed to be evacuated to a bunker.
Throughout these violent riots, officers on the capital’s Metropolitan Police Division had been “ordered to not help on the White Home,” says Sund, undoubtedly by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a rancid Trump hater.
Sund says the DC cops “had been so livid having to observe bloodied Secret Service brokers being taken out by ambulance” whereas they may do nothing. Afterward, he phoned then-DC Police Chief Pete Newsham and requested for an assurance that if he had issues on the Capitol the DC police would come and assist. Though Newsham retired 5 days earlier than the Jan. 6 riot, the DC police “couldn’t have helped me extra,” says Sund, and despatched him 1,000 officers.
However when it got here to the Nationwide Guard, Sund hit roadblock after roadblock.
First it was Pelosi, after which the Pentagon.
After his troops had been preventing rioters for 80 minutes, Sund lastly bought approval from Pelosi to name within the Nationwide Guard, moments earlier than the primary window was damaged.
He then referred to as Gen. William Walker, commander of the DC Nationwide Guard, however Walker wanted permission from Trump’s performing Secretary of Protection Chris Miller, who was affected by the identical Trump delusion as Milley.
It took 4 hours for the Nationwide Guard to reach. Nevertheless it was throughout by then.
Walker’s arms had been tied by a curious memo issued by Miller two days earlier, ordering “unprecedented restrictions on the DC Nationwide Guard” making use of to Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, Sund says in his ebook, “Braveness Below Fireplace.”
In his Jan 4., 2021, memo titled: “Employment steering,” Miller dictates that, with out his “private authorization” the DC Nationwide Guard can’t be issued with “weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons, or . . . helmets and physique armor” or “work together bodily with protesters . . . make use of any riot management brokers . . . share gear with legislation enforcement companies . . . make use of helicopters or every other air property,” and so forth. In different phrases, they may do nothing.
And nothing they did, till it was too late.
Ominous WaPo op-ed
One thing else important occurred the day Miller issued his memo: an op-ed signed by ten former secretaries of protection, together with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Jim Mattis, was revealed by The Washington Publish warning that Trump may use the navy to hold on to energy. They warned, “Civilian and navy officers who direct or perform such measures” would doubtlessly face “felony penalties.”
Miller bought the message. He later testified to Congress that he wrote the memo as a result of he was afraid Trump “would invoke the Riot Act to politicize the navy in an antidemocratic method.”
Because of this, Sund by no means bought the Nationwide Guard backup he wanted to cease the Capitol being overrun. Mayhem was inevitable.
Conveniently for the Democrats, the riot prevented Trump allies’ efforts in Congress from delaying certification of the electoral school votes and was an ideal branding train to make Trump and his supporters look unhealthy.
The irony is that Chief Sund, the person who did greater than anyone to save lots of the Capitol that day, was compelled out in ignominy earlier than he was eligible for his pension — whereas everyone who failed bought off scot-free.
