Capitol Hearings

I can’t say that I’ve ever been more saddened, disgusted, or discouraged than I was after day one of the Congressional hearings into the Capitol riots of January 6. The testimony by the four officers, two from the Capitol Police department, and two from the DC Metropolitan Police Department, was harrowing to say the least.

While you might think protocol does not allow them to directly indict the congressmen and women who have turned a blind eye to the riots, and who are trying to reframe the riots as either few peaceful tourists or Black Lives Matter activists (who, apparently, are masters of disguise), protocol did not get in the way.

One would have thought they’d couch their remarks in job-protecting CYA statements buried between the lines, but they were extremely—refreshingly, for a Congressional hearing—forthcoming. What you heard was essentially an indictment of the distance between Republican rhetoric about law and order, and how those same Republicans have utterly failed to have the cops’ backs. It was a case of “we saved their lives, and the thanks we get is denial and deflection.”

Michael Fanone, a Metro Police officer, described in graphic detail being repeatedly tased (“electrocuted,” he said), and beaten with “something metal” (a flagpole?). He awoke in the hospital where he learned he’d had a heart attack and suffered a concussion. “I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them, and too many in this room . . . are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or hell actually wasn’t that bad.” Slamming his fist on the table for emphasis, he added sorrowfully, “The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful.”

The Washington post reported: “Other officers made clear they hold Trump partially responsible for the attack and resent what they described as his coddling of the rioters.

“To me, it’s insulting, just demoralizing because of everything that we did to prevent everyone in the Capitol from getting hurt,” said Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell. “And what he was doing, instead of sending the military, instead of sending the support or telling his people, his supporters, to stop this nonsense, he begged them to continue fighting.

“I’m still recovering from those hugs and kisses that day that he claimed,” Gonell added.

He said that members of the mob on Jan. 6 repeatedly told him that “Trump sent us.”

“January 6th still isn’t over for me,” Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn told lawmakers, describing how protesters dressed in Trump campaign paraphernalia called him the n-word — and did the same to several of his Black colleagues. “Is this America?” he said.

Curiously, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), in a Capitol stairs news conference, blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for the riot. A statement made all the more curious by the fact that on January 6, he was heard on the floor of the House screaming into his telephone at Donald Trump, “These are your people. Call them off.“

It’s all made even more disturbing by the fact that there are apparently only two Republicans in all of Washington, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who are willing to protect the Constitution and put country above party.

One assumes Minority Leader McCarthy’s pathetic attempt at changing the subject fell dead at the feet of the majority of the American people who by and large can be trusted to believe what they see with their own eyes.

This exercise in denial has been joined by the usual suspects: The pride of Texas, Louis Gohmert (R-TX), who complained that the January 6 rioters shouldn’t be detained and are being treated unfairly by the Attorney General; Paul Gosar, The Arizona Republican who is so far out there that his siblings bought television time to endorse his opponent in the last election, who speculated that “The FBI might have had a hand in planning and carrying out” the Capitol riot; Matt Gaetz (R-FL), whom the FBI has informed is being investigated for paying for sex with minor girls, left his date in the car, presumably doing her civics homework; and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Pluto, who disappointingly failed to repeat her speculation that Jewish space lasers are causing the massive fires out here in the West. Call them the Nutcase Caucus. Their news conference was on the steps of the Justice Department where they were drowned out by protesters.

Nice company you keep, Kevin. I’m sure your little Kabuki play is already packaged into a neat fundraiser on social media.

That the entirety of the Republican Party, minus Reps Kinzinger and Cheney, are so afraid of being primaried by a Donald Trump pick that they will say anything to avoid the awful truth is, in addition to being disheartening, quite worrying.