Well, that certainly backfired. Here’s the headline from Fox News.
Cops blame Trump, Republicans for allegedly inspiring and then downplaying Jan. 6 Capitol attack
Officers want committee to dig into Trump and Republicans’ culpability in inspiring and downplaying Jan. 6 attack
The story began this way:
“Four police officers who defended the Capitol from the pro-Trump mob that invaded it on Jan. 6 criticized the former president and Republicans who are loyal to him for allegedly inspiring and then downplaying the attack.
They asked members of the House select committee investigating the events of that day to get to the bottom of their culpability.
‘You guys are the only ones we’ve got to deal with crimes that occur above us,’ Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Officer Daniel Hodges said. ‘I need you guys to address if anyone in power had a role in this. If anyone in power coordinated or aided abetted or tried to downplay, tried to prevent the investigation of this terrorist attack.’”
Notice anything here? The National Police Association certainly did. The very next day after those four officers testified this story also appeared on Fox News:
National Police Association slams Jan. 6 probe as ‘dog and pony show,’ calls for investigation of Floyd riots
‘It doesn’t tell the whole story,’ association spokeswoman said
This story said:
The National Police Association on Wednesday slammed Congress’ investigation of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as a politically motivated “dog and pony show” that has no intention of uncovering the truth of what really happened that day.
In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, association spokeswoman Betsy Brantner Smith, a retired police sergeant who describes herself as a conservative, said Congress should hear from the thousands of police officers who were injured during the George Floyd riots last year.
“People need to see that police officers go through horrible things, and Jan. 6 was a horrible thing for some of those officers,” she said. “But, quite frankly, I find this whole Jan. 6 Commission, frankly, a dog and pony show. It doesn’t tell the whole story.”
“Myself, like millions of Americans, sat there watching the testimony thinking, ‘Wait, where are the police officers who appeared – appeared – to let some of the protesters in?” she asked. “Where is the police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt? In fact, why aren’t we talking about Ashli Babbitt? I mean there’s so much more here.”
Bingo. The story went on:
“Brantner Smith said those officers have been “politicized by Congress,” and that while their stories are important, the American public also deserves to hear the stories of the “more than 2,000” men and women in law enforcement who were injured during last year’s violent protests.
…You know, we have a Las Vegas police officer who is still paralyzed from the Black Lives Matter riots. We have thousands of police officers around the country who are retiring because of post-traumatic stress because of the riots.”
Bingo again.
So why is this congressional investigation completely ignoring all those Floyd riots and those 2,000 injured-in-the-line-of-duty law enforcement officers- not to mention not really investigating what actually occurred on January 6th?
Why did none of those four officers demand to know why Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t fulfill her responsibility to ensure the Capitol was protected on January 6?
There is one reason – one very big reason.
This so-called “January 6th Committee” is designed to do one thing and one thing only- protect Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The irony is that the more these four officers talked, the more it became crystal clear just how serious was the fact that Pelosi did not do her job to protect the Capitol, not to mention the four officers in question.
To cite but one example? Let’s go back to what the National Police Association spokesperson said when she said this: “Where is the police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt? In fact, why aren’t we talking about Ashli Babbitt? I mean there’s so much more here.”
Indeed there is. Think about this for a moment.
Everybody in America knows the name Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd. In fact, the names of police officers involved in fatal shootings around the country are routinely released to the public. But the shooting of Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, an unarmed woman? In the US Capitol of all places? Silence. No word.
And Pelosi Republicans Cheney and Kinzinger made zero attempt to get the truth out to the American people. Neither objected to the highly edited video as presented, which completely left out the vivid images of Babbitt being shot to death.
Why is that? Clearly, the reason is that Pelosi, who knew weeks ahead of time of potential protest security problems, had done zero – zero – to prepare. Neither Ashli Babbitt nor any other protestor that day would have gotten anywhere near the Capitol much less the inside of the building had Pelosi given the orders to properly protect it. But she didn’t. And Ashli Babbitt and others are dead because of her incompetence.
The National Police Association has gotten this exactly right. There is infinitely more to the explosion of violence that engulfed the country in the summer of 2020 and again on January 6th. Instead of getting to the bottom of it, the January 6th committee has conveniently ignored the violence because it protects the Democratic mayors who were running the cities that had the riots – and by stacking the congressional committee with Pelosi allies it is crystal clear the committee, specifically including the Trump-hating Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, has one objective and one objective only: protecting Nancy Pelosi.
