THE ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH

I have been torturing myself. I have been listening to convincing liars trying to fill me with doubt. I have been listening to the House Managers present their case in the impeachment trial of FORMER President Donald Trump.

What does their strategy seem to be? The people who attack the Capitol did something bad, and Trump’s claims of election fraud inspired them. Supposedly, Trump called for violence, and that call for violence culminated in the storming of the Capitol Building.

Since I am a political junkie, I am puzzled. I don’t recall hearing President Donald Trump calling for violence. What I hear is from the House Managers is a case based upon innuendo. People did something bad. Trump said something. Some people took what he said to an illogical extreme. That makes Trump guilty.

Consider Mark Meadows: Biden administration policies put ‘America last’ | Fox News. Here Maria Bartiromo interviews former White House Chief of Staff under President Trump Mark Meadows. Here is a portion of the interview.

What can you tell us in terms of what you knew, as the outgoing administration, what you knew in terms of the threat and what was done about it?

MEADOWS: Well, Senator Johnson does a good job of trying to get to the bottom of it.

And we can — we know a couple of things. One is, this impeachment process they’re going through is unconstitutional. It’s all designed for nine House Democrats to do two things, to get political vengeance and have a viral moment.

And yet what we’re also seeing is, is that some of the things happened even before the infamous speech that everybody tries to allude to and hold this impeachment process. But we also know this. Help was offered multiple times, not just in January, but throughout the summer, with the D.C. mayor, saying that the president stood by willing to offer National Guard assistance, other assistance, and often, in fact, every time, was rebuked and said, no, we can go it alone.

And so they do need to get to the bottom of it. And, hopefully, we will we will see that in the very near future.

BARTIROMO: So, you say that the president had offered up Capitol Police, National Guard, even went to the Department of Defense?

MEADOWS: Yes.

And so we also know that, in January, but also throughout the summer, that the president was very vocal in making sure that we had plenty of National Guard, plenty of additional support, because he supports the rule of law, he supports our law enforcement, and offered additional help. Even in January, that was given.

As many as 10,000 National Guard troops were told to be on the ready by the secretary of defense. That was a direct order from President Trump. And yet here’s what we see is, there’s all kinds of blame going around, but yet not a whole lot of accountability. That accountability needs to rest with where it ultimately should be.

And that’s on Capitol Hill.

Mark Meadows: Biden administration policies put ‘America last’ | Fox News

Others have picked up on this, of course. Some examples:

• Former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Drops a BOMB on Power-Drunk Democrats – Trump Offered Assistance Multiple Times to DC Officials Before January 6th (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)
• Mark Meadows: President Trump Not Responsible For Capitol Riot; We Offered National Guard Assistance And Congress Refused | Video | RealClearPolitics.

So why wasn’t the president’s offer of 10,000 National Guard troops accepted? This may be the reason.

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund sent an eight-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Congressional leaders on Monday, providing a detailed account of the events leading up to the Jan. 6 riots as well as a detailed timeline of events as he saw them unfold on that day.

Pelosi immediately called for Sund to step down on Jan. 7. Later that day, Sund submitted a letter of resignation.

ABC News obtained a copy of the letter, which was first reported by The New York Times.

In the letter, Sund said he knew about the intelligence leading up to the violent event and explained why he relied on assessments, as well as his efforts to secure support before and during the incident, from the National Guard and other law enforcement partners.

“Perfect hindsight does not change the fact that nothing in our collective experience or our intelligence – including intelligence provided by FBI, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and D.C. Metropolitan Police (MPD) – indicated that a well-coordinated, armed assault on the Capitol might occur on Jan. 6,” Sund wrote.

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund says entire intelligence community missed signs of riot – ABC News (go.com)

Here is a copy of Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund’s letter (Letter_to_Congressional_leaders_02012021.pdf (foxnews.com) from this article Former Capitol Police chief seeks to ‘set record straight’ about insurrection in letter to Pelosi, others | Fox News). Interesting read. Consider how Sund describes the beginning of the assault, and observe that from the start the authorities knew the attack on the Capitol was planned, not incited by Trump’s speech.

When the group arrived at the perimeter, they did not act like any group of protestors I had ever seen. Unlike other heated protests, these protesters did not simply congregate to angrily voice their grievances. As soon as this group arrived at our perimeter, they immediately began to fight violently with the officers and to tear apart the steel crowd control barriers, using them to assault the officers. It was immediately clear that their primary goal was to defeat our perimeter as quickly as possible and to get past the police line. This mob was like nothing I have seen in my law enforcement career. The group consisted of thousands of well-coordinated, well-equipped violent criminals. They had weapons, chemical munitions, protective equipment, explosives, and climbing gear. A number of them were wearing radio ear pieces indicating a high level of coordination.

Letter_to_Congressional_leaders_02012021.pdf (foxnews.com)

When I attended the rally at The Ellipse (52-acre park south of the White House, I did not see any group like that. If I had, I would have cleared out of the place. Instead, I just saw people enjoying their First Amendment rights.

Think! House Managers would have us believe President Trump was coordinating this attack, an attack made by loose grouping of otherwise unrelated players.

• Growing evidence Capitol attack was pre-planned undercuts Trump impeachment premise | Just The News
• Arrested in Capitol Riot: Organized Militants and a Horde of Radicals – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Was Trump in control of these nuts? No. Their attack on the Capitol helped the Democrats, and that was predicable to anyone who is not a lunatic.

Before January 6, 2021, law enforcement did not expect an organized attack on the Capitol. Apparently, that is why when Trump offered up 10,000 National Guard troops to protect the Capitol they were not wanted. Yet the House’s Impeachment Managers would have us believe Trump knew all about the nuts who planned to attack the Capitol. And Liberal Democrats call Trump’s supporters conspiracy theorists?

All the House Managers have is Trump’s assertion of election fraud, and their counter assertion that no significant fraud tool place. The solution for these differences of opinion is a decent investigation of the charges of election fraud and tightening up our election laws so that EVERYONE trust the results, not just Liberal Democrats. Instead, Liberal Democrats want to make it against the law — inciting a riot — to disagree with them.

When the Liberal Democrat solution for every disagreement is to hate those who disagree with them, why should Trump’s supporters trust them?