Something Bad Happened on January 6th, 2021. Initially people couldn’t agree on what it was. Some thought that a large group of citizens assembled to listen to their President’s speech and then walk over to the Capital to take a tour. Others thought that their President’s speech was a call to action to prevent the joint session of Congress, assembled, to officially recognize the total count of electoral votes as required by our Constitution. This second description quickly evolved to an insurrection when the crowd became unruly. Law enforcement officers were present to maintain good order as the demonstration took place, but the officers were seriously outmanned by the demonstrators.
While we are on this part of my post, let me offer something you probably are not hearing elsewhere. The joint session of Congress wasn’t assembled to “certify” anything. The certification of the Electoral Votes happens in the states when the Governor signs the official documentation of the state’s election results. At the Federal level, the Electoral results are opened from each of the states and tallied. This is done so that there is a federal record of the results. We must remember that the President and the Vice President are the only elected federal officers in our republican democracy so there must be a federal proceeding to record the results of their election. It is not a vote. It is not a certification. It is simply a tally of the certified state results to make that result part of the federal record.
Pretty much everybody quickly concluded that the insurrection label was more truthful. This opinion was clearly supported by the violence used by the protestors. It was also consistent with the armed protestors climbing trees presumably to improve their line-of-sight.
The media was able to show us video of the events in real time and it wasn’t long before police bodycam videos were added to the mix. Evidence was gathered from any source that could be found and people started being arrested for their involvement. Some of those arrested pleaded guilty while others insisted on having a trial by a jury in a court of law. The Department of Justice worked their way up through the easy cases first and we give them credit for learning more, and more, about the cases to be prosecuted later. As the charges became more serious, so to the punishment for any charge became more severe.
We weren’t told about the progress of the Department of Justice investigation and, frankly, we should not have harbored such expectations because it would only give the suspect, or suspects, an unfair advantage. That said, we had every right to expect our Department of Justice to be conducting a thorough investigation of all the potential suspects. At some point along the way, we should have heard about indictments of potential suspects at the top of the insurrectionist organization, but we did not.
We are now nearly ready to mark the second-year anniversary of the events on January 6th, 2021. Two years of silence from the Department of Justice. We wonder, is there even an investigation of the former President or any of his minions? We hear that “nobody is above the law,” but after two years of silence we are left to wonder if this is true.
The January 6th Committee in the House of Representatives is not a judicial body, but they did have legitimate worries about premature leaks of their investigative progress. Now, as we approach the second-year anniversary and the Republican party prepares to become the majority party of the House of Representatives, the January 6th Committee has wrapped up their work and published their findings. This is what transparency looks like. This is what we expect from our elected officials. The Committee also published their transcripts from the many interviews they conducted, and we hear of some angst over at the Department of Justice. Essentially, we hear the worry that their investigation has been made more complicated when they conduct their interviews of people who have been able to coordinate their testimony with the Committee transcripts. This may be true, but after two years of silence it is not clear to me how the Committee could publish their work and not release the transcripts.
Something bad happened on January 6th, 2021, and it appears that much of the activity at the Capital was criminal. The January 6th Committee has done their work, documented their findings, and published their efforts for all to see. Anyone can download a copy by visiting the Committee’s website. Something bad happened on January 6th, 2021, and the silence over at the Department of Justice is deafening. It is time for the Department of Justice to stand up and be counted.
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