About Our "Why"
As lifelong Democrats—yes, lifelong Democrats—we have questions about the direction in which our nation is headed, and one of those essential questions surround January 6th.
What really happened on January 6, 2021? Did Donald John Trump really plan a violent coup to overthrow the United States government?
We understand that it may be counterintuitive, but in order to challenge Trump’s cries of innocence and claims that he promoted peace on January 6th we decided to first investigate the accusations of his harshest critics. Surprisingly, there was no need for us to look any further.
No one can doubt that our nation is divided, but regarding January 6th it seems implausible that more than one conclusion could be reached even for those of us who consider ourselves fair and open-minded.
Nevertheless, questions remained: so many questions if fact that previously held suppositions are threatened to be turned on their head.
It’s fair to say that some of President Donald Trump’s harshest critics were appointed to the Select Committee charged with investigating January 6th. This was a “bipartisan” committee where even the Republican members were appointed by the Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi. More on Nancy Pelosi later.
Although any findings from the committee would most likely be dismissed by Trump’s supporters, the committee’s summaries and conclusions must be considered in any fair review.
Shockingly, for what was billed (promoted, produced, and pricey) as an unequivocal rebuke of President Trump’s actions, the final report seems to exonerate Trump, possibly even more thoroughly than he could have ever imagined.
And most shocking of all, the exoneration of President Trump seems to have been spearheaded by none other than Liz Cheney—one of President Trump’s most vocal critics.
The most compelling defense of President Trump was put forth by Mr. Tom Joscelyn who served as a senior professional staff member working with and advising Liz Cheney on the January 6th Committee. Mr. Joscelyn was also a principal drafter of the committee’s final report, which suggests his statements were aligned with and approved by Liz Cheney.
An article written by Tom Joscelyn was published on March 12, 2024, to refute and challenge the claims of innocence by Trump and his supports. Nevertheless, inexplicably, Mr. Joscelyn reveals his own biases and begins to make the case in favor of Trump with his opening line: “Former President Donald Trump and his loyalists have long claimed that he “ordered” the National Guard to be ready for deployment on Jan. 6, 2021.”
“Ordered?” Incredible that we spent so much time and money, yet that is the opening point that Mr. Joscelyn wants to drive home and emphasize? Although it may be true that some Trump loyalist used the term “ordered”, my initial reaction was to remind myself that the January 6th commission was supposed to expose President’s Trump’s conspiracy to overthrow the United States government. Yet, now we are supposed to accept that all of this was just a dispute over whether or not President Trump “ordered” the deployment of National Guard?
My second reaction was to wonder why Mr. Joscelyn was using quotation marks to emphasize the word “ordered”, but after reading the article the reason was clear. Mr. Joscelyn does not dispute that President Trump “offered” to supply troops, even if he did not “order” troops to be on site.
Mr. Joscelyn confirms that, “In its final report, the committee summarized the testimony of witnesses who claimed that Trump had floated the idea of deploying 10,000 National Guardsmen — mainly to protect him and his supporters as they marched together to the U.S. Capitol. While Trump wanted to “walk with the people,” he did not end up doing so.”
The tone and tenor of the previous passage perfectly crystalizes the temperament of Mr. Joscelyn’s summary article—and by extension the mood of the entire January 6th Committee towards President Trump. The fact that Committee members disliked Trump seems obvious, but most striking is their disdain for Trump’s desire to be close to the soiled masses, to actually desire to “walk with the people”.
While Mr. Joscelyn appears to be dismissive of President Trump’s efforts to provide protection, he inadvertently exonerates President Trump by confirming that Trump did indeed offer to send National Guard troops. The contention that he did not “order” troops to be on site is irrelevant because despite what Mr. Joscelyn states in his opening line, everyone knows that President Trump had no desire to dictate and override the wishes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and/or D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser. Many Trump loyalists and even President Trump himself have stated that the “offer” of troops was turned down by both Pelosi and Bowser. Therefore, the focus on the term “ordered” seems to be a bit obfuscatory.
If anything, Mr. Joscelyn’s article paints a picture of President Trump’s management style which contrasts quite sharply from the dictatorial tyrant his opposition seeks to portray. Like any leader, I am sure President Trump has his non-negotiables, but based on Mr. Joscelyn’s article it seems that President Trump is quite a bit more collaborative than the media and his opposition would lead us to believe. The article seems to confirm that Trump really did want the National Guard on site, and he trusted his team to carry out his directives without dictating. In fact, the article confirms more than once, that President Trump did want National Guardsmen on site. The article confirms that Trump wanted to be on the ground walking with his supports, yet this supposed dictator was talked out of it. “White House Senior Advisor Max Miller “shot it down immediately” because of concerns about the President’s safety.”
Although the article mockingly suggests that Trump only wanted additional National Guardsmen to protect himself and his supporters, this same article confirms the offer of support to the D.C. Mayor. In fact, D.C. Mayor Bowser’s written response on January 5th made it clear that D.C. was not requesting additional federal law enforcement personnel which seems to confirm that additional personnel was offered.
In addition to the “order” obfuscation, Mr. Joscelyn attempts to focus our attention only on the Capitol itself, suggesting that President Trump never had a desire to protect the Capitol and wanted the Capitol to be vulnerable to attack.
Again, for any honest person paying attention, the entire purpose of the January 6th Committee was to uncover President Trump’s conspiracy to violently overthrow the United States government, yet Mr. Joscelyn—one of the principal drafters of the committee’s final report—wants us to believe that President Trump was indeed requesting an additional 10,000 National Guardsmen to protect and surround him and his supporters so that he could make it easier for any rioters amongst them to attack the Capitol. Really?
With regards to the Capitol itself, unfortunately, it is almost laughable to believe anyone could take seriously that United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack because the sole person making the selections for the committee was a central player in the events, and yet that person, Nancy Pelosi, was not called upon to offer anything to the committee.
President Trump says he offered additional troops to Nancy Pelosi to protect the Capitol, and like Mayor Bowser, she also refused. This rings true based on the statements of former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund who states he requested heightened security a number of times in the days before January 6th, but his requests were not granted by Pelosi appointee, Sergeant at Arms, Paul Irving.
Now there are reports that some of the documents related to the committee have been either destroyed, redacted or encrypted preventing oversight, review and scrutiny of the committee’s work.
With the passage of time, missing documents, and the refusal to question Nancy Pelosi there appeared to be no way to probe her conscience and assess her role in all of this—until now. Miraculously, after so much time has passed a video tape of Nancy Pelosi admitting her culpability has surfaced, undeniable truth of her consciousness of guilt.
Amazing, after all of the accusations and reports, it seems President Donald J. Trump was one of the few that actually wanted to protect all the people from violence that day based on all the offers of support he made up until January 5th.
Mr. Joscelyn concludes his article with an unwitting complement to President Trump while he casts aspersions against the testimony of Kash Patel, the former Chief of Staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller. Again, Mr. Joscelyn clings to his President Trump did not “order” troop deployment narrative to bolster his case. He even sites a judge from the State of Colorado involved in proceeding to have Trump banned from the ballot. Joscelyn explicitly states that the Colorado district court found “not credible” Patel’s testimony that “then-President Trump authorized 10,000-20,000 National Guard forces” prior to January 6th.
At first glance it appears the Colorado court finding would completely undercut Patel’s testimony, but not when you consider what Joscelyn writes as his article continues: “The Colorado district court found that Patel’s claim was “illogical” because “Trump only had authority over about 2,000 National Guardsmen” and would have needed to “contact the Governors of other States and they would have had to then give orders, or he would have had to federalize the Guardsmen from those States.” None of that happened.”
Based solely on what Mr. Joscelyn has written, it seems to me that the court may have had some bias, or may have misinterpreted Patel’s use of the word “authorized” as being equivalent to an “order”, because, according to Mr. Joscelyn, the court spells out what needed to be done to effect an “order” of National Guard deployment—contact Governors of other States, or federalize the Guardsmen. Since none of that happened it seems obvious that when Mr. Patel speaks of troops being “authorized” he is speaking of an “offer” not an “order”. This should be clear to everyone, including Mr. Joscelyn who also quotes Mr. Patel from his January 6th Committee testimony to have said, “I don’t think it’s an order”.
Whether it was an “order” or an “authorization” or an “offer” the facts—and Patel’s testimony—bolster President Trump’s claims that he wanted additional troops to heighten security.
Now, why didn’t President Trump just federalize the National Guard as the Colorado court suggests he could have done? Well, maybe President Trump really isn’t the fascist dictator that those who oppose him say he is. Maybe he felt it was best to contact the D.C. Mayor and the Speaker of the House to suggest they accept a free offer of support. Maybe he felt it was best for the country to persuade others to join him rather than dictate, especially when just days before Jan. 6th, an op-ed penned by former defense secretaries, including Liz Cheney’s father, Dick Cheney, argued against involving the military, an op-ed that was later reported to have been organized by Liz Cheney who allegedly “secretly orchestrated” a pressure campaign to prevent the Defense Department from deploying resources on January 6, 2021. Therefore, trying to claim it was actually President Trump who did not want to request military support is quite shameless.
We all regret the tragic events of January 6th, but it seems those events could have been avoided by heeding the calls for support and protection from President Trump and with proper planning by local and congressional leadership on JANUARY 5TH.
Donald Trump is not perfect, but the facts do not show he wanted to orchestrate a violent coup. Even as Democrats, at some point we must concede that it is fair to ask questions, especially when so many allegations have been debunked and confirmed as hoaxes.
Years of accusations revealed that Trump did not collude with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
Trump did not use the “Fine people on both sides” statement to praise Nazis in Charlottesville.
Yes, the Covid-19 pandemic did originate from a Wuhan lab leak.
Yes, Hunter Biden’s laptop is real.
Legalizing domestic violence is not a good thing, as demonstrated in the Olympic boxing ring.
Opening borders is not an expression of love for your country, and it does not increase safety.
It’s heartbreaking that there are those so willing to ignore the open border’s tragic consequences, just because they have not been personally affected, and it’s incredible to think there are so many who want to convince themselves that the number of “newcomers” will not easily swell to 50 million or 100 million or more just because their chosen candidate has made statements during an election campaign contradicting their own years of inaction.
Somehow, they twist themselves into believing a politician who refuses to close the border, just because that politician is now saying they want to close the border if given more time, yet that same politician is simultaneously broadcasting ads indicating they are against any deportations. Such typical political doublespeak proves their values have not changed and it exposes the intention to do nothing to contradict the will of their preferred “newcomers”. Their supporters will wish there were only 50 million on their way before it is all over.
The plans to destroy American sovereignty and citizenship along with our border aligns perfectly with the efforts to denigrate and demoralize our military, signaling to the world that in their view America is not worth defending. It’s no secret that American military recruitment is down; the entire world knows. What better indicator could you have to show that our current leadership has hollowed out the willingness to fight for America than the literal fact that there are fewer willing to sign up and fight for America. American citizenship means nothing to those who open our borders and speak proudly against deportation. When they tell you who they are and what they believe—believe them.
It is now fair game for some in America to treat our heroes as villains. Why would you send your sons and daughters off to fight for such a country? The destruction of America seems quite deliberate. A major party candidate who wants a leadership role in our nation knowingly lies about serving in combat, and then tries to shame combat and disabled veterans and other Americans for pointing out those lies.
Americans who want to honor and respect—or even donate to causes that support—combat or disabled veterans are not part of a hate group that is belittling those who did not fight in combat. They are not deplorable just because they feel that combat role has a special place that should afford them at the very least the truth about who served in combat. In a country well-loved that is something once clearly understood, especially by politicians who want to claim leadership.
Our country is at a crossroads, yet there are still so many unanswered questions.
They say we are fighting for the soul of a nation, and on that we can all agree. We will see if our nation’s soul is such that we will be forever remembered for rewarding the intent of assassins’ bullets.
We believe presidential candidates owe the American people an explanation of their policies, and answering economic policy questions by leading with anecdotes about growing up with neighbors who were proud of their lawns does not reassure anyone, especially when your history includes a leadership role in the city of San Francisco.
Everyone knows the downtown area is a representation of a city’s front lawn. Therefore, it seems the candidate has had quite the head start. Welcome to the new landscape across all of America—our new American lawn. The plans to turn every American town into a border town with the drugs, overcrowding, and squalor of San Francisco—and other cities—is well underway.
We are certain there are some who feel differently, but if you would like to support our efforts to give voice to those who really do want to come together for what we believe is the good of the country, please consider making a contribution to help support us.
Thank you,
JANUARY5TH.COM