The False Narratives and Lies About the January 6 Capitol Riot, Part One
The January 6 Capitol protest was an "armed insurrection" intended to "overthrow the United States Government"
The Fake News Media, Democrats (some Republicans) and the January 6 Committee relentlessly promote the misconception the January 6, 2021, Capitol Riot was an “armed insurrection to overthrown the United States Government.” A handful of illustrative examples of this hyperbole are listed below.
American Oversight claimed the January 6 protesters were a “heavily armed mob” who “stormed the U.S. Capitol” in an “attempted coup:”
USA Today published an opinion piece on January 4, 2022 entitled:
President Joe Biden called the January 6, 2021 riot, “an attempted coup” during a speech on January 11, 2022. See The Hill.
The Nation out did itself and likened the Capitol Riot to Adolf Hitler and the German National Socialists Workers Party’s 1923 beer hall putsch in an article published on January 3, 2022, entitled, “The Uncanny Resemblance of the Beer Hall Putsch and the January 6 Insurrection.”
To make the Capitol Riot look like an armed uprising, the Fake News Media dramatize and mislead regarding the weapons carried by some of the rioters. On January 16, 2021, The Hill ran an article with the following title, “Police seized alarming number of weapons on Capitol rioters, court documents show.”
On January 13, 2021, NBC News ran a story with the following headline:
On the first anniversary of the January 6 Capitol Riot, President Joe Biden called the event an “armed insurrection.” See here.
In an article published on January 30, 2021, Vogue proclaimed:
Even academic groups joined in on pushing the narrative. A good illustration is The Berkshire Conference of Women Historians which issued a statement on January 10, 2021, calling the January 6 protesters “seditionists who committed treason and attempted to overthrow the US government.” (This group also claimed in the same statement that the United States is a nation founded on the ideals of “white supremacy” and the January 6 crowd was able to “occupy the Capitol because white supremacy allows white people to move freely, rebel and inhabit their --bodies and state spaces – in ways denied racialized people in the US.” That is some radical leftist nonsense. The notion a group of professional academics publicly released such a twisted statement is hard to fathom, but there it is for all to read.)
There is literally an endless stream of similar stories, broadcasts, web articles and other media along these lines. The purpose is to label the events of January 6, 2021, in the most radical, extreme manner possible to mislead people into believing the riot was an organized effort by a mob of radical right wingers armed with guns to overthrow the Federal Government.
THE TRUTH IS QUITE DIFFERENT
If one considers, as most people do, an “armed insurrection” to “overthrow the Government” to be an event orchestrated by an organized group of people armed with guns who actually intend to overthrow the Government, then, no, the January 6, 2021, Capitol Riot was no such thing.
In short, the Capitol Riot was exactly that, a riot.
Armed Insurrection?
Not one single person has been arrested or charged with entering the Capital Building with a firearm on January 6, 2021. Not one single person has been arrested or charged with discharging (shooting) a firearm in connection with the January 6, 2021, Capitol protests. Not one single person has been arrested or charged with brandishing (pointing or displaying) a firearm at the Capitol protests.
In fact, the only shot fired in connection with the Capitol protests was the shot fired by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd who shot and killed protester Ashli Babbit.
Only a handful of people in any way associated with the Capitol protests were arrested for even illegally possessing firearms in the District of Columbia (which has very strict gun laws) on January 6, 2021, and there is zero evidence any of these individuals pulled a gun, shot a gun or used a gun that day.
Only Fake News Media, Democrats and Never Trumpers would claim the riot was an “armed insurrection” when not one single alleged “insurrectionist” (only a handful of which possessed guns) even pointed a gun at anyone.
Of the over 800 people charged with crimes as a result of the Capitol Riots only a fraction (by this writer’s count, less than 100) were armed with any weapons at all and the vast majority of those were flag poles, pepper spray, bats, walking sticks, crutches and similar items.
See American Greatness, February 19, 2021:
Byron York, chief political correspondent with The Washington Examiner wrote an enlightening article on the subject in October 2021:
After an exhaustive look through the Federal charges pending against people associated with the January 6, 2021, Capitol Riot, he wrote: “By any current American standard of civil disorder, what happened Jan. 6 was a riot . . . But a look at the Justice Department prosecutions simply does not make the case that it was an ‘armed insurrection.’” See here.
Regarding the issue of “insurrection” former Federal prosecutor Jeffrey Scott Shapiro wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on January 5, 2022, entitled “Stop Calling Jan. 6 an ‘Insurrection.” In the article, the former Federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia explains why the riot on January 6 was not an “insurrection:”
On March 4, 2021, Jill Sanborn, assistant director of the FBI counter-terrorism division, testified to a U.S. Senate Committee that the FBI did not recover any firearms “on that day from any of the arrests at the scene at this point,” though she could not speak for Metro and Capitol police. See here.
As for the people charged with firearm-related charges arising out of the January 6 Capitol Riot? There are five such individuals, as of this writing:
Christopher Michael Alberts (He was arrested on Jan. 6, at 7:25 p.m., several hours after the riot was over, carrying a handgun on his person. See here. He is not charged with using the firearm in any way.)
Lonnie Leroy Coffman (On Jan. 6, he had a gun on his person and several in his vehicle, along with some jars filled with jellied gasoline. See here. He is not charged with brandishing the weapons or using them in any way.)
Mark Sam Ibrahim (At the time he was a DEA agent who was on leave and carried his DEA-issued sidearm at the protests on January 6. See here. He is not charged with using the firearm in any way.)
Cleveland Grover Meredith, Jr. (He was not even at the January 6 Capitol Riot. He arrived in DC the following day and was arrested on January 7 in the possession of firearms in DC. See here.)
Guy Wesley Reffitt (He was charged with illegally carrying a firearm at the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot. He did not use the firearm. He was on the Capitol grounds, but did not enter the Capitol Building. He was convicted on March 8, 2022 of various charges, but was not even charged with assaulting anyone or using a firearm on anyone. See here.)
Not one person remotely involved in the Capitol Riot is charged with shooting anyone or even pulling a gun on January 6.
Overthrow the Government?
If the Capitol Riot was an effort to overthrow the United States Government one would expect for at least a few people to be charged with conspiring to overthrow the government right? After all, a specific Federal statute, 18 U.S.C. §2384, deals precisely with such a crime, though as we will see, the statute is broader than that.
Of the over 800 people charged with Capitol Riot-related offenses, how many are charged with Seditious Conspiracy to Overthrow the United States Government? The answer is ZERO.
The only individuals charged with violating 18 U.S.C. §2384 are the Oath Keepers. See American Greatness, January 20, 2022. But, they are not charged with attempting to overthrow the government and they are not charged with firearms violations.
18 U.S.C. §2384, the “Seditious Conspiracy” statute provides it is illegal for “two or more persons in any State or Territory” to “. . . conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States . . ..” (Emphasis Added.)
A review of the criminal indictment against the Oath Keepers reflects they are charged with violating 18 U.S.C. §2384, but NOT with trying to overthrow the government. According to the Oath Keepers’ indictment the purpose of the conspiracy was “. . . to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force, by preventing, hindering, or delaying by force the execution of the laws governing the transfer of power.” See Pg. 8, Paragraph 16. (Emphasis Added.)
Thus, the only people charged with Seditious Conspiracy arising out of the events of January 6, 2021, are the Oath Keepers, but they are NOT charged with trying to OVERTHROW the Federal Government. Importantly, none of the Oath Keepers indicted in connection with the January 6 Capitol Riot are charged with firearms violations either. See American Greatness, January 20, 2022, and the indictment.
Simply stated, the Capitol Rioters were were not armed with guns and did not use any guns during the riot. Only a handful of people who even attended any of the rallies had guns and an even tinier number of those individuals had anything to do with the riot itself. (There were tens of thousands of people at January 6 rallies, with a much smaller number actually involved in the riot.) What transpired on January 6, 2021 at our National Capitol did not remotely rise to the level of “armed insurrection.” Furthermore, there is literally no proof whatsoever the Capitol rioters intended to, or were capable of, “overthrowing” the United States Government or perpetrating a “coup.”
IN SUMMARY
A handful of people who attended the rallies at the Capitol on January 6 had guns either in their vehicles or on their person. An even smaller number of people apparently participated in the Capitol Riot while possessing a firearm. No one is charged with entering the Capitol Building with a firearm. No one involved in the Capitol Riots is charged with shooting anyone or even pointing a gun at any one.
A small percentage of the people involved in the Capitol Riots carried non-lethal weapons, such as canes, walking sticks, flag poles, pepper spray and similar items. Many of the pro-Trump supporters who attended the January 6 rallies probably carried non-lethal weapons due to the likelihood of leftist Antifa attacks. See here, here, here and here for a few illustrations of radical leftist violence aimed at Trump supporters.
As for sedition, rebellion or overthrowing the government, not one single person among the more than 800 charged in connection with the January 6 Capitol Riots are charged with any such offense. The closest such charges are against the Oath Keepers and they are charged with conspiring to delay the execution of the law by force, NOT with overthrowing the government.
The January 6 Capitol protests ultimately turned into a riot. That by itself is bad enough without all of the balderdash, exaggerations and embellishment. The claims this ragtag assortment of people, a small portion of which carried flag poles and pepper spray, were intent on overthrowing the U.S. Government or ending our Republic are ludicrous. But, that will not stop the Fake News Media or politicians from spreading misinformation about January 6. They have no regard for the truth or their own lack of credibility.
(This story is derived from a Chapter of my book Fake News Exposed about Trump, Volume One. The book contains many more Chapters dealing with misinformation about the events of January 6, 2021, and many other attacks on President Trump. Pick up a copy at Amazon.)