The Cases Against Trump No One Is Talking About
Where it all began. Did we forget?
On Wednesday, Sept. 28, The House Select Committee to investigate the January 6 Attack on the Capitol (J6 Committee) resumes its public presentation and questioning based on available testimony of the events leading up to and including the attempt on January 6 to stop the Senate certification of Joe Biden as President of the United States.
The lurch of America’s attention to Wednesday’s J6 Committee hearing is ‘breaking news’ on most cable networks. Though no official announcement has been made, the presentation on Wednesday may be the committee’s last. By year’s end, the Committee will be releasing a report about its year-and a half long investigation. The import of the J6 Committee report and the urgency of its release is due to the probability that a Republican majority in the House would dismantle the Committee and reduce its report to a partisan windbag, fist thumping tantrum, a ‘nothing burger.’
The other consequence of releasing the Committee findings is the referral of all information and testimony originating from efforts by the Committee to the Justice Department for prosecution of criminal activity.
For the families of the Capitol Police, the report will help support their claims in multiple civil suits they have brought against the former President, his staff and riot organizers.
These are the cases no one wants to talk about.
That’s the pity.
Hindered by a reluctance to shoulder common suffrage, something individualistic, exceptional America finds anathema, few writing about the various Trump litigations have considered the prominence of the Capitol Police claims.
Rather, consider…
a civil suit requires a preponderance of evidence by the plaintiff to convince a jury (or judge) to award restitution;
the claims of the Capitol Police will sustain the reckoning of harm well past November’s House election results;
the nature of this reckoning provides impetus for understanding insurrection and mob violence, and the roles of authorities in enforcing the law;
the claims are against Trump and the White House, raising the primary question about intent, tendered by the J6 Committee, why the neglectful response to the violence, why the turning from the desperate cries for backup and additional protection for the Capitol Police;
and ultimately, how does one adjudicate these claims to deter repeated assaults and violations?
The public aspects of the J6 Committee’s presentation are both revealing and distractive. We cringe when the mental and physical stress of violence is on display; we quietly cheer while grown white men squirm through pleading the fifth.
“Evidentiary” and “investigative” have entered our vocabulary.
Publishers are lining up. (1)
And yet, ‘sacrifice’ was on display at the first and second J6 Committee presentations (2).
Does one carry ‘sacrifice’ around, to the School Board meeting, to the voting booth? To the kitchen table?
Consider…
that one acknowledges sacrifice; one doesn’t wear sacrifice.
that bad things don’t happen to us doesn’t reduce the harm and affliction.
that the various pandemic responses show that America likes to hear the diagnosis but is reluctant to take its vaccinations.
Or to put this issue in a different more public light, how often do we think that suffering the prick of a needle is lightening the stress of an ER nurse? Or allowing a child to go to school?
The reckoning of mob violence outweighs the intellectualizing on the freedom of speech. Are we lightening the stress of a police officer, of a magistrate, of an elected official?
America suffers the loss of democracy but eschews sacrifice.
And probably we will forget the plight of the Capitol Police on January 6, not when the report by the J6 Committee is released, but before.
September 27
Notes
1-This past week, Harper Collins announced that the “complete J6 Committee Report” with a forward by Ari Melber, MSNBC evening correspondent, will be available when the report is made public… sometime in the future. So Melber stated on his nightly cable show in a five-minute pitch complete with a graphic of the book cover.
Mr. Melber, what is a foreword called to a Congressional Committee report that hasn’t been completed nor released? A teaser.
To the consternation of Committee colleagues, former Committee assistant and Republican Denver Riggleman, went public on 60 minutes peddling his ‘behind the scenes,’ account of the Committee Investigation, complete with many “aha” moments which the Committee work discovered including a nine second White phone call from the White House to a rioter at the Capitol. Hath thou no shame sir? The public presentation has not ended, and you are on the streets hawking your account. If there’s a book deal, there’s a leak. ‘As you unabashedly stated, ‘Follow the money.’ Indeed.
2-Day 1. The Hearing | by Rodney Clough | Medium
DC Capitol Police go “political” to protect democracy | by Rodney Clough | Medium
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