Attorney General Merrick Garland has increased the number of officers who died as a result of protests on Jan. 6, 2021 from one to five.
Officer Brian Sicknick died the following day of a stroke, but four others who were present during the disruption of the proceedings of Congress later killed themselves, and Garland is labeling those deaths “line of duty” deaths.
“On this day, four years ago, police officers were brutally assaulted while bravely defending the United States Capitol. They were punched, tackled, tased, and attacked with chemical agents that burned their eyes and skin. Today, I am thinking of the officers who still bear the scars of that day as well as the loved ones of the five officers who lost their lives in the line of duty as a result of what happened to them on January 6, 2021,” Garland said.
“January 6 was a violent attack on the law enforcement officers defending the Capitol, and it was an unprecedented attack on a cornerstone of our system of government — the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next,” Garland said in a statement on Monday, Jan. 6, 2024, on his last Jan. 6 as attorney general.
“Over the past four years, our prosecutors, FBI agents, investigators, and analysts have conducted one of the most complex, and most resource-intensive investigations in the Justice Department’s history,” he said.
“They have analyzed massive amounts of physical and digital data, identified and arrested hundreds of people who took part in unlawful conduct that day, and initiated prosecutions and secured convictions across a wide range of criminal conduct. We have now charged more than 1,500 individuals for crimes that occurred on January 6, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to the attack,” Garland said.
Garland placed no blame on Speaker Nancy Pelosi or others in for refusing to secure the Capitol that day, as was her responsibility.
Some of those who were charged by the Department of Justice were allowed into the Capitol that day by Capitol Police, and others followed them, as Capitol Police opened up the doors to allow protesters to enter. Extensive video evidence supports this statement.
Watch as Pelosi and her staff prepare her official statement.
Watch tapes that Pelosi kept secret until subpoenaed by the second House committee.
The official narrative has been disputed for years by critics and again by the recently released report by the House Subcommittee on Oversight, which pointed out the many contradictions and failures of the Speaker Nancy Pelosi-appointed investigation, which was deeply politicized and focused on President Donald Trump. Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Bennie Thompson led that earlier committee and published their own Jan. 6 Committee report.
Loudermilk’s committee contradicts much of that report, saying, “there was not just one single cause for what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6; but it was a series of intelligence, security, and leadership failures at several levels and numerous entities. Even amid multiple failures, there were two common elements that significantly contributed to the security issues: an excessive amount of political influence on critical decisions, and a greater concern over the optics than for protecting life and property.”
In Washington, optics are everything.
“The American people deserve a government they can trust and be proud of. Unfortunately, the failures, coverups and false accusations in the aftermath of January 6 have only increased the people’s distrust of Washington D.C.,” the Loudermilk report said.
In Washington, coverups are daily occurrences.
“Americans expect and deserve a government that is small in size, limited in scope, and fully accountable to the people, as our Founders intended. The actions of some elected officials and certain government bureaucrats in the aftermath of January 6, 2021, are evidence of how we have ventured far away from those basic principles of our constitutional republic. Transparency, accountability, and equal application of the law are the only solutions to return our nation to one
that is free, safe and full of opportunity. I sincerely pray that this report is just the beginning of an era of restoring our federal government to the basic principles of transparency and accountability,” he wrote in the cover letter to the report.
Among the Loudermilk subcommittee report findings:
FINDING 1: President Trump did not attack his Secret Service detail at any time on January 6.
FINDING 2: There was no pre-planned off-the-record move to the Capitol in the days leading up to January 6.
FINDING 3: There is no evidence that President Trump agreed with rioters chanting “hang Mike Pence.”
FINDING 4: Cassidy Hutchinson, the Cheney committee’s star witness, falsely claimed to have drafted a handwritten note for President Trump on January 6.
FINDING 5: President Trump did not have intelligence indicating violence on the morning of January 6.
FINDING 6: Cassidy Hutchinson lied about the classification status of documents to disparage Mark Meadows.
FINDING 7: Representative Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson attempted to disbar Stefan Passantino.
FINDING 8: Cassidy Hutchinson misrepresented President Trump’s actions at Lafayette Square Park in the summer of 2020.
“The events of January 6, 2021, were preventable. The politicization of Capitol security directly contributed to the many structural and procedural failures witnessed that day,” the report said.
