California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

The BIG LIE

by John Lawrence

A lot of people still believe the Big Lie - that Joe Biden didn't legitimately win the election. What isn't talked about is all the other Big Lies which the Republican party has been telling their constituents for years: the Big Lie that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, the Big Lie that Obama was born in Kenya, the Big Lie about selling arms to Iran to benefit the Contras, the Big Lie represented by the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which escalated  the Vietnam war (OK that was Johnson, a Democrat), the Big Lie that Hillary was responsible for the death of White House attorney Vince Foster, the Big Lie that Hillary ran a child sex ring in a pizza restaurant and much more. There are more Big Lies, most of them associated with Republicans, especially Republican Presidents George W Bush, Ronald Reagan and Dick Nixon (his Big Lie was "I am not a crook.").

Lying is part and parcel of the way Republicans do business. How else to get a bunch of people to vote against their own real interests? Republicans have trained their base to respond favorably to them based on lies. Lies are usually juicier than the truth. The truth is often very mundane and quotidian. The truth is that Hillary was a very experienced and capable public servant. That's not too exciting. And then there was George H W Bush's dog whistle racist campaign ad about Willy Horton, a murderer who escaped prison on a week-end pass devised by his opponent Michael Dukakis. Racism probably won Bush the Presidency.

George W Bush was determined to invade Iraq. He went out of his way to no avail to pin 9/11 on Saddam. When no evidence could be found of this, he fabricated evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. In The Untold History of the United States, the authors write:

"Lacking evidence, they manufactured their own. Cheney and Libby pointed repeatedly to a meeting in Prague between the hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence official, even though Tenet had proved that Atta was in the United States at the time of the alleged meeting, living in Virginia in the shadow of CIA headquarters. ...

"Using this kind of notoriously false information, the administration challenged the findings of CIA analysts and UN weapons inspectors and tirelessly made its case for invading Iraq. "We know they have weapons of mass destruction," Rumsfield insisted. "There isn't any debate about it." In early October 2002, Bush, echoing a similar warning from Rice a month before, announced, "we cannot wait for the final proof - the smoking gun - that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." But no one could outdo Cheney when it came to outright fabrications and dire prognostications:

"'The Iraqi regime has ... been very busy in enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents, and they continue to pursue the nuclear program. ... Armed with an arsenal of these weapons of terror and a seat at a top [sic] 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, Saddam Hussein could then be expected to seek domination of the entire Middle East, take control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail. Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction; there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, our allies and us.'"

Of course after the invasion no weapons of mass destruction were actually found. Recently deceased and highly decorated General Colin Powell was sent forth to argue about the existence of WMD in Iraq. The authors continue:

"But the most ignominious moment came on February 5, 2003, when Secretary of State Colin Powell, the most respected and trusted member of the administration, went before the United Nations and made the case for war. Bush had handpicked Powell for the job. "You have the credibility to do this," he told Powell. "Maybe they'll believe you." ...

"It was a thoroughly shameful performance that Powell later called a low point in his career. ... Members of the intelligence community were outraged over Pentagon neocons' hijacking, distorting and fabricating intelligence. When the nonexistent WMD failed to materialize, New York Time columnist Nicholas Kristof described them as "spitting mad" and eager to have their say. One lashed out, "As an employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, I know that this administration has lied to the public to get support for its attacks on Iraq."

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, "As we know today, the Bush administration's reasons for the Iraq war were based on lies."

George W Bush's Big Lie cost a lot of American and Iraqi lives. So far Trump's Big Lie has cost the lives of relatively few Capitol policemen. But the stage is set for an assault on American democracy itself. The perpetration of Trump's Big Lie is being carried on by his henchmen in Congress and in the media. Their use of symbols such as flags in the January 6 insurrection is reminiscent of all the flags, symbols and pageantry of Nazi Germany, much of which was designed by Hitler himself who was an artist who failed to gain entrance to the Munich University before aspiring to world domination. The cries of "We're Number 1" by the insurrectionists and other bellicose Americans are echoes of their predecessors' cries of "Heil Hitler."

Off the Top of My Head

That's Not Who We Are

by John Lawrence

Obama declared: "That's not who we are" when opining about the more hateful aspects of American society. But the reality is that's who we veritably is, at least some of us Americans. It's impossible to generalize about the American character. We are not a monolithic society. Take Charlottesville for instance. Latter day confederates and ku klux klaners. That's not who we are? That's who some of us are. That's the problem. There is no common set of values. Trump said there were good people on both sides. What is the definition of a "good person"? Is it one who fights to maintain his own way of life or is it one who tries to reach accommodation with others and understand their point of view. For America as a nation in general, it is more the former than the latter. Historically at least since WW II, the US has always taken the path of using force and power to maintain its standing in the world and to maintain its right to exploit the resources of weaker nations while ignoring the welfare of their people. The US has supported right wing, authoritarian dictatorships in South America and elsewhere so that the "supply chain" of natural resources could be extracted and shipped back to the homeland while keeping the cheap native labor cheap. There was no effort to improve the lifestyles of the natives. Those locals who sought to do so were overthrown and right wing dictatorships were installed in Chile, Nicaragua, Argentina, Iran and many other countries too numerous to mention. For many years it was all about the oil. Now we realize that that oil transformed into greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere is what's killing us.

When Gorbachev sought detente and the elimination of nuclear weapons in the world, Reagan hung on to his Star Wars fantasy. Neoconservatives in the Reagan administration considered Gorbachev's stated desire to bring peace to the world a sign of weakness to be exploited rather than a signal that a new era of peace could be at hand. This neoconservative foreign policy has been the policy of US Presidents both Democrat and Republican. Jimmy Carter had his Zbigniew Brzezhinski. Nixon had his Henry Kissenger. Reagan and the Bushes had a whole host of neocons fashioning their foreign policy. Reagan himself had no idea about what to do other than that he was against communism. Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick wrote in "The Untold History of the United States":

"But what is Reagan's real legacy? One of the most poorly informed and least engaged chief executives in U.S. history, he empowered a right wing resurgence of hard-line anti-communists who militarized U.S. foreign policy and rekindled the Cold War. He paid lip service to democracy while arming and supporting repressive dictators. He turned local and regional conflicts in the Middle East and Latin America into Cold War battlegrounds, unleashing a reig of terror to suppres popular movements. He spent enormous sums on the military while cutting social programs for the poor. He sharply reduced taxes on the wealthy, tripling the national debt and transforming the U.S. from the world's leading creditor in 1981 into its biggest debtor by 1985. In October 1987, he oversaw the worst stock market collapse since the Great Depression. He let the chance to rid to rid the world of offensive nuclear weapons [proposed by Gorbachev] slip through his fingers because he wouldn't let go of a childish fantasy [Star Wars]. And as for his much-vaunted role in ending the Cold War, as we shall see, the lion's share of credit goes instead to his Soviet counterpart,. Mikhail Gorbachev."

Is it any wonder then, that a chauvinistic and self-serving foreign policy has been internalized by so many "patriots" like the ones who attacked Capitol police on January 6, 2021? They just want what we already have: access to the natural resources of the world for Americans at the expense of indigenous peoples, the continuation of a way of life that favors the fortunes of white, European immigrants at the expense of African American forced immigrants, Latin American immigrants as well as Native Americans. When Obama says over and over, "That's not who we are," it's wishful, thinking because that's exactly who many of us are.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Can't Be Allowed to Run Again

by John Lawrence

This man tried to overthrow the Constitution and precipitated an insurrection. If he runs again, it'll be the end of Constitutional democracy in America. What is treason if it is not attempting to overturn the results of an election? Let's start with the fact that he asked the Secretary of State of Georgia to find him 11,000 more votes so he would have one more vote than Biden in that crucial state. But that's only the beginning, folks. It gets worse from there. CNN reported: "A conservative lawyer working with then-President Donald Trump's legal team tried to convince then-Vice President Mike Pence that he could overturn the election results on January 6 when Congress counted the Electoral College votes by throwing out electors from seven states, according to the new book "Peril" from Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa." An attempt at election fraud is enough not only to disqualify Trump from ever holding public office again. It is also sufficient, in my opinion, for him to be tried for treason. The January 6 Committee is on course to bring out all the sordid facts, but, if they don't also go further and "disbar" Trump from ever running for public office, they will not have gone far enough. After all Clinton was disbarred for having sex in the oval office, a minor offense compared to what Trump has done.

If Trump should run again, he will undoubtedly call the election results another "Big Lie" unless he should happen to win of course which I don't think he would. Trump's base although sizable is dwindling to a certain hard core. Most Democrats and independents will not vote for him, but, if he runs again, there will be trouble. Another civil war is not out of the question. In order to avert one, the January 6 committee needs to run the course of its investigation and then to take action to prevent Trump from ever holding public office again. Better to nip this cancer on the Constitution in the bud than face the consequences of a man running for public office that is fully capable of precipitating another crisis. Trump has not even accepted the fact that he lost the last election. Imagine how he could whip up crowds if he wouldn't accept the results of the next election.

The book, "Peril" pointed out:

"The Eastman memo laid out a six-step plan for Pence to overturn the election for Trump, which included throwing out the results in seven states because they allegedly had competing electors. In fact, no state had actually put forward an alternate slate of electors -- there were merely Trump allies claiming without any authority to be electors.

 

"Under Eastman's scheme, Pence would have declared Trump the winner with more Electoral College votes after the seven states were thrown out, at 232 votes to 222. Anticipating "howls" from Democrats protesting the overturning of the election, the memo proposes, Pence would instead say that no candidate had reached 270 votes in the Electoral College. That would throw the election to the House of Representatives, where each state would get one vote. Since Republicans controlled 26 state delegations, a majority could vote for Trump to win the election."

 

So Democrats should treat the present situation as the preamble to a possible civil war in which they hold most of the cards because they control the government. They should do everything possible to neuter Trump and his cronies lest they should rear their ugly heads again in 2024 at which time they will be a more formidable force. It's not so much about politics as it is about whether or not the US will remain a democracy focused on solving the problems of average Americans and remains a constructive force in solving the problems of planet Earth like global warming. If Clinton could be disbarred for sex, Trump needs to be disbarred from ever running again, sex being the least of his transgressions.

Off the Top of My Head

If Bill Clinton Was Disbarred for Having Sex, Trump Should Never Be Allowed to Hold Public Office Again for Violating the Constitution

by John Lawrence

Although they haven't driven in the final nail, it's becoming obvious that Trump deliberately tried to overthrow the election thus violating the Constitution. In addition to Trump's violating his oath to defend and protect the Constitution, he has considerable financial problems especially in regard to violating tax laws. Seven Springs, a 213-acre swath of nature surrounding a Georgian-style mansion, is a subject of two state investigations: a criminal probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and a civil inquiry by New York Attorney General Letitia James. In addition to that Trump owes hundreds of millions in loans coming due in the near future. Mother Jones reported:

"The insurrection, which Trump openly egged on, changed the calculus for many of the businesses that deal with Trump. In the aftermath of the attack, nearly all of the financial institutions that Trump dealt with said they would no longer do business with him. In fact, a number of his financial partners, including a small bank in Florida that was his most recent lender, announced they would close his accounts and return his money. Even the PGA, pulled its 2022 championship from Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey golf course. Meanwhile, numerous tenants of Trump properties said they would be moving out, meaning his building would no longer look so appealing to investors who don’t care about associating with Trump."

Now compare Trump's outright violation of his oath of office and attempt to foment a coup with Bill Clinton's punishment for having oral sex with an intern. The Guardian reported:

"The US supreme court yesterday issued an order disbarring former president Bill Clinton from practising law before the high court. The ruling is seen as marking the official end of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The ruling struck a jarring note in the current mood of national unity. Mr Clinton has been praised for the supportive role he has been playing and the way he has thrown his political weight behind President George Bush. The court did not explain its reasons for the disbarment, although such a decision usually follows disbarment in a lower court. In April, Mr Clinton's Arkansas law licence was suspended for five years and he was given a $25,000 fine."

Having illicit sex was the least of Trump's offenses. Remember the Access Hollywood tape? Yet compared to Bill Clinton, Trump has paid no penalty whatsoever ... yet ... for attempting to overthrow the US government. In the final analysis it might be tax evasion and misleading investors that gets Trump. Seven Springs caught investigators’ attention after Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen told a congressional committee in 2019 that Trump had a habit of manipulating property values — inflating them in some cases and minimizing them in others to gain favorable loan terms and tax benefits. Remember, the authorities got Al Capone on tax evasion. In any event Trump should be prohibited from ever holding public office including the Presidency again.

Off the Top of My Head

Were the January 6 Insurrectionists True Patriots?

by John Lawrence

So what is patriotism? Waving the flag and saluting the military? The insurrectionists had a militarized consciousness. They were acting under orders from their leader like they were used to doing in the military. That's the danger in a country that bases its value on militarily controlling the rest of the world, being the world's policeman, and processing its high school graduates through the military. They were used to following orders, and Trump gave them the order, "Stop the Steal." Their mindset was waving flags and following orders. They assumed the role of true believers, true patriots. Were they? If these guys were patriots, what does this make the rest of us?

The whole idea of patriotism, unquestioned allegiance to one country is outdated in an era where the very existence of a habitable earth for humans in any country is in question. Our patriotism has to be redirected to Mother Earth itself. The question is is the human race capable of redirecting its allegiance, its patriotism to Mother Earth, or must we continue to elevate our own nationality as the supreme ideal? I wrote on January 20:

So it comes to light that a great many of the insurrectionists were military or ex-military. Why should that be surprising? People that are processed through the military are proto-fascists because the military is not a democratic institution. It's a top-down, command and control organization where people are trained to kill. This is the mindset to which they are trained and instructed. On the other hand I venture to guess that not too many of the insurrectionists were previously Peace Corps members. It's a totally different mindset when the group you belong too is structured so as to help people rather than to hurt, maim, kill or dominate them. The insurrectionists are jingoes, and this is the definition from dictionary.com which suits them to a T: "a person who professes his or her patriotism loudly and excessively, favoring vigilant preparedness for war and an aggressive foreign policy; bellicose chauvinist." Bellicose chauvinists are people trained in the military because the military trains them to be unquestionably subservient to those above them in command and unquestionably threatening towards anyone perceived to be the enemy. Social media and conservative media has made no bones about who they consider to be the enemy. That would be any prominent Democrat past or present.

Our allegiance at this point in history needs to be to humanity in general and to the preservation of Mother Earth as a habitable environment for humans and other animals. Is that even possible for a species that has thrived on war and violence since the beginning of time? We'll see.

I wrote previously:

Patriotism as now defined is based on militarism. Patriotic displays are expressions of militarism. Love of country is expressed in jingoistic terms: "We're number one!" Instead, war and militarism should be thought of as necessary evils instead of exalting them. The goal should be to eliminate them while at the same time building the foundations for peace and prosperity in the world. There should be opportunities for those who want to serve their country by eliminating poverty, building infrastructure, saving the environment, curing the sick and extending helping hands to the underserved and downtrodden.

God bless America and Mother Earth.

Covid is Resurging. So is Trumpian Politics.

by Robert Reich
Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Despair is worse after a brief period of hope. I don’t know about you, but I was elated earlier this spring when it seemed as if Trump and COVID were gone, and Biden seemed surprisingly able to get the nation rapidly back on track.  

Now much is sliding backwards. It’s not Biden’s fault; it’s Trump’s ongoing legacy.

The new Delta strain of the virus requires, according to the CDC, that we go back to wearing masks inside in public places where the virus is surging, even if we’re fully inoculated.

This would be nothing more than a small disappointment and inconvenience were it not for Republicans using it as another opportunity to politicize public health.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy responded to the new CDC recommendation with the kind of unhinged hyperbole Trumpers have perfected. “The threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state,” he said.

Republican politicizing of public health will get worse if the Delta variant continues to surge. At some point vaccines will have to be mandated because being inoculated is not solely a matter of personal choice. Herd immunity is a common good. If infections mount, that common good can only be achieved if nearly everyone is vaccinated.

But those eager to exploit the virus’s resurgence – the know-nothings, Trump wannabe’s, vilely ambitious political upstarts, Tucker Carlsons and similarly cynical entertainers – are already howling about “personal freedom” threatened by “socialism.”

The investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 is further evidence of how far the Republican Party has descended into opportunistic treachery.

We need to know what happened and why if we are to have half a chance of avoiding a repeat. Just as with the history of systemic discrimination and brutality against Black people in America – which Republicans are calling “critical race theory” and trying to ban from classrooms – the truth shapes our responses to the future.

Here again, the dispiriting aspect of the present moment is Republican denial and obfuscation.

As Officer Michael Fanone – who suffered traumatic brain injury on Jan 6 when rioters attacked him – testified yesterday at the start of the hearings, “What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens — including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend — are downplaying or outright denying what happened.”

With the exception of Rep. Liz Cheney – whom I never expected to hold up as a model of integrity – Republicans are eager to divert the public’s attention. Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik declared at a press conference yesterday that “Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility, as speaker of the House, for the tragedy that occurred on Jan. 6.”

This is absurd on its face. The Speaker of the House shares responsibility for Capitol security with the Senate majority leader, who at the time of the attack was Mitch McConnell. If Pelosi was negligent – and there’s zero evidence she was – McConnell was as well.

Stefanik and other Republican leaders don’t want the public to know about Republican members of Congress who were almost certainly involved in the travesty, either directly or indirectly. The list includes Representatives Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, Paul Gosar, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Andrew Biggs, and McCarthy himself. Senator Josh Hawley also seems to have been on the know, given his fist-salute to the rioters.

And then there’s Trump himself, cheerleader and ringleader.

All should be subpoenaed. All, presumably, will fight the subpoenas in court.

Meanwhile, Trump continues to stage rallies for his avid followers as he did last weekend in Phoenix, where he declared “Our nation is up against the most sinister forces… This nation does not belong to them, this nation belongs to you.”

Wrong. America belongs to all of us. And we all have a responsibility to protect its public health and its democratic institutions. The real sinister force is the Trump Republicans’ cynical exploitation of lies and anti-scientific rubbish to divide and divert us.

Months ago, it seemed as if this darkness was behind us. It is not.

Off the Top of My Head

Radicalized Veterans Supporting Trump in the Vanguard of January 6 Insurrection

by John Lawrence

Time magazine has an excellent article by Vera Bergengruen/Arab, Ala. and W.J. Hennigan/Washington, "From Combat to Conspiracy" detailing how radicalized veterans led the insurrection on January 6. I wrote about this previously in an article The Militarization of the American Mind. The fact of the matter is that the US military-industrial complex is composed not only of active military and corporations profiting from military hardware, but also a large number of civilians who are ex-military. The whole meme about honoring veterans - "Thank you for your service" - presupposes that these people are loyal Americans, not an out of control mob attempting to overthrow the government. Veterans are routinely honored at least in lip service and discounts, but the truth is far more disconcerting. These men and women have been processed through a system that has taught them not to think critically but to follow orders. They are more or less taught to espouse conservative politics.The Times article continues: "Of the more than 500 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, at least 1 in 10 was a current or former member of the U.S. military, according to a George Washington University analysis. Many had served in the protracted post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, returning home to a country that paid them lip service but moved on without much notice to the wars they had fought."

The insurrectionists' attitude is a reflection of the fact that the US is a militarized nation with over 800 bases in almost every country of the world. Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and others form the economic backbone of the nation. Is it any wonder then that at least a sizable minority of the nation's people favor an autocrat like Donald Trump to an experienced public servant like either Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden? When I worked in the military-industrial complex for General Dynamics and the Naval Electronics Laboratory, we were encouraged to vote Republican for fear our funding would decline under a Democratic administration and we would be RIFed (Reduction in Force-ed). This is how insidious the militarization of the American mind actually is. The Times article continues: "[One veteran] became involved with local chapters of the Oath Keepers in central Florida, whose recruiting materials reminded members that their oath was forever. “America’s veterans truly are like a sleeping giant. It is time to awaken them and fill them with a terrible resolve to defeat the domestic enemies of our Constitution,” says one chapter’s mission statement, according to documents reviewed by TIME. “If we can’t get the veterans to step up … to save our Republic, then how can we expect to get the rest of our people to do what must be done?”"

"As with other veterans whose involvement in right-wing groups like the Oath Keepers led them to the Capitol on Jan. 6, James’ descent into alleged extremism seemed less an expression of long-held political fervor than the desire to be part of a larger patriotic cause.

"Little data is kept on how often and why veterans get involved with extremist groups, but there are plenty of high-profile examples throughout American history. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate army general, was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. George Lincoln Rockwell, a Navy veteran, founded the American Nazi Party. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, both Army veterans, were convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

"Founded by a former Army paratrooper in 2009, the Oath Keepers has quickly become one of America’s largest antigovernment extremist groups. It heavily recruits current and former military and law-enforcement members, encouraging them to see themselves as “the last line of defense against tyranny,” according to Oath Keepers websites. The group’s name refers to the oath sworn by members of the military and law enforcement “to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Some members falsely believe that the federal government has been taken over by “a cabal of elites actively trying to strip American citizens of their rights,” according to the FBI."

The military had become for many veterans a way of life that they missed after returning to civilian life. "“Militia groups have really familiar structures of command,” [author] Belew says. “They have structures of fraternal bonding, they have the organizational social elements that are very similar to the armed forces—and they’re built that way deliberately.

"Only now are federal authorities formally drawing up a strategy to handle the problem of military veterans’ joining extremist groups. The Biden Administration’s strategy to combat domestic terrorism includes plans to prevent veterans from being recruited by extremists. Currently, there are no efforts that focus on veterans once they have left service, despite evidence that they are increasingly the targets of online misinformation and extremist recruitment.

"Security analysts, veterans’ groups and experts say it will be vital to combat both the isolation and the fear-mongering that lead former service members to think of their fellow Americans as the enemy or, worse, take the law into their own hands. “It’s important not to fixate too much on the Oath Keepers as an organization but to think of them as a concrete example of a broader phenomenon in America,” says Sam Jackson, a homeland-security expert at the University of Albany who wrote a book on the group. The alleged radicalization of James, the growth of local chapters and the national organization should be “seen as a Russian nesting doll” that shows a much larger movement, he says, “of people who view America as being hijacked by internal and external enemies.” But little is likely to change unless more Americans come to agree on what it means to be an extremist and what it means to be a patriot."

Wake up, America, and smell the coffee. The militarization of the American mind reflects the militarization of America's purported purpose in the world which is to exert military force projected over the whole world. A person like exPresident George W Bush, who lied us into the war in Iraq, has the nerve to criticize Joe Biden for withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan after a 20 year futile war which accomplished nothing. We got Bin Laden in an operation which had nothing to do with boots on the ground in Afghanistan. He was in Pakistan. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11. The attitude of both civilian and military leaders from the top down legitimizes the US' continued military presence throughout the world and thoroughly indoctrinates American veterans and civilians in the military mindset. Until the US becomes a nation which is more interested in promoting development throughout the world and contributing to the betterment of peoples' lives throughout the world, a large number of Americans will favor right wing causes and conservative politics.

FBI Begins Arresting People Accused of Assaulting Journalists at Capitol on January 6

Equipment of media crews damaged when hundreds of former President Donald Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol security in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

 

"It's about damn time," said one journalist.

 

Julia Conley, staff writer

July 3, 2021

Press freedom advocates on Saturday were encouraged by news that the U.S. Department of Justice has begun making arrests related to attacks on journalists at the Capitol on January 6, when hundreds of supporters of former President Donald Trump violently breached security measures to try to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election results.

In addition to attacking some members of the Capitol Police—including one who later died of his injuries—and stalking lawmakers, some of those who attempted the insurrection targeted members of the media by damaging their equipment, assaulting them, and trying to chase them away from the Capitol. 

"January 6 showed that what the administration says about the media does matter, words do matter, and can have very negative, very real [impacts] on reporters and their ability to do their jobs safely."
—Katherine Jacobsen, Committee to Protect Journalists

Starting last week, the Washington Post reported Saturday, the FBI began arresting people who were violent towards journalists during the riot and who prevented them from reporting at the scene. At least five people have been charged so far, and authorities expect more arrests.

"The vilification of the media that we saw from the previous administration was incredibly concerning, and that played into a longer arc of rising anti-press sentiment across the country," Katherine Jacobsen, a researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists, told the Post. "January 6 showed that what the administration says about the media does matter, words do matter, and can have very negative, very real [impacts] on reporters and their ability to do their jobs safely."

Advocates began calling for those who targeted journalists at the Capitol to be held to account shortly after the attack.

"The violence displayed toward the media during the assault on the United States Capitol has no place in a democracy," said Carlos Martinez de la Sern, a program director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, two days after the riot. "Individuals who threatened and assaulted journalists must be held accountable for their actions."

The FBI is charging the people in question with "committing violence in the restricted grounds of the Capitol, or destroying property on the Capitol grounds," the Post reported, because there are no federal laws specifically barring attacks on journalists. 

Those charged so far include Shane Jason Woods of Illinois, who allegedly tackled a cameraperson with a news outlet to the ground; Sandra Weyer of Pennsylvania, who allegedly filmed and encouraged a group of men to attack a New York Times photojournalist; and Chase Kevin Allen, who was reportedly filmed stomping on reporters' equipment. 

"It's about damn time," Detroit-based journalist Martina Guzman tweeted. 

During the riot, the phrase "murder the media" was scrawled on a door inside the Capitol and a mob destroyed equipment owned by Associated Press reporters, reportedly tying some electrical cords from the cameras into a noose.

The attack on the Capitol and attempt to stop the democratic process came as Trump and other Republican lawmakers made false claims about the legitimacy of the election results and claimed the election had been stolen—and followed years of attacks by Trump on the media, which he referred to as "the enemy of the people" at rallies, prompting outcry from U.S. press freedom groups as well as the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression.

Following years of hostility toward journalists coming from the White House, the Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press said the recent charges "send a very clear message that the Justice Department will protect journalists who are doing their jobs to keep us informed."

"We welcome the Justice Department's steps to hold people accountable for assaulting journalists and damaging their equipment as they documented one of the worst attacks on our democracy in recent times," said Bruce Brown, the group's executive director.

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