By Patricia H Kushlis
What did Trump know and when did he know it? Why was Trump reportedly passively watching on television the events unfold on Capitol Hill yet refusing to order the DC, Maryland and Virginia National Guards to help the overrun Capitol and DC police forces stop the violence as his angry and deluded mob attacked Congress?
Why didn’t he accompany the people on their march to the Hill as he had promised?
And why is Trump so desperate to remain in office when he makes it so obvious that he doesn’t like the job, that he is in way over his head and his performance has been an abject failure?
Who were the primary organizers?
What role did certain members of Congress play?
What role did Moscow play in promoting and instigating the insurrection at the Capitol?
Why weren’t the DC National Guard allowed to defend the Capitol and reinforce the vastly outnumbered Capitol and DC Metropolitan police until almost too late? Why and how were calls from Pence, Pelosi and other Congressional leaders finally able to get the Pentagon to release the National Guard?
Why did the Pentagon refuse to allow Maryland Governor Larry Hogan to respond to calls to send the Maryland National Guard in to help deal with the Trump incited angry mob on January 6 as they attacked the Capitol? Why did the Pentagon only allow the DC National Guard to direct traffic for hours after the attack had begun?
Did a few Capitol police allow rioters to breach the barricades or were the policy so outnumbered they had no choice? Who spread the false rumor to the mostly white insurrectionists that the police were on their side? When this failed to transpire, the mob became sorely disappointed and turned on them. One policeman was brutally killed and others injured as a result.
Why did Trump’s GOP Congressional supporters object to the results particularly for states other than their own after those results had been recounted, verified and adjudicated in multiple courts?
Could this, perhaps, have been a delaying tactic to give time for Trump’s mob to disrupt Congress to stop the vote count so that Trump could enact emergency powers, retain control, establish a dictatorship and nullify the election of Joe Biden as the next president?
Why did Trump fire his chosen Secretary of Defense Doug Esper and others in line of succession at the Pentagon as well as the Defense advisory board just last fall and replace them with his cronies who he thought would support him regardless of what he said or did?
Where was Secretary of State Pompeo during all of this. What did he know - or does it matter? He had tried to be out of the country when this occurred so its possible he knew something was up but his European trip to Brussels and Luxembourg was cancelled because the Europeans refused to meet with him.
Why has it taken the social media companies so long to ban Trump from Tweeting lie after lie with little or no attempt to stop the spread of his malicious and unfounded claims? Freedom of speech is one thing in this country. Shouting fire in a crowded room is illegal and must be stopped immediately.
Why did 6 Senators and 147 House GOP Members support Trump’s fallacious charges that the Electoral College vote was fraudulent and raise formal objections to the totals of only certain swing states (often not even their own) that had elected Biden? They knew this last ditch action would fail because the results had all been certified by the states. So why play along with Trump’s fantasies - unless they were simply biding time to allow Trump’s putsch by mob to succeed? In so doing, they went against Senator McConnell, Vice President Pence, Liz Cheney and other GOP party leaders. Yet, far too many of them still defiantly support their actions and a president who was just impeached for a second time. What are they afraid of? Are they themselves as radicalized as Trump's mob?
What did all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all eight living former Secretaries of Defense know in their public warnings to Trump that the military’s allegiance was to the US Constitution, not an individual, that they supported the peaceful transference of power and that Joe Biden would be the next president? These separate letters themselves were unprecedented.
Who funded the insurrection? Where does a suspicious transfer of a Bitcoin deposit from a rarely used account in France on December 8 come into the picture? Or does it?
Who were the participants in the demonstrations, where were they from, how were they recruited and radicalized?
Why did the recently hired counter intelligence officer for the Capitol Police warn his higher ups that violent trouble was coming but this information apparently never got to the rank and file, the FBI and beyond the leadership of the Capitol Police and why was it not taken more seriously?
In short, was this a premeditated act with the goal of retaining Trump in the White House through extra-legal means or was it more a failure of all levels of government to take the warnings seriously. If the former, who was behind it, who organized it, who publicized it and who paid for it?
Trump’s rallying cries to overturn the November 3 election results based purely on his own delusions of election fraud became physical assaults on the US democratic process after his 60 some legal challenges were rejected out of hand by judges at all levels of the US judicial system from local to the Supreme Court. In reality Trump’s accusations of fraudulent election results in swing states that voted for Biden were never credible.
His desperate hour long meandering phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger on Saturday January 2 to “find 11,780 votes” which was all he thought he needed was blatant illegal interference in US elections as was an earlier similar one to a Georgia elections official. In fact, the Georgia results wouldn’t have even changed the Electoral College results. Regardless, Raffensperger stood his ground, told Trump the Georgia election results were accurate and that like it or not, Biden had won the state.
How many other such appeals did Trump make to other Secretaries of State along the same lines or how many of the Senators and Members of the House did he alternately badger and cajole to object to certain state certified vote tallies when they were presented to Congress in what is normally a pro forma event on January 6 of every presidential election year. We know that he tried to pressure a new member of Congress to join the objectors even while the Congress was under siege by his thugs. But one would not have been nearly enough.
As Trump became ever more desperate to retain power by hook or crook and realized that the Congressional approval of Biden as the next president would take place, Trump focused on extra-parliamentary means egged on by ever more extremist advisors including Michael Flynn who had been implicated in lying to the FBI about his Russian connections and consequently lost his job as NSC Advisor shortly after his appointment to it at the very beginning of Trump’s tenure in office. The now Trump-pardoned Flynn reportedly advised him to stage a coup.
Flynn's advice became public and all eight living former Secretaries of Defense reacted by releasing a letter January 3 in support of the democratic process and the peaceful transfer of power. Since the US military leadership had already told Trump at least five times that it was unconstitutional for the military to be used in domestic disputes, Trump turned to disrupting – and invalidating - the acceptance of the Congressional certification of the votes from the 50 states and the District of Columbia by inciting his right wing mob including white supremecist militia groups to attack the Capitol as the vote count was happening.
This event at the Capitol was - up until this year - a pro forma activity performed by both Houses of Congress each presidential election year but something Trump attempted to turn into an anti-democratic putsch. He almost succeeded. It is also now clear that he will attempt to continue his drive to retain power through anti-democratic means - including inciting mobs to attack all 50 state capitols and the Capitol at least up until he leaves office, or is physically removed from the White House before noon January 20, 2021. He now says he will leave for Florida Wednesday morning before Biden is inaugurated and moving vans full of empty boxes have been sited in front of the White House.
But what does Trump's preinauguration departure from Washington, DC portend? Should we give a collective sigh of relief at his final departure from the White House or concerned that there is more mayhem to come that he and his supporters have instigated?
As the investigations unfold there are so many questions that require answers.