I Was Wrong About the Jan6 Committee

I admit it. I was completely wrong about the Jan6 Committee. Here I thought it was a kangaroo court that would yield no good results at all. In fact, it produced pure gold.

Here's a completely partisan committee, put together by a Hollywood producer (literally), showing only one side of the story, using hearsay as "evidence", taking videos and conversations completely out of context, not calling key witnesses, dubbing different audio over different video, not presenting any evidence at all from the other side, and yet it still managed to completely exonerate Trump of all wrong-doing.

At first it was,

We are going to show that Donald Trump actively organized a coup against the US Government!

Exactly zero evidence of that. They managed to demonstrate that neither he, nor anybody in his inner circle, nor outer circle, nor any circle, nor even Don Jr. or Ivanka, were at all aware of anything whatsoever with regards to a coup or even an illegal storming of The Capitol.

In fact, there has been no evidence produced that any of the violence at The Capitol was in any way organized. A very key witness seen trying to rile the crowd up was Ray Epps, and yet he was never called to testify. Known Antifa folks were at the front, raising chaos as well. Yet that was not presented. Many of the people who went into The Capitol were invited in when the guards opened the door and allowed them to wander in. They were not called to testify why. At least one person has already been acquitted of trespassing on the basis they were just let in. There was inadequate security at The Capitol, which was a failure of Nancy Pelosi, yet she was not called to testify about that.

Really folks, if there was an "Insurrection" by Republicans, wouldn't they bring (and use) their guns? Wouldn't Trump have gotten onto social media and egged them on? No - he told them to "go home". The only remaining criticism of Trump was that he "acted too late" in telling them to go home. Hmmmm. Just like the Democrats acted too late in asking the violent BLM protesters to go home?

Ok, but he "riled up the crowd", right? First, since when is "riling up" in a political context a crime, especially when you explicitly end your speech with asking the crowd to make their way to The Capitol to make their voices heard peacefully and patriotically?

What is in evidence is that Trump on balance believed, whether justified or not, that the election was rigged. And if you are being honest, there are plenty of illegalities and smoking guns already uncovered to make that not an unreasonable view to hold (yes, yes, 60 courts, none of which actually went to trial mostly because of jurisdictional issues). The list of all the proven stuff and all the fishy stuff is maintained at https://electionfraud20.org. The election had 158M votes, and the margin was decided by 42,918 votes (0.027%). The only truly idiotic positions are to maintain that there was definitely not enough fraud to overturn the results, and that there definitely was. I think, based on what I've seen that there was easily enough illegality to have changed the outcome, but of course I can't be sure.

The point is that nobody can be sure, as the 2020 election with mass mail in voting, lax or absent signature checks, ballot dropboxes (sometimes illegal as has now been demonstrated in court), was not designed to be auditable. Elections should have clean, validated, and up-to-date voter lists, vote in person on election day, picture id, and hand counts with both parties observing the counting closely. Especially in the US where the elections are so contentious and so close, and it is very much on the voter's minds.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 55% of Likely U.S. voters believe cheating likely affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including 39% who think it’s Very Likely. Thirty-nine percent (39%) don’t think cheating affected the 2020 election, including 28% who say it’s Not At All Likely. (link)

Whichever side you fall on, lack of faith in US Election Integrity is definitely an issue that needs addressing.

So, Trump believed it was rigged, as did his supporters. So if all these folks believed it was rigged, is not protesting the election better characterized as upholding the constitution, the exact opposite of an "insurrection"?

And yes, protesting is one thing, but zero reasonable people condone violence. Trespassing I could care less. Democrats also trespass a lot while demonstrating - it's part of democracy I guess.

Congrats Jan 6 committee, you managed to more fully exonerate Trump than any actual fair trial could ever have done, because even with all the cards stacked against Trump, he still won.