Tragic Ashli Babbitt and the buried Jan. 6 truth
So now we know that the cop who fatally shot unarmed Donald Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt, 36, during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was rewarded with a promotion and a $36,000 bonus.
There were no ill consequences for his rash actions that day. Instead, Capt. Michael Byrd, 56, was held up as a hero of democracy, despite the fact that he had a lengthy disciplinary record that includes leaving his loaded handgun in a public bathroom in the Capitol Visitor Center, “improperly” firing his gun at a car near his home while off duty and abusing a Maryland cop who tried to stop him entering a high school football field as a “racist a–hole,” again while off duty, according to a letter released last week by the GOP-led House Administration Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight.
Three entries in Byrd’s internal affairs record are missing, wrote subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) in a letter to Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger.
Left’s convenient spin
Loudermilk is asking questions about Byrd and everything else about the Jan. 6 riot that was used so effectively to tarnish Trump and his supporters and that provided the excuse for the Biden administration to weaponize federal law enforcement against them.
The J6 riot was not an insurrection but a protest that escalated into an out-of-control riot because then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund was denied intelligence about potential threats that day and denied National Guard backup that he was begging for.
In the cold light of hindsight, a new Trump administration will ensure that the narrative of J6 is rewritten to reflect the truth of that tragic day instead of the lies spun by Democratic Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi’s J6 committee.
Sund is a crucial witness to history. Pelosi (D-Calif.) made him her scapegoat, firing him immediately, but she knew he had begged for the National Guard to assist his vastly outnumbered troops.
He needed the permission of the Capitol Police Board, and Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) controlled the two sergeants-at-arms who had to give him the OK. McConnell’s guy deferred to Pelosi, and Pelosi’s guy kept saying he had to “run it up the chain to get Pelosi’s approval,” says Sund.
But the National Guard didn’t arrive for hours, delayed not just by Pelosi but by officials at the Pentagon who had become so Trump-deranged that they believed the president would repurpose the troops to declare martial law and try to hang on to power.
This was a delusion that worst gripped Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the most powerful military figure in Washington.
Milley was constantly talking to people about the threat of a “coup” by Trump after the 2020 election, Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker wrote in their book “I Alone Can Fix It,” which paints Milley as a defender of democracy rather than an emotional weakling defying his commander-in-chief.
In the days leading up to the riot, Milley told his staff that Trump’s suggestions that the National Guard be deployed on Jan. 6 were just an “excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act” and call out the military.
The book paints a picture of an increasingly paranoid Milley fielding calls from unnamed “friends” egging him on in his delusion.
Milley came to see Trump as Hitler. “This is a Reichstag moment,” he told aides. “The gospel of the Führer.”
Milley seemed to get radicalized after the June 2020 riots at Lafayette Square in front of the White House, which got so violent that Trump and his family had to be evacuated by the Secret Service to an underground bunker.
Milley’s Trump grudge
Trump two days later ordered that Lafayette Square be cleared so he could reassure the public by appearing at St. John’s Church, which had been firebombed the previous night.
Milley was more upset at the criticism he received for appearing in a presidential photo op in his uniform than he was about the fact that the president had to be evacuated to a bunker.
During those violent riots, officers at the capital’s Metropolitan Police Department were “ordered not to assist at the White House,” says Sund, undoubtedly by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a rancid Trump hater.
Sund says the DC cops “were so furious having to watch bloodied Secret Service agents being taken out by ambulance” while they could do nothing. Afterward, he phoned then-DC Police Chief Pete Newsham and asked for an assurance that if he had problems at the Capitol, the DC police would come and help. Although Newsham retired five days before the Jan. 6 riot, the DC police “could not have helped me more,” says Sund, and sent him 1,000 officers.
But when it came to the National Guard, Sund hit roadblock after roadblock.
First it was Pelosi, and then the Pentagon.
After his troops had been fighting rioters for 80 minutes, Sund finally got approval from Pelosi to call in the National Guard, moments before the first window was broken.
He then called Gen. William Walker, commander of the DC National Guard, but Walker needed permission from Trump’s acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, who was suffering from the same Trump delusion as Milley.
It took four hours for the National Guard to arrive. But it was all over by then.
Walker’s hands had been tied by a curious memo issued by Miller two days earlier, ordering “unprecedented restrictions on the DC National Guard” applying to Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, Sund says in his book, “Courage Under Fire.”
In his Jan. 4, 2021, memo titled, “Employment guidance,” Miller dictates that, without his “personal authorization,” the DC National Guard cannot be issued “weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons, or … helmets and body armor” or “interact physically with protesters … employ any riot control agents … share equipment with law enforcement agencies … employ helicopters or any other air assets,” and so on. In other words, they could do nothing.
And nothing they did, until it was too late.
Ominous WaPo op-ed
Something else significant happened the day Miller issued his memo: An op-ed signed by 10 former secretaries of defense, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Jim Mattis, was published by the Washington Post warning that Trump might use the military to hang on to power. They warned, “Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures” would potentially face “criminal penalties.”
Miller got the message. He later testified to Congress that he wrote the memo because he was afraid Trump “would invoke the Insurrection Act to politicize the military in an antidemocratic manner.”
As a result, Sund never got the National Guard backup he needed to stop the Capitol being overrun. Mayhem was inevitable.
Conveniently for the Democrats, the riot prevented Trump allies’ efforts in Congress from delaying certification of the Electoral College votes and was a perfect branding exercise to make Trump and his supporters look bad.
The irony is that Sund, the man who did more than anybody to save the Capitol that day, was forced out in ignominy before he was eligible for his pension — while everybody who failed got off scot-free.
https://nypost.com/2024/11/24/opinion/tragic-ashli-babbitt-and-the-buried-jan-6-truth/
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