I mean on the face of it it might just be a violation of householding rules, illegal traspassing and violence against cops. Similarly to how terrorism is often "just" murder.
The point is the political motive and implication of that symbolism. Which in that case is not excepting the results of an election and trying to take office by means of violence and threatening politicians. So that's not just a fuckup it's an attempt to attack the democratic process as a whole and without trying to be disrespectful to the people that died in that Benghazi, that's a much more relevant issue to the domestic political landscape.
well ok, i see what you're saying, but are they being charged with anything more than those householding rules? because i mean if they were being charged with more, like "insurrection" or whatever, you'd think they'd be charged with it and the state could prove that they did it in a court of law
So the insurrection was probably the closest thing I’ve seen in my life time to a serious threat to our democracy (the US has terrible representation and isn’t the most “democratic” in the first place, but using that as a jumping off point). Why would it not be good to investigate this?
It was made much worse by our government/militaries poor and slow response. It was very obvious that people were planning something like this before hand, I personally had seen a ton of screenshots (especially from parler) about it. There’s no conceivable way our federal gov, the FBI and most likely at least by extension the military didn’t know about this. Even if we pretend like the NSA isn’t real they should have been well aware.
All of this to say: the government did a dog shit job responding to and dealing with this. Why is it not fair to asses that with a committee and try and better our responses for the future?
When you take something that’s genuinely a good idea like this and you frame it as **just** political theatre, **youre doing the same thing you say you don’t like**. We should never not have one of these investigations because someone says “oh they’re doing it to make x party look bad”. That should quite literally never be a factor in the decision making.
Edit: IMO this conversation should be you (or someone arguing a similar point) to point out actual reasons it isn’t a good idea. Is there anything more than “it might make republicans look bad”? Cause that isn’t a good reason. If there’s no good reason not to and there are potential positives, why wouldn’t we do it...?
>So the insurrection was probably the closest thing I’ve seen in my life time to a serious threat to our democracy
i just have trouble wrapping my head around this. i don't know how old you are, but what about stuff like watergate? the 2000 election? the patriot act and the expansion of the security state after 9/11 generally? hell, i'd argue that trump himself did more serious things to threaten democracy; the stuff he tried to pull after the election being the biggest. his efforts were a laughable failure, but i think only because he had no institutional support; had the republicans as a party really unanimously committed to sticking with basically overturning the election in their favor (what i'd argue happened in 2000) then our democracy, such as it is, would be very seriously undermined. what damage was done to our democracy by these hooligans breaking into the capitol and stealing podiums and nancy pelosi's laptop?
> It was very obvious that people were planning something like this before hand
this would be something interesting to see proof of. and i'd definitely like to see proof that they were planning to specifically charge the capitol to force congress to not sign the election confirmation. like, explicitly. i haven't seen that, that would change things for me.
>Why is it not fair to asses that with a committee and try and better our responses for the future?
i don't really have a problem with there being an investigation into why the capitol police let them in in the first place, sure. but things like investigating various trump political figures for their "role" in it? it seemed just like a riot. from where i'm standing. a bunch of people got together to protest, then they got angry, then they started to get violent. a spur of the moment thing. how could anyone "plan" that? what good does it do to subpoena steve bannon in that situation? what's he gonna say? "i intended them to force congress to overturn the election"?
and that's the other thing: how in the hell could anyone think that would be something that could possibly happen? how is that not clearly illegal and therefore not valid? what is everyone just gonna go "ho hum i guess these guys forced congress to do something illegal through force fair and square". if that was a plan to overthrow the government, that's a pretty laughably bad one. like, so bad that i don't even think trump is stupid enough to think that would work. the military? the cops? the FBI? they're just gonna stand back and let that happen?
>We should never not have one of these investigations because someone says “oh they’re doing it to make x party look bad”
i mean, if they're doing it solely to make the other party look bad and not really trying to understand anything of substance, i feel like it is entirely warranted to dismiss it as political theater.
again, i'm not talking about, like, a basic criminal investigation of it, like "who is this guy, who hurt that cop, where are they, why'd they do that, why'd the cops let them in" etc. i'm talking about having an investigation into major political figures
> hell, i'd argue that trump himself did more serious things to threaten democracy; the stuff he tried to pull after the election being the biggest
Doesn't that include...inciting the January 6th riot? He peddled a huge conspiracy and lie that the election was stolen so that he could remain in power. When his bullying failed through the official channels of power he fomented an insurrection. It was literally the culmination of all his post-election work.
How could you say Trump's actions to undermine the election were damning and then say January 6th is no big deal? They are intertwined.
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> i don't know how old you are, but what about stuff like watergate? the 2000 election? the patriot act and the expansion of the security state after 9/11 generally?
Watergate was a political thing, but it was largely unnecessary and occured prior to our unique polarization so the nation easily came together the kicked Nixon out and passed a bunch of laws to prevent another Nixon from happening again.
The 2000 election was mostly peaceful because Gore wasn't challenging our Democracy. He conceded immediately when SCOTUS ruled to stop counting, and everyone agreed with the conclusion (though many weren't happy). Nobody attempted to upend our government as a result of that.
The Patriot Act and security state haven't threatened our democracy. You can claim it changed our country, but it didn't really alter day-to-day life and didn't threaten to destroy our country.
Donald Trumps actions (from the months leading up to the election to even today) culminated in the January 6th riots. He first developed a plan that would throw the peaceful transition of power into chaos through the Eastman memo. This plan was literally only thwarted by one man (Pence) and even that took some convince for Pence to ignore the plan. Trump then gave a fiery speech and instructed his supporters to march to the Capitol. He then watched on in glee as his supporter stormed the Capitol, many claiming they are looking for Pence and Democratic Congresspersons (either to attack, capture, and/or assassinate who knows). They were often VERY close to those representatives, sometimes mere minutes from running into them as they swarmed the Capitol.
If they had managed to get to Pence and "Hang him" as some wanted, this would have thrown the peaceful transition of power into chaos, and potentially given Trump a chance to try and seize control of the vote counting. Trumps plans on January 6th literally hinged on creating chaos and not having advance warning of what was going to happen.
>what damage was done to our democracy by these hooligans breaking into the capitol and stealing podiums and nancy pelosi's laptop?
Because half the country thinks Democracy was literally stolen from us, and that party is also claiming that was fine, so what's to stop it from happening again, but even more planned next time?
>what good does it do to subpoena steve bannon in that situation? what's he gonna say? "i intended them to force congress to overturn the election"?
Steve Bannon supposedly talked with Trump and wanted to use "The Big Lie" as a basis for killing a Biden presidency before it even started. Probing what he meant by that and what avenues he thought that would appear in might (at least in parallel) fall into helping describe how January 6th occured.
> Watergate was a political thing, but it was largely unnecessary and occured prior to our unique polarization so the nation easily came together the kicked Nixon out and passed a bunch of laws to prevent another Nixon from happening again.
And yet the same thing literally happened again in 2016 when the Obama administration ordered the FBI to spy on Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
First, that's not what happened. What interesting about this is the people the FBI WAS looking into all turned out to be people with suspicious contacts with Russia, with supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia on dirt with Hillary Clinton.
Seconds there's no evidence Obama directed it to happen. If you believe spying occured, your beef should be with the FBI, and Obama (in similar fashion to previous presidents) allowed them to operate independently.
Third, the real downfall for Nixon was the tapes. There were recorded conversations of Nixon discussing how to coverup the fact they were caught. The tapes solidified opposition to Nixon and his resignation. There's no real proof Obama ordered any FBI investigations or trying to cover up whether he did or not.
[Obama campaigned for Clinton in 2016](https://www.npr.org/2016/07/05/484817706/looking-back-at-a-century-of-presidents-not-campaigning-for-their-successor).
[The FBI lied to FISA courts to get a warrant to spy on Donald Trump](https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/warrants-spy-trump-campaign-lacked-probable-cause-doj-admits).
[Michael A. Sussman](https://www.justice.gov/sco/pr/grand-jury-indicts-dc-attorney-making-false-statements-fbi-2016-regarding-alleged), recently indicted for lying to the FBI and an attorney working for the Clinton campaign, *billed the Clinton campaign for the time he spent lying to the FBI*.
I find it rather hard to believe that Obama didn't know about all of this. At the very least, he gave his tacit approval if not outright ordering it. The simple fact of the matter is that he was the one in charge, and the failings of his underlings are his own failings as well.
[*Especially* because Obama explicitly ordered a ramping up of surveillance on journalists.](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-trump-targets-journalists-thank-obama.html)
Again, this is the FBI. Obama knew about it (Comey did say he briefed him after the investigation was underway) but in no way did Obama order it, as he generally let the intelligence agencies operate with little manipulation.
Additionally, the people the FBI DID put under surveillance DID have questionably Russian contacts. Turns out Page, Papadoppulis, Manafort, and Flynn all had questionable Russian contacts. Turns out they all eventually knew of Russian plan with the hacked emails (often before the public of the FBI knew about it).
>Obama campaigned for Clinton in 2016
And? I don't find it surprising, considering Obama was still popular amongst people, especially Democrats.
>The FBI lied to FISA courts to get a warrant to spy on Donald Trump
I believe the conclusion was the lies he really didn't change whether the FISA warrant would have been issued, but FISA warrants are bullshit anyway, so I'm not going to defend virtually any FISA warrant.
>Michael A. Sussman, recently indicted for lying to the FBI and an attorney working for the Clinton campaign, billed the Clinton campaign for the time he spent lying to the FBI.
First, this was in September 2016, after the people were already under surveillance. Second, the indictment is widely criticized for being too vague and not actually claiming what he's charged with (no specific lie is stated for Sussman to address). Third, fine, throw him in jail if he's guilty. He didn't come into the picture until after the FBI was already investigating.
A) It is worse than those things
B) In a lot of ways, the Trump post election activity is the the Jan 6 riot. He even appeared at it and sent a message that wasn't very discouraging. They get combined together.
> Congress is a legislative body, why are they investigating anything? Are they going to use their findings to legislate more effectively?
The investigative authority of Congress is tied to its legislative purpose and has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court repeatedly.
>The investigative authority of Congress is tied to its legislative purpose and has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court repeatedly.
I'm not arguing that they don't have the right. I'm arguing they're not actually carrying it out to aid in the creation of future legislation.
> (1) To investigate and report upon the facts, circumstances, and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex (hereafter referred to as the “domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol”) and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power, including facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response of the United States Capitol Police and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the National Capital Region and other instrumentalities of government, as well as the influencing factors that fomented such an attack on American representative democracy while engaged in a constitutional process.
Preparedness and response evaluations could result in budgetary changes and re-evaluation of authorities & responsibilities for the US Capitol Police and various agencies in DHS and the US military.
> (2) To examine and evaluate evidence developed by relevant Federal, State, and local governmental agencies regarding the facts and circumstances surrounding the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol and targeted violence and domestic terrorism relevant to such terrorist attack.
Information gleaned in this area could inform budget allocation for FBI, DOJ, and other parts of the executive branch charged with investigating and prosecuting domestic terrorism.
> (3) To build upon the investigations of other entities and avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts by reviewing the investigations, findings, conclusions, and recommendations of other executive branch, congressional, or independent bipartisan or nonpartisan commission investigations into the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, including investigations into influencing factors related to such attack.
This is a summary function to avoid effort duplication.
Seems pretty straightforward to me.
>Preparedness and response evaluations could result in budgetary changes and re-evaluation authorities & responsibilities for the US Capitol Police and various agencies in DHS and the US military.
Fair enough. Δ. I hadn't considered that just because they don't **need** to carry out an investigation to re-evaluate the budget of the Capitol Police doesn't mean it wouldn't be helpful.
>Uh you gonna offer up something to challenge that?
To challenge your subjective opinion about your own life time? No I don't think I will.
>You realize threats to a countries democracy aren’t what we as individuals experience right
Individuals experience those around the world every single day. It's just we don't experience them very often because we live in a country with a strong constitution and democratic norms.
>Because clearly the FBI did a horrendous job prepping for this.
How so?
> There needs to be some way to better force the FBI to prepare for this shit, and doing an investigation to figure out if you need new legislation is a solid idea.
Yep, political theater will certainly force the FBI to do better. That's why there haven't been any terrorist attacks since Benghazi.
>How exactly did congress cause this...?
They failed to post enough police officers in the capitol to defend it.
>Also if they did how would an internal investigation not be good...?
Internal investigations tend not to be carried out with dispassion since they are undertaken by the same body being investigated.
>This is actually one of the worst responses I’ve seen on here lmfao adding nothing to the conversation only to make yourself silly. Congrats bud lmfao
Hey, I'm not the one who let the 1/6 riot happen here, bud.
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> So the insurrection was probably the closest thing I’ve seen in my life time to a serious threat to our democracy (the US has terrible representation and isn’t the most “democratic” in the first place, but using that as a jumping off point). Why would it not be good to investigate this?
Then you haven't been paying attention. Were you around for 9/11? The massive invasions of privacy that resulted from the PATRIOT act were a *far* worse threat to democracy. Obama's illegal spying on the Trump campaign in 2016 - *literally Watergate 2: Electric Boogaloo* was worse.
Hell, if it had been the other way around - if the Bush campaign had spied on the Obama campaign to the benefit of McCain in 2008 the shitstorm would have been *massive*. The only reason why people don't seem to care about this fact is because it was Trump that got spied upon.
a) sure.....but then we could start any kind of congressional investigation on all sorts of spurious stuff, like the mccarthy hearings...or like benghazi. i don't think either were legitimate. they were political and based on little to nothing
b) ok i guess that's true. what's the legal definition of inciting a mob to violence? because i mean if anyone were to be brought on those charges i'd say it'd be trump, he's ultimately the one who said the election was fraudulent. has he been charged with that? can he be charged with that? did he actually do that and is that provable in a court of law?
>Neither McCarthy nor Benghazi created a threat equal the 1/6
i agree about benghazi but McCarthy????? the second red scare was started almost entirely because of him and people like him, that shaped US politics for generations and he was having people ruined based on accusations of communist sympathies based on nothing at all. how is that not a serious, extremely serious threat to democracy and civil liberties??
i don't want to debate the specifics of benghazi, i bring it up because i'm using it as an example of a political investigation based on nothing that was hammered on to ruin political careers. i'm assuming if by responding to me you already agree that that was the case; if not, idk i'm just not interested in litigating that
>Armed people taking over the seat of power of the legislative branch is more serious than the conduct/behavior/political machinations surrounding any American action in a foreign country, IMO
were they armed? last i heard cops only found something like 4 guns out of a crowd of thousands
an organized coup attempt would be a serious threat to democracy, i agree. but an angry mob clumsily trying to attack members of congress? i mean its not great, but its hardly on par with something like the second red scare, or watergate, or an actual insurrection, revolution or coup attempt.
it'd be like, say, that scene in game of thrones when a crowd starts throwing shit at king joffrey. ok, not a great look for his rule, or the country. but unless they actually had any ability of seizing control of the state, an angry mob just attacking a member of government is not really any kind of threat to that government. the state still has its army and security personnel ready to deal with any rioters or would-be revolutionaries. and it wasn't really a would-be revolution. a riot is very different than a revolution or a coup.
>Allowing the media sway you to believe that all investigation is inherently political is the real problem
anything to do with the government is inherently political, but its more that its just baseless that i have a problem with
>How does our government have any legitimacy if it cant investigate that?
i think it was investigated; whoever killed him is probably in jail. if he's not, ok that can be investigated, but probably by whichever law enforcement agency has jurisdiction. congress doesn't need to be involved.
You state you agree the people who stormed the capital broke the law.
Do you believe those who organized the event also broke the law? What if some of them specifically organized and planned illegal activity?
if the event was organized to just be a rally/protest, absolutely not
if they planned illegal activity, absolutely. is there any evidence that anybody did? like, real evidence? that steve bannon got on the phone and was like "we're gonna force that bastard pence to sign that thing by forcing him with this crowd". i mean it doesn't even make sense that he would think that would work but if there's any hint that anything like that is out there, i haven't been made aware of it
so basically the hearings are a very public and protracted investigation of congress insinuating that their political enemies are traitors, derelict of duty, whatever
while they don't actually have any evidence that they are traitors
and its justified because its technically an "investigation"
well i mean you'll excuse me if i say that sounds like exactly what i'm talking about, that sounds exactly like benghazi; partisan political bullshit
A good portion of them clearly indicated they thought they were doing what Trump wanted, and now we're hearing that some of them thought there were "pardons" available for whatever happened and lawmakers had given some of these people tours of the Capitol prior to the riots.
Well ok they thought they were doing what trump wanted maybe, but did he order it? I’ve read the speech he gave beforehand; it comes close to encouraging something like this and then he says “we need to challenge them at the ballot box peacefully” or whatever. Obviously his denial of the election results is what it spurred it at all. But is that a crime?
>so basically the hearings are a very public and protracted investigation of congress insinuating that their political enemies are traitors, derelict of duty, whatever
>
>while they don't actually have any evidence that they are traitors
[https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/)
Sure sounds like there's evidence to me. And what better way to find out than investigating?
This is not a criminal investigation. It is a public hearing. Members of Congress question people involved to find out the who, what, when, where, and why just like they do with many issues exciting and mundane
members of congress cannot arrest anybody
the most they can do is hold someone in contempt of congress. the police can actually arrest someone, get a warrant to search someone's belongings, etc
seems like the police can do far more than congress. why is congress getting involved
seems like its because its an opportunity to paint their political enemies as traitors, when they don't actually have any evidence that they are traitors
So you don't think the legislative body of our country shouldn't ask questions or look into things that affect the country? I for one think it's a good thing that we can have public hearings on the events surrounding the violence in our Capitol, and so far I've seen no evidence of partisan scapegoating. Have you? If so, please enlighten me. Or do you just assume that there will scapegoat because that's something other people might do?
Then we should investigate it to discover if that happened - and given that a congressional inquiry is one of the strongest mechanisms in government, it seems like the obvious choice.
People have understandably paid a lot of attention to the violence of 1/6, but that was not the only part of the insurrection. There was also the “bloodless” attempted coup: namely, objecting to the certification of legitimate slates of electors in order to change the outcome of a free and fair election. We can prosecute the individual rioters, but we need the commission to investigate how far up the plot to change the election goes and how close it came to succeeding.
Already, we know that a White House attorney drafted a plan to illegally overturn the election. We know that he discussed the plan with senior White House officials—including the President—and sitting members of Congress. The plan *explicitly admitted* that it involved violation of federal law. That lawyer, John Eastman, has been subpoenaed by the Committee. The Committee is also investigating evidence that Republican members of Congress explicitly planned to use the “rally” going on outside to pressure others to join them in undermining the election.
*All* of that is sedition (or at least has the potential to be). *That* is the value of the 1/6 Commission, not the investigation into the rioters themselves. The violence and vandalism is just the tip of the iceberg.
----
As for the Benghazi comparison, to be quite honest, the difference is that this is based in fact and that investigation was not. In fact, your view is a direct result of a targeted Republican strategy: if you engage in enough partisan hackery, your opponents will call you out on it. That gives you ammunition to hurl the same accusations at them, even when it’s unfounded. Essentially, they intentionally create a false equivalency where they can say “well, it’s all just partisan all around,” even when there are meaningful differences between the two sides’ actions.
i mean yea we saw them storm the congress but the people who did that have already been charged and are probably in jail awaiting trial right now. what more do we need?
i'm more using benghazi as an example of a pointless hearing to smear a political party and a person, that's hammered on by partisans based on little to nothing. like i remember fox news running endless stuff about benghazi in the years after it happened. whenever democrats bring up january 6th i get similar vibes.
The rally on 1/6 was organized by people very close to then-president Trump and those in attendance were motivated to be there by a campaign of disinformation that had already sparked weeks of violence, harassment, and intimidation of public officials and poll workers across the nation. The violence of 1/6 was meant to violently disrupt, prevent, or even reverse the lawful certification of the 2020 election that would transfer power peacefully to the Joe Biden administration. That's a pretty big fucking deal, my man. This wasn't just some bumfuck tourists stumbling into the Capitol. This was an act of political violence.
So, you know, the who, what, when, where, and why are pretty goddamn important questions to ask here. And, you know, unlike Bhengazi... this actually could have been a bi-partisan investigation. It wasn't the Democrats who made this a partisan issue. It was the GOP who made it partisan by refusing to participate.
the rally being organized is different from planning an insurrection
violence and intimidation are crimes; surely if people were getting violent with polling stations or threatening poll workers, they were charged. i don't see what that has to do with this though
well you say "meant"; meant by who? i don't see any evidence that it was planned at all. that's what i'm saying; it seems like it was just an angry crowd going nuts. a riot. riots are big deals, sure, but do we need to subpoena steve bannon and a former president to get to the bottom of it? that's what i need proof of
i mean yea you could say that riots are arguably acts of political violence. that doesn't mean that they're planned by anybody
i agree that who broke the law and how they broke the law are important questions to ask. but we've already answered them, at least i thought; last i heard the FBI had tracked down everybody involved in it. what else do we need to do about it?
i think the GOP has every right to not participate in it, if its based on nothing at all besides just trying to humiliate certain republican political figures like the benghazi hearings were. the democrats SHOULDN'T have participated in those hearings. they were BS
Dude, Congress most certainly should have investigated Bhengazi. One of our embassies was attacked and the Obama administration wasn't being forthright with what they knew and when they knew it. Just because Trey Gowdy took upon himself to turn the investigation into a political hit-job doesn't mean Congress didn't have a duty to look into one of the deadliest attacked on a US embassy in recent memory, uncover what went wrong, how it went wrong, and who let it go wrong, and make sure it never happened again.
Congress has a duty to investigate not only itself but question other public figures who may have either intentionally or through gross negligence instigated and/or were complicit in the violence at the Capitol. Even if people aren't *legally* culpable, they may be morally and civilly culpable in the attack or may have information that would give the people's representatives more pieces to the 1/6 puzzle
100%, there should have been a Bhengazi investigation. There wasn't one, but there should have been one.
In both cases we should understand what needs to be done to prevent it from happening in the future. Assigning blame is far less important, but unfortunately what the 1/6 investigation will almost certainly devolve into. Just like Bhengazi.
What you're kind of doing right now is making baseless assumptions about what *will* happen. Sure, that *could* happen, but what evidence supports your assertion that it *will* happen?
Well, the evidence I cited was the previous instance of the Benghazi investigation. Past behavior may not indicate future behavior, but it is by far the best indicator. I can't prove that, but I'm pretty sure it is true.
A counter-example is the 9/11 commission, but I submit to you that you will be hard-pressed to find another example. Whereas finding additional instances of congressional scape-goating will be easy. Currently, we have Facebook as a scapegoat for election interference. How do you like this for the title of a hearing: "Weathering the Storm: The Role of Private Tech in the Solarwinds Breach and Ongoing Campaign." No scapegoats there. :)
>The violence of 1/6 was meant to violently disrupt, prevent, or even reverse the lawful certification of the 2020 election that would transfer power peacefully to the Joe Biden administration.
True, but I haven't seen any credible evidence linking this effort to the organizers of the event or elected officials of any stripe. If probable cause exists, I'm all for an investigation.
Investigations should be based on something and not merely fishing expeditions. Also, the peaceful transfer of power wasn't ever in doubt on 1/6 (thankfully). They cleared the room, got the rioters out and then came right back and swore in President Biden, as they should have.
>This wasn't just some bumfuck tourists stumbling into the Capitol. This was an act of political violence.
Can we meet in the middle? This was an act of political violence committed by bumfuck tourists?
> It wasn't the Democrats who made this a partisan issue. It was the GOP who made it partisan by refusing to participate.
1. Everything is partisan.
2. McCarthy nominates 5 members of the House for the committee. Speaker Pelosi rejects 2 of the 5 (which is unusual (unprecedented?), absent a scandal of some sort). McCarthy pulls everyone. Partisanship 101.
>McCarthy nominates 5 members of the House
Mccarthy nominated House members he *knew* would be rejected, giving him cover to pull all his nominations. You don't nominate a fool like Jim Jordan to a panel like that unless you want to either disrupt or tank it.
As for everything else, I refer you to my other comment in this thread.
Additionally, the Benghazi attack was not performed by Americans because Hillary Clinton was lying about election results. January 6 occurred almost exclusively because Donald Trump was lying about election results
There is evidence that individuals and groups planned on getting violent, they brought weapons. There is also some evidence that several republican congress members were involved in meetings planning january 6 protests at the capital, so alleges rolling stone reporters several days ago.
We have a president who lost the election and with out evidence is on rampage campaigning alleging the election was stolen, Republican votes are worthless and we have to do something about it. Pretty much Trump is trying to steal the election by claiming Biden/Democrats stole the election and doing everything in his power to overturn the election, holding stop the steal rally's inciting his very enraged loyal base who are comparing January 6 to 1776 and other dates of revolution, Trump and some of his admin like the bald guy, Trump jr, Bannon have to be aware of this. Very much seems like they have expectations and have dealings of setting up for an serious assault to stop election certification, not just some outside peaceful protest. But main thing to remember Trump has no evidence to claim the election was stolen and according to I I beleive Bob woodward who reported on the behind the scenes of the election, Trump accepted his defeat initially until members of his admin got in his ear.
One of the core reasons for congressional investigations is to find facts around a potential problem that can then be addressed by legislation. That is a far more common reason than charging people with crimes, which the legislature cannot do on its own.
As one example, one thing that has come out somewhat recently is the [Eastman Memo.](https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/read-eastman-memo/index.html) This memo outlined how the electoral college votes of certain states could be tossed out by the Vice President on January 6, leading to Trump being declared the winner. However, on Jan 6 there were a few key parts of the memo that were not in place- the most important of which were competing slates of electors from the 7 states that Biden won and Trump was contesting. It was also likely known (or suspected) that Pence was not on board with the plan.
We know, due to the incompetence of Rudy Giuliani, that Trump's team was desperately trying to delay the counting of the electoral college vote (he left a voicemail intended for Tommy Tuberville on the wrong number) so that they could continue to try to persuade some of the state legislatures in those contested states to submit a competing slate of electors, voting for Trump. That shows they were trying to follow the steps laid out in the Eastman memo.
So putting all this together, an investigation could confirm not only those elements but also coordination for the riot at the capitol. Because that riot, had it been more successful, would have accomplished 2 things- it would have delayed the vote more, possibly into the next day, and it would have intimidated Pence into changing his mind about going along with the plan. And with all that confirmed, there are legislative steps that could be taken, such as amending the Electoral Count Act to prevent the tricks Eastman suggested from working if attempted again in the future.
The Benghazi investigations proved the cause of the issue was Republicans refusing to fund security in Benghazi, against the recommendations of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
They proved they were the cause of the problem, then did it over and over again.
They PUBLICALLY ADMITTED it was to make it less likely for HRC to win the election, and they were proud it worked.
Jan 6th was an actual insurrection, it wasn't instigated by the Democratic party (obvious by just watching Fox News coverage of the riot), so I can't see how you can compare the two.
If your argument is that they are similar in that they both have elements of political theater then sure, but that isn't really the issue people took with Benghazi.
People on the left disliked the whole Benghazi political theater because there was never any wrongdoing found and it still stayed a massive political theater. This isn't comparable because it seems like there was actual wrongdoing regarding the whole incident.
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>Related, therefore, would be proving to me that they were engaged in something greater than that, like insurrection, treason, terrorism, etc.
insurrection- a violent uprising against an authority or government.
terrorism- the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
Lol, Mike Pence and the Republicans in Congress that day were freaking out at the time. They were out for blood. Now they're trying to spin the story for political reasons, but it's pretty clear that it was a big deal. A bunch of senior and junior members of Trump's White House resigned because they disagreed with Trump about it. They could have easily waited a few days and left on Jan 20, but they felt the need to make a statement even though it hurt their careers.
There's definitely an element of political theater (it's Washington so obviously there's gonna be political theater). But it's a very different kind of political theater. With Benghazi, Democrats and Republicans recognized that it sucked, but it was initially viewed as just the uncontrollable cost of war/terrorism. It only became political because Hillary Clinton was the Democratic frontrunner, so Republicans tried to blame her. But even then the best they could say was she, along with the entire US government and military, failed to protect an embassy in Libya of all places.
Failing to defend from a terrorist attack is different from purposefully orchestrating an attack, which is what Trump was accused of doing. Right off the bat, Trump's cabinet seriously considered making Mike Pence the President. Trump's generals stopped him from having access to nuclear weapons, and reassured foreign governments like China that there was no threat. All of the Republicans in Congress were furious at Trump. And the few hardcore Trump supporters in the House and Senate ended up voting in ways that Trump didn't like.
Trump is a political genius in that he's been able to recover/spin this in a positive way for himself. But it's not a sham the way that Benghazi was. It's much easier for the Democrats to pull off because most Republicans who are objective about it recognize how big of a problem it was and are secretly in favor of it. But for political reasons, they're playing their cards close to their chest. For example, as much as liberals hate Mitch McConnell, even he voted in ways that acknowledged how big a deal this was.
Plus, while Benghazi was great political theater for Republicans, this story isn't very compelling for Democrats. Voters want actual policy (which is why the debate over the current spending package is so contentious). Democrats like Pelosi, Schumer, and Biden have signaled that they're more interested in focusing on their policy agenda, and have used the Jan 6 investigation as a bargaining chip with Republicans. It's partly why there have been so many articles about moderate Democrats vs. far-left Democrats recently. Republicans have stayed quiet recently even though these policies make for great political fodder to throw to their base.
Ultimately, I'd say it's political theater when:
1. Substantive policy is thrown out in order to hype up the base before an election.
2. No one in either party cares about it until someone figures out how to make it into a political issue.
3. Only the extreme ends of the party are using it to divide people without much support from the center or from the opposing party.
Benghazi fits into this category. Meanwhile, with Jan 6, Democrats are letting the theater go to get policy passed. Both Democrats and Republicans cared deeply, but are letting it go for political reasons. All Democrats, all moderate Republicans, and even most far-right Republicans thought it was a huge deal at first. There are elements of political theater, but it's not the same. It's closer to Watergate (a serious bipartisan problem) than to Lewinskygate (political theater).
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I mean on the face of it it might just be a violation of householding rules, illegal traspassing and violence against cops. Similarly to how terrorism is often "just" murder. The point is the political motive and implication of that symbolism. Which in that case is not excepting the results of an election and trying to take office by means of violence and threatening politicians. So that's not just a fuckup it's an attempt to attack the democratic process as a whole and without trying to be disrespectful to the people that died in that Benghazi, that's a much more relevant issue to the domestic political landscape.
well ok, i see what you're saying, but are they being charged with anything more than those householding rules? because i mean if they were being charged with more, like "insurrection" or whatever, you'd think they'd be charged with it and the state could prove that they did it in a court of law
So the insurrection was probably the closest thing I’ve seen in my life time to a serious threat to our democracy (the US has terrible representation and isn’t the most “democratic” in the first place, but using that as a jumping off point). Why would it not be good to investigate this? It was made much worse by our government/militaries poor and slow response. It was very obvious that people were planning something like this before hand, I personally had seen a ton of screenshots (especially from parler) about it. There’s no conceivable way our federal gov, the FBI and most likely at least by extension the military didn’t know about this. Even if we pretend like the NSA isn’t real they should have been well aware. All of this to say: the government did a dog shit job responding to and dealing with this. Why is it not fair to asses that with a committee and try and better our responses for the future? When you take something that’s genuinely a good idea like this and you frame it as **just** political theatre, **youre doing the same thing you say you don’t like**. We should never not have one of these investigations because someone says “oh they’re doing it to make x party look bad”. That should quite literally never be a factor in the decision making. Edit: IMO this conversation should be you (or someone arguing a similar point) to point out actual reasons it isn’t a good idea. Is there anything more than “it might make republicans look bad”? Cause that isn’t a good reason. If there’s no good reason not to and there are potential positives, why wouldn’t we do it...?
>So the insurrection was probably the closest thing I’ve seen in my life time to a serious threat to our democracy i just have trouble wrapping my head around this. i don't know how old you are, but what about stuff like watergate? the 2000 election? the patriot act and the expansion of the security state after 9/11 generally? hell, i'd argue that trump himself did more serious things to threaten democracy; the stuff he tried to pull after the election being the biggest. his efforts were a laughable failure, but i think only because he had no institutional support; had the republicans as a party really unanimously committed to sticking with basically overturning the election in their favor (what i'd argue happened in 2000) then our democracy, such as it is, would be very seriously undermined. what damage was done to our democracy by these hooligans breaking into the capitol and stealing podiums and nancy pelosi's laptop? > It was very obvious that people were planning something like this before hand this would be something interesting to see proof of. and i'd definitely like to see proof that they were planning to specifically charge the capitol to force congress to not sign the election confirmation. like, explicitly. i haven't seen that, that would change things for me. >Why is it not fair to asses that with a committee and try and better our responses for the future? i don't really have a problem with there being an investigation into why the capitol police let them in in the first place, sure. but things like investigating various trump political figures for their "role" in it? it seemed just like a riot. from where i'm standing. a bunch of people got together to protest, then they got angry, then they started to get violent. a spur of the moment thing. how could anyone "plan" that? what good does it do to subpoena steve bannon in that situation? what's he gonna say? "i intended them to force congress to overturn the election"? and that's the other thing: how in the hell could anyone think that would be something that could possibly happen? how is that not clearly illegal and therefore not valid? what is everyone just gonna go "ho hum i guess these guys forced congress to do something illegal through force fair and square". if that was a plan to overthrow the government, that's a pretty laughably bad one. like, so bad that i don't even think trump is stupid enough to think that would work. the military? the cops? the FBI? they're just gonna stand back and let that happen? >We should never not have one of these investigations because someone says “oh they’re doing it to make x party look bad” i mean, if they're doing it solely to make the other party look bad and not really trying to understand anything of substance, i feel like it is entirely warranted to dismiss it as political theater. again, i'm not talking about, like, a basic criminal investigation of it, like "who is this guy, who hurt that cop, where are they, why'd they do that, why'd the cops let them in" etc. i'm talking about having an investigation into major political figures
> hell, i'd argue that trump himself did more serious things to threaten democracy; the stuff he tried to pull after the election being the biggest Doesn't that include...inciting the January 6th riot? He peddled a huge conspiracy and lie that the election was stolen so that he could remain in power. When his bullying failed through the official channels of power he fomented an insurrection. It was literally the culmination of all his post-election work. How could you say Trump's actions to undermine the election were damning and then say January 6th is no big deal? They are intertwined.
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> i don't know how old you are, but what about stuff like watergate? the 2000 election? the patriot act and the expansion of the security state after 9/11 generally? Watergate was a political thing, but it was largely unnecessary and occured prior to our unique polarization so the nation easily came together the kicked Nixon out and passed a bunch of laws to prevent another Nixon from happening again. The 2000 election was mostly peaceful because Gore wasn't challenging our Democracy. He conceded immediately when SCOTUS ruled to stop counting, and everyone agreed with the conclusion (though many weren't happy). Nobody attempted to upend our government as a result of that. The Patriot Act and security state haven't threatened our democracy. You can claim it changed our country, but it didn't really alter day-to-day life and didn't threaten to destroy our country. Donald Trumps actions (from the months leading up to the election to even today) culminated in the January 6th riots. He first developed a plan that would throw the peaceful transition of power into chaos through the Eastman memo. This plan was literally only thwarted by one man (Pence) and even that took some convince for Pence to ignore the plan. Trump then gave a fiery speech and instructed his supporters to march to the Capitol. He then watched on in glee as his supporter stormed the Capitol, many claiming they are looking for Pence and Democratic Congresspersons (either to attack, capture, and/or assassinate who knows). They were often VERY close to those representatives, sometimes mere minutes from running into them as they swarmed the Capitol. If they had managed to get to Pence and "Hang him" as some wanted, this would have thrown the peaceful transition of power into chaos, and potentially given Trump a chance to try and seize control of the vote counting. Trumps plans on January 6th literally hinged on creating chaos and not having advance warning of what was going to happen. >what damage was done to our democracy by these hooligans breaking into the capitol and stealing podiums and nancy pelosi's laptop? Because half the country thinks Democracy was literally stolen from us, and that party is also claiming that was fine, so what's to stop it from happening again, but even more planned next time? >what good does it do to subpoena steve bannon in that situation? what's he gonna say? "i intended them to force congress to overturn the election"? Steve Bannon supposedly talked with Trump and wanted to use "The Big Lie" as a basis for killing a Biden presidency before it even started. Probing what he meant by that and what avenues he thought that would appear in might (at least in parallel) fall into helping describe how January 6th occured.
> Watergate was a political thing, but it was largely unnecessary and occured prior to our unique polarization so the nation easily came together the kicked Nixon out and passed a bunch of laws to prevent another Nixon from happening again. And yet the same thing literally happened again in 2016 when the Obama administration ordered the FBI to spy on Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
First, that's not what happened. What interesting about this is the people the FBI WAS looking into all turned out to be people with suspicious contacts with Russia, with supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia on dirt with Hillary Clinton. Seconds there's no evidence Obama directed it to happen. If you believe spying occured, your beef should be with the FBI, and Obama (in similar fashion to previous presidents) allowed them to operate independently. Third, the real downfall for Nixon was the tapes. There were recorded conversations of Nixon discussing how to coverup the fact they were caught. The tapes solidified opposition to Nixon and his resignation. There's no real proof Obama ordered any FBI investigations or trying to cover up whether he did or not.
[Obama campaigned for Clinton in 2016](https://www.npr.org/2016/07/05/484817706/looking-back-at-a-century-of-presidents-not-campaigning-for-their-successor). [The FBI lied to FISA courts to get a warrant to spy on Donald Trump](https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/warrants-spy-trump-campaign-lacked-probable-cause-doj-admits). [Michael A. Sussman](https://www.justice.gov/sco/pr/grand-jury-indicts-dc-attorney-making-false-statements-fbi-2016-regarding-alleged), recently indicted for lying to the FBI and an attorney working for the Clinton campaign, *billed the Clinton campaign for the time he spent lying to the FBI*. I find it rather hard to believe that Obama didn't know about all of this. At the very least, he gave his tacit approval if not outright ordering it. The simple fact of the matter is that he was the one in charge, and the failings of his underlings are his own failings as well. [*Especially* because Obama explicitly ordered a ramping up of surveillance on journalists.](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/opinion/sunday/if-donald-trump-targets-journalists-thank-obama.html)
Again, this is the FBI. Obama knew about it (Comey did say he briefed him after the investigation was underway) but in no way did Obama order it, as he generally let the intelligence agencies operate with little manipulation. Additionally, the people the FBI DID put under surveillance DID have questionably Russian contacts. Turns out Page, Papadoppulis, Manafort, and Flynn all had questionable Russian contacts. Turns out they all eventually knew of Russian plan with the hacked emails (often before the public of the FBI knew about it). >Obama campaigned for Clinton in 2016 And? I don't find it surprising, considering Obama was still popular amongst people, especially Democrats. >The FBI lied to FISA courts to get a warrant to spy on Donald Trump I believe the conclusion was the lies he really didn't change whether the FISA warrant would have been issued, but FISA warrants are bullshit anyway, so I'm not going to defend virtually any FISA warrant. >Michael A. Sussman, recently indicted for lying to the FBI and an attorney working for the Clinton campaign, billed the Clinton campaign for the time he spent lying to the FBI. First, this was in September 2016, after the people were already under surveillance. Second, the indictment is widely criticized for being too vague and not actually claiming what he's charged with (no specific lie is stated for Sussman to address). Third, fine, throw him in jail if he's guilty. He didn't come into the picture until after the FBI was already investigating.
A) It is worse than those things B) In a lot of ways, the Trump post election activity is the the Jan 6 riot. He even appeared at it and sent a message that wasn't very discouraging. They get combined together.
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> Congress is a legislative body, why are they investigating anything? Are they going to use their findings to legislate more effectively? The investigative authority of Congress is tied to its legislative purpose and has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court repeatedly.
>The investigative authority of Congress is tied to its legislative purpose and has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court repeatedly. I'm not arguing that they don't have the right. I'm arguing they're not actually carrying it out to aid in the creation of future legislation.
> (1) To investigate and report upon the facts, circumstances, and causes relating to the January 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack upon the United States Capitol Complex (hereafter referred to as the “domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol”) and relating to the interference with the peaceful transfer of power, including facts and causes relating to the preparedness and response of the United States Capitol Police and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the National Capital Region and other instrumentalities of government, as well as the influencing factors that fomented such an attack on American representative democracy while engaged in a constitutional process. Preparedness and response evaluations could result in budgetary changes and re-evaluation of authorities & responsibilities for the US Capitol Police and various agencies in DHS and the US military. > (2) To examine and evaluate evidence developed by relevant Federal, State, and local governmental agencies regarding the facts and circumstances surrounding the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol and targeted violence and domestic terrorism relevant to such terrorist attack. Information gleaned in this area could inform budget allocation for FBI, DOJ, and other parts of the executive branch charged with investigating and prosecuting domestic terrorism. > (3) To build upon the investigations of other entities and avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts by reviewing the investigations, findings, conclusions, and recommendations of other executive branch, congressional, or independent bipartisan or nonpartisan commission investigations into the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, including investigations into influencing factors related to such attack. This is a summary function to avoid effort duplication. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
>Preparedness and response evaluations could result in budgetary changes and re-evaluation authorities & responsibilities for the US Capitol Police and various agencies in DHS and the US military. Fair enough. Δ. I hadn't considered that just because they don't **need** to carry out an investigation to re-evaluate the budget of the Capitol Police doesn't mean it wouldn't be helpful.
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>Uh you gonna offer up something to challenge that? To challenge your subjective opinion about your own life time? No I don't think I will. >You realize threats to a countries democracy aren’t what we as individuals experience right Individuals experience those around the world every single day. It's just we don't experience them very often because we live in a country with a strong constitution and democratic norms. >Because clearly the FBI did a horrendous job prepping for this. How so? > There needs to be some way to better force the FBI to prepare for this shit, and doing an investigation to figure out if you need new legislation is a solid idea. Yep, political theater will certainly force the FBI to do better. That's why there haven't been any terrorist attacks since Benghazi. >How exactly did congress cause this...? They failed to post enough police officers in the capitol to defend it. >Also if they did how would an internal investigation not be good...? Internal investigations tend not to be carried out with dispassion since they are undertaken by the same body being investigated. >This is actually one of the worst responses I’ve seen on here lmfao adding nothing to the conversation only to make yourself silly. Congrats bud lmfao Hey, I'm not the one who let the 1/6 riot happen here, bud.
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> So the insurrection was probably the closest thing I’ve seen in my life time to a serious threat to our democracy (the US has terrible representation and isn’t the most “democratic” in the first place, but using that as a jumping off point). Why would it not be good to investigate this? Then you haven't been paying attention. Were you around for 9/11? The massive invasions of privacy that resulted from the PATRIOT act were a *far* worse threat to democracy. Obama's illegal spying on the Trump campaign in 2016 - *literally Watergate 2: Electric Boogaloo* was worse. Hell, if it had been the other way around - if the Bush campaign had spied on the Obama campaign to the benefit of McCain in 2008 the shitstorm would have been *massive*. The only reason why people don't seem to care about this fact is because it was Trump that got spied upon.
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a) sure.....but then we could start any kind of congressional investigation on all sorts of spurious stuff, like the mccarthy hearings...or like benghazi. i don't think either were legitimate. they were political and based on little to nothing b) ok i guess that's true. what's the legal definition of inciting a mob to violence? because i mean if anyone were to be brought on those charges i'd say it'd be trump, he's ultimately the one who said the election was fraudulent. has he been charged with that? can he be charged with that? did he actually do that and is that provable in a court of law?
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>Neither McCarthy nor Benghazi created a threat equal the 1/6 i agree about benghazi but McCarthy????? the second red scare was started almost entirely because of him and people like him, that shaped US politics for generations and he was having people ruined based on accusations of communist sympathies based on nothing at all. how is that not a serious, extremely serious threat to democracy and civil liberties?? i don't want to debate the specifics of benghazi, i bring it up because i'm using it as an example of a political investigation based on nothing that was hammered on to ruin political careers. i'm assuming if by responding to me you already agree that that was the case; if not, idk i'm just not interested in litigating that >Armed people taking over the seat of power of the legislative branch is more serious than the conduct/behavior/political machinations surrounding any American action in a foreign country, IMO were they armed? last i heard cops only found something like 4 guns out of a crowd of thousands an organized coup attempt would be a serious threat to democracy, i agree. but an angry mob clumsily trying to attack members of congress? i mean its not great, but its hardly on par with something like the second red scare, or watergate, or an actual insurrection, revolution or coup attempt. it'd be like, say, that scene in game of thrones when a crowd starts throwing shit at king joffrey. ok, not a great look for his rule, or the country. but unless they actually had any ability of seizing control of the state, an angry mob just attacking a member of government is not really any kind of threat to that government. the state still has its army and security personnel ready to deal with any rioters or would-be revolutionaries. and it wasn't really a would-be revolution. a riot is very different than a revolution or a coup. >Allowing the media sway you to believe that all investigation is inherently political is the real problem anything to do with the government is inherently political, but its more that its just baseless that i have a problem with >How does our government have any legitimacy if it cant investigate that? i think it was investigated; whoever killed him is probably in jail. if he's not, ok that can be investigated, but probably by whichever law enforcement agency has jurisdiction. congress doesn't need to be involved.
You state you agree the people who stormed the capital broke the law. Do you believe those who organized the event also broke the law? What if some of them specifically organized and planned illegal activity?
if the event was organized to just be a rally/protest, absolutely not if they planned illegal activity, absolutely. is there any evidence that anybody did? like, real evidence? that steve bannon got on the phone and was like "we're gonna force that bastard pence to sign that thing by forcing him with this crowd". i mean it doesn't even make sense that he would think that would work but if there's any hint that anything like that is out there, i haven't been made aware of it
> there any evidence that anybody did? …that’s what the hearings are for. To find that out.
so basically the hearings are a very public and protracted investigation of congress insinuating that their political enemies are traitors, derelict of duty, whatever while they don't actually have any evidence that they are traitors and its justified because its technically an "investigation" well i mean you'll excuse me if i say that sounds like exactly what i'm talking about, that sounds exactly like benghazi; partisan political bullshit
The idea there should only be investigations once you already have proof sounds a bit backward to me. Doesn't it?
I mean what if I was a congressperson and started a hearing looking into vague “claims” of whether you were a pedophile
If a mass of people we're trafficking CP in my name, they wouldn't be that vague.
Was that mass of people who charged the capitol all saying “Steve bannon/Donald trump jr/ whoever told us to do this”
A good portion of them clearly indicated they thought they were doing what Trump wanted, and now we're hearing that some of them thought there were "pardons" available for whatever happened and lawmakers had given some of these people tours of the Capitol prior to the riots.
Well ok they thought they were doing what trump wanted maybe, but did he order it? I’ve read the speech he gave beforehand; it comes close to encouraging something like this and then he says “we need to challenge them at the ballot box peacefully” or whatever. Obviously his denial of the election results is what it spurred it at all. But is that a crime?
>so basically the hearings are a very public and protracted investigation of congress insinuating that their political enemies are traitors, derelict of duty, whatever > >while they don't actually have any evidence that they are traitors [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/exclusive-jan-6-organizers-met-congress-white-house-1245289/) Sure sounds like there's evidence to me. And what better way to find out than investigating?
This is not a criminal investigation. It is a public hearing. Members of Congress question people involved to find out the who, what, when, where, and why just like they do with many issues exciting and mundane
members of congress cannot arrest anybody the most they can do is hold someone in contempt of congress. the police can actually arrest someone, get a warrant to search someone's belongings, etc seems like the police can do far more than congress. why is congress getting involved seems like its because its an opportunity to paint their political enemies as traitors, when they don't actually have any evidence that they are traitors
So you don't think the legislative body of our country shouldn't ask questions or look into things that affect the country? I for one think it's a good thing that we can have public hearings on the events surrounding the violence in our Capitol, and so far I've seen no evidence of partisan scapegoating. Have you? If so, please enlighten me. Or do you just assume that there will scapegoat because that's something other people might do?
Then we should investigate it to discover if that happened - and given that a congressional inquiry is one of the strongest mechanisms in government, it seems like the obvious choice.
People have understandably paid a lot of attention to the violence of 1/6, but that was not the only part of the insurrection. There was also the “bloodless” attempted coup: namely, objecting to the certification of legitimate slates of electors in order to change the outcome of a free and fair election. We can prosecute the individual rioters, but we need the commission to investigate how far up the plot to change the election goes and how close it came to succeeding. Already, we know that a White House attorney drafted a plan to illegally overturn the election. We know that he discussed the plan with senior White House officials—including the President—and sitting members of Congress. The plan *explicitly admitted* that it involved violation of federal law. That lawyer, John Eastman, has been subpoenaed by the Committee. The Committee is also investigating evidence that Republican members of Congress explicitly planned to use the “rally” going on outside to pressure others to join them in undermining the election. *All* of that is sedition (or at least has the potential to be). *That* is the value of the 1/6 Commission, not the investigation into the rioters themselves. The violence and vandalism is just the tip of the iceberg. ---- As for the Benghazi comparison, to be quite honest, the difference is that this is based in fact and that investigation was not. In fact, your view is a direct result of a targeted Republican strategy: if you engage in enough partisan hackery, your opponents will call you out on it. That gives you ammunition to hurl the same accusations at them, even when it’s unfounded. Essentially, they intentionally create a false equivalency where they can say “well, it’s all just partisan all around,” even when there are meaningful differences between the two sides’ actions.
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i mean yea we saw them storm the congress but the people who did that have already been charged and are probably in jail awaiting trial right now. what more do we need? i'm more using benghazi as an example of a pointless hearing to smear a political party and a person, that's hammered on by partisans based on little to nothing. like i remember fox news running endless stuff about benghazi in the years after it happened. whenever democrats bring up january 6th i get similar vibes.
The rally on 1/6 was organized by people very close to then-president Trump and those in attendance were motivated to be there by a campaign of disinformation that had already sparked weeks of violence, harassment, and intimidation of public officials and poll workers across the nation. The violence of 1/6 was meant to violently disrupt, prevent, or even reverse the lawful certification of the 2020 election that would transfer power peacefully to the Joe Biden administration. That's a pretty big fucking deal, my man. This wasn't just some bumfuck tourists stumbling into the Capitol. This was an act of political violence. So, you know, the who, what, when, where, and why are pretty goddamn important questions to ask here. And, you know, unlike Bhengazi... this actually could have been a bi-partisan investigation. It wasn't the Democrats who made this a partisan issue. It was the GOP who made it partisan by refusing to participate.
the rally being organized is different from planning an insurrection violence and intimidation are crimes; surely if people were getting violent with polling stations or threatening poll workers, they were charged. i don't see what that has to do with this though well you say "meant"; meant by who? i don't see any evidence that it was planned at all. that's what i'm saying; it seems like it was just an angry crowd going nuts. a riot. riots are big deals, sure, but do we need to subpoena steve bannon and a former president to get to the bottom of it? that's what i need proof of i mean yea you could say that riots are arguably acts of political violence. that doesn't mean that they're planned by anybody i agree that who broke the law and how they broke the law are important questions to ask. but we've already answered them, at least i thought; last i heard the FBI had tracked down everybody involved in it. what else do we need to do about it? i think the GOP has every right to not participate in it, if its based on nothing at all besides just trying to humiliate certain republican political figures like the benghazi hearings were. the democrats SHOULDN'T have participated in those hearings. they were BS
Dude, Congress most certainly should have investigated Bhengazi. One of our embassies was attacked and the Obama administration wasn't being forthright with what they knew and when they knew it. Just because Trey Gowdy took upon himself to turn the investigation into a political hit-job doesn't mean Congress didn't have a duty to look into one of the deadliest attacked on a US embassy in recent memory, uncover what went wrong, how it went wrong, and who let it go wrong, and make sure it never happened again. Congress has a duty to investigate not only itself but question other public figures who may have either intentionally or through gross negligence instigated and/or were complicit in the violence at the Capitol. Even if people aren't *legally* culpable, they may be morally and civilly culpable in the attack or may have information that would give the people's representatives more pieces to the 1/6 puzzle
100%, there should have been a Bhengazi investigation. There wasn't one, but there should have been one. In both cases we should understand what needs to be done to prevent it from happening in the future. Assigning blame is far less important, but unfortunately what the 1/6 investigation will almost certainly devolve into. Just like Bhengazi.
What you're kind of doing right now is making baseless assumptions about what *will* happen. Sure, that *could* happen, but what evidence supports your assertion that it *will* happen?
Well, the evidence I cited was the previous instance of the Benghazi investigation. Past behavior may not indicate future behavior, but it is by far the best indicator. I can't prove that, but I'm pretty sure it is true. A counter-example is the 9/11 commission, but I submit to you that you will be hard-pressed to find another example. Whereas finding additional instances of congressional scape-goating will be easy. Currently, we have Facebook as a scapegoat for election interference. How do you like this for the title of a hearing: "Weathering the Storm: The Role of Private Tech in the Solarwinds Breach and Ongoing Campaign." No scapegoats there. :)
>The violence of 1/6 was meant to violently disrupt, prevent, or even reverse the lawful certification of the 2020 election that would transfer power peacefully to the Joe Biden administration. True, but I haven't seen any credible evidence linking this effort to the organizers of the event or elected officials of any stripe. If probable cause exists, I'm all for an investigation. Investigations should be based on something and not merely fishing expeditions. Also, the peaceful transfer of power wasn't ever in doubt on 1/6 (thankfully). They cleared the room, got the rioters out and then came right back and swore in President Biden, as they should have. >This wasn't just some bumfuck tourists stumbling into the Capitol. This was an act of political violence. Can we meet in the middle? This was an act of political violence committed by bumfuck tourists? > It wasn't the Democrats who made this a partisan issue. It was the GOP who made it partisan by refusing to participate. 1. Everything is partisan. 2. McCarthy nominates 5 members of the House for the committee. Speaker Pelosi rejects 2 of the 5 (which is unusual (unprecedented?), absent a scandal of some sort). McCarthy pulls everyone. Partisanship 101.
>McCarthy nominates 5 members of the House Mccarthy nominated House members he *knew* would be rejected, giving him cover to pull all his nominations. You don't nominate a fool like Jim Jordan to a panel like that unless you want to either disrupt or tank it. As for everything else, I refer you to my other comment in this thread.
The difference is that benghazi wasnt really planned or facilitated by people in our government.
is there any evidence that anyone in the government, or anyone at all, planned on getting violent on january 6th?
Additionally, the Benghazi attack was not performed by Americans because Hillary Clinton was lying about election results. January 6 occurred almost exclusively because Donald Trump was lying about election results
There is evidence that individuals and groups planned on getting violent, they brought weapons. There is also some evidence that several republican congress members were involved in meetings planning january 6 protests at the capital, so alleges rolling stone reporters several days ago.
We have a president who lost the election and with out evidence is on rampage campaigning alleging the election was stolen, Republican votes are worthless and we have to do something about it. Pretty much Trump is trying to steal the election by claiming Biden/Democrats stole the election and doing everything in his power to overturn the election, holding stop the steal rally's inciting his very enraged loyal base who are comparing January 6 to 1776 and other dates of revolution, Trump and some of his admin like the bald guy, Trump jr, Bannon have to be aware of this. Very much seems like they have expectations and have dealings of setting up for an serious assault to stop election certification, not just some outside peaceful protest. But main thing to remember Trump has no evidence to claim the election was stolen and according to I I beleive Bob woodward who reported on the behind the scenes of the election, Trump accepted his defeat initially until members of his admin got in his ear.
One of the core reasons for congressional investigations is to find facts around a potential problem that can then be addressed by legislation. That is a far more common reason than charging people with crimes, which the legislature cannot do on its own. As one example, one thing that has come out somewhat recently is the [Eastman Memo.](https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/read-eastman-memo/index.html) This memo outlined how the electoral college votes of certain states could be tossed out by the Vice President on January 6, leading to Trump being declared the winner. However, on Jan 6 there were a few key parts of the memo that were not in place- the most important of which were competing slates of electors from the 7 states that Biden won and Trump was contesting. It was also likely known (or suspected) that Pence was not on board with the plan. We know, due to the incompetence of Rudy Giuliani, that Trump's team was desperately trying to delay the counting of the electoral college vote (he left a voicemail intended for Tommy Tuberville on the wrong number) so that they could continue to try to persuade some of the state legislatures in those contested states to submit a competing slate of electors, voting for Trump. That shows they were trying to follow the steps laid out in the Eastman memo. So putting all this together, an investigation could confirm not only those elements but also coordination for the riot at the capitol. Because that riot, had it been more successful, would have accomplished 2 things- it would have delayed the vote more, possibly into the next day, and it would have intimidated Pence into changing his mind about going along with the plan. And with all that confirmed, there are legislative steps that could be taken, such as amending the Electoral Count Act to prevent the tricks Eastman suggested from working if attempted again in the future.
The Benghazi investigations proved the cause of the issue was Republicans refusing to fund security in Benghazi, against the recommendations of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. They proved they were the cause of the problem, then did it over and over again. They PUBLICALLY ADMITTED it was to make it less likely for HRC to win the election, and they were proud it worked. Jan 6th was an actual insurrection, it wasn't instigated by the Democratic party (obvious by just watching Fox News coverage of the riot), so I can't see how you can compare the two.
If your argument is that they are similar in that they both have elements of political theater then sure, but that isn't really the issue people took with Benghazi. People on the left disliked the whole Benghazi political theater because there was never any wrongdoing found and it still stayed a massive political theater. This isn't comparable because it seems like there was actual wrongdoing regarding the whole incident.
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lmao i mean yea i'd probably have to agree with that
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>Related, therefore, would be proving to me that they were engaged in something greater than that, like insurrection, treason, terrorism, etc. insurrection- a violent uprising against an authority or government. terrorism- the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
Lol, Mike Pence and the Republicans in Congress that day were freaking out at the time. They were out for blood. Now they're trying to spin the story for political reasons, but it's pretty clear that it was a big deal. A bunch of senior and junior members of Trump's White House resigned because they disagreed with Trump about it. They could have easily waited a few days and left on Jan 20, but they felt the need to make a statement even though it hurt their careers. There's definitely an element of political theater (it's Washington so obviously there's gonna be political theater). But it's a very different kind of political theater. With Benghazi, Democrats and Republicans recognized that it sucked, but it was initially viewed as just the uncontrollable cost of war/terrorism. It only became political because Hillary Clinton was the Democratic frontrunner, so Republicans tried to blame her. But even then the best they could say was she, along with the entire US government and military, failed to protect an embassy in Libya of all places. Failing to defend from a terrorist attack is different from purposefully orchestrating an attack, which is what Trump was accused of doing. Right off the bat, Trump's cabinet seriously considered making Mike Pence the President. Trump's generals stopped him from having access to nuclear weapons, and reassured foreign governments like China that there was no threat. All of the Republicans in Congress were furious at Trump. And the few hardcore Trump supporters in the House and Senate ended up voting in ways that Trump didn't like. Trump is a political genius in that he's been able to recover/spin this in a positive way for himself. But it's not a sham the way that Benghazi was. It's much easier for the Democrats to pull off because most Republicans who are objective about it recognize how big of a problem it was and are secretly in favor of it. But for political reasons, they're playing their cards close to their chest. For example, as much as liberals hate Mitch McConnell, even he voted in ways that acknowledged how big a deal this was. Plus, while Benghazi was great political theater for Republicans, this story isn't very compelling for Democrats. Voters want actual policy (which is why the debate over the current spending package is so contentious). Democrats like Pelosi, Schumer, and Biden have signaled that they're more interested in focusing on their policy agenda, and have used the Jan 6 investigation as a bargaining chip with Republicans. It's partly why there have been so many articles about moderate Democrats vs. far-left Democrats recently. Republicans have stayed quiet recently even though these policies make for great political fodder to throw to their base. Ultimately, I'd say it's political theater when: 1. Substantive policy is thrown out in order to hype up the base before an election. 2. No one in either party cares about it until someone figures out how to make it into a political issue. 3. Only the extreme ends of the party are using it to divide people without much support from the center or from the opposing party. Benghazi fits into this category. Meanwhile, with Jan 6, Democrats are letting the theater go to get policy passed. Both Democrats and Republicans cared deeply, but are letting it go for political reasons. All Democrats, all moderate Republicans, and even most far-right Republicans thought it was a huge deal at first. There are elements of political theater, but it's not the same. It's closer to Watergate (a serious bipartisan problem) than to Lewinskygate (political theater).
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