There is nothing that Donald Trump and his corrupt cronies would love more than to rewrite history and make January 6, 2021, into nothing more than an overhyped little protest rather than the violent insurrection that everyone knows it was.
So it’s vitally important that we continue to scream and stomp our collective feet about the $1.776 taxpayer-funded slush fund created by the sleazebag acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, for his boss in the Oval Office. It’s designed as a payoff for the crazed thugs who stormed the Capitol that fateful day, because it apparently wasn’t quite enough for the “president” to have pardoned them.
Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges and former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn have sued to block the creation of the fund, calling it, “The most brazen act of presidential corruption this century.”
That’s actually underselling it.
The reason why this is so fraudulent and unthinkable speaks to the horror that went down that infamous day. And while the story has been told numerous times, regular reminders of its terror and scope are essential to be sure it doesn’t fade from memory.
Start with the fact that Hodges and Dunn defended the Capitol and the lawmakers inside it (including Republicans who have struggled to minimize its scale) that day. Hodges was the man in the infamous photograph of the violent mob crushing a cop between metal doors.
Let’s remember that the carnage began shortly after noon, when rioters tried to break into the building to stop the counting of the electoral votes that would make Joe Biden president. Hours of hand-to-hand combat ensued as police struggled in vain to hold the insurrectionists back from killing elected officials and their staff.
On the west front of the Capitol, rioters broke down barriers and assaulted officers, spraying them with chemicals and hitting them with pipes, tools, and stolen bike racks. After finally busting through the police line and breaching the Capitol, they smashed windows, stalked the halls, chanted for the execution of Vice President Mike Pence and defiled the offices.
The advancing mob punched officers, speared them with flagpoles, attacked them with tasers and stolen riot shields, and worked to drag them into the crowd with the intent of seriously injuring or killing them. They engaged in an almost medieval style of combat, screaming and smashing and clawing and attempting to crush officers with their sheer weight and volume.
Hodges alleges in his lawsuit that he was “hit from above with a heavy object, kicked in the chest and driven to the ground. A rioter then grabbed Hodges by the face and tried to gouge out his eyes, unsuccessfully. As Hodges and his fellow officers fought to stop the rioters from flooding into the building, he was sandwiched between the metal doors by the enraged attackers.
It took more than three hours following the Capitol breach for Trump and his Department of Defense to (reluctantly) approve and dispatch the D.C. National Guard. It is all without precedent in American history.
Some 140 officers were injured in the January 6 attack, ranging from concussions and chemical burns to broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, crushed spinal discs, and other serious trauma. These rioters were not fooling around. They were intent on revenge and felt their role in American history was to take out anyone who got in their way.
Several officers who responded so heroically that day later died by suicide, including Howard Liebengood and Jeffrey Smith. It is unfathomable that any sentient human being could see what happened and come to any conclusion other than the group of marauders were trespassing criminals hellbent on retribution.
Yet somehow, according to the Department of “Justice,” it was ultimately the Biden Administration that was “weaponized” against these criminals. They were wronged by being prosecuted after committing an act of armed rebellion. And now it’s up to you and me to foot the bill.
It should be noted that Hodges and Dunn feel justified in suing to stop the fund because they’ve had to live with constant death threats and harassment from the brainwashed MAGA hordes.
Their suit notes that any payoff to these rioters “will both compensate and empower the very people making those threats. Militias like the Proud Boys will use money from the Fund to arm and equip themselves…Most chillingly, it will signal to past and potential future perpetrators of violence against Dunn and Hodges that they need not fear prosecution; to the contrary, they should expect to be rewarded.”
The timing of this is naturally hardly coincidental. Signals are being sent with zero subtlety that whatever Trump’s thug militia does on his behalf to stop the midterms, they will be legally protected and nicely compensated.
As part of his ongoing campaign to make sure everyone denies the evidence supplied by their eyes and ears, Trump claims this is all a big overblown misunderstanding, and these people have all been victimized by a gross injustice.
In the era before everyone carried around their own smartphone capable of instant video, this would have been far easier. Unfortunately for Trump, the events of that day have been extensively, exhaustively documented through video, testimony and criminal prosecutions. And no one who has seen the first-hand footage from that day can emerge anything but traumatized.
Trump knows how utterly preposterous and disgusting this nearly $1.8 billion travesty is. But he doesn’t care. His sole concern is retaining complete power for another two years, the means and consequences be damned.
So vile is this fund that even many Republicans in Congress have noticed that its implementation wouldn’t be good for them. Will it force them to retain their spines once the inevitable pushback comes from their lord and master? Uncertain. My guess is they’ll ultimately cave, as that’s what they do.
But this fund is so despicable that, like the Epstein Files, it needs to remain fresh in the public consciousness. Allowing it to be normalized is not an option.
Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.