Trump's Day 1 Plan Ranks Attackers Over Injured Cops
On Jan. 6, officers suffered cracked ribs, smashed spinal discs, the loss of an eye, the loss of of three fingers and stabbing wounds. Trump's freeing their assailants with no thought of the officers.
Since Donald Trump’s troops attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 120 individuals have been convicted of using a deadly or dangerous weapon, or causing serious bodily injury to a law enforcement officer during that assault.
On Jan. 20, or quickly afterward, they’ll all walk free, no matter how vicious their actions were or how badly the officers they attacked were hurt. In an interview that aired on NBC Sunday, Trump was asked if he would pardon “everyone” who attacked the Capitol, Trump responded, “Yeah. But I’m going to be acting very quickly.”
Pressed further, he added: “First day!”
It’s good to know he’s got his priorities in order, right? Damn the officers seriously injured in the attack, Trump plans to release the attackers who assaulted them using hockey sticks, an ax handle, tasers, poles, lead pipes, stolen police shields, bear spray and even an American flag pole with the flag still attached, Justice Department reports show.
Basically, it’s a message to the public saying, “as long as you yell out my name occasionally, or fly a Trump flag, you can do anything you want to cops.” Meanwhile, how about a more significant nod to the millions who voted for him, seeking something positive for their lives? Maybe Day Two? But don’t hold your breath waiting.
About 140 officers — 73 from Capitol police, and 65 from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington — were injured in the attack, the departments have said. Fifteen were hurt severely enough to be immediately hospitalized, some with months of recovery required.
The injuries ranged from severe concussions, to cracked ribs and smashed spinal discs, the loss of an eye and the loss of fingers. One officer was stabbed with a metal fence stake, and another died a day later from two strokes after being hit with a chemical spray, likely bear spray, a 70mph accelerant designed to inflame the eyes and upper respiratory system of large animals. Yet another, struck in the head by a metal rod in the attack, committed suicide days later.
All this in what Trump has publicly referred to as a “day of love”
To put Trump’s statement into context, one person charged with slamming a female law officer’s head into the concrete — causing her to have a concussion that’s led to constant headaches and her resignation from the force — had an open warrant for assault and was on parole for a second incident. Prosecutors told the court the attacker was previously charged with choking a women to the point of loss of consciousness, and breaking into a victim's home multiple times to assault her.
Sure, let’s let this guy walk free.
I know Trump has said all along he was going to pardon Jan. 6 assaulters, so it’s not a surprise. But you’d think, just maybe, he’d take action only after careful review of the charges to make sure he doesn’t free someone who rearranged the spine of a law enforcement officer, or half blinded one.
Come on, folks, we all saw the videos. You can pardon those whose charges reflect they just surged in with the crowd, yelled out slogans or sat at a lawmaker’s desk, and even perhaps those who broke stuff (sticking taxpayers with a $2,881,360.20 bill). But not the folks who purposefully injured police officers doing their job.
I’m old and I remember when Republicans were the “Law & Order Party,” a phrase they used in campaign after campaign. No more.
Trump, by the way, also explained during the interview on “Meet the Press” why he’s firing FBI Director Christopher Wray – who he put in office in his first administration -- and naming the obsequious Kash Patel to replace him.
“He invaded my home,” Trump said of Wray. “I’m suing the country over it. He invaded Mar-a-Lago.” He also cited Wray’s comments after the July 13 assassination attempt against him, adding, “when I was shot in the ear, he said, ‘Oh, maybe it was shrapnel,’” Trump said. “Where’s the shrapnel coming from? Is it coming from — is it coming from heaven? I don’t think so.”
I guess Trump’s personal fit of pique is enough of a reason to send in first Matt Gaetz for heaven’s sake, and then Patel to replace Wray, though neither has the background to fill such a job. Patel, meanwhile, has threatened to dismantle much of the agency because the folks working there weren’t nice to his boss.
Finally, Trump said members of Congress who investigated his role in the Jan. 6 attack should be thrown behind bars.
“For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump said of Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Adam Schiff, Jamie Raskin and the rest of the bipartisan House committee that looked into the attack. But in a classic Trump dodge, he said he wouldn’t direct his new attorney general or F.B.I. director to pursue the matter but indicated he expected them to do it on their own.
“I think that they’ll have to look at that,” he said, “but I’m not going to” order them to. But what did we expect from Trump, that his priorities would be the folks who voted for him to make THEIR lives better? That this convicted felon would suddenly care about law and order? Trump cares about Trump, first and foremost. Every time you forget that he has a way of quickly reminding you.
“Even if Trump's supporters haven’t started to get that sinking feeling yet, they will—and soon,” Robert B. Hubbell wrote the other day in his “Today's Edition Newsletter” on Substack. “The painful epiphany that they have been duped is inevitable. Trump's delusional belief that he has a ‘mandate’ is encouraging him to swing for the fences in the ballpark of depravity.”
The “ballpark of depravity!” I couldn’t have said it better. So with that thought in mind, let’s take a second to review Trump’s activities so far.
He initially named a person to run the FBI who’s been investigated for having sex with a minor at a drugs and sex party. He named a health-care chief who was convicted of carrying around heroin. He named a leader for the military who paid a woman not to bring sexual abuse charges against him or talk about it publicly. He nominated an education secretary sued for allowing abuse in the wrestling organization she helped run. And he named a man just out of prison on a Contempt of Congress conviction as his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.
My favorite (beyond Gaetz, of course) was his naming of Charles Kushner, his daughter’s father-in-law, as the U.S. ambassador to France. Kushner served 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to felonies, that included tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign donations. Trump pardoned him in 2020, and this year made him an ambassador.
The witness tampering charge came about, by the way, because Kushner hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law into sex, then arranged to have the encounter in a New Jersey motel room recorded with a hidden camera and to have the recording sent to his own sister, the man’s wife.
Perhaps, sending Kushner to Paris is Trump’s idea of a “french kiss,” who knows. At least he didn’t severely injure a police officer, right?