It Failed
The story of what happened at the US Capitol on January 6 has been told in different ways. Apologists for Trump tells us that it was a peaceful protest and a few bad apples broke into the Capitol and rummaged around a bit. Others acknowledge that it was a protest that got out of hand.
But there are some very strong pieces of evidence that point to the most sinister of conclusions: Trump tried to overthrow the nation with an Executive coup.
Legality:
First, Trump’s legal argument had no plausible avenue for success long before he called his followers to join him in DC on that morning. He claimed and seemed to believe that the Vice-President, who had an important but entirely ceremonial role in the counting of the Elector ballots, could simply refuse to accept some of them and send them back to the states. This would leave no candidate with enough electoral votes, leaving the matter to be decided by Congress on a one vote per state basis. Trump might well have been delusional enough to believe this, but he certainly had plenty of lawyers around him who knew that it wasn’t an option. And the Vice-President knew it wasn’t an option and told him so. The simple truth is that such an attempt would be an unlawful act, putting the VP in legal jeopardy. More than that, it would have been a direct attempt to undermine the Constitutional process used to select the President.
That’s right: Trump was asking Pence to participate in a coup. Drop all the talk about plausible legality as there wasn’t any.
The legal arguments ended long before January 6. Legal avenues closed absolutely when the electors from the states voted.
But they should have ended long before. After the separate states counted votes and declared the victories, some room was open for challenges. Some states had results close enough for candidates to ask for recounts. Trump asked for one in Georgia, and also paid for a partial recount in Wisconsin. These operations were done, and the results were the same. These included hand counts of ballots, completely destroying his claim of computers changing votes.
At that point he should have recognized that the election was fair and concede. He didn’t. And when the Department Of Justice said that they found no evidence of large scale fraud, and those several states all declared their elections fair, he should have stopped and conceded. He didn’t.
For all of this, the counting of the electors at the US Capitol by the joint session of Congress had no real legal value. The idea that members of Congress could object to the electoral votes in some state or another is valid, but that would only require those bodies to separate and debate those challenges, and return to vote. There was never a realistic chance that the outcome would be different – unless you add treachery.
If, you might offer, an armed mob of citizens swarmed Congress and captured and detained House and Senate members unwilling to oppose the electoral vote. This would allow the remaining members, Trump supporters all, to form a quorum and reject the electoral votes of those states, throwing the decision to Congress.
This would be straight up treason and a coup d’tat. Dig through historical examples to find similar events that installed governments in other countries that are similar, but none change the basic idea that this would be an overthrow of the nation, and would reject the validity of the Constitution.
This is the only plausible goal that President Trump could have had.
The actors:
For months Trump had been denying his election loss and claiming massive fraud. He took his claims to court almost sixty times and in front of about 80 judges, many of whom he had nominated for their seats. All were either rejected or withdrawn lacking merit or standing. And all of the legal processes with those several states found no evidence of his claims and universally agreed in the stated results. Despite all of this Trump had a devoted following of true believers who accepted his claims without question or examination. Their willingness to turn on anyone who rejected Trump’s assertions was clear and openly announced. Members of Trump’s administration who had been completely loyal to him, and had engaged in operations of questionable legality in his support, such as Attorney General William Barr, and Vice-President Mike Pence were denounced the moment they parted ways. Preceding the assault on the Capitol, his followers were publicly calling for Pence to face a firing squad. During the assault on the Capitol, Trump’s supporters built a gallows on the mall.
Before Trump was President and was still a candidate, he famously said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote. His recognition of the cultish loyalty from his base was clear even back then. His regular calls to his supporters to take back their country that had been stolen, and insistence that all who opposed him were the enemy had a calculated effect that he was clearly aware of. Trump knew what would happen if he gave the right encouragement. And like a Mafia don who never actually orders a murder, it happens anyway when he states his displeasure with the victim, and nods at one of his capos.
But let me first separate out some of his supporters.
There were, of course, many of his supporters who went simply to show support and who would never engage in a violent act. They range from those who supported his policies to the civically illiterate. Many, many of his supporters have no real concept of how our Government is structured, or how the process of making laws works. A common belief I have found is that the President is like the CEO of a company, and the other branches are subordinate to him and are required to enact whatever policies he sees fit. These people were there in great numbers, with most having no plan to engage in physical attacks against the government.
But there are also large numbers of those who are very willing to do so; and not only willing, but hoping for that opportunity. Groups like the Proud Boys, to name one, were actively planning actions. They were openly vocal about their intentions. For weeks they talked on social media about meeting in Washington, DC to take back their country. They discussed methods of sneaking weapons into the city (against local law.) They made both veiled and open threats of violence. They had previously presented themselves with arms at state capitols around the country in support of Trump. One separate group in Michigan has been arrested for plotting to kidnap and bring to “trial” the Governor of that state. Their backup plan, which they contacted other militia groups for personnel, was to bring hundreds of armed men to overwhelm the State Capitol and kill those who tried to stop them. Sound familiar?
There are also groups and actors inspired by conspiracy outlets, such as Qanon, who believe that Trump is waging a war against a deep state of corrupt pedophiles. A whole book could be written about the ludicrous claims that are believed by some of these people, so I won’t say more here; but the numbers who believe these conspiracies speak of who was coming to DC and what they were willing to do. And there is little doubt that Trump is aware of their willingness too.
During the assault on the Capitol, countless photographs and videos were taken. As these were analyzed it was noticed that many of these actors brought with them personal restraint devices. Zip tie handcuffs and other tools which would have no place in a spontaneous mob riot, but would be brought if the intention was to capture and hold people. There were actors within the Capitol who went from room to room looking for elected officials, and it appears a concerted effort was made to surround and detain the entire 1st branch of our government. They made an outright assault against Capitol Police, who stated that as they were being attacked and beaten, the attackers claimed they were “doing this for them.” A statement entirely inline with the militant goals of overthrow of government.
The President:
After years of building a base of followers seemingly willing to do anything he asked, and years of decrying all those who opposed him as enemies of the people, and after crafting the image of himself as a victim of corrupt and unfair forces allied against him; he then spent months declaring and restating the false claims of voter fraud. He called his follower to come to the Capital on January 6 to take back the country, and to stop the steal of the election. He gathered them in a rally and stoked the anger of this crowd. A crowd that he knew was full of actors willing and intending to do mayhem. He repeated his claims of fraud, repeated his calls for taking back the government, and then sent them marching (with the false promise of his participation) down the street to the Capitol to cheer on the loyal Congressional allies who were waiting. He repeated his wish for Pence, whose loyalty he now questioned, to take action to overturn the vote.
Trump left the stage and immediately returned to the White House where he watch the events unfold on television.
The police preparedness for such an event was absurdly planned. They had no real defense against such an assault that they should have know was coming. Investigations in the months and years ahead will tell us how and why this was the case.
But when calls were made to activate more police and national guard regiments to assist the Capitol Police, the appropriate authorities held back. It wasn’t the President who released these additional units, but the Vice-President. And when members of Congress called the Governor of Maryland to send his national guard, he was prevented from doing so for more than an hour, even though the Capitol had been breached and Congress was under siege. It appears that they were told not to respond.
All of this points not to an unfortunate and spontaneous riot, but rather a planned event designed to sequester the power of Congress, or at least the members of Congress who opposed Trump, in order to further an Executive coup d’tat. Maybe even to kill them. At the very least we faced the worst hostage crisis the country has seen.
It seems beyond reasonable to conclude that Trump intended for this to happen. His actions leading up demonstrate that, and I believe were it not for the courage of many individuals, and the incompetence of the leader, it would have succeeded.