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Mitch McConnell

'Offensive And Misleading': McConnell Scorches Carlson's January 6 Deception

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday denounced Fox Corporation’s Tucker Carlson's Monday night misinformation and disinformation segments which falsely framed the January 6, 2021 insurrection as a largely peaceful event and painted insurrectionists and rioters as "sightseers."

"With regard to the presentation on Fox News last night," McConnell told reporters, "I want to associate myself entirely with the opinion of the Chief of the Capitol Police about what happened on January 6th."

McConnell held up a statement from the Capitol Police Chief (full text below) that is a strong indictment of Fox's Tucker Carlson show, saying it provided "offensive and misleading conclusions."

"The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video," Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger also says. "The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments."

"My concern is how it was depicted," Sen. McConnell also told reporters when asked if it was a mistake for Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to have handed over 40,000 hours of January 6 video to Carlson's team. "Clearly, the chief of the Capitol Police, in my view, correctly describes what most of us witnessed firsthand on January 6."


"It was a mistake in my view for Fox News to depict this in a way that's completely at variance with what our chief law enforcement official here at Capitol thinks."

McConnell refused to deviate from his remarks when asked to comment on Speaker McCarthy's release of the video to Carlson, and when asked why many Republicans refuse to accept that January 6 was an attack or an insurrection.

See the Capitol Police Chie's statement and watch McConnell's remarks below or at this link.


Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Fallen Officer's Family Snubs GOP Leaders At Congressional Medal Ceremony

Fallen Officer's Family Snubs GOP Leaders At Congressional Medal Ceremony

GOP leaders Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) were red-faced after all the award recipients of Tuesday’s Congressional Gold Medal award ceremony pointedly refused to shake their hands at a ceremony to honor the officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Senior Capitol Police officers and their relatives, including the family of fallen officer Brian Sicknick, who defended the Capitol during the riot and died one day later, warmly greeted outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in the Capitol Rotunda as they accepted their Congressional Gold Medals.

McConnell, the Senate minority leader, wore a forced — and almost unhinged smile — as he held out his hand for handshakes that never arrived, even after late Officer Sicknick’s mother, Gladys Sicknick, kissed the cheek of Schumer, who was right beside him.

“They’re just two-faced,” Gladys Sicknick toldCNN, referring to the Republican leaders. “I’m just tired of them standing there and saying how wonderful the Capitol police is, and then they turn around and … go down to Mar-a-Lago and kiss his ring and come back and stand here and sit with — it just, it just hurts.”

Ken Sicknick, the late officer’s brother, rebuked the dour-faced duo more forcefully: “[McConnell and McCarthy] have no idea what integrity is. They can’t stand up for what’s right and wrong.”

Pelosi presided over the award ceremony, held to honor the Capitol officers who had served during the Capitol attack.

Four Congressional Gold Medals, the Congress's highest honor, were bestowed during the event, almost two years after former President Trump incited a mob of his supporters on lawmakers to overturn his 2020 election loss.

"January 6 was a day of horror and heartbreak. It is also a moment of extraordinary heroism. Staring down deadly violence and despicable bigotry, our law enforcement officers bravely stood in the breach, ensuring that democracy survived on that dark day,” Pelosi said at the ceremony.

McCarthy, who wore a sullen expression during the snub, his hands gripping a medal box, praised the officers for their heroism that day.

“To all the law enforcement officers who keep this country safe: thank you,” he said. “Too many people take that for granted, but days like today force us to realize how much we owe the thin blue line.”

McConnell, too, issued words of praise for the officers: “Thank you for having our backs. Thank you for saving our country. Thank you for not only being our friends but our heroes.”

When CNN approached McConnell later for comments on the tense incident, the senator pivoted to save face.

“I would respond by saying — today, we gave the gold medal to the heroes of January 6. We admire and respect them. They laid their lives on the line, and that’s why we gave a gold medal today to the heroes of January 6.”

The Kentuckian's gratitude was not enough for some, including Ken Sicknick, who said that the Republican leadership’s failure to confront Trump for inciting the mob that would storm the Capitol had spurred their decision, unlike Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WV).

“With them, it’s party first,” Ken Sicknick told CBS News’ Scott MacFarlane. “Liz gave up her political career to do what was right.”

Both congressional leaders had criticized Trump in the immediate aftermath of the insurrection at the Capitol, but neither voted to impeach or convict the former president for inciting the crowd that stormed the halls of Congress in an attack that claimed five lives.

McCarthy, a frontrunner for House speakership in the 118th Congress, has been assailed for traveling to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Palm bay, Florida, on January 28, 2021, to court the power-hungry demagogue at the height of his false widespread voter fraud claims.

Last week, McCarthy vowed to investigate the House Select Committee — a bipartisan House panel looking into the Capitol attack — and said the House GOP would launch its own January 6 probe in a letter addressed to its chairman, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), according to the Washington Post.

The families of the Capitol officers slammed McCarthy for the decision at the ceremony, noting that it had contributed to their choice not to shake hands with him.

Several other Republicans who attended the ceremony dodged questions about Trump’s vocal support for the January 6 mob and his endorsement of a far-right fundraiser supporting the rioters.

"Well, um, these guys are heroes and patriots, as was pointed out," Sen. John Thune (R-SD) told the outlet when asked to denounce Trump's pro-insurrectionist stance. "And, you know, I can't imagine any American working against that."

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who voted to acquit Trump, sought a safe distance from questions regarding Trump’s support for alleged Capitol rioters, saying, "Yeah, I'll leave that up to him.”

Protecting Trump, McCarthy Lied (On Tape) To Capitol Police About January 6

Protecting Trump, McCarthy Lied (On Tape) To Capitol Police About January 6

Kevin McCarthy, would-be House speaker, lied to two of the police officers who helped save his skin on January 6. He lied to the mother of an officer who died after the attack, telling them last year that the person who commanded Trump’s violent followers to march to the U.S. Capitol had no idea at all what they were doing. He also took credit for Trump’s eventual public statement asking rioters to “go home.” One of the attendees, then-D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, recorded the meeting and has shared that recording with CNN.

McCarthy met with Fanone, U.S. Capitol Officer Harry Dunn, and Gladys Sicknick, the mother of late Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, in June 2021. Fanone recorded the meeting because as he told CNN, “was because I didn’t expect Kevin McCarthy to, No. 1, tell the truth; No. 2, recount the conversation accurately; and No. 3, I wanted to show people how indifferent lawmakers are, not just Republican lawmakers, but all lawmakers, to the actual American people that they are representing.” D.C. has single-party consent for recordings—what Fanone did is completely legal.

The three had been pressing McCarthy to meet with him after House Republicans had begun to try to downplay what had happened that day and McCarthy himself had started to bow to Trump’s pressure and back off his pledge to allow Republican participation on the Jan. 6 committee. Fanone writes in a new book just being launched, “The only reason McCarthy had agreed to meet with us was because he’d been getting heat for refusing to see me.”

“I’m just telling you from my phone call, I don’t know that he did know that,” McCarthy told the three, speaking about his call to Trump and Trump’s knowledge of the attack. Sicknick’s mother pushed back in the meeting, according to the audio. “He already knew what was going on,” she said of Trump. “People were fighting for hours and hours and hours. This doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Fanone also challenged McCarthy about his continued defense of Trump: “While you were on the phone with him, I was getting the shit kicked out of me!” He wrote in his book, “I asked McCarthy why he would take credit for Trump’s pathetic, half-hearted late-afternoon video address to his followers. I said, ‘Trump says to his people, ‘This is what happens when you steal an election. Go home. I love you.’ What the f–k is that? That came from the president of the United States.”

Subsequent revelations in public testimony to the January 6 committee proved just how brazenly McCarthy lied to the officers and Mrs. Sicknick.

In those hearings, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified about her own telephone conversations with McCarthy that day, conversations which McCarthy now says he doesn’t remember having. “You told me this whole week you aren’t coming up here,” Hutchinson said that McCarthy told her. “Why would you lie to me?” She responded that as far as she knew, there weren’t plans for Trump to go to the Capitol. McCarthy answered, “Well, he just said it on stage, Cassidy. Figure it out. Don’t come up here.”

Months before McCarthy met with the officers, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, McCarthy had no problem blaming Trump for the riot. In audio obtained by The New York Times, McCarthy told fellow Republicans that he wanted Trump to resign as they discussed impeachment. “I’ve had it with this guy,” he told a group of his leadership team. “What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it,” he told the group. That’s what he was saying before he made a call to Trump, when he told the group that he was going to tell Trump to resign.

That didn’t go as planned, according to more recording the Times obtained. Following that call, McCarthy told Republicans on a conference call: “Let me be very clear to all of you, and I have been very clear to the president: He bears responsibilities for his words and actions. [...] No if, ands or buts.”

“I asked him personally today: Does he hold responsibility for what happened?” McCarthy said. “Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he’d need to acknowledge that.”

Five months later, McCarthy told the officers who protected him that day and the mother of an officer who died as a result of that attack that Trump had nothing to do with any of it. Kevin McCarthy is a liar. And a bad one. You’d think he’d have learned his lesson about watching what he says in private meetings, given his track record in that whole pre-2016 election scandal: “There's … there's two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump… [S]wear to God.”


Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

mike pence January 6

Capitol Police Officer Slams Pence For Downplaying January 6

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

A U.S. Capitol Police officer is laying out his grievances about the lenient sentences riot suspects are facing for their participation in the January 6 insurrection.

Speaking to NPR.org, U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell described the scene he faced with on January 6 while stationed on the west entrance to the Capitol.

According to Gonell, the scene was similar to a "medieval battleground." He also made it clear that he believes the sentences are not harsh enough considering the trauma inflicted by Capitol rioters on him and other members of law enforcement.

"Their jail time is less than my recovery time," said Gonell, who is still recovering from a shoulder injury. "The charges they're getting do not compare to the mental and physical injuries some of the police officers, including myself, got."

On Twitter, Gonell was critical of former Vice President Mike Pence, who has downplayed the attack that targeted him:



But despite the trauma he endured, he also said that he would do it again if he had to.

"It's mind-boggling to hear some of the things that are coming from some of these elected officials Gonell said. "But at the end of the day, our job is to make them safe and make their work environment safer, regardless of our opinion or political affiliation."

As a result of all that transpired on January 6, several hundred individuals were arrested for storming the Capitol. Even now, Gonnell has admitted how difficult it is to see the lawmakers who supported their efforts.