In an exclusive story published last week, wire service Reuters reported the FBI has found “scant evidence” that Trump supporters hatched a criminal plot to overturn the presidential election when they swarmed Capitol Hill and entered the hallowed halls of the Capitol Building itself.
The claim of an attempted overthrow of the federal government was made early and often by Democrats, and it was a key underpinning of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial for inciting his supporters, but the four law enforcement officials interviewed for the Reuters story concluded that groups such as Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, which worked together on Jan. 6, did not plot days or weeks earlier to overthrow their government.
Just days after the riots, NPR reported federal prosecutors were promising “mind-blowing” charges including murder and sedition against the “insurrectionist mob” that attacked the Capitol. However, American Family News reported in a July 15 story updating such claims that federal prosecutors had completely scrapped the serious “sedition” charges that would have meant years behind bars. Instead, after arresting more than 500 people, most are facing minor offenses such as damaging government property and trespassing.
Approximately 50 of those defendants remain behind bars today, unable to post bail, and they are now telling supporters they are political prisoners who are being hurt by the legal system as punishment for their views, not for criminal behavior.
Reacting to the Reuters story, talk show Janet Mefferd tells American Family News the lack of conspiracy charges yanks the legs right out from under the left-wing claims.
“This certainly does blow up the media narrative that has been around for the last eight months,” she observes. “And it raises a lot of questions, too. It raises questions about what many people are calling the political prisoners.”
The left-wing politics involved is quite undeniable. Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill blamed Donald Trump for inciting the violence when he spoke at the “Save America” rally speech on the Ellipse. Weeks later, Democrats also said they feared for their safety and erected fencing and razor wire, and brought in thousands of National Guard troops, to protect them from a right-wing, Trump-supporting threat that never materialized.
Beyond the former president and his supporters, Democrats on Capitol Hill also accused their Republican colleagues of aiding the rioters: Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Josh Hawley were hit with an “ethics complaint” filed by Senate Democrats because the senators objected to certifying some electoral results. Their objections, the Democrats claimed, “made future violence more likely.”
According to Mefferd, however, the newest revelation that conspiracy charges have fallen apart should affect the House Select Committee that is investigating the attack. But that would mean, she says, that Democrats who have milked Jan. 6 for their own purposes, and are still milking it today, will have any integrity to backtrack from their claims.
“It will be interesting to see how this story might affect the congressional investigation,” she says, “because they have really gone whole-hog, as we know, against President Trump and used it as a pretext for impeaching him after he left office.”
