The Shadow
The U.S. House of Representatives January 6 committee continues its probe into the events that took place during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 by issuing subpoenas and conducting interviews.
More than 250 interviews have been conducted as of December, 2021, and at least 120 citizens have been arrested and charged with federal crimes as of 2022, including four men from Southwest Virginia.
Joshua Dillon Haynes, a 31-year-old from Covington, was arrested on July 1, 2021, on six federal charges, following a warrant for his arrest the week before.
Haynes was released on the day of his arrest on a $10,000 bond, but seven days later was put on house arrest with GPS monitoring. He was arrested again on July 27 for assaulting a family member.
Aside from the federal charges stemming from his actions in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, he has been charged with malicious bodily injury, a felony; strangling, a felony; one count of destruction of property and multi-misdemeanor charges for an assault on a family member.
Jeremy Groseclose from Elliston in eastern Montgomery Co. faces federal charges for civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in the Capitol building and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
Two policemen in Rocky Mount were placed on administrative leave following their arrest for their involvement in the Capitol riot. Thomas Robertson and Jacob Fracker, both from Rocky Mount, face two federal charges.
The January 6 select committee got underway with controversy after Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi barred Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.) from serving on the committee. Instead, Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Daniel Kinzinger (R-Ill.) were selected by the Democrats to serve with seven of their members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Cheney now serves as the committee’s vice-chairperson. Critics of the selection process point out that both Cheney and Kinzinger both were highly critical of President Trump prior to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
After being barred from serving on the select committee, Banks blasted Pelosi as being afraid to appoint anyone who would think independently and not follow her talking points.
Of the 120 arrests for involvement in the Capitol riot, Jacob Chansley, the so-called “Qanon Shaman,” who was widely photographed with war paint on his face while wearing his horned cap, has received the longest sentence of anyone for the role he played, a 41-month jail sentence. The guilty verdict is being appealed.
Cheney recently said that the committee will set out the facts of what happened minute by minute on Jan. 6, 2020 and that the American people will get a chance to see in vivid color what took place at the Capitol and at the White House and what led to the violent attack.
Of the more than 40 who have received subpoenas to testify, all but two have complied. Jeffrey Clark, a former Dept. of Justice official who supported President Trump’s efforts to get a reversal of the election results that he claimed were not valid due to election tampering in Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, refused to testify, and the committee has pursued efforts to have him charged with contempt.
President Trump who spoke to the crowd of an estimated 250,000 who attended the “Save America Rally,” bid his followers near the end of his speech to go to the Capitol and peacefully let their voices be heard. Despite his admonition to protest peacefully, he was accused of inciting the crowd to riot because he also advocated that they should, “…fight like hell to save our country.”
His claim that he offered to provide Nancy Pelosi with 10,000 National Guard troops prior to the rally was never proven by a paper trail or an electronic track, and Pelosi denied having been contacted with such an offer.
Such a claim “could not hold water” in that the President is in charge of the 2,700 National Guard troops in Washington D.C. That is atypical because of the 54 states and territories in the United States of America, only in Washington D.C. does the National Guard that was founded by President Andrew Jackson in 1802 answer directly to the President.
Other states and the two territories of the U.S. answer to the Pentagon and the Department of Defense.
On Jan. 4, 2021, the Department of Defense noted that it could deploy a quick reaction force if needed and that 340 District of Columbia National Guard members could help with traffic should D.C. Mayor Murie Bowser need help with traffic control.
The Capitol Police are under the authority of the Capitol Police Board and committees from the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. House Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving at the time and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael C. Stenger testified that they had no knowledge of President Trump’s offer of deploying 10,000 National Guard troops prior to Jan. 6.
Social media and political pundits have attempted to use Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as a scapegoat by claiming that she rejected Trump’s offer to deploy National Guard Troops, but the reality of the situation is that she is not in charge of making the decision because President Trump was in charge of the D.C. National Guard and could have ordered the D.C. National Guard Troops deployed himself.
As for the Mayor of D.C., he could have requested National Guard troops to secure the Capitol, but he was mainly concerned with traffic control.
The only fatality during the Capitol riot was Ashli Babbitt from San Diego, a U.S. Air Force veteran who was 34. Lt. Michael Byrd, a 28-year veteran of the Capitol Police, fired one shot that struck Babbitt in her left shoulder as she was attempting to push through glass doors that had been blocked with furniture to keep the rioters at bay.
Despite the fact that Babbitt was unarmed, Byrd was cleared of all charges because he testified that had the rioters been able to break through the barrier that the 60-80 members of Congress he was protecting might have been harmed or killed. He maintained that verbal warnings were not heeded and that he fired as a last resort to protect himself and members of Congress.
Byrd also noted that he did not know that the person he shot was a woman until after the riot.
While some media sources claim there were four who were killed on Jan. 6 during the Capitol riot, the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner released the autopsies of two women and two men, but only one of the four was killed, that being Babbitt.
The two who died that day from natural causes (cardio-related deaths) were Kevin Greeson, 55, and Benjamin Phillips, 50. Greeson was from Athens, Ala., and Phillips was from Ringtown, Pa.
The other woman who died was Rosanne Boyland from Kennesaw, Ga. She died of amphetamine intoxication.
As for the partisan driven select committee, the goal has been set for the committee to wrap up its finding before the 2022 elections in what many political pundits are labeling as a political ploy to counter the predicted “red wave” that would result in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives being controlled by Republicans.
