A Sewer of Political Corruption

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Approximately 150 uniformed police officers were injured during the Capitol riots on January 6th, 2021, and there were five police deaths associated with the criminal attack on the Capitol:  one policeman suffered two strokes and died the next day, and four others died by suicide in the months following the attack.  

The police were literally on their own in trying to protect the historic building and those who worked there, including the members of the House and the Senate, because, according to the final report of the House January 6th Committee, the President, Donald Trump, never made any calls requesting help in defending the Capitol to the Department of Defense, Attorney General, or the Department of Homeland Security.  The Capitol Police, Metropolitan Police of Washington, DC, and a few cops from Fairfax County, Virgina, fought off the attackers by themselves while Trump watched events unfold on television.

To say that Trump displayed an affinity toward the criminals who attacked the Capitol and caused so much damage and carnage would be understatement.  On his first day back in office in January of 2025, Donald Trump gave a blanket pardons and commutations to more than 1,500 people charged and/or convicted in the riots, including some of the highly radical "Proud Boys" and "Oath Keepers." Some who received Trump pardons had been convicted of intentionally causing harm to law enforcement officers.   Trump also ordered the Justice Department to drop any pending cases from the riots.   Those pardons and commutations were an outrageous affront to the rule of law.  They basically forgave criminals for their crimes.  At least one-hundred-and-thirty of those who were pardoned have gone on to be arrested for subsequent crimes - including the sexual abuse of children.

But that was not enough revenge for Trump.  Now, as noted in this space yesterday, Trump has upped his game and is settling a bogus lawsuit that he filed against the IRS by having Department of Justice officials (whom he appointed) set up an "anti-weaponization" fund to compensate people who feel they were unjustly targeted by the Biden administration.  The fund will be available to the Capitol rioters - as well as to Trump, his family members and anyone else who can dream up a scenario in which they were intentionally harmed by the Biden administration.  

A five-member committee appointed by a Trump appointee (the US Attorney General) will make the decisions on who gets payouts and how much, and those names and amounts will not be made public.  Trump will be able to replace any of the five committee members without cause - so basically Donald Trump will have control of the entire process - just as he had control of the entire process in getting the settlement which gave him all of the power to get his special "anti-weaponization fund" weaponized and functioning.

That means the criminals will have not only been officially forgiven, they will also be paid for their criminality which should incentivize them to repeat their illegal acts the next time some right-wing, kook politician feels the need to summon the rabble.  Smearing shit on the walls of the Capitol is a whole lot more fun than working for a living, and if some cops get hurt in the process - or worse - well, that's just gravy!

That's the bad news.  The good news is that two police officers who were injured in the capitol riots on January 6, 2021, have already filed a lawsuit in an effort to block Trump's raid on the US Treasury and the incentive payments for treason.  The officers filing the suit allege the fund will directly finance far-right extremists and paramilitary groups who were involved in the January 6th attack on the US Capitol.  The suit further states that payments funding those groups would violate the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution which prohibits the US from assuming or paying any debt or obligation "incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States."  Hell, yes, it does.

Thank you officers Harry Dunn of the US Capitol Police and Daniel Hodges of the DC Metropolitan Police for bringing this suit as you continue to focus on protecting Americans from sleazeball criminals and anarchists.

Now, if we just had an impartial court system that would stand up for the Constitution.

I can remember when all three branches of government appeared to work for the benefit of the American people, but I'm old, really old, not as old as Trump, but really, really old.   My high school "citizenship" teacher never had an inkling that the political situation in the United States could sink into a sewer of political corruption like the one we are currently mired in, yet here we are just sixty very short years later.

We are living in a highly dystopian version of the America our parents and their parents helped to build.  And it's all basically due to the narcissism and petulance of one grifting man-child.

We must do better.