Abbreviated pundit roundup: The continued search for insurrectionists and justice

[Brexiter]

We begin today’s roundup with Justin Rohrlich’s piece at The Daily Beast on the continued search for those perpetrated the January 6th attack on the Capitol:

A year after a pro-Trump mob bent on overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election sacked the U.S. Capitol, the hunt for suspects is nowhere near over.

In fact, the feds are still actively searching for hundreds of known rioters. [...]

Authorities are still looking for the person they say planted pipe bombs near the offices of the Democratic National Committee on the night of Jan. 5, and have not slowed in their efforts. Meanwhile, two-thirds of Republicans continue to believe Donald Trump’s so-called Big Lie that the election was somehow stolen from him, and nearly 40 percent of that group think violence is the only way to “save” the country, according to recent polling.

Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone reports on how Peter Navarro concocted wild and false conspiracy theories about a stolen election and presented them to Donald Trump at the White House:

Unlike most amateur-hour election sleuths, however, Navarro had direct access to the aggrieved president. In an extended interview with Rolling Stone, Navarro revealed that he personally briefed Trump on his research in the Oval Office — and that Trump directed, on the spot, that Navarro’s findings be distributed to the entire GOP conference on Capitol Hill.

That advocacy by Trump helped Navarro, along with close ally Steve Bannon, prepare for a Jan. 6 plot they hoped could overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Together with Bannon, Navarro developed a plan to block the Electoral College vote count, called the Green Bay Sweep after a daring football play run by the NFL’s Packers in the Vince Lombardi era. (Bannon did not respond to a detailed list of questions about his involvement in this effort.)

Susan Dominus and Luke Broadwater at The New York Times highlight the violent attacks against Capitol Hill Police:

The intelligence failures that left police officers, members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence at risk are now well documented. Three days before the attack, an internal police intelligence report described what would occur with almost prophetic accuracy: “Unlike previous postelection protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counterprotesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th. Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members and others who actively promote violence may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike.” Yet the agency failed to distribute such intelligence warnings to rank-and-file officers; to fully staff the force for what was increasingly predicted to be a large and unruly event; to allow officers to use their most powerful crowd-control weapons, like stun grenades, to confront the mob, or even to train enough officers on those weapons; to equip enough of the force with riot gear; or even to produce a plan for the situation. Given the obvious and disastrous failures, Chief Steven Sund, who was in charge of day-to-day force operations, resigned shortly after the riot, as did the sergeants-at-arms of the Senate and the House, figures elected by the leaders of each chamber to serve on a board that oversees the Capitol Police force and is ultimately responsible for the building’s security.

On a final note, here is Eugene Robinson’s analysis of the investigation so far:

[C]ongress as a whole must shore up the weaknesses in our transfer-of-power process exposed by the insurrection. The mob’s aim was to halt the official counting of electoral votes — and the mob succeeded, at least for several hours. Even the libertarian Cato Institute agrees that the 1876 Electoral Count Act is “a mess of ambiguities and contradictions” and needs to be reformed. Legislation to do so should begin making its way toward Biden’s desk.


Meanwhile, the Justice Department must continue to press criminal charges against the insurrectionists. It is not enough to prosecute and sentence those who participated bodily in the assault. The puppet masters who assembled the crowd and sent it off to sack the Capitol must be held to account as well.


And no one, including Trump, can be considered above the law.