Trump Should be Charged with Sedition and Treason; McConnell’s Role Should be Investigated – Paul Jay

Paul Jay
theAnalysis.news

Did Donald Trump attempt to organize a military coup against the incoming Biden administration? The evidence suggests he did. If this is true, he should be charged with sedition and treason and not merely impeached.

Did Mitch McConnell, as majority leader of the Senate and the person who is ultimately responsible for the Capitol Hill Police, deliberately allow the protestors into the Capitol Buildings? Did he know the rioters intended to storm the buildings and create as much mayhem and violence as they could? Did he do this to discredit Trump after the President’s military coup had failed?

There’s little doubt McConnell knew what was coming and did not take action to prevent the buildings from being breached by the mob’s organized leaders.

There must be a serious and transparent investigation into what led up to the events of January 6th. Instead, the Democratic Party and the majority of the media are focused on what Trump said on the day and what they call the “insurrection” of January 6th. But the evidence suggests that the riot was the final act of a failed coup, and if that had been successful, was far more dangerous than what happened on the Hill.

Here’s some of what we know about the events leading up to January 6th. I’m sure this is only the tip of the iceberg as to what went on behind the scenes, but there is enough in the public record to demand a special investigation, done with full public scrutiny.

On September 17th, six weeks before the elections, Steve Bannon appears on the Tucker Carlson show and calls for war starting on November 4th after the Democrats steal the elections from Trump. Carlson is, of course, nodding his head in agreement. There should have been no surprise with what happened after the November 3rd election; it was all planned in the open.

Steve Bannon
“The Democratic Party has traumatized their base. They’re not going to come out to vote. And so somehow, they have to concoct some effort to steal this election cause they’re not going to get people to come out and vote on game day, November 3rd of this year. And that’s what I’ve been working on for the last couple of months. I was never going ba- I was never going back to the campaign. And that’s where these guys messed up my platforms better now, my voice is bigger, I’ve got more resources, and all we’re focused on is to make sure that the progressive left and the corporatists cannot steal, cannot steal the election of Donald Trump. I’m more focused than ever. We’re kicking off a national tour on Monday called “The Plot to Steal 2020.” They’re not going to stop my voice in assisting President Trump and making sure that this election that he’s going to win on the third is not stolen from him.
Tucker Carlson
Huh. And then maybe the real contest begins. Steve Bannon, I’m glad that you came on. Thank you very much.
Steve Bannon
That’s when the war starts.
I’m beginning to think that’s true.”

Of course, Democratic Party voters did turn out, and much of that was by mail-in ballot. After November 4th, Trump calls the vote results stolen and a fraud and launches dozens of lawsuits challenging the results. The war is on. Majority Leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell plays along, defending Trump’s “right to challenge the results.” He later claims he was told that Trump would eventually concede.

It’s clear that the election results were not the result of widespread election fraud, and in many courtrooms, Trump’s challenges fail. Even Republican legislatures confirm the results. Trump does not concede, and as we get closer to January 6th, when Congress will certify Biden’s election, Trump gets more desperate.

Trump ally, Retired General Michael Flynn, that is recently pardoned General Flynn, calls for military intervention and martial law on December 17th. In an interview on Newsmax, Flynn says Trump “could order the, within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities, and he could place those in states and basically rerun an election in each of those states,” he continued, adding: “I mean, it’s not unprecedented. These people are out there talking about martial law like it’s something that we’ve never done. Martial law has been instituted 64 times.”

The media pundits didn’t take Flynn seriously, and I didn’t either.

Trump puts enormous pressure on Republicans in the Georgia state government to reverse the Biden win. He does this even though Georgia doesn’t represent enough votes to change the national elections’ results. Trump is desperate to get something to give his claim of fraud some validity. His January 2nd call with Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, in which he repeatedly urged him to alter the outcome of the presidential vote in the state, goes public when Raffensperger releases an audio recording of the call.

What else was going on in terms of Trump’s contacts within the military we don’t yet know, but something concerned ten former secretaries of defense to take a military intervention seriously and issue a letter, organized by Dick Cheney, warning military leaders and the acting Secretary of Defense, not to get involved in election results. There is obvious concern that Trump’s appointee as Secretary of Defense Miller is part of such a plan.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, their letter in part stated, “As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, ‘there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.’ Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful, and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.”

The letter continued, “Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller and his subordinates — political appointees, officers and civil servants — are each bound by oath, law and precedent to facilitate the entry into office of the incoming administration and to do so wholeheartedly. They must also refrain from any political actions that undermine the results of the election or hinder the success of the new team.” That’s the letter from the Secretaries of Defense.

In a show of further concern that an attempted coup was in progress, on January 4th, Admiral Stavridis (Ret.) wrote a letter to Time Magazine in support of the letter from the ten Secretaries. Stavridis is a leading figure of the military-industrial complex. He was the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and is an Operating Executive at The Carlyle Group, which is one of the largest private equity firms on Wall St. and is a major investor in several large arms manufacturers. Stavridis letter in part stated, “The secretaries have been watching events closely for the past months, including the infamous presidential walk across Lafayette Square and well-sourced reports of discussions in the Oval Office of martial law. Even after they released the letter, the most recent reports of Trump pressuring the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” another 12,000 votes could only have reinforced their views and sent a collective shiver up their spines. And it should: nothing in our lifetimes is a more direct contravention of the oath each of these cabinet secretaries swore to “support and defend the constitution of the United States.” I suspect that these ten leaders, urged by former Vice President Dick Cheney (the highest ultimate office holder of the group), came reluctantly to the conclusion that they owed the nation their public voices.”

“But here’s the bad news: none of them is in a position to do anything but raise their voices, as important as that is for the nation. The current occupant of the E-Ring office is a retired Army Colonel named Chris Miller, who lacks the experience, credentials, or independent temperament to stand up to a willful president. That is why the most important single statement of the past weeks has been the tweet from Secretary of the Army McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff McConville, saying that there is “no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of an American an election.” That statement was essentially a direct response to disgraced Lieutenant General Mike Flynn’s public call for martial law and a redo of the 2020 election. Fortunately, having the current Army Secretary and the Army’s top General directly and publicly denigrate such dangerous thinking aligns with other voices, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley.”

What seems clear from these statements is that there was a danger that Acting Secretary of Defense Miller was in cahoots with Trump to carry out Flynn’s insane plan. An attempted coup was in progress.

On January 4th, the same day as the letter from the ten former Defense Secretaries, the Financial Times editorial board says precisely that. Their editorial states in part, “As extraordinary as it may sound, what amounts to an undeclared coup d’état is being attempted in the United States. It will almost certainly fail. But the next two weeks will test the strength of America’s institutions – and the courage of its officials.”

The plan seems to be this: Trump will incite the crowd that rallied on January 6th to go to Congress, where the crowd’s militants were organized to storm the building. Bannon and others thought there would be similar riots in State capitals around the country. They expected Acting Secretary Miller to order the military to intervene, declare Martial Law and new elections.

This was Trump’s utterly delusional plan. It didn’t work out; Trump and/or Acting Secretary Miller were rebuffed by most if not all, the senior military leadership. Still, based on what’s in the public record, if this was the plan, Trump should be investigated for sedition and treason. I leave for you to conclude why this isn’t the focus of the Democratic Party and mainstream media.

Trump’s coup had already failed before January 6th, but the crowds were still on their way to Washington. They are whipped into a frenzy by the far-right social media. The organized militants are lusting for blood.

Why didn’t Majority Leader Mitch McConnel and the Senate Sergeants of Arms heed the warnings of the Chief of the Capitol Hill Police and the D.C. police? There was a ton of other intelligence that the right-wing militants planned to storm the buildings. The Sergeant of Arms of the Senate has primary oversight of the Capitol Hill Police, and he reports to McConnell. Why didn’t they insist on a proper security perimeter? It could be made up of National Guard and/or regional police, who were called in later. If they were so worried about the optics as we’ve been told, they could have hidden the Guard in the vast basement tunnels under Congress, only to emerge when needed. This is standard practice in such cases.

When the military doesn’t play ball with Trump, Trump decides to call the crowd into action anyway. By now, he’s delusional enough to think he will emerge with a win out of the bedlam, knowing that millions of Americans believe God has chosen him. As he once said, he could shoot someone in plain sight and wouldn’t lose voters. Maybe he’s thinking ahead and can’t let his base see him as weak or capitulating under pressure.

The question has to be asked, by this point, did McConnell want the chaos to take place? McConnell knows that the military will not intervene in the way Trump hoped.

By the January 3rd letter from the ten former Secretaries of Defense, most of the financial and other elites were ready to dump Trump, as seen by McConnell, Lindsay Graham, and VP Pence agreeing to certify the results of the electoral college. Trump had outlived his usefulness and was now a liability. Does McConnell decide that the chaos can work for him? Even on January 6th, it appears McConnell held back.

If there is any doubt about the chain of command or how McConnell responded on the day, here’s a January 10th report from The Washington Post on an interview with Steven Sund, Chief of Capitol Hill Police, conducted after he had resigned. The Post report states, “At 3:45 pm, Stenger told Sund that he would ask his boss, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for help getting the National Guard authorized more quickly. Sund never learned the result.”

Again, “ask his boss Mitch McConnell.”

After four years of eating Trump’s excrement and pandering to his whims, does McConnell think that by letting the chaos reign and blaming Trump, Mitch will finally rid himself of The Donald? Does McConnell see an opportunity to pry free the Republican Party from Trump’s maniacal grip?

Perhaps most startling evidence of this coup against Trump is that the mob breached the Capitol around 2 pm. At 3:34 pm, The American Manufacturers Association, who had supported Trump for four years and received all the tax cuts and deregulation they wanted, only 90 minutes after the doors of Congress are breached, issue a statement calling for VP Pence to invoke the 25th amendment and remove Trump from office. How could The American Manufacturers Association do such a turnabout so quickly? Was the plan to use January 6th to disgrace, weaken and remove Trump in place prior to January 6th and was McConnell in on it?

Had Trump’s insane refusal to peacefully transfer power threatened the investor’s nirvana that is the USA? Volatility is good for the markets up to a point, but martial law and the overturning of “American democracy,” was going too far. In the middle of the Covid pandemic and deepening economic crisis, the elites needed some rationality back in charge of the country after milking the Trump presidency for everything they could.

Why there isn’t more focus on McConnell may have something to do with the fact that it may open a can of worms for the Democrats. While the Senate Sergeant at Arms has the more senior duty, the Sergeant at Arms of the House shares responsibility for overseeing the Capitol Police and answers to Nancy Pelosi, the Majority Leader of the House. There are claims that Pelosi was lied to about security planning, but at the very least, shouldn’t she have been more vigilant? Pelosi is just as savvy as McConnell. Did she really not know how weak the security preparations were? If the questions about McConnell are pursued as they should, there are some serious questions about Pelosi’s role in all this too. Did the House Sergeant at Arms not keep her informed of the planning? Did he lie to her?

This is what Acting Chief of Police Yogananda d. Pittman of the United States Capitol Police told The House Committee on Appropriations on January 26th, 2021. This was a closed-door hearing; the transcript was obtained and released by the New York Times.

Pitman’s statement reads: “Let me be clear: the Department should have been more prepared for this attack. By January 4th, the Department knew that the January 6th event would not be like any of the previous protests held in 2020. We knew that militia groups and white supremacists’ organizations would be attending. We also knew that some of these participants were intending to bring firearms and other weapons to the event. We knew that there was a strong potential for violence and that Congress was the target.”

Further down, she says the Capitol Police, “adopted a new security perimeter based on instructions it received from the House and Senate Sergeants at Arms.
Additionally, on January 4th, former USCP Chief of Police Steven Sund requested that the Capitol Police Board declare a state of emergency and authorize a request to secure National Guard support. The Board denied the request but encouraged Chief Sund to contact the D.C. National Guard to determine how many Guardsman could be sent to the Capitol on short notice, which he did.”

Why did the two Sergeants at Arms deny the request? A decision was taken not to include the National Guard in creating a more robust security perimeter. Are we to believe Senate Sergeant at Arms took this decision without consulting Mitch McConnell? Remember, on January 6th, the Washington Post reported that the Senate Sergeant at Arms wouldn’t call in the National Guard without talking to his “boss” Mitch McConnell. Is it possible, he didn’t consult McConnell before the 6th?

If this was a McConnell trap, why did Trump fall into it? Perhaps with his overwhelming megalomania, he couldn’t let go of the moment to incite the crowd. Maybe he was afraid his fascist base would turn on him if he didn’t give such a speech. There are reports that the Proud Boys have now denounced Trump because he’s since critiqued the violence and didn’t give them pardons. Who knows what goes on in the mind of Trump, but step into the trap Trump did. If Trump is not charged with sedition and treason and isn’t convicted in the Senate, maybe Trump will have the last laugh as he will remain the primary power player in the GOP.

Why does Trump remain so powerful even after these events? Because he represents the forces of rising fascism. As I’ve said before, he’s the buffoon tip of a serious fascist spear. There is a mass base for Trumpism, just as there was for the racist and militarist Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, and before that, Sen. Joe McCarthy. This is a truth about America we have to face, try to understand, and do something about it. One thing is certain, the Wall St. friendly policies of Clinton and Obama strengthened these forces. Will Biden be different?

There are times the irrationality of capitalism is more fully revealed, where events shred the shroud of American mythology. We are in such times. The Capitol buildings’ storming and the attempted coup was enabled by four years of big capital fawning over Trump’s favors and nurturing his megalomania. Larry Fink, who runs Blackrock, the massive financial firm with 8 trillion dollars under management, and is a Democrat, said a couple of years ago that Trump had ticked off everything on Wall St.’s bucket list. Combine that with their acquiescence towards Trump’s criminal mishandling of the Covid pandemic and climate crisis denial, the billionaire class is not fit to rule.

Will Trump and others, including members of Congress that were involved, be charged with treason and sedition? Will McConnell’s role be investigated? Unlikely, that wouldn’t support the myth of American stability, the shining beacon on the Hill. Wall St. and the American Manufacturers Association wouldn’t think that’s good for business. Hell, attempted coups only happen in third world countries, not advanced democracies like ours.