Kyle Becker
House Rep. Louis Gohmert had Attorney General Merrick Garland stammering in short order at Thursday’s judiciary committee hearing. Gohmert appeared to have Garland rattled with his rapid-fire questioning, beginning with his threatening memo about parents opposed to Critical Race Theory being taught in schools and proceeding to grill him about what really happened on January 6.
“You said a moment ago you couldn’t imagine a parent being labeled a ‘domestic terrorist’,” Gohmert said at the hearing. “But parents all over the country believe that is exactly what you labeled them by your memo indicating you were going to get involved in board meetings, school board meetings, because of the threat of domestic terrorism.”
“So, if you can’t imagine a parent being labeled a ‘domestic terrorist,’ I would encourage you to redo your memo so it’s not so perceived as being so threatening to people concerned about their kid’s education,” he said.
“But I want to take you to January 6,” he continued. “It’s a very common topic here for people. Has any defendant involved in the January 6 events been charged with ‘insurrection’?”
“I don’t believe so,” Garland responded.
“Well, that is the word most used by Democrats here on Capitol Hill about January 6, but no one has been charged with it that we could find either,” he added.
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“How many protesters on January 6 were charged with obstructing an official proceeding for four to six hours, do you know?” he asked.
“I don’t know the exact number,” Garland responded. “Obviously, there were 650 who were arrested, some for assaulting officers, some for obstructing proceedings, some for conspiring to obstruct proceedings… I can get you numbers for each of the specific…”
“Well, thank you,” Gohmert responded. “I would be interested in getting that number.”
Then Gohmert hit Garland with a question that gave him serious pause.
“But regarding the men who broke the glass in the two doors there at the Speaker’s lobby, when the two capitol police who had been standing there moved to the side to allow them access,” he continued. “Were any of those people who broke glass and did damage to those doors working for the FBI or federal law enforcement entities?”
“Uh, uh, this is an ongoing criminal investigation, and I am really not at liberty to discuss,” Garland stammered. “There have been some filings, umm, umm, of, uh, in the nature of discovery, which has been provided to the defendants. But I, uh, other than that, uh, I can’t discuss that now.”
Then, Gohmert continued to dig into the question of whether or not anyone there on January 6 was employed by the FBI or were confidential informants.
You can watch the whole exchange below:
Rep. Louis Gohmert appeared to be speaking about the breach near the Speaker’s lobby that led to the Ashli Babbitt shooting. A Kentucky man named Chad Barrett Jones was arrested for striking glass panels on the door with a flagpole.
“According to a probable cause affidavit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Chad Barrett Jones is the man captured in footage of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach wearing a red hooded jacket and gray skullcap and striking glass panels on the door to the Speaker’s Lobby with a long wooden flagpole – reportedly a rolled-up Trump flag,” WUSA9 reported.
The New York Times had covered the event, but had oddly left out relevant information that would publicize the identities of those involved. Despite extraordinary video of the event, there have been very few attempts by major media outlets to dissect what really happened with the Ashli Babbitt shooting.
An agitator, whom we now know is named Zachary Jordan Alam, smashed a window leading to an unsecured corridor within the Capitol building. Zachary Alam, oddly dressed in a furry hat, is handed a helmet by a fellow insurgent, whom we now know is a Texas winery owner named Christopher Ray Grider. Also involved is Chad Barrett Jones, who was accused of breaking windows with a flagpole.
Zachary Alam’s name is completely missing from the New York Times report, despite his pivotal role in orchestrating the corridor breach, as was the name of John Sullivan, who was the pro-Antifa radical who caught in on video. In Sullivan’s video, Alam backs the crowd up and smashes the window with the black helmet he is given. Babbitt crawls through the window, unarmed, but is shot by Lt. Michael Byrd. The shooting officer’s name was withheld from the public for months – until he was ‘exonerated’ by an internal investigation.
Numerous videos related to the Ashli Babbitt shooting have been scrubbed off YouTube, including Sullivan’s raw video. It may be that the video is considered sensitive by the FBI, which has withheld more than 14,000 hours of January 6 from the public viewing. One recently released FBI video showed Capitol Police officers waving protesters to come into the building.
Louis Gohmert appears to be over target with his questioning of the FBI’s role in the January 6 event. If there were an independent, non-partisan committee investigating the Capitol riot, it would undoubtedly be highly interested in getting to the bottom of the matter. As such, patriots like Louis Gohmert asking tough questions at hearings is the closest thing Americans have right now to getting at the truth.
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