The ill-organized coup attempt that led to the invasion of the Capitol in Washington is far from a closed chapter in 233 years of US constitutional rule.
There are nearly 14,000 hours of video of the insurgency, captured by indoor cameras or used in police uniforms, and much of it has yet to be released. Those who followed the January 6 invasion live saw scenes of chaos, most captured by television crews or Trumpist riot police cell phones.
Images taken by professionals, in the open air, showed the turmoil, but the scale of the violence against lawmakers and police takes on another dimension, as never-before-seen videos of this afternoon of pure terror are made public . Even before they managed to enter the Capitol, the invaders attacked the small police with deadly violence.
A group of 16 major news outlets are filing a lawsuit to force the Justice Department to publish all videos currently viewed by many federal courts, where nearly 500 attackers face prosecution.
Now that the alleged dictator of the Plateau, withdrawn from the army for having lied about his plan to plant bombs in the barracks, admits to wanting a “January 6” to call his own, recapitulating the chain of errors and omissions which allowed the grotesque attack to annul the US election is even more worrying.
Did the institutions work in the United States? No. The individuals acted heroically to defeat the crooks. It all happened with a close call. The preservation of the ballot box with the electoral votes necessary to certify the election of Joe Biden; the withdrawal under escort of Vice President Mike Pence, 60 seconds before the Senate floor was invaded by trumpeters calling for his hanging; the brave cop Eugene Goodman who distracted the crowds and risked his own life to protect the Senators.
The denial of the Republican Party, which, with some exceptions, ignores the seriousness of January 6, the crimes committed and cowardly omits the role of the rebellion’s chief instigator, Donald Trump, should provoke fear among collaborationists in Brasilia. People who hope to erase the recent past and be welcomed back into circles where the militias talk, the nuts and the chloroquine trafficking are a fringe thing.
With every new detail revealed about the plot mounted by Trump’s henchmen to keep him in power, we discover just how threatened the imperfect American democratic experience was. It is clear that the former president tried to use the Justice Department as a militia against Democratic politicians, journalists and even comedians who ridiculed him.
When he plotted Operation White-leonic Dead End to plant time bombs in barracks in 1982, the mediocre renegade army officer lacked the apparatus of the federal government, the obedience of the armed forces. and the complicity of the leadership of Congress in its stead. elimination. . We are already trapped in the October 2022 alley.
January 6 reminded many here of Abraham Lincoln’s 1838 citizenship speech. Lincoln warned of the destructive forces in the then young constitutional republic. He said the danger did not come from outside invaders and that if democracy was destroyed it would be by suicide.
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