For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, Jan. 6 is the day they never want to end. It’s so ingrained in the left’s culture, in fact, it’s the one thing that can move the Democratic Party to expand police presence.
Sure, the danger from the Capitol incursion has long since passed. That doesn’t mean Democrats can’t continue to wave the bloody shirt — all the way to the midterms, at least, and in perpetuity if at all possible.
The House of Representatives is stoking fear over it with a Jan. 6 commission, on one hand. And then there’s the U.S. Capitol Police, which now plans to open satellite offices in two states to deal with threats to members of Congress.
In a news release on Tuesday, the six-month anniversary of the riot, the Capitol Police announced they were continuing “to implement recommendations from a series of post January 6 reviews.” These included the satellite offices as part of a suite of services purportedly designed to enhance protection for members of Congress.
“The USCP has enhanced our staffing within our Dignitary Protection Division as well as coordinated for enhanced security for Members of Congress outside of the National Capitol Region,” the release read.
“The Department is also in the process of opening Regional Field Offices in California and Florida with additional regions in the near future to investigate threats to Members of Congress.”
In a statement to Fox News, the Capitol Police said the new offices would be in the San Francisco and Tampa areas because they say a high concentration of threats come from those regions.
“The new USCP field offices will be in the Tampa and San Francisco areas. At this time, Florida and California are where the majority of our potential threats are,” the department said.
“The field offices will be the first for the Department. A regional approach to investigating and prosecuting threats against Members is important, so we will be working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in those locations. More field offices will be opening in the future.”
The reason for this?
“The police reported in May that there’s been a 107% increase in threats to members of Congress compared to 2020 and predicted no let-up in sight,” Fox News reported.
“Members of Congress have reported having to take extra security precautions at their homes in response to the increased threat level. In one instance, Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., had to call the police in Charleston after her house was vandalized over Memorial Day weekend with profanity and anarchist symbols.”
There were also Republicans who praised the expansion, like Florida GOP Rep. Kat Cammack.
“Over the last six months, I’ve had the honor of getting to know the dedicated men and women of the United States Capitol Police,” Cammack told Fox News.
“The hardworking law enforcement officers of the Capitol Hill community work tirelessly to protect Members and staff and I know their work in this capacity will only continue, especially as they expand into field offices in California and Florida.”
Without discounting the work the Capitol Police do, including this under the rubric of a response to Jan. 6 is profoundly disingenuous.
The past 18 months have revealed a whole raft of societal fissures that have manifest in an exploding crime rate — and yet, in other Democrat-controlled jurisdictions, the impulse has been to defund the police, not to expand their reach.
The Capitol Police seem like a decided exception — and for several good reasons, not the least of which is that Democratic politicians will avail themselves of protections they’d prefer their citizens forgo.
The department’s news release marking six months since the incursion is an example of just how much can plausibly be stuffed under the aegis of a response to Jan. 6. This includes (and rather high up in the copy, I might add), an announcement that the Capitol Police’s “new wellness support dogs, Lila and Filip, will spread the message of wellness by helping engage the wellness team with our employees.”
One doesn’t need to have an animus against wellness doggos to concede this doesn’t belong in a news release titled “After the Attack: The Future of the U.S. Capitol Police” if we’re to take it seriously as a blueprint for the department’s response to Jan. 6.
But then, so much of the response falls into this category.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Jan. 6 select committee, a partisan exercise in keeping the ghosts of that day alive, was announced last month. Lest you think this is anything but an exercise in point-scoring, CBS News noted that “[u]nlike an independent commission that would not have comprised elected officials, Democrats will control the select committee.”
“There will still be Republican members on the committee, but Democrats will have the majority and therefore, they will also have subpoena power,” it said. “Select committees are created by a resolution to conduct investigations or consider measures, usually on a specific topic.”
Eight members were named to the commission by Pelosi — seven Democrats and anti-Trump Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy can name five members to the commission. However, as CNN noted, those seats would be filled “in consultation” with Pelosi, meaning she can veto any of his choices.
Pelosi said at a news conference last month that the committee would look at the “root causes” of the incursion. And what were they? According to the House speaker, “white supremacy, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.”
.@SpeakerPelosi: “Root causes” of Capitol riot were “white supremacy, anti-Semitism, islamophobia” pic.twitter.com/8e96SrPHFT
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 24, 2021
This is an obsession for Democrats — and it doesn’t help the optics that they’re the ones in control of oversight for the Capitol Police.
Waving the bloody shirt only works for so long.
