Senator Charles E. Schumer
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Honorable Majority Leader Senator Schumer:
I viewed your recent speech on the Senate floor with great interest and alarm. You expressed outrage that Fox News’ Tucker Carlson had presented, as the so far only permitted external entity to be granted privileges to view the 41,000 hours of video from the January 6, 2021, riot and Capitol incursion, harmful and wrong information to his voluntary audience. Your remedy was to insist that the network prevent the broadcast of the video and his opinions thereof. As a rational involved citizen who seeks as much information on current events as possible, and evaluates potential or real biases in its presentations, I find your demand stupefying. Certainly Mr. Carlson used language to the advantage of his known and often declared bias, but that did not change what was clear on the video and the contradictions to the interpretations presented by many members of both our Legislative and Executive Branches as well as much of the media.
We all witnessed the riotous incursions into the Capitol and applaud the arrest and prosecution of those involved. However, many of the accused are still held without charges, bail, or trial, in obvious violation of our inalienable rights assured in the Constitution. Most of those wrongly entering the Capitol are clearly seen in the video to be orderly, and often shepherded through various areas by the admittedly overwhelmed Capitol Police. This includes the infamous “Shaman”, who has stated that he believed he was wandering the halls with the permission of the officers. They as clearly seen had many opportunities to restrain or arrest him quietly. He has been promoted by the aforementioned governmental authorities as a rampaging leader of an attempt to overthrow our government. The video shows him offering prayer of thanks to the Capitol Police for their assistance and protection. We now learn that the government denied his defense attorney access to this potentially exculpatory evidence, a clear violation of longstanding legal precedent and Constitutional protections. How many other defendants have been convinced to plead guilty by denial of access to these videos and prolonged incarceration under the harshest of conditions?
Likewise, Senator Hawley, through imaginative editing of the video by the January 6 Committee, was shown to be “fleeing” the Capitol invaders. The fuller version of the video shows clearly that he was the last of a group of Senators escorted out by the Capitol Police. The January 6 Committee had proposed that other video shows Representative Loudermilk escorted “scouts” for the future rioters through the Capitol, allowing pictures to be taken of various areas. This has turned out to be the Representative taking some of his constituents on a tour of another Congressional office building. Although media quietly, almost silently, retracted broad earlier statements echoed by many in Congress and the Executive Branch that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the rioters by being beaten with a fire extinguisher, video clearly shows Officer Sicknick alive, well, and active well after he was supposedly killed. He died in later days of a stroke, ruled “natural causes” by the medical examiner. Other officers died much later by suicide, but no notes or information from those unfortunates have been released indicating that the January 6 affair led them to do so. Other video has previously shown that my fellow Air Force veteran, Ashley Babbitt, was shot to death while posing no danger to anyone, by a Capitol police officer with a known history of firearm irresponsibility. Another protester or rioter was suffocated by the crowds in a narrow hallway after being forced into a narrow space by officers using batons and gas, as shown by prior released video. Yet both members of Congress and members of the Executive Branch continue to assert that five Capitol Police officers were killed. The now released video that you would have Fox hide confirms otherwise.
Neither the peaceful demonstrators who inappropriately invaded the Capitol nor the rioters who were deluded into believing that they could somehow overturn a State certified Federal election through an unarmed insurrection (I do not count flagpoles as armaments against firearmed, armored, shielded, helmeted, trained police officers) are solely responsible for the events that day. Besides former President Trump’s possible culpability, we must admit that Congress and the District of Columbia failed to prevent the incursion through a conscious refusal to prepare and defend the Capitol from potential violence. The FBI and other Federal agencies knew, as has been established, of the potential threats. President Trump’s Executive Branch formally offered twenty thousand National Guard troops for protection. Both Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi of the House, who ultimately commands the Capitol Police, and Mayor Muriel Bowser, who ultimately commands the Washington D.C. police force, specifically and formally refused that offer. The Capitol Police, for unknown reasons, were not informed of the full nature of the known threats and thus could not adequately prepare. While ordinary citizens who committed illegal acts are and should be held responsible before the law, none of our government officials or the leadership of the Capitol Police who did not lead that day have been held accountable. The officer who killed Ashley Babbitt was “cleared” with minimal investigation and no transparency.
While citizens are being rightly portrayed as criminally responsible for their actions on January 6, our government and the media does all it can to hide and deny its own contributions to these events. This is clear from the persistent vigorous attempts by both the media to deliberately ignore the full video evidence and the Legislative and Executive Branch to prevent any release to anyone (even defendants) of this evidence. While Mr. Carlson has his own stew to cook, much of what he says and all of what we can now see is true. Remember, in chastising him for “inciting” wrong views, your own and colleague’s actions and statements. Representative Maxine Waters directed her constituents to verbally and physically assault members of the prior administration in public. Caught on video. You directly threatened two Supreme Court Justices on the steps of the Court, probably instigating the dangerous demonstrations in front of their homes and perhaps the assassination attempt by a disturbed youth. Caught on video. Before censuring Fox News’ Tucker Carlson First Amendment rights, consider censuring your own speech.
Sincerely,
Nicholas E. Bednarski, M.D.