Capitol Siege Prompts Concerns Over Extent of White Supremacist Infiltration of US Police AOC Blackness

By Vida Johnson, Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University. First published on The Conversation.

The apparent participation of off-duty officers in the rally that morphed into a siege on the U.S. Capitol building Jan. 6 has revived fears about white supremacists within police departments.

These concerns are not new. White supremacy, the belief that white people are superior to other races, has long tainted elements within law enforcement. As I testified before Congress just months before this assault, there is a long history of racism in U.S. policing – and this legacy may have contributed to the violence in the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Reports of officers involved in an attack in which the symbols and language of white supremacy were clearly on display are concerning.

But so too, I believe, is a policing culture that may have contributed to the downplaying of the risk of attack before it began and the apparent sympathetic response to attackers displayed by some police officers – they too hint at a wider problem.

As someone who has researched and written about the chilling problem of white supremacists in law enforcement, I believe the failure to confront the problem has had deadly consequences.

Related: Denial Is the Heartbeat of America by Ibram X. Kendi The Atlantic

Megan Rapinoe on Capitol Attack: ‘This Is America. We Showed Our True Colors’ The Guardian

The Science of Mob Thinking Axios

Arnold Schwarzenegger Compares Capitol Attackers to Nazis Vanity Fair

Ali Alexander Named Three Congressmen As Co-Planners of Jan. 6 Assault

Lawmakers Who Conspired with Capitol Attackers in Legal Peril Politico

Capitol Police Intelligence Report Warned Three Days Before Attack that ‘Congress Itself’ Could Be Targeted The Washington Post

For Friends and Allies of Kamala D. Harris, Deadly Capitol Attacks Prompt Fresh Fears The Washington Post

Just fourteen days after rioters wielding Confederate flags wrecked havoc in America’s Capitol calling for a lynching of VP Mike Pence and the execution of House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, a Black woman will stand atop those same steps.

For Kamala D. Harris’s champions — AOC among them, as Harris was our first choice for the presidency until she dropped out of the race in December 2019 —, fear permeates celebration as we anticipate Wednesday’s outdoor ceremony.

“I am very afraid for her,” Lateefah Simon, a prominent civil rights and criminal justice reform advocate whom Harris has mentored since Simon worked for the then-San Francisco district attorney, told WaPo.

AOC is equally concerned. Having been in police protection myself for a year, with a deranged misogynist determined to kill me over my support of Planned Parenthood, to say nothing of the three-day verbal assault that went on with the Arab world at AOC over a decade ago as I campaigned against the brutal flogging of women in Sudan, there are tens of thousands — no millions of Americans — who want to see Kamala Harris dead. ~ Anne

FBI Urges Police Chiefs Across US to Be On High Alert for Threats New York Times

A joint intelligence bulletin warned that the deadly breach at the Capitol will be a “significant driver of violence” ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.

A ‘Stop the Steal’ Organizer, Now Banned by Twitter, Said Three GOP Lawmakers Helped Plan His D.C. Rally The Washington Post

Ali Alexander, who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement, named three hard-line Trump supporting GOP lawmakers Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.) and Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.) as his co-planners of the Jan. 6 event.

“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Alexander said in a since-deleted video on Periscope highlighted by the Project on Government Oversight, an investigative nonprofit. The plan, he said, was to “change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”

Lawmakers Gave Groups ‘Reconnaissance’ Tours of the Capitol One Day Before Riots, Democratic Congresswoman Washington Post

NJ Democratic Rep Mikie Sherrill accused Republicans of inciting the pro-Trump mob and said that she saw colleagues leading groups on "reconnaissance" tours of the building.

Sherrill, a former Navy helicopter pilot, said "I'm going to see that they're held accountable." Rep. Sherrill is working with both the FBI and the US Capitol Police.

Bravo, Rep. Sherrill.

Panic Buttons in Ayanna Pressley’s Office Had Been ‘Torn Out’ Before the Capitol Riot, Chief of Staff Says Boston.com

Liz Cheney Incurs Wrath of House Republican Freedom Caucus

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the third-highest ranking Republican leader in the House, and a long-time critic of President Donald Trump, made huge waves voting Wednesday to impeach US President Donald Trump. She was joined by nine other Republican House members in voting to impeach the sitting president.

"On January 6, 2021 a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct the process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral votes. This insurrection caused injury, death and destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic.
"Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.
"I will vote to impeach the President."

Liz Cheney Faces Blowback After Embracing Impeachment Politico

Less than 24 hours after Rep. Liz Cheney said she would vote to remove Trump from office via impeachment for his role in the deadly Capitol riots, some of the president’s closest allies launched steps to oust the No. 3 Republican from leadership.

Hillary Clinton: Trump should be impeached. But that alone won’t remove white supremacy from America Washington Post

The Role of Religion In Assault on Capitol

Will the GOP turn into Hezbollah? Washington Post

How White Evangelical Christians Fused with Trump Extremism New York Times

Before self-proclaimed members of the far-right group the Proud Boys marched toward the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, they stopped to kneel in the street and prayed in the name of Jesus.
The group, whose participants have espoused misogynistic and anti-immigrant views, prayed for God to bring “reformation and revival.” They gave thanks for “the wonderful nation we’ve all been blessed to be in.” They asked God for the restoration of their “value systems,” and for the “courage and strength to both represent you and represent our culture well.” And they invoked the divine protection for what was to come.

What Place Did Jesus Have at the Capitol Hill Riot? by Sarah Stankorb @ Medium