Trump Claims There Was ‘Zero Threat’ at Capitol on January 6

D uring a Fox News interview on Thursday night, Donald Trump said of the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol: “Right from the start, it was zero threat.”

The former president added that those who entered the Capitol “shouldn’t have done it,” but he said “some of them went in, and they are hugging and kissing the police and the guards. They had great relationships. A lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in and they walked out.”

It’s certainly true that some people who entered the Capitol met no police resistance, but the claim that the storming of the Capitol presented “zero threat” is a blatant lie. You don’t need to take anyone’s word for it — you can simply watch all the videos of police being savagely attacked by rioters at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

One video shows a female police officer being trampled and knocked unconscious by rioters.

Another video shows a large group of rioters chanting “heave-ho!” as police officers are crushed and Officer Daniel Hodges, bleeding from his mouth, screams in agony.

Another video shows a Metropolitan Police officer being dragged down the steps of the Capitol and beaten with a flagpole attached to an American flag. “Everybody in there is a treasonous traitor. Death is the only remedy for what’s in that building,” said the assailant in another video, according to an FBI affidavit.

There’s also the testimony that Officer Michael Fanone was tased and beaten with a pro-police “thin blue line” flagpole and suffered a minor heart attack. Fanone said he heard rioters shouting: “Kill him with his own gun!”

Many police officers were punched and shoved and sprayed with bear spray by rioters attempting to breach the Capitol.

Another video shows a rioter throwing a fire extinguisher at police and striking one wearing a helmet.

I could go on, but that’s enough video to show that police were outmatched by aggressive and violent rioters on January 6.

You might have noticed I haven’t yet discussed the death of 42-year-old Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick. The New York Times’ initial reporting — that Sicknick was struck in the head and “rushed” to the hospital — turned out to be false.

That false claim — attributed by Times reporters to two law-enforcement officials — matters, and the paper of record should explain how and why it was published.

For their original story on Sicknick’s death, the Times reporters had spoken to the slain police officer’s brother, Ken Sicknick, who had told ProPublica at the same time that Officer Sicknick had returned to his office and texted his brother the night of January 6. Why did the Times reporters — who had also spoken with Ken Sicknick for their story — report the fire-extinguisher claim when the content and timing of the text message between the two brothers would seem to contradict it? Why did two anonymous law-enforcement sources tell the paper that Sicknick had been hit in the head and “rushed” to the hospital?

Those questions deserve answers. But the Times’ error should not be used, as it has been by some, to pretend the Capitol riot wasn’t violent. And although Sicknick’s precise cause of death is unclear, that does not mean the riot did not play an essential role. It still seems very unlikely that the 42-year-old police officer would have collapsed and later died of a stroke if he had not clashed with rioters and been hit with a chemical irritant meant to be used on bears.

The acting police chief in D.C. said he had spoken to police officers who had “done two tours in Iraq” who said fighting back the attack on the Capitol “was scarier to them than their time in combat.” Two police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, Capitol police officer Howard Liebengood and D.C. police officer Jeffrey Smith, later committed suicide.

To say, as Trump does, that the events of January 6 presented “zero threat” is to lie in a way that dishonors all the police officers who honorably defended the Capitol.