Until 2:44 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, it had all been going, if not perfectly, at least pretty damn well.
Ray Epps and his crew breached the Capitol perimeter at 12:53 p.m., minutes before the vote certification process in the House Chamber was scheduled to begin.
Minutes later, a parallel crew breached another lightly guarded barricade just to the south, the Capitol Police again offering no real resistance.
At 12:58, the so-called “fence cutter” – not yet arrested – pulled down the temporary fencing protecting the lawn and with it the signs saying, “area closed.”
Just about 1 p.m. a still unidentified man hung a noose from a gallows he and his crew of four had assembled hours earlier.
Minutes after 1 p.m. the Capitol Police discovered a pipe bomb set by an unidentified bomber outside the DNC offices near the Capitol. They checked after a comparable bomb had been found shortly before 1 p.m. near the RNC offices.
By 1:06 the undertrained and undermanned Capitol Police began launching munitions into the midst of a largely peaceful crowd of protesters on the Capitol’s west side, helping turn them into an angry mob.
In a tweet an hour later, Rep. Ted Deutch was the first to define the protest as “a violent insurrection. An attempted coup by Trump supporters at his encouragement.” Bingo!
As with any ambition plan, there were wrinkles. Ray Epps had made himself much too obvious. He might have to get his wrists slapped down the road. Finally, he did – a year’s probation, no biggie.
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris complicated matters by being at the DNC when the bomb was discovered. She’d have to keep her mouth shut about her presence, and the texts of her Secret Service detail would have to go missing, but these were tasks that could be (and were) taken care of.
A final complication: President Trump began his speech an hour late, at noon, not 11 a.m. as scheduled. Had he started on time, those thousands of people, allegedly incited by his rhetoric, would have arrived at the Capitol just about 1 p.m to help start a riot.
Not to worry. The House committee and Special Prosecutor Jack Smith just ignored the timeline. They accused Trump of inciting a riot that began 20 minutes before he finished speaking at a location 45 minutes away.
Like the others who actually heard Trump speak, Ashli Babbitt did not arrive at the Capitol until after 2 p.m. By this time, all external barriers had been removed.
Ashli entered the Capitol at 2:23 p.m. through an open window. At 2:44 p.m. Capitol Police Lieutenant (now captain) Michael Byrd shot and killed her without warning.
Say what you will about Byrd, but he was not part of the plan. From the planners’ perspective, he killed exactly the wrong person – a petite, attractive, unarmed female and a 14-year Air Force veteran to boot.
Worse, John Earle Sullivan, a rogue BLM-affiliated provocateur, captured the shooting on video and promptly sold it to CNN. The face of the protest was now the martyred Ashli Babbitt.
The conspirators could not let this stand. They needed a martyr of their own, and they set out to create one.
On the evening of Jan. 6, a rumor was floated that the protesters had killed a Capitol Police officer with a fire extinguisher.
Sara Carpenter, one of the women I profile in my book “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6,” caught wind of the rumor while driving back to New York City on that fateful evening.
A medically retired NYPD officer, Sara called a Maryland friend thinking she might stop by. The friend freaked out. She accused Sara and her fellow protesters of a killing Capitol Police officer with a fire extinguisher.
Given that the woman’s husband was a retired Capitol Police officer, Sara believed her. She was crestfallen, heartbroken, physically ill. She could not get out of bed the next morning.
On Jan. 7, the conspirators caught a break. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died after suffering what would prove to be a pair of strokes.
Someone in authority – the New York Times would cite “two law enforcement officials” – made the conscious decision to have an officer who died of natural causes “murdered.”
On Jan. 8, the New York Times told its readers that “pro-Trump rioters” struck Sicknick with a fire extinguisher, adding this macabre detail: “With a bloody gash in his head, Mr. Sicknick was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support.”
Glenn Greenwald, an independent journalist, made a screen shot of the Times story before it could be revised. “This horrifying story about a pro-Trump mob beating a police officer to death was repeated over and over, by multiple journalists on television, in print, and on social media,” said Greenwald.
To sell the hoax, the conspirators had the ashes of the martyred Sicknick placed in the Capitol Rotunda and then buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
To sustain the hoax, the conspirators had the autopsy report suppressed.
When finally forced out by a Judicial Watch lawsuit more than 100 days later, it was revealed that Sicknick died a “natural death,” meaning “a disease alone causes death.”
According to D.C. medical examiner Dr. Francisco Diaz, Sicknick suffered no internal or external injuries, nor any allergic reaction to a chemical substance.
The media chose not to notice, and the conspirators plowed on, now adding subsequent Capitol Police suicide deaths to the Jan. 6 death toll.
Said Attorney General Merrick Garland two years after the day, “And we will never forget the five officers who responded selflessly on January 6 and who have since lost their lives.”
Does it really get more ghoulish than that?
Jack Cashill’s new book, “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6,” is now available in all formats.
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