Real Accountability for Those Responsible for Jan. 6 Is Actually Starting to Pile Up

You may have missed it, but Wednesday was a very good day for Truth. Whatever ordinarily stirs the miasma of the MyPillow lies and the other assorted crazy, at least on occasion, the generally broken systems we rely upon to separate the liars from the public they seek to dupe really do function. In that sense there’s been a whole lot of good news. Early Wednesday, an email obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and shared with Politico showed that a day before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, the Secret Service had warned the Capitol Police that their officers could face violence at the hands of supporters of then-President Donald Trump. (On Thursday, six Capitol Police officers sued Trump, Roger Stone, the Proud Boys, and other far-right “violent extremist groups” for their role in the Jan. 6 attacks). Also on Wednesday, the House Select Committee charged with investigating the attacks on the Capitol put out a records request seeking communications from Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, and other top officials, as well as White House visitor and call logs connected to the day of the attack. None of this will be sufficient to reveal the full truth about what happened that day and create some semblance of accountability. But it’s a lot.

Also on Wednesday, in federal court, Ty Garbin, the Michigan man charged with plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, was sentenced to six years and three months in prison. Garbin, one of six defendants in the federal case around the plot to “unlawfully seize, kidnap, abduct and carry away, and hold for ransom and reward” Michigan’s governor, pleaded guilty in January and has been cooperating significantly with federal prosecutors against his co-defendants.

But the coup de grâce of Wednesday’s great public truthout was U.S. District Judge Linda Parker’s 110-page ruling against the all-star team of lawyers that sought to overturn Michigan’s 2020 election. Following a July hearing at which Sidney Powell, Lin Wood, and other luminaries of the Kraken bar tried to explain why they should not be sanctioned for their efforts to set aside the Michigan election results and install electors for Donald Trump, Parker handed down a beatdown of an opinion. Parker ordered the lawyers to pay the state of Michigan and the city of Detroit’s attorneys fees for defending the suit and to complete continuing legal education (in the subjects of pleading standards and election law) and to report back on what they learned. She then ordered that a copy of her decision be sent to state disciplinary boards for the possible suspension or disbarment of the nine attorneys involved in the litigation. Parker both opened and closed with the admonition that the attorneys abused not just the truth but had also taken part in a “historic and profound” abuse of the judicial process itself.