Liz Cheney, Daily Beast Tout ‘Bombshell’ Texts That Actually Prove There Was No Insurrection
Perpetuating lies to prevent Trump from being able to run again in 2024.
By Robert Spencer
The Leftist political and media establishment now takes for granted that on Jan. 6, Donald Trump attempted a coup, with his slavish minions storming the Capitol and threatening the very survival of our free institutions. The only thing they haven’t been able to do is to prove it, even with a vindictive round of impeachment proceedings conducted after Trump left office and an endless round of somnambulant Jan. 6 insurrection hearings in a House committee.
So it was understandable that the far-Left propaganda organ the Daily Beast was thrilled Monday when Rep. Liz Cheney (R-NeverTrump) revealed numerous texts sent to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 6, begging Trump to tell the people who had entered the Capitol to desist. They got him now, right? After years of the Russian collusion hoax and Stalinist show trial impeachment proceedings, they finally got him! Well, no. In fact, the texts Cheney revealed prove definitively that there was no Jan. 6 insurrection at all.
The Daily Beast gives Cheney’s revelations the biggest possible buildup: “A bombshell dropped in Monday night’s Jan. 6 committee hearing when it was revealed that Donald Trump Jr. — along with Fox News stars including Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham — begged White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to get the president to make a national address and halt the Capitol riot.” The unspoken corollary is that Trump paid no heed to these appeals from some of his most fervent supporters because he secretly or not-so-secretly supported the “insurrection.”
At first glance, it does look damning. Donald Trump Jr. texted Meadows: “He’s got to condemn this s**t ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough.” And then: “We need an Oval Office address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.” Hannity texted in the same vein: “Can he make a statement. Ask people to leave the Capitol.” Ingraham wrote: “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.” Fox & Friends’ Brian Kilmeade chimed in: “Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished.”
The Daily Beast does not bother to inform its unfortunate readers that Trump, far from orchestrating an insurrection, actually heeded these calls and issued a video statement just after 4 p.m.:
“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. I know you’re hurt, I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election. But we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home, we love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home at peace.”
This statement only enraged the Left, because in it Trump continued to charge that the election was stolen, which the establishment media insists is a false claim. But Trump’s statement is also unequivocal in telling the people at the Capitol on Jan. 6 to disperse peacefully; that’s hardly what one would expect from the leader of an insurrection. What’s more, it strains credulity that Trump would have been planning an “insurrection” on Jan. 6 but that his son, one of his closest confidantes, would not have known about it, and that it would have caught his top supporters in the media completely by surprise.
The bottom line is that Donald Trump Jr. and others texted Mark Meadows asking him to get Trump to make a statement pacifying the situation on Jan. 6, and Trump did so. This very simply and clearly proves that there was no insurrection at all and that the House’s Jan. 6 committee should make a statement to that effect and end its proceedings. But of course, its real purpose is to prevent Trump from being able to run again in 2024, and in pursuit of that goal, it will be with us for a long time to come.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons