The once relevant political consultant Karl Rove made a bid to gain attention Wednesday by scolding former President Donald Trump for his vow to pardon January 6 defendants. “One of the critical mistakes made in this campaign is that Donald Trump has now said, ‘I’m going to pardon those people because they’re hostages,'” Rove said in an interview on MSNBC. “No, they’re not. They’re thugs.”

Having watched countless hours of January 6 footage in researching my forthcoming book, Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6, I feel safe to say that Rove has no idea what he is talking about. I would also argue that Trump should talk more about January 6, not less. The Capitol protest/riot lasted a little more than three hours. The Biden witch hunt has lasted more than three years and shows no sign of easing up. Trump is the only one with platform enough to expose this ongoing evil.

And evil it is. Of the ten female “thugs” that I profile, the worst crime any one of them committed was to help break a window. That woman, Rachel Powell, a 40-something mother of eight, is now serving a 57-month prison sentence. Prosecutors asked for eight years. In the way of comparison, female attorney Urooj Rahman, who firebombed at least one police car during the George Floyd riots in New York City, received a 15-month prison sentence.

Two of the ten women profiled did not survive January 6. Ashli Babbitt, a 110-pound Air Force veteran, was killed by a Capitol Police officer in what was arguably the least justified police shooting ever captured on video. That officer has since been promoted. Rosanne Boyland suffocated when police pushed a crowd of protestors on top of her. Once the pile cleared, a female Metropolitan D.C. Police officer mercilessly beat the dead or dying Boyland over the head with a tree branch. This beating was captured on video. The officer in question was rewarded a month later with a trip to the Super Bowl.

Six of the other seven women profiled entered the Capitol through an open door. The seventh climbed through a broken window to make a phone call and promptly climbed out. Those who stayed inside wandered around for ten or fifteen minutes, committed no violence or vandalism, and then left. Five of those women were sent to prison. The other two await sentencing.

Among the latter two is Rebecca Lavrenz, “a praying great grandmother” who was on trial these last two weeks in Washington. Lavrenz was bucking the odds. No D.C. jury had acquitted a J6er. The reason why is easily understood. No J6er has been allowed a change of venue from a district that begrudged Donald Trump no more than 5 percent of its vote.

Some J6 juries have spent no more than an hour or two deliberating. The Lavrenz case was so compelling that the jury spent three full days in deliberation before dashing the hope of patriots everywhere. Lavrenz was convicted on all four counts.

Almost all who came to Washington on January 6 came to protest what then Vice President Mike Pence called “an election with significant allegations of voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election laws.” Added Pence in his famous missive recusing himself from intervening, “I share the concerns of millions of Americans about the integrity of this election.” “Given the voting irregularities that took place in our November elections and the disregard of state election statutes by some officials,” Pence continued, “I welcome the efforts of Senate and House members who have stepped forward to use their authority under the law to raise objections and present evidence.”

Pence would seem to have swallowed what Democrats, Rove Republicans, and the media were uniformly calling the “big lie.” In one voice, they had been assuring America that the 2020 election was, in the words of the Brennan Center for Justice,  “one of the most secure elections in our history.” What helped make it secure, claimed the Brennan Center, was that “the votes were counted in a timely manner.”

Abraham Lincoln knew the election results before he went to bed on election night 1860. One hundred and sixty years later, votes were still being counted a week or more after the election. No matter. In 2020, once respected institutions chose to honor the “final, most essential command” of the “Party” in Orwell’s 1984, namely “to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.”

In 2020, the Democrats and their Rovian allies were that “Party.” If their operatives were willing to play by Orwellian rules, the patriots in flyover country were not. On January 6, they showed up in Washington to assert their First Amendment right “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” As even Pence conceded, those grievances were real. 

The overwhelming majority of those arrested did assemble peaceably.  Worst case, they expected punishment comparable to the hundreds arrested for disrupting the Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Reported NPR blithely, “Most of those charged this week with disorderly conduct, crowding or obstructing paid fines of $35 or $50.”

The J6ers had no such luck. Instead of the expected wrist slap, they have endured the greatest mass injustice against American citizens since Japanese internment. The “critical mistake” we all make is not to denounce this infamy every day until November.

Image: TaptheForwardAssist