Even before Donald Trump ascends to the presidency on January 20, his appointees should ask themselves the questions that follow — all of them simple and straightforward.  With Christopher Wray stepping down from the FBI directorship, they will have a much better chance of getting straight answers quickly.

Trump’s team should then share those answers widely.  This information will make President Trump’s pardon of more than 1,500 Americans much more comprehensible to the American public and much less controversial.

–Although now the FBI admits to having 26 confidential human sources in the crowd on January 6, how many total “assets” did the FBI and other entities plant, and what roles did they play?

–For what entity was Ray Epps working and under what terms?

–Who planted the pipe bombs outside the DNC and near the RNC headquarters?

–Who instructed Kamala Harris to conceal the fact that she was at the DNC when the bomb was found and why?

–Why did Harris allow hundreds of J6ers to be prosecuted for threatening her designated space at the Capitol when she wasn’t at the Capitol?

–Who were the “two law enforcement officials” who told the New York Times that “pro-Trump rioters” fatally struck Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick with a fire extinguisher, inflicting “a bloody gash in his head”?

–Who orchestrated the 100-day-plus suppression of Sicknick’s autopsy report?

–If Sicknick was not murdered, as the DOJ finally conceded, why did a federal judge give Julian Khater an 80-month prison sentence for spritzing Sicknick with an over-the-counter pepper spray?

–Has there been an official inquiry into the subsequent suicide deaths of four USCP officers, and if not, why has the DOJ routinely blamed the J6ers for causing those deaths?

–Why was there no crime scene investigation in the likely homicide of Rosanne Boyland?

–Who chose to ignore the obvious video evidence of Boyland being suffocated as a result of a police action and to falsely blame her death on an amphetamine overdose?

–Who suppressed the Boyland autopsy report for 90 days and stonewalled her family at every turn?

–Why was Lila Morris, the Metropolitan P.D. officer caught on video repeatedly bashing the unconscious Boyland over the head with a tree branch, not even disciplined?

–Why was Metropolitan P.D. lieutenant Jason Bagshaw promoted despite having been caught on video bashing the defenseless Victoria White bloody?

–Why did the DOJ not interview the eyewitnesses to the shooting death of Ashli Babbitt?

–Why did the USCP coddle and promote Babbitt’s killer, Michael Byrd, despite a shooting that, according to use-of-force expert Stan Kephart, “violated not only the law but his oath”?

–Who ordered the “shock and awe” raids on the homes of hundreds of non-violent protesters and why?

–Why has the so-called “Scaffold Commander” not been arrested despite multiple clear images of his face?

–Why has the man who constructed the mock gallows on the Capitol grounds not been arrested despite multiple clear images of his face?

–Why did the USCP allow the gallows to stand unmolested on Capitol grounds for more than four hours before the crowds gathered?

–Why was Emanuel Jackson quickly set free despite having been caught on video swinging a baseball bat at police officers over a two-hour period?

–If there was no insurrection, as the DOJ conceded, why were the sentences given to the J6ers so much more severe than the $30–50 fines given to the protesters who physically obstructed the Kavanaugh hearings?

These are the simple questions, the ones off the top.  I am sure readers will think of others I may have overlooked.  To be sure, more probing questions need to be asked about the January 6 Select Committee report as well as the charging documents for the J6ers.

Having read through much of this material, I am impressed by how casually — and routinely — our elected officials and federal jurists distort the facts to protect the party line.  In short, they lie, and some have done so under oath.

I am impressed, too, by the shamelessness of a DOJ that can boast of its success rate in securing convictions, knowing that the accused were allowed no change of venue and faced juries pulled from a pool 95 percent anti-Trump.  This needs to change.

More questions need to be asked as well about the security failures at all levels on January 6.  In his otherwise worthy book, Government Gangsters, Kash Patel more or less exonerates the Pentagon.  He should not have.  Incompetence explains much of what went wrong on January 6, but so does treason.

Nearly 1,600 American citizens were arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights on January 6, and roughly half of them have been incarcerated.  Save for the insurrectionists among them — if there were any — the rest deserve not just commutation of their sentences, but a full pardon.  Many may deserve compensation.  And all deserve the truth.

To learn more, see Jack Cashill’s newest book, Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.