The Select Committee Sputters

On November 23, 2021, the “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol” issued five more subpoenas, indicative that they are reaching the end of their road. The subpoenas were issued to Stewart Rhodes/Oath Keepers, Enrique Tarrio/Proud Boys, and Robert Patrick Lewis/1APraetorian.

The “subpoenas” are neither ad testificandum (testimony) or duces tecum (document demands). There is no date/time/location to appear. There is no list of documents to produce by a deadline.

The “subpoenas” read like poorly-drafted letters. They’re more like renditions, of a sort, of a few random website and media quotes about these individuals/groups. Where a DOJ prosecutorial legal document might be relevant, the author hasn’t read the document – and clearly hasn’t read any associated documents in the case.

Considering how many members of Congress are attorneys, the “subpoenas” are a disappointment. The quality isn’t there. The thought process isn’t there.

What you do find is some language creeping into these Select Committee letters that has started to creep in around the edges elsewhere. Mixed in with the forced narrative of “conspiracy” is the emerging undertone of “private security.” The group “1st Amendment Praetorian” wasn’t even on anyone’s radar until recently and has no (that I am aware of) charged defendants. 1APraetorian is a group that makes no pretense about doing anything other than private security. The Select Committee takes a road through 1APraetorian to Ali Akbar (n/k/a “Ali Alexander”).

I’ve previously blogged to you about Akbar in his role as one of the United States Capitol Police permit holders for an authorized rally at the Capitol for January 6. In essence, I arrived in similar space of the Select Committee, and I do have questions of my own.

What I didn’t tell you in that blog is the rumor-swirl across the years that Akbar is connected to Karl Rove. I didn’t mention it because I couldn’t find solid evidence of that relationship, whether professional or personal. Hence, my characterization as rumor mill, though interesting. (At least I can offer you a throw-back to the 2006 Rove in a Vanity Fair article at the end of his term at the White House. It’s a super-fun read, I say sarcastically, and it includes the word “terrorist.”)

But, if it is true that Akbar is a link to the architects of “The Patriot Act” and all that followed 9/11 out of the White House, then the Select Committee is about to be sorely disappointed in where they’ve driven our tax dollars. The anti-Trump Democrats are on a tear to make sure President Trump runs for no-public-office-again-ever by blaming him for the events of January 6. Their blinders on, it appears the Select Committee is failing to consider that one of the forces contributing to January 6 may have been the anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party, namely the Rove-Cheney (Dick Cheney) Neo-Con wing.

The immediate reality is that neither Rhodes, Tarrio, or Lewis should testify or be compelled to testify to the Select Committee. The DOJ investigation and charges are on-going, and, at best, the men should evoke their Fifth Amendment rights or otherwise motion to quash the subpoenas on that basis. The Select Committee “subpoenas” evidence a lack of co-ordination with the DOJ.

And, yet, it is true that two weeks ago I landed in a similar space as the Select Committee, which is to say private security, Ali Akbar, Rove-Cheney Neo-Cons, and 9/11. As I laid out in my book, the journey to the 2021 term “domestic terrorist” began in the days following 9/11 that lead to “The Patriot Act,” where the first legislative definition of that term is housed.

The factual question we in the Second Amendment movement may wish to ask is whether the Oath Keepers, as an organization, drifted off its original mission of helping ordinary people in times of crisis, like Hurricane Katrina, and into making money from those who can afford to be insulated from the public? It’s not a pure Second Amendment question, but the “fault” of January 6 is pushing against our door. The question of “mission statements,” “charters,” “founding” – these are good questions for us to ask each other in our next Board meeting. These are the questions the IRS also asks in a non-profit status audit.

The origin of “Proud Boys” is why I didn’t select them as my primary focus on January 6. As I laid out in my book, “Proud Boys” originated in “beery meet-ups.” There’s no claim of civil rights or even basic decency.

And 1APraetorian is outright security as a business. If they were providing security on January 6, there should be invoices and payments. No different than walking into a local gun shop for a box of ammunition.

I will be giving away too much of my thought process too soon with this blog, but let me share this. As you know, my hypothesis is that multiple factors converged on January 6, not the least of which was the FBI. The equally dominant factor is private security and the elites.

On the FBI rank-and-file front, the more public the militia becomes, the more it rankles the FBI assertions of who should have a gun to protect John Q. Public. It’s one version of recent culture – and courtroom – clashes. In that vein, the Veteran who participates in activities with groups like the Oath Keepers is a “traitor” to the training and service discipline of chain of command. The soldier is not the decision-maker on what and what is not “constitutional.”

From the other direction – the capitalist direction – the Veteran who converts to private security through multi-billion dollar enterprises like Blackwater (back to Cheney), continues to serve this country, including through legal immunity for liability or damages in the killing of non-targets (a/k/a “collaterol damage”).

If you create hybrid militia-security groups that gun-up and get paid by Americans on U.S. soil, the question becomes how much immunity will they command?

And will they, too, be called “traitors” for applying their military training and experience in competition with the big boys of private contracting, who have, for more than twenty years, enjoyed a lack of competition in an incredibly lucrative market?

I suspect these “subpoenas” is where the trail will sputter out for the Select Committee because to go any further would require America to finally examine out front and in the public eye what we’ve been doing in the name of “national security” for the past twenty years.

And that, mes amis, is likely the last thing the Democrats or President Biden will want to undertake in the wake of their walk-away from Afghanistan.