Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson warned Democrats, who he described as “crazed partisans,” were attempting to use the January 6 Commission to “criminalize political dissent.”
Carlson pointed to the commission subpoenaing bank and phone records unrelated to the event, forcing some witnesses to cede their constitutionally protected rights.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: If you’re planning to be in Washington, D.C. tomorrow, your nation’s capital, be careful. It turns out a group of political extremists plans to shut the city down. We’re not guessing about this because they’re not very subtle about what they intend to do. They literally call their group Shutdown D.C. You can go to their website.
On it, the extremists describe the violence they plan to commit tomorrow in Washington. They are planning quote “disruptive direct action to end” quote “business as usual and dismantle this country’s core systems of government.” In case there is any remaining doubt about their goal, they are calling tomorrow’s disruptive direct action quote “December 7 Shut Down the Capital.” As in the United States capital.
So what would you call an event like this? There is really no other word for it. It’s an insurrection. It’s a planned uprising against our elected government. In fact, it’s an attack on democracy itself. This may be the most organized attack since the Civil War and 9/11.
Now if you’ve been paying attention for the past year — last 11 months to the day, in fact — you probably assume our elected officials vehemently oppose this. They are against insurrections. In fact, at this point, insurrections are the main thing they’re against. Their whole job is to oppose insurrecting.
Nancy Pelosi tells us that every day, so does Liz Cheney. But not in this case.
It turns out some insurrections are just fine. It depends on who is planning on insurrecting.
Just today, Nancy Pelosi’s top bodyguard, William J. Walker, installed in march, the House sergeant-at-arms issued a statement describing tomorrow’s insurrection as the “Shutdown the Capital Event” by the way, this is the city-wide First Amendment Demonstration.
No big deal, implied Walker, just a group of political extremists coming to shut down the U.S. Congress while it is in session. It is not a threat.
The funny thing is Walker’s hilariously understated response to tomorrow’s outbreak of left-wing violence, which again on the internet sounds a lot like the government’s initial response to the rally in January. That’s when conservatives descended on the city.
On the morning of January 6, the Regional Director at the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, wrote a memo with this subject line: Updates on rallies and protests. That day, DHS was tracking three major rallies. One of them featured a speech by the then sitting President about election integrity.
Pursuant to National Park Service Permit 21-0278, the DHS expected about 20,000 people to attend. The event was at The Ellipse just south of the White House. All of these people, the DHS bulletin made clear had a constitutional right to be there. They also had a right to leave The Ellipse and go wherever they wanted because it was at the time, anyway, their country.
Quote: “It is expected,” the memo said, ” … that a portion of this group will march to the United States Capitol,” and they did. It was a hardly surprise when they did it. It was all as Pelosi would say of tomorrow’s planned insurrection a quote, “First Amendment demonstration.” It was Americans peacefully assembling to express their political views as for nearly 250 years, the Bill of Rights has guaranteed that they can. There is nothing more American than that, we’ve heard that for decades.
And yet, here is the change. Suddenly, it is a crime to do this depending upon who you voted for.
This is Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi. He is a sitting Member of Congress. He is the Chairman of the House Committee that claims to be looking into what happened on January 6, but of course, Bennie Thompson already knows perfectly well what happened on January 6. He and the rest of the Committee are sitting on thousands of hours of videotape that they refuse to release to the public.
So fact-finding is hardly the point of the mission here. The point very clearly and ever more clearly with each passing day is to criminalize political dissent.
Now, that’s a strong claim and if you doubt it, watch Bennie Thompson explain how he plans to handle a former Trump official that the Committee has subpoenaed, that he has subpoenaed.
Now, the man in question has not been charged or even accused of any crime. This man was not inside the Capitol Building on January 6, and yet, here is Bennie Thompson warning that if this man dares to use his Fifth Amendment right, the right not to incriminate himself, then he is by definition guilty of a crime.
REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): Our charge is to get to the facts. Mr. Clark through his attorney has been deliberately avoiding us. Obviously, he is aware that something went on that’s illegal and rather than be responsible and answer, he is pleading the Fifth.
But if he is saying, OK, I’ll come, but I’ll plead the Fifth, then in some instances, that says you’re part and parcel guilty to what occurred.
CARLSON: If you plead the Fifth, you’re guilty. What country is this? So assert your constitutional rights and we will punish you. That is the chairman of the January 6 Committee. What you just saw is far more imminently dangerous to our democracy than anything that happened on January 6 itself, it’s not even close, and yet it is by and large being ignored.
Did you read about that in The New York Times? How about The Washington Post? Even conservative media, to their great shame, is by and large ignoring this story. Why are they ignoring it? We will let you reach your own conclusions on that.
But in the darkness that results, our democracy is indeed dying by degree. We can tell you tonight for example, the Democrats in Congress have just subpoenaed AT&T. They are seeking the phone records of a young woman called Caroline Wren.
Caroline Wren did not break into the Capitol on January 6. She wasn’t even there. Caroline Wren is a Republican fundraiser who once worked for Lindsey Graham. She helped organize donations for the rally that day and her name is on the permit for it. That’s it. That’s her rap sheet.
For doing that, the most constitutionally protected of all activities, the January 6 Committee is demanding all of Caroline Wren’s phone records. That would include all of her text messages from November 1st 2020 to January 31st of this year.
Democrats on the Committee are also trying to seize — and when we say Democrats we are including in this Liz Cheney — and they’re trying to seize her bank records. They are trying to seize everything she has written by hand including her personal diary entries.
Now, you don’t have to love Donald Trump to find all of this sickening and scary. Do you really want to live in a country where Nancy Pelosi and Bennie Thompson, crazed partisans with no interest whatsoever in the United States Constitution can seize your bank records? Your text messages? Your diary? Simply because they don’t like who you voted for in the last election.
Most Americans do not want to live in a country like that. A country like that is called Haiti, but suddenly it’s America.
This show has learned that other subpoenas from the January 6 Commission to phone companies are in progress. They target Americans who have been accused of no crime whatsoever, much less charged with one.
Cleta Mitchell for example, a prominent Republican lawyer was just informed by AT&T that Democrats want her phone records, several months of her phone records. Why? On what grounds? Because Cleta Mitchell once spoke to Donald Trump about the vote in Georgia and complaining about election results is now a crime.
We’ve reached out to AT&T about this. Effectively, they have told us they are going to comply with the subpoenas from Congressional Democrats. They’re probably afraid not to comply, but all of us should be every bit as afraid of this. It is terrifying.
