After five years, the DOJ and FBI have found and arrested the Jan. 6 bomber.
Reading the news coverage was like a trip to bizarro-world.
Garland told MSNBW host Rachel Maddow that the prior administration "sat on" evidence for four months and failed to make a breakthrough in the case, whereas the FBI under his leadership incorporated cell phone geolocation data to hunt for the suspect.
Just kidding. The actual coverage was:
Patel told "Fox News @ Night Now" host Trace Gallagher that the prior administration "sat on" evidence for four years and failed to make a breakthrough in the case, whereas the FBI under his leadership incorporated cell phone geolocation data to hunt for the suspect.
Emphasis mine.
"We went back and looked at the cellphone tower data dumps. We went back and looked at the providers and what information they provided pursuant to search warrants at the time and asked questions such as why weren’t all the phone numbers scrubbed, why aren’t they connected and why wasn’t there any geolocational data done?" Patel said. "That is either sheer incompetence or complete intentional negligence — and neither of which is acceptable for this FBI."
And:
"This guy… planted bombs at the United States Capitol on camera," Patel said. "And the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the prior four years couldn’t find him. Completely unacceptable."
While a number of news outlets covered the arrest, I only saw Patel’s comments on Fox. Which is unfortunate, because they were newsworthy.
Now, do I have any suspicion about this at all—that this could somehow be a cover-up? Sure. A small, small amount. When the key players are Patel and Jeanine Pirro, there is room to wonder. And if there were any connections between the bomber and higher-level figures, I will still wait-and-see as to whether this DOJ will release any facts of that nature. (And the question still remains, as to why the bombs were discovered at exactly the right time to pull law enforcement away from the attack.)
But if they wanted to cover things up, the easiest thing to do would be to just bury everything. Not arrest someone. So while acknowledging the question, I don’t feel it changes the bottom line. No, when Kash Patel says Merrick Garland sat on the investigation because he was a traitor to justice, the simplest explanation at this point is, that Merrick Garland did in fact sit on the investigation because he was, in fact, a traitor to justice.
The fact is, this administration appears to have found a key criminal in the Jan. 6 attack. After four years of flailing under the previous admin. And it just amazes. Between Biden and Trump, what would you say if I told you that the vote to find the Jan. 6 bomber, would be the vote for Trump? But that is the fact.
Kash Patel said on record that it was unacceptable for the FBI to fail to locate the Jan. 6 bomber. Patel—a person who literally wrote a weird MAGA children’s book.
Not one Democrat ever called that failure unacceptable. Not one.
Why am I writing this?
The Democratic Party still has soul-searching to do.
I used to believe that the Democrats were the Party of Competence. I stopped believing that during the Biden administration.
I would love to write a positive message here. But it’s difficult to write that message to a political coalition that still hasn’t looked in the mirror and confronted its own failures. I don’t know a way forward, except to do that. Only then, can you improve.
In moments like this, the mirror comes into view. Why did it take Kash Patel to do something basic, like find a person who planted bombs in the Capitol on the eve of Congress’s certification of the vote? Where was the competence, the basic commitment to looking a problem in the face and solving it, among the Democrats?
The Democrat who can locate that competence, will be the way forward.
