An old media pundit said on Monday that disgraced ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok, a major propagandist in the Trump-Russia “collusion” probe, had said that September 11 is “nothing compared to January 6.”
Nichole Wallace, host of MSNBC’s Deadline White House, attacked FBI Director Christopher Wray for not making “one statement” between 9/11 and 1/6, citing the latter date as the “deadliest attack on the U.S. Capitol” in American history.
The 9/11 attacks “were a calamity, we lost hundreds of people in a horrific way, and we still grieve to this day,” Strzok said. An attack on democracy, which “could actually bring about a fundamental shift to American politics as we recognize it,” was described as “January 6 is nothing compared to 9/11” by one analyst.
Then, Strzok repeated the MSNBC host’s criticism of the federal government for not adopting the “same sort of war footing” that the United States established after the September 11 attacks.
The situation, he argued, was a shame.
Strzok joined a growing number of lawmakers (mainly on the left) who have called the invasion of the United States Capitol by supporters of former president Donald Trump more horrifying than the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, which killed almost 3,000 people.
New Yorkers may still remember the stench from the hundreds of bodies that clogged the air for months after that terrible day.
Present were around 2,000 people there on January 6, claims PolitiFact. In an effort to stop lawmakers from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, some of them smashed barricades, fought with police, and rushed the Capitol. Officials estimate that 800 persons in the massive crowd caused damage to the Capitol building or grounds, with slightly more than 200 admitting culpability.
Nine people died on or after January 6, according to a bipartisan Senate inquiry reviewed by The New York Times earlier this year. A 36-year-old veteran named Ashli Babbit was the lone person murdered in the shooting.
However, sympathetic accounts and objective reporting tell a different tale. Multiple witnesses had reported seeing a number of agent provocateurs set up on press risers before any Trump supporters had even reached the main lawn or the building itself.
Witnesses claim that just a tiny fraction of the crowd actually joined in on the mob mentality once the so-called agitators got them going.
Witnesses said that riot police built barriers that had to be taken down before the crowd could approach and that other authorities held the entry open so that demonstrators could enter the Capitol building.
Eyewitnesses said that once inside, “protesters” exchanged their black bloc attire for Trump apparel and continued the chaos they had started outside. Some witnesses claim to have seen looters inside the building tossing cudgels and other weapons through the windows to the rioters on the street. Most Trump backers on the ground pleaded with the rioters to calm down, but the violence persisted.
Images of the elderly people who chose to remain within the stanchions and photographed inside the Capitol building have gone viral on social media.
Even though Stzrok has been accused of doing long-term harm to the FBI’s credibility after the bureau fired him four years ago, he and others have sworn to construct the narrative that the January 6 incident was the greatest strike on American soil and a so-called lethal revolt.