The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com
Amy Fried is a political science professor at the University of Maine. Her views are her own and do not represent those of any group with which she is affiliated.
What instigated the violent entry into the U.S. Capitol and beating of police officers on Jan. 6, 2021?
The answer, in part, is supplied by looking at insurrectionists and their crimes.
Take Mainer Kyle Fitzsimons. Pictures of him invariably show his bloodied face filled with rage. Indeed, intense anger drove him to harm three protectors of the Capitol. Fitzsimons’ assault tore Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell rotator cuff and labrum so badly the officer had to retire. Video also shows Fitzsimons also hit another officer in the head with a spear and was involved in another incident where a fellow insurrectionist poured chemical spray onto a Washington, D.C., police sergeant’s face.
Understanding Fitzsimons’ motives is simple. He believed the 2020 election was stolen. In December 2020, he left multiple messages for U.S. Rep. Jared Golden; according to the Washington Post, one started, “So what’s going on with the election fraud?”
It’s obvious why Fitzsimons believed the election was stolen: former President Donald Trump said so repeatedly. Indeed, the rally where Trump spoke before the Capitol was invaded was called Stop the Steal. Attendees, including members of the militant group, the Oath Keepers, later convicted of seditious conspiracy, believed that Trump summoned them by a tweet to “be wild.”
This summer will very likely mark the next phase of Jan. 6 prosecutions. These will be lodged on those who weren’t committing violence but rather caused it. They were involved in the only truly significant effort to commit election fraud.
Some who will almost certainly face charges were participants in a plot to use fraudulent electoral votes to stop the lawful transfer of power. This fraud scheme was initiated right after the 2020 election and carried out after Trump lost dozens of election challenges, from state district courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
As the congressional Jan. 6 committee explained, Trump and his team tried to get individuals in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to put themselves forward as electors, under the false pretense that he won the state. Meanwhile the legitimate electors were certified by their state’s governors and secretaries of state.
Trump then pressured Vice President Mike Pence to accept fake electoral votes but he rightly refused.
The fraudulent elector conspiracy fueled the insurrection. During the assault Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done” and rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” False election fraud claims and the existence of fake electors was why some House and Senate Republicans voted against accepting legitimate electors.
What federal charges Special Counsel Jack Smith might bring is uncertain. However, a model prosecution memo, of the sort that prosecutors write as part of their preparation and analysis, lays out charges. Backed by publicly known evidence, this 264-page memo at the Just Security website details potential federal charges. One involves a law prohibiting conspiracies to defraud the United States in the administration of elections.
And charges won’t just include federal crimes but also state ones, which cannot be halted or pardoned by a U.S. attorney general or president.
Trump and others will likely be charged in Georgia for the fraudulent elector scheme there and for his effort to pressure state officials to “find” votes for him. Reports indicate that indictments could be brought in August.
In Arizona the attorney general is investigating those involved in that state’s fake electors effort.
Without fraudulent electors, there would have been no possibility that Joe Biden’s legitimate ones would be discarded on Jan. 6 and no reason for insurrectionists to physically target Congress, Pence and their protectors.
Taken together, this electoral fraud scheme constituted an illegal Hail Mary, which failed on Jan. 6 after law enforcement officials drove out the insurrectionists and congressional leaders carried on with their duty to certify electoral votes.
After many convictions of those battling police and entering the Capitol, the elites who set it all in motion will almost certainly soon be charged. While Trump will surely claim that this is so, so unfair, what’s unjust is putting the insurrectionists who believed him in jail while letting the instigators and election fraud plotters off the hook.
