Lundberg Report
2. What happened on January 6? You Decide
Was it an organized attempt to overthrow the government, or a mob being manipulated by BLM and/or Antifa infiltrators, or was it a large and frustrated crowd who came to express their deep concerns and then peacefully left? You decide.
This will take some time to dig into, but I found three reports on the events at our nation’s capitol on January 6 which provide valuable insight into what really happened.
The first is an interview of a reporter (both the video and the transcript) who followed the crowd into the capitol and gave this interview to The Daily Signal: https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/01/08/reporter-who-followed-the-mob-into-the-capitol-shares-what-he-saw/
The second report I offer is in the form of an interview of a Japanese journalist who carefully examined two videos of the shooting of the Air Force veteran in the capitol. That 12 minute video can be viewed through this link: https://www.theepochtimes.com/video-analysis-of-ashli-babbit-video-suggests-coordinated-actions-interview-with-masako_3652783.html.
The third is a first person report. It is somewhat lengthy, written by a retired Air Force Colonel who attended the Trump rally in Washington D.C.. His perspective is similar to others I have talked to who were also there.
“I was in DC on the 6th, at the rally and on the Capitol steps – as you might expect, almost nothing being reported is true. In the first place, if there was one person there, there were easily 100,000, and probably twice that – most of the 300k+ square meters between the north perimeter of the Ellipse in front of the White House and the Washington Monument was standing room-only, and I was there from ~0715 until Trump finished speaking after 1pm.
“People were upset about the election conduct, more than or at least as much as the result, and the obstruction by so many institutions of any real hearing or investigation into all the irregularities and indications of fraud, and there were a few people who I thought were overwrought and possibly unstable, but they were grossly outnumbered (~1,000:1) by calm people, many with their families, who travelled from all over the country.
“The crowd was disproportionately veteran, and if it was disproportionately white, it wasn’t by much, compared to U.S. demographics. I saw Asians for Trump, Blacks for Trump (one with red, white, and blue hair extensions – she could hardly move two steps without someone hugging her and taking a photo with her), Polish for Trump, etc. I didn’t see a single “white nationalist/supremacist” sign or symbol, and everyone was cordial, if not friendly. Trump was supposed to begin speaking at 11, but was late; that helps explain why the non-peaceful activities at the Capitol began before most of the rally crowd had even left the grass in front of the Washington Monument. He finished speaking after 1pm and, frankly, not his best speech; it wasn’t particularly inspirational and it certainly didn’t encourage or incite violence which, by any case, began while he was still speaking, a mile and half away (because, while his speech neither began nor ended on schedule, the violence did).
“It took ~15 minutes just to get to across 15th St NW, and while I could have walked to the Capitol in under ~15 minutes at my pace, we didn’t go at my pace (I had met up w/a few other Coloradans, and one was elderly and not particularly swift). Even then, I would estimate we arrived ahead of ~60-75% of the rally crowd, partly because we chose to proceed along Madison, rather than Constitution, or Pennsylvania Aves. There was no violence or lawlessness along the walk, other than people peeing behind bushes because the District had shut down all services. We walked up to the west side of the Capitol grounds, and there were already people up on the steps/pronaos/scaffolding, but it wasn’t packed, and they seemed to mostly be milling about, taking selfies. We walked around the south side of the Capitol and passed several law enforcement of various jurisdictions, including obvious special tactics team members or leaders, most of whom were standing still, talking to one another, and seemed calm and unalarmed.
“On the east side of the Capitol, there were people on all three sets of steps but, again, the steps weren’t full and most seemed to be milling about. We heard what were either flash-bang or concussion grenades or fireworks, and some people came down the center stairs, stating they’d been maced/flashbanged. I helped w/first aid for a couple people who had either thermal or chemical burns (relatively mild) on their faces. In the rally crowd in front of the Wash. Monument, I’d noticed a few (not many, but perhaps 20-40 total) people who seemed out of place (e.g. college long hair, not biker long hair; skinny pants; etc), and I saw them disproportionately on the Capitol steps, some talking on their cell phones, saying things like “tell everyone to get down here.”
“I climbed the SE-most steps and there were people going in and out the open door. Then someone, then several, came out, saying a woman had been murdered by the police, inside. Others said she’d been shot. I wasn’t far from the event, though if I heard the report, I thought it was a flash-bang from the other side of the building. Some of the people on the steps were loudly repeating things like “They murdered her!” and “That is NOT ok!” to no one, in particular, and it came off as bad acting. I saw what looked like a choked double-aught shotgun blast pattern (fired from ~20-30′, I’d estimate) on the glass above one door, but couldn’t tell if it was from inside or outside, and I saw some window glass broken out, but didn’t see it happening.
“I saw, through one intact window, a tactical team clearing one of the offices adjacent to the top of the stairs, and one member who remained at the doorway they’d entered, opposite the window I stood outside, briefly trained his weapon on me, but I gave him the “what are you doing!?” shrug and he redirected his attention to the team and the interior of the room. I saw a fight break out mid-way up the steps between someone trying to stop the vandalism and one of the vandals. I watched what I assume was the woman who’d been shot being wheeled out on a gurney from the SE corner, from a vantage point directly above them, and by that point a number of LE bearing carbine-sized AR- rifles had formed a line.
“Soon, police in riot gear entered the lower level of the Capitol, and they later exited at the top of the stairs and cleared everyone from the stairs. As that began, I made my way to the front of the crowd in front of them, got some of the people in the crowd to stop screaming nonsense at the officers (including w/megaphones), and tried to talk to the officers about what they were doing, to no avail. I ended up CS(~tear)-gassed, but the gas was not military-potency, and was hit once in the head by a baton, though I think the officers in front of me held back because they recognized I was trying to defuse the violence, not add to it, but I also managed to pull the hands of one person in the crowd off an officer’s baton that they were trying to tear from the officer’s grip, and at one point I helped an elderly vet who’d been pushed down by the crowd/riot police combo back to his feet and rescued his Ranger cap, with pin, that he seemed to care about more than his own safety.
“Ironically, I ran into the same vet back at the Franconia-Springfield Metro parking garage, looking for his car, in the bitter cold (like I had been for ~30 mins), and helped him find his car. Of all the people to run into twice, 12 miles and ~two hours apart. I stopped to talk to several police sergeants in front of groups of police preparing to move in. I asked them to remember that the people from the rally were the same people who’d defended law enforcement and law, itself, all year-long. By the time I left, shortly after 5pm, it was one concussive grenade after another going off in the front/west side of the Capitol, and the gas was thick. Things were out of control, and there was nothing for me to contribute, so I went back to VA, where I was staying with a friend.
“I could go on with more detail, but you get the gist; my first-hand impression is that the rally was peaceful and that there was a false-flag operation of non-rally goers at the Capitol building, reflected in subsequent well-coordinated narrative reporting that does not match what I saw in-person, with that narrative now serving as predicate for a multitude of things that one does when one is “not letting a good crisis go to waste.”
For Life and Liberty!
Kevin Lundberg
fmr Colorado State Senator