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Victor Davis Hanson Blasts Democrats’ J6 Narrative As ‘Complete Fabrication’

Screenshot/YouTube/The Daily Signal and Victor Davis Hanson

Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson cast doubt on the Democratic Party’s characterization of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot during a Monday episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.”

Democrats have compared the riot to Pearl Harbor and 9/11 and labeled it an “insurrection” spearheaded by President Donald Trump. Hanson, however, pushed back on multiple aspects of their narrative on the Daily Signal show, asserting it all “seems inaccurate.”

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“Everything that we’ve been told by that narrative from the left seems inaccurate. They told us it was an organized insurrection. They use the word insurrection, remember, in the second impeachment indictment of Donald Trump,” Hanson said. “And the trial, remember, was held after he left office, and he was acquitted by the Senate, but the word was insurrection.”

“[W]e were told that it was a pre-planned armed takeover, a coup, but there was always something wrong about the left-wing narrative of January 6 because we knew there was a massive demonstration,” he added. “We knew it turned violent outside. And we knew that people were sort of invited in, maybe because the guards inside the rotunda and the Capitol had no other alternative. But everything after that was too clear-cut.”

Previously unseen footage Fox News aired in March 2023 showed officers seeming to escort the so-called “QAnon Shaman” through the halls of the Capitol building during the riot.

Hanson also noted that the former House Select Committee on Jan. 6 reportedly deleted information. He added that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi rejected two of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s recommendations for Republicans on the committee.

Moreover, Hanson argued that the Department of Justice’s [DOJ] Dec. 4 arrest of alleged Jan. 6 pipe bomber Brian Cole Jr. was bizarre following the failure to nab him under former President Joe Biden.

“[W]e don’t know exactly what his empathies were, but it was apparently incumbent upon the Biden administration not to investigate who this pipe bomber was and to leave it out there as if he was a part of a violent resistance,” he said. “And that is consistent with the misinformation that we had and the fake news about the entire day. Remember [former Vice President] Kamala Harris, when running for president, she said January 6 is the same thing, that it’s parallel to, it’s comparable to Pearl Harbor, 2,400 dead, or 9/11, 3,000 people dead.”

“And of course, how many people died? Well, we know five people died, but how many people died violently? That’s the key thing to remember,” he added. “And the violent deaths were one, maybe two. A Trump protester that was caught in the scramble and the pressure between the crowd and the police, but really one, Ashli Babbitt, a 14-year veteran who was unarmed and was committing a misdemeanor of entering a broken window. She was shot by Officer [Lt. Michael] Byrd lethally.”

Although Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick perished on Jan. 7 after engaging rioters, the chief medical examiner of Washington, D.C., found that he suffered two strokes and died of natural causes. Furthermore, Capitol Police officers Jeffrey Smith and Howard Liebengood committed suicide shortly after the riot.

Hanson said Byrd “had a checkered record,” including reportedly leaving his Glock 22 unattended in a bathroom in 2019.

“So they wanted to suppress the information and suggest that [Babbitt] was an insurgent,” he said. “That was complete misinformation.”

Another issue Hanson highlighted was the presence of 274 agents the FBI deployed to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which Just The News reported on Sept. 25, citing an after-action report it obtained. Hanson said the prior narrative was that there was no significant FBI presence.

Hanson noted Trump used the words “peacefully and patriotically” during his Jan. 6, 2021, speech when discussing how his audience would imminently be demonstrating at the Capitol.

“We never got the honest story. So that begs the question: why? Why didn’t they just come out and say, ‘Here’s all the information’? And the reason is, is they wanted to cement a narrative in everybody’s mind that a reckless demonstration that turned into a riot was a pre-planned insurrection by Donald Trump, who ordered it and therefore should forfeit his political career and should never be allowed to run for office,” he said.

“And they impeached him. And they wanted that narrative to stick. And it was a complete fabrication,” he added. “There was a demonstration. There was a riot. It was wrong. But everything else was a Democratic narrative.”