Rep. Bennie Thompson, former chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol, said he does not expect Jan. 6, 2025 to be like Jan. 6, 2021.
“The Homeland Security secretary has declared January 6th an ‘incident of national significance.’ Now that’s a big word to mean that we will have all the assets of the federal government available within a moment’s notice to do whatever we need to do during that time. So all that back and forth with the National Guard and all that goes out the window,” Thompson told NPF Paul Miller fellows this month, referring to the delay in National Guard responding to the insurrection. “It’s the equivalent of what they do during the Super Bowl or the Democratic and Republican Convention.”
“One of the first recommendations that [the committee] made that Congress ultimately accepted was that we made sure that the role of the vice president in this situation would be strictly ceremonial … so we cleared that up. As you know, former President Trump’s position was the vice president could stop it and he did not. And for that, former President Trump sent that mob on his own vice president.”
Thompson did raise concerns about locations outside of Washington, D.C., this year.
“I do think there’s a likelihood that you might have sporadic incidents in other parts of the country. I hope not.”
Thompson told journalists he spoke with Attorney General Merrick Garland Sept. 10, who assured him that the Department of Justice would slow down prosecution of those involved Jan. 6. However, their status may change depending on who wins the election.
“I believe when [Trump] says he needs to be a dictator for a day when he wants to free those 1,500 persons who’ve either pled guilty or been convicted around January 6th,” Thompson said.
After 18 months of investigation “the one thing that became quite clear is it was all about former President Trump’s refusing to acknowledge that he lost the election.”
He noted that in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6, “you heard everybody under the sun identified former President Trump as the person who created what occurred on January 6th … Here we are three and a half years later, and not a single one of those individuals who was critical on or after January 6th will admit that former President Trump had anything to do with it – that’s former Speaker McCarthy at leadership over on the Senate side, on the Republican side, everybody.”
However, he said roughly 85% of those who testified to the Jan. 6 committee were Republicans.
“I’m convinced that the work of our committee and the lasting implications of it is how, even though our democracy was threatened, it survived,” he said. He also noted that Republican Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, faced attacks for serving on the committee and ultimately lost her seat.
“We just have to understand that this democracy is still fragile, that a lot of people would want you to believe that January 6th didn’t happen and that it was manufactured,” Thompson said. “It really did happen.”
Thompson said a free and open press is what guides people to make the choices they do in a democracy, underlining the importance of providing accurate information about topics that greatly affect people’s lives, such as the election.
“A free press is actually one of the tenets of a democracy remaining great,” he said. “If, all of a sudden, because I disagree with what you write, I want to put you out of business – that’s the slippery slope that we absolutely need to avoid.”
Access the full transcript here.
