Day 34: Hearing Scheduled for House Vote
Top officials testified today about the failures during the January 6th breach of the Capitol Building. The U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee and the Committee on Rules & Administration convened the hearing.
Capitol Police Captain Carneysha Mendoza opened the testimony with her account of what transpired that day, starting with the emergency call she received to come in early for her shift that was scheduled to start at 3:00 p.m. She arrived at 1:30, 41 minutes before a rioter broke a window to gain access for hundreds to flood in through the door.
“Of the multitude of events I’ve worked in my nearly 19 year career in the department this was by far the worst of the worst,” Mendoza said. “We could have had ten times the amount of people working with us and I still believe the battle would have been just as devastating.
“As an American, and as an Army veteran, it’s sad to see us attacked by our fellow citizens,” she said. Mendoza added that she still has chemical burns on her face from the military-grade tear gas the insurrectionists used. She thanked Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund for his leadership.
Sund testified that there was a breakdown in intelligence communications indicating the severity of the threat prior to the 6th, and that on the day of there was a lack of riot gear and a delay in the deployment of National Guard.
Acting Washington D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee said he was “surprised” by the delay in backup and reiterated that he had no jurisdiction over patrol or arrests at the Capitol prior to the CPO’s request. He ultimately sent in 1,100 MPD officers.
While there are still discrepancies in the timeline of events — particularly a call between Sund and the [now former] House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) continues to call for DC Statehood to pass in this first 100 days, “at least in the House,” she Tweeted. She announced yesterday that a hearing is scheduled for March 11th.
Earlier this week, Sunday, was the 220th anniversary of former president Ulysses S. Grant signing the Organic Act of 1801, granting D.C. as the new territory for the nation’s capital after 400 armed soldiers mobbed and held hostage members of Congress demanding pay for their service during the Revolutionary War. The mutineers stormed the then seat of government, the Pennsylvania State House on June 20, 1783.
The Pennsylvania Council denied requests to send local troops to protect the delegates. George Washington, who was 51 and retiring as the Commander-in-Chief with the signing of the Treaty of Paris and the end of the war that September, so that he may return to civilian life, sent in 1,500 troops. He became the nation’s first president in 1798.
On Washington’s birthday this year, Monday, February 22nd, several virtual Statehood events took place to honor those who have long-served in the battle for “no taxation without representation.”
“Senator Ted Kennedy coined the phrase ‘The Four Toos’ … D.C. is too urban, too democratic, too liberal and too Black’” for it to become a state, Attorney Johnny Barnes said during an event with DC For Democracy. “I don’t think that’s true. I think you can guilt trip some of these folks, especially those who appreciate the history of this country,” he continued, “and the fact that there are Black people helps.”
Former U.S. Senator, a Republican, “Strom Thurmond supported the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment because Black folks in South Carolina told him to,” Barnes said. “Senator Kennedy, who was a champion for us on D.C. Voting Rights, Statehood, everything, I think he was wrong about that ‘too Black’ part.”
So then what is it? “More than anything the ‘too democratic’,” Barnes said. “Now that we have the House and the Senate and the Presidency, run that thing through… or we need to get one Republican and maybe that’s our Senator from Utah whose father marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”