White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had her hands full trying to justify why President Biden was willing to talk about specific cases involving the political persecution of Jan. 6 protesters, but not comment on the historic targeting of a former president.
The question was posed by New York Times reporter Michael Shear following the indictment of Donald Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. In the eyes of many, right and left, the case brought by the Democratic prosecutor was weak and reeked of political revenge.
Jean-Pierre took advantage of the opportunity to further perpetuate the myth that Jan. 6 was an insurrection and falsely suggested that police officers died as a result of being attacked that fateful day — the only death directly attributed to events on Jan. 6 was that of unarmed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, who was killed by a Capitol police officer.
“But with all seriousness, January 6th was a devastating day…,” Jean-Pierre said. “We had law enforcement, police officers who were attacked, who died. And what we saw on that day was an attack on our democracy. It was a devastating, devastating day in our history.”
“It was something that needed to be spoken to, when you see something like that — our democracy, literally our democracy, under attack,” she continued, justifying why Biden would comment.
When Shear tried to press, Jean-Pierre held firm, saying that “when it comes to these types of cases — these criminal, like, specific cases — we’re just not going to comment.”
The reporter pointed out that the Jan. 6 cases were of a similar nature and again Jean-Pierre stressed that “people died” on that day.
Shear shot back, “Karine, I don’t need a lecture on the fact that people died!”
This prompted the president’s spokesperson to claim that the reporter was lecturing her.
“I’m not! I’m asking questions and what I’m saying is there are millions of people out there watching today — you called January 6 historic, it was absolutely historic and none of us had ever seen that before — nobody’s seen this before either,” Shear said. “There are millions and millions of Americans watching the first time in 250 years, a former president be hauled into court and processed for arrest.”
“That means something, that has some effect, potentially, I suspect, on American democracy and how the rest of the world — the president has talked a lot about how the rest of the world sees the United States in the wake of January 6 — totally valid,” he continued. “Why isn’t that, why isn’t there a similar kind of assessment about how the world is watching us now? Good or bad, I’m not making a judgment whichever way.”
Like a broken record, Jean-Pierre continued to spew the line that “people died that day.”
“January 6 was just a different moment, it just was… People died on that day, and were harmed,” she said, before adding, “We’re not going to interfere. We’re not going to politically interfere from here and we’ve been consistent.”
The White House is trying to portray Biden as being above the fray, busy leading the country, but we have seen this play out before and many believe that odds are it’s only a matter of time before America learns that this administration was involved up to its elbows in the persecution of Biden’s predecessor.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.