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On May 29th, 2020, the nationwide insurrection by the racist hate group BLM and its leftist allies arrived in the nation’s capital in a very big way.
On Friday night, a violent racist leftist mob, falsely described as “peaceful” by its media allies, converged on the White House. The insurrectionists assaulted Secret Service and Park Police officers. They shouted obscenities and threatened President Trump even as they fought their way past law enforcement personnel to reach the White House.
“It looks like a war zone outside the White House,” Adam Parkhomenko, the former co-founder of Ready for Hillary, commented on a retweeted video of a burning building.
The Democrat insurrectionists hurled Molotov cocktails and rushed out for brief tactical forays even as a more telegenic crowd that was proportionately more female held their hands up for the cameras and chanted, “Hands up, don’t shoot”: a BLM hoax popularized during the Michael Brown riots. While these human shields faced off with law enforcement, the real attack was underway with insurrectionists targeting security barriers and Secret Service personnel.
Secret Service personnel faced everything from bricks to incendiary devices and held the line. The insurrectionist assault was aimed at breaking the line, forcing the Secret Service to retreat allowing for a siege of the White House, followed by a full assault and penetration of the grounds. But despite the violence, the Secret Service did not retreat and none of the Democrat insurrectionists were able to make it over the White House fence.
The insurrectionist tactics on display were similar to those that had terrorized cities around the country, but what especially alarmed federal personnel was that the insurrectionists were not just aiming at the White House, but also at the nearby Treasury Department building.
The Treasury Building is connected to the East Wing of the White House by a secret tunnel built after Pearl Harbor to allow the president to evacuate in case of an attack.
When the insurrectionists penetrated barricades set up at the Treasury Building, there was fear that the attackers were preparing to foil a presidential evacuation by hitting both the White House and the Treasury Building, cutting off any possible escape route for President Trump.
With the Treasury evacuation route in danger, the Secret Service brought President Trump, along with Melania and Barron, down to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. Another relic of the FDR administration, the PEOC is a secretive bunker over 1,000 feet underground with its own air supply that is nearly impossible to penetrate by missile strikes or even by an armed force that has taken control of the White House grounds.
Taking presidential family members to the PEOC is usually a response to an aerial threat like rockets or aircraft on 9/11, when there isn’t enough time to evacuate in a conventional fashion. The use of the PEOC during the BLM insurrection however was triggered by the attack on the Treasury Department. With D.C. streets overrun by rioters and no cooperation from Mayor Bowser, the Secret Service may have believed that a street evacuation was too risky. And an aerial evacuation would have been ruled out until the grounds were fully secured.
On Saturday, May 30th, the insurrectionist occupation of D.C. continued. The Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial were vandalized and 11 police officers were injured. An attempt was made to burn the historic Chamber of Commerce Building. And even with Trump out of town, the insurrectionist mob continued to try to reach the White House.
The D.C. National Guard was activated in the largest deployment since the black nationalist riots after Martin Luther King’s murder. Democrat governors in charge of nearby forces however remained sympathetic to the insurrectionists and refused to deploy to protect the capital.
Virginia’s Gov. Northam, New York’s Gov. Cuomo and Pennsylvania’s Gov. Wolf, among other pro-insurrectionist governors, made it clear that a new civil war was underway.
President Trump flew out to Florida to watch Elon Musk’s SpaceX launch at the Kennedy SpaceCenter. He had originally planned to be there for much of the week, but had cut short his visit earlier that week and returned to Washington D.C. just in time for the insurrection.
Instead of celebrating another great national accomplishment, President Trump was forced to begin his remarks at the launch by paying tribute to George Floyd, whose misreported drug overdose earlier that week had been used as a pretext for the nationwide insurrection.
“The death of George Floyd on the streets of Minneapolis was a grave tragedy. It should never have happened. It has filled Americans all over the country with horror, anger, and grief,” Trump said at the Kennedy Space Center. “I stand before you in firm opposition to anyone exploiting this tragedy to loot, rob, attack, and menace.”
But these remarks did nothing to damp down the violence of the leftist insurrection.
Despite the wounds suffered by her own cops, Mayor Bowser, who had refused to allow the police to help stop the violence, made a public statement of support for the insurrectionists.
“While [Trump] hides behind his fence afraid/alone, I stand w/ people peacefully exercising their First Amendment Right after the murder of #GeorgeFloyd & hundreds of years of institutional racism,” the Democrat politician sneered. “There are no vicious dogs & ominous weapons. There is just a scared man. Afraid/alone…”
On Sunday, May 31st, with President Trump back, the violence intensified. Efforts were made to set the Church of the Presidents on fire. The White House guard house used by the Secret Service was reportedly torched. The BLM insurrectionists also pulled down and burned American flags where they could find them. Six members of the National Guard were wounded by Democrat insurrectionists throwing bricks. One of the Guardsmen was struck in the head.
The Inspector General’s report for the Department of the Interior documented “bricks, rocks, caustic liquids, frozen water bottles, glass bottles, lit flares, rental scooters, and fireworks” thrown at Park Police officers resulting in 49 injuries. 16 of those occurred on May 31st.
Fearing that they might be overwhelmed by the insurrectionists, DEA and ICE agents were brought in to help the National Guard. So was the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team. Non-essential White House personnel were told to stay home because it was not safe for them to come to work.
By June 1st or J1, 60 Secret Service personnel had “sustained multiple injuries from projectiles such as bricks, rocks, bottles, fireworks” and were “punched, kicked, punched, and exposed to bodily fluids.” That number would later be updated to 67 injured.
With the weekend over, White House employees returning to work were told to hide their IDs because with the insurrectionists in control of the streets, their safety could not be assured.
President Trump was urged to invoke the Insurrection Act by Attorney General Barr, who was trying to mobilize every federal law enforcement agency in D.C., but still knew that there was not enough manpower, and by Stephen Miller, but was dissuaded from doing so by Gen. Milley.
“The riots over the summer, you know, I could make a case that those riots were riots organic to an aggrieved community that perceived that they had various injustices throughout their life,” Milley would later tell the J6 Committee, expressing his sympathy for the J1 insurrectionists.
President Trump was determined to reject the siege and challenged the insurrectionists on J1 with a walk to the Church of the Presidents accompanied by Barr, Milley, and other government officials. The plan was that Trump would enter the church and pray inside, but it was boarded up due to the rioting. Instead he held up a bible in what would become a powerful symbol.
In the Rose Garden, Trump had pledged to be a “president of law and order” and “an ally of all peaceful protesters”, but pro-insurrectionist Democrats denounced his defense of law and order and falsely claimed that “non-violent” insurrectionists “peacefully protesting” had been cleared out of Lafayette Square by law enforcement to make way for Trump’s visit to the church.
The clearance operation was part of a pre-existing plan to secure the area with more fences and the peaceful insurrectionists were, according to the Chief of the Park Police, armed with “bricks, rocks, caustic liquids, water bottles, lit flares, fireworks and 2×4 sections of wood.”
Senator Ron Wyden accused Trump of giving a “fascist speech” that “verged on a declaration of war against American citizens.”
“These are not the words of a president, they are the words of a dictator,” Kamala Harris tweeted.
While the threat had been more severe on previous days, on J1, national Democrats openly began expressing their support for the insurrectionist attacks on the nation’s capital.
Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Jim McGovern teamed up to write an op-ed falsely claiming that the National Guard had been mobilized “against American citizens peacefully protesting”. They did not explain what role bricks and rocks play in peaceful protests. Or how over 100 law enforcement personnel came to be injured by insurrectionists “peacefully protesting”.
Under the mounting pressure of pro-insurrection propaganda by Democrats and their media, military leaders quickly retreated. Unlike previous deployments to riot zones, like the L.A. riots, the Guardsmen had been deployed without being able to defend themselves. And by the end of the week they had been officially disarmed. Even helicopter pilots who had “disturbed” the insurrectionists by flying too low were investigated and later wrongly disciplined.
Some of the insurrectionists would later sue for “emotional damage”.
On Tuesday, June 6th, the arrival of more troops from conservative states, that, unlike the D.C. National Guard, were reliable, helped turn the tide. But the political battle had been lost.
D.C. government elites, from Senator Elizabeth Warren to Senator Mitt Romney, appeared at protests to express support for the insurrectionists. By Wednesday, the National Guard began to withdraw. The most overt violence had ended, but its leftist political goals had been achieved.
And yet federal law enforcement and the troops had succeeded in holding the line.
The insurrection continued across the nation, but it never hit the same level of violence in Washington D.C. J1 countered and broke the insurrection around the White House. More importantly it showed what was possible with a little courage and resolution. Had J1 become a national model, much of the destruction of the BLM insurrection could have been prevented.
Unfortunately, pro-insurrection Democrats and their media intimidated federal law enforcement and the military leadership. Congressional investigations were launched and scapegoats were punished. Gen. Milley’s racist endorsement for studying “white rage” was typical of the frantic response of careerists who cared nothing for the nation, but were worried about their jobs.
What the insurrection had failed to achieve through a tactical assault, it won politically.
While military wokeness was already a problem, Gen. Milley and other military brass accelerated it radically. Top military leaders were soon ordering racist political indoctrination sessions in support of the insurrectionists. This led to severe drops in morale and shortfalls in recruitment that continue to this day. The White House held, but the military was lost.
During the J1 insurrection, Democrats and their media denounced the use of troops in D.C. After J6, there was a massive extended deployment of the National Guard along with a nearly unprecedented militarization of the area. When Biden rode to his inauguration, instead of cheering crowds, there were troops. And the same Democrats and media who had denounced the deployment of troops on J1 as “fascist” supported it in the Biden era making it clear that they had not opposed the deployment of the military, they had supported the J1 insurrectionists.
J1 has largely been buried and forgotten. The attacks on the White House and other government buildings have been whitewashed. A partial list of the injuries includes 67 Secret Service personnel, 49 Park Police officers, 11 Metro police officers, 6 Guardsmen, and unknown numbers of federal personnel from agencies who operated without making public statements.
Those over 120 injuries along with the arson and vandalism disprove the lie that the J1 insurrection was peaceful and non-violent. But the larger unanswered question is what might have happened if federal law enforcement personnel, ranging from the Bureau of Prisons to ICE to the FBI, the Marshalls and the Secret Service had failed to hold the line in D.C.
June 1 marks the second anniversary of one of the worst attacks on our center of government.
Democrat governors had rejected aid to the White House and military leaders like Gen. Milley would prove themselves to be fundamentally untrustworthy. Had the insurrectionists entered the White House, we might have witnessed the fall of the center of the government and the murder of a president. That nothing like this happened is a debt we owe to the mostly unknown men who stood up to the insurrectionists and their supporters in Congress and the media, who held the line against bricks and incendiary devices, and all through the long nights, saved our nation.
C’mon man, this all happened during the TDS pandemic that was devastating, and I mean devastated, really devised dangerous thing that you know affects people in a bad way. It ain’t gonna go away anywhere anything anymore anytime soon you know.
Give me another executive order to dribble over man.
Mr. President,
Xi’s on the phone. I suggest that you not keep him waiting.
Daniel Greenfield, thank you for this article!
Also thanks to the law enforcement officers and Guardsmen who stood in the gap!
Heavenly Father, please protect the USA from her enemies, both foreign and domestic. May they be brought to justice, and speedily, if it is Your will!
Thanks Daniel, excellent coverage. Lots of lessons to be learned.
Yep. Certainly many facts I did not know.
And this is certailnly a story we can’t let be memory-holed. Thank you Daniel for keeping it alive.
This was an excellent reminder of sho really was attempting an insurrection by ear of a riot snd siege of our government
The great James Lindsay calls it, “The iron law of woke projection.” They actually were attempting an insurrection at the White House but claim that January 6 was an insurrection and what they were doing at the White House was a mostly peaceful protest.
The fact that the Jan 6th patriots had been in a well behaved, carnival mood the entire day before, proves your point.
The fact that they set no fires, further proves your point. (They’re not the sort that bring molotov cocktails.)
One of the things I have been thinking is that there needs to be an organized, loyal military unit close at hand to protect the head of state in case of a coup attempt. The best example I can think of was the Stauffenberg coup attempt in 1944. There was an organized military unit in Berlin headed by some fanatical dummy that was ordered to march to the seat of government. When they got there it could have gone either way. But Hitler got on the phone from the Wolfsschanze, the officer in charge recognized his voice and took his orders.
Also, don’t forget that these leftist street-trash had also rioted during Trump’s inauguration in 2017 under their crybaby slogan “Resist”.
Smashed windows, burned cars, hurled objects, etc happened as is de rigueur with indulged leftists. (They know not to fear long term incarceration or unflattering headlines.)
The Jan 6th protesters, by contrast, were a well behaved group. Their gathering had been a festive tailgate-party atmosphere the entire day before on Jan 5th (in spite of sporadic AntiFa harassment.)
So what changed it?
The Jan 6th patriots were 1st lured into the ellipsis, then fired on with an unrelenting barrage of flash-bangs, rubber bullets, tear gas, and “sting” bombs for half an hour.
The unprovoked attack by DC police had at 1st bewildered the protestors, then after Kevin Greeson was killed by a “sting” bomb pellet to the eye, finally enraged them.
That’s what changed it.
BLM & AntiFa punks always show up to initiate trouble.
On Jan 6th, Nancy’s DC police stood in wait to initiate trouble – and so they did, just as planned.
Last year, I saw an article in The Guardian saying that NONE of the 200+ people arrested for rioting during Trump’s inauguration were ever convicted of ANYTHING. The vast majority had the charges dropped and the handful who went to trial were acquitted by Trump-hating DC juries.
But we saw the violence and the chaos: smashed store windows, cars smashed, fires set, police attacked, buildings vandalized with graffiti, and numerous trespassing offenses and entry into prohibited areas.
Nice to have leftist privilege, and AntiFa/BLM pricks have lots of that privilege.
And if that privilege falls short, the MFF (Minnesota Freedom Fund) will bail out any rioters.
Affirmative-action beneficiary Kamala herself has contributed to it. (The irony is that the bail-out funds have barely been tapped. Why? The rioters are routinely released anyway.)
The Rise of Black Supremacy!
BLACKS ONLY WATER FOUNTAINS. Where’s A Rosa Parks?
Thank you Daniel. This is a keeper and should be read on the floor of congress. The full history of the 2 years of violent rioting should be cataloged and a deep dive investigation should happen.
It should fill entire books especially as the Left is busy cranking out its counter-history of their heroic “uprising”.
This was an excellent article, Daniel.
Is there a way that you can gain access to the names of the brave men and women in the Secret Service, National Guard, police, etc. who stood up against the BLM communists and defended President Trump and the Republic from anarchy? Their names need to be mentioned.
To be blunt, I don’t think they would benefit from their names being mentioned. If they want to come forward on their own, after retirement, that would be wonderful, but having their names out there makes them a target for both violence and cancel culture.
Nevertheless, even if they choose to remain anonymous for the rest of their lives, they deserve the thanks of a grateful nation for their courage and determination. If we lived in saner times perhaps we would put up a plaque commemorating their heroism, but that will never happen under today’s circumstances.
An outstanding summary of the events of J1 by Dan Greenfield.
“The insurrection continued across the nation, but it never hit the same level of violence in Washington D.C. J1 countered and broke the insurrection around the White House. More importantly it showed what was possible with a little courage and resolution. Had J1 become a national model, much of the destruction of the BLM insurrection could have been prevented.”
Indeed. I was in Minneapolis during the J1 Insurrection. The events Mr. Greenfield describes in D.C. were horrific, but they paled in comparison to the two-week sacking of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. For that matter, the leftist mob attacks in Portland, Seattle, Chicago and even lowly Kenosha, Wisconsin rival the J1 Insurrection. The mob tried to burn down the “President’s Church.” In Minneapolis, they did burn down the 3rd Police Precinct House…the building was set ablaze as police officers were trapped inside. How they escaped is a story all its own.
A follow-up article is in order. How many of the J1 insurrectionists were arrested? How many prosecuted? What were the most significant sentences meted out?
Indeed. The BLM/Antifa insurrection was much worse in some major cities. But a big difference was the crackdown that began in D.C. by federal law enforcement. Without it, things would have gotten really bad.
I can see now that it was literally a coup attempt by the Democrats. Thanks Daniel!
In Portland, OR the “mostly peaceful” pricks tried to bar people inside the Mark O Hatfield Courthouse and burn ’em down inside.
But some called that the “Summer of Love” (It certainly wasn’t called an insurrection.)
Blaine Pardoe’s “Blue Dawn” series of marvelous “what if?” novels paint an amazing/terrifying scenario of what could have happened if the rioters had succeeded. I read the first three in the series, and am eagerly awaiting the fourth..
If the police came down even half as hard on the BLM insurrectionists/ hooligans on May 2, 2000 as they did on the conservative American patriots on January 6,2021 there would be a terrible repercussion on the police.
Therefore the BLM criminals behaved worse than the concerned patriots on 1/6/21.
In addition , if any of those domestic terrorists had been arrested ,they be freed with 24 hours, and in the short time they had been locked up, They would have been treated kindly by the jail guards . In contrast the political prisoners of the Biben regime from January 6.2021 are often cruely brutalized by leftist prison guards.
As you know, it’s much worse for the political prisoners that were set-up, than most are aware of.
As it’s too much to list the 3rd world conditions they endure, I’ll list just one . . .
They have to strain rust sentiment from the tap water they drink with their socks.
Everything in this article has been memory-holed by the MSM. As I recall, the only aspect of the entire episode that attracted media criticism was when Trump (carrying a Bible, I think) went out to the church that had been attacked. The media chorus was “protesters tear-gassed to protect Trump photo op.” None of the preceding mayhem was criticized.
Also memory-holed is the fact that – prior to the 2020 election – several leftist groups were vowing to shut down DC, even the entire country, if Trump won. Given what we saw in the summer of 2020, that is exactly what they would have done. It would have made J6 look like a walk in the park, which is what it was for the vast majority of people who attended the rally.
The MSM celebrated the “uprising”. (Uprisings unlike insurrections are good.) And post J6, it vocally denies that anything happened from M29-J1. Instead it loudly claims that the insurrectionists were oppressed to make way for a “photo op”.
Don’t expect the media to ever tell the truth.
8. CRIME: Because of the Democrat rule in blue cities, crime is not being prosecuted in the name of some weird kind of reparations. What the Democrats don’t get is that they hurt their own innocent population by allowing criminals a get-out-jail-free card, and by not prosecuting at all. Their racist policies hurt the very people they claim to want to help. Why are they doing this? To deliberately create chaos in the execution of anti-white racism. The one solution to the rising crime rate, the prosecution and incarceration of criminals, is the one thing blue cities under Democrat rule will not do. Mayor Lightfoot makes weird and demonic home videos of herself dancing around in what appears to be a drugged stupor. Rather than be a responsible mayor, she has totally ignored the death-by-violence rate in Chicago. This is another very clear example of Democrats doing what they do best; destroying things.
Trump did everything right. An excellent president. Except for one thing: He was too soft on the savage terrorists. Those animals only understand one language.
I hope and pray to see tribunals set up for those that participated in the Nov 3 insurrection that overthrew the US government and their Jan 6 coverup. The left in this country is a criminal organization. Expecting them to prosecute themselves is nonsense. If these criminals don’t see jail time, the tyranny will never end. People need to wake up. And, take their children out of these public propaganda centers posing as schools of learning.
The BLM organization are communists. Our country has been invaded on multiple fronts. Significantly greater than all the Allie’s of freedom that joined together to invade Europe, to stop Nazi fascists and their communist cohorts.
Who does the main stream media state are the terrorists? Jan 6th, Oath Keepers and other peaceful Americans marching for freedom AND ambushed by Nancy bib bucks Peelooser.
TODAY one is considered a terrorist for displaying the Betsy Ross Flag.
We have the homosexuals MOCKING YES MOCKING THE CRUCIFIXION OF JESUS CHRIST – GOD’S SON!,,
“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with one another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitled them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
The Declaration of Independence.
It is time yes it is time to rise up and come to the aid of our Country before all is lost. We did it once expelling the British, now is the time to expel the communist!!!
IF YOU HAVEN’T faced the truth
IMAGINE IF TRUMP HAD WON! The White House, the Capitol, Smithsonian, and cities across America would still be in flames due the matches and gasoline given to the peaceful protesters by members of the J6 Committee and the Democratic Party who would order that they have room to destroy!
really interesting, did not know much of what you are reporting sir, thank you
I had the cynical and depressing thought as I read this vivid, meticulously described scene-by-scene, blow-by-blow account of three days of fear and violence, that here was a really good story for a White House under attack political action thriller, a popular movie/pr genre.
“What a script!”, some Hollywood film exec would say, “Better than real! Of course, we have to tweak who the good guys and bad guys are. And it’ll be ready to hit theaters globally by summer 2024.”
Reality has no copyright and justice seems to be a figment of the imagination.
In his seminal work “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, William Shirer made an observation that we see being played out today in the US.
Shirer said that in Germany between the world wars, the entire German government was systematically hijacked by the Nazi Party so that they had the advantage in everything from the media to the legislature to law enforcement to the military.
This process is what is now occuring in the US by the Leftists of the DEM Party.
American Communists are not above stealing a “Reichstag Fire” from their historical opposition.
Great refresher. TY! Many of us seen this or bits and pieces playing out at the time but so much can easily be forgotten.
Especially when most news and media won’t cover it at all or cherry pick to build a less genuine version.
~ brian
One of the many logic errors of the B.L.M. is that which comes from the Latin called Ad Hominem. That is meaning “to the man.” Many members of B.L.M. seem to believe that because some White police officers might be “racists against Blacks” than all White police officers are “racist against Blacks.” That is a false premise and also a false foundation for that specific belief. Therefore that’s an error of logic. Otherwise known as a logic fallacy