Jack Cashill didn’t engage in much presidential election activism beyond pushing the conspiracy theory that there was a nefarious reason that Kamala Harris wasn’t in the Capitol at the time of the Trump-incited riot. Much of it, in fact, was spent indulging in other riot-related conspiracy theories. Cashill complained in his Oct. 2 column that the vice presidential debate didn’t delve into his pet conspiracy theories:
Nearly four years after Jan. 6, 2021, I have yet to hear a serious debate on what actually happened on that fateful day, and Tuesday’s debate between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. J.D. Vance continued that unfortunate tradition.
Toward the end of the debate, CBS’s Nora O’Donnell front loaded the question on the “state of democracy” with all the usual Democratic talking points about January 6.
Knowing there was nothing he could say in two minutes to straighten out the record on January 6, Vance adroitly maneuvered to what he called the “much bigger threat to democracy than anything that we’ve seen in this country in the last four years, in the last 40 years,” namely the threat of censorship.
Walz, on the other hand, could not wait to recall the imagined horrors of January 6. “One hundred and forty police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day,” he insisted, “some with the American flag. Several later died.”
Walz added a fresh new layer of lie to Kamala Harris’ description during her July debate with Donald Trump. Said Harris, “On that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured. And some died.”
In Walz’s retelling, the officers were “beaten,” some, improbably enough, “with an American flag.”
In fact, one rioter was indeed convicted and sent to prison for beating a police officer with a flagpole attached to an American flag. It’s documented fact, not “improbable.” Cashill went on to blame the officers for their own injuries:
Not surprisingly, media accounts in the days following the event exaggerated the nature of the injuries to the officers, but nowhere near 140 officers were “beaten.”
To give some sense of the severity of the injuries, a New York Times February 2021 article leads with this sentence, “One officer lost the tip of his right index finger.”
The second incident the Times cited was of a police woman standing behind a metal barrier who was pushed over when the barrier fell.
“We don’t have to hurt you – why are you standing in our way?” the Times quoted a protester as telling her “as he helped her to her feet.” Odd behavior for an insurrectionist.
Unmentioned in the Times articles was the fact that many officers were injured as a result of friendly fire. The undertrained Capitol Police were launching tear gas into the crowd, which on more than one occasion wafted back in their direction.
Cashill offered no evidence that “many” officers were the victim of “friendly fire.” He then rehashed his previous ranting that initial reports around the death of Brian Sicknick suggesting he died from riot injuries were deliberate and there was some grand conspiracy to hide that he died of a stroke — making sure not to mention that a medical examiner ruled that “all that transpired” that day contributed to Sicknick’s stroke-related death. He concluded by whining:
Democratic politicians have been finessing the lie ever since and adding subsequent suicide deaths to the body count.
What they do not talk about are the four protesters who died that day, three by police action. Nor do they report the beatings suffered by the protesters, many of which were captured on video.
Cashill didn’t explain why violent rioters should have been allowed to continue rioting.
The c onspiracy theories continued in his Oct. 9 column:
The deeper I get into the mysteries of Jan. 6, 2021, the more mysteries I uncover.
In reading the most recent motion against President Trump by special counsel Jack Smith, I came across the following: “The defendant [Trump] at least has an argument – though he issued the 2:38 p.m. and 3:13 p.m. Tweets only after being harangued by his staff while he adamantly refused to do anything at all – that he was addressing a matter of public safety as President (the riot at the Capitol).”
What struck me as odd was not that Smith buried the exculpatory remarks Trump made in those tweets – hell, he buried Trump’s “peacefully and patriotically” caution during his speech – but that he placed them at 2:38 p.m. and 3:13 p.m.
In my book “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6,” I placed the tweets at 1:38 p.m. and 2:13 p.m. My best source was an article in FactCheck.org from Feb. 17, 2023, headlined, “Trump’s Dubious Claim About ‘Hidden’ Tweets Exonerating Him for Jan. 6 Capitol Attack.”
Cashill seems to have forgotten the concept of time zones. Washington, D.C., is in the Eastern time zone while Kansas City, where Cashill is based, in the Central time zone. He continued by interjecting his obsession with Ashli Babbitt:
Consider this gem: “A woman who attempted to forcibly enter the Chamber of the House of Representatives through a broken window while the House was in session was shot and killed by police guarding the chamber.”
The unnamed woman, an unarmed 14-year Air Force veteran named Ashli Babbitt, was shot and killed without warning at 2:44 p.m. The House was not in session. The report writers knew this. By corrupting the timeline, they attempt to exonerate the shooter.
Cashill seems to be implying that Babbitt and the other rioters should have been allowed to loot and ransack the House chambers because it wasn’t in session.
Cashill spent his Oct. 16 column trying to avoid holding Babbitt and other rioters accountable for the consequences of their own actions:
Thanks to a precise and well-documented timeline assembled by journalist Julie Kelly’s ace researcher, Haley McLean, we now have a much clearer idea of who was responsible for the chaos and death on Jan. 6, 2021.
Spoiler alert: It wasn’t President Donald Trump. And although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Capitol Police deserve a healthy share of the blame, their real crime was ineptitude.
The real crimes, the high crimes, were plotted and executed on the far side of the Potomac. Indeed, had the Pentagon brass responded as a nonpartisan military should have, J6 protester Rosanne Boyland would surely be alive today and maybe even Ashli Babbitt.
In a more honorable universe, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, would have, if not fallen on his sword, at least resigned in shame on Jan. 7.
Accepting that resignation, before resigning himself, would have been Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy.
Cashill then repeated dubious claims about the death of rioter Rosanne Boyland, claiming that one officer “beat the lifeless Boyland over the head with a stick so hard the stick snapped in two.” In fact, a police investigation found that the police officer’s actions were “objectively reasonable,” which tells us that Cashill may be exaggerating things.
Cashill concluded by whining that only Trump appears to have been “punished” for his actions on Jan. 6. Given that he was the guy who incited the riot, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be.