Jack Cashill has spent the past couple years pushing Capitol riot revisionism to sate his thirst for dubious conspiracy theories — an obsession that continued this year as well. He focused his July 31 column on “an unsung bat-swinger named Emanuel Jackson,” who turned himself in a few days after the riot and cooperated with police — which, of course, was an excuse for more conspiracy theories:
Jackson was well-lawyered. His attorneys went to great lengths to keep him out of prison. They may have just felt sorry for a poor homeless black guy, but their client might have had other motives.
Reading about Jackson’s case reminds one of an old-school Democratic practice called “bird-dogging.” In 2016, Democrat operative Scott Foval told an undercover journalist with James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas how bird-dogging works.
“I’m saying we have mentally ill people that we pay to do s–t,” said Foval, unaware he was being recorded. “Make no mistake,” Foval continued. “Over the last 20 years, I’ve paid off a few homeless guys to do some crazy stuff.”
[…]The bat was not Jackson’s. He admitted that someone gave it to him. Someone also appears to have given him some vague talking points about globalism.
On January 6 and the days following, no one in the media wanted to know who set Jackson up. He clearly did not fit their profile of a militant white supremacist, and if his sponsors were Democratic operatives, that was best left unsaid.
In fact, the videos of Foval and other operatives Project Veritas targeted were deceptively edited, and Project Veritas was ordered to pay $120,000 in damages.
In an Aug. 14 column, Cashill rehashed his whitewashing of Capitol protest Rebecca Lavernz on the occausion of her sentencing:
On Monday, Aug. 12, U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui sentenced Rebecca Lavrenz, 72, to six months of home confinement and a year’s probation, this in addition to a $103,000 fine, for her participation in the events of January 6.
It could have been worse. Federal prosecutors asked for 10 months incarceration and a year of supervised release.
“That recommendation is justified,” they wrote, “in part, because Lavrenz, promoting herself as the ‘J6 praying grandma,’ has been one of the loudest public voices calling the prosecution of January 6 rioters a corrupt exercise.”
In support of this contention, they included in their sentencing memo a tweet I sent on June 3 that featured a photo of Lavrenz with President Trump.
The tweet read, “I wrote my new book ‘Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6’ to put a human face on the greatest mass injustice against American citizens since Japanese internment.”
Prosecutors did not like this tweet or the article of mine that I cited, titled, “First, they came for the J6ers.” In the footnotes, they assert that I “likened the prosecution team in her trial to ‘Nazi executioner-in-chief Adolph Eichmann.'”
They omit the following sentence: “To be sure, the prosecutors had not ascended to that level of evil, but in their untroubled eagerness to send a prayerful great grandmother to prison they seemed capable.”
Having read my share of charging documents, I was not surprised to see my quote taken out of context. J6 prosecutors deal freely in half truths and outright deceptions.
Much like Cashill himself, perhaps? And he doesn’t see likening prosecuting criminals to a “Nazi executioner-in-chief” to be a tad hyperbolic? Then it was time for another conspiray theory:
As to whether the prosecution of J6ers has been a “corrupt exercise,” as Lavrenz charged, one need only compare her treatment to that of the notorious Ray Epps.
Lavrenz walked into the Capitol through an open door, prayed for 10 minutes, and walked out on her own volition. Prosecutors concede she committed no act of violence or vandalism but insist she would have been aware that others had.
The most visible of the January 6 provocateurs, Epps had been caught on video the night before urging an impromptu audience to go “in to the Capitol.”
[…]By Jan. 8, Epps ranked high on the FBI’s “most wanted” list. Not only did he encourage the initial breach and a secondary breach, but he also provided hands-on help to those pushing a large metal Trump sign into a line of police officers.
By July 2021, the evidence notwithstanding, Epps was off the FBI list altogether. Not until Sept. 23, 2023, did Epps plead guilty to a single misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to a year’s probation.
When Epps pled guilty, the New York Times headlined its story, “Ray Epps, Target of Jan. 6 Conspiracy Theory, Is Sentenced to Probation.” Every other corporate media outlet followed this preposterous “conspiracy theory” lead.
The Times’ wide-eyed reporters paraphrased Epps’s lawyer as saying, “It appeared odd that the government had changed course after its initial review of video evidence from the riot left them disinclined to bring charges.”
By this time, millions of Americans had reviewed the video evidence. They knew the prominent role Epps played in inciting the riot and questioned why the feds were “disinclined to bring charges.”
These citizens were not theorizing about a conspiracy. They had identified a real one and wondered whether there were other less visible provocateurs in the crowd.
Which, yes, is conspiracy theorizing, whether or not Cashill acknowledges that fact. He concluded by whining that Lavrenz faced justice:
Like other J6ers, Lavrenz watched in horror as the DOJ sent hundreds of her fellow protesters to prison for lesser offenses than those Epps had clearly committed, and she spoke out.
“Lavrenz certainly has a First Amendment right to publicly espouse her views,” prosecutors insisted, but then, of course, added a caveat
“Her unrepentant promotion of the riot is powerful evidence that she continues to pose a threat to future acts of political violence like that which engulfed the nation on January 6.”
Lavrenz has never promoted “the riot.” Political violence did not “engulf the nation” on January 6.
The only people Lavrenz “poses a threat” to are those who insist the persecution of the J6ers is something other than a “corrupt exercise.”
Cashill forgets that Epps cooperated with authorities, while Lavrenz remains in denial about her criminality for her role.
For his Sept. 4 column, Cashill rehashed the right-wing martyr narrative about conspiracy-obsessed rioter Ashli Babbitt, then made up another conspiracy seemingly in honor of her:
The conspirators could not let this stand. They needed a martyr of their own, and they set out to create one.
On the evening of Jan. 6, a rumor was floated that the protesters had killed a Capitol Police officer with a fire extinguisher.
Sara Carpenter, one of the women I profile in my book “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6,” caught wind of the rumor while driving back to New York City on that fateful evening.
A medically retired NYPD officer, Sara called a Maryland friend thinking she might stop by. The friend freaked out. She accused Sara and her fellow protesters of a killing Capitol Police officer with a fire extinguisher.
Given that the woman’s husband was a retired Capitol Police officer, Sara believed her. She was crestfallen, heartbroken, physically ill. She could not get out of bed the next morning.
On Jan. 7, the conspirators caught a break. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died after suffering what would prove to be a pair of strokes.
Someone in authority – the New York Times would cite “two law enforcement officials” – made the conscious decision to have an officer who died of natural causes “murdered.”
On Jan. 8, the New York Times told its readers that “pro-Trump rioters” struck Sicknick with a fire extinguisher, adding this macabre detail: “With a bloody gash in his head, Mr. Sicknick was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support.”
Glenn Greenwald, an independent journalist, made a screen shot of the Times story before it could be revised. “This horrifying story about a pro-Trump mob beating a police officer to death was repeated over and over, by multiple journalists on television, in print, and on social media,” said Greenwald.
To sell the hoax, the conspirators had the ashes of the martyred Sicknick placed in the Capitol Rotunda and then buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
To sustain the hoax, the conspirators had the autopsy report suppressed.
When finally forced out by a Judicial Watch lawsuit more than 100 days later, it was revealed that Sicknick died a “natural death,” meaning “a disease alone causes death.”
According to D.C. medical examiner Dr. Francisco Diaz, Sicknick suffered no internal or external injuries, nor any allergic reaction to a chemical substance.
The media chose not to notice, and the conspirators plowed on, now adding subsequent Capitol Police suicide deaths to the Jan. 6 death toll.
Cashill offers no evidence of Sicknick’s autopsy report being “suppressed” — it came out three and a half months after his death, and no proof is offered that this is an unreasonable time to write an autopsy or that the Judicial Watch lawsuit had any effect on it. Cashill censored the fact that Diaz also said that “all that transpired played a role in his condition.”
Cashill is apparently unable to understand that most normal people are not as conspiracy-obsessed as he is.