The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

Are they heroes or villains?

Are they martyrs or murderers?

Are they patriots or pariahs?

The United States may now be drifting toward confronting those questions when the answers seemed so obvious just ten weeks ago.

The questions concern the thousands of Americans who, clearly incited by the nation’s then-President, a former New York City mayor and a sitting congressman, formed a mob and breached the meagre defences of the US Capitol.

The resulting riot shocked the world, but no group was more stunned than the Americans themselves who, ignoring long-accumulating evidence to the contrary, felt secure that such an event could not happen in the US.

In the wake of the tragic events of January 6, a couple of things have been happening. In the Republican Party, support remains strong for ex-President Donald Trump, whose cynical attempt to reverse the November election results and return himself to power for another term caused the riot.

GOP elected officials remain mostly trapped between what they saw with their own eyes and what their likely primary voters may prefer in the general election next year. While Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and House number three ranking party official Liz Cheney have spoken out against Trump, they remain exceptions. Most of the rest have stuck with silence or continued to exhibit public fealty to Trump.

They continue to watch, wait and see how the political winds will blow.

Not too far west on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, however, the FBI and the Department of Justice are undertaking what will surely wind up being one of the most comprehensive, complicated and fraught investigations in American history.

The Justice Department is now under the leadership of former federal judge Merrick Garland, whose nomination for the US Supreme Court by President Barack Obama was infamously stonewalled and scuttled by McConnell’s Senate just five years ago. At his confirmation hearing last month, Garland confirmed the capitol riot investigation will remain a top priority for his department.

The US Attorney’s office in Washington DC issued the following statement: “The investigation and prosecution of the Capitol attack will likely be one of the largest in American history, both in terms of the number of defendants prosecuted and the nature and the volume of the evidence.”

Federal charges have already been lodged against over 300 rioters, and prosecutors have said that over 100 more people will eventually be identified by videotapes, security cameras, social media posts and other available sources.

Federal officials have revealed their investigators have executed more than 900 electronic and paper search warrants. They have ploughed through more than 15,000 hours of surveillance and body-camera tape and examined 1,600 phones and other electronic devices.

So far, the feds have followed up on more than 210,000 tips from the general public.

The whole process is starting to conjure images of Kevin Costner’s portrayal of US Treasury agent Eliot Ness and Sir Sean Connery’s Academy Award-winning role as his local police ally Jimmy Malone in the 1987 film “The Untouchables".

Remember who played Al Capone, who was the ultimate target of the federal agents as they sought to unravel and dismantle the legendary mobster’s Prohibition-era corruption and bootleg booze-based criminal enterprise 90 years ago? It was Robert DeNiro.

It’s not difficult to imagine that in some prosecutors’ minds, the ultimate target of the ongoing federal dragnet is the former President himself. Perhaps Trump would agree to play his leading role in the film that is sure to come. He just might relish the chance to return to the spotlight.

The riots on January 6 led to five deaths and assaults on an estimated 140 police officers. More criminal cases have already been filed in US district court in Washington in this massive case than were filed in the entire calendar year of 2020.

More than 100 federal prosecutors are working on this case. Many have been temporarily seconded from the vast array of other US federal prosecutors’ offices around the country.

Federal court staff in Washington have already handled seven times their normal caseloads, according to newspaper accounts. The phone and other records of several rioters dating back to September 2020 have been subpoenaed as investigators attempt to establish that some defendants planned the riots well in advance.

While several of those charged so far are affiliated with the now-infamous Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups, it should be noted many defendants have jobs, families and little or no criminal records.

Prosecutors are already requesting more time to gather information for indictments and prosecutions. Defendants are petitioning for release from jail pending trial. The rapid pace of events is likely imperilling future convictions as legal rules are ignored or overlooked.

And time is passing. The vivid memories of January 6 may fade. Some versions of alternate reality are emerging.

Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson, whose stubborn public refusal to acknowledge the obvious taxes the imagination of even moderate conservative commentators, is now saying he wasn’t in the least concerned by the physical threat posed to him and his legislative colleagues by the rioters.

Weeks will go by. Then months. Many new stories will push January 6 further off the front pages, websites and television screens. Some Republican revisionists will increasingly peddle nonsense about the “real” perpetrators of the riots.

What are the chances that many of the hooligans who trashed the Capitol like so many undisciplined high school delinquents will come to be regarded by millions of Americans as heroes, patriots or even martyrs?

Or will the United States be able to handle this incipient crisis with calm, efficiency, justice and maturity? The world, and the nation itself, will watch attentively.

Is he mellowing? Don't you believe it

Of course, few will monitor the judicial proceedings more closely than Trump himself, now seemingly settled in exile in Palm Beach. Is he mellowing? He did concede to scientific and medical reality this week and urged his millions of followers to get the COVID vaccine that is now protecting increasing numbers of Americans.

But is he really mellowing? Not so likely, his friends have told reporters. They say his focus remains on avenging himself against perceived political traitors and maintaining his formidable political power and influence.

Speculation naturally continues about Trump’s future plans, politically and financially. He continues to be coy about his political future, but continues to stoke speculation that will keep him in the public eye.

Meantime, the former President’s Trump Organization still owns ten hotels worldwide, 13 golf clubs, an estimated 20 commercial or residential developments bearing the Trump name, and other miscellaneous commercial bits and pieces.

There have been news reports that investors, ironically mimicking many of the predatory habits of Trump himself and some of his plutocratic pals, are checking on Trump’s commercial holdings with an eye to buying them while they are supposedly devalued by the rapidly fading lustre of his personal brand.

Not so, Donald Trump Jr. said to reporters recently. “We have an unbelievable company with some of the best and most valuable real estate assets in the world. Our brand has never been stronger and we are very excited for the future.”

Some observers are nonetheless speculating that since most of Trump’s political base cannot afford to pay the fees required of the patrons of his commercial properties, he and his organization will suffer. And they note that in the past four years, four hotels bearing the Trump brand have been shuttered.

Reporters digging into Trump’s finances say revenue at his Washington DC hotel dropped by 60 percent last year, and at Miami’s Doral by 44 percent. Both properties are reportedly tied to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of loans held by Deutsche Bank.

But others said that despite the presence of financial vultures circling Trump’s weakened commercial empire, its financial base was and may again be solid.

A noted brand and marketing expert told the Washington Post that “the whole Trump Organization was built – and very well constructed, I might say – on aspiration, on luxury, on wealth. And Trump did that very well.”

However you may feel about him, Donald Trump remains a fascinating, newsworthy character, even as he does less and less in public these days.

His successor? He’s just trying to pull the country out of the public health and economic morass he inherited.