Wednesday, July 09, 2025

David Joel Horowitz, R.I.P.


David Horowitz in his Simi Valley study, 2017. (Laurence Jarvik photo)

I learned of the death of David Horowitz in Colorado at age 86 a few days after it happened on April 29th, 2025. 

A college friend of mine warned me that he didn't like reading obituaries that were about the person doing the writing instead of the person who died, and I worried would happen which kept me from writing about David immediately. But now I don't care about that. So here goes: my attempt to give one person's perspective on David's passing. Others might have other points-of-view. 

It has taken me a while to write about it because so many different thoughts and feelings occurred since. I was conflicted because David was a complicated person to work for, something I did from 1992 to 1996. After I left his employ, he was nice to me in his autobiography, for which I am grateful. 

David was ill for years fighting cancer that had spread, but since he seemed a born fighter, I never thought that it would lick him. I guess it didn't occur that he was mortal, since he seemed like a force of nature, or even a supernatural being possessed of extra-terrestrial energy sources. I had never known someone with such energy and determination. While I was fighting writer's block, David was always writing on his laptop, even in the doctor's waiting room where I ran into him when taking my father for a checkup. He wrote on planes, in lobbies, everywhere and anywhere. David once told me his secret was that he published everything he wrote at least three times in different versions, that way the same material went a lot farther and reached more people. He could also get paid three times for it. In addition to his own writing, David simultaneously ran a publishing and activism empire, maintained a grueling schedule of public speaking and fundraising, and somehow had enough time left over to get married four times and father four children. When he died, it was reported that he had written fifty books. He had lived the lives of two, three, maybe even four men...

I read David's Destructive Generation (co-authored with Peter Collier) after it came out and was affected by what he had written. I still think it is his best book. His description of Leftist nihilism is something  obviously true but that I hadn't noticed until David pointed it out. 

Destruction is the aim of the enterprise. All the rest is just window dressing. Not only is the issue never the issue for the Left, as David repeatedly declared, The Revolution isn't really the issue either--the issue is just destruction of all that exists, to return to a Year Zero...in other words the goal is nothingness.

I visited David in 2017 at his home in Simi Valley in order to congratulate him on the election of Donald Trump as President, since he had worked hard to make it happen. When I arrived, David handed me a signed copy of Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America, his blueprint for the Trump administration. At the time, David was recovering from an operation and was walking with a limp. He seemed frail, but full of energy and determination. 

David told me he was working on several projects simultaneously and handed me a copy of the latest volume of his 7-volume series, The Black Book of the American Left detailing the horrors of the communists in America. But that wasn't all.

He spoke at length about his wife April's charity work with injured horses, for which he was proud to have help establish a charity foundation. He then took me outside, on a tour of their corral to introduced me to their horses.   

That was a side of David that I hadn't seen much during the years I worked for him--gentle, compassionate, and seemingly at peace. I had no idea that he was an animal lover. He also talked about his ex-wife and children, of who he was also extremely fond. Again, I hadn't seen the paterfamilias side of David before, only the crusader side. It was not long before David moved to Colorado.

We talked on the phone a couple of times after that, and exchanged a few emails, but I never saw David again.  

I did think about him a lot over the years, and came to the conclusion that his conversion to anti-communism was sincere. He was a best-selling author whose establishment career ended when he announced his support for President Reagan. His departure from the Left cost him not only friends, but also career opportunities. David told me that he never got a good review in the New York Times after publication of "Lefties for Reagan" in the Washington Post in 1985. His political heresy cost him millions in royalties, I'm sure.

And I have no doubt that the murder of his friend Betty Van Patter by the Black Panthers, and David's guilt for playing a part in that tragedy, launched him on the political trajectory which changed his life. He was obviously surprised that his old comrades and liberal friends sided with the Panthers, and excused the murder of his bookkeeper for political reasons.

In microcosm, David had personally experienced the history of Liberals, Socialists and Communists making excuses for murderous Communism since the October Revolution in Russia. No crime has been too horrible to be excused by those who remain devoted to the shining future promised by scientific socialists. Of course, David had been one of those Leftists himself, a "New Leftist" raised by "Old Leftist" parents. Old wine in a new bottle. As he wrote in his autobiography, he thought nothing of his parents hiding an East German spy in their family home. How different was that from families who hid members of the Weather Underground in the 1960s? Not very.

Although murder had been well-established as a feature of communist regimes by the 1960s, it was only when such a murder struck close to home, to someone he knew, that David realized the nature of the forces he had been aiding as editor of Ramparts and fund-raiser for the Black Panthers.

Nevertheless, despite his political heterodoxy, David was loyal to his friends. His collaborator Peter Collier was like a brother, perhaps even a twin separated at birth. After Collier died, ending their writing partnership, David became more of an organization man, building up The David Horowitz Freedom Center into an institution which he planned to outlive him.

His relationship with liberal Democrat Ron Radosh was also quite tight, at least when I knew him. When I worked for David on the public broadcasting issue, he wouldn't allow a word of criticism of Radosh--even when I complained he was doing nothing to help us in our efforts to defund PBS and NPR. David said I couldn't expect anything because Radosh was a professor and I had to understand the constraints he was under. I didn't then, and don't now. But I did see that David was loyal to his childhood leftist friend from New York City. (Later, his loyalty to Radosh caused a breach between David and fellow anti-communist Diana West, after he published Radosh's negative review of her 2013 expose: American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character. The review accused her of promoting John Birch Society-like conspiracy theories about communists in the US government.)

However, David's loyalty to Radosh was in the end betrayed, when in 2021 Radosh (with co-author Sol Stern) denounced David -- in the same way he had earlier denounced West -- in a 2021 New Republic article titled "Our Friend David Horowitz, The Trump Propagandist:"  

In the arc of David Horowitz’s life as a writer and political activist, there is a recurring cycle: an attraction to the most extreme, pugilistic flank of an ideology, a period of reckoning and second thoughts, and then a relentless drive toward the violent fringes of another radical crusade. The stakes seem to increase with every fitful change of heart. With his Freedom Center battle tank, his Restoration Weekends, and his recent bestsellers, Horowitz has become one of the most effective propagandists for a destructive mass movement of millions of middle- and working-class Americans. Such a movement threatens our democracy far more than the campus-based radicalism Horowitz championed during his Berkeley and Ramparts period.

In that earlier era, he celebrated the burning of a bank by a student mob. Today he’s an intellectual pyromaniac who honors the MAGA mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Horowitz’s provocations are calculated to destabilize the electoral process. Perhaps most despicably, he has compared Democrats’ response to the Capitol insurrection with Hitler’s response to the 1933 Reichstag Fire, which the Führer used as an excuse to unleash his horrors on Germany: “The difference was that for Hitler,” Horowitz wrote, “the phantom enemy that justified his depredations was the Jews, while for the fascist Democrats it is ‘white supremacists,’ whose actual numbers are fewer even than the Jews.” But the only political tactic reminiscent of the rise of the Nazis is Horowitz’s (and Trump’s) big lie of a stolen election. It’s the historical equivalent of the Nazi’s claim that the Weimar liberals “stabbed Germany in the back” and lost World War I. Such rhetoric makes Horowitz an enemy of the open society and beyond the pale of rational political discourse.

Our old friend must be defeated on every political front on which he operates, a counteroffensive that should begin by investigating and exposing the Horowitz center’s fundraising scams and the potential abuse of its tax-exempt status. Horowitz will surely protest loudly that the leftist Democrats and traitorous Republicans are canceling his speech. (He already complains of that.) Of course, his free-speech rights should be protected, just as every other American’s are. But you don’t get to ignite warfare and take pride in “fighting fire with fire” and then cry foul when the other side fires back.

In other words, Radosh had declared his "old friend" David Horowitz an enemy to be eliminated. 

Some friend. 

Too late, David finally recognized Radosh for the enforcer he appeared to be:

 The real agenda of Radosh and Stern is to mobilize the IRS to investigate me and deprive me of the resources to criticize and oppose the tyranny descending on us from Washington. Like a pair of commissar wannabes they issue a call to war: “Our old friend must be defeated on every political front on which he operates, a counter-offensive that should begin by investigating and exposing the Horowitz Center’s fundraising scams and the potential abuse of its tax-exempt status.”

In the view of Daniel Greenfield, author of the article in which the above quote appears, and David's successor as CEO of The David Horowitz Freedom Center, Radosh was a totalitarian who had despicably denounced David to government authorities for the purposes of prosecution.  "New Left" and  "Old Left" and "Liberal" were revealed to have been semantic distinctions without a difference.  

Luckily for David's legacy, President Trump was re-elected in 2024. David had lived long enough to see vindication. 

In conclusion, David Horowitz was a human being. Like any man, he had his flaws, and he made mistakes. Once he realized the errors of his youth, caused both by a communist upbringing and the trends of the 1960s, David fought the good fight. Not perfectly, but doggedly, with determination and persistence. With his last ounce of dying strength, he was writing until the end. And he lived long enough to see Donald Trump return to the Oval Office. 

He finished the race. He kept the faith.






Thursday, May 22, 2025

We're Back.

 

A meme seen on X

When I stopped posting to this blog on January 16th, 2021, it seemed to me that it might never be possible to speak freely again in the United States of America.

The atmosphere of repression was thick. People who stated the obvious, that Biden had come to power in a putsch based on election fraud, backed by repression, were censored.

My own posts were flagged by Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube to name just three social media companies. I did not want to play whack-a-mole with internet censors, so decided to just stop posting, figuring that the censors would not go back in time to delete old stuff while they had to focus on suppressing new information.

That turned out to be pretty much the case, although sometime after Biden's inauguration Blogger took down a old guest post by a late friend, Dr. Terry Hinch, which discussed his conception of "Three Types of Faith" in the light of Mormonism. 

But they left this blog pretty much untouched.

It was a bizarre period, to say the least.

We had moved from Washington, DC to Florida in June, 2020 due to insane COVID regulations and BLM/Antifa riots that trashed our shopping centers and smashed windows on cars parked in the street. Our neighbors behaved like zombies from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," decorating their homes with "In this house we believe..." and "Hate has no home here..." signs to show their loyalty (and fear), holding evening vigils in a traffic circle in memory of George Floyd, the neighborhood plastered with threatening flyers about "white privilege", and the DC city government clearly not interested in protecting the property or lives of its citizens. We were more upset with our liberal neighbors than the rioters or government.

We couldn't bear to drive through vandalized downtown DC on our drive south, so took the Beltway to avoid seeing the destruction to Washington's statues, monuments and buildings wrought by the coup--they had been sprayed with Antifa/BLM graffiti. The mayor had also painted BLM slogans on the street around Lafayette square and renamed the area BLM plaza, to let you know who was in charge, contemptuous of Supreme Court rulings preventing governments from endorsing political movements as a First Amendment violation.

It was squalid and depressing. The National Capital had been seized by putschists and the purported liberals went along as willingly--if not more so--than the "good Germans" who allowed Hitler to destroy Germany.

Florida was much better. Governor De Santis was doing a good job preserving as much liberty as possible, and his Covid restrictions were less draconian. We saw Trump stickers on cars and enjoyed Trump boat parades. I even had coffee at a local place decorated with a reproduction of President Trump's Oval Office. Free at last, in what De Santis called "the Free State of Florida."

I concentrated on publishing books through two hobby imprints, "Penny-a-Page Press" and "Washington Books." The thinking was that books might stand the test of time better than ephemeral internet postings.

I also set up a philosophical substack called Philosophical Investigations as an homage to Wittgenstein, but in the end there are some current events, artistic and literary works, and issues that don't rise to the level of philosophy that I wanted to discuss again.

I should mention that in the meantime I had also posted on X and Gab, as well as videos on YouTube and Rumble (and GabTV and Bitchute).  Censorship there ended after President Trump was re-elected, or so I thought. However, a recent post of mine was banned by X, I was forced to remove a recommendation that Israel use nuclear weapons in its current fight against Hamas and Iran, which X censors claimed violated policy. How anyone could hope to discuss military strategy without discussion of weapons systems still stumps me, but in any case I deleted my post the other day. Subsequently, I was denounced as a "terrorist" by an unverified account which posted my ID picture. I reported the post because I thought it might incite violence against my person--yet X community standards judges found nothing wrong with it. So I then "protected" my account against non-followers and unverified members, with the result that only a tiny fraction of the people who used to see my posts continue to see them...and also the protection keeps my comments from being seen by people who don't follow me. I preferred the previous system where one could choose to reach only verified users, but for some mysterious unexplained reason, X dropped that. My thinking then and now is that verified users might be more careful about what they post, since they can eventually be found. Yes, I had indeed paid to be verified myself...

Well that was another incentive to start blogging again. At least on my own blog I could say what I like, and then forward it to others, and edit comments myself.

So here goes, we'll see how long this iteration of the blog continues.

I am grateful to President Trump for standing up for true free speech, and just hope this time he can make it stick...

My thoughts will follow in subsequent posts. 

Saturday, January 16, 2021

Dan Scavino Just Shared This Video On Twitter...

Rudyard Kipling's "If" illustrated with pictures of President Trump:



Ann Corcoran: Antifa Gunman Arrested in Florida Plot

He surely is not a lone wolf, but is the first evidence of Antifa’s evil plans to lure angry Trump patriots to state capitals in the coming days so they can begin the revolution.

Remember Antifa/BLM/Insurgence USA are all revolutionaries. They don’t give a rat’s you-know-what about Biden or Harris, it is revolution they want.

As I said last night, stay away!  The events at the US Capitol were a trap, don’t be so dumb and let them do it again.

Read all about it here: https://fraudscrookscriminals.com/2021/01/16/antifa-revolutionary-arrested-planned-attack-on-patriots-at-floridas-capitol/

AT: The Cult of Trump?

 What's the story behind our fervent support of Donald J. Trump? Answer: Trump is nothing more than an avatar, an embodiment of a large segment of the American people who have been marginalized and abused. That is why he is so "loved" by so many. That’s also why he’s "hated" by so many others.

Notice that the people who love him now didn’t necessarily care for him prior to 2015 and some are still uncomfortable with his lifestyle and personality. On the other side, the people who hate him now were once his biggest supporters; he embodied a successful life to them. He was king of the New York tabloids and had a monster TV show on NBC, hardly conservative bastions.

Why the sudden and dramatic turnaround? Because when Donald Trump rode down that escalator and began promoting "normal" ideas without equivocation (Don't call them "conservative" because at this point it's not about liberalism vs. conservatism, it's about normal vs. crazy), he ceased to be Donald Trump and became us. Me. You. All of us who have seen the decline of this country accelerate exponentially these past ten years and are worried sick about it. Donald Trump the person is not the target. Donald Trump the symbol is.

Read all about it here: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/the_cult_of_trump.html

AT: Amazon Goes Mad

The dubious legality of Amazon's action raises two possibilities about the role of Amazon's lawyers in this affair, both of which are disturbing.

The first is that the censors did not ask the lawyers, but simply did it or overrode legal cautions.  This would mean that the company's employees are out of control and indifferent to the welfare of the company itself, answerable only to the demands of their woke religion.  Note, in particular, that cutting off Parler was of no benefit to Amazon, which bore no responsibility for Parler's supposed failure to police its users.

The second is that the lawyers gave them the go-ahead on the grounds that the legal profession is now so corrupted that no court would dare to find for Parler, however meritorious its case.  (The courts' refusal to hear about election fraud supports this theory.)  Also, just as lawyers who tried to represent Trump were bullied and intimidated, Amazon might feel certain of its ability to prevent Parler from obtaining adequate representation.

Take your pick of these possibilities, but either creates big business risks for Amazon.

Read all about it here: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/amazon_goes_mad.html 


AT: Our Mounting Orwellian Nightmare

 President Trump clearly stated his own beliefs on a thousand occasions — President Biden should do so as well, but he won't.  He uses the Orwellian tactic of disguising his beliefs in gibberish, and this is not because he's going daft, as he well may be.  He'll speak of "expanding Obamacare" rather than socialized medicine.  He'll talk of "defense partnerships" rather than abandoning control of our military.  And on the environment, it's not even possible to tell what he wants, but he wants $400 billion to do it.  Once again, "the defence of the indefensible."

The coordinated effort to impeach and convict the president is nothing less than a propaganda campaign, and the associated suppression of free speech on social media and elsewhere is the beginning of a dangerous national decline.  It's not possible to say where it will end, but we must be entirely clear about what is happening.  A progressive government will attempt to further limit free speech, assembly, religious expression, gun rights, access to employment, and other basic liberties.  Progressives have already threatened conservatives with prosecution and imprisonment for the "crime" of denying anthropogenic global warming and for questioning the result of the 2020 election.  What's next?  The persecution of every American conservative in the same way that Gen. Flynn was persecuted?

It's a fine line between federal prison here in America and Dachau in Germany, and one can transform into the other in a matter of weeks.  It did so in Germany in 1933, just five weeks after Hitler became chancellor.  Don't think it can't happen here.  It begins with "the defence of the indefensible" — and that is already well underway.

Read all about it here: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/our_mounting_orwellian_nightmare.html

Friday, January 15, 2021

This Inauguration Is Not A Peaceful Transfer Of Power...

 Because the 2020 Election was not a free and fair election.

Because Congress failed to certify electors honestly, and because the Supreme Court denied President Trump judicial review of the 2020 Election, he has every right to claim that the American People reelected him by a landslide in 2020.

Which, given manifestly suspicious actions of the Biden camp subsequently, one may reasonably infer he did.

Congressional certification of electors was obviously intended by the Framers to serve as a final check on fraud in the Electoral College, and to balance the power of the states--not to rubber-stamp whatever electors the states send.

Certification is clearly designed to insure that results are bona fide.

By certifying disputed results without additional verification, in this case Congress has failed in its obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution.

It is the failure of Congress and the Supreme Court to do their duty in good faith--not President Trump's rhetoric--that led to violence.

Due process was denied. Equal protection was denied. The right to vote of American citizens was denied.

By the US Congress--not President Trump--that is, the Legislative Branch.

By the US Supreme Court--not President Trump--that is, the Judicial Branch.

President Trump heads the Executive Branch.

Under the Constitution, all three branches of government are co-equal.

As Chief Magistrate, a sitting President has as much claim to say he the US Government as Congress or the Supreme Court. 

A President by definition cannot overthrow himself or his administration.

So, even if one stipulates the Capitol protest turned violent, it was still obviously NOT an attempt to overthrow the Government of the United States.

Instead it resulted from a conflict between the Legislative and Executive Branches for an honest determination of the will of the American People.

If Congress made a fraudulent certification, then that act of Congress was both illegitimate and unconstitutional.

For as any graduate of a traditional High School Civics class knows, the United States Constitution says that power belongs to the American People.

Not to the President--who is merely a hired executive heading an administration working for the American People.

Not to Congress--who are just hired representatives of the will of the American People.

Not to the Supreme Court--who are only judging laws in order to ensure they reflect the intentions of the American People as passed by their representatives in accordance with the Constitution.

Which means there is no such thing as "peaceful transfer of power" on Inauguration Day.

There is only a change of administration.

Power remains with the American People at all times.

And is divided equally between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches under the US Constitution.

Not transferred by an inauguration.









Epoch Times Timeline of Capitol Protest

 


TIME LINE
Image
12 p.m.
President Donald Trump starts his speech. A sizable group of protesters has already gathered at the Capitol’s outer perimeter, at 1st Street.
Image
JENNY JING/THE EPOCH TIMES
12:37 p.m.
A stream of people leaving Trump’s speech early slowly make their way down Constitution Avenue toward the Capitol. The 1.2-mile stretch is about a 25-minute walk.
12:45 p.m.
A suspicious package, later revealed to be a pipe bomb, is found at the Republican National Committee headquarters, just south of the Capitol.
SHAO LIN/THE EPOCH TIMES
Image
12:53 p.m.
Vice President Mike Pence releases a statement saying he lacks the authority to reject electoral votes.
12:57 p.m.
Several people jump fencing at 1st Street, behind the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial.
MEGAN VARNER/GETTY IMAGES
12:58 p.m.
A crowd breaks through temporary fencing near the Peace Monument.
1:01 p.m.
The first police line breaks on the west side of the Capitol.
Image
1:02 p.m.
Low fencing at the Capitol steps is breached. Scuffles break out. The police use pepper spray.
1:03 p.m.
Another police line forms at the Capitol’s double staircase. Riot police arrive.
LEO SHI/THE EPOCH TIMES
Image
1:06 p.m.
The joint session of Congress convenes to count the electoral votes.
1:12 p.m.
President Donald Trump finishes his speech at the Ellipse in The President’s Park.
SAUL LOEB/POOL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Image
1:14 p.m.
More scuffles break out between rioters and police. The line holds.
1:15 p.m.
A suspicious package, later revealed to be a pipe bomb, is found at the Democratic National Committee headquarters just south of the Capitol.
ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
1:20 p.m.
A temporary fencing perimeter is reestablished in the Inauguration platform area at the bottom of the double staircase.
Image
1:25 p.m.
People are spotted on the metal structure of the Inauguration platform around the northern staircase.
1:35 p.m.
Police fire irritants into the crowd, likely from the upper level of the Capitol, above the double staircase.
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
2:02 p.m.
The temporary fencing and police line set up about 250 feet from the central east Capitol entrance is breached.
Image
2:07 p.m.
The temporary fencing and police line set up at the steps of the central east Capitol entrance is breached. The crowd climbs the stairs and spreads through the upper level.
2:08 p.m.
The Capitol is placed under lockdown.
TASOS KATOPODIS/GETTY IMAGES
2:10 p.m.
A crowd breaks through temporary fencing at the top of the northern staircase. Several officers guarding it retreat.
Image
2:11 p.m.
The central east Capitol entrance door is opened. It’s unclear how.
Image
2:15 p.m.
TASOS KATOPODIS/GETTY IMAGES
A crowd breaks into the building through a window and a secondary entrance north of the main entrance on the upper level. Some people are driven back out by police, but more pour in.
2:16 p.m.
Another crowd reaches the entrance to the northern wing, which houses the Senate chamber.
JON CHERRY/GETTY IMAGES
2:18 p.m.
The House calls a recess during its debate over an objection to the electoral votes from Arizona.
2:24 p.m.
Trump says in a tweet: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
2:25 p.m.
Capitol Police report shots fired.
Image
2:26 p.m.
The Senate calls a recess during its debate over an objection to the electoral votes from Arizona.
2:28 p.m.
The crowd that entered from the west reaches the entrance to the southern wing, where the House chamber is located. The corridor is blocked by about half a dozen officers. Some in the crowd try to negotiate passage with them.
SCREENSHOT VIA SENATE.GOV
2:30 p.m.
Lawmakers and staff are evacuated through underground tunnels.
Image
2:31 p.m.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser announces a curfew to begin at 6 p.m.
Image
2:35 p.m.
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
The crowd at the southern wing pushes its way past the outmanned police with minimal resistance. The crowd reaches the House chamber entrance. Later images from inside show the entrance is at some point barricaded, with police guarding it with guns drawn.
2:38 p.m.
DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES
Trump says in a tweet: “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”
2:41 p.m.
At the House chamber, the crowd, now about 200 strong, is unable to get through the door. Most of the intruders give up on that entrance and head east down the corridor and around two corners to the entrance to the Speaker’s Lobby, situated behind the House chamber.
2:42 p.m.
The crowd reaches the glass-paneled door to the Speaker’s Lobby, which is barricaded with furniture from the other side. Three officers are standing in front of the door.
2:43 p.m.
The officers abandon the door upon shouts from the rioters and persuasion from John Sullivan, a videographer and “racial justice” activist. Several rioters immediately start breaking through the glass. Sullivan spots a man with a gun drawn on the other side of the door. He alerts the crowd, but some rioters continue to break through the glass.
Image
2:44 p.m.
Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt climbs into an empty frame left after a window is broken. She is immediately shot by a plainclothes policeman on the other side. At the same time, four officers in tactical gear and rifles reach the scene from a lower level through a staircase to the north.
Image
2:45 p.m.
TWITTER/ASHLI BABBITT
A crowd is seen inside the Senate chamber.
WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
Image
2:47 p.m.
Intruders are on the Senate floor.
3:33 p.m.
A stream of people is seen
leaving the protest.
WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
3:35 p.m.
Pence writes on Twitter: “The violence and destruction taking place at the US Capitol Must Stop and it Must Stop Now. Anyone involved must respect Law Enforcement officers and immediately leave the building. Peaceful protest is the right of every American but this attack on our Capitol will not be tolerated and those involved will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Image
3:35 p.m.
The Department of Homeland Security says it’s sending in agents to aid Capitol Police.
3:36 p.m.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany writes in a tweet: “At President [Donald Trump]’s direction, the National Guard is on the way along with other federal protective services. We reiterate President Trump’s call against violence and to remain peaceful.”
SAMIRA BOUAOU/THE EPOCH TIMES
3:55 p.m.
Congressional Democratic leaders demand that Trump order his supporters to leave the Capitol.
4 p.m.
The National Guard mobilizes 1,100 troops. As per KSTP News, Pentagon officials say the D.C. request for troops wasn’t rejected earlier in the day, but troops can’t be used in a law enforcement role. They need to be deployed to replace police in different roles. The freed up officers can then join the law enforcement action.
Image
4:10 p.m.
President-elect Joe Biden condemns the storming of the Capitol and calls on Trump to give a televised address.
4:17 p.m.
Trump posts a video on Twitter reiterating to his supporters that the election was stolen, but that there must be peace and they “have to go home now.” Shortly after, Twitter deletes the video.
JIM WATSON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
5 p.m.
A steady stream of people leave the Capitol premises. Some cite the curfew as the reason.
5:10 p.m.
Police use tear gas to drive people from the Capitol’s upper level.
Image
5:40 p.m.
National Guard troops arrive
at the Capitol.
6 p.m.
Eleven glass jars suspected of being improvised bombs are found in a cooler in a vehicle near the Republican National Committee building.
SAMUEL CORUM/GETTY IMAGES
6:01 p.m.
Trump says in a tweet: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Image
8:06 p.m.
The Senate resumes proceedings.
DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES