As per WHP-TV in Harrisburg, PA State Senator Doug Mastriano has issued a statement in response to "being named in a Senate Judiciary Committee report as pressuring the DOJ to overturn the 2020 presidential election."
The interesting part of his "response" is how little of the allegations in the report it actually addresses.
Let's remember what he's in it for.
This
is from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
An investigation by U.S. Senate Democrats has singled out two Pennsylvania Republicans — U.S. Rep. Scott Perry and State Sen. Doug Mastriano — as key figures who used false and debunked theories to pressure the country’s top law enforcement officials to investigate the state’s 2020 presidential election results.
A report on its findings released Thursday urged House investigators to look more deeply into what role Perry and Mastriano may have played in fomenting the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. It named them as two of three key allies of former President Donald Trump who aided his efforts to subvert the election results and have “notable” connections to the insurrection. The third Trump ally mentioned is attorney Cleta Mitchell.
While the report focuses on the evidence of White House pressure on the DOJ, Doug defends himself this way:
For ten months, I have been clear about my presence in Washington DC, on Jan. 6, 2021. I was invited to speak at an event adjacent to the Capitol grounds. I followed the directions of the Capitol Police, who I asked for assistance to locate where the guest speakers were gathering. This democrat version of McCarthyism against tens of thousands of citizens who broke no laws, who did not enter the capitol and who gathered peacefully under the protection of the First Amendment, must end now.
It seems obvious that he wants his army to think that the Senate report is only about that part of the crowd in DC on the 6th that didn't storm the capital. He's also hoping, I am guessing, that they won't check the report to find out for themselves.
It's also obvious that his first sentence in that paragraph is a lie.
This is what he said at the time:
My wife and I went to Washington, DC, today to support President Trump which should not surprise anyone familiar with my views on this election and my concerns about its integrity.
My position on lawlessness is equally as clear. When it was apparent that this was no longer a peaceful protest, my wife and I left the area and made our way out of the area. At no point did we enter the Capitol building, walk on the Capitol steps or go beyond police lines.
And yet, the truth is, let us just say, something clearly different. From The New Yorker:
Later that evening [of January 6th], Mastriano appeared on Facebook Live for his fireside chat, looking spooked. He told viewers that he had left the Capitol after he saw things “get weird,” saying, “When it was apparent that this was no longer a peaceful protest, my wife and I left the area.” Mastriano later told a radio interviewer that he stayed long enough to witness both the first and second breaches of the building. “There were several speaking events planned," he told me, by e-mail. "It was to be a peaceful gathering as it had been previously. When it no longer looked that way, the buses departed.”
Doug, it was no longer a peaceful protest once the first barricades were breached (an event at which you were present). But you didn't leave then, did you? No, you walked around the building and then witnessed the second barricades being breached.
PASpotlights has more Dougie-details:
About four minutes and 30 seconds into the interview [with NEWSTALK 103.7 FM], Senator Mastriano remarks after leaving the speech and heading towards the West side of the Capitol, he approached a few police officers to ask where to go. The police officers directed him to the East side of the Capitol. According to a detailed timeline and analysis of the minute-by-minute actions of the rioters composed by the New York Times, the crowd at the Trump speech departed heading towards the West side of the Capitol around 12:17 pm. The rioters were already starting to gather there.
Senator Mastriano continues at the five-minute mark in the interview explaining the first signs of seeing “agitators” that were “kind of getting in the face of the police and jiggling the bicycle rack barricades they use.” According to the same New York Times timeline, the first barricades on the West side were breached at 12:53 pm as supporters surrounded the Capitol heading to the East side of the building. Senator Mastriano witnessed the first attempt to breach the Capitol on the West side of the building and still continued to the East side.
After arriving at the East side of the Capitol, Senator Mastriano witnessed another attempted breach. At five minutes and 50 seconds into the interview, he says that he saw additional “agitators” start pushing the police up the steps. He says, “I don’t think there was any breach on that side,” and describes in combat terms that the police still had “the high ground.” According to the New York Times timeline, around 1:00 pm is when the first confrontations with the police began on the West side. By 1:15 pm, the rioters and police were both spraying each other with chemical agents. Senator Mastriano says at this point he felt the event was not “turning out like it should” stating he left to go back around to the West side of the building.
For context, you can check out the NYTimes timeline here.
Unaddressed in his response to the Senate report is, for example:
Recommendation #4: Cooperation with the House Select Committee to Investigate
Ties Between This Episode and the January 6 AttackAs discussed throughout this report, President Trump’s efforts to enlist DOJ and its
leadership in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election were aided by numerous allies with clear ties to the “Stop the Steal” movement and the January 6 insurrection. As Trump himself noted to Rosen and Donoghue on December 27, he and his congressional allies could effectively position themselves to overturn the presidential election results with cover from DOJ, asking DOJ to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the [Republican] Congressmen.”Three of these allies and their connections to January 6 are particularly notable: U.S.
Representative Scott Perry, Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano, and Trump campaign attorney Cleta Mitchell. These ties warrant further investigation to better place Trump’s efforts to enlist DOJ in his efforts to overturn the presidential election in context with the January 6 insurrection. Because the events of January 6 are outside the immediate purview of the Committee’s investigation, this report is being made available to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, as well as the public, to assist their investigation.
The events of the day were actually outside the purview of the committee
so responding to the report as if was about January 6 is simply a lie.
Doug, the is not about the MAGA folks (however many there were) who did not storm The Capitol on the 6th. This is about you spreading misinformation, undermining the electoral process, and your participation in what looks, for all intents and purposes, like a coup.
How deeply are you enmeshed in Trump's attempt to overturn a free and fair election, Doug?
