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- [00:00]
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- [01:11]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
You know, there were just a lot of things that were not planned on many levels that were failures that day that they spent, you know, a lot of time trying to fix. And you know, it was almost like a perfect storm of different failures, security wise.
- [01:27]
Michael Feinberg
It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Michael Feinberg, a senior editor at Lawfare, and I'm here today with Mary Claire Jelanik, the author of Storm at the an oral history of January 6th.
- [01:40]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
I mean, just over and over in testimony and interviews, they said, you know, I thought this was it. Like I thought, I thought that this, I might not come home that day or you know, in a specific moment when they were on the ground or whatever it was, a lot of them really thought that they were going to die in that moment.
- [01:59]
Michael Feinberg
Today we're going to be talking about the research and writing of Mary Claire's book as well as her experiences herself from that day when she was actually in the Capitol building. This book is fairly topical as when this podcast airs, we will be right at the fifth anniversary of the events on January 6th. And with that in mind, I kind of want to begin with the definitional question. What do we call what happened on January 6? Some people call it a riot, some people call it an insurrection. What do you think is the proper term we should apply to that day?
- [02:46]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Well, I think at AP we have used the term insurrection since it happened. But we often also call it an attack. We don't use that word every single time. I, you know, I've written about it, obviously, a lot. I use all of those words interchangeably. Attack, riot, siege. I think there's a lot of different things that you could call it. And, you know, it was an attack on the Capitol. People broke into windows and doors. So however you want to define it, you can, but, you know, it doesn't change what actually happened.
- [03:19]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah. And I ask because I think how we define it really gets to the second question. There has been a real effort, and we'll get into the details of this later on in the conversation. There's been a real effort by some of the people who sort of egged on the events to downplay their significance in the intervening years, including by a lot of people who, as you document, very well expressed horror at the time it was actually going on. So now that we're five years out, now that many of the people who, to varying degrees, played a part in leading us to that day are still in power or back in power, can you sort of walk us through why you think this was such an important event to document in the fashion you did?
- [04:23]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Yeah, I think that people can make their own conclusions about the significance of the event. Obviously, it was the worst attack on the Capitol in 200 years. Trump was trying to overturn his defeat in the presidential election. That is significant. And I think one of the main reasons for writing the book and writing an oral history in the way that I did was that there has been a lot of misinformation around it and a lot of attempts to downplay what happened. So it seemed to me that there's really no better way than to try to interview as many people as you can or find as many public records of people talking about their experiences that day and document them for history in one place. I sort of think of this as like a collective history, and it's meant to be definitive. It's meant to be nonpartisan. And I, you know, I included the rioters as well. I've got Republican lawmakers, Democratic lawmakers, staff reporters, workers in the building, and the writers themselves, you know, giving their experiences, talking about what happened to them that day. And I think it's really important to have all of those different voices to sort of see, you know, there is a consistent narrative of what happened. You know, obviously there are people who have different perspectives, but, you know, it was a violent attack on the Capitol, and, you know, that's what this book and people's stories that they tell, you know, those are the facts.
- [05:57]
Michael Feinberg
And you were there at the time?
- [05:59]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
I was, yes. I was covering it that day and I was in the House and I was just sort of doing my job, covering the certification, something that we've done before. We knew that this day might be different and not as routine as it normally is because Trump was pressuring Pence to try to overturn or somehow delay or stop the count or certain states. The count in certain states. And I was in the House when everything kind of escalated. And I ended up sort of in a gallery of the House with a bunch of lawmakers. I'm kind of trapped for a little while as rioters were, you know, trying to beat down the doors below. And, you know, we eventually got out and it was certainly nothing like what the police officers experienced outside. But, you know, it was, it was a really. It was a really surreal moment. As someone who is used to, you know, just covering legislation and, you know, our kind of, you know, nerdy jobs, you know, analyzing politics, analyzing, you know, legislation and covering the day to day in the Capitol, it was, it was definitely a very different kind of a day for reporters who were there and everyone who was there.
- [07:06]
Michael Feinberg
So I want to pull on a thread of something you mentioned at the beginning of that answer, which is that you and your colleagues knew this day was going to be different. And I want to delve into that and I want you to sort of expand on that because I think one of the lessons of January 6th or one of the points that I don't think gets hammered home enough, although the various investigate the investigating committee afterwards tried to is you were you as a journalist were able to know that it was a different type of day, probably from the moment you woke up. Law enforcement for some reason did not. This is no disparagement on the Capitol Police whatsoever, but the law enforcement community of Washington, D.C. at both the federal and local level, was really not prepared for this. I mean, had they been prepared for it, there would have been more obstacles to what eventually happened. In your research, did you see anything that sort of shines a light on why there was that disconnect between the people who covered this for a living, who had those forebodings and the people who were supposed to prevent it from happening? Whose. And this isn't the fault of the line workers, but, you know, the management, the senior management of law enforcement organizations didn't seem to have a plan for how violent it actually got.
- [08:49]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Yeah, well, I want to be Clear. First of all, I knew it wouldn't be a normal day politically.
- [08:53]
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- [08:53]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Like, I mean, it wasn't going to be because we, we were all waiting to see what Pence was going to do. You know, there's a quote from. I interviewed Nancy Pelosi for the book and one, and she has a quote where she said, we knew there would be mischief. We didn't know there was going to be violence. And I think that's probably how we felt as reporters is what's going to happen. It was like suspenseful. It was like, what's going to happen? What's Pence going to do? That's what made it unusual when usually this is like a routine just signing off on the presidential results. I did not expect violence either. I certainly would have been the last person person to know. I was sort of naive in that way. I think, you know, there was. I got a security email that someone had forwarded me that we didn't get, but that members of the House staff had gotten that said, you know, you know, try to take underground tunnels if possible when you walk in. I think a lot of people, and this is in. In the book, expected that there would be a lot of people outside the building and that it might get unruly. I don't think very, I don't know anyone who thought that they were going to get inside the building and, and disrupt the count and, you know, beat police officers with American flags to do so. I really think that that surprised everyone. Obviously, you know, more about that than, than I do. But, you know, that is something that in. And this is less explored in the book because really, the book is like 24 hours right. Of what happened. So there's less of sort of thinking in the aftermath of how things went wrong. But it did expose a lot of vulnerabilities in the Capitol, obviously, and that includes in the intelligence ahead of time. And there were just a lot of near misses sort of of, of people not seeing intelligence that was, you know, kind of out there being planned on the open Internet. And I think there was a lot of looking back and I think, you know, you know, better on the DOJ side than I do. But, you know, certainly with Capital Police and everyone, there was a lot of very serious introspection afterward and beefing up of those intelligence services and, you know, trying to, you know, see how there could have been, you know, so many missed signals that, you know, people really were planning this out in the open in many ways beforehand. But I think also, and I think people said this in hearings, maybe is. Is. It was also, like, you could call, like a failure of the imagination. But I think that people just really never thought anything like this could happen. They just never imagined it. I think Stephen sun said that in one of the hearings, that police chief who was let go or, you know, forced to resign the next day, we just never. They think they said, we just never. You know, it's just a battle, like a medieval battle basically, in front of the Capitol with, you know, hundreds or thousands of people fighting. That just wasn't something that anyone ever, you know, I don't think that was something that they imagined could happen. So, you know, I think that you can forgive them for that a little bit. But then there were also just a lot of missed things, you know, places that weren't being looked at that probably people could have figured out. But you probably have more of an inside look on this than I do. But, you know, it was a failure in many ways, and they've spent the last five years trying to fix that. And certainly in the Capitol, you know, hardening windows and doors, beefing up intelligence services, making sure they had operational plans. You know, the Capitol Police, they had old equipment. In many cases, they had shields that were like, breaking on impact because they were so old. Some police officers didn't have their equipment. One of them, Caroline Edwards, is an officer who's in the book and testified in the January 6th committee. And she said she didn't. She didn't have a riot gear. She was, you know, the. They were like the first line of defense, the first responder unit, the proud boys who were sort of gathering outside and came up to the Capitol, the very. And others who kind of broke the first, breached the first barrier. She was knocked out and, you know, clipped her head on the concrete when. When she was pushed over. And she didn't have any of her riot gear on because it was like in a van somewhere else. And so, you know, there were just a lot of things that were not planned on many levels that were failures that day that they've spent, you know, a lot of time trying to fix. And, you know, it was almost like a perfect storm of different failures, security wise.
- [13:19]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah. It's funny listening to your answer. I'm realizing I projected a little bit in terms of how I phrase the question, simply because my clearest memory from my own career leading up to January 6th was getting lunch with a good friend of mine who was also a special agent in the Washington field office, and him relaying his frustration to me because he Went to his supervisor and asked her, what's the plan for this? And she said, what are you talking about? And he said, when this breaks violent, what's our response plan? And it drove home for me that a lot of the line level personnel, at least in the FBI and I would assume in the local law enforcement community as well, the line personnel who spend their time actually doing investigations and dealing with the public, just had an intuition this was going to break bad. But the senior management, maybe because they didn't want to have a repeat of the civil unrest response in 2020, which most people thought was way overboard, because they didn't want to repeat that sort of show of force, didn't plan for what would happen if that show of force became necessary. And so there was just a lot of scrambling from our end.
- [14:54]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
I think there was also one thing I found over and over that so many people said, and this is in the book, is that There were these two other protests in November and December before January 6, and they turned somewhat violent, but they were mostly clashes between counter protesters and the Trump supporters that, that the more far right people that turned out. So I think a lot of law enforcement, and so, you know, what they were doing was breaking people up in that case. And I think a lot of law enforcement. Roy Blunt, who was the head of the Senate Rules Committee, which oversaw oversees the Capitol Police, said that he had checked in with, and this is in the book, he had checked in with Capitol Police like a couple of days before. And they said, we think, you know, this is pretty much what it, you know, it's going to be similar to what we saw in those other two protests. And I have sort of in the introduction about a detailing of all of the reports that went out in the weeks before, kind of, you know, situational reports about what they expected that day. And all of those situational reports said that, you know, they expected an event similar to these other two events. One of the situational reports had like one paragraph, like buried in the middle that basically predicted exactly what happened. You know, that saying that people could come with weapons, they could, you know, come and it could get violent. And because this was a significant day that people were looking for, but it really didn't. It was just this sort of like one paragraph. And it, it didn't even end up in reports after that. And it didn't really end up in the conclusion either, which several times they concluded that violence was, you know, improbable. So it really was a sort of disorganized look. And I Think a lot of people, again, just sort of assuming that it was going to be like things that they had seen before, which was, you know, just kind of clashes between counter protesters and protesters, when in fact it was a very different day and there really wasn't a counter protester presence. Not that they're not ever there, but they weren't really, you know, there that day. And several police voices in the book saying, you know, they were looking for antifa or, you know, people that they were looking for that to happen, but they just didn't see it. That's not, that's not what the situation was that day. And a lot of the far right people that came came expecting to find antifa and you know, having those kinds of fights, but that's just not really that that was not the, the majority of the violence or, you know, really that wasn't a major presence that day. And really what it was was aimed at the Capitol. I believe that one paragraph I was talking about said, you know, Congress is the target, which is very different than anything that they'd ever seen before.
- [17:43]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah. Although I, I did note towards the end of your work, you do cite a couple legislators who even after the attack do attempt to blame it on antifa. And another one mentions BLM protesters. Do you think when people made that accusation, even after the events happened, do you think they're making that accusation in good faith or do you think they actually believed it was an antifa false flag or that it was BLM protesters trying to make the right look bad?
- [18:22]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
I mean, I don't know what they were thinking, but I mean, what you're referring to is Matt Gaetz and he, there was like, there was a report that later got corrected in the Washington Times that night that said that there were antifa protesters in the crowd or something. So I remember this because I was sitting in the gallery and I heard him say it and I remember it just being like such a moment that he was mentioning that and he was referring to this report in the Washington Times and saying sort of made a defund the police kind of a comment as well. It was very different in tone than anything else that anyone else had said said on the floor. And I think it really, it was so tense. I mean, that is like the main thing that I remember about that night. It was just so tense. Everyone was so tense. And that really upped the tension. I interviewed Adam Kinzinger not too long in 2021 and that is in the book as well where he said he just heard Matt Gates Say that. And it made him so mad that he got up and he said, you know, he gave sort of a whole speech about how they were going to certify, you know, Biden's victory. And, you know, everyone knows that he won and that kind of thing. And there was just sort of silence after he talked. So, you know, that those, those conversations were starting that night, which is just kind of, you know, it was, it wasn't like, you know, obviously, I don't mean to compare January 6 to 9 11, because it is so different, but in terms of like a national moment, you know, 911 really brought Congress and the country together in so many ways. Obviously, so many more people died, and it's a totally different situation. But in terms of, like, events of national significance, you know, January 6th immediately made tensions worse. And, you know, we saw the majority of House Republicans vote to overturn or to, on the electoral votes on Arizona and Pennsylvania, to vote, you know, to not count those states electoral votes, which is what Trump wanted them to do. There was still a lobbying effort going on after the violence. So that really never stopped. And the other thing you're referring to is Marjorie Taylor Greene, and that was from a deposition she did, and she was just describing what she was thinking in that moment when the building was being attacked, when she was first hearing about it. And she said we couldn't imagine that it was anything other than. Than BLM protesters. So, you know, it really was those. It is not something. It was like if there was like a momentary time when, when a lot of people were, you know, everyone sort of denounced the violence, but it was always tense and it. And it just got more and more tense as, as time went on.
- [21:13]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah. And you do. I mean, the benefit of an oral history is that it really does bring that visceralness to the reader because you're hearing firsthand accounts. It's not filtered through a historian's analysis or someone else's prose. It's the actual words of the participants. And I'm curious, is that what led you to want to do this as an oral history as opposed to a narrative overview?
- [21:47]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't know that the world needed another narrative overview of January 6th. We've seen a lot of that, you know, several been Republican and Democratic investigations of it. And it is already. It's. That's automatically filtered through somebody's perspective. Right. So the idea is to have everyone's perspective in one place. And it might not always be exactly the same from person to person, but it does Give you an idea of sort of the nuance of the day. Right. Like, you know, what happened and hearing people's firsthand experiences. It's not about what I think or, you know, filtering anything through my perspective. It's about what people are actually saying that they saw and they thought and they felt in that moment.
- [22:34]
Michael Feinberg
Now, I'm curious, When I first opened your book, I'm talking about the first page of the main text, I thought to myself, wow, I'm amazed some of these people sat for interviews. And then as I was reading, I realized just sort of intuitively, a lot of them didn't. You're basing some of this on previous testimony or documented statements that they made at various points leading up to during and in the aftermath of the event?
- [23:08]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say about half, roughly half of it is my own interviews with people. And those interviews are over a long period of time. Some of those interviews were. I mean, I have interviews from that day in there and. But then, you know, going up to this year, early this year after Trump was reelected. But the other half is, you know, a lot of people. Well, there's most of it that is not my own interviews is from court, which is those, you know, there's so many cases. Right. And most of the rioters who are quoted in the book, it's from court cases or their, their testimony. A lot of rioters spoke to the January 6th committee, I think, hoping probably that they would, you know, it would help them get more lenient sentences because they were cooperating. And those interviews are really interesting. Some of them are very introspective. And so I used a lot of that. I used to rioters who testified in their own behalf in court. And then, yeah, a lot of the lawmakers, most of the lawmaker interviews are mine, but there are some interviews, C SPAN did a series of interviews in 2021 where, you know, some Republicans and Democrats sat down and talked about their experiences and people who might not do that again today. There is also just, you know, just general testimony and a few, a few of them are from, you know, other media interviews. I tried to not do very much of that, but in terms of people who might have spoken to their local paper, like a Republicans who wouldn't talk to me today, but they did talk to their local paper in the few days right afterward when it was a huge story. So I was really able to get a lot of those public sources and, you know, put them together to give that sort of chronological account. And for transparency, I did, you know all of those sourcing is in the all that sourcing is in the back. So you can kind of see, you know, if it's someone you might not expect to be saying what they're saying. You can look back and see that was on like January 8, 2021 or where they said it or how, how it happened. But you know, they are all statements that came out of people's mouths in the last five years. You know, it's people's perspectives about what happened to them.
- [25:24]
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- [26:11]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Stand clear of the closing doors please.
- [26:15]
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- [27:24]
Michael Feinberg
Did anybody agree to actually sit for an interview with you that really surprised you? Or conversely, was there anybody you thought would be willing to cooperate that didn't.
- [27:36]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
That's a good question. It was very. I mean, you know, I tried to get as many Republicans as I could, and I did get a lot of Republicans. I didn't get as many as I would have liked. You know, a lot of people weren't talking about it. A lot of the best interviews are really from, you know, kind of immediately afterward. Some people did, though, several Republican senators I spoke to. And, you know, I think a lot of people feel that they want to be able to speak about this honestly, but then a lot of people won't. They might talk about it off the record, they might talk about it, you know, privately, but for now they're not. And I think I have sort of like a dream that, you know, in 10 years I could come back and maybe talk to people again. Some people who feel politically that they don't want to speak now but might, you know, eventually share what happened. I would certainly. One category of people that I would have liked to have had more of, although I did get some of this in the book, is building workers and police officer. You know, Capitol Police. Certainly I have a lot of police in there because so many of them testified. And I did do interviews as well, but, you know, I always wanted more. And there are a lot of people who are still working in the Capitol who are not authorized to talk about January 6th. So that is something that I hope eventually will change and that, you know, there are people who have. There's a lot of experiences we don't know about that day. And I do think it's important just to have all of that on paper for history, for the record. You know what, this is a US Capitol, right? And I think part of the reason I feel so strongly about it is I work there every day. You know, when they're in session, I'm there, and I have a desk in the Capitol. And I just feel like, you know, I think it's such a important, beautiful place, and it's a community. And this was something that, you know, kind of ripped this community apart in a lot of ways. And I think it's so important for our country. And it's. I just think that, you know, getting all of that on paper is really important, and I hope I'm able to continue to do that even after this book is out.
- [29:56]
Michael Feinberg
Now, as you were doing this, as you were collating everything that was out there and talking to people and, you know, inevitably, I assume, reliving your own experiences from that day, did anything surprise you? Did you discover anything that complicated your previous view of the events of that day.
- [30:18]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
I wouldn't say complicated, but just definitely added to it. Like, I'm just so. I'm like, the opposite of you. I am like, I am so naive. Like, I don't really have. You know, I don't have military experience. I don't have law enforcement experience. I don't. I'm not used to being in a violent situation. Right? So when it was happening, I was, like, focused on my job, which is, like, I was trying to take video of these people trying to beat down the door below me. And that was my priority. And it's really, like, kind of all I was thinking about. I was scared, but I wasn't super focused on, you know, on the danger part of it. It was more just like, how do I get this news out of this crazy thing that's happening in the room where I am? And then, you know, when we were there in the. In the balcony, we heard the gunshot. That was the. The shot that hit Ashley Babbitt. You know, for me, I knew it could be a gunshot, but that wasn't my. You know, I was like, oh, that was a really loud noise. You know, maybe it was a gunshot. Maybe something dropped. You know, I didn't know. But the people that were around me were lawmakers. There were about three dozen, mostly Democrats, all Democrats that I know of, who were up in the balcony, unusually spacing for Covid. You know, a lot of them had military or law enforcement experience. Val Demings was up there, and she's the former police chief in Orlando. You know, Jason Crow was former Army Ranger. Mickey Sherrill was up there, former Navy helicopter pilot. You know, they obviously all have extensive training, and they knew the second that that gunshot went off, what it was, where it was coming from, and that we were surrounded kind of on all sides by rioters. And I think, you know, that was really interesting to me because I did a story on the first anniversary that kind of is sort of what inspired me to write the book that. Where I really interviewed, like, everyone I could find who was in the balcony with me and just wrote about, you know, that experience, because it hadn't really been written about a ton. And just talking to all of these, you know, these people with this incredible experience about what happened, you know, what was happening and what they were thinking in the moment, it was kind of like, oh, I had no idea what was happening, and I didn't. You know, I learned so much from. From talking to them. So I think that was something that was really interesting as As I did this to, you know, even, you know, years later as I was finishing the book, it just so much added to it and certainly what happened outside, I mean, I would say that was the other thing. Like, none of us knew at the time what was going on outside even really until the next day or the days afterward that how violent it was outside. And I didn't really even understand until I was doing this book exactly what happened outside. Like, sort of how. How that siege happened. Right. Like, how they were, you know, sort of slowly. They. You know, there were a lot of people there who knew what they were doing, and they were finding those holes and finding their way to entrances and ways to break into the building and, you know, how exactly the police were holding the lines. And, you know, I had to figure all that out to get the book in order. So that was all very interesting to me, and I didn't really fully understand it until I did that. And I guess in terms of, like, surprised, I mean, or, you know, what I didn't know is just reading all these accounts and collecting these accounts and talking to police officers, how many of them thought that they were going to die that day. I mean, that was really surprising to me. It was really interesting. I mean, just over and over in testimony and interviews, they said, you know, I thought this was it. Like, I thought. I thought that this. I might not come home that day, or, you know, in a specific moment when they were on the ground or whatever. It was. A lot of them really thought that they were going to die in that moment. And that was, you know, shocking and sad to me.
- [34:12]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah. There is a moment towards the end of your work where one of the police officers goes home to his wife and family, and he talks about stripping down for the shower and his wife nearly breaking down at the sight of just the bruises and abrasions that are covering his torso and limbs.
- [34:39]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Yeah. And that. Yeah, that was a Metropolitan Police officer who I believe that was in, like, you know, a statement of, you know, in court that he. He made about, you know, the effects that it had had on him. And. And that was, I thought, really moving and. And sad, you know, and he was. He was a big guy, you know, and he was. I think he. He talked. He's. Earlier in the book when he was sort of fighting people off in the middle of the capital, you know, talking about. He's. He's a really big guy, and he was, you know, there were people just, you know, throwing themselves against him and trying to, you know, rip his weapons off. Of his body, you know, just really going at him. So, you know, someone. You think of these big, strong police officers, right? And, you know, a lot of them. A lot of them were badly injured. And, you know, another police officer that I interviewed in the book said, you know, there's like, an official number of like around 140 or more than 140 police officers were injured. But he said the number is probably a lot higher than that. But, you know, a lot of people just kept going, you know, and went into work the next day and didn't, you know, necessarily report their injuries or if they didn't have to go to the hospital. And then on the other side, a lot of them, not a lot of. But I mean, some of them never went back to work at all because of their injuries. So, you know, it. There really was a range there. But, you know, the stories are just, you know, these aren't people who talk about their own mental health or their. The effects on themselves very often. So, you know, just kind of reading that, that it is surprising and it's. It's, you know, it's hard to read.
- [36:18]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah. And not to continue down the sort of darker path. I mean, the whole day was dark. But, you know, a lot of those wounds weren't just physical. There were psychic wounds. I mean, there. There was a police officer who took his own life upon returning home from these events. And I think, you know, I. As somebody who used to wear a badge himself and find himself in dangerous situations, one of the reasons I personally, and I'm just speaking as an individual now, not as a editor at lawfare, but one of the personal reasons I really appreciate your work is that, like, it does give these people a voice, and it serves as a reminder and a sort of testament to some of the sacrifices that, you know, when someone takes their own life, it doesn't get as much attention as an action that's the result of an adversary. But, you know, you know, maybe this is out of line for me to say, but I view the officer who took his own life as just as much a casualty of these events as the officer who had a stroke and tragically died that day. You know, and so I'm glad you're telling these stories.
- [37:40]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Yeah, there were two police officers actually who took their own lives in the days afterward. There was one Capitol Police officer, Howie Lebengood, and a Metropolitan Police Officer, Jeffrey Smith, and there were two other Metropolitan Police officers who took their own lives that year who had been at the Capitol. You know, we obviously don't know every detail about, you know, why or all of that. But there were four police officers who were there that day who took their own lives in the following months, two of them in the days right afterwards. So I do think that that, that did get people's attention, that in, you know, in terms of the mental health effects and Capitol Police, I know, did really beef up their mental health services. I don't think they had much. I don't know the details of it, but I know that I don't think there was much there before January 6th. And I think they, you know, as they were sort of rebuilding after that, that they needed to have more services for officers and, you know, have. I know. And you. You can speak to this better than I can, but it does seem like there's been a little bit of a trend, you know, in recent years to try to focus more on that in the law enforcement community. I'm sure it's still hard, but is that. I mean, I know that that's been the case there, at least.
- [39:01]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah, I think that's very much true. Across the country in, you know, federal, state, and local departments, law enforcement tends to attract people with certain qualities. Some of them are very good qualities. Some of them are less admirable. And I think one of the ones that falls on the latter part of that ledger is that law enforcement officers are very often reluctant to seek help. And so I think that, like, the departments and their management sort of have a moral duty to constantly remind them that the help is available and that there's no shame in seeking it. And, like, to the extent anything positive can be wrought from that day, perhaps it's dragging some of those conversations more out into the daylight, but. All right, I want to sort of switch gears in your experience there, and by your experience, I mean, writing this book, I'm not talking about your personal experience, but is there anybody who surprised you with how well they acquitted themselves that day? You know, in any tragedy, in any act of violence, Mr. Rogers sort of said famously, look for the helpers. Is there anybody who struck you as sort of like an unsung hero of that day that we should be paying more attention to?
- [40:32]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Yeah, I think. I mean, you have to look at the staff who saved the electoral ballots in the Senate. That was like, such an important move that was made that day that rioters did get into the Senate after senators had evacuated and were, you know, going through senators desks. That's all in the book. But, you know, when the senators were evacuating the staff for the Senate parliamentarian who sort of oversee the box. And if anyone doesn't know, like, what, what was interrupted, what happens on January six is counting the electoral votes from every single state. It is usually just a totally routine affair, right? And it lasts like the one this year lasted like, I think like an hour and a half or something. Usually they just go through every state and, you know, nobody objects and then move on. President is inaugurated. So they have these boxes and they're mahogany boxes that they've always used. And they're actually like. They have, like. They're literal, like FedEx, you know, that the. The states really send these in the mail to the Capitol. And there are several copies that go different places. One goes to the archives. But so they have. They like hold all of these electoral. These certified electoral ballots from every state in these mahogany bodies boxes. And as the Senate was evacuating, staff took the boxes. Like they're heavy boxes. You know, they sort of picked them up and they took them out. And one of the senators I interviewed, Mike Rounds, Republican, talked about how as they were leaving, you know, he and other Republicans and Democrat, you know, bipartisan group of senators were like, you know, let us help you with those boxes. That's so important to us that we get them out. And they said. He said that. They said to him, no, no, we have to do this. This is our. And he's like, well, we're not going to let them out of our sight. And he said, well, we're not going to let them out of our sight either. So I think there was a lot of understanding how important those ballots were. And you think about, you know, those are the physical ballots that have to be counted. That's part of the process. So if they had left them there and, you know, the people had broken into the Senate, that's kind of like what they were looking for, right? And they could have destroyed them. They could have have taken them. That certainly would have delayed the certification. So the fact that they brought them with them to a secure location, I think a lot of people see that as kind of one of the more significant moments of the day, you know, by basically unnamed staffers who were, you know, there. And really quick thinking as they were, you know, in this sort of frantic situation, trying to evacuate with rioters right outside the doors when they were evacuating, it wasn't a slow process. It was very quick that they had to get out there. They were hearing the shouts from people who were right on the other side of the walls. So, you know, I think that. That everyone kind of came together and did. That was a. Was an important moment in the day.
- [43:24]
Michael Feinberg
Yeah, I think there were a lot of sort of quiet, unsung moments of heroism and courage that your book does a good job of highlighting. I remember the exact section you're talking about where they have to sort of flee with the ballots so that they maintain the actual physical evidence of what happened in the election. The other one that constantly comes to my mind that I often replay is a lone police officer almost Pied Piper, in a crowd of rioters away from where people were hiding. I think he was, runs up a staircase, stopping every now and then to wave his baton, and then runs again and just like putting his own life at risk to protect other people in the building who were able to hide. And, you know, that's the highest calling of law enforcement, is being willing to sacrifice yourself. And, you know, one of the reasons I personally really appreciate your book, again, is that you do pay testament to those sacrifices and, and. And those actions that people took and recognize that January 6th had a lot of villains. It did. I mean, thousands of people were indicted or sentenced. A lot of people stained their public reputations as political officers that day in ways that will probably not be scrubbed from history. But there were also people who are lesser known that just did the right thing. And, you know, thank you for highlighting that.
- [45:02]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
Yeah. I think the officer you're talking about is Eugene Goodman, who was, you know, confronted. He was by himself when a group of. The first group of rioters had just broken in. And they were sort of being aggressive to him and chased him up a staircase. And when they got to the top of the staircase, they were. I mean, they were just a few feet from the door, one of the doors to the Senate. And Senate was still inside. And that. It's really just like an extraordinary situation. And he kind of looks, you can see in the video that was taken by a Huff Post reporter, Igor Bobick, who is also in the book. You know, he kind of looks toward the Senate and then, you know, kind of like, you know, he kind of hits him and sort of leads him in a different direction, away from the Senate doors and toward. It's called the Ohio Clock Quarter, where a bunch of police officers were waiting. So he really. It was kind of a masterful move that potentially, you know, saved, you know, and what one of the officers said is if. If rioters had gotten close to that door, there would have been gunfire at that point. You know, it could have been a much bloodier day. So I think, you know, that was really interesting. And what was interesting about Eugene Goodman is he doesn't do a lot of interviews. He's a private guy. He doesn't really, I don't think, want all the accolades that came toward him, or at least to talk about it very much. And. But he did testify in several trials. And so I was able to get, you know, all of that testimony and put it into the book, which is, like, not really something that has, you know, obviously it was covered in the news, but there were hundreds of pages of his description of what happened. So I'm really being able to, like, use a lot of that in one place. Place I thought was pretty cool, because it's something that I, you know, I. I was always interested in that. And when I, you know, started reading the testimony, it was just really interesting to hear his perspective as well. And then, you know, from. From your side of things, that Doug Jensen was the rioter with the big cue on his shirt that was chasing him up the stairs, and he gave an FBI interview where he had sort of described everything that happened to him. So really, being able to have both of their parts perspectives was, I thought, pretty interesting to be able to put in the book.
- [47:18]
Michael Feinberg
What is the one lesson from that day that you want people who read your book to walk away with?
- [47:28]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
So I think that the idea of the book is that people can read it themselves and see what happened and get it from firsthand accounts, and then they can decide what they think about the significance of that day or what happened that day based on the facts of what happened that day. Right. I think that that's what's important here is to really just get the real facts out and, you know, the real perspectives of people who are there. That isn't political. It isn't somebody's narrative. It's just firsthand accounts of. Of what people saw and with their own eyes and what they did. So that was, you know, that's my hope with the book, is that it's a definitive account and, you know, nonpartisan and just nuanced and really just lays out in chronological order what happened. And then, you know, people can move on and make their own conclusions as they want to, but I just think having the facts is really important, and that's the idea behind the book, and.
- [48:33]
Michael Feinberg
I think we'll leave it there. Mary Claire, thank you very much. Not just for coming on this show and being willing to go over what was an incredibly tumultuous and traumatic day, but also for writing the book and paying testament to the people who stopped it from even being worse. And I will unhesitatingly recommend your book to anybody in our audience who wants to understand what it was like on the ground at the Capitol on January 6th. Thank you again.
- [49:12]
Mary Claire Jelaniak
I really appreciate that. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.
- [49:18]
Michael Feinberg
You can get ad free versions of this and other Lawfare podcasts by becoming a Law Fair material supporter at our website lawfaremedia.org support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Look out for our other podcasts including Rational Security, Allies, the Aftermath and Escalation. Our latest Lawfare podcast series about the warfare in Ukraine. Check out our written work@lawfaremedia.org this podcast is edited by Jen Patya and our audio engineer for this episode was Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alibi Music. As always, thank you for listening.
- [50:15]
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