Overwrought! CBS Touts 1,600 January 6 Protesters Prosecuted from 'Riotous Mob'

Tim Graham
January 6th, 2025 12:06 PM
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The January 6 riot is a dark moment in American history, and as expected, the anti-Trump networks returned to all of the Pelosi-Picked Panel spin. But predictably, the worst Democrat tilt came from CBS reporter Scott MacFarlane, who has long sounded like a Pelosi-Picked Publicist. Nothing that has emerged from the House Republican probe of Pelosi's panel is considered newsworthy.

Just as Pelosi ignored all the race riots in the summer of 2020, CBS wants you to forget that CBS was the worst network in burying any talk of the Americans who died in the post-George Floyd riots. In a weeklong Bill D'Agostino study from NewsBusters, "CBS spent just a single minute (61 seconds) on individuals killed during the riots, amounting to half a percent of their 201 minutes of protest coverage."

CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King began on Monday by saying “Trump’s angry speech denying his defeat” was “followed by a deadly assault on the Capitol.” Deadly? The only violent death that day was Capitol cop Michael Byrd shooting Ashli Babbitt. The other deaths were Trump supporters who collapsed from medical problems. Those facts are omitted. What was highlighted was 1,600 protesters prosecuted, as if that wasn't an overwrought and partisan exercise from Team Biden. 

CBS Mornings

January 6, 2025

SCOTT MacFARLANE: Four years to the day after a riotous mob of Trump supporters marauded through the Capitol tried to stop the certification of President Joe Biden, lawmakers will gather again today at a complex surrounded by eight foot metal fencing to certify Donald Trump's victory.

DANIEL HODGES: I hope that some of them might feel a ping from it if they see me.

MacFARLANE: Washington DC police officer Daniel Hodges, who was beaten in a doorway during the riot has been invited to attend today by Democratic senator Adam Schiff.

HODGES: It's -- be my honor to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the GOP members who try to whitewash that day and lie about what happened and pretend that we didn't save them.

MacFARLANE: Nearly 1,600 people have been charged for the January 6th attack, some wielding weapons like bear spray, knives, and flagpoles. Of those, at least 1,000 have pleaded guilty, and 600 were charged with assaulting or resisting police officers.

DONALD TRUMP: They should immediately be released, immediately the J-6 hostages.

MacFARLANE: Trump has pledged pardons for the rioters, but he has yet to specify if it will be all, or just some. And a CBS News analysis finds nearly 160 of those charged had a prior and in some cases violent criminal history.  There are also concerns of what precedents the pardons may set.

ADAM SCHIFF: Well, I think that it will do is encourage any future president to tell his people, hey, you do whatever you need to do to keep me in power because I've got a pardon power.

MacFARLANE: For Hodges, who has testified in some of the criminal trials of January 6th defendants, the potential pardons feel personal.

HODGES:  It would be very offensive to me. I think it would be offensive to everyone who risked their lives and fought and sacrificed their blood and sweat that day to preserve democracy.

MacFARLANE: Many people are still being sought for their roles in the Capitol attack, but Trump hasn't specified if prosecutions will be permitted to continue, starting in two weeks. Tony, many defendants have asked their cases be delayed until Trump takes office.

CBS can't suggest in any way that many of the prosecuted protesters were nonviolent. Pardoning them is not an offense to the police. Apparently, when you point that out, it's "whitewashing" January 6. 

PS: Curtis Houck added more hype from CBS Mornings Plus: 

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