For the umpteenth time, the anti-Trump narrative has blown up in the media’s face.
On Monday, The Free Press reported that U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, held out by the normally anti-cop Democrats as a hero of the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, died of natural causes.
Sicknick “suffered two strokes and died of natural causes a day after he confronted rioters at the Jan. 6 insurrection.” That finding was made by Dr. Francisco Diaz, the District of Columbia’s chief medical examiner – nearly four months after Sicknick’s death, by the way.
Sicknick “suffered two strokes at the base of the brain stem caused by a clot in an artery that supplies blood to that area of the body,” TFP reported.
The Free Press readers will recall that some on the right had raised doubts about what happened to Sicknick, whose death fueled a liberal media narrative that at least five people died in the mayhem.
The original story was that Sicknick died after being hammered with a fire extinguisher by pro-Trump enthusiasts.
And that was the story the media, led by The New York Times, trumpeted. Congressional Democrats seized on the false account, blaming the fire-extinguisher-wielding thugs in the resolution calling for former President Donald Trump’s impeachment.
Democratic Sen. Cory Booker offered an example, saying that “white supremacists … took the life of one of our officers. They spilled his blood, they took our son away from his parents. They took a sibling away from their brothers.”
Yet Sicknick’s own family disputed the initial account and other alleged details of his demise almost immediately. As Diaz’s office remained silent about the cause for weeks, the story shifted – to Sicknick died after being sprayed with a chemical irritant, such as bear spray.
“The ruling, released Monday, will make it difficult for prosecutors to pursue homicide charges in the officer’s death. Two men are accused of assaulting Sicknick by spraying a powerful chemical irritant at him during the siege, but prosecutors have not tied that exposure to Sicknick’s death.”
To some of their credit, the national media that spread the initial lie about Sicknick’s death has picked up on the Post’s story and noted that the officer did pass away from natural causes.
But don’t expect any further contrition from those who repeatedly exhibited having no conscience in spreading story after story in the effort to get Trump.
Meanwhile, we’ll wait and see if another false narrative comes crashing down.
In an interview this week, before the Sicknick autopsy results were reported, Sen. Ron Johnson told independent journalist Sharyl Attkisson, formerly of CBS News, that he wants the truth about the so-called “armed” rioters.
“I’m pushing back on what I believe is an inaccurate narrative, that there were literally thousands of armed insurrectionists intent on overthrowing the government. I just don’t think that’s an accurate assessment of exactly what happened,” the Wisconsin Republican told Attkisson.
“Which prompted my question of the FBI witness, ‘How many firearms’ — because when I hear ‘armed,’ I really think ‘firearms” again, cognizant of the fact that you can use other things as a weapon,” added Johnson, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
“I’ve condemned all of this. But when I asked her ‘how many firearms were confiscated,’ that witness said zero.”
“The narrative is that there were thousands of armed insurrectionists. And they’re trying to broaden that to make people believe that the 74 million Americans that voted for Donald Trump are somehow suspected domestic terrorists or potential armed insurrections themselves,” Johnson continued.
“And I think we have to push back on that narrative because that’s just not true. The vast majority of people came to the Capitol — now, they’re trying to put pressure on people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, and I didn’t do so, but that’s the First Amendment right — but there’s much smaller subset that actually breached the Capitol and committed violent acts.”
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