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Amid the multiple similarities between the populism of Donald Trump and Brexit, Peter Jukes and Heidi Siegmund Cuda look at the stark differences between the way in which the UK Parliament and the US Congress deal with threats to democracy
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump described himself as ‘Mr Brexit Plus Plus Plus’, and Byline Times has traced many of the connections between his election and the campaign for Britain to leave the EU in the same year – in terms of money, ideology, personnel, and the prevalence of online information operations with companies such as the now-defunct data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica and the intervention of the Russian intelligence services.
But one of the starkest differences between the two countries has been the ways in which their legislatures have dealt with the allegations of unlawful activity.
The threats to American democracy have been the subject of half a dozen congressional committees and FBI investigations including the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference.
When Trump refused to accept the victory of Joe Biden in last year’s election, and appeared to incite the storming of the Capitol Building on 6 January to prevent the ratification of the vote, five people died in the first violent attack in the national assembly for two centuries, with several suicides connected to the aftermath. So far, 605 people have been arrested in connection with it and charged with a variety of offences.
In the wake of the storming of the Capitol, the House of Representatives set up a congressional inquiry into the attack, to provide a complete and authoritative account of what happened that day. Though, because of Republican non-co-operation, it is not a completely independent panel like the one that investigated 9/11, it does have senior Republicans on it – as well as the power to subpoena witnesses to testify under oath.
Its first hearing took place on 27 July, broadcast on most major American TV networks as four police officers present on the day gave powerful testimony, each describing their attempts to hold the line, and the subsequent trauma they endured.
“This is how I’m going to die,” said Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, as he told of being beaten by the violent mob in what he described as a “Medieval battle”.
Gonell, a 15-year veteran of the Capitol Police who was born in the Dominican Republic and served eight years in the US Army, described being punched, kicked, shoved, and sprayed with chemicals as he attempted to defend a Capitol entrance.
“Rioters called me a traitor, a disgrace, and that I, an Army veteran and a police officer, should be executed,” he continued. “There’s a continued shocking attempt to ignore or try to destroy the truth of what truly happened that day and to whitewash the facts into something other than what they unmistakingly reveal – an attack on our democracy by violent domestic extremists and a stain on our history and our moral standing here at home and abroad.”
“I heard chants of ‘kill him with his own gun’,” said Michael Fanone of Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, as he described being beaten unconscious.
“I was electrocuted again and again and again with a taser. I’m sure I was screaming, but I don’t think I could even hear my own voice… I thought about using my firearm on my attackers, but I knew that if I did, I would be quickly overwhelmed, and that in their minds would provide them with the justification for killing me. So I instead decided to appeal to any humanity they might have. I said as loud as I could manage, ‘I’ve got kids!’”
Fanone, who suffered a heart attack and a brain injury during the storming of the Capitol, spoke up against the attempts by certain Republican politicians to downplay the violence of the insurrection. “I feel like I went to hell and back. But too many are now telling me that hell doesn’t exist or that hell actually wasn’t that bad. The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful,” he said, as he pounded his fist on the table.
There can be no moving on without accountability. There can be no healing until we make sure that this can’t happen again
Daniel Hodges
Daniel H