Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa is a force of nature on Twitter and CNN, fearless. On Wednesday she was one of the first to come right out and say what many have questioned; Whether Trump intentionally held the National Guard back in the initial stages of the insurrection on the Capitol riot to “serve Trump’s greater political narrative.”

However, she would not – yet – go far enough in terms of the entirety of Trump’s motive. To be fair, she is there as an expert analyst and analysts must rely on the evidence in front of them. Op-Ed columnists get to ask questions based on the evidence in front of us and we’ll get to that momentarily.

Anchor Brooke Baldwin asked a question that we all suspect we could answer: “Is that within the realm of possibility?” (That Trump intentionally held troops back.)

Rangappa went with the safer answer as to why it was possible:

“I think with the prior administration, it absolutely could have been in the realm of possible, and that’s a problem.

“So let just go back to what we mean by optics. The narrative that was pushed by the former president was that the existential threat to the republic was antifa as manifested in these Black Lives Matter protests, and which warranted this heavy military and law enforcement presence which we saw in D.C. and elsewhere. So when they are concerned about optics, what I think they are suggesting is that they did not want a similar presence for the people who were coming to the Capitol in support of the president, because what would that say? That would suggest that they are as dangerous as the other threat that they have been hyping up for some time.”

Yes, that is surely part of the theory.

“So optics, to me, means is that he was deliberately mitigating the threat and the perception of the threat, I think, in service of this greater narrative of where the danger really is.”

Fine.

But we also have plenty of evidence to at least ask the question as to whether there was a second, complementary reason, that the Guard was held back, that Trump wanted those protesters in that building, that he wanted the congressional session interrupted, that he was trying to buy time. None of that would have happened if 1500 troops lined around the Capitol with one mission, to keep people out.

Fmr. FBI special agent Asha Rangappa suggests the Trump administration delayed law enforcement response to the Capitol riot for appearances.

"Optics to me means they were deliberately mitigating the threat… in service of this greater narrative of where the danger really is." pic.twitter.com/hvOiDNNNHt

— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) March 3, 2021

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak