KCK school board candidate was there on Jan. 6, still says pro-Trump crowd was peaceful | Opinion

One of the candidates running for Piper school board in Kansas City, Kansas, attended the pro-Donald Trump rally before the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and walked to the U.S. Capitol with insurrectionists that day. The candidate, Jami Applegate, has repeatedly posted on social media that all pro-Trump protesters were peaceful, and that the bad things that did happen that day were the work of antifa and/or the feds, including FBI infiltrators of the Proud Boys.

In a conversation posted on a public Facebook account, she is pictured wearing an FJB (F**k Joe Biden) shirt and insisting on “the lack of actual riots and violence” at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“We stood on those streets for HOURS without one ounce of destruction, (with the exception of two windows to the Capitol inside being broken where Ashli (Babbitt) was killed,” she wrote.

Black Lives Matter “is notorious for burning, looting and violence during and after their marches, mostly after sunset. That was not the case at all with D.C. There were no fires, people throwing molotov bombs, hurling themselves at first responders. It was all false reporting to make our rally appear to be more dangerous than BLM rioters. … Did you know NPR News announced the Storming at 9:33 a.m. ET? It wasn’t stormed until after 1:30 PM ET. Another misleading of the media. But how would they know it would take place? Do you think Trump supporters planned it?”

It’s not true, of course, that the pro-Trump insurrectionists were peaceful.

Many police officers injured in Washington riot

U.S. Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, the first of 114 officers to be injured that day, can be seen on video being thrown to the ground and knocked unconscious. When she came to and got back up, she was injured twice more, and suffered a traumatic brain injury. “There were officers on the ground,” she testified before the congressional Jan. 6 committee. “They were bleeding, they were throwing up. … I saw friends with blood all over their faces, I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage, it was chaos. I can’t even describe what I saw.”

Nor is it true that NPR reported the news ahead of time. As multiple fact checks later reported to counter that claim, the NPR story that posted at 9:33 a.m. originally carried the headline, “Congress Electoral College Tally Live Updates” and “Diehard Trump Supporters Gather in the Nation’s Capital to Protest Election Result.”

That story, which initially said nothing about an attack on the Capitol, was updated throughout the day, as is common practice, but kept the time stamp that said its earliest version had been posted at 9:33.

“Those who were there know the truth” about what happened on Jan. 6, Applegate said when reached by phone by The Kansas City Star editorial board.

She said she’d really prefer that we not write about her candidacy at all, both since the election isn’t until November and since the media skews everything. Told that we would be writing about it, she hung up.

Because we’d really prefer that candidates who were there as Trump supporters tried to overthrow our democracy be called on disinformation, we are writing about it.

We’d also prefer that such candidates not win because too few voters know what they are for and against. So no, it’s not too early to tell readers what Jami Applegate believes in. Then, as always, those casting their ballots in November will make up their own minds.

Candidates’ views relevant to public office

When you run for public office, your political views are no longer none of the public’s business.

And prior to filing to run for office, which she did on May 30, Applegate has not been reticent about sharing those views publicly.

A mother of two, Applegate works for a farm equipment industry trade organization.

On social media, Applegate posts most often about her anti-vaccine views.

She’s also posted in support of boycotting Target over its line of pro-LGBTQ+ Pride clothing.

She retweeted a meme purporting to show “a known antifa member who was paid $70,000 for his Capitol riot video January 6.” The person who took the video, John Sullivan, who was arrested for his actions that day, was paid by media outlets for the footage, which showed pro-Trump protester Ashli Babbitt being shot. But as fact checks have reported, Sullivan is not a “known antifa member,” and antifa activists weren’t behind the insurrection.

Sullivan, who has been widely reviled by activists on both the right and the left, did attend and even organized at least one Black Lives Matter protest, but was kicked out of the group, in part over his ties to the Proud Boys. BLM organizers accused him of trying to undermine their goals with his violent behavior. They were also suspicious because his brother, James Sullivan, is co-founder of a pro-Trump group.

Applegate also retweeted a photo of former Republican U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, asking, “What are they hiding? Jan 6 committee sealed all important videos and documents for 50 years so they can continue to lie about J6 protests and Fed involvement.”

The committee released thousands of pages of documents but announced that it would honor its agreement not to reveal the identity of some of those who testified. Those interviews, too, were turned over to the National Archives, where it’s true that they can be sealed for up to 50 years.

When candidates are not vetted, the result can be a George Santos, the conservative Republican congressman who lied liberally about his past, and has now been charged with fraud, money laundering and other crimes. He was elected because voters in his Long Island district didn’t know much about him.

Sometimes, we sound the alarm and voters still don’t seem to care. We repeatedly wrote about allegations of violence from now-former Democratic Kansas City, Kansas, state Rep. Aaron Coleman, for instance, and he was elected anyway.

Coleman, who was arrested twice during his one term in office, was defeated in last August’s Democratic primary, and is now running for the school board in KCK’s Turner school district.

We are hopeful that where he’s concerned, at least, voters have learned their lesson.