Some Republicans don't have a problem with Jan. 6. This NJ man is among them | Kelly

Edward Durfee, Oath Keeper and witness to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, still believes he knows the real truth about what happened on that dark day.

Durfee, 69 and the Republican Party chairman in the tiny borough of Northvale, in the northeast corner of Bergen County, New Jersey, was on the scene of what many now describe as an insurrection. He claims he stood outside the Capitol that day as part of what he calls a “security detail” of Oath Keepers, the right-wing militant group who federal authorities now label as playing a key role in the “Stop the Steal” march and rally on behalf of former President Donald Trump that led to the storming of the Capitol building.

Durfee says he did not venture inside the Capitol that day. But “insurrection” is not how he remembers the scene.

Yes, there was violence, Durfee concedes, which included fights with police and vandalism to America’s domed symbol of democracy. But it wasn’t Trump’s fault. Nor was all that mayhem the fault of the thousands of Trump supporters.

It was someone else.

“Trump supporters don’t behave like that,” Durfee told NorthJersey.com and The Record in an interview. “When you went to a Trump rally, it was orderly.”

Durfee’s perspective, despite its stridently false foundation, is important to consider as America gears up for the 2024 election.

Durfee is an IT specialist and Republican party official in his well-to-do patch of suburban landscape just a short drive from New York City. He ran for the New Jersey state Assembly two years ago – and lost.  He says he is weighing another election run someday — albeit a long shot — for a slot on the Bergen County Board of Commissioners.

In other words, Durfee is not hiding in seclusion on America’s political fringe — in a trailer, for instance, deep in the woods, laboring in some obscure occupation and refusing to participate in the nation’s electoral process.

He is part of the nation’s mainstream. Only he is also an example of how a significant slice of that mainstream has now embraced an alternative view of history — perhaps even a history fueled by the poisons of conspiracy. As Durfee, without evidence, still portrays the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost: “There was widespread cheating — big time.”

This year’s presidential election is not just a battle over such policy concerns as immigration and taxes. Nor will it be only a fight over such hot-button culture war issues as abortion and gender identity.

One of the most politically vexing conflicts for Republicans as well as Democrats involves truth and the basic facts that frame history and news reporting in America. If Americans can’t agree on a common truth, how can they engage in a credible election?

This battle over facts is especially true when it comes to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. What is the common storyline?  Whose version is most believable?

Finding answers to such questions is no easy task.

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Americans continue to operate with separate sets of facts on Jan. 6, Trump and more

A survey, released this week by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland, revealed that one quarter of all Americans believe the FBI “organized and encouraged” the attack on the Capitol.

One third of Republicans embrace that view, along with 44% of Trump supporters, 30% of voters who describe themselves as “independent” and — perhaps most shockingly of all — 10% of those who cast ballots for President Joe Biden.

The survey results offer a distinct push-back to the findings from a Congressional investigation, which concluded that the Capitol assault was well-planned by many Trump advocates and led by paramilitary elements of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

The survey also comes as the Justice Department — and the FBI — continue to investigate the Capitol attack. So far, more than 1,230 rioters have been charged with federal crimes in the riot, according to a database compiled by the Associated Press. The charges range from trespassing to assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.

None of those investigations found evidence of a conspiracy by the FBI — or any other law enforcement agency, for that matter — to play any sort of role in the Capitol insurrection. But no matter. The Washington Post survey concluded that “a substantial minority of Americans still embraces conspiracy theories not unlike the ones that drove many rioters to storm the Capitol.”

That “substantial minority” includes seemingly ordinary people like Durfee. He doesn’t necessarily believe that FBI operatives stoked the violence on Jan. 6, 2021. But he doesn’t discount it.

“There were definitely some instigators in the crowd,” Durfee said, without offering any proof.

Which America got the wake-up call that was Jan. 6?

More than 1,000 days have passed since thousands of Trump supporters flocked to Washington to “Stop the Steal,” a gathering, energized by all manner of unfounded claims of voter fraud and cheating, to block Biden from assuming the presidency.

The effort failed. Despite the attack on the Capitol, Congress voted to certify Biden’s election.

But the carnage — physical in the form of five police officers, including Brian Sicknick of New Jersey, who died after the riot, and at least one protester shot by cops; emotional in the form of scars to the nation’s collective soul and gilded reputation for democracy — was a massive wake-up call for America.

But which America?

Biden’s supporters and many others saw an insurrection — essentially a dictator-like scheme by Trump to derail the democratic process. Conversely, many Trump’s supporters saw themselves as heroically preserving democracy by trying to stop what they felt were underhanded efforts to “rig” the election in favor of Biden.

For the first time in its history, America’s much-heralded “transfer of power” between presidents was not peaceful.

Even today, Trump has never conceded that he lost to Biden. He continues to spout false claims of election treachery. His supporters refer to him as “Mister President” — as if he should still be in the White House.

Trump’s mounting legal problems, which may derail his reelection plans, include two upcoming trials on charges of election fraud — a federal case in Washington, D.C., and a state case in Georgia. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to weigh in on recent decisions by election officials in Colorado and Maine to prohibit Trump from running in the 2024 race because he allegedly violated a Constitutional provision that bars anyone from running for office who participates in or supports an insurrection.

Meanwhile, Trump, claiming he is the victim of a leftist “witch hunt,” is running for president – his third campaign — on a promise to “make America great again.”

Biden is gearing up his own campaign message — one that the White House defined on Friday as akin to a “sacred cause” to preserve democracy.

Drawing on an iconic symbol of the nation’s fight for democracy, Biden spoke Friday afternoon near the former encampment of George Washington’s revolutionary army in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

“Today we are here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” Biden told a crowd of supporters. “This isn’t rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time."

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'It was far from an insurrection'

Lurking in the shadows of the presidential campaigns — and their sloganeering — are the competing narratives of what really happened during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol building. And standing at the center of these narratives are people like Durfee.

In a sense, he symbolizes a troubling American reality — millions of citizens expressing active disbelief in their government.

For instance, Durfee, who was interviewed by the FBI and by Congressional investigators but never charged for his role on Jan. 6, 2021, claims that what happened at the Capitol was not an insurrection.

“If anything it was far from an insurrection,” he said. “I don’t know where that full idea came from. I just think it was regular people just going down to Washington to voice their opinion and attend this rally. And then it just got out of hand. Unfortunately our Capitol building suffered some broken windows and broken doorways.”

Durfee has spoken to NorthJersey.com before, along with other media. But in this week's interview, he divulged for the first time that he knew that members of the Oath Keepers discussed before the Washington rally that they would leave firearms at a hotel in Virginia. He says he did not bring a gun to Washington, however.

Durfee also revealed that he stood outside the Capitol building during the violence with Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who is now serving an 18-year prison sentence after being convicted in a federal trial on charges of seditious conspiracy.

In his trial, federal prosecutors presented evidence that Rhodes was one of the masterminds of the Capitol attack. Durfee insists he was friendly enough to Rhodes to know anything about such plans.  But Durfee nonetheless insists that Rhodes was “falsely charged and convicted” — “absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

As for the insurrection itself, Durfee adds that Trump supporters should not be blamed for the violence. Instead, Durfee faults what he describes as members of the Black Lives Matter movement. He also points a finger at “antifa,” the murky description of an equally ill-defined group of alleged progressives that conservatives often blame for creating political mayhem.

Durfee concedes he has no clear evidence of such a conspiracy by Black Lives Matter of anyone else. Reminded that numerous investigations found no evidence that any other groups besides Trump’s supporters sparked the riots at the Capitol, Durfee is quick to push back.

“I knew there were bad actors there,” he said. “I heard people were going to dress as Trump supporters.”

Reminded again that there is no evidence of anyone impersonating Trump supporters, Durfee still pushes back.

“I don’t believe that the Trump supporters were there to create violence,” he said. “It’s like at a football game, once everybody starts pushing and shoving. The instigators were the people we were there to protect the people from – the antifa and Black Lives Matter people.”

For the record, Durfee says he plans to vote for Trump this November — “if he’s on the ballot.”

He also has no regrets that he journeyed to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

“I was part of history,” he said. “Or infamy. I don’t know."

Mike Kelly is an award-winning columnist for NorthJersey.com, part of the USA TODAY Network, as well as the author of three critically acclaimed nonfiction books and a podcast and documentary film producer. To get unlimited access to his insightful thoughts on how we live life in the Northeast, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: kellym@northjersey.com

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Jan. 6 anniversary: This NJ Oath Keeper doesn't see an insurrection