Topic: CNSNews.com
Even though CNSNews.com is a right-wing operation that claims to care about the police, it curiously didn't have much to say about the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died after trying to defend the center of American democracy in the Jan. 6 Trump-inspired Capitol riot.
CNS did no articles specifically on Sicknick in the weeks after the riot; instead, he received only passing references on Jan. 8, Jan. 11, Feb. 3, Feb. 3 (again), Feb. 8, Feb. 15, and March 2. But as the original narrative of Sicknick's death was questioned in right-wing media and an autopsy wasn't immediately forthcoming, it was time for CNS to suddenly care.
Sicknick's name appeared for the first time in the headline of a CNS article in a March 3 piece by Susan Jones featuring FBI Director Christopher Wray being questioned by Republican senators about Sicknick's death, with Sen. Chuck Grassley citing "conflicting reports about his cause of death" and Sen. Ted Cruz also noting "conflicting reports about the circumstances of his death"; Wray responded that the investigation was ongoing. This was followed on March 5 with a column by Pat Buchanan, who wrote: "Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick died of a stroke the next day. Media reports that he had been hit with a fire extinguisher proved false. In the two months since Jan. 6, no one has been charged in his death."
Sicknick got another passing mention in an April 6 article by the mysterioius "A. Kim" about a Ben Shapiro radio rant. Then, on April 20, the results of Sicknick's autopsy was released, and Sicknick's name appeared in a CNS headlione for the second time, in an article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman pushing the result that it was "natural":
Contrary to the Jan. 8 U.S. Justice Department claim that Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick died because of "the injuries he suffered defending the U.S. Capitol, against the violent mob who stormed it on January 6th," the D.C. chief medical examiner, Dr. Francisco Diaz, announced today that Sicknick's cause of death was "natural."
[...]
In layman's terms, Officer Sicknick died from strokes on Jan. 7.
[...]
Back on Jan. 7, 2021, one day after Sicknick died, the Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen told the public in a statement, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and fellow officers of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who succumbed last night to the injuries he suffered defending the U.S. Capitol, against the violent mob who stormed it on January 6th. The FBI and Metropolitan Police Department will jointly investigate the case and the Department of Justice will spare no resources in investigating and holding accountable those responsible.”
Chapman unsurprisingly omitted a couple things: 1) the original account of Sicknick's death came from a Justice Department that was still under control of then-President Trump, and 2) the medical examiner also said that "all that transpired" at the Capitol riot "played a role in his condition." That can be interpreted as meaning that while no single incident from the riot directly caused Sicknick's death, the riot did contribute.
Nevertheless, an article by Jones the same day declared that the original story of Sicknick's death was a "media/Democrat narrative":
It took more than three months for the American public to learn that U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died of natural causes -- two strokes, the D.C. medical examiner disclosed in an email to media outlets.
So contrary to earlier reporting and Democrat claims, Sicknick was not killed by Trump supporters during the January 6 invasion of the U.S. Capitol.
Yet the article of impeachment against Donald Trump, dated January 13, 2021, says Trump supporters "incited by President Trump...injured and killed law enforcement personnel..."
But it's not true. And there's no explanation for why it took so long for the D.C. medical examiner to say Sicknick died of natural causes, not as the direct result of a criminal act.
Jones buried the medical examiner's statement that "all that transpired" at the Capitol riot "played a role in his condition" in the 11th paragraph of her article.
Sicknick got one more passing mention that day, in an anonymously written article huffing that "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) is calling again for a federal commission to be created to analyze and report on what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6."
Chapman followed up on April 23 with an article featuring a Republican senator questioning Capitol Police about "why its office claimed in a Jan. 7 press release that Officer Brian Sicknick died 'due to injuries sustained while on-duty' -- during the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol -- when the D.C. Medical Examiner announced on April 19 that Sicknick died of 'natural causes.'" The answer, of course, is in the question -- there was no reason not to believe on Jan. 7 that Sicknick died of injuries sustained in the riot, and the autopsy didn't come out until three months later. Again, Chapman failed to mention that the medical examiner also noted that "all that transpired" at the Capitol riot "played a role in [Sicknick's] condition."
This is how in thrall to Trump CNS is -- it refused to exploit the death of a law enfoircement officer in order to protect him.
UPDATE: CNS also published an April 8 article by "A. Kim" bashing the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in D.C.; Kim apparently "specifically asked the OCME if it knows what caused Sicknick’s death," only to be accuratley told the case was still under investigation. Kim immediately went conspiratorial: "Thus, more than two months after Sickick’s body was cremated and buried, the OCME cannot—or will not—state the cause of his death." Kim's article was deleted without explanation at some point after its publication; the link to the story on the website states that it can't be found. But the internet is forever, and so is the Internet Archive.
