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A sharp rebuke of Senator Ted Cruz by the Fox News host Tucker Carlson has heightened a legal and semantic debate over a charged term.
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WASHINGTON — After a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol last year, many Democrats and Republicans alike denounced the riot using terms like “terrorism.” But many Republicans later backed away from such condemnations as they sought to realign themselves with former President Donald J. Trump.
The highest-profile example yet came on Thursday, when the Fox News host Tucker Carlson accused Senator Ted Cruz of purposefully lying because he had continued to call the events of Jan. 6 a terrorist attack, including at a Senate hearing this week.
Mr. Cruz, Republican of Texas, apologized, calling his phrasing “frankly dumb” and saying that he was referring only to those rioters who assaulted the police. Mr. Carlson, who has insinuated that Jan. 6 may have been a plot to justify a “purge” of Trump-supporting “patriots,” rejected Mr. Cruz’s explanation, citing his consistent use of that term over the past year to describe the Capitol attack.
Here is a closer look at the charged debate over the use of the word.
Essentially, it is politically motivated violence.
Denouncing Mr. Cruz, Mr. Carlson declared that “by no definition” was Jan. 6 “a terror attack.” But Congress has enacted a statute that defines domestic terrorism as criminal offenses that are dangerous to human life, lack a foreign nexus and appear to be seeking “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.”
According to that definition, some of the events of Jan. 6 “were acts of domestic terrorism, and that’s accurate regardless of whether it applies to each individual,” said Mary McCord, who served as a senior Justice Department national security official in the Obama administration and into the early Trump era.
She added, “We are talking about acts that were dangerous to human life and that were in violation of criminal laws, and they were certainly done to influence government policy because they were trying to prevent the counting of Electoral College votes.”
No. More than 700 people have been charged to date in connection with the Capitol attack, and they are accused of a spectrum of crimes. Just as only some have been charged with conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding, only some have been charged with violent offenses like assaulting police officers and destroying government property. Others have been charged only with nonviolent crimes, such as illegally entering a restricted building.
Mr. Cruz told Mr. Carlson that at the Senate hearing this week, he was not saying that “the thousands of peaceful protesters supporting Donald Trump are somehow terrorists.” Rather, he contended, he was merely using that term for people who attacked police officers — an explanation that Mr. Carlson, who agreed that such people should go to prison but maintained that they were not terrorists either, rejected.
On many occasions, Mr. Cruz has broadly called the assault on the Capitol an “act of terrorism” without specifically limiting his words to police assailants. In an interview a day after the riot, for example, he described the “terrorist attack” as “a traumatic experience for everyone in the building and everyone across the country,” and he referred to a rioter who “broke into the Senate chamber” and “did damage” as a “terrorist.”
No. Mr. Carlson asked Mr. Cruz, “How many people have been charged with terrorism on Jan. 6?” The answer is zero — but that fact is deeply misleading.
Congress — despite establishing a legal definition for “domestic terrorism” — has not created any stand-alone federal crime called that. As a result, it is not possible for prosecutors to charge any of the Jan. 6 rioters “with terrorism” regardless of whether they committed terrorist acts.
Yes. Dozens of defendants are facing charges that will give prosecutors the opportunity to ask for longer sentences by invoking the context of domestic terrorism. It is not yet clear how harsh prosecutors and judges will be when it comes time to sentence uncooperative defendants who insist on going to trial and then get convicted, rather than striking plea deals.
The House investigation. A select committee is scrutinizing the causes of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, which occurred as Congress met to formalize Joe Biden’s election victory amid various efforts to overturn the results. Here are some people being examined by the panel:
Donald Trump. The former president’s movement and communications on Jan. 6 appear to be a focus of the inquiry. But Mr. Trump has attempted to shield his records, invoking executive privilege. The dispute is making its way through the courts.
Mike Pence. The former vice president could be a key witness as the committee focuses on Mr. Trump’s responsibility for the riot and considers criminal referrals, but Mr. Pence reportedly has not decided whether to cooperate.
Mark Meadows. Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, who initially provided the panel with a trove of documents that showed the extent of his role in the efforts to overturn the election, is now refusing to cooperate. The House voted to recommend holding Mr. Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress.
Scott Perry and Jim Jordan. The Republican representatives of Pennsylvania and Ohio are among a group of G.O.P. congressmen who were deeply involved in efforts to overturn the election. Both Mr. Perry and Mr. Jordan have refused to cooperate with the panel.
Fox News anchors. Texts between Sean Hannity and Trump officials in the days surrounding the riot illustrate the host’s unusually elevated role as an outside adviser. Mr. Hannity, along with Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade, also texted Mr. Meadows as the riot unfolded.
Steve Bannon. The former Trump aide has been charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena, claiming protection under executive privilege even though he was an outside adviser. His trial is scheduled for next summer.
Michael Flynn. Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser attended an Oval Office meeting on Dec. 18 in which participants discussed seizing voting machines and invoking certain national security emergency powers. Mr. Flynn has filed a lawsuit to block the panel’s subpoenas.
Phil Waldron. The retired Army colonel has been under scrutiny since a 38-page PowerPoint document he circulated on Capitol Hill was turned over to the panel by Mr. Meadows. The document contained extreme plans to overturn the election.
Jeffrey Clark. The little-known official repeatedly pushed his colleagues at the Justice Department to help Mr. Trump undo his loss. The panel has recommended that Mr. Clark be held in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate.
John Eastman. The lawyer has been the subject of intense scrutiny since writing a memo that laid out how Mr. Trump could stay in power. Mr. Eastman was present at a meeting of Trump allies at the Willard Hotel that has become a prime focus of the panel.
In one statute, for example, Congress deemed about four dozen offenses as eligible to count as a “federal crime of terrorism” if the acts were “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.” Under sentencing guidelines, such a conviction can result in a much longer prison term.
The list includes destruction of government property, a charge that 44 defendants are facing so far, according to the Justice Department’s tally of the Jan. 6 cases. The list also includes a “weapon of mass destruction” charge that may be brought if the F.B.I. finds whoever put pipe bombs outside the Capitol Hill headquarters of both major political parties the night before the riot.
In addition, two defendants so far have been charged with making false statements. Under a separate law, prosecutors can ask for a sentence of up to eight years, rather than the normal five, if such lies involve domestic terrorism.
Because nobody likes terrorists. And as a matter of ordinary speech, as opposed to legal definitions, drawing the line between “terrorism” and less pejorative terms for politically motivated violence can be notoriously subjective.
“Why did you use that word?” Mr. Carlson asked Mr. Cruz.
He accused the senator of playing into a characterization by “the other side” seeking to smear the “entire population” of Trump supporters as “foreign combatants,” likening it to labels like “insurrection” and “coup.”
Notably, during the nationwide protests after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020, Mr. Carlson called on the Justice Department to charge “every single person caught on camera torching a building, destroying a monument, defacing a church” with terrorism.
“Call them what they actually are — domestic terrorists,” he said, adding: “That would be their new government-approved title. Once they’re charged, it’s official. In fact, they are literally, as a factual matter, accused terrorists. And that would change minds right away.”
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