Metropolitan Police Officer makes a plea to the insurgents.
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I think any realtor I ever need should be grounded in REALITY first.
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This is why investigations are good; when done properly, they don’t just expose the corrupt, they also exonerate the innocent, like Lt. Tarik Khalid Johnson, who donned a MAGA hat to cleverly rescue 16 trapped officers during the insurrection.
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From someone who knows warfare quoting another one who knows civil strife.
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The F.B.I. is investigating 37 people related to the killing of Officer Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who died after being injured during the pro-Trump riot on Jan. 6, according to an F.B.I. memo sent to the private sector and others on Friday. The Times obtained a copy of the report.
Mr. Sicknick was struck with a fire extinguisher as a violent mob flooded the halls of Congress, according to two law enforcement officials. Lawmakers hid under their desks from violent protesters after President Trump encouraged them during a rally to head to the Capitol. Mr. Sicknick died in the hospital where he was getting treatment for his injuries.
Fourteen other Capitol Police officers were injured in the mob last week, the memo said.
Law enforcement officials are bracing for more unrest in the days leading up to the inauguration.
Since the Jan. 6 siege, intelligence officials have seen Chinese, Iranian and Russian efforts to fan the violent rhetoric, according to a joint threat assessment dated Thursday. The amplification is consistent with previous efforts to take advantage of divisive Republican rhetoric, such as the Russian efforts to amplify disinformation spread by Mr. Trump during the campaign about the security of mail-in voting.
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Posting the lead up to the Jan 6th Insurrection from Billmoyers.com and several days after. It is worth a read through. (He has been a PBS commentator and has writers who review events that have happened that impact our Democracy.)
Every minute a damning new fact emerges, and the case against Donald Trump gets stronger. That will continue. Meanwhile, we’ve added a few new bombshell items to the BillMoyers.com Insurrection Timeline. The new items appear with an asterisk (*).
The Department of Defense’s January 8, 2021 initial press release purports to “memorialize the planning and execution timeline” of the deadly insurrection that it calls the “January 6, 2021 First Amendment Protests in Washington, DC .”
[Late in the afternoon on January 11, 2021, the Defense Department changed the title of its January 8 memorandum and reissued it “to more appropriately reflect the characterization of the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.” The retitled summary is the “January 6, 2021 Violent Attack at the U.S. Capitol.”]
The memo’s minute-by-minute account creates a false illusion of transparency. In truth, its most noteworthy aspects are the omission of Trump’s central role in the insurrection and the effort to shift blame away from Trump and his new Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.
Who is Christopher Miller?
By November 9, every news organization declared that former Vice President Joe Biden had won the election. On that day, Trump fired Acting Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and replaced him with Miller, an Army retiree who worked for a defense contractor until Trump tapped him as his assistant in 2018. Miller’s promotion began a departmental regime change that embedded three fierce Trump loyalists as top Defense Department officials: Kash Patel (former aide to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)), retired army Gen. Anthony Tata (pro-Trump Fox News pundit), and Ezra Cohen-Watnick (former assistant to Trump’s first national security adviser, Mike Flynn).
At such a late date in Trump’s presidency, many asked, why the shake-up at the Department of Defense? We may be learning the answer.
Prior to the Attack
The department’s January 8, 2021 memo ignores Trump’s central role in igniting and then encouraging the January 6 insurrection. In fact, the only reference to Trump appears in a January 3 entry when Miller and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Milley meet with him and he concurs in activation of the DC National Guard “to support law enforcement.”
Other than that, Trump is conspicuously absent, along with the most important parts of the story. In the date and time entries that follow, only those in italics and preceded with “(DoD Memo)” summarize items from the Defense Department’s January 8 memorandum. The memo ignores every other fact set forth in this post.
Dec. 19, 2020: Trump tweets: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
Jan. 3, 2021: Replying to a tweet from one of the rally organizers, Trump tweets: “I will be there. Historic day.”
Jan. 4: The National Park Service increases the crowd estimate on the January 6 rally permit to 30,000 – up from the original 5,000 in December.
*Jan. 5: Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) receives a call from White House Political Director Brian Jack asking him to speak at the “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6. Brooks agrees.
January 6, 2021
8:17 a.m.: Trump tweets: “States want to correct their votes, which they now know were based on irregularities and fraud, plus corrupt process never received legislative approval. All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!”
Noon: Trump begins to address the mob and continues speaking for more than an hour.
“We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”
“We won this election, and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election.”
“I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so, because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election… All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president, and you are the happiest people.”
1:00 p.m.: While Trump continues his rant to the mob, some members of Trump’s crowd have already reached the US Capitol building where Congress assembles in joint session to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. An initial wave of protesters storms the outer barricade west of the Capitol building. As the congressional proceedings begin, Pence reads a letter saying that he won’t intervene in Congress’s electoral count: “My oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority.”
1:11 p.m.: Trump ends his speech by urging his followers to march down Pennsylvania Avenue: “We fight like hell. If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore… Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun… We’re going to the Capitol. We’re going to try and give them [Republicans] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
The Attack
If the District of Columbia were a state, its governor alone could have deployed the National Guard to crush the riot. Instead, Trump and his Defense Department had that responsibility, and an unprecedent assault on a sacred institution of government succeeded, if only for a few hours.
(DoD Memo) 1:26 p.m.: The Capitol Police orders the evacuation of the Capitol complex.
1:30 p.m.: The crowd outside the building grows larger, eventually overtaking the Capitol Police and making its way up the Capitol steps. Suspicious packages – later confirmed to be pipe bombs – are found at Republican National Committee headquarters and Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington.
(DoD Memo) 1:34 p.m.: DC Mayor Muriel Bowser asks Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy – who reports to Miller – for more federal help to deal with the mob.
Bowser is told that the request must first come from the Capitol Police.
(DoD Memo) 1:49 p.m.: The Capitol Police chief asks the commanding general of the DC National Guard for immediate assistance.
*Also at 1:49 p.m.: Trump retweets a video of the rally, which includes his previous statements that: “our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all about. To use a favorite term that all of you came up with, we will stop the steal. . . You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
*Shortly after 2:00 p.m.: While the senators are in a temporary holding room after the Senate chamber is evacuated, Trump tries to call Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), but mistakenly reaches Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who hands the phone to Tuberville. Trump then tries to convince Tuberville to make additional objections to the Electoral College vote in an effort to block Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. The call is cut off because senators are asked to move to a secure location.
2:15 p.m.: Trump’s mob breaches the Capitol building – breaking windows, climbing inside, and opening doors for others to follow.
(DoD Memo) 2:22 p.m.: Army Secretary McCarthy discusses the situation at the Capitol with Mayor Bowser and her staff.
They are begging for additional National Guard assistance. Note the time. It’s been almost an hour since Bowser requested help.
2:24 p.m.: Trump tweets: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
After erecting a gallows on the Capitol grounds, the mob shouts, “Hang Mike Pence.” Rioters create another noose from a camera cord seized during an attack on an on-site news team.
2:26 p.m.: Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund joins a conference call with several officials from the DC government, as well as officials from the Pentagon, including Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, director of the Army Staff. Piatt later issues a statement denying the statements attributed to him.
“I am making an urgent, urgent immediate request for National Guard assistance,” Sund says. “I have got to get boots on the ground.”
The DC contingent is flabbergasted when Piatt says that he could not recommend that his boss, Army Secretary McCarthy, approve the request. “I don’t like the visual of the National Guard standing a police line with the Capitol in the background,” Piatt says. Again and again, Sund says that the situation is dire.
(Memo) 2:30 p.m.: Miller, Army Secretary McCarthy, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff meet to discuss Mayor Bowser’s request.
(Memo) 3:04 p.m.: Miller gives “verbal approval” to full mobilization of the DC National Guard (1,100 members).
It has now been more than 90 minutes since Mayor Bowser first asked Army Secretary McCarthy for assistance. It took an hour for Defense Department officials to meet and another half-hour for them to decide to help. And Bowser still doesn’t know the status of her request.
(Memo) 3:19 p.m.: Pelosi and Schumer call Army Secretary McCarthy, who says that Bowser’s request has now been approved.
(Memo) 3:26 p.m.: Army Secretary McCarthy calls Bowser to tell her that her request for help has been approved.
The Defense Department’s notification of approval to Bowser came two hours after her request.
While Miller and his team were slow-walking Mayor Bowser’s request, she had sought National Guard assistance from Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan ®. At about the same time, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called Northam directly for help and he agreed.
3:29 p.m.: Gov. Northam announces mobilization of Virginia’s National Guard. But there’s a hitch. Federal law requires Defense Department authorization before any state’s National Guard can cross the state border onto federal land in DC. That approval doesn’t come until almost two hours later.
(Memo) 3:47 p.m. Governor Hogan mobilizes his state’s National Guard and 200 state troopers .
The Defense Department “repeatedly denies” Hogan’s request to deploy the National Guard at the Capitol. As he awaits approval, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) calls Hogan from the undisclosed bunker to which he, Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) have been evacuated. Hoyer pleads for assistance, saying that the Capitol Police is overwhelmed and there is no federal law enforcement presence.
4:17 p.m.: Trump tweets a video telling rioters, “I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side… It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us — from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil.”
(Memo) 4:18 p.m.: Miller gives voice approval to notifying surrounding states to muster and be prepared to mobilize their National Guard personnel.
(Memo) 4:32 p.m.: Miller gives verbal authorization to “re-mission” DC National Guard from city posts where most have been directing traffic and monitoring subway stations “to conduct perimeter and clearance operations” in support of the Capitol Police force.
4:40 p.m.: More than 90 minutes after Governor Hogan had requested federal approval to send his state’s National Guard troops to DC, Army Secretary McCarthy calls and asks, “Can you come as soon as possible?” Hogan responds, “Yeah. We’ve been waiting. We’re ready.”
5:40 p.m.: The first DC National Guard personnel arrive at the Capitol.
(Memo) 5:45 p.m.: Miller signs formal authorization for out-of-state National Guard personnel to muster and gives voice approval for deployment to support the Capitol Police.
The first Maryland National Guard personnel don’t arrive at the Capitol until January 7 at 10:00 a.m. The first Virginia National Guard members arrive at Noon.
6:01 p.m.: Trump tweets: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
*7:00 p.m.: Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, intends to call Sen. Tuberville but, like Trump five hours earlier, he reaches Sen. Lee. Unaware that he has reached the wrong number, Giuliani leaves a voicemail message saying, “Sen. Tuberville? Or I should say Coach Tuberville. This is Rudy Giuliani, the President’s lawyer. I’m calling you because I want to discuss with you how they’re trying to rush this hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends, to try to just slow it down so we can get these legislatures to get more information to you. I know they’re reconvening at 8 tonight, but it … the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow — ideally until the end of tomorrow.”
When Congress resumes the session at 8:06 p.m., Tuberville votes in favor of objections to certifying Biden’s election.
(Memo) 8:00 p.m.: The DC Capitol Police declare the Capitol building secure.
The Aftermath of the Attack
8:31 p.m.: After widespread media reports that Pence, not Trump, had actually given the order to deploy the National Guard, Kash Patel – Miller’s chief of staff and former top aide to Rep. Nunes – tells the New York Times, “The acting secretary and the president have spoken multiple times this week about the request for National Guard personnel in D.C. During these conversations, the president conveyed to the acting secretary that he should take any necessary steps to support civilian law enforcement requests in securing the Capitol and federal buildings.”
But according to the Defense Department’s January 8 memo, the only such conversation with Trump occurred on January 3.
Jan. 7: Trump releases a video in which he lies, saying, “I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.” Defense Department officials confirm that they did not speak to Trump on January 6.
Jan. 8: Trump tweets: “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
Shortly thereafter, he tweets again: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
Jan. 9: Twitter issues a statement saying that it has banned Trump because his “statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate… and encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a ‘safe’ target, as he will not be attending.”
Twitter’s statement continues, “The use of the words ‘American Patriots’ to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol. The mention of his supporters having a ‘GIANT VOICE long into the future’ and that ‘They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!’ is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an ‘orderly transition’ and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election.”
The statement concludes: “Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”
*Jan. 12: Preparing to board Marine One for Andrews Air Force Base en route to a speech in Alamo, Texas, Trump says, “And on the impeachment, it’s really a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics. It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely ridiculous. This impeachment is causing tremendous anger, and you’re doing it, and it’s really a terrible thing that they’re doing. For Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to continue on this path, I think it’s causing tremendous danger to our country and it’s causing tremendous anger.”
*Also on Jan. 12: As he prepares to board Air Force One, Trump says, “So if you read my speech — and many people have done it, and I’ve seen it both in the papers and in the media, on television — it’s been analyzed, and people thought that what I said was totally appropriate.
And if you look at what other people have said — politicians at a high level — about the riots during the summer, the horrible riots in Portland and Seattle, in various other — other places, that was a real problem — what they said. But they’ve analyzed my speech and words and my final paragraph, my final sentence, and everybody, to the T, thought it was totally appropriate.”
*Also on Jan. 12: Speaking to his Texas audience, Trump says, “Before we begin, I’d like to say that free speech is under assault like never before. The 25th Amendment is of zero risk to me but will come back to haunt Joe Biden and the Biden administration. As the expression goes: Be careful what you wish for. The impeachment hoax is a continuation of the greatest and most vicious witch hunt in the history of our country, and it is causing tremendous anger and division and pain — far greater than most people will ever understand, which is very dangerous for the USA, especially at this very tender time.”
*Also on Jan. 12: The House Judiciary Committee issues a 76-page report of the events before, during and after the January riot that culminated in the deaths of five Americans, including a US Capitol Police officer. It concludes, “President Trump has falsely asserted he won the 2020 presidential election and repeatedly sought to overturn the results of the election. As his efforts failed again and again, President Trump continued a parallel course of conduct that foreseeably resulted in the imminent lawless actions of his supporters, who attacked the Capitol and the Congress. This course of conduct, viewed within the context of his past actions and other attempts to subvert the presidential election, demonstrate that President Trump remains a clear and present danger to the Constitution and our democracy.”
*Jan. 13: As the article of impeachment and House Report head to the House floor for a vote, CNN reports that members of Congress, under pressure from Trump, are “scared” and “fear for their lives and their families.” Appearing on MSNBC, Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) says, “I had a lot of conversations with my Republican colleagues. … A couple of them broke down in tears … saying that they are afraid for their lives if they vote for this impeachment.”
The fight to save American democracy is now down to a single defining question:
Which side are you on?
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Some Wapo photographers got images of notes which were in the hands of The Pillow Guy
regarding what he hopes to do.
Kash Patel is one of Nunes allies. Dumb and dumber.
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Georgia officials are likely to press charges against Trump.
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The Capitol Police knew that the insurgency was coming. They knew.
Three days before thousands of rioters converged on the U.S. Capitol, an internal Capitol Police intelligence report warned of a violent scenario in which “Congress itself” could be the target of angry supporters of President Trump on Jan. 6, laying out a stark alert that deepens questions about the security failures that day.
In a 12-page report on Jan. 3, the intelligence unit of the congressional police force described how thousands of enraged protesters, egged on by Trump and flanked by white supremacists and extreme militia groups, were likely to stream into Washington armed for battle.
This time, the focus of their ire would be members of Congress, the report said.
“Supporters of the current president see January 6, 2021, as the last opportunity to overturn the results of the presidential election,” according to the memo, portions of which were obtained by The Washington Post. “This sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent. Unlike previous post-election protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counter-protesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th.”
The internal report — which does not appear to have been shared widely with other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI — was among a number of flags that security experts say should have alerted officials to the high security risks on Jan. 6.
A day before the attack, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit warning that some extremists were preparing to travel to Washington and threatening to commit violence and “war.” And dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in D.C. the day of the riot, including many suspected white supremacists, as The Post previously reported.
On Friday, the inspectors general of four federal agencies announced that they will investigate how security officials prepared for and responded to the pro-Trump rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol.
Two people familiar with the Capitol Police intelligence memo, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe security preparations, said the report was conveyed to all Capitol Police command staff by the intelligence unit’s director, Jack Donohue. Another law enforcement official said the report prompted the Capitol Police chief to seek the emergency activation of the National Guard and led the department to place its perimeter barricades farther from the Capitol than during past events.
Capitol Police spokeswoman Eva Malecki declined to comment on the intelligence report’s contents or how it was used to plan security for the protests that day.
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It is possible that McConnell has the votes for impeachment.
Can McConnell get the votes?
Surprisingly, getting the votes might not be that difficult. Because Trump simply rages uncontrollably — without thought or foresight — at the slightest criticism or disagreement, he has managed to alienate plenty of Republican senators, most of whom have been winning elections in their home states long before Trump barged onto the scene — and often with much greater margins. Add to that the staggered terms in the Senate, as opposed to the House, and that several senators may be in their last term with nothing to lose, and you have a toxic stew of animus about to be served up to Trump.
Remove all the Republicans who are up for reelection in 2022 and all those who voted to challenge the Electoral College votes of either Arizona or Pennsylvania and you have 24 potential conviction votes.
Assuming Manchin votes no, we start at 49 votes to convict.
Start with the senators who are retiring or likely in their last term: McConnell, Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), which brings the conviction total to 53 votes. This group has nothing to lose and has served in the Senate for several terms. Toomey has already signaled his dismay with Trump.
Then there’s the enemies list: John Thune (R-S.D.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), which raises the conviction vote to 58. Trump has threatened these senators, often repeatedly. They also have little to lose and have already staked out ground against Trump. Thune and Murkowski are up in 2022, but probably don’t care at this point.
Consider the friends of Thune: John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) — senators from the Dakotas and Wyoming — all have common interests and have won with big margins in small states where people have personal relationships with them. Trump is not much of a threat. They would bring the conviction vote to 62.
Then there’s “Friends of Pence”: primarily James Inhofe (R-Okla.), raising the vote to 63. This list could be — and probably is — much larger. The way Trump dumped Mike Pence and left him to run from the mob infuriated Pence’s allies. Inhofe went public with his disgust.
That total — 63 — leaves McConnell a few votes short, but also with a lot of opportunities.
Senators not in their first term who are not up for reelection until 2026 include Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), James Risch (R-Idaho), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). Two others aren’t up until 2024. That’s a pretty deep pool from which to fish four more votes. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) might vote to convict out of principle — even though he faces voters in 2022.
Trump has only himself to blame. Yet again he is in a mess of his own making.
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Innocent people don’t tend to issue preemptive denials, particularly when they haven’t even been named yet as a suspect.
As Democrats push for probe of GOP ties to riots, Rep. Lauren Boebert denies involvement, says she’s getting ‘death threats’
‘This is illegal’: Obama official slams White House for looting artwork
Jim Acosta fears Trump aides are looting the White House: ‘Not souvenirs you can take home’
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Pentagon Confirms Military Will Not Hold Traditional Farewell Ceremony for Trump
'We got to hold this door’
How battered D.C. police made a stand against the Capitol mob
‘Done with this guy’: Trump’s Capitol riot set off a war among Breitbart staffers over support for president
‘Destroy Trump’: Breitbart Staffers Seethe After Capitol Riot
“This is banana republic shit,” wrote one editor at the staunchly pro-Trump outlet, in response to colleagues downplaying or excusing the violence during last week’s MAGA mob.
Trump’s Pentagon chief stuns reporters with ‘incoherent briefing’ in which he declares ‘I cannot wait to leave’
Transcript:
It is militia vs QAnon as Trump’s extremist base splinters ahead of Biden’s inauguration: report
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Enemies coming into the Capital area - or attempts to invade. This thug was stopped by inauguration security with 500 rounds of Ammo. WOW
Virginia man arrested at inauguration security checkpoint in possession of gun, 500 rounds ammo and unauthorized credential, police say
A Virginia man has been arrested after law enforcement found at least one firearm and more than 500 rounds of ammunition in his truck as he tried to enter an inauguration security checkpoint near the Capitol on Friday evening with a credential that was not authorized, according to court documents.
Wesley Allen Beeler, 31, of Front Royal, drove his Ford F-150 up to a checkpoint on E Street Northeast of the Capitol, where he was met by Capitol Police officers, according to the court documents.
Beeler is facing charges stemming from unlawful possession of weapons and ammunition.
His mother Charlotte Beeler said she was shocked to hear her son had been arrested because he told her he was helping secure downtown Washington. His family said he works in private security.
“I don’t believe that,” she said, when she heard the charges.
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‘We got to hold this door’
How battered D.C. police made a stand against the Capitol mob
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Review of events during the Insurrection/Mob raid on Capitol Hill on Jan 6th done by Washington Post. One of the links has a 14 minute film tracing their steps and where the lawmakers were located.
What a close call for the lawmakers…what a Mob can do uncontrolled. Ultimately, all politicians were protected, but offices were ransacked and all felt unsafe.
At 2:12 p.m. on Jan. 6, supporters of President Trump began climbing through a window they had smashed on the northwest side of the U.S. Capitol. “Go! Go! Go!” someone shouted as the rioters, some in military gear, streamed in.
It was the start of the most serious attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812. The mob coursed through the building, enraged that Congress was preparing to make Trump’s electoral defeat official. “Drag them out! … Hang them out!” rioters yelled at one point, as they gathered near the House chamber.
Officials in the House and Senate secured the doors of their respective chambers, but lawmakers were soon forced to retreat to undisclosed locations. Five people died on the grounds that day, including a Capitol police officer. In all, more than 50 officers were injured.
To reconstruct the pandemonium inside the Capitol for the video above, The Washington Post examined text messages, photos and hundreds of videos, some of which were exclusively obtained. By synchronizing the footage and locating some of the camera angles within a digital 3-D model of the building, The Post was able to map the rioters’ movements and assess how close they came to lawmakers — in some cases feet apart or separated only by a handful of vastly outnumbered police officers.
The Post used a facial-recognition algorithm that differentiates individual faces — it does not identify people — to estimate that at least 300 rioters were present in footage taken inside the Capitol while police were struggling to evacuate lawmakers. The actual number of rioters is probably greater, since the footage analyzed by The Post did not capture everyone in the building.
After breaking in on the Senate side of the Capitol, rioters began moving from the ground floor up one level to the chamber itself. Vice President Pence, who had been presiding, was moved to a nearby office at 2:13 p.m. The mob passed by about one minute later.
On the other side of the building, the House briefly recessed and then resumed business in its chamber on the second floor, even as rioters stormed into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s suite of offices, The Post found. “They’re pounding the doors trying to find her,” one Pelosi staffer said to another, a comment captured on an audio recording at 2:28 p.m.
At approximately 2:40 p.m., a group of lawmakers left the House floor via the Speaker’s Lobby, an adjacent corridor featuring portraits of past leaders of the House. The lawmakers came within sight of an angry mob. The two groups were separated by several police officers and a barricaded glass-paneled door that the rioters were attempting to smash.
“Break it down! Break it down!” rioters chanted, as lawmakers filed out.
Two minutes after the last of the lawmakers had left the corridor, Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was shot dead by a Capitol Police officer as she began to climb through a broken section of the door.
In the gallery overlooking the chamber, some lawmakers had yet to be evacuated when Babbitt was shot. “I heard the gunshot, a lot of screaming,” recalled Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), who was in the gallery.
By 2:53 p.m., 41 minutes after rioters entered the building through the smashed window, the last member of the last large group of House members to leave had been evacuated and was and headed for a secure location.
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This is what Mike Lindell “The Pillow Guy” was doing at the WH, and then promoting a Military Coup. From conservative publication, The Bulwark.
Following his meeting with President Trump on Friday, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said in a Facebook interview with Right Side Broadcasting News today that he’s praying that the military presence in Washington is part of Trump’s plan to retain power.
In Lindell’s interview—which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views on Facebook in just a few hours—he recounts the details of his meeting with the president and rattles off a series of unintelligible conspiracies in a Minnesota lilt.
“You know I’ve been looking down every hole for election fraud since November 4th and about eight or nine days ago this proof came out. One-hundred percent footprints from the machines of the machine fraud,” Lindell said. “I wanted to get it to the president. This is it. This shows that Joe Biden lost: 79 million for Donald Trump and 68 million for Joe Biden.”
When asked about the president’s reaction to this Lindell replied, “I said I talked to the guy. This is real. I said it’s got the IP address of the computer that it came out of. It also has the latitude and longitude like over in China this went over there came back and it shows the number of votes flipped. And he was very intrigued looking at it. . . . He goes, yeah like we all knew that right.”
Lindell said that the notes which included the words “insurrection act” and “martial law” were just part of a menu of legal options that was presented to the president. He said that the menu item that most intrigued Trump was the suggestion that he could order Facebook and Twitter and Google to reinstate all of the banned accounts.
After sharing this “proof” of fraud and the legal options Lindell said that the president asked the nation’s national security advisor Robert O’Brien to take him upstairs and share this information with the lawyers.
Lindell said he left the White House deeply deflated by the lawyers’ nonplussed reaction to his blockbuster “evidence” and O’Brien’s objection to the notion that Trump has the power to unban all social media accounts unilaterally. He was further distressed by the “piranhas”in the press corps who were criticizing the meeting.
The National Security Advisor meeting with a crack addict turned bed cushion magnate who sponsors a far right extremist media empire a week after a domestic terror attack on the U.S. Capitol is concerning in its own right.
But in the interview Lindell went further to specifically call for military intervention to keep Trump in power.
When the Right Side Broadcasting News interviewer suggested that “people are hoping that this military presence is a response” to the election fraud, Lindell replied, “that’s where my hope lies.”
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@dragonfly9 A followup to the Mike Lindell story:
Even the Guy the MyPillow CEO Wanted to Enlist for a Coup Is Confused
My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell entered the West Wing of the White House on Friday bearing what appeared to be plans for something resembling a coup ahead of his meeting with President Trump. An eagle-eyed Twitter user enhanced a photo of a piece of paper in the right hand of the mustachioed mattress topper mogul that included phrases such as “insurrection act now as a result of the assault” — apparently last week’s Capitol riot. It also clearly shows Kash Patel, a hardcore Trump loyalist, “as acting CIA” and references Trump’s former lawyer and noted conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell in some unknown context. In bold at the top it reads: “Frank Colon as acting National Security.” Colon is described as an attorney with “cyber … expertise” associated with “Fort Mead[e],” where U.S. Cyber Command is headquartered.
Intelligencer spoke with a person fitting that exact description — a cyber attorney based out of Fort Meade — who expressed confusion on Friday afternoon at apparent plans for him to be involved in a coup. This Frank Colon described himself as “just a government employee who does work for the Army.” He seemed befuddled why he would floated to the president in any senior role and said that he never met Lindell, although “I’ve seen him on TV.” (Lindell did not respond to a request for comment.)
Colon said “I get called into a lot of projects for the Pentagon,” including Operation Warp Speed, but that it “would be odd to reach that far down” in the Defense Department for a role like national security advisor, “but people know me in the Pentagon because there’s just not a lot of [people doing cyber law].”
A military spokesman acknowledged that Colon is a civilian lawyer assigned to the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade (Cyber) but declined to comment further.
Online, Colon appears to doubt Trump lost the presidential election. A Twitter account that shares the same user name as Colon’s LinkedIn page is rife with pro-Trump conspiracy theories. Colon has denied he is on Twitter. The account’s most recent tweet is an apparent reference to President-elect Joe Biden: “If you need the military to protect you from the people during your fraudulent inauguration the people didn’t vote for you.” The Twitter account is followed by a handful of MAGA personalities, though not Lindell. Colon may face a military investigation over his social media accounts.
Lindell told the New York Times after his meeting that the notes were given to him by “an attorney who he’s been working with to prove Trump won.” His meeting with the president was brief, however, reportedly lasting no more than five to ten minutes.
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WTFery.
Yes, a move to plant into the NSA as General Counsel, lawyer, Michael Ellis, who was Nunes ally is a peculiar event. There is resistance at NSA. And why? Why on a Saturday night does he need to be assigned to this position. Orders coming from WH.
Everyone is on alert as to WTF T is doing…
He’s a political plant…that’s why.
Maybe NSA will say “No Dice.” He needs to take a polygraph test, pal.
Acting defense secretary Christopher C. Miller ordered the director of the National Security Agency to install on Saturday a former GOP political operative as the NSA’s top lawyer, according to four individuals familiar with the matter.
It is unclear what the NSA will do. The agency and the Pentagon declined to comment.
In November, Pentagon General Counsel Paul C. Ney Jr. named Michael Ellis, then a White House official, to the position of general counsel at the NSA, a career civilian post at the government’s largest and most technologically advanced spy agency, The Post reported. He was selected after a competitive civil service competition. He has not taken up the job, however, as he needed to complete administrative procedures, including taking a polygraph test.
Reached by phone Saturday, Ellis said, “I don’t talk to the press, thank you,” and hung up.
Miller gave NSA Director Paul Nakasone until 6 p.m. Saturday to install Ellis in the job, according to several people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. The 6 p.m. deadline passed without Nakasone taking action. It was unclear Saturday evening what the Pentagon’s next move would be.
Nakasone was not in favor of Ellis’s selection and has sought to delay his installation, according to several people.
Adding…
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