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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Online extremists are ignoring Trump’s call for calm
Many are taking their cues from the fact that the president still has not conceded.
President Donald Trump has instructed his followers to not engage in political violence following the deadly riots on the Capitol on Jan 6. But the video in which he made the plea has barely made a dent in the groundswell of extremism that was seen last week and has proliferated online since.
A vast swath of the president’s diehard base in MAGA Nation — the conspiracy theorists, the militia members, and the followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory — has disregarded Trump’s Wednesday remarks. Instead, they are dissecting his phrases and using those cues as rallying cries, doubling down on their plans to keep the MAGA movement going after Trump leaves the White House.
The absence of a formal Trump concession to President-elect Joe Biden has emboldened their chatter and bolstered their ideology. So, too, has the clamp-down by social media platforms on MAGA extremist content — Trump’s own posts included — which has given white nationalist and unapologetically fascist groups openings to recruit Trump fans to their cause.
They’ve claimed that elite forces have started purging conservatives from the internet. They’ve argued that the riots were actually false flag operations. Within the QAnon community, they’ve gone so far as to suggest that the upcoming inauguration will be a cover for Trump to announce the long-elusive mass arrests of government bureaucrat pedophiles.
The president’s pleas against violence may have bought him some goodwill politically, as he faces a Senate trial following his second impeachment. But the fact that it’s fallen on deaf ears among his followers illustrates the degree to which that community has fundamentally rejected the reality that the country will soon enter a post-Trump era.
“Despite Trump’s speech yesterday we are still seeing excessive use of violent rhetoric and some organization of offline activity planned for the days around the inauguration, not only in Washington, D.C., but also other cities spread across the U.S.,” said Chloe Colliver, head of the research unit at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online extremism.
“It doesn’t appear that Trump’s speech has got the message across to those online users who are interested in mobilizing towards violence or potentially dangerous activity in the days around the inauguration,” she added. “We’re seeing concerning levels of planning, promotion and organization of offline activities that might turn harmful and violent.”
At the root of these extremists’ continued fervor is a key observation: Trump still has not acknowledged that the election was legitimate and admitted his defeat to Biden. In his video on Wednesday, the president did not acknowledge he had lost the November election. And by not doing so, the outgoing president is seen as giving tacit approval to his followers’ plans to wage war against the political establishment.
In the hours after Trump’s video was released on Wednesday, Telegram channels with thousands of subscribers started to post memes claiming the president’s words were an effort to hoodwink the media and Democrats, while urging his followers to keep preparing for potential violent clashes.
Others posted videos of military personnel gathering in Washington and elsewhere as a sign that “The Storm” — a QAnon-related conspiracy involving mass executions of Trump critics — was imminent. More spread rumors that Black Lives Matter supporters had instigated the recent riots in D.C., and called on MAGA followers to head to the nation’s capital to protect the current president.
“Appeals for calm from political leaders in the U.S. do not appear to be reducing the volume or intensity of far-right propaganda,” said Adam Hadley, director of Tech Against Terrorism, a nonprofit group that tracks online terrorist content.
QAnon supporters have found quite the opposite in Trump’s words, viewing any utterance by the president as confirmation of their faith. One popular meme at the moment suggests that somehow, through some extralegal magical shenanigans, Biden will not be able to take the oath of office next week.
“These movements are currently caught in debate between members regarding next steps and what the future may hold for their groups,” said Jared Holt, a research fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab.
Some of the most extreme groups have tried to take advantage of the online confusion. In at least five channels on Telegram, the encrypted messaging service, self-proclaimed fascists outlined how best to recruit Trump supporters to their cause, according to Tech Against Terrorism and a review of the social media activity by POLITICO.
In point-by-point memos circulated within these channels — which often had thousands of members — the activists called on followers not to overtly mention Nazism, but gently nudge pro-Trump online users toward more extreme views.
Part of that strategy included highlighting how much white nationalism had in common with the Trump movement, along with claims that the mainstream conservative cause had failed them in their hour of need. As part of the tactics, the posters suggest joining mainstream conservative online groups and then contacting the administrators of those digital channels to push a hardcore fascist agenda.
“Our goal is to get them watching one of our docs,” read one of the playbooks, which had yet to garner much traction across Telegram. “This might seem odd, but it works.”
The online radicalization marks the latest in a monthslong campaign within the far right that dates back well before the November presidential election. But with days left before Trump leaves office, the most extreme messaging from far-right campaigners may not reach more mainstream conservative voters online.
Within private Facebook groups, encrypted messaging services and, in the most extreme cases, invite-only message boards off-limits to people outside the far-right movement, campaigners have spent months promoting online memes, coordinated talking points and other pro-Trump messaging that has come to dominate much of the digital conversation around the end of the Trump presidency.
Yet as the major platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube have clamped down on such content—and Parler has been booted from Amazon’s web servers—extremists have been forced to fringe networks like Telegram and Gab, limiting how far they can spread their potentially violent messaging to more mainstream conservative voters.
Claire Wardle, co-founder of FirstDraftNews, a nonprofit that works with media outlets to track online disinformation, said that such “deplatforming” of the most radical voices from the likes of Facebook and Twitter had curbed extremists’ ability to attract people to their cause.
“What they’re trying to do is all about recruitment,” she said, adding that the majority of the online audience was not following them to their obscure platforms, likely curbing their growth.
“If they are not able to reach people on traditional social media with their messages,” Wardle added, “they won’t be able to attract the golf-shirt-wearing dads or the QAnon-believing moms.”
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It is a must-watch – seizing of the interior of the Capitol
When Luke Mogelson attended President Donald Trump’s speech on the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., on January 6th, he was prepared for the possibility that violence might erupt that day. Mogelson, a veteran war correspondent and a contributing writer at The New Yorker , had spent the previous ten months reporting on the radical fringe of Trump supporters, from anti-lockdown militias to fascist groups such as the Proud Boys. After Election Day, he interviewed Trump supporters who showed up at ballot-tabulation sites, and who believed the President’s lies that the results had been “rigged” and his victory “stolen.” At one post-election pro-Trump rally in D.C., Mogelson witnessed racist violence against Black residents of the nation’s capital. At another event, he watched the host of the white-supremacist Web program “America First” declare, “Our Founding Fathers would get in the streets, and they would take this country back by force if necessary. And that is what we must be prepared to do.”
After Trump’s incendiary speech, Mogelson followed the President’s supporters as they forced their way into the U.S. Capitol, using his phone’s camera as a reporter’s notebook. What follows is a video that includes some of that raw footage. Mogelson harnessed this material while writing his panoramic, definitive report, “Among the Insurrectionists,” which the magazine posted online on Friday. (It appears in print in the January 25th issue.) His prose vividly captures how the raging anger and violence of the initial breach of the Capitol was followed by an eerily quiet and surreal interlude inside the Senate chamber, where Mogelson watched people rummaging through desks and posing for photographs. Although the footage was not originally intended for publication, it documents a historic event and serves as a visceral complement to Mogelson’s probing, illuminating report.
By the end of President Donald Trump’s crusade against American democracy—after a relentless deployment of propaganda, demagoguery, intimidation, and fearmongering aimed at persuading as many Americans as possible to repudiate their country’s foundational principles—a single word sufficed to nudge his most fanatical supporters into open insurrection. Thousands of them had assembled on the Mall, in Washington, D.C., on the morning of January 6th, to hear Trump address them from a stage outside the White House. From where I stood, at the foot of the Washington Monument, you had to strain to see his image on a jumbotron that had been set up on Constitution Avenue. His voice, however, projected clearly through powerful speakers as he rehashed the debunked allegations of massive fraud which he’d been propagating for months. Then he summarized the supposed crimes, simply, as “bullshit.”
“Bullshit! Bullshit!” the crowd chanted. It was a peculiar mixture of emotion that had become familiar at pro-Trump rallies since he lost the election: half mutinous rage, half gleeful excitement at being licensed to act on it. The profanity signalled a final jettisoning of whatever residual deference to political norms had survived the past four years. In front of me, a middle-aged man wearing a Trump flag as a cape told a young man standing beside him, “There’s gonna be a war.” His tone was resigned, as if he were at last embracing a truth that he had long resisted. “I’m ready to fight,” he said. The young man nodded. He had a thin mustache and hugged a life-size mannequin with duct tape over its eyes, “ traitor ” scrawled on its chest, and a noose around its neck.
“We want to be so nice ,” Trump said. “We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. We’re going to have to fight much harder. And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us.”
About a mile and a half away, at the east end of the Mall, Vice-President Pence and both houses of Congress had convened to certify the Electoral College votes that had made Joe Biden and Kamala Harris the next President and Vice-President of the United States. In December, a hundred and forty Republican representatives—two-thirds of the caucus—had said that they would formally object to the certification of several swing states. Fourteen Republican senators, led by Josh Hawley, of Missouri, and Ted Cruz, of Texas, had joined the effort. The lawmakers lacked the authority to overturn the election, but Trump and his allies had concocted a fantastical alternative: Pence, as the presiding officer of the Senate, could single-handedly nullify votes from states that Biden had won. Pence, though, had advised Congress that the Constitution constrained him from taking such action.
“After this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you,” Trump told the crowd. The people around me exchanged looks of astonishment and delight. “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them—because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength.”
“No weakness!” a woman cried.
Before Trump had even finished his speech, approximately eight thousand people started moving up the Mall. “We’re storming the Capitol!” some yelled.
There was an eerie sense of inexorability, the throngs of Trump supporters advancing up the long lawn as if pulled by a current. Everyone seemed to understand what was about to happen. The past nine weeks had been steadily building toward this moment. On November 7th, mere hours after Biden’s win was projected, I attended a protest at the Pennsylvania state capitol, in Harrisburg. Hundreds of Trump supporters, including heavily armed militia members, vowed to revolt. When I asked a man with an assault rifle—a “combat-skills instructor” for a militia called the Pennsylvania Three Percent—how likely he considered the prospect of civil conflict, he told me, “It’s coming.” Since then, Trump and his allies had done everything they could to spread and intensify this bitter aggrievement. On December 5th, Trump acknowledged, “I’ve probably worked harder in the last three weeks than I ever have in my life.” (He was not talking about managing the pandemic, which since the election has claimed a hundred and fifty thousand American lives.) Militant pro-Trump outfits like the Proud Boys—a national organization dedicated to “reinstating a spirit of Western chauvinism” in America—had been openly gearing up for major violence. In early January, on Parler, an unfiltered social-media site favored by conservatives, Joe Biggs, a top Proud Boys leader, had written, “Every law makers who breaks their own stupid Fucking laws should be dragged out of office and hung.”
On the Mall, a makeshift wooden gallows, with stairs and a rope, had been constructed near a statue of Ulysses S. Grant. Some of the marchers nearby carried Confederate flags. Up ahead, the dull thud of stun grenades could be heard, accompanied by bright flashes. “They need help!” a man shouted. “It’s us versus the cops!” Someone let out a rebel yell. Scattered groups wavered, debating whether to join the confrontation. “We lost the Senate—we need to make a stand now ,” a bookish-looking woman in a down coat and glasses appealed to the person next to her. The previous day, a runoff in Georgia had flipped two Republican Senate seats to the Democrats, giving them majority control.
Hundreds of Trump supporters had forced their way past barricades to the Capitol steps. In anticipation of Biden’s Inauguration, bleachers had been erected there, and the sides of the scaffolding were wrapped in ripstop tarpaulin. Officers in riot gear blocked an open flap in the fabric; the mob pressed against them, screaming insults.
“You are traitors to the country!” a man barked at the police through a megaphone plastered with stickers from “InfoWars,” the incendiary Web program hosted by the right-wing conspiracist Alex Jones. Behind the man stood Biggs, the Proud Boys leader. He wore a radio clipped onto the breast pocket of his plaid flannel shirt. Not far away, I spotted a “straight pride” flag.
There wasn’t nearly enough law enforcement to fend off the mob, which pelted the officers with cans and bottles. One man angrily invoked the pandemic lockdown: “Why can’t I work? Where’s my ‘pursuit of happiness’?” Many people were equipped with flak jackets, helmets, gas masks, and tactical apparel. Guns were prohibited for the protest, but a man in a cowboy hat, posing for a photograph, lifted his jacket to reveal a revolver tucked into his waistband. Other Trump supporters had Tasers, baseball bats, and truncheons. I saw one man holding a coiled noose.
“Hang Mike Pence!” people yelled.
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FBI investigating whether woman stole laptop from Pelosi’s office to sell it to Russia - POLITICO
The FBI is investigating evidence that a woman who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 stole a laptop or hard drive from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and intended to sell it to Russians.
The bizarre claim, which the FBI emphasized remains under investigation, was included in an affidavit describing the criminal case against Riley June Williams, a Pennsylvania woman who was seen in footage of the Jan. 6 insurrection in area of the Capitol near Pelosi’s office.
And it’s not clear if the FBI has been able to apprehend her.
“It appears that WILLIAMS has fled,” according to the affidavit, which was signed Sunday and posted publicly after 9 p.m… “According to local law enforcement officers in Harrisburg, WILLIAMS’ mother stated that WILLIAMS packed a bag and left her home and told her mother she would be gone for a couple of weeks. WILLIAMS did not provide her mother any information about her intended destination.”
A Pelosi aide was not immediately available for comment. It was not clear if a laptop or hard drive was actually stolen.
According to the affidavit, a witness who spoke to authorities claimed to have seen a video of Williams “taking a laptop computer or hard drive from Speaker Pelosi’s office.”"[Witness 1] stated that WILLIAMS intended to send the computer device to a friend in Russia, who then planned to sell the device to SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service," the agent noted. “According to [Witness 1], the transfer of the computer device to Russia fell through for unknown reasons and WILLIAMS still has the computer device or destroyed it.”
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This is how heightened security is…vet the National Guard who are protecting the inauguration.
FBI vetting Guard troops in DC amid fears of insider attack
U.S. defense officials say they are worried about an insider attack or other threat from service members involved in securing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all of the 25,000 National Guard troops coming into Washington for the event.
The massive undertaking reflects the extraordinary security concerns that have gripped Washington following the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump rioters. And it underscores fears that some of the very people assigned to protect the city over the next several days could present a threat to the incoming president and other VIPs in attendance.
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Senate Republicans adrift ahead of Trump trial
GOP senators are largely without leadership guidance over how to judge Donald Trump during the second impeachment trial.
Online extremists are ignoring Trump’s call for calm
Many are taking their cues from the fact that the president still has not conceded.
Heavily fortified statehouses around US see small protests
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Lindsey Graham calls on Schumer to hold vote to dismiss article of impeachment against Trump
Lindsey Graham Reportedly ‘Screamed’ At Officer During Riot For ‘Not Doing Enough’ To Protect Him
Fear of insider attack prompts additional FBI screening of National Guard troops
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Need a handy clock for the Inauguration?
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