Must Read: Trump Didn't Just Incite Sedition on January 6. He Is Guilty of a Widespread Conspiracy to Ignite Ongoing Insurrection. A BuzzFlash Editor's Commentary.
January 19, 2021
This flyer was one of several appearing around the Internet calling for an assault on the Capitol. If Trump and the White House were not informed of what a march to the Capitol would lead to, it is a catastrophic failure of intelligence. Instead, it is likely that Trump was part of the conspiracy urging an occupation of the Capitol and had the intelligence agencies stand down and not distribute a red alert and take actions to protect the Capitol and lives.
MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH
“Planning for the invasion of the US Capitol took place in plain sight and it had been brewing on-line since early December. ‘For weeks, the far-right supporters of President Donald Trump railed on social media that the election had been stolen,’ ProPublica’s Logan Jaffe, Lydia DePillis, Isaac Arnsdorf and J. David McSwane recently reported. ‘They openly discussed the idea of violent protest on the day Congress met to certify the result.’” — Bill Berkowitz for BuzzFlash:"Trump’s ‘Be Wild’ Insurrection Planned in Plain Sight.”
The case that Trump and his capos are likely behind more than the incitement to insurrection that occurred in his incendiary remarks to a rally on January 6 will only be confirmed by an unhindered investigation of the events leading up to the seditious invasion of the US Capitol. However, there is enough evidence in plain sight (much of the Internet evidence is now deleted, but progressive hackers have retrieved much of the incriminating chatter) to indicate Trump could be found guilty of conspiracy to launch a coup attempt whose objective was the seditious breaching of the US Capitol and the overturning of the Electoral College ballot count on the 6th.
I’ll leave it to the FBI to connect the dots, but the following are just a few of the indicators that Trump created a conspiracy that ended up, as Liz Cheney so succinctly said:
On January 6, 2021 a violent mob attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct the process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral votes. This insurrection caused injury, death and destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic.
Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.
I will vote to impeach the President.
Note Cheney’s telling first clause in the second paragraph, “Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough.”
Right now the media and the Congress are still shell-shocked by the very nearly apocalyptic theft of the election by Trump through his brown shirt army, many of whom are now asking for leniency because they claim they only marauded through the Capitol in search of Trump enemies to seize as hostages and possibly kill because “The President asked me to come.”
Given the breadth of the conspiracy, I will offer some bulleted points that indicate this was not just incitement of insurrections, but, again, a conspiracy with Trump as the orchestrator. It will be up to law enforcement to thread these bullet points together and add likely an abundance of additional proof.
According to an ABC News article on January 15, “Longtime Trump advisers connected to groups behind rally that led to Capitol attack.” A Washington Post article on January 17 is headlined, “Rallies Ahead of Capitol Riot Were Planned by Established Washington Insiders” in support of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign (that name was thought up by Roger Stone). An Associated Press bluntly headlines an article, “Trump Allies Behind Rally That Ignited Capitol Riot.” CNN detailed “How Trump Allies Stoked the Flames Ahead of Capitol Riot” with bellicose, violent exhortations, including Bannon, Stone, Flynn, Giulliani and Trump Jr., among others. CNN also ran a January 19 article that stated that “ten of the 12 people listed as onsite emergency contacts on the government permit approving the January 6 rally have previously worked for or been paid by Trump's reelection campaign.”
One of the “mainstream” backers of the rally Trump spoke at was the Republican Attorneys’ General Association, which not only gave its imprimatur to back a highly-professionally orchestrated “rally,” but sent out a robocall to assembled Trump cultists to march at 1 PM, a time which also was on the now pulled down “Stop the Steal” website. The Republican Attorney Generals Association also submitted an amicus brief to Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (who is currently indicted by the state and under FBI investigation on another violation of the law) ludicrous appeal to the Supreme Court to try and throw out Biden swing state electors. The executive director of the Association was forced to resign after the coup failed. The money for the Robocalls came through the association’s fundraising arm, The Rule of Law Defense Fund, which receives money from the Federalist Society C-4, run by none other than Leonard Leo, founder of the Federalist Society and the person who decides which federal judges in the Supreme Court Trump nominated. Furthermore, attorney John Eastman worked with Paxton on the threadbare Supreme Court Case. He is chairman of the organization’s Federalism and Separation of Powers practice group. He spoke at the infamous January 6 rally to, according to Slate, provide the “legal scaffolding” for Trump’s clarion call to fight Congress. Indeed, on January 13, Slate headlined an article, “A Federalist Society Star [John Eastman] Helped Foment the Capitol Riot.” Slate calls Eastman, who with Trump unsuccessfully tried to persuade Pence to ignore the Constitution and nullify the Biden swing state votes, a white supremacist who is trying to racistly tar Kamala Harris with a birtherism charge. He may also be Trump’s impeachment lawyer.
The march to the capitol was promoted on a wide number of sites that had affiliations with Trump and the “Stop the Steal” campaign. Many also promoted flyers urging Trump fanatics to “Occupy the Capitol” (see image above). Anybody surfing social media would have come across the flyers. The odds that Trump and his henchmen didn’t know that many of the individuals he invited to DC on the 6th to “be wild” would not have known this are between zero and none.
A mysterious organizer of the “Stop the Steal” website who played a large role in organizing the January 6 rally, Ali Alexander, claimed that three Congressmen, who also met with Trump, assisted him in the January 6 conspiracy to subvert democracy. They are, according to Ali, Republican Reps. Andy Biggs (AZ), Mo Brooks (AL), and Paul Gosar (AZ). Gosar called for violent rebellion to Arizona constituents. Mo Brooks himself incited the Trump rabble as a speaker on January 6. Inside assistance? Ali, who has retroactively claimed he had no role in the Capitol invasion, had tweeted and written calls for violence with the kind of wink and nod used by Trump. Media Matters headlined a January 15 article,:“Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander’s pre-January 6 calls for violence: “We've got to punch the left in the nose.” “You must fight. … They will kill us.” The article notes: “In a previously unreported interview, Alexander said that on January 5, he communicated with senior Trump official, Donald Trump Jr. girlfriend, and former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle. He said on the morning of January 6 -- shortly before the pro-Trump riot -- on Breitbart News Daily: “The president's mood is he's in fighter mode and today will determine which Republicans are going to suffer his wrath going forward. That's the mood that he's in. In fact, I got a call last night from Kimberly Guilfoyle and none of us are stopping.”
A code phrase for violence and insurrection and invasion of the US Capitol was “1776.” Alexander indicated this code would indicate the storming of the Capitol would be needed. Not coincidentally, other supporters including Republicans in the House, used “1776” to ignite the Trumpists, as did Lauren Boebert (R-CO) when she tweeted “Today is 1776” on the morning of January 6. She was not alone.
Trump had been drum beating that the election was going to be stolen by the Democrats since last autumn. He had persuaded approximately 80% of Republicans, the majority of GOP members of the House and some US Senators not to mention most red state legislators, that Biden stole the election. He stoked up such outrage, also invoking white supremacy, that a conflagration was inevitable. The January 6 effort to overthrow a free and fair election was an accidental byproduct of Trump’s big lie. It was the apotheosis and last chance of his efforts to steal the election and install fascism. It was the final attempt of his conspiracy to overturn democracy. It was the result of a conspiracy to incite. When all the dots are connected, it will become clear that the January 6 pre-assault rally was not an isolated incitement to invade the Capitol and disrupt the Electoral vote count, it was the culmination of a Trump conspiracy to commit treason.
Although there are many more dots for an untrammeled investigation to connect in a through line, it is vital to provide as damning evidence that Trump did nothing for hours to tell his followers to leave the Capitol. He tweeted to them, “We love you. You’re special.” In fact, he was reportedly thrilled to see how loyal his supporters were and was no doubt getting high off of their violence as he tweeted remarks that further put a target on Pence’s back. In fact, he and his farcical Rudy Giuliani were trying to get sawdust head Tommy Tuberville to try and delay the Electoral Vote count while the lives of Pence, Pelosi and countless other members of Congress were in danger and a police man was killed while countless others were injured. This too was the endgame of Trump’s criminal conspiracy.
Finally, Trump has long signaled to paramilitary domestic terrorist groups such as The Proud Boys, The Three Percenters, The Oathkeepers and others that he values them. In the first debate with Joe Biden, he brazenly told The Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by.” Indeed, it appears that he may have met with the head of The Proud Boys in the White House last year. Trump even shrugged at the Michigan militia plot to kidnap, “try” and execute Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
The House has done an exemplary job in impeaching Trump for an incitement to insurrection, but his real crime is much more nefarious. He created a conspiracy to commit ongoing treason based on a fabricated and endlessly repeated big lie that he will perpetuate after he leaves the White House — and most Republican politicians will continue to be his collaborators.
BuzzFlash hopes that Biden and Merrick Garland hold him accountable. Otherwise, sedition will become normalized.
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