Saturday, July 30, 2022

Matt Gaetz Is A Very Stupid Criminal
Donald Trump Does Not Look Well
Ivana Trump Is A Sand Trap
Alex Jones Tells A "Sir" Story

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Republicans Celebrate After Sentencing Sick Military Veterans To Death
Jon Stewart: "If This Is America First, Then America Is Fucked"

Jon Stewart's anger is welcome – and entirely justified – but why is he furious at "them" and not at the Republicans who blocked the bill, sentencing many veterans to painful deaths, and then celebrated? Stewart rips Toomey, so why not get explicit (to go along with his expletives) and tell the country exactly who the people he calls cowardly motherfuckers are?

Republicans were furious at getting outflanked by Democrats (a very rare occurrence), so they decided to take their anger out on the sick and dying men and women who were exposed to numerous toxic chemicals after being sent to fight for the US's Endless War Machine and are now suffering various ailments, including lung diseases and cancer and are asking for basic medical care. Afterwards, the Republicans – who Stewart said "haven't met a veteran they won't screw over" – celebrated their collective inhumanity by fist-bumping each other.

Democrats screw over veterans, too, of course. Since the founding of the republic, any US political party possessing enough power to fuck over veterans has done so. Indeed, Revolutionary War veterans were fucked over. Back in 1776, the Continental Congress guaranteed disability benefits to disabled soldiers, but refused to honour that promise. It's been that way ever since. It's a true American tradition.

Saturday, July 23, 2022

Trump Rally:
What Human Being Would Say Somebody Is Going To Prison Based On A Story They Concocted?
I Don't Throw Food In The White House. I Don't Throw Food Anywhere. I Eat The Food.
But You Like Me, Right?

* * *

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Evidence From J6 Hearing:
Trump Was Glued To Fox, Ignoring Everyone, While His Armed Mob Raged Through Capitol; He Recorded His "We Love You-Go Home" Video Only After It Was Clear His Plan Had Failed
Before Evacuating Pence, Members Of His Security Team Phoned Their Families To Say Goodbye, Fearful They Might Soon Be Killed By Trump's Furious Supporters

(Ann Telnaes, Washington Post)

Selections from Seth Abramson's tweets while watching the January 6 Committee's eighth public hearing (my emphasis):

6/ Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the Committee chair, recently announced that the report the HJ6C issues in September will be a bare-bones "interim" report and that the Committee will continue working through the 2022 national elections. . . .

8/ The need for more hearings has become clear by the fact that the HJ6C continues interviewing major witnesses, discovering new evidence, and opening new fronts in its January 6 investigation. Besides publicly leaving the door open to questioning Trump, Pence and Ginni Thomas... . . .

11/ The number of Trumpworld witnesses taking the 5th—meaning they think if they answer questions honestly they may incriminate themselves—is startling. . . .

15/ We learned in the last few hours that the mass deletion of Secret Service texts covering January 5-6—done after *at least 4 warnings not to do so* from other federal entities—is now a *criminal* investigation. . . .

16/ And as all this is ongoing, we have more and more evidence that Trump is committing the federal crime of witness tampering. . . .

17/ And we just learned that Trump continues to commit crimes falling under his Conspiracy to Commit Election Fraud—for instance, within the last 10 days he called the top Republican in the Wisconsin Assembly to lean hard on him to "decertify" Biden's 2020 Wisconsin election win. . . .

23/ There is also every reason to see the HJ6C hearings as the *most critical election coverage major media could offer to America*. . . .

24/ Trump recently confirmed in a magazine interview that he's running for POTUS in 2024 . . . 

26/ But it's more than this. Recent breaking news revealed that Trump . . . believes DOJ will be unwilling to charge him if he's an active candidate, and/or he'll have an easier time framing a prosecution as political.

27/ . . . Trump has *already* declared January 6 a political issue. So if Trump is going to make the 2020 election a big part of his 2024 campaign, and if Trump is going to call any prosecution of him a partisan act, voters *must* know the *real* facts of the case *now*. . . .

45/ I've no doubt the Trumpists are worried about [former Trump Deputy Press Secretary Sarah] Matthews. When former Trump adviser (and white supremacist) Garrett Ziegler recently called Cassidy Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah "hoes and thots" he was likely also presaging the Trumpist counterattack against Matthews. Here's why:

46/ Because Trump was known for wanting to hire young attractive women he deemed "looked the part" for TV—i.e. telegenic folks—his minions are now misogynistically using that trend *against* ex-Trump employees by casting them as unqualified social climbers with no abiding values.

47/ Because the embedded misogyny of the contemporary far right is so predictable . . . we can already see how and why she will be attacked, and it will be risible. . . .

49/ . . . [I]t's easy to forget that the Trumpists *never* counter the HJ6C with *evidence*. They could be filing sworn affidavits from Trumpists every single day if they wanted to—if they had *anything*. . . .

51/ . .  . [T]here seems to be *no exculpatory evidence* relating to Trump and January 6, it's because we would've seen it. No one is stopping Trump or his minions from volunteering to testify, supplying affidavits, and so on. They won't. . . .

54/ . . . It's a pattern the media keeps missing: there is *never* any *substantive* contradiction from Team Trump of *anything* we hear from the HJ6C. Ever. . . .

61/ Okay, so how about tonight's big HJ6C hearing? How does it fit into the massive, sprawling, complex picture of the worst betrayal of America since the U.S. Civil War? . . .

63/ . . . [I]t goes without saying that the biggest-ticket item . . . is the question of what the sitting President of the United States was doing during an armed attack he and his team knew in advance was coming. . . .

65/ As PROOF reported in January 2021, at least six sources report that Trump was *thrilled* by the attack on the Capitol. These sources used words like "happy," "giddy" and so on. . . .

73/ . . . To most Americans, the evidence that we hear today will be absolutely shocking.

MID-THREAD BREAKING NEWS/ Several Secret Service agents have retained private counsel now that the DHS investigation of the destruction of January 6 USSS texts—potentially covering Trump's employment of extremists to lead the January 6 march—has become a criminal probe. Big news. . . .

75/ As historically shocking as the House January 6 Committee hearings have been . . . what you have heard so far—if you've only watched the HJ6C hearings—is just the tip of the iceberg with respect to January 6. . . .

MID-THREAD BREAKING NEWS 2/ The last few days have brought breaking news about the *corroboration* of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, including *two* Secret Service agents and at *least* one D.C. Metropolitan Police officer whose January 6 testimony corroborates key parts of it. . . .

78/ [Rep. Bennie] Thompson says that Trump was a flurry of *activity* pre-January 6, but *suddenly stopped doing anything* the moment the Capitol was under attack. He sat in his dining room . . . brushing off calls from frantic allies, and watching TV. . . .

BREAKING NEWS/ As PROOF said would be the case almost two weeks ago, Rep. [Liz] Cheney has now *confirmed*—explicitly and on the record—that there will be a new round of House January 6 Committee televised hearings in September. . . .

90/ Rep. Kinzinger: "President Trump's *plan* on January 6 was to halt or delay the joint session of Congress....[and] the mob was accomplishing President Trump's purpose, so of *course* he failed to intervene....[then-President Trump] *chose* not to act." . . .

95/ . . . The witness confirms the White House knew members of this 10K-person crowd were armed. Luria says there are now multiple witnesses confirming Hutchinson's testimony on Trump attacking Engel in "the Beast." . . .

100/ The dining room Trump was in was the one near the Oval—not in the presidential residence—and he was there watching Fox News for *over two and a half hours* on January 6. The presidential diary and call log have *no data* on any calls to/from Trump. And there are *no photos*. . . .

102/ Now Cipollone is testifying that Trump never called the Pentagon, the AG or DHS on January 6. Now a National Security Council official (name not given) is saying Trump never reached out to the Guard or any law enforcement. Now another Trump aide testifying to the same thing. . . .

104/ . . . So what *was* Trump doing? He wanted to call senators to get them to delay.

105/ . . . Trump *did* ask advisers for the numbers of senators so he could call them. And Trump *did* talk to Rudy Giuliani—who thereafter began calling senators. . . .

106/ At a time Trump knew the Capitol was under armed attack, he first sent out a tweet with a video of his inciting speech, then issued a second tweet attacking VP Pence. Between the first and second tweet, his advisers were *begging* Trump to do something to quell the violence. . . .

108/ What Trump was told was that he needed to issue a message telling people to leave the Capitol. He was told this at 2PM—a riot was declared at the Capitol at 1:49PM. . . . Trump did nothing until after 4PM. . . .

113/ Matthews is saying that it would have taken Donald Trump fewer than 60 seconds to get from the Dining Room to the Briefing Room if he had wanted to issue a statement. Matthews says there is a camera there that is *on at all times*. So Trump could have spoken *immediately*.

114/ . . . Kinzinger quotes a Trump adviser as saying they were worried about what Trump might say unscripted—as they knew his mind at the time.

115/ . . . It is amazing to see the testimony of these aides and how blindingly obvious it was to them that Trump needed to do something and immediately. . . .

117/ We are hearing radio traffic from the VP's security detail about evacuating him from where he was in the Capitol when the rioters broke into the building. They sound extremely, extremely worried—even *scared* about what will happen if they do not evacuate Pence immediately.

118/ White House Security Official (voice and identity hidden): "Members of the VP's security detail were starting to fear for their own lives....they thought this was about to get very ugly." . . . Chilling testimony.

119/ The White House security official says there was screaming and clear fear from the security team guarding the Vice President and they feared they were shortly going to have to use lethal force "or worse" . . .

123/ Both Matthews and Pottinger compare Trump's mid-riot tweet about Pence to "pouring gasoline on a fire" (their words).

124/ Rep. Luria notes that the attack on the Capitol escalated "right after the tweet." . . .

128/ . . . Mike Pence's security detail was not only afraid for their own lives, but they were using their phones to *call their families* because they believed they might not get out of the Capitol alive. Absolutely stunning testimony.

129/ While the Secret Service calls discussed in this hearing are not what the Secret Service destroyed—it destroyed texts—what we have just heard underscores that if *this* is what we are getting from Secret Service calls, imagine what the deleted texts say? Almost unimaginable. . . .

131/ . . . [T]he audio of the VP's Secret Service detail is truly chilling—and it brings home how deeply scared those in the Capitol, no matter how trained, really were. Watching Josh Hawley hauling a** on January 6 underscores how prevalent *fear* was in the Capitol. . . .

134/ Trump's next two tweets to the rioters had the verbs "stay" and "remain" as their operative verbs. There was no request anyone leave the Capitol . . . (remember, PROOF has shown that the Stop the Steal plan was an *occupation*, not specifically violence). . . .

136/ . . . Kushner and Ivanka and Hershmann and Cipollone and McEnany and Scavino and *many others* were telling Donald Trump he *still* needed to do something. . . .

137/ It is pretty clear from Cipollone's testimony that there was only *one person* in the White House who did *not* want Donald Trump to tell the mob at the Capitol to disperse: Trump himself. . . .

147/ This is really, really key: the Committee is showing that Trump issued a video telling the rioters to go home *only after it had become clear that the cause was lost*. His video was a sham. He waited until he knew his words would have no real effect on any part of his plan. . . .

150/ It's so easy to forget that almost the entirety of Donald Trump's January 6 Rose Garden speech was about the election being stolen and fraudulent and his enemies being evil. There was so little focus on anything his speechwriters had told him to say about rioters going home.

151/ After the Rose Garden video, Trump went back to doing *nothing*—though there *was* still violence at the Capitol (in fact, in some places very bad violence). . . .

158/ A former Donald Trump aide is now saying that the beginning of Trump's 6:01PM tweet, "These are the things and events that happen..." made it sound like Trump had "culpability" for January 6. This is a Trump aide saying this! . . .

159/ Rudy Giuliani's insurrectionist work continued unabated after 6PM. He called Republican Sens. Blackburn, Tuberville, Graham, Hawley Cruz, and Haggerty—and Rep. Jordan—to tell them to "slow down" the joint session that was about to reconvene. . . .

163/ . . . Meadows told Pompeo after January 6, "[Trump] is in a very dark place." . . .

166/ On January 7, Trump refused "for hours" to record an address to the nation that day. Cassidy Hutchinson testified that her understanding was that the only reason he gave an address that day was because he was worried about being removed from office under the 25th Amendment. . . .

168/ We are now watching Donald Trump, in his outtakes, refuse to say "the election is over" and refuse to talk about the rioters having violated the law. He is very clear about what he does and does not want to say. You can tell he is angry about giving the statement. . . .

173/ Stunning text messages between Trump aides Murtagh and Wolking about being disgusted by Trump's statements during and after January 6. Hard to summarize these texts, but these men are saying Trump lacks character, is a liar, and is responsible for January 6. Shocking texts.

174/ Kinzinger is giving his closing statement now. He is underscoring how truly amazing it is that Trump refused to follow the advice of every single person in his life and do his job. Kinzinger says that Trump spoke up only—*only*—once he knew his plan for January 6 had failed. . . . The forces Donald Trump ignited that day [January 6] have not gone away....they're all still out there, ready to go." . . .

180/ Now Cheney is speaking again, lauding the "courage" of HJ6C witnesses and the cowardice of "60-, 70-year old men hiding behind executive privilege." As ever, she is pulling no punches. You can tell she wants to encourage new witnesses to come forward and *be courageous*.

181/ Cheney is underscoring that all of the evidence we have heard from the HJ6C is coming from Republicans—not Trump's Democratic political opponents—and that none of these people would've withered under cross-examination by Trump allies (like those McCarthy wanted on the HJ6C).

182/ We are now getting the secret Bannon audio PROOF has reported on, in which Bannon outlines every part of the Big Lie *pre-election*. *Pre-election*. In other words, as Cheney says, Trump "premeditated" lying about election fraud, whether he had any evidence of it or not.

183/ Cheney: "Trump was confident he could persuade his supporters to believe whatever he said, no matter how outlandish, and they could be summoned to Washington to help him remain in office for another term." She underscores Giuliani *admitting* there was no evidence of fraud. . . .

185/ It is clear that Rep. Cheney's statement is intended to be the "Closing Statement" for this entire run of (Summer 2022) hearings. This is a long—and very good—statement.

186/ Cheney: "[Trump] made a purposeful choice to violate his Oath of Office....[how can] he ever be trusted with any position of authority in this great country ever again?"

* * *

The short clip of Josh Hawley haulin' ass out of the building, in fear of the crowd he had riled up with a  raised fist a little earlier, was a bit of levity -- and instantly became a meme.

January 6 Committee's Eighth Hearing: 187 Minutes: Trump's Dereliction Of Duty

The House Select Committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol will hold its eighth public hearing on Thursday evening, July 21 (8 PM ET). It will focus on Donald Trump's more than three hours of inactivity while the armed and violent mob that he incited rampaged through the Capitol.

(From a live thread: "To most Americans, the evidence that we hear today will be absolutely shocking. . . . As historically shocking as the House January 6 Committee hearings have been . . . what you have heard so far—if you've only watched the HJ6C hearings—is just the tip of the iceberg with respect to January 6.")

It has been widely reported that Trump "gleefully" watched the violence on television, and refused all requests and demands to stop it. He was "excited" and "delighted" by the violence being done in his name.

The time period under discussion is the 187 minutes between 1:10 PM, when Trump told his supporters to march to the Capitol, to 4:17 PM, when a video was posted online of Trump telling his "very special" supporters "We love you", but they should go home.

Vice Chair Liz Cheney:

You will hear a moment-by-moment account of the hourslong attack from more than a half-dozen White House staff, both live in the hearing room and via videotaped testimony. There is no doubt that President Trump was well aware of the violence as it developed. Not only did President Trump refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, he placed no call to any element of the U.S. government to instruct that the Capitol be defended. He did not call his Secretary of Defense on January 6th. He did not talk to his Attorney General. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security.

Committee member Elaine Luria referred to Trump's "supreme dereliction of duty":

We're going to talk about dereliction of duty — what were his duties, as the president of the United States, to ensure the laws were faithfully executed? Did the president live up to his oath and his responsibility to the American people?

Towards the end of the last hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin said:

Our hearing next week will be a profound moment of reckoning for America.

From Wednesday's Washington Post: "Even A Day After Jan. 6, Trump Balked At Condemning The Violence". On January 7:

. . . Trump's advisers urged him to give an address to the nation to condemn the violence, demand accountability for those who had stormed the halls of Congress and declare the 2020 election to be decided.

He struggled to do it. Over the course of an hour of trying to tape the message, Trump resisted holding the rioters to account, trying to call them patriots, and refused to say the election was over, according to individuals familiar with the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

The public could get its first glimpse of outtakes from that recording Thursday night, when the committee plans to offer a bold conclusion in its eighth hearing: Not only did Trump do nothing despite repeated entreaties by senior aides to help end the violence, but he sat back and enjoyed watching it. He reluctantly condemned it — in a three-minute speech the evening of Jan. 7 — only after the efforts to overturn the 2020 election had failed and after aides told him that members of his own Cabinet were discussing invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

I knew Trump kept going off script during the filming of this message, praising the rioters and ranting about imaginary vote fraud, stubbornly refusing to say the lines he was supposed to say. It would be great to see some of those failed attempts.

There is also a gap of more than seven hours in Trump's White House phone records for that day (from 11:17 AM ET to 6:54 PM ET), which is not suspicious at all.

One expected witness, Sarah Matthews, a former White House press aide, has told the committee that Trump's infamous 2:24 PM tweet attacking Mike Pence was like "pouring gasoline on the fire". After the tweet was read out loud by the rioters, a deafening chant of "hang Mike Pence" began. Another scheduled witness, former Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger, said he resolved to resign once he saw that particular tweet.

The Committee is also attempting to get texts sent within the Secret Service on January 5 and 6. However, the Secret Service deleted the requested information after receiving two written requests from the Committee. It has issued a series of changing (and highly) dubious excuses for this possibly criminal act. (There must be some seriously incriminating stuff in those texts.) One person in the Secret Service recieving a lot of attention lately is Tony Ornato, a well-documented Trump lackey and the Assistant Director of the SS's Office of Training, who also likes to lie. (More info on a possible Secret Service scandal here and here.)

A damning editorial of exactly what the Secret Service has done:



The Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General, a watchdog agency, has known since February 2022 that the Secret Service purged nearly all cellphone texts from around the time of the insurrection, but decided not to tell Congress. This surprising information comes from two whistleblowers who worked with Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari.

P.S.: Trump is, of course, still criming. Back on July 8, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that most of the state's absentee ballot drop boxes are illegal. This ruling applies only to future elections, but it also prompted Trump to call Robin Vos, Wisconsin's house speaker, "within the last week" claiming this ruling means the 2020 presidential election can be overturned. Vos tried to explain the truth to Trump, who posted online: "What a waste of a brilliant and courageous decision by Wisconsin's Highest Court." Which decision, again, applies only to future elections.

Pillow Talk

Today is a Big Day!

Mike Lindell: "On July 21, I've got a plane load of lawyers, cyber guys, experts, flying in to Arizona!"

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Ohio Republicans Designate Themselves Inspectors Of Childen's Genitals

From June 3, 2022:

House Republicans in Ohio passed HB 151 last night, which had a surprise and grotesque last-minute addition that would subject female high school and college athletes to a forced examination (what the bill describes as a "verification process") of their internal and external genitals if anyone "accuses or suspects" they might be transgender.

The language of the Orwellian "Save Women's Sports Act" (House Bill 61) was stapled onto H.B. 151 , which would revise Ohio's Teacher Residency Program.

Every single Democrat voted against the bill, but the Republicans had enough votes to pass it. The final tally was 56-28; 15 lawmakers did not vote.

According to Equality Ohio and the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OSHAA), there is currently one transgender girl currently participating in high school athletics.

Rep. Dr. Beth Liston, a Democrat from Dublin:
I was told "in the last seven years the OSHAA transgender policy has been in place, we have never had more than one transgender female participating on a girls team at the high school level in any given year". . . . This is a made-up controversy and this amendment is state-sanctioned bullying against one child. . . . This is truly bizarre medically . . . 

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

How Are Republicans In DC Voting?

Pay no attention to what they say. What is essential is what they do.

157 Republicans voted against against "federal recognition of marriage for same-sex and interracial couples". The bill passed 267-157. (July 19, 2022)

205 Republicans voted against the Right To Travel For Abortion Services Act, which would prohibit blocking out-of-state travel to obtain an abortion. The bill passed 223-205. (July 15, 2022)

88 Republicans voted against expanding benefits for US military veterans who have been exposed to toxic burn pits and dangerous chemicals, which can cause asthma, rhinitis and cancer. The bill passed 342-88. (July 14, 2022)

168 Republicans voted against Active Shooter Alert Act, which would create an active shooter communications network to notify community members when an active shooter is in their neighborhood. The legislation passed 260-169. (July 14, 2022)

208 Republicans voted against efforts to remove Neo-Nazis from the US military. One GOP House representative argued that not allowing Nazis in the US military "will make it harder to recruit military members". Not one Republican voted in favour of this amendment. The bill passed 218-208. (July 14, 2022)

193 Republicans voted against the first major federal safety legislation in decades. They voted against spending millions of dollars for mental health, school safety, crisis intervention programs, incentives for states to include juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and other significant changes. The legislation passed 234-193. (June 24, 2022)

201 Republicans voted against federal Red Flag gun laws, which would authorize and establish guidance for federal courts to issue extreme risk protection orders and allow family members to request a federal court order to remove access to firearms for someone deemed to be a danger to himself or others. The legislation passed 224-202. (June 9, 2022)

203 Republicans voted against the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act and to support rising  prices and to make it difficult to investigate if gas prices are being manipulated by gas and oil corporations. The bill passed 217-207. (May 19, 2022)

192 Republicans voted against providing $28 million in aid to address the US shortage of baby formula (only a few days after critizing Biden for not doing enough about the issue). The measure passed 231-192. (May 19, 2022)

203 Republicans voted against the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022 (which would set up offices at Homeland Security, DoJ and FBI to track and analyze domestic terrorist activity, assessing threat posed specifically by White supremacists and neo-Nazis). The Act passed 222-203. (May 19, 2022)

57 Republicans voted against sending aid to Ukraine (victims of a Russian genocide). The bill passed 368-57. (May 11, 2022)

44 Republicans voted against the Global Malnutrition Prevention and Treatment Act. the Act passed 384-44. (April 27, 2022)

63 Republicans voted against a House resolution affirming support for the "democratic principles" of NATO. The resolution passed 362-63. (April 5, 2022)

193 Republicans voted against lowering the cost of insulin (capping costs at $35 instead of $400). The bill passed 232-193. (March 31, 2022)

85 Republicans voted against the Sexual Assault Reporting In Transportation Act, which would require transportation companies to establish formal policies against sexual misconduct. It would require the Department of Transportation to collect data on the number of incidents of sexual misconduct reported by transportation personnel and passengers each year and share it publicly. The bill passed 339-85. (March 30, 2022)

25 Republicans voted against creating the El Paso Healing Gardens National Memorial (in remembrance of mass shooting victims). The bill passed 403-25. (March 16, 2022)

21 Republicans voted against awarding congressional gold medals to the Capitol Police & others who protected the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The vote was 406-21. (December 7, 2021)

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Chris Hayes And Lawrence O'Donnell

I've been a fan of Chris Hayes for a while. He's one of the few mainstream news people who grasps the true threat Trumpism poses for the future of the US. And:

 

I have watched a few Lawrence O'Donnell clips here and there. He's been excellent reporting on the mass murder in Uvalde, Texas, and the still-continuing cover-up.

Here's O'Donnell, from Wednesday:



June 22, 2022



June 10, 2022



May 24, 2022

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Far-Right Accuses Biden, Harris, Liberals & Media For Inventing "Fake" 10-Year-Old
Rape Victim . . . Even After 27-Year-Old Suspect Arrested By Ohio Police Confessed

Do not expect any sort of retraction or correction or apology from  any of these misogynistic ghouls.
See?
Just The Absolute Fucking Worst Examples Of Humanity

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Seventh J6 Hearing: Trump Was Actively Involved In Recruiting Paramilitary Groups For Violent Insurrection; After An Absolutely Bonkers Six-Hour Meeting On December 18-19, 2020, His Infamous "Will Be Wild" Invitation Turned Online Planning For J6 "Openly Homicidal", With Hopes Of A Massacre

The Select Committee investigating the January 6 Insurrection held its seventh public meeting on Tuesday, centered on the connections between several violent paramilitary groups and Trump and certain members of his administration.

The threat of violence ran through the entire hearing. Former Trump campaign adviser Brad Parscale, in a text to former campaign adviser Katrina Pierson, described Trump as "a sitting president asking for civl war". Trump actively enlisted the assistance of several paramilitary groups, including the Oath Keepers, whose leader hoped January 6 would spark a "new civil war" and an "armed revolution" across the US. Alex Jones told his followers that Trump's infamous "will be wild" tweet meant "we need volunteers for the firing squad".

Jason Van Tatenhove, a former spokesman for the Oath Keepers, told the Committee:

I think we've gotten exceedingly lucky that more bloodshed did not happen. I do fear for this next election cycle, because who knows what that might bring — if a president that's willing to . . . whip up a civil war among his followers, using lies and deceit and snake oil and regardless of the human impact, what else is he going to do if he gets elected again? . . . I have three daughters. I have a granddaughter, and I fear for the world that they will inherit if we do not start holding the these people to account.

Trump's defenders have offered the feeble defense that he was simply misled by others, like an ignorant leaf blown here and there about by strong winds. The Committee has demolished that claim into fine powder on several occasions. Committee co-Chair Liz Cheney:

The strategy is to blame people his advisers called "the crazies" for what Donald Trump did. This, of course, is nonsense. President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices.

On the morning of January 6, Trump defied his own speechwriters, reinserting numerous deleted references to Mike Pence in a purposeful attempt to incite the crowd against his own vice president. In previous hearings, we heard various militia members admit that if they had found Pence, they would have killed him.

The seventh hearing ended with the news that Trump apparently attempted to commit witness tampering in the last two weeks (after the last hearing, on June 28). He personally called one of the Committee's upcoming witnesses, someone he must have believed would remain loyal to him. However, that person did not take Trump's call, but instead informed his or her lawyer, who alerted the Committee, which forwarded the information on to the Department of Justice. (Trump is fundamentally unable to not commit crimes.)

Once again, Seth Abramson, author of the Proof triology — Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018), Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2029), and Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020) — live-tweeted the hearing. Here are some highlights from his 183 tweets (bolding mine):

6/ This [the subject of today's hearing] is, in fact, the *biggest* piece of the January 6 narrative pie—it dwarfs everything else in size, scope and complexity. I realize that seems hard to believe—as the first 6 HJ6C hearings have been perhaps the most historic and startling congressional hearings in history.

7/ On a personal note, I'll say that the hearings have finally reached the topics PROOF has published 200+ articles on since January 14, 2021. I am extremely humbled by the fact that Congress has cited PROOF, reads PROOF, and has reached out to me about my 18 months of research. . . .

11/ We are now, increasingly, going to be talking about people who (a) had direct contact with Trump and/or his family, (b) who are not in government, and (c) who have already (at a minimum) acknowledged they *may* have committed crimes by pleading the Fifth Amendment repeatedly.

12/ Roger Stone says he did nothing wrong—but refuses to answer questions on the grounds that his answers *to almost any January 6 query* may tend to incriminate him. . . .

13/ Just so, Michael Flynn has repeatedly pleaded the Fifth Amendment. . . .

14/ But the number of people pleading the Fifth Amendment before Congress or fighting their subpoenas is much longer than this. . . .

30/ But one event we *know* will be focused on today is the craziest White House meeting of the Trump administration—and possibly the craziest White House meeting that did not occur during a national civil war. It happened on December 18, 2020, and is almost impossible to fathom

31/ Briefly: within Trump's legal team there's a divide between Rudy Giuliani and his people and Powell and her people. The latter are more radical than Giuliani. They want martial law, seized voting machines, insist the 2020 election was stolen by a 9-nation transnational cabal. . . .

35/ Mark Meadows had banned Team Kraken from the White House; they weren't allowed to see Trump. But after Trump adviser Peter Navarro released a post-election "report" ("The Immaculate Deception") on December 17, his fellows on Team Kraken sprang into action in the weirdest way.

36/ Navarro aide Ziegler let Team Kraken (Powell, Flynn, Byrne) into the White House . . . Through what Byrne has since described—in a video confession PROOF exclusively reported on—as a covert op, they slowly made their way toward the Oval. . . .

38/ Once at the Oval, Team Kraken had Trump's ear for 30 minutes. Then Cipollone and the lawyers came in, and things got *heated*. Team Kraken was advocating for an end to American democracy, and Cipollone was trying to keep the nation together. It was that intense and historic. . . .

40/ . . . (Navarro *openly* said, on Fox News on January 2, that Trump could stay president past January 20 and choose to do so unilaterally.)

41/ The second the Krakeners left—in the wee hours of December 19—Trump sent his tweet signing onto Ali Alexander's planned January 6 event and saying it'd be "wild." . . .

48/ MID-THREAD BREAKING NEWS (CNN): The next House January 6 Committee hearing is expected to come next week—likely in primetime—and will focus on the 187 minutes that Trump was doing nothing on January 6 while the Capitol was under attack (featuring lots of Cipollone testimony). . . .

54/ Cheney says the Committee has seen a change in its prospective witnesses: they now understand that the Committee is making a serious case and that is changing how they deal with Committee. She says Trump supporters now concede basic facts but seek to blame Trump’s *advisers*.

55/ CHENEY: "Trump is a 76 year-old man—not an impressionable child....no rational or sane man in his position could" ignore the information he had that he’d lost the election. . . .

56/ Cheney closes by saying that Trump and his team knew he lost. Trump and his team knew they had no evidence of fraud. But they nevertheless acted like he won and said they had evidence of it because they *knew* Trump supporters did not have the info *they* did to know better. . . .

61/ Raskin says that Trump apparently rejected the options Team Kraken put before him on December 18. He turned instead to a) trying to bring extremists to DC on January 6, and b) building his pressure campaign on Mike Pence. Raskin says the extremists then formed an "alliance." . . .

63/ The implication Raskin is making is that Trump *knew*, from the start, that he and his agents were "deploying" a mob upon the Capitol on January 6. . . .

64/ Murphy is summarizing Trump's failed *legal*—in both senses of that word—efforts to stay in power and how December 14 ended Trump's campaign (Mitch McConnell admitted it at the time—on December 15). . . .

65/ Eugene Scalia (Antonin's son), Trump's Secretary of Labor, saying he *told* Trump he needed to concede the election after December 14 . . .

66/ Cipollone agreed that there was no evidence of systemic fraud in the 2020 election. . . . Cipollone testifies that he believed Trump should have conceded in mid-December 2020. . . .

67/ Bill Barr [said] that December 14 was "the end of the matter" and should have "led inexorably to a new [Biden] administration." Cipollone testifies that Mark Meadows *also* told Trump things were over beginning in late November of 2020. . . .

69/ Judd Deere, former White House press secretary, now says in recorded depo that he told Trump that after December 14 the Electoral College had spoken and "the. means for him to pursue litigation was probably closed." . . .

70/ Barr saying (depo) that Meadows and Kushner said to him they and others were working on getting Trump to accept his loss. . . .

71/ The point of *all* of this is that Trump was *not* just listening to his advisers, as his defenders now say. . . .

72/ Barr says he told Trump theories of the voting machines being hacked were crazy nonsense and that there was no systemic fraud. . . .

73/ Barr says Trump raised with him the idea of seizing voting machines and Barr directly said no . . .

74/ Team Kraken brought a draft executive order to the Oval on December 18 which would have the *Pentagon* seize voting machines—Team Kraken member Kash Patel had already been installed by Trump as a top Pentagon aide to the Secretary of Defense . . .

75/ [Cipollone] says that Team Kraken was never able to provide any evidence to him whatsoever of systemic fraud . . .

77/ RASKIN: "Even Rudy Giuliani's own legal team admitted that they didn't have any evidence of fraud" . . .

80/ Cassidy Hutchinson now saying . . . Meadows *switched* to looking for "constitutional loopholes" to try to keep Trump in power (the ideas pushed by John Eastman).

81/ Holy crap—bombshell. The Committee says the Kraken Conference lasted SIX HOURS, not just three. And there was screaming during it. . . .

83/ POWELL: "He [Trump] was very interested" in the ideas Team Kraken was giving him . . .

85/ Cipollone . . . said he kept asking for evidence of anything Team Kraken was saying and they would provide him with none.

86/ Team Kraken insisted that every judge they had gone before (and lost before) was "corrupt"—including the ones appointed by Trump. . . .

88/ HUTCHINSON (via text to unknown party, during meeting): "The west wing is UNHINGED." . . .

91/ Cipollone admits Powell *believed* she’d been appointed after the meeting [as Special Counsel and given security clearances]. So scary—remember, Powell wanted the power to seize machines, make arrests and effectively end American democracy. Powell is now being disbarred and has admitted many of her 2020 statements were lies.

92/ At the end of the meeting, Trump sent his infamous "be there, will be wild!" tweet. . . .

93/ Video of Alex Jones now, talking about the tweet and everyone coming to DC January 6. Wow! We're getting Ali Alexander mentioned for the first time, Alex Jones mentioned for the first time. . . .

94/ The Committee is proving that Trump lit up the internet with his wee-hour December 19 tweet, and *everyone* understood that Trump wanted them to go to the Capitol building itself on January 6 and some understood that he wanted his people to come to Washington *armed*. . . .

96/ TWITTER WHISTLEBLOWER: "If [Trump] were any other Twitter user, he would have been permanently suspended a long time ago....it felt as though a mob was being organized. They were gathering together their weaponry and their logic...behind why they were willing to fight." . . .

98/ Twitter apparently began to feel certain there would be violence in D.C. on January 6 *as soon as* Trump fired off his December 19 tweet. . . .

99/ Now we have countless tweets and internet comments from the post-December 19 period that are so vile and hateful and *horrifically violent* I will not repeat them here. The founder of one website hosting such content, Jody Williams, admits that December 19 changed everything.

100/ These tweets discuss weapons, attack plans, routes of entrance/egress... very specific, *very* violent plans, all suddenly appearing post-December 19. Raskin notes that Trump tweeted about that date (January 6) at least a dozen more times . . .

101/ CNN calls today's testimony "terrifying." . . .

103/ What the CNN legal analyst is saying is just what I would say: we need to know what happened between December 19 and January 6 *in* the White House and *in* Trump’s war rooms. This is where we get to Trump asking Ali Alexander and Alex Jones to lead his march on the Capitol. . . .

105/ I want to be clear: there’s *no way* the Committee can cover more than a *fraction* of these topics today. The point is that there *is* an answer to the question "What did Trump and his team do between December 19 and January 6?" They did a *lot*. It'd take several hearings.

106/ The other problem, as I mentioned earlier, is that most of the key witnesses as to this *critical* sequence of facts have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, are still fighting their subpoenas, or have yet to be spoken to by the Committee (like Byrne, who will be interviewed [Friday]).

107/ I think it is best to take what we are about to hear—from the two witnesses about to testify—as simply an *introduction* to a subject and a period in history that the Committee will need to hold *multiple future hearings on*. . . .

115/ Former DC intel chief in depo now saying that after Trump's December 19 tweet "all red flags were up" because the intel signals showed conspiracy theory groups, militias and white supremacist groups creating a "blended" ideology surrounding January 6, Trump, and the Capitol.

116/ An Oath Keeper capo announced on December 19 that the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and Three Percenters would be forming an alliance to aid Trump. This was clearly a direct result of Trump's tweet. Secret paramilitary planning immediately began. Raskin says they communicated...

117/ ...with ROGER STONE and MICHAEL FLYNN. . . .

118/ Scary video of Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes calling for martial law in December 2020. . . .

119/ It is clear that the Committee is *very* focused on Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, *very* focused on the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. He now reveals that Stone has gone through the first-level initiation to *become* a Proud Boy.

120/ Oath Keeper lawyer Kelly SoRelle is now confirming what PROOF first reported in January *2021*: the top three Stop the Steal organizers were (1) Ali Alexander, (2) Roger Stone, and (3) Alex Jones. This is huge: it means the Committee *will* focus on Jones and the others.

121/ Awesome! Rep. Raskin just said something that speaks *directly* to what I said during the break: he emphasized to America that this is only the *tip of the iceberg* of the evidence the Committee has about this part of the story. He says there is much, *much* more to come.

122/ Key text message between Katrina Pierson—Trump presidential aide—and a Kremer (Women for America First) who'd expressed concern about January 6 violence prompted by Alexander, Stone, and Jones. Pierson admits they were involved between TRUMP WANTED THEM INVOLVED. Bombshell.

123/ This confirms PROOF reporting from 2021 that Trump *personally* insisted on the involvement of Ali Alexander and Alex Jones and that he did so over the concerns of his presidential aides. . . .

125/ Pre-insurrection Kremer-Lindell text *admits* Trump had told grassroots organizers he was going to march to the Capitol—but didn’t reveal it publicly—as PROOF reported. . . . Stunning stuff. Trump brought people into the loop.

126/ This is almost too much info to live-tweet. Rep. Murphy is talking about the December 21 meeting at the Oval to plan January 6. It involved Trump, Meadows, Giuliani, and the insurrectionist House Freedom Caucus (Gohmert, Jordan, Biggs, Hice, Gosar, Perry, MTG, Gaetz et al.). . . .

130/ Rep. Murphy notes that a federal judge has already held it is "more likely than not" Eastman and Trump participated in a criminal conspiracy—one of many reasons a recent NYT article saying that DOJ has not yet moved to openly discussing a criminal probe of Trump is amazing.

131/ Trump spoke to Bannon twice on January 5—Insurrection Eve. And it was after the first call that Bannon announced that "all hell would break loose" on January 6 . . .

132/ Several Trump aides are now testifying via depo about how visibly excited Trump was while hearing the Freedom Plaza/Ellipse crowd on Insurrection Eve. Sarah Matthews said Trump was in a "very good," even "fantastic" mood that night after *not* being in a good mood for weeks.

133/ Matthews said Trump asked staff on Insurrection Eve what he could do to "make the RINOs do the right thing" the next day. It was clear aides wanted him to just give a speech about his policy accomplishments on January 6... but Trump wanted more. More... involving the crowd.

134/ Trump was . . . clearly asking his aides how he could harness the crowd to coerce members of Congress. . . .

137/ The aforementioned TWITTER WHISTLEBLOWER said he was certain "people would be shooting at each other" in D.C. the following day because of what Twitter was seeing on its platform. Again, all of this is just the tip of the iceberg . . .

139/ Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ)—GOP!—was asking for more security for the Capitol *on Insurrection Eve* because she acknowledged that Trump supporters would be coming *to the Capitol* the next day and when they realized the election would not be overturned they would all go "nuts."

140/ Now we have a summary of how Trump kept editing his January 6 speech to make it more inciting. He did this with input—a 26-minute call—with... Stephen Miller. . . . Trump and Miller conspired to put Pence's name into the speech to inflame the mob.

141/ Now depo testimony from Miller—!—in which he admits that other Trump advisers wanted Trump to avoid mentioning Pence. . . . 

142/ Trump single-handedly made his January 6 speech focus on Pence. He was angry—very, very angry— [after] Pence confirmed he was not going to help Trump steal the election. . . .

143/ Trump made one planned reference to Pence *8*. Trump made one planned reference to the march *4*. He reduced the mentions of being peaceful . . .

144/ Text message post-attack from Brad Parscale to Katrina Pierson saying Trump was pushing for civil war in his speech and his rhetoric got Ashli Babbitt killed. . . .

147/ Jason van Tatenhove is now describing how he got involved with the Oath Keepers . . . he admits the Oath Keepers are a "violent militia" . . . 

148/ He says during his time with the Oath Keepers they "drifted into white nationalism and...straight racism." . . . Rhodes sees himself as a "paramilitary leader." . . . 

149/ Jason van Tatenhove says the Oath Keepers' vision . . . includes "lies, deceit, intimidation, and the perpetration of violence." This man is pulling no punches whatsoever. I do fear for his safety after this testimony. . . .

151/ Now Stephen Ayres is testifying. He is laying out that he was not always a political radical. He was, as he outlines it, just a regular guy. . . . He used to be a Trump supporter, but is not anymore.

152/ Ayres says Trump's tweets/other far-right social media content convinced him to come to D.C. and made him believe the election was stolen. . . .

154/ Ayres says "everyone" who marched believed Trump was going to be marching with them. . . . He said he would have left the Capitol earlier if Trump had tweeted that people should leave earlier.

155/ Now van Tatanhove is testifying that Stewart Rhodes—head of the Oath Keepers—wanted . . . an "armed revolution" and a "new civil war." . . . Rhodes wanted January 6 to spark widespread national violence.

156/ Rhodes believed that the Insurrection Act would elevate him from a "paramilitary leader" to a man to whom Trump had specifically "given the nod" to forge a "path forward" to the Oath Keepers becoming a viable paramilitary force fighting—w/ violence—on Donald Trump's behalf.

157/ Jason van Tatenhove says that the Oath Keepers wanted him to create a "deck of cards"—. . . that would identify politicians and judges whom the Oath Keepers planned to kill.

158/ Van Tatenhove says that the Oath Keepers planned to use not just guns but military-grade explosives as part of their armed revolution and new civil war.

159/ Van Tatenhove says America is "lucky" that there hasn't been "more bloodshed" so far. . . . "I do fear for this next election cycle" if Trump ends up in the White House, as he wants to "encourage" a "civil war." . . .

167/ REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): "The Watergate break-in was like a Cub Scout meeting compared to this [the January 6 insurrection]." . . .

171/ Rep. Cheney (R-WY) . . . says that next week's hearing will focus on the 187 minutes on January 6 during which Trump *chose* to do nothing . . .

174/ Holy cow! Cheney says Trump personally tried to call a witness he knew was a January 6 witness—doing so *after* the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony . . . (Cheney says that it was someone who the Committee has not heard from yet). . . .

177/ It is amazing that we are alive to witness hearings like this. I never thought I would see or hear anything like this in my entire life. . . .

178/ In post-hearing coverage, we are already hearing about those stunning Parscale texts. And about Trump seeking to tamper with a federal witness—which we heard only in the final moments of the hearing. But frankly so much of what we heard today was newsworthy—and so startling. . . .

PS/ When Cheney said "no rational or sane man" could believe what Trump says he did—the law’s *objective* "reasonable person" standard—and that he doesn't have the right to be "willfully blind" (legal language) she’s *directly* saying he had the criminal intent to commit a crime. . . .

PS3/ For those looking to brush up on Ali Alexander in advance of us hearing, I think, much more about him, Stone, and Jones in the weeks ahead—as Raskin implied—this PROOF article.