January 6 Insurrection Investigations Uncover a Mountain of Evidence
The fire in the belly of the Trumpist beast is being stoked by way of rallies like those held at San Diego's Awaken Church locations.
The quest to unravel the truth behind the January 6 coup rehearsal continues, albeit at an excruciatingly slow rate. Concerned Americans are being urged to be patient so that any criminal or civil actions are airtight.
Looming over the Justice Department inquiry and the House Select Committee investigation is the reality that anything not concluded and acted up by the end of this year may never happen, should Republicans gain control of the Congress in the midterm elections.
I won’t bother to predict what is yet to be revealed or acted upon, although I fear these investigations are so massive, with threads going in thousands of directions, that whatever outcomes there are will fall way short of making the seditionist wing of the GOP think twice about a repeat.
From the Los Angeles Times:
U.S. attorneys told judges last year that the Jan. 6 investigation had already resulted in 250 terabytes of data, roughly the equivalent of 32.5 million digital photos or 500,000 hours of audio recordings. NASA’s Hubble has collected 290 terabytes of data in 31 years of operation.
“This is not going to be a document-intensive case like many federal prosecutions are,” said Brandon Fox, former chief of the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California. “This is going to be all about the videos. I have a hard time imagining another prosecution with the sheer amount of videos that are out there.”
The fire in the belly of the Trumpist beast is being stoked by way of rallies in supportive evangelist churches and public venues in deep red districts. In San Diego we can thank the so-called Awaken Church and its allies for doing their part.
Fox News Tucker Carlson, who occupies the top spot in the far right’s propaganda food chain, will be appearing at the church’s San Marcos campus on April 2. His considerable speaking fees (estimated to be as high as $70,000) will be covered by ticket prices ranging from $30 to $5,000 (for front-row VIP seating)— plus an additional $20 parking, which I’ll bet is the church’s taste of the pot.
Last weekend, the church hosted the ReAwaken America Tour, one of several political circus acts making the rounds. Featured were retired Gen. Michael Flynn, presidential son Eric Trump, and descriptions of an alternate reality to keep the faithful fired up..
From the Times of San Diego:
Times of San Diego monitored a livestream of both far-right luminaries via Rumble.com as each spoke for a little over a half-hour — introduced by event organizer and emcee Clay Clark, the Oklahoma podcaster.
(They followed a succession of anti-vaxxers, immigration/border hawks and exposers of “election fraud.” Awaken Church co-pastor Jurgen Matthesius gave a talk likening America to Samson of the Bible — with Democrats as hair-shearing Delilahs.)
These attendees are the shock troops in wait for Authoritarian Coup, Version Two, tentatively scheduled for the day after the November 2024 general election. In their minds they are somehow surviving in a world populated with sexual deviants, communists, and deep staters. The vision overlaps with that being sold by authoritarian leaders world wide. And it includes frequent calls for vengeance.
Note the “Q” in the corner of this fabulous painted gifted to Eric Trump. (h/t to Times of San Diego for capturing this video.)
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Trials for defendants accused of breaching the Capitol building began last month. Of the 800+ people arrested thus far, more than 200 have already made plea bargains. Federal investigators say there are another 350 or so people who haven’t been charged yet, either because they can’t be identified or because conclusive evidence is lacking.
Documentation published in the Washington Post and other media outlets indicates two high profile extremist organizations developed separate plans for attacks on federal facilities on January 6th.
The Oath Keepers began organizing within days after the November 2020 elections with a national videoconference which federal prosecutors say “outlined a plan to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power, including preparations for the use of force, and urged those listening to participate.”
From the start, the Oath Keepers were aiming for a January event to oppose the transfer of power. Planning included reconnaissance trips to Washington DC, several purchases of weapons and gear, training exercises, public calls to action, and having a quick-reaction force near D.C.
The Proud Boys, on the other hand, didn’t get serious about January 6 until after then-President Trump tweeted: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”.
The day after the infamous tweet, the Proud Boys formed a new chapter of the organization called the Ministry of Self Defense (MOSD), focused on “national rally planning.”
A new encrypted chat room was created for recruitment, and crowd effort fundraising for protective gear began. Prospective participants were told not to wear Black and Yellow Proud Boys gear on Jan. 6.
Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was arrested on charges from an earlier act of violence and released from jail on the condition that he leave the Washington DC area. That didn’t stop him and Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes from having “coincidental meeting” in the garage of the Phoenix Park Hotel.
Government prosecutors say the meeting did not have the effect of changing either group’s plans.
From the Washington Post:
Despite that vague meeting Jan. 5, what’s depicted in the government’s documents is, in fact, two separate plans. There’s no indication that either group changed direction after the meeting in the parking garage; in fact, one Oath Keepers member who spoke with Reuters was surprised that Rhodes had met with Tarrio, given the antipathy between the two groups.
What’s alleged instead is that the Oath Keepers responded to Trump’s loss in 2020 with an immediate call for use force to maintain his presidency. The Proud Boys coalesced around a similar goal only after Trump called for engagement in Washington — at which point much of the “Stop the Steal” infrastructure that sprung up to capitalize on Trump’s false claims of rampant fraud did the same.
That includes the other junction point between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys: longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone. A longtime friend of Tarrio, Stone was being protected by Oath Keepers, including James, even before the evening of Jan. 5. It’s a reminder that, for all the government has made public, there are still questions for which we don’t have answers
The House Select Committee investigating January 6 had bad news and good news this week.
Press accounts say the committee has decided against including members of congress who may have participated in some part of the January 6 melee because they fear retribution from Republicans should they take power in November. That’s BS, and it proves those folks put themselves before the people they are supposed to be serving.
On other fronts there is some news to report beyond the train of former Trump officials telling the Committee to go to hell. NPR reports they are making progress on the money that went into setting up the events of January 6.
"Ever since Watergate, one of the central adages in ... congressional investigations of presidential wrongdoing has been 'follow the money,' " said Norm Eisen, a former House lawyer in Trump's first impeachment case. "The 1/6 committee investigation has been sweeping in all of its dimensions, and this is no exception."
The committee's Feb. 23 subpoena of Salesforce emphasized its interest in the company's hosting of Trump emails that asked for new donations and included false claims of election fraud.
It's part of a central question the panel hopes to answer: Did Trump find new ways to keep the money coming in after his loss by shifting from a presidential campaign to a Stop the Steal effort?
"I think the level of grift that was involved with the Trump campaign and people close to the former president, how the Jan. 6 efforts were for many of them, this is what they were doing to make money," said Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., a member of the Jan. 6 panel. "We are looking into that."
So Donald Trump grifted people for donations based on Stop The Steal claims. Does a bear defecate in the woods?
The committee has detailed possible crimes Trump might have committed related to the Jan. 6 attack in a court filing involving attorney John Eastman, who was advising Trump's Stop the Steal efforts. But, as Tucker Carlson says, they’re just asking questions.
In my mind, the committee’s public hearings, which hopefully will happen before November, will be the litmus test for their work. Seeing Steve Bannon sweat in between lies will at least be entertaining.
Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com