The Capitol Insurrection, Proud Boys and Bit of San Diego History
The backstory on the deplorables who stormed the capitol on January 6 keeps getting more interesting with each passing day.
One thread in this tale winds its way through San Diego; suggesting a confluence of law enforcement and the muscle of of the pro-Trump movement. Hold that thought -- I’ll come back to it in a few paragraphs after catching up with some of the latest developments.
The Wall Street Journal video embedded below makes a strong case for the Proud Boys group being leaders in the actual break-in and trashing of the building.
https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1354226955273572355?s=20
From the New York Times:
The leadership of the Proud Boys has come under increased scrutiny as agents and prosecutors across the country try to determine how closely members of the far-right nationalist group communicated during the riot at the Capitol this month and to what extent they might have planned the assault in advance, according to federal law enforcement officials.
At least six members of the organization have been charged in connection with the riot, including one of its top-ranking leaders, Joseph Biggs. Mr. Biggs, a U.S. Army veteran, led about 100 men on an angry march from the site of President Donald J. Trump’s speech toward — and then into — the Capitol building.
The Proud Boys, who have a history of scuffling with left-wing antifascist activists, have long been some of Mr. Trump’s most vocal, and violent, supporters, and he has returned the favor, telling them during one of the presidential debates to “stand back and stand by.” Along with the right-wing militia the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys was one of the extremist groups with a large presence at the Capitol incursion, investigators said.
As Marcy Wheeler has pointed out, the Proud Boys have a history of being used to intimidate people trying to hold former-President Trump to account, based on testimony in the witness tampering portion of the case against dirty trickster Roger Stone.
And there’s this, from the September 2020 Presidential debate:
President Donald J. Trump: (42:10) What do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name, go ahead who do you want me to condemn.
Chris Wallace: (42:14) White supremacist and right-wing militia.
President Donald J. Trump: (42:18) Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right wing problem this is a left wing.
The San Diego part of the Proud Boys story goes back to a 2017 pro-impeachment rally held in front of the County Administration Building.
San Diego Sheriff Department officers stood by while members of the ‘Proud Boys’ disrupted, threatened and harassed attendees and speakers.
In my coverage of this event for the San Diego Free Press, I quoted activist Mark Lane’s account:
These guys came down from LA to our rally today dressed in helmets and masks looking for a fight. There was almost no police presence. The sheriffs who were there, did not separate them from our group, and in fact allowed them to come right into our group. Seeing as how Bill Gore-sheriff was not able to correctly police this protest, I made a call to Dave Myers candidate for sheriff and current sheriff’s captain. Lori Saldaña called police chief Zimmerman directly as well. Because of those calls, we were able to get a bigger police presence. Dave Myers came out and helped direct the deputies…
Former Assembly member Lori Saldaña pursued a complaint against the Sheriff's Department.
https://twitter.com/LoriSaldanaSD/status/1350989428731371525?s=20
In a thread posted to Twitter yesterday, she recounted the history of this group since 2017, including their involvement in a “Pizza Picnic” at Chicano Park, requiring intervention by the SDPD (who didn’t stand by and just watch), a Proud Boy attack on counter protesters at a pro-border wall rally hosted by then-Congressman Duncan Hunter, along with their collaboration with vigilantes (who claimed to be supported by the San Diego Sheriff’s Department) who sought to disrupt protests following the death of George Floyd in June, 2020.
Note: San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore is up for re-election in 2022. Former Sheriff's Commander Dave Myers is letting people know he’s running.
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Even as federal authorities say they are readying more serious charges against the January 6 insurrectionists, Reuters News broke a story about Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio’s history as a “prolific police informant.”
He very conveniently wasn’t in Washington DC on January 6th after being arrested earlier, charged with possessing two high-capacity rifle magazines, and burning a Black Lives Matter banner during a December demonstration by supporters of former President Donald Trump. A D.C. Superior Court judge ordered him to leave the city pending a court date in June.
In November and December, Tarrio led the Proud Boys through the streets of D.C. after Trump’s loss. Video shows him on December 11 with a bullhorn in front of a large crowd. “To the parasites both in Congress, and in that stolen White House,” he said. “You want a war, you got one!” The crowd roared. The next day Tarrio burned the BLM banner.
Former prosecutor Johannes said she was surprised that the defendant she prosecuted for fraud is now a key player in the violent movement that sought to halt the certification of President Joe Biden.
“I knew that he was a fraudster – but had no reason to know that he was also a domestic terrorist,” she said.
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Another New York Times story adds to the backstory of the Capitol insurrection, focusing on the many conspiracists drawn to the event.
For many of the Capitol rioters and others who believe Mr. Trump won, it was not a large leap to “Stop the Steal” from a pathway of conspiratorial steppingstones that included the “Pizzagate” claim of 2016 that Democrats were running a child sex ring in the back of a popular Washington pizza parlor, the debunked allegation that a low-level Democratic National Committee aide was murdered for leaking Hillary Clinton’s emails and many more.
Mr. Trump’s false claims of election fraud, which animated the riot on Jan. 6, have reassembled — virtually, anyway — a cast of characters that go way back. Other conspiratorial theorizers that mass shootings were false flag operations by liberals to promote gun control included Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia; the Infowars impresario Alex Jones; the fired Florida Atlantic University professor James Tracy; and the retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor James Fetzer, all of whom then embraced Mr. Trump’s baseless fraud claims.
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Side note: For now, I’m skipping over the internet claims about a gathering of bigwigs at the Trump International Hotel on the evening of January 5. It seems clear that something happened. There are too many conspiracy minded assumptions being made for my tastes. Stay tuned.
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Finally, let’s look at Congresscritter Marjorie Taylor Greene (R/QAnon - Georgia). If she is allowed free reign in the halls of the Capitol building (seats on committees, etc) by the GOP leadership, that’s more than enough proof that they’re just batshit crazy.
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1354173875257544705?s=20
https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/1354422737377382402?s=20
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