Trump supporters and conspiracy theory - Part 2

[Rick Plant]

National Archives says Trump representatives are still looking for additional docs he smuggled to Mar-a-Lago

Monday that former President Donald Trump improperly smuggled several White House documents with him to his home in Mar-a-Lago -- and there are apparently still more out there.

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has now released a statement claiming that "former President Trump’s representatives have informed NARA that they are continuing to search for additional Presidential records that belong to the National Archives" that were wrongly removed from the White House last year.

"These records should have been transferred to NARA from the White House at the end of the Trump Administration in January 2021," the agency added.

Archivist of the United States David Ferriero also outlined the importance of properly maintaining presidential records.

"The Presidential Records Act is critical to our democracy, in which the government is held accountable by the people," he said. "There should be no question as to the need for both diligence and vigilance. Records matter."

Read the full statement below:

News from @USNatArchives on our story this AM: In mid-January 2022, NARA arranged for the transport from Mar-A-Lago 15 boxes that contained Presidential records



Read full story here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/07/trump-records-mar-a-lago/

[Rick Plant]

‘Should be easy’: Former prosecutor says Georgia DA has the evidence to indict Trump



The Georgia prosecutor investigating Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election could be criminally charged now, but the prosecutor is pursuing a more expansive case that will take longer, a former federal prosecutor explained on CNN on Tuesday.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating Trump for nearly a year after the publication of audio from a phone call when Trump attempted to convince Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the 2020 election.

CNN's John Berman interviewed lawyer Michael Moore, who served as the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia.

"You know, I think there is," Moore replied.

"I think there could be a very clear cut case and sort of a rifle shot approach to this," he explained. "That is to just move forward on quick felony charge using the phone call as the basis of that."

Moore said that Raffensperger's testimony could be powerful.

"He has been all over the news media when this happened," he explained. "He told everybody about -- he wrote a book about it and marketed for his book as he made appearances. we have other statements from him that could be used in a prosecution. That's one of the reasons that I think a clear criminal grand jury would be easy."

"What this tells me about what she's doing — moving forward looking at conspiracy charges, possible charges on other people — that's fine. There's validity to casting a wider net. The thing you have to be aware of as prosecutor, the wider the net, the more shots you make available by defense attack in appellate courts," he explained.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Erik Prince convinced right-wing heiress to fund political espionage against Trump critics



The billionaire founder of the Blackwater mercenary company played a key role in setting up a domestic spying venture against critics of Donald Trump.

"During the summer of 2018, as Richard Seddon, a former British spy, was trying to launch a new venture to use undercover agents to infiltrate progressive groups, Democratic campaigns and other opponents of President Donald J. Trump, he turned for help to a longtime friend and former colleague: Erik Prince, the private military contractor," The New York Times reported Tuesday. "Mr. Prince took on the role of celebrity pitchman, according to interviews and documents, raising money for Mr. Seddon’s spying operation, which was aimed at gathering dirt that could discredit politicians and activists in several states. After Mr. Prince and Mr. Seddon met in August 2018 with Susan Gore, a Wyoming heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune, Ms. Gore became the project’s main benefactor."

Prince is the brother of Betsy DeVos, who served as Trump's education secretary.

"Mr. Prince’s role in the effort, which has not been previously disclosed, sheds further light on how a group of ultraconservative Republicans employed spycraft to try to manipulate the American political landscape," the newspaper reported. "His willingness to support Mr. Seddon’s operation is fresh evidence of his engagement in political espionage projects at home during a period when he was an informal adviser to Trump administration officials."

The report was based on "documents obtained by The Times and interviews with people familiar with [Seddon's] plans."

The effort may violate federal law.

"During the 2018 meeting with Ms. Gore, according to one person familiar with it, Mr. Prince and Mr. Seddon said the goal of the private spying operation was to gather dirt both on Democrats and 'RINOs' — slang in conservative circles for 'Republicans in name only.' The plan was to begin in Wyoming, they said, and expand operations from there," the newspaper reported. "Over two years, Mr. Seddon’s undercover operatives also developed networks in Colorado and Arizona, and made thousands of dollars in campaign donations posing as Democrats, both to the Democratic National Committee and individual campaigns. Funneling money surreptitiously to campaigns through other donors — known as straw man donations — would violate federal campaign finance laws. Mr. Prince is separately under investigation by the Justice Department on unrelated matters, according to people familiar with the case."

Read the full report:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/us/politics/erik-prince-spy-operation-trump-democrats.html

[Rick Plant]

Trump's terrorists hate America. 

The same far-right influencers behind the effort to overturn the 2020 election are pushing for a convoy on DC



Many of the same players who were involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 election in the United States are celebrating the Canadian truckers convoy that has crippled Ottawa, while calling for a duplicate effort targeting Washington, DC.

At the top of the list is Donald Trump himself, who issued a statement on Feb. 4 deriding Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a “far-left lunatic… who has destroyed Canada with insane Covid mandates.” Trump added: “Now, thankfully, the Freedom Convoy could be coming to DC with American Truckers who want to protest Biden’s ridiculous Covid policies.”

The People’s Convoy, with a Facebook group boasting 48,100 members and Telegram channel with 38,000 members, had previously publicized March 1 as a start date, but by the past weekend organizers were signaling that the date was up in the air again. In a video shared on the group’s telegram channel, organizer Jeremy Johnson reported that leaders would hold a Zoom meeting on Feb. 5 “with a very large group of people,” while predicting, “After that Zoom meeting on we’re going to be able to come out with a hell of a lot more information than what we’ve been able to do so far.” In the same video, Johnson said his group had joined forces with Leigh Dundas, a social media influencer anti-vax advocate from southern California who helped mobilize Trump supporters to come to Washington, DC on Jan. 5, 2021.

In a Facebook Live video on Feb. 4, Dundas briefly touched on the DC convoy, saying, “US convoy coming soon. Sit tight, guys. I don’t want to rush to judgement on this one. I’m working with a lot of different trucking factions over the next 48 hours here. I think we’re going to have big announcements starting at the end of the week or next week.”

Dundas could not be reached for comment by Facebook or email for this story.

Dundas has previously said she participated in a conference call with Trump’s campaign lawyers on the day after media organizations declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election. In a video livestreamed that day, she hit on several talking points of the campaign, including arguments that the fight was not about Trump, but “about the very bedrock of our constitutional republic.” On Dec. 29, Dundas said in a video that was viewed 33,000 times that Trump’s followers “need to show up in force in Washington, DC on January 6th,” and that “when those votes are counted by [Vice President Mike] Pence and his friends on January 6th, we need to be there in person to ensure there is integrity in that process, and also to send one hell of a message as to what will happen, if there’s not.”

Since the attempted insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Dundas has held a slot in the Reawaken America Tour, a far-right extravaganza headlined by retired Lt. General Mike Flynn that showcases various proponents of the Big Lie, anti-vaxxers and Christian nationalists.

Dundas has been pushing for truckers to use their vehicles as force for economic disruption since at least last November. That month, Dundas organized a four-day event billed as a “Nationwide Walkout,” which she also described as a “strike.” In a Nov. 9 interview with Scott McKay, also a speaker in the Reawaken America Tour, Dundas asked truck drivers to email her directly “to get more involved.” A graphic posted on her Facebook page two days later solicited drivers to “help us stand against the vaccine mandates by driving your rig to the Golden Gate Bridge” in San Francisco. It's unclear whether any truckers obliged Dundas’ request.

During the Nov. 9 interview, Dundas leveled a baseless accusation that the Biden administration is killing people through with its policies surrounding the Covid vaccine, which has been proven to be safe and effective.

“What Biden has done is illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional, you name it,” Dundas told McKay. “If there’s a prefix like U-N in front of it, he’s doing it. And he’s saying you have got to get what’s essentially a kill shot.”

McKay rejoined with a similarly incendiary statement accusing hospitals of “murder,” without providing specific detail.

“This is no longer playtime,” said McKay, a podcaster and former bodybuilder who goes by the moniker “the Patriot Streetfighter.” “These people are playing for keeps. They’re going for broke. They’re looking to bring this country down, bury, literally bury us, and they’re doing it. Because now we got a murder machine inside the hospitals where they’re killing people left and right.

“I don’t know what else will make people step forward and tell us, ‘I am done with this bulls**t,’” McKay continued. “It is time to bring the force of We The People against these bas**rds, and bring ’em to their knees.”

During a previous podcast, McKay enlisted his listeners to harass members of the Ankeny Community School Board in Iowa over their support of masking, urging them to “carpet bomb these boneheads with emails” and “beat the s**t out of them,” according to a report by the Daily Beast.

While organizers iron out the details for the American version, proponents of the lie that Trump won the 2020 election are publicly cheering the siege on Ottawa.

Flynn, who urged Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military to “rerun” the election before he left office in disgrace, posted a video of a testimonial from a Canadian truck driver to his 308,600 subscribers on Telegram on Feb. 1.

“We are up against pure evil in this fight to save our freedoms and our children,” Flynn wrote in his post to promote the video. “God bless these truckers and all others fighting to save us from these tyrannical bastards who hide behind their little lives and walls.”

Ivan Raiklin, an Army Reserve officer and Flynn associate who pushed the legal theory that Pence had the power to set aside electoral votes for Biden, used his Telegram account on Sunday to call for the arrest of Prime Minister Trudeau.

“1. Lift all CCP-19 mandates,” he wrote. “2. Arrest every official: national, provincial, local that implemented or enforced those mandates. 3. Try Justin for treason after his apology and after he begs for mercy.”

US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who reportedly met with Trump in December 2020 to discuss options for overturning the election, joined former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon on his “War Room Pandemic” podcast on Monday to celebrate the Ottawa blockade.

“I wish we had people standing like that in our country,” she said. “Those truckers are doing exactly what people should be doing in every single country across the world where they’re forcing these tyrannical Covid mandates where they have enforced shutdowns.”

Jack Posobiec, the right-wing disinformation specialist who promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy and tweeted out the #StopTheSteal hashtag almost two months in advance of the 2020 election, has been commenting prolifically on events in Canada to his 171,358 subscribers on Telegram.

On Sunday, Posobiec posted a photograph of an Ottawa resident holding a sign reading, “I love vaccines, truckers go home,” while mocking it with the text: “You heard her, lads, Truckers Go Home and don’t come back!”

A response from a user named “Sinjin” was typical among the 250-plus comments: “Let that libtard Socialist starve to death. Please.”

Another user, “Jody,” raised the stakes to antisemitic murder: “I’m thinking we go into one big room and shoot Soros, Rockefellers, Rothschilds and the rest of them to death. Then we can go back to normal.”

In another post on Sunday, Posobiec compared Trudeau to the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

“Trudeau is about to crack down on the peaceful protesters like a Castro,” he wrote.

One user, “john b.,” responded: “Sounds like Canada could use a sharpshooter.”

“Tom Papp” echoed the sentiment, writing, “Lock and load!!!”

https://www.rawstory.com/freedom-convoy-2656591373/

[Richard Smith]

Trump's terrorists hate America. 

The same far-right influencers behind the effort to overturn the 2020 election are pushing for a convoy on DC

Imagine referring to ordinary people, including truckers that kept the country supplied during the Biden/Trudeau lockdown as terrorists.  Shameful.   The leftists like Biden and Trudeau wildly overplayed their hand using the pandemic as a pretense to gain power.  Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and they are completely on the retreat.  Trudeau is in hiding.   Biden's handlers will see the light soon and try to save themselves by declaring victory over COVID in a forlorn effort to stop the red tsunami in the upcoming election that will sweep them out of power.

[Rick Plant]

Imagine referring to ordinary people, including truckers that kept the country supplied during the Biden/Trudeau lockdown as terrorists.  Shameful.   The leftists like Biden and Trudeau wildly overplayed their hand using the pandemic as a pretense to gain power.  Now the chickens are coming home to roost, and they are completely on the retreat.  Trudeau is in hiding.   Biden's handlers will see the light soon and try to save themselves by declaring victory over COVID in a forlorn effect to stop the red tsunami in the upcoming election that will sweep them out of power.

Nice right wing propaganda. "Ordinary people" don't beat cops during an insurrection and attempt a coup to overthrow the government like Trump's terrorists did.

[Rick Plant]

Trump's terrorists headed up north to Canada to wreak havoc. This whole thing is a far right wing funded and coordinated plot as they use the pandemic to push their far right wing extremism attempting to overthrow the government. These thugs are responsible for keeping this pandemic going and need to be moved out. Disrupting and occupying a major city is illegal, and if they refuse to move out, put them all in jail where they belong.     

Neo-Nazis and QAnon: how Canadian truckers’ anti-vaccine protest was steered by extremists
Ottawa’s occupation was a result of unrivaled coordination between anti-vax and anti-government organizations



Thousands of demonstrators have successfully occupied Canada’s frigid capital for days, and say they plan on staying as long as it takes to thwart the country’s vaccine requirements.

The brazen occupation of Ottawa came as a result of unprecedented coordination between various anti-vaccine and anti-government organizations and activists, and has been seized on by similar groups around the world.

It may herald the revenge of the anti-vaxxers.

The so-called “freedom convoy” – which departed for Ottawa on 23 January – was the brainchild of James Bauder, an admitted conspiracy theorist who has endorsed the QAnon movement and called Covid-19 “the biggest political scam in history”. Bauder’s group, Canada Unity, contends that vaccine mandates and passports are illegal under Canada’s constitution, the Nuremberg Code and a host of other international conventions.

Bauder has long been a fringe figure, but his movement caught a gulf stream of support after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last year that truckers crossing the US-Canada border would need to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19. The supposed plight of the truckers proved to be a compelling public relations angle and attracted an array of fellow travelers.

Until now, a litany of organizations had protested Canada’s strict public health measures, but largely in isolation. One such group, Hold Fast Canada, had organized pickets of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s headquarters, where they claimed that concentration camps had already been introduced in the country.

Another group, Action4Canada, launched legal challenges to mask and vaccine mandates. In one 400-page court filing, they allege that the “false pronouncement of a Covid-19 ‘pandemic’” was carried out, at least in part, by Bill Gates and a “New World (Economic) Order” to facilitate the injection of 5G-enabled microchips into the population.

Both groups are listed as “participating groups” on the Canada Unity website, and sent vehicles and personnel to join the convoy.

Other organizers joined Bauder, including Chris Barber, a Saskatchewan trucker who was fined $14,000 in October for violating provincial public health measures; Tamara Lich, an activist for a fringe political party advocating that Western Canada should become an independent state; Benjamin Dichter, who has warned of the “growing Islamization of Canada”; and Pat King, an anti-government agitator who has repeatedly called for Trudeau to be arrested.

Since they have arrived in Ottawa, the extreme elements of the protest have been visible: neo-Nazi and Confederate flags were seen flying, QAnon logos were emblazoned on trucks and signs and stickers were pasted to telephone poles around the occupied area bear Trudeau’s face, reading: “Wanted for crimes against humanity.”

The official line from Bauder and his co-organizers, however, has remained focused; in a Facebook live broadcast, Bauder instructed his supporters to “stop talking about the vaccine” and instead stick to message of “freedom”.

Such strict message control has attracted mainstream support. Numerous members of the Conservative party, Canada’s official opposition, have come out to meet the protesters. Elon Musk and Donald Trump have both endorsed the convoy. Fox broadcasters Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have provided glowing updates on the continuing occupation.

Bauder vowed the convoy would camp out in Ottawa until their demands are met, insisting to his followers that a “memorandum of understanding” would force the government’s hand, possibly even triggering fresh elections, if enough people sign.

A Canada Unity organizer went further, saying it would require the Senate to “go after the prime minister” for “corruption” and “fascism”. There is no legal basis for those claims.

King has laid out a more direct plan of action to the occupiers: “What we want to focus on is our politicians, their houses, their locations,” he said in a January Facebook stream. If political pressure doesn’t work, King said, blocking major supply chains “will be later on”.

Soon after, the head of security for Parliament issued an extraordinary warning to Members of Parliament to avoid the protest entirely, for their own safety.

The occupiers have deliberately made life difficult for anyone in Ottawa’s downtown core. Trucks have been laying on their air horns throughout the day, often well into the early morning hours. An Ottawa court granted an injunction Monday afternoon, ordering that the honking must cease.

In the shadow of Parliament, a flatbed truck was converted into a stage – functioning as a speaker’s corner during the day, where far-right politicians and occupiers took the microphone to decry Trudeau and Covid vaccines. At night, the stage functions as a DJ booth for raucous dance parties.

Technology has made the occupation even easier: drivers share information on routes and the best ways to evade police barricades via the walkie talkie app Zello. Organizers in other cities use the secure messaging app Telegram to share information, coordinate messaging and plan solidarity protests.

The occupiers now have the resources to stay for an extended period of time: they have raised more than C$6mthrough various crowdfunding platforms, in cash and Bitcoin, despite having been booted from GoFundMe’s platform after raising over C$10m.

The Ottawa occupation is proof that a few thousand determined protesters can overwhelm police and shut down major cities with enough vehicles and coordination. Solidarity convoys have already shut down the busy Coutts border crossing between Alberta and Montana, strained police resources in Toronto and Quebec City, and activists as far away as Helsinki, Canberra, London, and Brussels have taken not. On the convoy channels, protestors warn this is just the beginning.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/08/canada-ottawa-trucker-protest-extremist-qanon-neo-nazi