1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

Wisconsin at the center of the Jan. 6 conspiracy

On the eve of the next Jan. 6 House committee hearing, which begins at noon Central Time on Tuesday, the Defend Democracy Project, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting efforts to undermine elections, held a virtual press briefing focused on Wisconsin’s central role in the plot to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Norman Eisen, former ambassador to the Czech Republic and an expert on corruption and democracy issues at the Brookings Institution, gave an overview of the evidence so far and previewed Tuesday’s hearing. Possible crimes the committee has uncovered include obstruction of an official proceeding in Congress and a conspiracy to defraud the United States, Eisen said.

“And it’s not just federal crimes we’ve heard about,” Eisen added, recapping testimony from Republican officials in Arizona and Georgia about being pressured to falsify election results, as well as Trump advisers’ coordinated push to get phony electoral ballots for Trump from seven states including Wisconsin.

Eisen was joined by three Wisconsinites, State Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), Kyle Johnson, the political director of BLOC (Black Leaders Organizing Communities) and Mel Barnes, an attorney with Law Forward, the nonprofit, progressive law firm that is suing Wisconsin’s fake electors who cast phony electoral ballots for former President Donald Trump.

Underscoring the panel’s message that Wisconsin played a critical role in the battle over democratic elections and the 2020 results, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, over the weekend to celebrate a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that bars the use of drop boxes for voting. Trump called for the nullification of Wisconsin’s 2020 Electoral College votes and ordered  Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), to “do something, for once, about this atrocity!”

“I think it’s really important for members of the public in Wisconsin to know we’re not talking about something that’s happening somewhere else, or to other people. This is something that is happening in Wisconsin, specifically,” said panel moderator Joe Zepecki of the Defend Democracy Project. He pointed to Trump’s remarks about the drop box decision as evidence that “this is not over. This is ongoing.”

Tuesday’s hearing will focus on Trump’s connection to a plan to use violence to help overturn the 20202 election results. And the violent white nationalist groups that took part in the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, including the Proud Boys and the Oathkeepers, have used Wisconsin as a “training ground,” Zepecki said, when extremists met in Wisconsin while plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. “These extremist groups are here. … they are dangerous,” Zepecki said, adding, “We also have the dangerous, dangerous idea that the votes of the people of Wisconsin don’t matter.”

“It’s really important to remember that here in Wisconsin, the fraudulent electors, these are not random people who walked off the street and decided to do this,” said Barnes of Law Forward, adding that Andrew Hitt, the former head of the state Republican Party and Robert Spindell, a current member of the Wisconsin Elections Board were among those who cast false electoral votes for Trump. “This is a big deal,” said Barnes. “It’s a danger to our democracy, and certainly to our future elections, which we know will continue to be close. And we must make sure that voters continue to decide the outcome of elections in our state.”

Barnes connected the revelations of the Jan. 6 House committee hearings to recent unpopular U.S. Supreme Court decisions on abortion, gun safety and voting rights, saying, “the facade that these unpopular views are winning in our political discourse is really starting to crumble.”

“We’re seeing that as the committee uncovers more and more of this conspiracy, the extreme actions that these folks had to take to try to hold on to power. We know that Wisconsinites and Americans do not agree with them.“

On Tuesday, “I think we will learn more about what happened with this coordinated criminal conspiracy theory,” Barnes said, “and hopefully be able to hold some of the bad actors here in our state accountable to make sure this never happens again.”

Johnson of BLOC, an organization committed to building political power at the street-level for underserved communities, said, “The best way to describe how we’re all feeling is pissed off.”

The voters he has contact with have been angry to learn about Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson’s role in attempting to deliver Wisconsin’s fake electoral ballots to Vice President Mike Pence, he said. Community members feel poorly served by political leaders who would rather cheat to hold onto power than win by meeting the real needs of their constituents, he said.

“No one is exempt from the law — Black, white … Pacific Islander, American Indian — all of us in Wisconsin want everyone to be held accountable,” he added.

“I think it’s important to understand that it isn’t really about 2020,” said Roys. “It is about undermining confidence in our whole electoral system and the mechanisms for how we vote.” By casting doubt on a highly decentralized election system, Trump and his supporters continue to try to set up a plan to steal the next election, she said.

https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2022/07/12/wisconsin-at-the-center-of-the-jan-6-conspiracy/

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 6 panel to pinpoint one single decision Trump made that set Capitol violence into motion:

The Jan. 6 committee will focus on a decision made late at night in the White House that spurred the violence that erupted at the U.S. Capitol.

It's not clear who made the decision for Donald Trump to tweet out an invitation to his supporters to go "wild" in Washington, D.C., on the day Congress met to certify Joe Biden's election win, but The Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that investigators intend to show that post set the insurrection into motion.

"We left off [in the last hearing] with Republicans seeking pardons, John Eastman seeking pardons and Rudy Giuliani seeking a pardon," Lowell said. "Now we're going to focus today on the tweet that Trump sent, a call to extremist groups to storm the Capitol and the groups surrounding the protests surrounding Jan. 6. They're going to start with the 18th of December meeting at the White House, according to my reporting."

The former president sent out the tweet late at night after meeting for hours with fringe conspiracy theorists, and the committee hopes to shed light on the role they played in stirring up violent action.

"Mike Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock, and Emily Newman, this Trump aide, and Sidney Powell showed up at the White House uninvited, unannounced, and tried to get Trump to seize voting machines and install Sidney Powell as special counsel," Lowell said. "This [meeting] goes on for hours and hours, they go to the residence. At some point, a decision gets made, whether it's by Trump or whether it's been his aides, we're not entirely clear, but at some point, he makes the decision, and at 1:42 in the morning Trump sends this tweet on the 19th of December, saying, 'Big protest that will be wild, see you there on the 6th.'"

"All the machinery around Jan. 6 springs into action," he added. "Ali Alexander and Stop the Steal gets the permit, [activist] Cindy Chafian had a permit changes the date of her permit to Jan. 6. The Proud Boys start prepping and creating the group chats literally hours after Trump sends that tweet. It all sends us down the path toward Jan. 6. The committee is going to say Trump was responsible because he sent that signal and green-lighted the operation."

Watch the segment below:

[Rick Plant]

Former wife of Oath Keepers head Rhodes says he would have seen Trump's tweet as a 'go-ahead'



Hours before the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th insurrection holds a hearing that will center on a tweet from Donald Trump that investigators believed instigated the riot, the former wife of Oath Keepers head Stewart Rhodes said he ex would have viewed it as an order to proceed.

Speaking with "New Day" host John Berman, Tasha Adams said her former husband is still a true believer in the former president even as he faces jail time after being indicted for obstructing an official proceeding, conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiring to prevent an officer of the United States from discharging a duty.

As the CNN host noted Trump tweeted, "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!" on Dec. 19, 2020, he then asked how Stewart Rhodes would have responded.

"You are talking about the idea that the January 6th committee, he's volunteered to testify publicly before them and you are warning against giving him that voice," host Berman began. "Based on what you know of Stewart in the past, if he were to see a tweet from Donald Trump, like the one he issued, 'January 6th, come to the protest, it will be wild', what would his likely response have been when you knew him? "

"He would have seen that as a go-ahead," she quickly replied. "He would have seen secret underlying signals, whether they were there or not, that it's going to be okay."

"As long as they keep the former president in office. no matter what happens, as long as they are loyal to him, it's all going to be okay," she added.

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 6 committee to hold seventh hearing
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/january-6-hearings-july-12/index.html


C-SPAN Live Coverage of Tuesday's January 6 Committe Hearing

Today's hearing is scheduled to begin at 1:00 PM ET.

Watch Here:

[Rick Plant]

Liz Cheney again drops witness intimidation bombshell in her closing statement

GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming again dropped a bombshell allegation of witness intimidation during her closing statement as vice-chair of the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

During the last hearing on June 28, Cheney laid out a "stunning" case of witness tampering.

She returned to the topic on Tuesday while discussing who Trump did and did not call.

"He did not call the military, his secretary of defense received no order, he did not call his attorney general, he did not talk to the Department of Homeland security," Cheney said. "Mike Pence did all of those things, Donald Trump did not."

"After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation," she revealed.

"A witness you have not yet seen in these hearings," she explained. "That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump's call and, instead, alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us and this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice."

"Let me say one more time, we will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously," she warned.

Watch:

'Only the guilty try to tamper with witnesses': Legal experts weigh in on Liz Cheney's latest bombshell



Legal experts were stunned on Tuesday when GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming once again dropped a bombshell on witness tampering during her closing statement as vice-chair of the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation," she said.

"A witness you have not yet seen in these hearings," Cheney continued. "That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump's call and, instead, alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us and this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice."

"Let me say one more time, we will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously," she added.

After the hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) revealed the select committee has known about the call for a couple of days.

He said, “this has been an ongoing pattern, and we're trying to send the message that witness tampering is a crime in the United States of America."

Prof. Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law, who has argued three dozen cases before the Supreme Court, posted "WOW" on Twitter.

"This is HUGE," Tribe argued.

Former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen wrote, "We already knew of multiple apparent incidents of witness intimidation. We just learned that President Trump may have attempted a 3rd."'

"18 USC 1512 punishes witness intimidation with fines, imprisonment for not more than 20 years, or both," Eisen noted.

"Liz Cheney is smart to put down a marker by publicly calling out Trump for reaching out to one of the Committee’s witnesses," former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said.

Former prosecutor Katie Phang suggested that "Trump wasn’t calling to talk about the weather."

"So, Trump tried to call a witness," former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance noted. "The witness passed it on to their lawyer & the committee forwarded the information to DOJ. Former presidents are no more entitled to break the law by witness tampering than any other citizen."

She added that "only the guilty try to tamper with witnesses."

NBC News Chief Washington Correspondent said, "Witness tampering, attempted or otherwise, is a felony. Ask Roger Stone who was convicted of obstruction, impeding a congressional inquiry. Trump commuted his 40 month sentence before leaving office."

"Wait, did Liz Cheney say Trump *called a witness* and that it's been referred to the DOJ. Did this fool commit witness tampering THIS WEEK???" asked The Nation justice correspondent Elie Mystal.

AFP

[Rick Plant]

‘Red Wedding’: J6 panel reveals how Trump motivated right-wing media to call for violence



The House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol played a highlight reel showing how Donald Trump's Dec. 19 tweet was critical to motivating far-right media personalities to focus their attention on stopping the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.

"Not long after Sydney Powell, Mike Flynn and Rudy Giuliani left the White House in the early hours of the morning, President Trump turned away from both his outside advisors' outlandish and unworkable schemes and his White House counsel's advice to swallow hard and accept the reality of the loss," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said. "Instead, Donald Trump issued a tweet that would galvanize his followers and unleash a political firestorm and change the course of our history as a country."

The former constitutional law professor detailed why Trump's Twitter account was critical to his coup attempt.

"Trump's purpose was to mobilize a crowd. How do you mobilize a crowd in 2020? With millions of followers on Twitter, President Trump knew exactly how to do it. On 1:42 a.m. on Dec. 19, 2020, shortly after the left participants left the unhinged meeting, Trump sent out the tweet with his explosive invitation. Trump repeated his big lie and claimed it was, statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election before calling for a big protest in D.C. on Jan. 6, 'be there, will be wild.' Trump supporters responded immediately."

"Women for America First, a pro-Trump organizing group, had previously applied for a rally permit for Jan. 22 and 23 in Washington D.C., several days after Joe Biden was to be inaugurated. In the hours after the tweet, they moved their permit to Jan. 6, two weeks before. This rescheduling created the rally where Trump would eventually speak. The next day Ai Alexander, leader of the Stop the Steal organization and key mobilizer of Trump's supporters, registered www.WildProtest.com, named after Trumps' tweet."

Raskin then played clips of right-wing media figures, including Alex Jones, Tim Pool, and Matt Bracken.

"You better understand something, son," pro-Trump YouTuber Salty Cracker told his audience.

"Red wave, b***h. A red wedding going on Jan. 6," he predicted.

Red wedding refers to the famous episode of HBO's "Game of Thrones" that closed the third season. In the episode, Robb Stark, his wife, mother, and banner-men are massacred after being set up by Lord Walder Frey at the behest of the Lannister family.

Watch:

'You guys are not tough enough': Three takeaways from Jan. 6 committee hearing



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tuesday's congressional committee hearing into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot by supporters of then-President Donald Trump featured a detailed recounting of Trump's actions to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Here are three takeaways from the hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Jan. 6:

MID-DECEMBER CONSENSUS: GAME OVER

By mid-December, after the U.S. Electoral College count showed that Democrat Joe Biden had defeated the Republican Trump, leading Trump officials thought he should concede the election and wind down his presidency, they testified.

On Dec. 14, the Electoral College declared Biden had won the election by 306-232 electoral votes.

In a videotape recording, Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump was shown testifying: "I think it was my sentiment, probably prior as well."Others providing the same assessment: former Attorney General William Barr and former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, who also testified that then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows believed the same.

HIGH-VOLUME DEC. 18, 2020, MEETING

The committee detailed a "surprise visit" to the White House the night of Dec. 18 that lasted for more than six hours.

It brought together outside Trump advisers ranging from personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to disgraced former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor who fought to overturn the election on false claims of election fraud.

They presented a draft "executive order" calling for the U.S. military to seize states' voting machines. White House counsel Pat Cipollone testified he thought that was a "terrible idea."

What followed was several hours of screaming and insults that ranged from the Oval Office to Trump's private quarters, participants testified.

"It was not a casual meeting. At times there were people shouting at each other, throwing insults at each other," said Derek Lyons, former White House staff secretary.

Giuliani said he accused White House staffers of not fighting for Trump's interests.

"You guys are not tough enough. Or maybe I put it another way. You're a bunch of pussies, excuse the expression. I'm almost certain the word was used," he said.

At one point, Trump offered to give Powell a job as a special counsel with a security clearance, participants testified.

It was past midnight when the meeting ended, the witnesses said. Giuliani was escorted off White House grounds to make sure he did not wander back, U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin said at Tuesday's hearing, citing other testimony.

TWEET INSPIRES ACTION

Shortly after the late-night meeting, early in the morning of Dec. 19, Trump issued a tweet urging his supporters to assemble in Washington on Jan. 6 for what he promised would be a "wild" gathering.

The committee provided evidence that this tweet energized militant groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to gather in Washington armed. In the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, violent rhetoric coursed through the internet.

The committee showed an online broadcast of a right-wing personality calling for a "red wedding" on Jan. 6, code language for mass slaughter, Raskin said.

The committee said it found that Trump spoke twice on Jan. 5, 2021, with former top adviser Steve Bannon, who was shown on videotape saying, "All hell is going to break loose tomorrow," as he referred to a "point of attack" that would be "quite extraordinarily different."

© Reuters

[Rick Plant]

WATCH: Far-right extremist groups coordinated with Trump associates ahead of Jan. 6, committee shows

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., spoke on July 12 as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented its findings to the public. The focus of the hearing was on extremist far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the role they played in the Capitol insurrection.

He laid out the connections that former President Donald Trump associates like close adviser Roger Stone and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had with those far-right groups. Raskin also showed how the groups started working together to coordinate ahead of Jan. 6, 2021.

“Trump's Dec. 19 tweet motivated these two extremist groups, which have historically not worked together to coordinate their activities,” Raskin said. “Hours after President Trump's tweet, Kelly Meggs, the head of the Florida Oath Keepers declared an alliance among the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and the Florida Three Percenters, another militia group,” he said.

Raskin said phone records show that later the same day, Meggs called Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was later charged with seditious conspiracy after his role in Jan. 6.

“The very next day, the Proud Boys got to work. The Proud Boys launched an encrypted chat called the Ministry of Self Defense. The committee obtained hundreds of these messages, which show strategic and tactical planning about January the 6th, including maps of Washington, D.C., that pinpoint the location of police in the weeks leading up to the attack.”

Raskin said leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers worked with Trump allies, like Flynn.

Watch: