Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I wouldn't be surprised if some legislators were directly involved.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in Washington for pro-Trump events Jan. 6, a day that ended in a chaotic crime rampage when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, according to people familiar with evidence gathered in the FBI’s investigation. The majority of the watch-listed individuals in Washington that day are suspected white supremacists whose past conduct so alarmed investigators that their names had been previously entered into the national Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, a massive set of names flagged as potential security risks, these people said. The watch list is larger and separate from the “no-fly” list the government maintains to prevent terrorism suspects from boarding airplanes, and those listed are not automatically barred from any public or commercial spaces, current and former officials said. The presence of so many watch-listed individuals in one place — without more robust security measures to protect the public — is another example of the intelligence failures preceding last week’s fatal assault that sent lawmakers running for their lives, some current and former law enforcement officials argued. The revelation follows a Washington Post report earlier this week detailing the FBI’s failure to act aggressively on an internal intelligence report of Internet discussions about plans to attack Congress, smash windows, break down doors and “get violent . . . go there ready for war.” [FBI report warned in advance of ‘war’ at the Capitol] Other current and former officials said the presence of those individuals is an unsurprising consequence of having thousands of fervent Trump supporters gathered for what was billed as a final chance to voice opposition to Joe Biden’s certification as the next president. Still, the revelation underscores the limitations of such watch lists. Although they are meant to improve information gathering and sharing among investigative agencies, they are far from a foolproof means of detecting threats ahead of time. Since its creation, the terrorist watch list, which is maintained by the FBI, has grown to include hundreds of thousands of names. Placing someone’s name on the watch list does not mean they will be watched all of the time, or even much of the time, for reasons of both practicality and fairness, but it can alert different parts of the government, such as border agents or state police, to look more closely at certain individuals they encounter. It’s unclear whether any of the dozens of individuals already arrested for alleged crimes at the Capitol are on the terrorist watch list. “The U.S. Government is committed to protecting the United States from terrorist threats and attacks and seeks to do this in a manner that protects the freedoms, privacy and civil rights and liberties of U.S. persons and other individuals with rights under U.S. law,” a U.S. official said, adding that because of security concerns, the government has a policy of neither confirming nor denying a person’s watch list status. The FBI declined to comment. [Trump is isolated and angry at aides for failing to defend him as he is impeached again] The riot’s political aftershocks led the House of Representatives on Wednesday to impeach President Trump for allegedly inciting the violence — his second impeachment in a single four-year term — and may have significant consequences within law enforcement and national security agencies. Inside the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, officials are grappling with thorny questions about race, terrorism and free-speech rights, as some investigators question whether more could have been done to prevent last week’s violence. While some federal officials think the government should more aggressively investigate domestic terrorism and extremists, others are concerned the FBI, DHS and other agencies may overreact to the recent violence by going too far in surveilling First Amendment activity like online discussions. Several law enforcement officials said they are shocked by the backgrounds of some individuals under investigation in connection with the Capitol riot, a pool of suspects that includes current and former law enforcement and military personnel as well as senior business executives and middle-aged business owners. “I can’t believe some of the people I’m seeing,” one official said. [Democrats demand investigation of whether Republicans in Congress aided Capitol rioters] The TSDB, often referred to within government as simply “the watch list,” is overseen by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. The watch list can be used as both an investigative and early warning tool, but its primary purpose is to help various government agencies keep abreast of what individuals seen as potential risks are doing and where they travel, according to people familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the work is sensitive. Often that can be done as a “silent hit,” meaning if someone on the watch list is stopped for speeding, that information is typically entered into the database without the individual or even the officer who wrote the ticket ever knowing, one person said. After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, for instance, the FBI quickly searched a similar database to see which people on it had recently traveled to that city or raised other suspicions about possible involvement. Before the Jan. 6 gathering of pro-Trump protesters, FBI agents visited a number of suspected extremists and advised them against traveling to the nation’s capital. Many complied, but according to people familiar with the sprawling investigation, dozens of others, whose names appear in the terrorist watch list, apparently attended, based on information reviewed by the FBI. [FBI investigating whether some rioters aimed to kill or capture lawmakers] Separately, while the FBI is hunting hundreds of rioting suspects who have dispersed back to their hometowns, federal agents are increasingly focused on alleged leaders, members, and supporters of the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist group with ties to white nationalism, these people said. The Proud Boys participated in last week’s protests, and FBI agents are taking a close look at what roles, if any, their adherents may have had in organizing, directing or carrying out violence, according to people familiar with the matter. The group’s chairman, Enrique Tarrio, had planned to attend Trump’s Jan. 6 rally but was arrested when he arrived in D.C. and charged with misdemeanor destruction of property in connection with the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church during an earlier protest in Washington. He is also accused of felony possession of two extended gun magazines. Tarrio told The Post on Wednesday that his group did not organize the Capitol siege. “If they think we were organizing going into the Capitol, they’re going to be sadly mistaken,” he said. “Our plan was to stay together as a group and just enjoy the day. We weren’t going to do a night march, anything like that. That’s it as far as our day.” Tarrio said he’s actively discouraging members from attending planned armed marches scheduled Sunday, and the Million Militia March next week when Biden is inaugurated. Proud Boys, he said, are on a “rally freeze and will not be organizing any events for the next month or so.” It is unclear how many Proud Boys devotees will abide by the freeze, or if such a shutdown might lessen the FBI’s interest in the group. Even before the Jan. 6 riot, federal and local investigators were working to understand the group’s plans, goals and activities. Privately, some federal law enforcement officials have described the group as roughly equivalent to a nascent street gang that has garnered an unusual degree of national attention, in part because Trump mentioned them specifically during one his televised debates with Biden during the campaign. Other officials have expressed concern that the group may be growing rapidly into something more dangerous and directed. The FBI has already arrested dozens of accused rioters, and officials have pledged that in cases of the most egregious conduct, they will seek to file tough, rarely used charges like seditious conspiracy, which carries a potential 20-year prison sentence. The bureau continues to face blowback over its handling of a Jan. 5 internal report warning of discussions of violence at Congress the next day. Steven M. D’Antuono, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, claimed in the days after the riot that the bureau did not have intelligence ahead of time indicating the rally would be anything other than a peaceful demonstration. The Jan. 5 FBI report, written by the bureau’s office in Norfolk, and reviewed by The Post, shows that was not the case, and the Justice Department took other steps indicating officials were at least somewhat concerned about possible violence the next day. The Bureau of Prisons sent 100 officers to D.C. to supplement security at the Justice Department building, an unusual move similar to what the department did in June to respond to civil unrest stemming from racial justice protests. Mindful of the criticism that law enforcement took a heavy-handed, all-hands-on-deck approach to Black Lives Matters protests in D.C. in the spring and summer, Justice Department officials deferred to the Capitol Police to defend their building and lawmakers there. Some former officials have questioned whether the FBI and Justice Department should have done more. “It would not have been enough for the bureau simply to share information, if it did so, with state and local law enforcement or federal partner agencies,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department national security official. “It was the bureau’s responsibility to quarterback a coordinated federal response as the crisis was unfolding and in the days thereafter. And it’s presently not clear to what extent the FBI asserted itself in that fashion during the exigencies of January 6 and in the immediate aftermath.” Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
They knew and did nothing?!?
Of course they didn’t they were all white and standing up for white supremacy.
Hmmm? I thought the FBI was out to get Trump? So they are for him now?
LE historically has been on the side of white supremacism. This shit existed before Trump and will exist long after he is gone if America chooses not to acknowledge it.
Dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in Washington for pro-Trump events Jan. 6, a day that ended in a chaotic crime rampage when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, according to people familiar with evidence gathered in the FBI’s investigation. The majority of the watch-listed individuals in Washington that day are suspected white supremacists whose past conduct so alarmed investigators that their names had been previously entered into the national Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, a massive set of names flagged as potential security risks, these people said. The watch list is larger and separate from the “no-fly” list the government maintains to prevent terrorism suspects from boarding airplanes, and those listed are not automatically barred from any public or commercial spaces, current and former officials said. The presence of so many watch-listed individuals in one place — without more robust security measures to protect the public — is another example of the intelligence failures preceding last week’s fatal assault that sent lawmakers running for their lives, some current and former law enforcement officials argued. The revelation follows a Washington Post report earlier this week detailing the FBI’s failure to act aggressively on an internal intelligence report of Internet discussions about plans to attack Congress, smash windows, break down doors and “get violent . . . go there ready for war.” [FBI report warned in advance of ‘war’ at the Capitol] Other current and former officials said the presence of those individuals is an unsurprising consequence of having thousands of fervent Trump supporters gathered for what was billed as a final chance to voice opposition to Joe Biden’s certification as the next president. Still, the revelation underscores the limitations of such watch lists. Although they are meant to improve information gathering and sharing among investigative agencies, they are far from a foolproof means of detecting threats ahead of time. Since its creation, the terrorist watch list, which is maintained by the FBI, has grown to include hundreds of thousands of names. Placing someone’s name on the watch list does not mean they will be watched all of the time, or even much of the time, for reasons of both practicality and fairness, but it can alert different parts of the government, such as border agents or state police, to look more closely at certain individuals they encounter. It’s unclear whether any of the dozens of individuals already arrested for alleged crimes at the Capitol are on the terrorist watch list. “The U.S. Government is committed to protecting the United States from terrorist threats and attacks and seeks to do this in a manner that protects the freedoms, privacy and civil rights and liberties of U.S. persons and other individuals with rights under U.S. law,” a U.S. official said, adding that because of security concerns, the government has a policy of neither confirming nor denying a person’s watch list status. The FBI declined to comment. [Trump is isolated and angry at aides for failing to defend him as he is impeached again] The riot’s political aftershocks led the House of Representatives on Wednesday to impeach President Trump for allegedly inciting the violence — his second impeachment in a single four-year term — and may have significant consequences within law enforcement and national security agencies. Inside the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, officials are grappling with thorny questions about race, terrorism and free-speech rights, as some investigators question whether more could have been done to prevent last week’s violence. While some federal officials think the government should more aggressively investigate domestic terrorism and extremists, others are concerned the FBI, DHS and other agencies may overreact to the recent violence by going too far in surveilling First Amendment activity like online discussions. Several law enforcement officials said they are shocked by the backgrounds of some individuals under investigation in connection with the Capitol riot, a pool of suspects that includes current and former law enforcement and military personnel as well as senior business executives and middle-aged business owners. “I can’t believe some of the people I’m seeing,” one official said. [Democrats demand investigation of whether Republicans in Congress aided Capitol rioters] The TSDB, often referred to within government as simply “the watch list,” is overseen by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. The watch list can be used as both an investigative and early warning tool, but its primary purpose is to help various government agencies keep abreast of what individuals seen as potential risks are doing and where they travel, according to people familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the work is sensitive. Often that can be done as a “silent hit,” meaning if someone on the watch list is stopped for speeding, that information is typically entered into the database without the individual or even the officer who wrote the ticket ever knowing, one person said. After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, for instance, the FBI quickly searched a similar database to see which people on it had recently traveled to that city or raised other suspicions about possible involvement. Before the Jan. 6 gathering of pro-Trump protesters, FBI agents visited a number of suspected extremists and advised them against traveling to the nation’s capital. Many complied, but according to people familiar with the sprawling investigation, dozens of others, whose names appear in the terrorist watch list, apparently attended, based on information reviewed by the FBI. [FBI investigating whether some rioters aimed to kill or capture lawmakers] Separately, while the FBI is hunting hundreds of rioting suspects who have dispersed back to their hometowns, federal agents are increasingly focused on alleged leaders, members, and supporters of the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist group with ties to white nationalism, these people said. The Proud Boys participated in last week’s protests, and FBI agents are taking a close look at what roles, if any, their adherents may have had in organizing, directing or carrying out violence, according to people familiar with the matter. The group’s chairman, Enrique Tarrio, had planned to attend Trump’s Jan. 6 rally but was arrested when he arrived in D.C. and charged with misdemeanor destruction of property in connection with the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church during an earlier protest in Washington. He is also accused of felony possession of two extended gun magazines. Tarrio told The Post on Wednesday that his group did not organize the Capitol siege. “If they think we were organizing going into the Capitol, they’re going to be sadly mistaken,” he said. “Our plan was to stay together as a group and just enjoy the day. We weren’t going to do a night march, anything like that. That’s it as far as our day.” Tarrio said he’s actively discouraging members from attending planned armed marches scheduled Sunday, and the Million Militia March next week when Biden is inaugurated. Proud Boys, he said, are on a “rally freeze and will not be organizing any events for the next month or so.” It is unclear how many Proud Boys devotees will abide by the freeze, or if such a shutdown might lessen the FBI’s interest in the group. Even before the Jan. 6 riot, federal and local investigators were working to understand the group’s plans, goals and activities. Privately, some federal law enforcement officials have described the group as roughly equivalent to a nascent street gang that has garnered an unusual degree of national attention, in part because Trump mentioned them specifically during one his televised debates with Biden during the campaign. Other officials have expressed concern that the group may be growing rapidly into something more dangerous and directed. The FBI has already arrested dozens of accused rioters, and officials have pledged that in cases of the most egregious conduct, they will seek to file tough, rarely used charges like seditious conspiracy, which carries a potential 20-year prison sentence. The bureau continues to face blowback over its handling of a Jan. 5 internal report warning of discussions of violence at Congress the next day. Steven M. D’Antuono, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, claimed in the days after the riot that the bureau did not have intelligence ahead of time indicating the rally would be anything other than a peaceful demonstration. The Jan. 5 FBI report, written by the bureau’s office in Norfolk, and reviewed by The Post, shows that was not the case, and the Justice Department took other steps indicating officials were at least somewhat concerned about possible violence the next day. The Bureau of Prisons sent 100 officers to D.C. to supplement security at the Justice Department building, an unusual move similar to what the department did in June to respond to civil unrest stemming from racial justice protests. Mindful of the criticism that law enforcement took a heavy-handed, all-hands-on-deck approach to Black Lives Matters protests in D.C. in the spring and summer, Justice Department officials deferred to the Capitol Police to defend their building and lawmakers there. Some former officials have questioned whether the FBI and Justice Department should have done more. “It would not have been enough for the bureau simply to share information, if it did so, with state and local law enforcement or federal partner agencies,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department national security official. “It was the bureau’s responsibility to quarterback a coordinated federal response as the crisis was unfolding and in the days thereafter. And it’s presently not clear to what extent the FBI asserted itself in that fashion during the exigencies of January 6 and in the immediate aftermath.” Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
They knew and did nothing?!?
Of course they didn’t they were all white and standing up for white supremacy.
Hmmm? I thought the FBI was out to get Trump? So they are for him now?
LE historically has been on the side of white supremacism. This shit existed before Trump and will exist long after he is gone if America chooses not to acknowledge it.
Hasn't Trump been going on about how the FBI is against him though?
Dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in Washington for pro-Trump events Jan. 6, a day that ended in a chaotic crime rampage when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, according to people familiar with evidence gathered in the FBI’s investigation. The majority of the watch-listed individuals in Washington that day are suspected white supremacists whose past conduct so alarmed investigators that their names had been previously entered into the national Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, a massive set of names flagged as potential security risks, these people said. The watch list is larger and separate from the “no-fly” list the government maintains to prevent terrorism suspects from boarding airplanes, and those listed are not automatically barred from any public or commercial spaces, current and former officials said. The presence of so many watch-listed individuals in one place — without more robust security measures to protect the public — is another example of the intelligence failures preceding last week’s fatal assault that sent lawmakers running for their lives, some current and former law enforcement officials argued. The revelation follows a Washington Post report earlier this week detailing the FBI’s failure to act aggressively on an internal intelligence report of Internet discussions about plans to attack Congress, smash windows, break down doors and “get violent . . . go there ready for war.” [FBI report warned in advance of ‘war’ at the Capitol] Other current and former officials said the presence of those individuals is an unsurprising consequence of having thousands of fervent Trump supporters gathered for what was billed as a final chance to voice opposition to Joe Biden’s certification as the next president. Still, the revelation underscores the limitations of such watch lists. Although they are meant to improve information gathering and sharing among investigative agencies, they are far from a foolproof means of detecting threats ahead of time. Since its creation, the terrorist watch list, which is maintained by the FBI, has grown to include hundreds of thousands of names. Placing someone’s name on the watch list does not mean they will be watched all of the time, or even much of the time, for reasons of both practicality and fairness, but it can alert different parts of the government, such as border agents or state police, to look more closely at certain individuals they encounter. It’s unclear whether any of the dozens of individuals already arrested for alleged crimes at the Capitol are on the terrorist watch list. “The U.S. Government is committed to protecting the United States from terrorist threats and attacks and seeks to do this in a manner that protects the freedoms, privacy and civil rights and liberties of U.S. persons and other individuals with rights under U.S. law,” a U.S. official said, adding that because of security concerns, the government has a policy of neither confirming nor denying a person’s watch list status. The FBI declined to comment. [Trump is isolated and angry at aides for failing to defend him as he is impeached again] The riot’s political aftershocks led the House of Representatives on Wednesday to impeach President Trump for allegedly inciting the violence — his second impeachment in a single four-year term — and may have significant consequences within law enforcement and national security agencies. Inside the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, officials are grappling with thorny questions about race, terrorism and free-speech rights, as some investigators question whether more could have been done to prevent last week’s violence. While some federal officials think the government should more aggressively investigate domestic terrorism and extremists, others are concerned the FBI, DHS and other agencies may overreact to the recent violence by going too far in surveilling First Amendment activity like online discussions. Several law enforcement officials said they are shocked by the backgrounds of some individuals under investigation in connection with the Capitol riot, a pool of suspects that includes current and former law enforcement and military personnel as well as senior business executives and middle-aged business owners. “I can’t believe some of the people I’m seeing,” one official said. [Democrats demand investigation of whether Republicans in Congress aided Capitol rioters] The TSDB, often referred to within government as simply “the watch list,” is overseen by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. The watch list can be used as both an investigative and early warning tool, but its primary purpose is to help various government agencies keep abreast of what individuals seen as potential risks are doing and where they travel, according to people familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the work is sensitive. Often that can be done as a “silent hit,” meaning if someone on the watch list is stopped for speeding, that information is typically entered into the database without the individual or even the officer who wrote the ticket ever knowing, one person said. After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, for instance, the FBI quickly searched a similar database to see which people on it had recently traveled to that city or raised other suspicions about possible involvement. Before the Jan. 6 gathering of pro-Trump protesters, FBI agents visited a number of suspected extremists and advised them against traveling to the nation’s capital. Many complied, but according to people familiar with the sprawling investigation, dozens of others, whose names appear in the terrorist watch list, apparently attended, based on information reviewed by the FBI. [FBI investigating whether some rioters aimed to kill or capture lawmakers] Separately, while the FBI is hunting hundreds of rioting suspects who have dispersed back to their hometowns, federal agents are increasingly focused on alleged leaders, members, and supporters of the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist group with ties to white nationalism, these people said. The Proud Boys participated in last week’s protests, and FBI agents are taking a close look at what roles, if any, their adherents may have had in organizing, directing or carrying out violence, according to people familiar with the matter. The group’s chairman, Enrique Tarrio, had planned to attend Trump’s Jan. 6 rally but was arrested when he arrived in D.C. and charged with misdemeanor destruction of property in connection with the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church during an earlier protest in Washington. He is also accused of felony possession of two extended gun magazines. Tarrio told The Post on Wednesday that his group did not organize the Capitol siege. “If they think we were organizing going into the Capitol, they’re going to be sadly mistaken,” he said. “Our plan was to stay together as a group and just enjoy the day. We weren’t going to do a night march, anything like that. That’s it as far as our day.” Tarrio said he’s actively discouraging members from attending planned armed marches scheduled Sunday, and the Million Militia March next week when Biden is inaugurated. Proud Boys, he said, are on a “rally freeze and will not be organizing any events for the next month or so.” It is unclear how many Proud Boys devotees will abide by the freeze, or if such a shutdown might lessen the FBI’s interest in the group. Even before the Jan. 6 riot, federal and local investigators were working to understand the group’s plans, goals and activities. Privately, some federal law enforcement officials have described the group as roughly equivalent to a nascent street gang that has garnered an unusual degree of national attention, in part because Trump mentioned them specifically during one his televised debates with Biden during the campaign. Other officials have expressed concern that the group may be growing rapidly into something more dangerous and directed. The FBI has already arrested dozens of accused rioters, and officials have pledged that in cases of the most egregious conduct, they will seek to file tough, rarely used charges like seditious conspiracy, which carries a potential 20-year prison sentence. The bureau continues to face blowback over its handling of a Jan. 5 internal report warning of discussions of violence at Congress the next day. Steven M. D’Antuono, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, claimed in the days after the riot that the bureau did not have intelligence ahead of time indicating the rally would be anything other than a peaceful demonstration. The Jan. 5 FBI report, written by the bureau’s office in Norfolk, and reviewed by The Post, shows that was not the case, and the Justice Department took other steps indicating officials were at least somewhat concerned about possible violence the next day. The Bureau of Prisons sent 100 officers to D.C. to supplement security at the Justice Department building, an unusual move similar to what the department did in June to respond to civil unrest stemming from racial justice protests. Mindful of the criticism that law enforcement took a heavy-handed, all-hands-on-deck approach to Black Lives Matters protests in D.C. in the spring and summer, Justice Department officials deferred to the Capitol Police to defend their building and lawmakers there. Some former officials have questioned whether the FBI and Justice Department should have done more. “It would not have been enough for the bureau simply to share information, if it did so, with state and local law enforcement or federal partner agencies,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department national security official. “It was the bureau’s responsibility to quarterback a coordinated federal response as the crisis was unfolding and in the days thereafter. And it’s presently not clear to what extent the FBI asserted itself in that fashion during the exigencies of January 6 and in the immediate aftermath.” Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
They knew and did nothing?!?
Of course they didn’t they were all white and standing up for white supremacy.
Hmmm? I thought the FBI was out to get Trump? So they are for him now?
LE historically has been on the side of white supremacism. This shit existed before Trump and will exist long after he is gone if America chooses not to acknowledge it.
Yes, if the majority of expected attendees for Jan. 6 on that same terror watch list were black or brown, there would've been a much more formidable presence protecting the US Capitol. Anyone claiming this is pure speculation has either forgotten or ignored what they've seen their whole lives -- or just this past June.
Dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in Washington for pro-Trump events Jan. 6, a day that ended in a chaotic crime rampage when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, according to people familiar with evidence gathered in the FBI’s investigation. The majority of the watch-listed individuals in Washington that day are suspected white supremacists whose past conduct so alarmed investigators that their names had been previously entered into the national Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, a massive set of names flagged as potential security risks, these people said. The watch list is larger and separate from the “no-fly” list the government maintains to prevent terrorism suspects from boarding airplanes, and those listed are not automatically barred from any public or commercial spaces, current and former officials said. The presence of so many watch-listed individuals in one place — without more robust security measures to protect the public — is another example of the intelligence failures preceding last week’s fatal assault that sent lawmakers running for their lives, some current and former law enforcement officials argued. The revelation follows a Washington Post report earlier this week detailing the FBI’s failure to act aggressively on an internal intelligence report of Internet discussions about plans to attack Congress, smash windows, break down doors and “get violent . . . go there ready for war.” [FBI report warned in advance of ‘war’ at the Capitol] Other current and former officials said the presence of those individuals is an unsurprising consequence of having thousands of fervent Trump supporters gathered for what was billed as a final chance to voice opposition to Joe Biden’s certification as the next president. Still, the revelation underscores the limitations of such watch lists. Although they are meant to improve information gathering and sharing among investigative agencies, they are far from a foolproof means of detecting threats ahead of time. Since its creation, the terrorist watch list, which is maintained by the FBI, has grown to include hundreds of thousands of names. Placing someone’s name on the watch list does not mean they will be watched all of the time, or even much of the time, for reasons of both practicality and fairness, but it can alert different parts of the government, such as border agents or state police, to look more closely at certain individuals they encounter. It’s unclear whether any of the dozens of individuals already arrested for alleged crimes at the Capitol are on the terrorist watch list. “The U.S. Government is committed to protecting the United States from terrorist threats and attacks and seeks to do this in a manner that protects the freedoms, privacy and civil rights and liberties of U.S. persons and other individuals with rights under U.S. law,” a U.S. official said, adding that because of security concerns, the government has a policy of neither confirming nor denying a person’s watch list status. The FBI declined to comment. [Trump is isolated and angry at aides for failing to defend him as he is impeached again] The riot’s political aftershocks led the House of Representatives on Wednesday to impeach President Trump for allegedly inciting the violence — his second impeachment in a single four-year term — and may have significant consequences within law enforcement and national security agencies. Inside the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, officials are grappling with thorny questions about race, terrorism and free-speech rights, as some investigators question whether more could have been done to prevent last week’s violence. While some federal officials think the government should more aggressively investigate domestic terrorism and extremists, others are concerned the FBI, DHS and other agencies may overreact to the recent violence by going too far in surveilling First Amendment activity like online discussions. Several law enforcement officials said they are shocked by the backgrounds of some individuals under investigation in connection with the Capitol riot, a pool of suspects that includes current and former law enforcement and military personnel as well as senior business executives and middle-aged business owners. “I can’t believe some of the people I’m seeing,” one official said. [Democrats demand investigation of whether Republicans in Congress aided Capitol rioters] The TSDB, often referred to within government as simply “the watch list,” is overseen by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. The watch list can be used as both an investigative and early warning tool, but its primary purpose is to help various government agencies keep abreast of what individuals seen as potential risks are doing and where they travel, according to people familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the work is sensitive. Often that can be done as a “silent hit,” meaning if someone on the watch list is stopped for speeding, that information is typically entered into the database without the individual or even the officer who wrote the ticket ever knowing, one person said. After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, for instance, the FBI quickly searched a similar database to see which people on it had recently traveled to that city or raised other suspicions about possible involvement. Before the Jan. 6 gathering of pro-Trump protesters, FBI agents visited a number of suspected extremists and advised them against traveling to the nation’s capital. Many complied, but according to people familiar with the sprawling investigation, dozens of others, whose names appear in the terrorist watch list, apparently attended, based on information reviewed by the FBI. [FBI investigating whether some rioters aimed to kill or capture lawmakers] Separately, while the FBI is hunting hundreds of rioting suspects who have dispersed back to their hometowns, federal agents are increasingly focused on alleged leaders, members, and supporters of the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist group with ties to white nationalism, these people said. The Proud Boys participated in last week’s protests, and FBI agents are taking a close look at what roles, if any, their adherents may have had in organizing, directing or carrying out violence, according to people familiar with the matter. The group’s chairman, Enrique Tarrio, had planned to attend Trump’s Jan. 6 rally but was arrested when he arrived in D.C. and charged with misdemeanor destruction of property in connection with the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church during an earlier protest in Washington. He is also accused of felony possession of two extended gun magazines. Tarrio told The Post on Wednesday that his group did not organize the Capitol siege. “If they think we were organizing going into the Capitol, they’re going to be sadly mistaken,” he said. “Our plan was to stay together as a group and just enjoy the day. We weren’t going to do a night march, anything like that. That’s it as far as our day.” Tarrio said he’s actively discouraging members from attending planned armed marches scheduled Sunday, and the Million Militia March next week when Biden is inaugurated. Proud Boys, he said, are on a “rally freeze and will not be organizing any events for the next month or so.” It is unclear how many Proud Boys devotees will abide by the freeze, or if such a shutdown might lessen the FBI’s interest in the group. Even before the Jan. 6 riot, federal and local investigators were working to understand the group’s plans, goals and activities. Privately, some federal law enforcement officials have described the group as roughly equivalent to a nascent street gang that has garnered an unusual degree of national attention, in part because Trump mentioned them specifically during one his televised debates with Biden during the campaign. Other officials have expressed concern that the group may be growing rapidly into something more dangerous and directed. The FBI has already arrested dozens of accused rioters, and officials have pledged that in cases of the most egregious conduct, they will seek to file tough, rarely used charges like seditious conspiracy, which carries a potential 20-year prison sentence. The bureau continues to face blowback over its handling of a Jan. 5 internal report warning of discussions of violence at Congress the next day. Steven M. D’Antuono, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, claimed in the days after the riot that the bureau did not have intelligence ahead of time indicating the rally would be anything other than a peaceful demonstration. The Jan. 5 FBI report, written by the bureau’s office in Norfolk, and reviewed by The Post, shows that was not the case, and the Justice Department took other steps indicating officials were at least somewhat concerned about possible violence the next day. The Bureau of Prisons sent 100 officers to D.C. to supplement security at the Justice Department building, an unusual move similar to what the department did in June to respond to civil unrest stemming from racial justice protests. Mindful of the criticism that law enforcement took a heavy-handed, all-hands-on-deck approach to Black Lives Matters protests in D.C. in the spring and summer, Justice Department officials deferred to the Capitol Police to defend their building and lawmakers there. Some former officials have questioned whether the FBI and Justice Department should have done more. “It would not have been enough for the bureau simply to share information, if it did so, with state and local law enforcement or federal partner agencies,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department national security official. “It was the bureau’s responsibility to quarterback a coordinated federal response as the crisis was unfolding and in the days thereafter. And it’s presently not clear to what extent the FBI asserted itself in that fashion during the exigencies of January 6 and in the immediate aftermath.” Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
They knew and did nothing?!?
Of course they didn’t they were all white and standing up for white supremacy.
Hmmm? I thought the FBI was out to get Trump? So they are for him now?
LE historically has been on the side of white supremacism. This shit existed before Trump and will exist long after he is gone if America chooses not to acknowledge it.
Hasn't Trump been going on about how the FBI is against him though?
According to Trump, everyone's against him, there's never been a bigger victim in the world. His supporters & enablers come close, though.
Anybody have friends over seas? Ask them what they thought about this.
I spoke to my Aunt in Europe yesterday, and while she didn't have much to say about this in particular, she did mention how incredibly disappointed they are in the way Trump's leaving office.
Anybody have friends over seas? Ask them what they thought about this.
I spoke to my Aunt in Europe yesterday, and while she didn't have much to say about this in particular, she did mention how incredibly disappointed they are in the way Trump's leaving office.
A few friends say we are a laughing stock, others wonder when we are going to civil war then others are dumbfounded how Trump was elected and loved.
Dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in Washington for pro-Trump events Jan. 6, a day that ended in a chaotic crime rampage when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, according to people familiar with evidence gathered in the FBI’s investigation. The majority of the watch-listed individuals in Washington that day are suspected white supremacists whose past conduct so alarmed investigators that their names had been previously entered into the national Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, a massive set of names flagged as potential security risks, these people said. The watch list is larger and separate from the “no-fly” list the government maintains to prevent terrorism suspects from boarding airplanes, and those listed are not automatically barred from any public or commercial spaces, current and former officials said. The presence of so many watch-listed individuals in one place — without more robust security measures to protect the public — is another example of the intelligence failures preceding last week’s fatal assault that sent lawmakers running for their lives, some current and former law enforcement officials argued. The revelation follows a Washington Post report earlier this week detailing the FBI’s failure to act aggressively on an internal intelligence report of Internet discussions about plans to attack Congress, smash windows, break down doors and “get violent . . . go there ready for war.” [FBI report warned in advance of ‘war’ at the Capitol] Other current and former officials said the presence of those individuals is an unsurprising consequence of having thousands of fervent Trump supporters gathered for what was billed as a final chance to voice opposition to Joe Biden’s certification as the next president. Still, the revelation underscores the limitations of such watch lists. Although they are meant to improve information gathering and sharing among investigative agencies, they are far from a foolproof means of detecting threats ahead of time. Since its creation, the terrorist watch list, which is maintained by the FBI, has grown to include hundreds of thousands of names. Placing someone’s name on the watch list does not mean they will be watched all of the time, or even much of the time, for reasons of both practicality and fairness, but it can alert different parts of the government, such as border agents or state police, to look more closely at certain individuals they encounter. It’s unclear whether any of the dozens of individuals already arrested for alleged crimes at the Capitol are on the terrorist watch list. “The U.S. Government is committed to protecting the United States from terrorist threats and attacks and seeks to do this in a manner that protects the freedoms, privacy and civil rights and liberties of U.S. persons and other individuals with rights under U.S. law,” a U.S. official said, adding that because of security concerns, the government has a policy of neither confirming nor denying a person’s watch list status. The FBI declined to comment. [Trump is isolated and angry at aides for failing to defend him as he is impeached again] The riot’s political aftershocks led the House of Representatives on Wednesday to impeach President Trump for allegedly inciting the violence — his second impeachment in a single four-year term — and may have significant consequences within law enforcement and national security agencies. Inside the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, officials are grappling with thorny questions about race, terrorism and free-speech rights, as some investigators question whether more could have been done to prevent last week’s violence. While some federal officials think the government should more aggressively investigate domestic terrorism and extremists, others are concerned the FBI, DHS and other agencies may overreact to the recent violence by going too far in surveilling First Amendment activity like online discussions. Several law enforcement officials said they are shocked by the backgrounds of some individuals under investigation in connection with the Capitol riot, a pool of suspects that includes current and former law enforcement and military personnel as well as senior business executives and middle-aged business owners. “I can’t believe some of the people I’m seeing,” one official said. [Democrats demand investigation of whether Republicans in Congress aided Capitol rioters] The TSDB, often referred to within government as simply “the watch list,” is overseen by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. The watch list can be used as both an investigative and early warning tool, but its primary purpose is to help various government agencies keep abreast of what individuals seen as potential risks are doing and where they travel, according to people familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the work is sensitive. Often that can be done as a “silent hit,” meaning if someone on the watch list is stopped for speeding, that information is typically entered into the database without the individual or even the officer who wrote the ticket ever knowing, one person said. After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, for instance, the FBI quickly searched a similar database to see which people on it had recently traveled to that city or raised other suspicions about possible involvement. Before the Jan. 6 gathering of pro-Trump protesters, FBI agents visited a number of suspected extremists and advised them against traveling to the nation’s capital. Many complied, but according to people familiar with the sprawling investigation, dozens of others, whose names appear in the terrorist watch list, apparently attended, based on information reviewed by the FBI. [FBI investigating whether some rioters aimed to kill or capture lawmakers] Separately, while the FBI is hunting hundreds of rioting suspects who have dispersed back to their hometowns, federal agents are increasingly focused on alleged leaders, members, and supporters of the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist group with ties to white nationalism, these people said. The Proud Boys participated in last week’s protests, and FBI agents are taking a close look at what roles, if any, their adherents may have had in organizing, directing or carrying out violence, according to people familiar with the matter. The group’s chairman, Enrique Tarrio, had planned to attend Trump’s Jan. 6 rally but was arrested when he arrived in D.C. and charged with misdemeanor destruction of property in connection with the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church during an earlier protest in Washington. He is also accused of felony possession of two extended gun magazines. Tarrio told The Post on Wednesday that his group did not organize the Capitol siege. “If they think we were organizing going into the Capitol, they’re going to be sadly mistaken,” he said. “Our plan was to stay together as a group and just enjoy the day. We weren’t going to do a night march, anything like that. That’s it as far as our day.” Tarrio said he’s actively discouraging members from attending planned armed marches scheduled Sunday, and the Million Militia March next week when Biden is inaugurated. Proud Boys, he said, are on a “rally freeze and will not be organizing any events for the next month or so.” It is unclear how many Proud Boys devotees will abide by the freeze, or if such a shutdown might lessen the FBI’s interest in the group. Even before the Jan. 6 riot, federal and local investigators were working to understand the group’s plans, goals and activities. Privately, some federal law enforcement officials have described the group as roughly equivalent to a nascent street gang that has garnered an unusual degree of national attention, in part because Trump mentioned them specifically during one his televised debates with Biden during the campaign. Other officials have expressed concern that the group may be growing rapidly into something more dangerous and directed. The FBI has already arrested dozens of accused rioters, and officials have pledged that in cases of the most egregious conduct, they will seek to file tough, rarely used charges like seditious conspiracy, which carries a potential 20-year prison sentence. The bureau continues to face blowback over its handling of a Jan. 5 internal report warning of discussions of violence at Congress the next day. Steven M. D’Antuono, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, claimed in the days after the riot that the bureau did not have intelligence ahead of time indicating the rally would be anything other than a peaceful demonstration. The Jan. 5 FBI report, written by the bureau’s office in Norfolk, and reviewed by The Post, shows that was not the case, and the Justice Department took other steps indicating officials were at least somewhat concerned about possible violence the next day. The Bureau of Prisons sent 100 officers to D.C. to supplement security at the Justice Department building, an unusual move similar to what the department did in June to respond to civil unrest stemming from racial justice protests. Mindful of the criticism that law enforcement took a heavy-handed, all-hands-on-deck approach to Black Lives Matters protests in D.C. in the spring and summer, Justice Department officials deferred to the Capitol Police to defend their building and lawmakers there. Some former officials have questioned whether the FBI and Justice Department should have done more. “It would not have been enough for the bureau simply to share information, if it did so, with state and local law enforcement or federal partner agencies,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department national security official. “It was the bureau’s responsibility to quarterback a coordinated federal response as the crisis was unfolding and in the days thereafter. And it’s presently not clear to what extent the FBI asserted itself in that fashion during the exigencies of January 6 and in the immediate aftermath.” Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
They knew and did nothing?!?
Of course they didn’t they were all white and standing up for white supremacy.
Hmmm? I thought the FBI was out to get Trump? So they are for him now?
LE historically has been on the side of white supremacism. This shit existed before Trump and will exist long after he is gone if America chooses not to acknowledge it.
Hasn't Trump been going on about how the FBI is against him though?
According to Trump, everyone's against him, there's never been a bigger victim in the world. His supporters & enablers come close, though.
The Insurrectionists Would Like You to Know That They’re the Real Victims
The perpetrators of the assault on the Capitol and their sympathizers in the media and Congress lost little time in claiming the mantle of victimhood.
AHMED GABER / REUTERS
History is rewritten by the self-styled victims.
Even after more than four years of rationalizing and excusing every violation by the president, Donald Trump’s enablers have their work cut out for them this week, after a mob incited by Trump sacked the U.S. Capitol, disrupted constitutional order, and killed a police officer. But, undeterred, they are still energetically devoted to the task.
I warned yesterday that Trump’s remaining allies would seek to memory-hole the January 6 attempted coup and convince people that it didn’t happen the way it did. The whitewashing is already in full motion. Some takes the form of dangerous disinformation—false claims, for example, that antifa was behind the siege and not Trump backers, even though Trump cheered them on. Those are fringe ideas catering to a fringe audience, however, and they mostly serve to muddy the waters.
The more common argument on the mainstream Trump-friendly right is simpler: It contends that what happened wasn’t so bad, and anyway it was someone else’s fault. The real victims, it turns out, are Trump and his supporters.
In an absurd video statement released this morning, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida tried to have it every way he could. He condemned the riot and warned against seeking “political shelter in divisive political movements and in conspiracy theories,” but instantly pivoted to talking about the real problem: the press.
“How do we explain what we saw? How could this happen, here in America?” Rubio asked. “It kind of begins with millions of Americans who voted for President Trump. They saw the nonstop bias and double standard of the legacy media. They see how social-media companies covered up stories negative to Joe Biden. They saw how state officials mutilated election-integrity laws to help the Democrats. The result is you have millions of people who are convinced that the election wasn’t fair, and that the outcome wasn’t legitimate. Millions of people. They wanted something done about it.”
The video does explain how the riot could have happened, but not in the way Rubio intends. People seek shelter in conspiracy theories in part because politicians like him tell them that those theories are true, as Rubio does in this very answer. Having given credence to nonsense, he then uses it to justify the rioters’ anger and shift the blame. (Taking dramatic measures would have been patriotic and even rational if the election had truly been stolen—a delusion Rubio happily indulges here.)
Rubio is hardly alone, but he offers a good case study because he is a onetime Trump opponent who later jumped on the bandwagon. Trump diehards will defend Trump because that’s what they do. There are plenty of examples of that, especially conservative-media titans such as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Levin. More interesting are those who back Trump but are not bound to him, like Rubio. Some prominent right-wing and Republican leaders have broken with Trump, including former members of his administration, but many others have chosen to adopt Trump’s own reasoning.
The idea that the real victims of the attempted coup are Trump and his supporters comes directly from the president. He has portrayed himself as the victim in chief throughout his time in office, as Yuval Levin noted, and his decisive loss in November has only amplified his already huge grievance.
“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now,” Trump said in a video posted Wednesday afternoon. “There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us—from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace.”
He also said, in a now-deleted tweet, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.” In a tweet this morning, Trump said, “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me … will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
He has plenty of support. At The Federalist, John Daniel Davidson insists that outrage about the pillaging of the Capitol is phony, and the reaction is really “about punishing supporters of President Trump. If the pro-Trump mob can be depicted as ‘terrorists’ and ‘traitors,’ then there’s almost nothing we shouldn’t do to silence them.”
Senator Josh Hawley, who along with his colleague Ted Cruz was among the most prominent proponents of the bogus fraud claims that animated the insurrection, is preoccupied with painting himself as a victim of “Orwellian” behavior, after the publishing house Simon & Schuster dropped plans to publish his new book, The Tyranny of Big Tech. (Hawley prefers the old-fashioned tyranny that comes with overturning democratic elections, apparently.)
Central to these professions of victimhood is the sense that Trump supporters are being held to a double standard. In particular, many apologists have pointed to reactions to Black Lives Matter protests during the summer.
“Now, are the left hypocrites? Absolutely,” Rubio said in his video. “I remember what they now are calling insurrection, they were justifying just this summer. They called it ‘the language of the unheard’ when rioters were burning cities.”
There are some superficial parallels here. Both cases involved large crowds of protesters demonstrating against a wrong they believed had been done to them. A few of them, but only a few, participated in violence.
But the parallels run out pretty quickly. Violence against businesses and police stations is wrong, but it is not the same as assaulting the seat of the federal government (and in some cases reportedly discussing assassinations and coming prepared for hostage-taking). And Black Lives Matter demonstrators were protesting about a real problem: Police killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, just as they have killed and injured many other people, recently and historically. By contrast, the insurrectionists were rising in support of false and debunked claims.
Recent experience also suggests that law enforcement would have deployed much greater force and acted more swiftly against a Black Lives Matter march than was initially seen on Wednesday.
These complaints about double standards are mostly whataboutism and don’t carry much weight. But the invocation of Black Lives Matter is illuminating, because it underscores how quickly Trump supporters have discovered the need for the empathy and understanding of one’s opponents. While Floyd’s death did elicit more criticism of police tactics than any previous incident, you didn’t hear many Republican politicians explaining that years of racist press coverage and police subjugation made the riots understandable, if still unacceptable.
You also didn’t hear them making the same pleas to empathize with the plurality of Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton but saw Donald Trump win the Electoral College and with it the presidency in 2016. When liberals held protests against Trump, criticized him, and, in some cases, made their own spurious claims about him, Marco Rubio didn’t implore anyone to understand the roots of their anger. Instead, Republicans thundered that Democrats were trying to delegitimize Trump and nullify his election.
After all, victimhood is an exclusive and exalted class in contemporary American politics. To Trump and his enablers, the truth about the insurrection is clear: The perpetrators are the real victims.
not like the UK got it much better with their buffoon
Johnson isn't a buffoon. I strongly disagree with his politics, his worldview, and pretty much everything he does, but he's an intelligent and educated guy who actually did have political experience and success in his former career. Unlike Trump.
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
not like the UK got it much better with their buffoon
Johnson isn't a buffoon. I strongly disagree with his politics, his worldview, and pretty much everything he does, but he's an intelligent and educated guy who actually did have political experience and success in his former career. Unlike Trump.
i don't care how educated someone is. if you sound like a buffoon and make buffoonish decisions, you are a buffoon.
"Oh Canada...you're beautiful when you're drunk" -EV 8/14/93
not like the UK got it much better with their buffoon
Johnson isn't a buffoon. I strongly disagree with his politics, his worldview, and pretty much everything he does, but he's an intelligent and educated guy who actually did have political experience and success in his former career. Unlike Trump.
i don't care how educated someone is. if you sound like a buffoon and make buffoonish decisions, you are a buffoon.
Dozens of people on a terrorist watch list were in Washington for pro-Trump events Jan. 6, a day that ended in a chaotic crime rampage when a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, according to people familiar with evidence gathered in the FBI’s investigation. The majority of the watch-listed individuals in Washington that day are suspected white supremacists whose past conduct so alarmed investigators that their names had been previously entered into the national Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, a massive set of names flagged as potential security risks, these people said. The watch list is larger and separate from the “no-fly” list the government maintains to prevent terrorism suspects from boarding airplanes, and those listed are not automatically barred from any public or commercial spaces, current and former officials said. The presence of so many watch-listed individuals in one place — without more robust security measures to protect the public — is another example of the intelligence failures preceding last week’s fatal assault that sent lawmakers running for their lives, some current and former law enforcement officials argued. The revelation follows a Washington Post report earlier this week detailing the FBI’s failure to act aggressively on an internal intelligence report of Internet discussions about plans to attack Congress, smash windows, break down doors and “get violent . . . go there ready for war.” [FBI report warned in advance of ‘war’ at the Capitol] Other current and former officials said the presence of those individuals is an unsurprising consequence of having thousands of fervent Trump supporters gathered for what was billed as a final chance to voice opposition to Joe Biden’s certification as the next president. Still, the revelation underscores the limitations of such watch lists. Although they are meant to improve information gathering and sharing among investigative agencies, they are far from a foolproof means of detecting threats ahead of time. Since its creation, the terrorist watch list, which is maintained by the FBI, has grown to include hundreds of thousands of names. Placing someone’s name on the watch list does not mean they will be watched all of the time, or even much of the time, for reasons of both practicality and fairness, but it can alert different parts of the government, such as border agents or state police, to look more closely at certain individuals they encounter. It’s unclear whether any of the dozens of individuals already arrested for alleged crimes at the Capitol are on the terrorist watch list. “The U.S. Government is committed to protecting the United States from terrorist threats and attacks and seeks to do this in a manner that protects the freedoms, privacy and civil rights and liberties of U.S. persons and other individuals with rights under U.S. law,” a U.S. official said, adding that because of security concerns, the government has a policy of neither confirming nor denying a person’s watch list status. The FBI declined to comment. [Trump is isolated and angry at aides for failing to defend him as he is impeached again] The riot’s political aftershocks led the House of Representatives on Wednesday to impeach President Trump for allegedly inciting the violence — his second impeachment in a single four-year term — and may have significant consequences within law enforcement and national security agencies. Inside the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, officials are grappling with thorny questions about race, terrorism and free-speech rights, as some investigators question whether more could have been done to prevent last week’s violence. While some federal officials think the government should more aggressively investigate domestic terrorism and extremists, others are concerned the FBI, DHS and other agencies may overreact to the recent violence by going too far in surveilling First Amendment activity like online discussions. Several law enforcement officials said they are shocked by the backgrounds of some individuals under investigation in connection with the Capitol riot, a pool of suspects that includes current and former law enforcement and military personnel as well as senior business executives and middle-aged business owners. “I can’t believe some of the people I’m seeing,” one official said. [Democrats demand investigation of whether Republicans in Congress aided Capitol rioters] The TSDB, often referred to within government as simply “the watch list,” is overseen by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center, which was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks carried out by al-Qaeda. The watch list can be used as both an investigative and early warning tool, but its primary purpose is to help various government agencies keep abreast of what individuals seen as potential risks are doing and where they travel, according to people familiar with the work who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the work is sensitive. Often that can be done as a “silent hit,” meaning if someone on the watch list is stopped for speeding, that information is typically entered into the database without the individual or even the officer who wrote the ticket ever knowing, one person said. After the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, for instance, the FBI quickly searched a similar database to see which people on it had recently traveled to that city or raised other suspicions about possible involvement. Before the Jan. 6 gathering of pro-Trump protesters, FBI agents visited a number of suspected extremists and advised them against traveling to the nation’s capital. Many complied, but according to people familiar with the sprawling investigation, dozens of others, whose names appear in the terrorist watch list, apparently attended, based on information reviewed by the FBI. [FBI investigating whether some rioters aimed to kill or capture lawmakers] Separately, while the FBI is hunting hundreds of rioting suspects who have dispersed back to their hometowns, federal agents are increasingly focused on alleged leaders, members, and supporters of the Proud Boys, a male-chauvinist group with ties to white nationalism, these people said. The Proud Boys participated in last week’s protests, and FBI agents are taking a close look at what roles, if any, their adherents may have had in organizing, directing or carrying out violence, according to people familiar with the matter. The group’s chairman, Enrique Tarrio, had planned to attend Trump’s Jan. 6 rally but was arrested when he arrived in D.C. and charged with misdemeanor destruction of property in connection with the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a Black church during an earlier protest in Washington. He is also accused of felony possession of two extended gun magazines. Tarrio told The Post on Wednesday that his group did not organize the Capitol siege. “If they think we were organizing going into the Capitol, they’re going to be sadly mistaken,” he said. “Our plan was to stay together as a group and just enjoy the day. We weren’t going to do a night march, anything like that. That’s it as far as our day.” Tarrio said he’s actively discouraging members from attending planned armed marches scheduled Sunday, and the Million Militia March next week when Biden is inaugurated. Proud Boys, he said, are on a “rally freeze and will not be organizing any events for the next month or so.” It is unclear how many Proud Boys devotees will abide by the freeze, or if such a shutdown might lessen the FBI’s interest in the group. Even before the Jan. 6 riot, federal and local investigators were working to understand the group’s plans, goals and activities. Privately, some federal law enforcement officials have described the group as roughly equivalent to a nascent street gang that has garnered an unusual degree of national attention, in part because Trump mentioned them specifically during one his televised debates with Biden during the campaign. Other officials have expressed concern that the group may be growing rapidly into something more dangerous and directed. The FBI has already arrested dozens of accused rioters, and officials have pledged that in cases of the most egregious conduct, they will seek to file tough, rarely used charges like seditious conspiracy, which carries a potential 20-year prison sentence. The bureau continues to face blowback over its handling of a Jan. 5 internal report warning of discussions of violence at Congress the next day. Steven M. D’Antuono, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, claimed in the days after the riot that the bureau did not have intelligence ahead of time indicating the rally would be anything other than a peaceful demonstration. The Jan. 5 FBI report, written by the bureau’s office in Norfolk, and reviewed by The Post, shows that was not the case, and the Justice Department took other steps indicating officials were at least somewhat concerned about possible violence the next day. The Bureau of Prisons sent 100 officers to D.C. to supplement security at the Justice Department building, an unusual move similar to what the department did in June to respond to civil unrest stemming from racial justice protests. Mindful of the criticism that law enforcement took a heavy-handed, all-hands-on-deck approach to Black Lives Matters protests in D.C. in the spring and summer, Justice Department officials deferred to the Capitol Police to defend their building and lawmakers there. Some former officials have questioned whether the FBI and Justice Department should have done more. “It would not have been enough for the bureau simply to share information, if it did so, with state and local law enforcement or federal partner agencies,” said David Laufman, a former Justice Department national security official. “It was the bureau’s responsibility to quarterback a coordinated federal response as the crisis was unfolding and in the days thereafter. And it’s presently not clear to what extent the FBI asserted itself in that fashion during the exigencies of January 6 and in the immediate aftermath.” Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.
They knew and did nothing?!?
Of course they didn’t they were all white and standing up for white supremacy.
Hmmm? I thought the FBI was out to get Trump? So they are for him now?
LE historically has been on the side of white supremacism. This shit existed before Trump and will exist long after he is gone if America chooses not to acknowledge it.
Hasn't Trump been going on about how the FBI is against him though?
not like the UK got it much better with their buffoon
Johnson isn't a buffoon. I strongly disagree with his politics, his worldview, and pretty much everything he does, but he's an intelligent and educated guy who actually did have political experience and success in his former career. Unlike Trump.
i don't care how educated someone is. if you sound like a buffoon and make buffoonish decisions, you are a buffoon.
Guess we have different definitions of buffoon then.
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
What a catastrophe by voting this idiot into office this is where we are at! The fucking pillow idiot is giving advice on coup attempts wtf happened to this nation!
Help feed the National Guard Troops in DC protecting our Democracy.
These pizzas will be delivered to the National Guard at the Capitol
Building. "We are in this together" has been the motto of We, The Pizza
for the past 10 years. We are a community and will be working with other
restaurants in the area to provide breakfast, lunch, and dinner so the
troops have a variety of delicious food. We are teaming up with Good
Stuff Eatery, PLNT Burger, Maketto, Breadsoda, CHIKO, RASA, Pizzeria
Paradiso, RIS, Sticky Fingers Eats & Sweets, Cane, The Duck and The
Peach, and District Doughnuts to provide meals for our troops stationed
in DC.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Comments
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
-EV 8/14/93
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
Maybe they don't add up to anything, but we were also told there are disturbing details to come, so who knows?
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
-EV 8/14/93
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/victimhood/617604/
The Insurrectionists Would Like You to Know That They’re the Real Victims
The perpetrators of the assault on the Capitol and their sympathizers in the media and Congress lost little time in claiming the mantle of victimhood.
History is rewritten by the self-styled victims.
Even after more than four years of rationalizing and excusing every violation by the president, Donald Trump’s enablers have their work cut out for them this week, after a mob incited by Trump sacked the U.S. Capitol, disrupted constitutional order, and killed a police officer. But, undeterred, they are still energetically devoted to the task.
I warned yesterday that Trump’s remaining allies would seek to memory-hole the January 6 attempted coup and convince people that it didn’t happen the way it did. The whitewashing is already in full motion. Some takes the form of dangerous disinformation—false claims, for example, that antifa was behind the siege and not Trump backers, even though Trump cheered them on. Those are fringe ideas catering to a fringe audience, however, and they mostly serve to muddy the waters.
The more common argument on the mainstream Trump-friendly right is simpler: It contends that what happened wasn’t so bad, and anyway it was someone else’s fault. The real victims, it turns out, are Trump and his supporters.
In an absurd video statement released this morning, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida tried to have it every way he could. He condemned the riot and warned against seeking “political shelter in divisive political movements and in conspiracy theories,” but instantly pivoted to talking about the real problem: the press.
“How do we explain what we saw? How could this happen, here in America?” Rubio asked. “It kind of begins with millions of Americans who voted for President Trump. They saw the nonstop bias and double standard of the legacy media. They see how social-media companies covered up stories negative to Joe Biden. They saw how state officials mutilated election-integrity laws to help the Democrats. The result is you have millions of people who are convinced that the election wasn’t fair, and that the outcome wasn’t legitimate. Millions of people. They wanted something done about it.”
The video does explain how the riot could have happened, but not in the way Rubio intends. People seek shelter in conspiracy theories in part because politicians like him tell them that those theories are true, as Rubio does in this very answer. Having given credence to nonsense, he then uses it to justify the rioters’ anger and shift the blame. (Taking dramatic measures would have been patriotic and even rational if the election had truly been stolen—a delusion Rubio happily indulges here.)
Rubio is hardly alone, but he offers a good case study because he is a onetime Trump opponent who later jumped on the bandwagon. Trump diehards will defend Trump because that’s what they do. There are plenty of examples of that, especially conservative-media titans such as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Levin. More interesting are those who back Trump but are not bound to him, like Rubio. Some prominent right-wing and Republican leaders have broken with Trump, including former members of his administration, but many others have chosen to adopt Trump’s own reasoning.
The idea that the real victims of the attempted coup are Trump and his supporters comes directly from the president. He has portrayed himself as the victim in chief throughout his time in office, as Yuval Levin noted, and his decisive loss in November has only amplified his already huge grievance.
“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now,” Trump said in a video posted Wednesday afternoon. “There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us—from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace.”
He also said, in a now-deleted tweet, “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.” In a tweet this morning, Trump said, “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me … will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
He has plenty of support. At The Federalist, John Daniel Davidson insists that outrage about the pillaging of the Capitol is phony, and the reaction is really “about punishing supporters of President Trump. If the pro-Trump mob can be depicted as ‘terrorists’ and ‘traitors,’ then there’s almost nothing we shouldn’t do to silence them.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, who has called for the suspension of the Constitution in response to past violent acts, now says that using constitutional measures such as impeachment or the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to penalize Trump for inciting the riot would hurt the country more than leaving him unpunished. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy agrees.
Senator Josh Hawley, who along with his colleague Ted Cruz was among the most prominent proponents of the bogus fraud claims that animated the insurrection, is preoccupied with painting himself as a victim of “Orwellian” behavior, after the publishing house Simon & Schuster dropped plans to publish his new book, The Tyranny of Big Tech. (Hawley prefers the old-fashioned tyranny that comes with overturning democratic elections, apparently.)
Central to these professions of victimhood is the sense that Trump supporters are being held to a double standard. In particular, many apologists have pointed to reactions to Black Lives Matter protests during the summer.
“Now, are the left hypocrites? Absolutely,” Rubio said in his video. “I remember what they now are calling insurrection, they were justifying just this summer. They called it ‘the language of the unheard’ when rioters were burning cities.”
There are some superficial parallels here. Both cases involved large crowds of protesters demonstrating against a wrong they believed had been done to them. A few of them, but only a few, participated in violence.
But the parallels run out pretty quickly. Violence against businesses and police stations is wrong, but it is not the same as assaulting the seat of the federal government (and in some cases reportedly discussing assassinations and coming prepared for hostage-taking). And Black Lives Matter demonstrators were protesting about a real problem: Police killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, just as they have killed and injured many other people, recently and historically. By contrast, the insurrectionists were rising in support of false and debunked claims.
Recent experience also suggests that law enforcement would have deployed much greater force and acted more swiftly against a Black Lives Matter march than was initially seen on Wednesday.
These complaints about double standards are mostly whataboutism and don’t carry much weight. But the invocation of Black Lives Matter is illuminating, because it underscores how quickly Trump supporters have discovered the need for the empathy and understanding of one’s opponents. While Floyd’s death did elicit more criticism of police tactics than any previous incident, you didn’t hear many Republican politicians explaining that years of racist press coverage and police subjugation made the riots understandable, if still unacceptable.
You also didn’t hear them making the same pleas to empathize with the plurality of Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton but saw Donald Trump win the Electoral College and with it the presidency in 2016. When liberals held protests against Trump, criticized him, and, in some cases, made their own spurious claims about him, Marco Rubio didn’t implore anyone to understand the roots of their anger. Instead, Republicans thundered that Democrats were trying to delegitimize Trump and nullify his election.
After all, victimhood is an exclusive and exalted class in contemporary American politics. To Trump and his enablers, the truth about the insurrection is clear: The perpetrators are the real victims.
-EV 8/14/93
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Guess we have different definitions of buffoon then.
LOL, right on! Oh, to have George with us still today!
-Eddie Vedder, "Smile"
Not sure what to make of this but the Pillow guy at WH today could they still be planning a 2nd insurrection?
-EV 8/14/93
-EV 8/14/93
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
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another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14