Whoa, wait a minute! Is that a cable knit sweater? Damn, that's classy! Is there an apparel of the insurrection merch table someone can hit up? Asking for a friend...
Whoa, wait a minute! Is that a cable knit sweater? Damn, that's classy! Is there an apparel of the insurrection merch table someone can hit up? Asking for a friend...
military issue I believe. likely found by a guardsmen
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
Whoa, wait a minute! Is that a cable knit sweater? Damn, that's classy! Is there an apparel of the insurrection merch table someone can hit up? Asking for a friend...
military issue I believe. likely found by a guardsmen
So, Trump is not done trying to take over the government. Thankfully his collaborating with MyPillow guy so there’s probably not much to worry about.
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
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
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
The
fiery rallies that preceded the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan.
6 were organized and promoted by an array of established conservative
insiders and activists, documents and videos show.
The
Republican Attorneys General Association was involved, as were the
activist groups Turning Point Action and Tea Party Patriots. At least
six current or former members of the Council for National Policy (CNP),
an influential group that for decades has served as a hub for
conservative and Christian activists, also played roles in promoting the
rallies.
The
two days of rallies were staged not by white nationalists and other
extremists, but by well-funded nonprofit groups and individuals that
figure prominently in the machinery of conservative activism in
Washington.
In
recent days, as federal authorities rounded up those involved in the
Capitol riot, promoters and participants of the rallies have denounced
the violence and sought to distance their events from the events that
followed.
“I
support the right of Americans to peacefully protest,” wrote Georgia
Attorney General Chris Carr, chairman of the Republican Attorneys
General Association (RAGA), “but the violence and destruction we are
seeing at the U.S. Capitol is unacceptable and un-American.”
Organizing
warm-up events is not the same thing as plotting to invade the Capitol.
But before the rallies, some used extreme rhetoric, including
references to the American Revolution, and made false claims about the
election to rouse supporters to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s
victory
Unless
Congress responds to the protests, “everyone can guess what me and
500,000 others will do to that building,” tweeted Ali Alexander, a
former CNP fellow who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement. “1776 is
*always* an option.”
On Jan. 5, at Freedom Plaza in D.C., Alexander led protesters in a chant of “Victory or death.”
Alexander
did not respond to a request for comment for this story. He previously
told The Washington Post that he had “remained peaceful” during the riot
and said his earlier speeches “mentioned peace” and were being
misrepresented.
“Conflating
our legally, peaceful permitted events with the breach of the US
Capitol building is defamatory and false,” he said in an email to The
Post. “People are being misled and then those same people are fomenting
violence against me and my team.”
In
the days and hours before the riots, Alexander and his allies attracted
tens of thousands of protesters from around the country — a crowd that
included white supremacists, Christian activists and even local police
officers.
Events
included a “Patriot Caravan” of buses to Washington, a “Save the
Republic” rally on Jan. 5 and a “Freedom Rally” on the morning of Jan.
6. A little-known nonprofit called Women for America First, a group run
by Trump supporters and former tea party activists, got approval to use
space on the Ellipse for what they called a “March for Trump,” according
to the “public gathering permit” issued on Jan. 5.
Nearly
a dozen political activists — including former White House,
congressional and Trump campaign staffers — served as on-site rally
coordinators and stage managers, the permit said. A spokesperson for
Women for America First did not respond to requests for comment.
Scheduled
speakers included Roger Stone, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Simone Gold,
founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, a start-up group that condemned
government shutdowns to contain the coronavirus. Gold was among the
protesters who entered the Capitol, according to an FBI flier with her
photo.
Gold told The Post she went into the Capitol but thought it was legal to do so.
“I do regret being there,” she said.
On
Jan. 5, the attorneys general group, which is based in Washington, used
an affiliated nonprofit called the Rule of Law Defense Fund to pay for a
robocall that urged supporters to march on the Capitol at 1 p.m. on
Jan. 6 to “call on Congress to stop the steal.” A recording of the
robocall was first obtained by Documented, a left-leaning watchdog group.
“We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue the fight,” a recording of the call says.
On
Monday, as criticism of the robocall mounted, RAGA Executive Director
Adam Piper resigned. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Tea
Party Patriots leader Jenny Beth Martin also condemned the violence and
said in a statement to The Post that her group provided no financial
support for the rally. “We are shocked, outraged, and saddened at the
turn of events Wednesday afternoon,” Martin’s statement said. “We are
heartbroken.”
Martin,
also an executive committee member at CNP, was listed in promotional
material as a rally speaker, though she did not ultimately speak. The
Tea Party Patriots were listed as a “coalition partner” with Alexander’s
Stop the Steal, RAGA and other groups.
“The
rally was peaceful. You cannot blame what happened inside the Capitol
on the promotion,” said Jason Jones, a CNP member and rally participant,
who said he was there to speak about oppressed people around the world.
He called the violence “sorrowful and tragic” but said it represented
“a failure of policing and preparation.”
CNP
Executive Director Bob McEwen said his group, a registered charity,
does not get involved in political activity and had no role in the Jan. 6
events. He said CNP members and associates act independently. “What
they do on their own time — I won’t say I don’t care — we have no
interest or capacity to monitor,” McEwen said.
Charlie Kirk, the leader of Turning Point USA,
an organizer of conservative students, and Turning Point Action, its
activist arm, also condemned the violence and called Jan. 6 “a really
sad day for America,” according to a spokesman.
Before
the rally, Kirk — a featured speaker at CNP meetings over the past two
years and at the Republican National Convention in August — offered to
pay for buses and hotel rooms for protesters.
“This
historic event will likely be one of the largest and most consequential
in American history,” he wrote in a tweet. “The team at @TrumpStudents
& Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending
80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president.”
That
tweet has been deleted. A spokesman said that Kirk eventually sent a
half-dozen buses and that the student protesters had nothing to do with
the violence.
In
a video posted in late December, Alexander claimed he worked with three
lawmakers — Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Paul A.
Gosar (R-Ariz.) — on an unspecified plan to disrupt election
ratification deliberations at the Capitol.
“We
four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were
voting,” Alexander said in a since-deleted video on Periscope
highlighted by the Project on Government Oversight, an investigative
nonprofit.
In
a statement, Biggs denied meeting Alexander. Gosar did not respond to
requests for comment from The Post. Brooks’s office said in a statement
that he “has no recollection of ever communicating in any way with
whoever Ali Alexander is.”
Brooks, first elected to Congress a decade ago, has been among the most vocal of lawmakers in condemning the election. In a podcast interview
last month with Sebastian Gorka, a former strategist in the Trump White
House, Brooks said he was working to delay certification of the
electoral college tally as part of “an organic movement.”
“The
question is really simple. Are you as an American citizen going to
surrender in the face of unparalleled, massive voter fraud and election
theft?” he said. “Or are you going to do what your ancestors did and
fight for your country, your republic?”
The
election results have been certified in all 50 states, and courts
across the nation have rejected challenges brought by the president’s
campaign and his allies. Shortly after the vote, a senior cybersecurity
official in the Trump administration described it as “the most secure
election in American history.”
In a statement Tuesday, Brooks said he is the victim of a “smear campaign.”
He
said that a White House official asked him to appear at the Jan. 6
rally. “I was not encouraging anyone to engage in violence,” the
statement said.
Other
establishment conservatives who condoned the protests include Ginni
Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and listed last
year as a CNP Action board member, who praised rallygoers in tweets.
“LOVE MAGA people!!!!” she tweeted early in the morning on Jan. 6. “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING.”
Ginni Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
Since the early 1980s, CNP has served as a bridge between
Washington’s establishment conservatives and scores of Christian and
right-wing groups across the nation. It convenes closed-door meetings
for members and wealthy donors at least twice a year. CNP officials and
their allies met weekly with White House officials under President
Trump, in part to coordinate public messaging about the administration’s
agenda, internal videos show. Trump spoke to the group in August.
Vice
President Pence praised the group in a letter obtained by The Post,
saying last year that “I just wanted to thank you and the Council for
National Policy for your support and for consistently amplifying the
agenda of President Trump.”
McEwen told The Post his group serves only as a venue for conservative speakers and does not coordinate the activity of members.
In one meeting last summer, a CNP member warned that a “civil war” would result if Trump lost the election to predicted fraud, according to internal videos obtained by The Post.
In
websites promoting the rallies, Alexander’s Stop the Steal coalition
urged protesters to “take to” the Capitol steps “to make sure that
Congress does not certify the botched Electoral College,” according to
webpages that have been removed.
Another
coalition webpage featured a 36-page election analysis by Trump adviser
Peter Navarro, a speaker at CNP in May 2019. It claimed that Trump’s
loss was a statistical impossibility and was due to a “whitewash” by
journalists and politicians. Navarro warned about “putting into power an
illegitimate and illegal president.”
He did not respond to requests for comment.
One
of those behind the rallies was Arina Grossu, an antiabortion activist
listed as a contract outreach coordinator for a religious freedom office
at the Department of Health and Human Services, according to HHS
promotional material and an agency directory.
Grossu
was co-founder of Jericho March, one of the coalition partners that
organized the Jan. 6 rallies. In December, her group described some
protesters against the election as a “prayer army” that would take the
case before “the Courts of heaven, the Supreme Court, and the court of
public opinion seeking truth and justice in this election.”
“The
blatant fraud and corruption in this election is overwhelming and it
cries out to God for justice. We the People demand answers and
accountability,” she said in a posting online that has since been
removed. “We serve a mighty God who can restore truth and justice in our
land.”
Grossu did not respond to requests for comment. An HHS spokeswoman declined to provide Grossu’s employment status.
In
a statement after the riot, her group said that it “never will condone
violence or destruction” and that its mission is “peace and prayer.”
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
This is a State Capital. This is so fucked up, as far as I’m concerned these armed assholes should be charged with treason. And the dicks are only wearing a mask to conceal their identity.
This is a State Capital. This is so fucked up, as far as I’m concerned these armed assholes should be charged with treason. And the dicks are only wearing a mask to conceal their identity.
It's so far beyond fucked up. This is the end result of decades of allowing 2nd Amendment masturbators to have free reign. They've spent their entire lives talking about their right to bear arms to protect themselves from tyranny and all it took was one big lie from an orange clown to convince them to act out their pathetic fantasies. Deep in my heart I truly wish for this week to pass without violence, but I would be lying if I tried to pretend there isn't any part of me that wants these chubby weak-end warrior wannabes get fucking smashed to pieces by our real armed forces.
This is a State Capital. This is so fucked up, as far as I’m concerned these armed assholes should be charged with treason. And the dicks are only wearing a mask to conceal their identity.
It's so far beyond fucked up. This is the end result of decades of allowing 2nd Amendment masturbators to have free reign. They've spent their entire lives talking about their right to bear arms to protect themselves from tyranny and all it took was one big lie from an orange clown to convince them to act out their pathetic fantasies. Deep in my heart I truly wish for this week to pass without violence, but I would be lying if I tried to pretend there isn't any part of me that wants these chubby weak-end warrior wannabes get fucking smashed to pieces by our real armed forces.
These same psychos that were protecting the federal monuments and buildings against minorities protesting and yelling Blue Lives Matter are now yelling Fuck You Police and beating / killing cops. Whatever allows them to walk around with their guns out is what they are for. Fucking crazies.
I don't even pretend that watching these assholes get smashed to pieces by our real armed forces would not be fun. It would be amazing. The reason I don't want it to happen is I don't want anyone who is not one of these dickless warriors to be hurt.
Records: Trump allies behind rally that ignited Capitol riot
By RICHARD LARDNER and MICHELLE R. SMITH
18 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of President Donald Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president's grassroots supporters.
A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House. But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other staff scheduled to be “on site” during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.
Since the siege, several of them have scrambled to distance themselves from the rally.
The riot at the Capitol, incited by Trump’s comments before and during his speech at the Ellipse, has led to a reckoning unprecedented in American history. The president told the crowd to march to the Capitol and that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
A week after the rally, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first U.S. president ever to be impeached twice. But the political and legal fallout may stretch well beyond Trump, who will exit the White House on Wednesday before Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office. Trump had refused for nearly two months to accept his loss in the 2020 election to the former vice president.
Women for America First, which applied for and received the Park Service permit, did not respond to messages seeking comment about how the event was financed and about the Trump campaign’s involvement. The rally drew tens of thousands of people.
In a statement, the president’s reelection campaign said it “did not organize, operate or finance the event.” No campaign staff members were involved in the organization or operation of the rally, according to the statement. It said that if any former employees or independent contractors for the campaign took part, “they did not do so at the direction of the Trump campaign.”
At least one was working for the Trump campaign this month. Megan Powers was listed as one of two operations managers for the Jan. 6 event, and her LinkedIn profile says she was the Trump campaign's director of operations into January 2021. She did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The AP’s review found at least three of the Trump campaign aides named on the permit rushed to obscure their connections to the demonstration. They deactivated or locked down their social media profiles and removed tweets that referenced the rally. Two blocked a reporter who asked questions.
Caroline Wren, a veteran GOP fundraiser, is named as a “VIP Advisor” on an attachment to the permit that Women for America First provided to the agency. Between mid-March and mid-November, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. paid Wren $20,000 a month, according to Federal Election Commission records. During the campaign, she was a national finance consultant for Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee between the president’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.
Wren was involved in at least one call before the pro-Trump rally with members of several groups listed as rally participants to organize credentials for VIP attendees, according to Kimberly Fletcher, the president of one of those groups, Moms for America.
Wren retweeted messages about the event ahead of time, but a cache of her account on Google shows at least eight of those tweets disappeared from her timeline. She apparently removed some herself, and others were sent from accounts that Twitter suspended.
One of the messages Wren retweeted was from “Stop the Steal,” another group identified as a rally participant on a website promoting the event. The Jan. 2 message thanked Republican senators who said they would vote to overturn Biden’s election victory, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas. She also retweeted a Jan. 1 message from the president promoting the event, as well as promotional messages from one of the president’s son, Eric Trump, and Katrina Pierson, a Tea Party activist and a spokesperson for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Wren did not return messages seeking comment, and locked her Twitter account after the AP reached out to her last Monday to ask her about her involvement in the Trump rally and the tweets she had removed. Several days later, she blocked the AP reporter.
Maggie Mulvaney, a niece of former top Trump aide Mick Mulvaney, is listed on the permit attachment as the “VIP Lead.” She worked as director of finance operations for the Trump campaign, according to her LinkedIn profile. FEC records show Maggie Mulvaney was earning $5,000 every two weeks from Trump’s reelection campaign, with the most recent payment reported on November 13.
Maggie Mulvaney had taken down her Twitter account as of last Monday, although it reappeared after the AP asked her about the account’s removal.
Maggie Mulvaney retweeted several messages on Jan. 6, including one from the president that urged support for the Capitol Police. Trump's Twitter account has been suspended, but the message could be seen in a cache of her Twitter account captured by Google. She also retweeted a message from her uncle, urging Trump to address the nation.
Maggie Mulvaney did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The insurrection at the Capitol prompted Mick Mulvaney to quit his position as Trump’s special envoy to Northern Ireland. He told CNBC a day after the assault that remaining in the post would prompt people to say “‘Oh yeah, you work for the guy who tried to overtake the government.’”
The leaders of Women for America First aren’t new to politics.
Amy Kremer, listed as the group’s president on records filed with Virginia’s state corporation commission, is “one of the founding mothers of the modern day tea party movement,” according to her website. Her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, is the organization’s treasurer, according to the records.
The IRS granted Women for America First tax-exempt status as a social welfare organization a year ago, with the exemption retroactive to February 2019. The AP requested that the group provide any tax records it may have filed since then, but received no response.
In a statement issued the same day rioters attacked the Capitol, Amy Kremer denounced the assault and said it was instigated after the rally by a “handful of bad actors,” while seeming to blame Democrats and news organizations for the riot.
“Unfortunately, for months the left and the mainstream media told the American people that violence was an acceptable political tool,” she said. “They were wrong. It is not.”
The AP reviewed social media posts, voter registrations, court files and other public records for more than 120 people either facing criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 unrest or who, going maskless during the pandemic, were later identified through photographs and videos taken during the melee.
The review found the crowd was overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters, including Republican Party officials, GOP political donors, far-right militants, white supremacists, off-duty police, members of the military and adherents of the QAnon myth that the government is secretly controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile cannibals.
Videos posted on social media in the days following the Capitol attack shows that thousands of people stormed the Capitol. A Capitol Police officer died after he was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher as rioters descended on the building and many other officers were injured. A woman from California was shot to death by Capitol Police and three other people died after medical emergencies during the chaos.
Trump’s incendiary remarks at the Jan. 6 rally culminated a two-day series of events in Washington, organized by a coalition of the president’s supporters who echoed his baseless accusations that the election had been stolen from him. A website, MarchtoSaveAmerica.com, sprung up to promote the pro-Trump events and alerted followers, “At 1 PM, we protest at US Capitol.” The website has been deactivated.
Another website, TrumpMarch.com shows a fist-raised Trump pictured on the front of a red, white and blue tour bus emblazoned with the words, “Powered by Women for America First.” The logo for the bedding company “My Pillow” is also prominent. Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow, is an ardent Trump supporter who’s falsely claimed Trump didn’t lose the election to Biden and will serve another four-year term as president.
“To demand transparency & protect election integrity,” the web page reads. Details of the “DC PROTEST” will be coming soon, it adds, and also lists a series of bus stops between Dec. 27 and Jan. 6 where Trump backers can “Join the caravan or show your support.”
Kimberly Fletcher, the Moms for America president, said she wasn’t aware the Trump campaign had a role in the rally at the Ellipse until around New Year's Day. While she didn’t work directly with the campaign, Fletcher did notice a shift in who was involved in the rally and who would be speaking.
“When I got there and I saw the size of the stage and everything, I’m like, ‘Wow, we couldn’t possibly have afforded that,’” she said. “It was a big stage. It was a very professional stage. I don’t know who was in the background or who put it together or anything.”
In addition to the large stage, the rally on the Ellipse featured a sophisticated sound system and at least three Jumbotron-style screens projecting the president's image to the crowd. Videos posted online show Trump and his family in a nearby private tent watching the rally on several monitors as music blared in the background.
Moms for America held a more modest “Save the Republic” rally on Jan. 5 near the U.S. Capitol, an event that drew about 500 people and cost between $13,000 to $14,000, according to Fletcher.
Justin Caporale is listed on the Women for America First paperwork as the event’s project manager. He’s identified as a partner with Event Strategies Inc., a management and production company. Caporale, formerly a top aide to first lady Melania Trump, was on the Trump campaign payroll for most of 2020, according to the FEC records, and he most recently was being paid $7,500 every two weeks. Caporale didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Tim Unes, the founder and president of Event Strategies, was the “stage manager” for the Jan. 6 rally, according to the permit paperwork. Unes has longstanding ties to Trump, a connection he highlights on his company’s website. Trump’s presidential campaign paid Event Strategies $1.3 million in 2020 for “audio visual services,” according to the campaign finance records. The company declined to comment for this story.
Another person with close ties to the Trump administration, Hannah Salem, was the rally’s “operations manager for logistics and communications,” according to the permit paperwork. In 2017, she took a hiatus from the consulting firm she founded and spent three years as senior White House press aide, “executing the media strategy for President Trump’s most high-profile events,” according to her company bio and LinkedIn profile.
Last week, within minutes of an AP reporter sending her a LinkedIn message asking about her involvement in and understanding of what happened on Jan. 6, Salem blocked the reporter and did not respond to questions.
___
Smith reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
___
Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York and Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
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
Records: Trump allies behind rally that ignited Capitol riot
By RICHARD LARDNER and MICHELLE R. SMITH
18 mins ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of President Donald Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president's grassroots supporters.
A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House. But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other staff scheduled to be “on site” during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.
Since the siege, several of them have scrambled to distance themselves from the rally.
The riot at the Capitol, incited by Trump’s comments before and during his speech at the Ellipse, has led to a reckoning unprecedented in American history. The president told the crowd to march to the Capitol and that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
A week after the rally, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first U.S. president ever to be impeached twice. But the political and legal fallout may stretch well beyond Trump, who will exit the White House on Wednesday before Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office. Trump had refused for nearly two months to accept his loss in the 2020 election to the former vice president.
Women for America First, which applied for and received the Park Service permit, did not respond to messages seeking comment about how the event was financed and about the Trump campaign’s involvement. The rally drew tens of thousands of people.
In a statement, the president’s reelection campaign said it “did not organize, operate or finance the event.” No campaign staff members were involved in the organization or operation of the rally, according to the statement. It said that if any former employees or independent contractors for the campaign took part, “they did not do so at the direction of the Trump campaign.”
At least one was working for the Trump campaign this month. Megan Powers was listed as one of two operations managers for the Jan. 6 event, and her LinkedIn profile says she was the Trump campaign's director of operations into January 2021. She did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The AP’s review found at least three of the Trump campaign aides named on the permit rushed to obscure their connections to the demonstration. They deactivated or locked down their social media profiles and removed tweets that referenced the rally. Two blocked a reporter who asked questions.
Caroline Wren, a veteran GOP fundraiser, is named as a “VIP Advisor” on an attachment to the permit that Women for America First provided to the agency. Between mid-March and mid-November, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. paid Wren $20,000 a month, according to Federal Election Commission records. During the campaign, she was a national finance consultant for Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee between the president’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.
Wren was involved in at least one call before the pro-Trump rally with members of several groups listed as rally participants to organize credentials for VIP attendees, according to Kimberly Fletcher, the president of one of those groups, Moms for America.
Wren retweeted messages about the event ahead of time, but a cache of her account on Google shows at least eight of those tweets disappeared from her timeline. She apparently removed some herself, and others were sent from accounts that Twitter suspended.
One of the messages Wren retweeted was from “Stop the Steal,” another group identified as a rally participant on a website promoting the event. The Jan. 2 message thanked Republican senators who said they would vote to overturn Biden’s election victory, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas. She also retweeted a Jan. 1 message from the president promoting the event, as well as promotional messages from one of the president’s son, Eric Trump, and Katrina Pierson, a Tea Party activist and a spokesperson for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Wren did not return messages seeking comment, and locked her Twitter account after the AP reached out to her last Monday to ask her about her involvement in the Trump rally and the tweets she had removed. Several days later, she blocked the AP reporter.
Maggie Mulvaney, a niece of former top Trump aide Mick Mulvaney, is listed on the permit attachment as the “VIP Lead.” She worked as director of finance operations for the Trump campaign, according to her LinkedIn profile. FEC records show Maggie Mulvaney was earning $5,000 every two weeks from Trump’s reelection campaign, with the most recent payment reported on November 13.
Maggie Mulvaney had taken down her Twitter account as of last Monday, although it reappeared after the AP asked her about the account’s removal.
Maggie Mulvaney retweeted several messages on Jan. 6, including one from the president that urged support for the Capitol Police. Trump's Twitter account has been suspended, but the message could be seen in a cache of her Twitter account captured by Google. She also retweeted a message from her uncle, urging Trump to address the nation.
Maggie Mulvaney did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The insurrection at the Capitol prompted Mick Mulvaney to quit his position as Trump’s special envoy to Northern Ireland. He told CNBC a day after the assault that remaining in the post would prompt people to say “‘Oh yeah, you work for the guy who tried to overtake the government.’”
The leaders of Women for America First aren’t new to politics.
Amy Kremer, listed as the group’s president on records filed with Virginia’s state corporation commission, is “one of the founding mothers of the modern day tea party movement,” according to her website. Her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, is the organization’s treasurer, according to the records.
The IRS granted Women for America First tax-exempt status as a social welfare organization a year ago, with the exemption retroactive to February 2019. The AP requested that the group provide any tax records it may have filed since then, but received no response.
In a statement issued the same day rioters attacked the Capitol, Amy Kremer denounced the assault and said it was instigated after the rally by a “handful of bad actors,” while seeming to blame Democrats and news organizations for the riot.
“Unfortunately, for months the left and the mainstream media told the American people that violence was an acceptable political tool,” she said. “They were wrong. It is not.”
The AP reviewed social media posts, voter registrations, court files and other public records for more than 120 people either facing criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 unrest or who, going maskless during the pandemic, were later identified through photographs and videos taken during the melee.
The review found the crowd was overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters, including Republican Party officials, GOP political donors, far-right militants, white supremacists, off-duty police, members of the military and adherents of the QAnon myth that the government is secretly controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile cannibals.
Videos posted on social media in the days following the Capitol attack shows that thousands of people stormed the Capitol. A Capitol Police officer died after he was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher as rioters descended on the building and many other officers were injured. A woman from California was shot to death by Capitol Police and three other people died after medical emergencies during the chaos.
Trump’s incendiary remarks at the Jan. 6 rally culminated a two-day series of events in Washington, organized by a coalition of the president’s supporters who echoed his baseless accusations that the election had been stolen from him. A website, MarchtoSaveAmerica.com, sprung up to promote the pro-Trump events and alerted followers, “At 1 PM, we protest at US Capitol.” The website has been deactivated.
Another website, TrumpMarch.com shows a fist-raised Trump pictured on the front of a red, white and blue tour bus emblazoned with the words, “Powered by Women for America First.” The logo for the bedding company “My Pillow” is also prominent. Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow, is an ardent Trump supporter who’s falsely claimed Trump didn’t lose the election to Biden and will serve another four-year term as president.
“To demand transparency & protect election integrity,” the web page reads. Details of the “DC PROTEST” will be coming soon, it adds, and also lists a series of bus stops between Dec. 27 and Jan. 6 where Trump backers can “Join the caravan or show your support.”
Kimberly Fletcher, the Moms for America president, said she wasn’t aware the Trump campaign had a role in the rally at the Ellipse until around New Year's Day. While she didn’t work directly with the campaign, Fletcher did notice a shift in who was involved in the rally and who would be speaking.
“When I got there and I saw the size of the stage and everything, I’m like, ‘Wow, we couldn’t possibly have afforded that,’” she said. “It was a big stage. It was a very professional stage. I don’t know who was in the background or who put it together or anything.”
In addition to the large stage, the rally on the Ellipse featured a sophisticated sound system and at least three Jumbotron-style screens projecting the president's image to the crowd. Videos posted online show Trump and his family in a nearby private tent watching the rally on several monitors as music blared in the background.
Moms for America held a more modest “Save the Republic” rally on Jan. 5 near the U.S. Capitol, an event that drew about 500 people and cost between $13,000 to $14,000, according to Fletcher.
Justin Caporale is listed on the Women for America First paperwork as the event’s project manager. He’s identified as a partner with Event Strategies Inc., a management and production company. Caporale, formerly a top aide to first lady Melania Trump, was on the Trump campaign payroll for most of 2020, according to the FEC records, and he most recently was being paid $7,500 every two weeks. Caporale didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Tim Unes, the founder and president of Event Strategies, was the “stage manager” for the Jan. 6 rally, according to the permit paperwork. Unes has longstanding ties to Trump, a connection he highlights on his company’s website. Trump’s presidential campaign paid Event Strategies $1.3 million in 2020 for “audio visual services,” according to the campaign finance records. The company declined to comment for this story.
Another person with close ties to the Trump administration, Hannah Salem, was the rally’s “operations manager for logistics and communications,” according to the permit paperwork. In 2017, she took a hiatus from the consulting firm she founded and spent three years as senior White House press aide, “executing the media strategy for President Trump’s most high-profile events,” according to her company bio and LinkedIn profile.
Last week, within minutes of an AP reporter sending her a LinkedIn message asking about her involvement in and understanding of what happened on Jan. 6, Salem blocked the reporter and did not respond to questions.
___
Smith reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
___
Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York and Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
(CNN)As terrible as the events of Jan. 6 were -- and I'm on the record warning of "the unimaginable" -- I'm going to repeat what I said after Election Day: It's not over.
Garry Kasparov
This
battle against anti-democratic extremism didn't end when a right-wing
mob invaded the United States Capitol and five people died, including
one police officer. It didn't end when Twitter and other social media
platforms finally muzzled President Donald Trump -- although that was a
heavier blow in this fight than most. And it won't end when Joe Biden is
inaugurated on January 20.
Beating
Trump was an essential step, of course. Four years of his thuggery and
demagoguery were enough to bring American democracy to its knees. Four
more might have finished it off. Had fewer than 45,000 votes across
three key states gone the other way on Election Day, we'd be plunging
toward authoritarian rule, and discussing which of Trump's children
would take over in 2024.
Narrowly dodging that metaphorical bullet was no protection against the threat of real bullets,
as the attack on the Capitol proved. And there will be more violence,
especially if the Capitol perpetrators and those who incited them --
starting with the President -- are not held accountable.
The
correct response is the dispassionate application of the law. Not
political persecution, but nor politically motivated leniency, either.
We don't have to choose between unity and justice. Avoiding doing the
right thing will only prolong the crisis and give aid and comfort to
enemies of the state and of the peace. Our Founding Fathers failed to
resolve the historical challenge of slavery, passing a bloody Civil War
on to future generations. Despite Abraham Lincoln's assassination,
Reconstruction allowed the South a "defeat with honor," decades of Jim
Crow, and the pernicious Lost Cause mythology that persists today.
Consider
the repugnant image of a Trumpist Capitol invader carrying a
Confederate flag in a building that Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson
only dreamed of conquering. No new mythology should be allowed to sprout
from this vile transgression. The worst result would be letting the
mutineers off the hook -- and this includes the elected officials who
encouraged them, like Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and especially
President Trump. That they, and scores of other Republicans, continued
to attack the integrity of the election even now is beyond the pale.
The
perpetrators won't become heroes or martyrs if the process of justice
is not unduly politicized. It would be a blunder for the left to turn a
clear case of criminal justice into a battleground for racial justice,
which would help the Trumpist Republicans twist their illegal
insurrection into the culture war they crave. White supremacy is a
terrible evil of American history, and Trump and his followers' traffic
in it is repugnant, but we should not overburden a clear-cut criminal
proceeding with the cleansing of sins.
Ted Cruz's fight for the man he once called 'sniveling coward' 01:58
History
teaches us the cost of well-meaning but shortsighted attempts to
sacrifice justice for unity. Russians learned this in the hardest
possible way after the fall of the Soviet Union. As I discussed at
length in my book, Winter Is Coming, they declined to root out the KGB
security state in the interest of national harmony. It would be too
traumatic, our leaders said, to expose the countless atrocities the
Soviet security forces committed and to punish their authors.
A
feeble truth commission was quickly abandoned by President Boris
Yeltsin, and soon even the Soviet archives were closed, although not
before researchers like Vladimir Bukovsky
revealed some of the KGB's atrocities. The KGB's name was changed to
the FSB and its members quietly stayed in touch and intact. The result? A
mere nine years after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia
elected a former KGB lieutenant colonel, Vladimir Putin, to the
presidency. It was the last meaningful election we ever had. We chose
unity and we got dictatorship.
America
should not make a similar mistake. The truth may hurt, but lies will do
far greater damage in the end. Americans should be prepared for a long
fight against these anti-democratic forces. The attack on the Capitol
has opened every eye; there can be no more feigned ignorance of the
crisis.
Many
Americans were shocked by how many of their compatriots, including
nearly all GOP officials, have been willing to go along with Trump's
open assault on the pillars of their open society, from the free press
to fair elections. As I warned early on, demagogues don't find radicals
to lead, they steadily radicalize their followers one outrage at a time.
The culmination, so far, was January 6.
Hemingway
wrote in "For Whom the Bell Tolls": "There are many who do not know
they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes." The time
has come, and we are finding them out. Fortuitously, they are inclined
to boast of their transgressions on Instagram and from the Senate floor,
which makes them easy to find.
The
question is if the will exists to apply the justice they deserve.
Failing to do so will not mollify them. They are living in an alternate
universe, where 70% of Republican voters say that Republican lawmakers
who tried to stop the certification of Joe Biden's win in the 2020
presidential election were "protecting democracy," according to a Quinnipiac poll
taken AFTER the assault on the Capitol Trump incited. Seventy-three
percent told pollsters they thought Trump, too, was "protecting"
democracy.
Perhaps the most ominous number is the 24% of Republican voters who don't accept the results of the election, according to an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey last month, leaving the question of whether they will accept the results of any election ever again.
Coups
aside, this was always the greatest threat of Trump's rhetoric, and a
result that will delight dictators like Putin, who are always eager to
denigrate democracy and its champions. At its core, democracy is an act
of faith, a shared belief that the people can fairly act in the common
good by choosing their leaders. Destroying the faith in the system will
destroy the American experiment.
This is precisely what we are trying to counter at the Renew Democracy Initiative.
We are launching a campaign dedicated to the simple phrase, "what
democracy means to me," in the hopes of reminding everyone what a luxury
it is for every citizen to have a say in the course of their lives and
of their nation.
Democracy
isn't liberal or conservative, not left or right -- at least it isn't
supposed to be. Millions of Americans currently believe that democracy
isn't working, or even that it isn't worth saving. The battle to prove
them wrong isn't over, it's just begun.
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
Technically, it was not that long ago that an armed protester was shot by a member of the military at the Texas state capital. I don’t remember many around here supporting the death of that individual...I, personally, hope no one gets “smashed to pieces”, police nor citizens. I hope the week comes and goes without any major incident. Seems like that’s a weekly hope these days.
This is a State Capital. This is so fucked up, as far as I’m concerned these armed assholes should be charged with treason. And the dicks are only wearing a mask to conceal their identity.
It's so far beyond fucked up. This is the end result of decades of allowing 2nd Amendment masturbators to have free reign. They've spent their entire lives talking about their right to bear arms to protect themselves from tyranny and all it took was one big lie from an orange clown to convince them to act out their pathetic fantasies. Deep in my heart I truly wish for this week to pass without violence, but I would be lying if I tried to pretend there isn't any part of me that wants these chubby weak-end warrior wannabes get fucking smashed to pieces by our real armed forces.
I’d have problem with the us military sniper taking these clowns out...
Just disgusting that anyone thinks allowing gun at a state legislature is ok, and assault gums at that...they need wake...
Technically, it was not that long ago that an armed protester was shot by a member of the military at the Texas state capital. I don’t remember many around here supporting the death of that individual...I, personally, hope no one gets “smashed to pieces”, police nor citizens. I hope the week comes and goes without any major incident. Seems like that’s a weekly hope these days.
You don't need to protest peacefully with a weapon strapped to you.
Technically, it was not that long ago that an armed protester was shot by a member of the military at the Texas state capital. I don’t remember many around here supporting the death of that individual...I, personally, hope no one gets “smashed to pieces”, police nor citizens. I hope the week comes and goes without any major incident. Seems like that’s a weekly hope these days.
Different circumstances all together and another false comparison. To whatever end.
Technically, it was not that long ago that an armed protester was shot by a member of the military at the Texas state capital. I don’t remember many around here supporting the death of that individual...I, personally, hope no one gets “smashed to pieces”, police nor citizens. I hope the week comes and goes without any major incident. Seems like that’s a weekly hope these days.
You don't need to protest peacefully with a weapon strapped to you.
You don’t have to tell me that (I sure as hell wouldn’t) but they do have the legal right to do so. I sure am not going to wish death on people protesting in a legally protected way.
Technically, it was not that long ago that an armed protester was shot by a member of the military at the Texas state capital. I don’t remember many around here supporting the death of that individual...I, personally, hope no one gets “smashed to pieces”, police nor citizens. I hope the week comes and goes without any major incident. Seems like that’s a weekly hope these days.
You don't need to protest peacefully with a weapon strapped to you.
You don’t have to tell me that (I sure as hell wouldn’t) but they do have the legal right to do so. I sure am not going to wish death on people protesting in a legally protected way.
I have no idea what incident you're talking about but I'm an actual supporter of the Constitution and our Republic, unlike these fucking traitors. So if they protest peacefully, no problem. But a little bit of me hopes the militia assholes do something and let the guard and military unleash. Come and take it.
Technically, it was not that long ago that an armed protester was shot by a member of the military at the Texas state capital. I don’t remember many around here supporting the death of that individual...I, personally, hope no one gets “smashed to pieces”, police nor citizens. I hope the week comes and goes without any major incident. Seems like that’s a weekly hope these days.
Downtown Austin does not equal the premises of not the interior of the capitol building
Technically, it was not that long ago that an armed protester was shot by a member of the military at the Texas state capital. I don’t remember many around here supporting the death of that individual...I, personally, hope no one gets “smashed to pieces”, police nor citizens. I hope the week comes and goes without any major incident. Seems like that’s a weekly hope these days.
Downtown Austin does not equal the premises of not the interior of the capitol building
Additionally Garret was carrying a gun for the protection of those around him that were standing in solidarity for black lives. Let’s not forget he never fired a shot or invaded anyone’s space. Only walked up to a car that rammed through the March .false equivalency
Comments
military issue I believe. likely found by a guardsmen
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
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
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
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
Rallies ahead of Capitol riot were planned by established Washington insiders
The fiery rallies that preceded the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were organized and promoted by an array of established conservative insiders and activists, documents and videos show.
The Republican Attorneys General Association was involved, as were the activist groups Turning Point Action and Tea Party Patriots. At least six current or former members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), an influential group that for decades has served as a hub for conservative and Christian activists, also played roles in promoting the rallies.
The two days of rallies were staged not by white nationalists and other extremists, but by well-funded nonprofit groups and individuals that figure prominently in the machinery of conservative activism in Washington.
In recent days, as federal authorities rounded up those involved in the Capitol riot, promoters and participants of the rallies have denounced the violence and sought to distance their events from the events that followed.
“I support the right of Americans to peacefully protest,” wrote Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), “but the violence and destruction we are seeing at the U.S. Capitol is unacceptable and un-American.”
Organizing warm-up events is not the same thing as plotting to invade the Capitol. But before the rallies, some used extreme rhetoric, including references to the American Revolution, and made false claims about the election to rouse supporters to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory
Unless Congress responds to the protests, “everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building,” tweeted Ali Alexander, a former CNP fellow who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement. “1776 is *always* an option.”
On Jan. 5, at Freedom Plaza in D.C., Alexander led protesters in a chant of “Victory or death.”
Alexander did not respond to a request for comment for this story. He previously told The Washington Post that he had “remained peaceful” during the riot and said his earlier speeches “mentioned peace” and were being misrepresented.
“Conflating our legally, peaceful permitted events with the breach of the US Capitol building is defamatory and false,” he said in an email to The Post. “People are being misled and then those same people are fomenting violence against me and my team.”
In the days and hours before the riots, Alexander and his allies attracted tens of thousands of protesters from around the country — a crowd that included white supremacists, Christian activists and even local police officers.
Events included a “Patriot Caravan” of buses to Washington, a “Save the Republic” rally on Jan. 5 and a “Freedom Rally” on the morning of Jan. 6. A little-known nonprofit called Women for America First, a group run by Trump supporters and former tea party activists, got approval to use space on the Ellipse for what they called a “March for Trump,” according to the “public gathering permit” issued on Jan. 5.
Nearly a dozen political activists — including former White House, congressional and Trump campaign staffers — served as on-site rally coordinators and stage managers, the permit said. A spokesperson for Women for America First did not respond to requests for comment.
Scheduled speakers included Roger Stone, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Simone Gold, founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, a start-up group that condemned government shutdowns to contain the coronavirus. Gold was among the protesters who entered the Capitol, according to an FBI flier with her photo.
Gold told The Post she went into the Capitol but thought it was legal to do so.
“I do regret being there,” she said.
On Jan. 5, the attorneys general group, which is based in Washington, used an affiliated nonprofit called the Rule of Law Defense Fund to pay for a robocall that urged supporters to march on the Capitol at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6 to “call on Congress to stop the steal.” A recording of the robocall was first obtained by Documented, a left-leaning watchdog group.
“We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue the fight,” a recording of the call says.
On Monday, as criticism of the robocall mounted, RAGA Executive Director Adam Piper resigned. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Tea Party Patriots leader Jenny Beth Martin also condemned the violence and said in a statement to The Post that her group provided no financial support for the rally. “We are shocked, outraged, and saddened at the turn of events Wednesday afternoon,” Martin’s statement said. “We are heartbroken.”
Martin, also an executive committee member at CNP, was listed in promotional material as a rally speaker, though she did not ultimately speak. The Tea Party Patriots were listed as a “coalition partner” with Alexander’s Stop the Steal, RAGA and other groups.
“The rally was peaceful. You cannot blame what happened inside the Capitol on the promotion,” said Jason Jones, a CNP member and rally participant, who said he was there to speak about oppressed people around the world. He called the violence “sorrowful and tragic” but said it represented “a failure of policing and preparation.”
CNP Executive Director Bob McEwen said his group, a registered charity, does not get involved in political activity and had no role in the Jan. 6 events. He said CNP members and associates act independently. “What they do on their own time — I won’t say I don’t care — we have no interest or capacity to monitor,” McEwen said.
Charlie Kirk, the leader of Turning Point USA, an organizer of conservative students, and Turning Point Action, its activist arm, also condemned the violence and called Jan. 6 “a really sad day for America,” according to a spokesman.
Before the rally, Kirk — a featured speaker at CNP meetings over the past two years and at the Republican National Convention in August — offered to pay for buses and hotel rooms for protesters.
“This historic event will likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history,” he wrote in a tweet. “The team at @TrumpStudents & Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president.”
That tweet has been deleted. A spokesman said that Kirk eventually sent a half-dozen buses and that the student protesters had nothing to do with the violence.
In a video posted in late December, Alexander claimed he worked with three lawmakers — Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) — on an unspecified plan to disrupt election ratification deliberations at the Capitol.
“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Alexander said in a since-deleted video on Periscope highlighted by the Project on Government Oversight, an investigative nonprofit.
In a statement, Biggs denied meeting Alexander. Gosar did not respond to requests for comment from The Post. Brooks’s office said in a statement that he “has no recollection of ever communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is.”
Brooks, first elected to Congress a decade ago, has been among the most vocal of lawmakers in condemning the election. In a podcast interview last month with Sebastian Gorka, a former strategist in the Trump White House, Brooks said he was working to delay certification of the electoral college tally as part of “an organic movement.”
“The question is really simple. Are you as an American citizen going to surrender in the face of unparalleled, massive voter fraud and election theft?” he said. “Or are you going to do what your ancestors did and fight for your country, your republic?”
The election results have been certified in all 50 states, and courts across the nation have rejected challenges brought by the president’s campaign and his allies. Shortly after the vote, a senior cybersecurity official in the Trump administration described it as “the most secure election in American history.”
In a statement Tuesday, Brooks said he is the victim of a “smear campaign.”
He said that a White House official asked him to appear at the Jan. 6 rally. “I was not encouraging anyone to engage in violence,” the statement said.
Other establishment conservatives who condoned the protests include Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and listed last year as a CNP Action board member, who praised rallygoers in tweets.
“LOVE MAGA people!!!!” she tweeted early in the morning on Jan. 6. “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING.”
Ginni Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
Since the early 1980s, CNP has served as a bridge between Washington’s establishment conservatives and scores of Christian and right-wing groups across the nation. It convenes closed-door meetings for members and wealthy donors at least twice a year. CNP officials and their allies met weekly with White House officials under President Trump, in part to coordinate public messaging about the administration’s agenda, internal videos show. Trump spoke to the group in August.
Vice President Pence praised the group in a letter obtained by The Post, saying last year that “I just wanted to thank you and the Council for National Policy for your support and for consistently amplifying the agenda of President Trump.”
McEwen told The Post his group serves only as a venue for conservative speakers and does not coordinate the activity of members.
In one meeting last summer, a CNP member warned that a “civil war” would result if Trump lost the election to predicted fraud, according to internal videos obtained by The Post.
In websites promoting the rallies, Alexander’s Stop the Steal coalition urged protesters to “take to” the Capitol steps “to make sure that Congress does not certify the botched Electoral College,” according to webpages that have been removed.
Another coalition webpage featured a 36-page election analysis by Trump adviser Peter Navarro, a speaker at CNP in May 2019. It claimed that Trump’s loss was a statistical impossibility and was due to a “whitewash” by journalists and politicians. Navarro warned about “putting into power an illegitimate and illegal president.”
He did not respond to requests for comment.
One of those behind the rallies was Arina Grossu, an antiabortion activist listed as a contract outreach coordinator for a religious freedom office at the Department of Health and Human Services, according to HHS promotional material and an agency directory.
Grossu was co-founder of Jericho March, one of the coalition partners that organized the Jan. 6 rallies. In December, her group described some protesters against the election as a “prayer army” that would take the case before “the Courts of heaven, the Supreme Court, and the court of public opinion seeking truth and justice in this election.”
“The blatant fraud and corruption in this election is overwhelming and it cries out to God for justice. We the People demand answers and accountability,” she said in a posting online that has since been removed. “We serve a mighty God who can restore truth and justice in our land.”
Grossu did not respond to requests for comment. An HHS spokeswoman declined to provide Grossu’s employment status.
In a statement after the riot, her group said that it “never will condone violence or destruction” and that its mission is “peace and prayer.”
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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
Now THAT is some funny shit!
Deep in my heart I truly wish for this week to pass without violence, but I would be lying if I tried to pretend there isn't any part of me that wants these chubby weak-end warrior wannabes get fucking smashed to pieces by our real armed forces.
Whatever allows them to walk around with their guns out is what they are for.
Fucking crazies.
I don't even pretend that watching these assholes get smashed to pieces by our real armed forces would not be fun. It would be amazing.
The reason I don't want it to happen is I don't want anyone who is not one of these dickless warriors to be hurt.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of President Donald Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president's grassroots supporters.
A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House. But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other staff scheduled to be “on site” during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.
Since the siege, several of them have scrambled to distance themselves from the rally.
The riot at the Capitol, incited by Trump’s comments before and during his speech at the Ellipse, has led to a reckoning unprecedented in American history. The president told the crowd to march to the Capitol and that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
A week after the rally, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first U.S. president ever to be impeached twice. But the political and legal fallout may stretch well beyond Trump, who will exit the White House on Wednesday before Democrat Joe Biden takes the oath of office. Trump had refused for nearly two months to accept his loss in the 2020 election to the former vice president.
Women for America First, which applied for and received the Park Service permit, did not respond to messages seeking comment about how the event was financed and about the Trump campaign’s involvement. The rally drew tens of thousands of people.
In a statement, the president’s reelection campaign said it “did not organize, operate or finance the event.” No campaign staff members were involved in the organization or operation of the rally, according to the statement. It said that if any former employees or independent contractors for the campaign took part, “they did not do so at the direction of the Trump campaign.”
At least one was working for the Trump campaign this month. Megan Powers was listed as one of two operations managers for the Jan. 6 event, and her LinkedIn profile says she was the Trump campaign's director of operations into January 2021. She did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The AP’s review found at least three of the Trump campaign aides named on the permit rushed to obscure their connections to the demonstration. They deactivated or locked down their social media profiles and removed tweets that referenced the rally. Two blocked a reporter who asked questions.
Caroline Wren, a veteran GOP fundraiser, is named as a “VIP Advisor” on an attachment to the permit that Women for America First provided to the agency. Between mid-March and mid-November, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. paid Wren $20,000 a month, according to Federal Election Commission records. During the campaign, she was a national finance consultant for Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee between the president’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee.
Wren was involved in at least one call before the pro-Trump rally with members of several groups listed as rally participants to organize credentials for VIP attendees, according to Kimberly Fletcher, the president of one of those groups, Moms for America.
Wren retweeted messages about the event ahead of time, but a cache of her account on Google shows at least eight of those tweets disappeared from her timeline. She apparently removed some herself, and others were sent from accounts that Twitter suspended.
One of the messages Wren retweeted was from “Stop the Steal,” another group identified as a rally participant on a website promoting the event. The Jan. 2 message thanked Republican senators who said they would vote to overturn Biden’s election victory, including Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas. She also retweeted a Jan. 1 message from the president promoting the event, as well as promotional messages from one of the president’s son, Eric Trump, and Katrina Pierson, a Tea Party activist and a spokesperson for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Wren did not return messages seeking comment, and locked her Twitter account after the AP reached out to her last Monday to ask her about her involvement in the Trump rally and the tweets she had removed. Several days later, she blocked the AP reporter.
Maggie Mulvaney, a niece of former top Trump aide Mick Mulvaney, is listed on the permit attachment as the “VIP Lead.” She worked as director of finance operations for the Trump campaign, according to her LinkedIn profile. FEC records show Maggie Mulvaney was earning $5,000 every two weeks from Trump’s reelection campaign, with the most recent payment reported on November 13.
Maggie Mulvaney had taken down her Twitter account as of last Monday, although it reappeared after the AP asked her about the account’s removal.
Maggie Mulvaney retweeted several messages on Jan. 6, including one from the president that urged support for the Capitol Police. Trump's Twitter account has been suspended, but the message could be seen in a cache of her Twitter account captured by Google. She also retweeted a message from her uncle, urging Trump to address the nation.
Maggie Mulvaney did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The insurrection at the Capitol prompted Mick Mulvaney to quit his position as Trump’s special envoy to Northern Ireland. He told CNBC a day after the assault that remaining in the post would prompt people to say “‘Oh yeah, you work for the guy who tried to overtake the government.’”
The leaders of Women for America First aren’t new to politics.
Amy Kremer, listed as the group’s president on records filed with Virginia’s state corporation commission, is “one of the founding mothers of the modern day tea party movement,” according to her website. Her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, is the organization’s treasurer, according to the records.
The IRS granted Women for America First tax-exempt status as a social welfare organization a year ago, with the exemption retroactive to February 2019. The AP requested that the group provide any tax records it may have filed since then, but received no response.
In a statement issued the same day rioters attacked the Capitol, Amy Kremer denounced the assault and said it was instigated after the rally by a “handful of bad actors,” while seeming to blame Democrats and news organizations for the riot.
“Unfortunately, for months the left and the mainstream media told the American people that violence was an acceptable political tool,” she said. “They were wrong. It is not.”
The AP reviewed social media posts, voter registrations, court files and other public records for more than 120 people either facing criminal charges related to the Jan. 6 unrest or who, going maskless during the pandemic, were later identified through photographs and videos taken during the melee.
The review found the crowd was overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters, including Republican Party officials, GOP political donors, far-right militants, white supremacists, off-duty police, members of the military and adherents of the QAnon myth that the government is secretly controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile cannibals.
Videos posted on social media in the days following the Capitol attack shows that thousands of people stormed the Capitol. A Capitol Police officer died after he was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher as rioters descended on the building and many other officers were injured. A woman from California was shot to death by Capitol Police and three other people died after medical emergencies during the chaos.
Trump’s incendiary remarks at the Jan. 6 rally culminated a two-day series of events in Washington, organized by a coalition of the president’s supporters who echoed his baseless accusations that the election had been stolen from him. A website, MarchtoSaveAmerica.com, sprung up to promote the pro-Trump events and alerted followers, “At 1 PM, we protest at US Capitol.” The website has been deactivated.
Another website, TrumpMarch.com shows a fist-raised Trump pictured on the front of a red, white and blue tour bus emblazoned with the words, “Powered by Women for America First.” The logo for the bedding company “My Pillow” is also prominent. Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow, is an ardent Trump supporter who’s falsely claimed Trump didn’t lose the election to Biden and will serve another four-year term as president.
“To demand transparency & protect election integrity,” the web page reads. Details of the “DC PROTEST” will be coming soon, it adds, and also lists a series of bus stops between Dec. 27 and Jan. 6 where Trump backers can “Join the caravan or show your support.”
Kimberly Fletcher, the Moms for America president, said she wasn’t aware the Trump campaign had a role in the rally at the Ellipse until around New Year's Day. While she didn’t work directly with the campaign, Fletcher did notice a shift in who was involved in the rally and who would be speaking.
“When I got there and I saw the size of the stage and everything, I’m like, ‘Wow, we couldn’t possibly have afforded that,’” she said. “It was a big stage. It was a very professional stage. I don’t know who was in the background or who put it together or anything.”
In addition to the large stage, the rally on the Ellipse featured a sophisticated sound system and at least three Jumbotron-style screens projecting the president's image to the crowd. Videos posted online show Trump and his family in a nearby private tent watching the rally on several monitors as music blared in the background.
Moms for America held a more modest “Save the Republic” rally on Jan. 5 near the U.S. Capitol, an event that drew about 500 people and cost between $13,000 to $14,000, according to Fletcher.
Justin Caporale is listed on the Women for America First paperwork as the event’s project manager. He’s identified as a partner with Event Strategies Inc., a management and production company. Caporale, formerly a top aide to first lady Melania Trump, was on the Trump campaign payroll for most of 2020, according to the FEC records, and he most recently was being paid $7,500 every two weeks. Caporale didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Tim Unes, the founder and president of Event Strategies, was the “stage manager” for the Jan. 6 rally, according to the permit paperwork. Unes has longstanding ties to Trump, a connection he highlights on his company’s website. Trump’s presidential campaign paid Event Strategies $1.3 million in 2020 for “audio visual services,” according to the campaign finance records. The company declined to comment for this story.
Another person with close ties to the Trump administration, Hannah Salem, was the rally’s “operations manager for logistics and communications,” according to the permit paperwork. In 2017, she took a hiatus from the consulting firm she founded and spent three years as senior White House press aide, “executing the media strategy for President Trump’s most high-profile events,” according to her company bio and LinkedIn profile.
Last week, within minutes of an AP reporter sending her a LinkedIn message asking about her involvement in and understanding of what happened on Jan. 6, Salem blocked the reporter and did not respond to questions.
___
Smith reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
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Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York and Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
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
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Garry Kasparov: What happens next
By Garry Kasparov
Updated 10:20 PM ET, Tue January 12, 2021
(CNN)As terrible as the events of Jan. 6 were -- and I'm on the record warning of "the unimaginable" -- I'm going to repeat what I said after Election Day: It's not over.
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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 hope the week comes and goes without any major incident. Seems like that’s a weekly hope these days.
Just disgusting that anyone thinks allowing gun at a state legislature is ok, and assault gums at that...they need wake...
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
www.headstonesband.com
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
and that praying scene in the chamber? that just looked fucking creepy to me.
www.headstonesband.com