As discussed in the last section of Occupy Democrats‘ January 6th Reports, Vice President Mike Pence refused to take more than a ceremonial role in the certification process, despite endless entreaties from President Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, and the president’s attorney, John Eastman, for the VP toss out legitimately chosen Biden electors.
After one particular intense meeting on the night of December 18, 2020, then-president Trump sent his infamous tweet about the January 6th “rally,” declaring it would be “wild.”
It was a signal that was readily received by extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers, and Women for America First (WFAF).
The conservative organizer Ali Alexander immediately sought to secure a permit for an area right next to the Capitol.
And Alex Jones continually pumped the January 6th “Stop the Steal Rally” on his Infowars program.
One key listener of Jones’s program was an ardent Trump supporter and billionaire, Julie Fancelli, who was fortunate to inherit the Publix supermarket chain, if not any degree of brains.
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After hearing Jones’s rantings, she decided she wanted to help fund the effort to bring other Trump supporters to D.C.
And so, as the report details on pages 531-532, she reached out to Caroline Wren, a Trump fundraiser, and asked her what it would cost to send a whole lot of people into D.C. on the 6th.
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In the end, $3 million was earmarked – some for busing, some for promotion, some for organizing. Wren also put Fancelli in touch with conservative organizer Ali Alexander: money and the muscle.
On the night of December 27, Wren spoke over the phone with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr’s girlfriend, as she ate with the president and Little Donny.
“Wren also texted Guilfoyle talking points that described her ambitions for the event, saying that ‘buses of people are coming in from all over the country to support you. It’s going to be huge, we are also adding in programming the night of January 5th,’” the report notes.
The language of that text makes it clear that it was directed toward the president rather than Guilfoyle.
On December 29, Justin Caporale, a member of Trump’s staff who had been tapped to help organize the rally, texted Wren that there “maybe [sic] a call to action to march to the [C]apitol and make noise.”
This is the first evidence we have of Trump himself discussing that possibility, as it would have been very unlikely for Caporale to pluck this idea from thin air.
On January 2, Wren was told that Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had said that the president was planning to call on supporters to march to the Capitol.
Meanwhile, Meadows and others had to convince Trump not to march along at the head of the crowd.
Trump had expressed an interest in employing 10,000 National Guard troops for his protection, as he knew there were dangerous people around.
This idea was eventually nixed after it was met with universal condemnation from Trump’s inner circle.
The January 6 Committee rightfully noted that, despite being aware of existing dangers, Trump never even inquired about sending the same 10,000 troops to protect Congress.
On the day of the rally, a dozen people spoke before Trump himself took the stage.
Representative Mo Brooks, a Trump co-conspirator who has since broken with the former president, urged the crowd to “start taking down names and kicking ass.”
Lara and Eric Trump told the crowd to “fight.” Guilfoyle spoke and said that they could not allow the Democrats to “to steal our dream or steal our elections.”
Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, John Eastman, Matt Gaetz, Rudy Giuliani, Louie Gohmert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mark Meadows, and Scott Perry all asked Donald Trump for a pardon after January 6, which is exactly what people do when they know they haven't committed a crime.
— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) December 19, 2022
Donald Trump Jr told the crowd on January 6th that those about to cast their votes on certification had the opportunity to be “a hero or a zero,” and that if they voted against his father, “we’re coming for you, and we’re gonna have a good time doing it.”
In a rambling speech filled with lies and misrepresentations, Giuliani insisted that they had evidence of criminality, even saying he would stake his reputation on it.
There was no criminality (save for the crimes he and the president and their flunkies were committing) and his reputation is rightfully shot (if he even had one in the last fifteen years).
Eastman joined Giuliani on stage and barked to the mob, “This is bigger than President Trump. It is the very essence of our republican form of government and it has to be done. And anybody that is not willing to stand up to do it does not deserve to be in the office. It is that simple.”
Sounds like someone ordering for elected officials to be removed by hook or by crook, no?
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But it was Trump himself who brought the most vitriol.
Here are some excerpts of his speech.
As the Committee report noted, only one time did he mention the word “peacefully,” which his speechwriters had actually put in there, while he gave over a hundred mentions to the idea that the election had been stolen.
- “We will never give up; we will never concede. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.”
- “You’re the real people – the people who built this country.” (Typical us-versus-them psychology that dehumanizes opponents.)
- “Democrats attempted the most brazen and outrageous election theft…in American history.”
- “Our election was so corrupt, that in the history of our country we never saw anything like it.”
- Once again, going after the press: “We don’t have a free and fair press….It suppresses thought, it suppresses speech, and it’s become the enemy of the people.”
- “We’re gonna have to fight much harder, and Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us.”
- “And after this, we’re gonna walk down – and I’ll be there with you – we’re gonna walk down…to the Capitol…because you’ll never take back our country with weakness; you have to show strength…”
- “Our country has been under siege for a long time.”
- He repeated lies that he knew for a fact were untrue, claiming, for instance, that Pennsylvania had more ballots than voters and that drop boxes and corrupt officials in Wisconsin caused there to be “91,000 unlawful votes.” He made up similar tales about Georgia and Michigan. Fraud, he said, “took place in every state.”
- “The radical left knows exactly what they’re doing. They’re ruthless and it’s time that somebody did something about it. And Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you.” This is the usual stochastic terrorism we’ve seen from Trump – requesting that somebody do something about it to an angry mob: “Will nobody rid me of this turbulent priest?”
- “And fraud breaks up everything, doesn’t it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules.” In other words, “Do what you have to!”
- “Today is not the end, it’s just the beginning.” The beginning of what? Trump tyranny?
- He also made sure to keep giving his estimates about the crowd size, as if warning Congress that he had an army of “250,000.” It was likely closer to 120,000 – well over what the permits allowed, though, and plenty enough to be formidable.
- He also made sure to keep giving his estimates about the crowd size, as if warning Congress that he had an army of “250,000.” It was likely closer to 120,000 – well over what the permits allowed, though, and plenty enough to be formidable.
- “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
- Then Trump said, “we’re gonna walk down to the Capitol,” implying that his chickenshit ass would also be there. It wasn’t, of course. But the murderous mob was on its way.
In the next installment, I’ll cover what that mob did on January 6th and how Trump intentionally did nothing to protect Congress.
You can follow along and get updates by joining me on Twitter: @RossRosenfeld or by searching for the hashtag #Jan6Reports.
