Clint Watts Profile picture
Jan 7, 2021 20 tweets 7 min read Read on X
No one should be surprised about what happened with Trump supporters storming the Capitol yesterday, but why yesterday, and not on election day or some other day since the election, several reasons......
1 – on election day, Trump campaign needed people to vote, they still thought they could win and almost did, so they couldn’t lead supporters to a specific time & place, by Jan 6, Trump had lost & DC/Capitol became a place where all could be directed for chaos
2 – Yesterday's insurrection was completely foreseeable, lead up election day, we saw many groups (militias, white supremacists, anti-government) calling for mobilizations to violence. The same groups have set about planning this mobilization to DC for weeks.
3 - President has told his supporter to come to the Capitol and told us it was going to be wild, and it was, and this time, Trump had more coordinated help from none other than those he just pardoned, where were Flynn, Stone?
4 - Here's former National Security Advisor Flynn lying to crowd (kinda like he lied to the FBI) getting them stirred up,
5 - Flynn calls people 'Traitors' stokes the big event yesterday, and joined by the guy who led to FBI's first tip in Russia investigation, recently pardoned George Papadopoulos Image
6 - And of course, who was already rewarded for undermining democracy, Stone, the guy whose been saying 'Second Civil War' for years, defying court orders, a chief proponent of yesterday vox.com/22215120/trump…
7- As reported here, Pastor Mark Burns ready to "run through a brick wall" so maybe the crowd thought breaking down doors and storming the Capitol was part of the plan, right? sounds like a coup/insurrection to me Image
8 - but wait, what signal could confirm this would be a disaster yesterday, aside from the President holding a rally in from the Capitol and saying he was going to walk up there with them? You knew it, Alex Jones of course. Image
9- Why would protestors think they should storm the Capitol? maybe when President's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, calls for "trial by combat", crowd might have thought peaceful options were expended & it was time to resort to violence? nymag.com/intelligencer/…
10 - Many groups said they would standby these individuals, lots of III%er's out there yesterday, they even put out a statement a while back, guess who they mention = Flynn thethreepercenters.org/single-post/tt…
11 - Why would we imagine that they'd break into the actual U.S. Capitol yesterday, not just protest, because it already happened in MI on April 30. these groups celebrated it & guess who was there, terrorists later arrested by FBI washingtonpost.com/investigations… Image
12 - Just know way of knowing this would get ugly, when people publicly fantasize killing innocent people
13 - decade ago, we worried al Qaeda ideologues inciting violence with speech, sending terrorists into places like Capitol, what did we observe over the past week by our elected leaders, their surrogates & their supporters? FBI definition terrorism is?fbi.gov/investigate/te… Image
14 - FBI warned us about domestic extremists this year, Director Wray briefed us, QAnon specifically cited, and what did we see yesterday? rollcall.com/2020/09/17/fbi…
15 - this was the natural culmination of the QAnon conspiracy theory and its committed community. This is what we all thought would happen, it only took this long because they needed direction, which they got from the President buzzfeednews.com/article/katien…
16 - what's remarkable many same Congressmen scared by yesterday's events were briefed on this for YEARS & did nothing. Suddenly, when it comes to their house, they're activated. @LindseyGrahamSC nice speech, but remember this discussion you convened judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/… Image
17- another key difference between yesterday’s Capitol insurrection & other mobilizations was response. When states have foreseen mobilizations like this, we’ve seen Governors prepare, respond, national guard etc. but in DC, who commands resources, in this case, the instigator
18- final note on thread, we should expect the Trump machine will keep pulling stunts like yesterday at the Capitol. Trump has consistently pushed these provocations, it would be inconsistent for him to stop doing this post inauguration.
19 - If you've not seen it, much of what I was trying to explain is articulated better & more thoroughly here by @LiteraryMouse with relevant screenshots, check out the evidence she shows

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More from @selectedwisdom

Dec 27, 2022
Musk - the owner of this platform with the largest following on Twitter - is boosting an enduring Russian propaganda & disinformation campaign into nearly all Twitter feeds tonight.
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Dec 7, 2022
Surprising and not surprising at the same time. For those interested, NYT did an excellent broadcast “Day X” about similar extremism in Germany nytimes.com/2022/12/07/wor…
Again, not a surprise. They wanted to make contact with Russia. Image
Germany is a pivotal partner for holding together NATO/EU and support to Ukraine through the winter. Deeply alarming and not surprising based on recent indicators.
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Nov 7, 2022
ok, let's take a breath on Russian meddling in election via social media. The website here hosts american content gets little to no traction, the account posting memes is well known, extremely low traction nytimes.com/2022/11/06/tec…
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Summary: “Americans use Iranian disinformation about election 2020 to create American disinformation about election 2022” this is foreign disinfo being re-used by Americans - #NotLegit
This is a fake video the US Treasury said Iran "made in an attempt to undermine faith in the election by implying that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots."
Video created by Iranian state-sponsored actors executing a digital influence operation to intimidate and influence American voters. home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…
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Nov 1, 2022
week until Election Day 2022, regarding foreign influence & interference, my general assessment is same as 2020 “what could a foreign country do to America that America is not already doing to itself.” However, a few things we’ve seen, few to look for nytimes.com/2022/10/31/tec…
2 parts to foreign election meddling; 1) influence of the outcome 2) interference in the conduct. On #1 - foreign has been light & weak. Seen no signs that of the outcome of any contest being tipped by those outside the U.S., but one interesting highlight...
China finally jumped into social media influence ops in U.S. election. An escalation for them, past elections had been CCP had been overt or sloppy or both. This time they tried to play like the Russians, except, lucky for the U.S., China sucks at it.
rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
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Oct 23, 2022
There it is. Kremlin using same strategy as February, telling on themselves. Watch the dam on Dnipro river, chemical weapons use, nuclear plants.
Russian troop in/around Kherson are in retreat. Kremlin taking heavy losses, realize they will not take Ukraine they are resorting to targeting energy infrastructure inside Ukraine. Also expanding cyber/sabotage on Europe. Escalating to deescalate, settle for ground before defeat
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