Thread by @Ritholtz

The insurrection was MUCH uglier than it looked. We are learning more about:

-Plans for grabbing Electoral College votes
-Participants with Police/Military background
-Taliban style videotape confessions / executions of Congress members

Not a bloodless Coup - its treason

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1348038099029389313

The more we learn about this insurrection, the more it looks like a genuine attempted coup

businessinsider.com/trump-attempte…

Previously unreported:

The FBI and the New York Police Department passed information to the Capitol Police about the possibility of violence during the Jan. 6 protests against the ratification of the presidential election

nbcnews.com/news/crime-cou…

Rank amateurs had seen this coming in advance; they are also identifying those who broke into the capitol.

Of special interest: Cops who were active participants in the insurrection.

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

“Execute the traitors!” he shouted into a megaphone. “I wanna see executions!”

This gang was out for blood.

theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

Expect a flood of news over the next few weeks as all the details of the coup planning emerge.

Arrests will include ex-military, current police, more than a few elected state officials (maybe even a Congress/staff person)

npr.org/2021/01/10/955…

The Outrage Industrial Complex is nervous about its role in pushing the Big Lie. Unless there are real financial consequences for their role as advocators of the coup, this will only be a temporary reprieve before they ramp up once again.

washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/medi…

This has been going on for years . . .

"Brandishing arms and threatening their use against federal officials, the militias have enjoyed spectacular successes – with the Capitol only the latest example."
theguardian.com/environment/20…

Lots of stuff here:

Before Parler went dark, a researcher "crawled everything" on the site, in an effort to catalogue the posts of social media users. The archive includes associated metadata, including user location.

gizmodo.com/every-deleted-…

"Over the weekend, a group of private companies—Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google—decided that they no longer wanted to give away their free services to people & organizations who used them to advocate for the overthrow of the U.S. government." -@JVLast

thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/conservatism…

Its a Coup

This is the single best explanation of what happened and how: Simple, straightforward, blunt, and accurate. Great reporting.

politico.com/news/magazine/…

"Standards apply to liars from either party."

"This isn’t cancel culture, which is a societal blight. Nor is this politically motivated - Forbes’ pro-entrepreneur, pro-growth worldview has placed it in the right-of-center camp over the past century."

forbes.com/sites/randalll…

If they can overturn a legal, proper election what would it mean for the rule of law + property rights - anything goes?

Tech companies led by billionaire founders do not want to see the country overthrown; Jack Ma of Alibaba is a cautionary tale.

axios.com/platforms-soci…

Jack Dorsey doesn't have the nuclear codes, but he may be the most powerful person in America right now...

nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/…

For those of you wishing this would just go away, it is not going to.

New and more graphic videos of the mayhem keep emerging. People still have yet to wrap their heads around how bad this is...

nytimes.com/2021/01/11/art…

"A Secret Service officer was put under investigation after posting comments on Facebook in which she accused lawmakers who formalized Biden’s win of treason and expressed support for the rioters who stormed the Capitol, the agency confirmed Monday."

washingtonpost.com/politics/capit…

Also complicit: The GOP Attorneys General Association. They sent robocalls asking people to join rally that turned into deadly riot.

Their executive director just resigned. My question is what penalties state bar associations will impose.

wsj.com/articles/repub…

Rudy is the most obvious attorney in deep trouble: He abused the legal system to knowingly push a false allegation of fraud is the starting point.

His "Trial by combat" comment to a group that later went on to sack the Capitol is his bigger problem

nysba.org/new-york-state…

This is not an aberration

As @StevenTDennis pointed out, the Arizona GOP was calling for bloodshed as far back as December 2020.

This is more than mere enabling, this was complicity - and quite possibly seditious conspiracy.

I keep referencing insiders like AZ GOP and Rudy G because these are not outliers, this is the core base of the GOP.

Post-insurrection polls finds support among many Republicans for the coup. Decades of far right propaganda have had their impact.

thechicagocouncil.org/commentary-and…

Was "Law & Order" merely a slogan?

These YouGov polls should be taken w/a grain of salt: I'd be shocked if less than half of the GOP support prosecuting the rioters who broke into the Capitol.

My guess: Its more like 60-70% who support prosecution of rioters.

Misfeasance (Nonfeasance): The failure to discharge public obligations existing by common law, custom, or statute.

washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…

The news continues to flow as actual law enforcement takes over. Reports of pro-Trump Right-wing extremists have gone encrypted, and are calling for a disruption of Biden's inauguration.

nbcnews.com/politics/congr…

"A day before rioters stormed Congress, an FBI office in Virginia issued an explicit internal warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and “war,” according to an internal document reviewed by WaPo."

washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

You had to see this was coming, right? If you watched the event and followed the timeline, this conclusion was all but inevitable:

The President Deliberately Withheld Aid to Combat the Insurrection
talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-pre…

Via @joshtpm

We continue to learn of more police, firefighters, state legislators, and now ex-military.

This retired U.S. Navy SEAL apparently forgot the oath her took, saying he wanted lawmakers to be left "shaking in their shoes."

abcnews.go.com/US/video-shows…

Info on Congressional involvement in Coup:

"Witnesses saw members of Congress leading people through the Capitol on Jan. 5 in what was termed a reconnaissance for the next day when insurrectionists took part in a deadly siege on the legislative branch."

northjersey.com/story/news/pol…

Consider how large the Capitol building is. If I gave you an hour to find Speaker Pelosi’s office you couldn’t.

How did anyone find the unmarked office of the House Majority Whip? They had help, thats how.

nypost.com/2021/01/10/rep…

Inside Job?

Sarah Groh, chief of staff to Rep. Ayanna Pressley, discovered that “Every panic button in my office had been torn out — the whole unit,” she said, though they could come up with no rationale as to why.
via @HelenKennedy

bostonglobe.com/2021/01/13/nat…

"What is different today is that at no point in living memory has the defeated president of the US, along with the majority of his party, proclaimed that a national election was fraudulent and that the incoming president is illegitimate."

via @JVLast

thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/the-biggest-…

This thread repeatedly referenced a possibility of an Inside Job. Evidence increasingly supports that view.

"Federal agencies opened two new investigations into the extent to which Capitol Police and some lawmakers were complicit in the mob attack."
nytimes.com/2021/01/13/us/…

More details on the Inside Job surface:

"Multiple European security officials told Insider that President Donald Trump appeared to have tacit support among US federal agencies responsible for securing the Capitol complex in Wednesday's coup attempt."

businessinsider.com/trump-attempte…

The most dangerous thing that happened Wednesday occurred after the mob dispersed.

"A stunning 139 representatives—66% of the House GOP caucus—along with 8 GOP senators, promptly voted to overturn the election."

#Cowardly

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

Someone made simultaneous transfers of 28.15 bitcoins — worth $500,000 — to 22 different virtual wallets, most belonging to prominent right-wing organizations and personalities.

FBI is investigating links between coins & Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection

news.yahoo.com/exclusive-larg…

Still unsure where this was going? Or that it was maybe a melee that got out of hand?

IT WAS MUCH WORSE THAN THAT

Prosecutors: "Strong evidence" shows rioters intended to "capture and assassinate elected officials"

nbcnews.com/politics/natio…

If this surprises you then you have not been paying attention:

Longtime Trump advisers - Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn - connected to groups behind rally that led to Capitol attack.

abcnews.go.com/US/longtime-tr…

Moments after Secret Service hustled Pence + his family out of the Chamber, a group charged up stairs to the 2nd floor loudly denouncing the VP as a traitor, chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” They arrived seconds after the VEEP was rushed into an office.

washingtonpost.com/politics/pence…