Thread by @SethAbramson

January 6 was an insurrection ensconced in a traveling circus. Many at the Capitol were criminally trespassing, looting, desecrating and shoving, which makes it harder to focus on the far more dangerous, armed core of intruders—still large—which had treasonous mission objectives.

Most arrests so far have involved members of the traveling circus. They committed serious crimes, and will be punished. But I'm far more focused on those who planned to burn ballots, take hostages, steal sensitive equipment, and possibly kill the Vice President and House Speaker.

Media is focusing on the silliest figures in the insurrection—like a guy in a Viking helmet and the guy with Pelosi's lectern. My focus is on the men in tactical gear working with military precision who were armed and carrying zip ties and knew how to get where they needed to go.

Why did anyone at a "rally" have zip ties or guns or tasers or bear spray? Why did they show up to a "peaceful" event in "tactical" gear? Why did certain paramilitary-like individuals put blaze orange markings on their helmets? Why did some invaders hide behind tactical facewear?

Why did certain pre-insurrection social media messages outline plans as to what certain teams of invaders would do inside the Capitol? We can't let media's focus on the most absurd figures take away focus from the fact that much of the insurrection was a *paramilitary operation*.

If you see someone in an insurrection video who isn't in any tactical gear whatsoever and is using as a weapon just whatever is close to hand, they may well be an insurrectionist and a criminal and deserving of punishment—but they aren't the *truly* dangerous people in the scene.

There's no question a big danger on January 6 was the sheer size of the crowd, such that you had a mass of people willing to commit small crimes of trespass, theft, and assault that together added up to invasion. But as to individual crimes, I'm watching the smaller strike teams.

I'm seeing many folks bagging on the guy in the Viking helmet and the guy who stole the lectern and people like that. I don't see the point. They're morons who'll be *robustly* punished. I want to know more about the men who came to Washington to execute a paramilitary operation.

So as you crowdsource with other *actual* patriots to help spread accurate info—or even be of assistance to law enforcement—realize that the florist who livestreams her trespass may be a criminal but is 1/100th as dangerous as the armed and masked paramilitaries in tactical gear.

I admit there are days I worry the Biden team is looking at January 6 and seeing the traveling circus—for all that it committed real, serious, and actionable crimes—rather than the coordinated plot to overthrow our government. Because you'd never imply we could move on from that.

The remarkable thing is that the closer you get to the Trump allies who plotted this—according to Ali Alexander, Biggs, Gosar, and Brooks—the more you see the *same* mission objectives Trump and Giuliani had on January 6: intimidating elected officials and delaying certification.

When I read that Trump was upset by how "low-class" many at the Capitol seemed to be, something about the report bothered me—beyond the obvious—that I couldn't put my finger on. And it occurs to me the paramilitary units were "dressed for business," and didn't arouse Trump's ire.

All I mean by that is that it appears that Trump and Giuliani had two mission objectives for January 6—and that Trump would have naturally appreciated *most* those who arrived at the rally he'd been furiously advertising equipped in a way consistent with those mission objectives.

That is to say, a man with no shirt on and wearing a Viking helmet is unlikely to get past even a single police officer unless either an insurrectionist dressed in tactical gear or an extremely large number of ill-equipped but angry trespassers have cleared the way for him first.

A reader reminds me, quite rightly, that two of the men with zip ties have already been arrested. As I recall, one of them—an ex-soldier—says he found the zip ties on the ground and picked them up against his better judgment.

If you believe that, don't go into criminal defense.