#SeditionHunters - Thursday’s arrest of Alan Hostetter highlighted extremism in Orange County, CA, but even he is junior-league. We knew OC would send their finest, and here he is, the highest-profile #SeditionVIP yet: former U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA 42). 1/
In 2016, House majority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA 23) famously said “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump.” On Jan 6, Rohrabacher roamed the Capitol all day with a guy in a giant ushanka hat. Is this epic trolling by Russia? 2/ washingtonpost.com/world/national…
Rohrabacher’s been a fervent defender of Putin and Russia, lost his seat in the 2018 election. On Jan 6 he joined the attack on his former colleagues with his pal #RohraBoris, arriving early at the E. Plaza, then moving West by 2:50 PM, in time for the fighting at the tunnel 3/
Could he be disloyal? @anneapplebaum: he's “the living, breathing embodiment of the moral corruption that has seeped into a part of the Republican Party foreign policy establishment..[that] stopped caring about U.S. leadership of the democratic world" 4/ washingtonpost.com/news/global-op…
Rohrabacher is tied to ther OC seditionists. Here he is with Alan Hostetter in Dec. 2020 calling for revolution against “Communists…Marxist-Leninists who are trying to destroy the integrity of our voting system”. No, Dana, voters just didn’t like you. 5/
LA Times warned of OC extremism in March: "A year of right-wing protests in OC...spiraled into increasingly violent language against ever larger foes”. In DC on Jan 5, “a band of radicals invoked 'biblical war' [and] 'shedding of blood' ". 6/ latimes.com/california/sto…
Will Rohrabacher be the limit for our Senators, that gets us an investigation? In OR, lawmakers found their line last week: after video surfaced of a state rep. letting attackers into the statehouse in Dec. 2020, all 59 colleagues voted to expel him. 7/ opb.org/article/2021/0…
Updates / sources
H/t @jakobravner & Bluehatz crew for great find
Note: @FrankFigliuzzi1 called SeditionHunting the “Wild West”; but there is process & organization. #SeditionVIP’s are announced only if 3 people sign off on ID, location, & importance; threads are vetted; & perps are tipped to FBI in advance. Care makes research credible. 10/
Update on Rohrabacher's district, h/t @BarbaraHamrick. CA districts shifted, so Rohrabacher was successively in CA-42, 45, 46, 48.
Rohrabacher has so much shocking stuff the thread could go forever; just a few more goodies. First, poster for 12/2020 Huntington Beach rally 11/
Note that speakers 2 and 3 from the HB rally are arrested.
Second, more fine company for Rohrabacher: Oliver North + disgraced IA ex-Rep. Steve King, stripped of his committee assignments for open affiliation with white supremacy, lost in 2020. Might look for him on 1/6 too. 12/
Third, a nice summary by ABC news of Rohrabacher's Russian contacts including convicted Russian agent / honeypot Maria Butina, famous for infiltrating the NRA. Yes it all sounds like a Tom Clancy novel; sadly it is real. 13/ abcnews.go.com/Politics/russi…
And a quick note to any journos who want to report this - the way to refer to the people responsible for these findings is as "OSINT researchers" or "OSINT investigators". Not "citizen sleuths". 14/
On Jan 6, former U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) watched the fighting from the W. Capitol lawn, far past the breached police barricades, for well over an hour. Adding here highlighted clips + higher-res links for 3 videos that confirm his presence 15/
Betw. 3:00-3:03 PM (timing estimated from flags on terrace). At this point attackers are already inside the Capitol but the violent tunnel fight has only just started.
sighting 15:42
Clip by @CoryCullington. 17/
Video is key to understanding the Jan 6 attack, & there is a lot of it. #SeditionHunters have identified & saved 13,300 non-Parler & 6000 Parler videos (2460 & 100 hours). Our 2 amazing film editors have helped sync it & made incredible reels & clips. 19/ youtube.com/channel/UCboWX…
..but two editors is not enough. When the U.S. came under attack in WWII, the biggest directors in Hollywood - Capra, Ford, Stevens, Huston, Wyler, with 20 Oscars in total - stepped up to help. Now the U.S. needs film editors. @MPEG700 has 8000 members. Contact us! DMs open. 20/
Note: most Capitol sync'd video and perp reels is on Rumble now since our YT channel was shut down: rumble.com/c/c-969823
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This headline about how Trump lied about nearly dying in a helicopter crash gives major deja vu. Sure, today he mixed up Jerry Brown vs. Willie Brown. But there may be a deeper brain scramble going on. Trump famously lied about nearly dying in a helicopter crash in 1989. 1/
In Oct 1989, as Trump's casinos were edging into bankruptcy, 3 of his top casino execs died in a crash of a helicopter chartered by the Trump Org. The rotor simply fell off. Trump soon began telling reporters he was scheduled to be on the flight too. 2/ pressofatlanticcity.com/3-trump-execs-…
Trump's story of miraculously cheating death got a lot of press, even though other Trump execs contradicted his story almost immediately. It was a big deal; it got national-level coverage. In an old man losing his memories, this helicopter story might still remain. 3/
Since Trump has nothing new to offer, he can win only by smears and lies. That's why he hired Chris LaCivita, who "swift-boated" John Kerry with false slurs on his war record. LaCivita is already gunning for Walz. So let's talk about how to counter this swift-boat attack. 1/
Realize; the target of the smear is you. It's harmless if it's confined to Truth Social or GETTR. The goal is to get YOU talking about it. So ideally, we'd just ignore LaCivita's lies about Walz. The problem is, media is now helping them. They're making the smear the story. 2/
The NYT just handed Trump a huge gift, since LaCivita's entire goal is to control the dialogue, to force you to defend against his lie. So the only good response is to stay on offense. Don't let him make you chase the ball. Hit one return and then control the court again. 3/
New info about Jan 6: the DHS OIG report confirms that Secret Service drivers were emailing about rumored plans to take Trump to the Capitol already the day before. On Jan 5, people knew. 1/ oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/…
Fliers had circulated for weeks telling people to march to the Capitol. By January 4, Kylie Kremer knows that Trump would call on them to go to the Capitol in his speech. But the DHS OIG report is the first documented evidence suggesting Trump planned to go along too. 2/
The OIG report seems wrong in places. It says Pence was evacuated at 2:12 PM, before the Capitol was breached. But Pence is still there: Sen. Lankford waves at him as he says "vice president". Pence wasn't pulled til 2:13 PM, as the breach was happening. It was so close. 3/
Trump's big flop today asking "is Kamala Black enough?" also shows he's being given talking points. This theme was pushed heavily in 2019 by astroturfed ops, some tied to Russia, many later to Jan 6. It was part of a wider effort to divide the Black community over immigration. 1/
This attack was used against Kamala Harris in 2019 by a chorus of voices including Donald Trump Jr and Ali Alexander. We all knew it was coming back. In this timeline note how it goes with a divisive, astroturfed push for reparations for non-immigrants. 2/
Trump's inept attack today exactly rehashes the 2019 malicious influence campaign, almost word for word. It suggests the same players are at work today. Trump is an instrument for larger forces - some of them foreign. 3/ slate.com/news-and-polit…
Interesting times in the presidential race when JD Vance is going to be IN PRINT praising the plans of Project 2025 author Kevin Roberts. Vance was installed as an avatar of these antidemocratic forces. Trump's campaign is beholden to his backers. Keep the focus on them. 1/
Peter Thiel shows up in the Project 2025 sponsor list, though as usual he tries to keep his name quiet. The "T" icon here is Teneo, started by a Thiel employee and his protegee Josh Hawley - they coyly show only a logo, no name. Leonard Leo now runs it; JD Vance is a member. 2/
All these groups are linked. Next to Teneo is the Texas Public Policy Foundation, led by Kevin Roberts before he went to Heritage. In 2020, TPPF war-gamed out how to contest the election with Thiel avatar Jeff Giesea and the now-indicted John Eastman. 3/
Yesterday's Dem unity is wonderful to see. Fascism may be on its heels. Just realize that the forces against Harris are the same as those against Biden. Here's media from today. The broligarchs won't quit. And Putin's fight is existential now. People must stand up for her. 1/
There's really no daylight between Peter Thiel's crowd and Putin anymore. Elon Musk and David Sacks are spreading direct Russian propaganda. And Putin's only hope of survival is electing Trump/Vance. This set will throw everything against Kamala Harris. 2/
We should be optimistic. But we should also be prepared. What's coming will be ugly: misogyny, racism, lies. And, if the propaganda doesn't work, whatever else Putin can do to hurt the US - whatever divides and demoralizes. Unity and confidence and teamwork is the way to win. 3/