#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
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Everyone's talking about the bribery part of Trump's gift of a $400M superluxury airplane from the Emir of Qatar but no one's covered the security risk part. Trump will be doing private meetings in a vehicle provided by a foreign government. 1/ abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump…
Is it likely Trump's folks can effectively sweep that plane for listening devices? Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff just walked into a meeting with Putin using a Russian intelligence officer as his translator. They're not the sharpest pencils in the box. 2/
OK, some are raising security fears, just not in the published articles. Garrett Graff calls it an "unmeasurable risk" and points out: the president can't even accept a helicopter ride from a foreign government. He travels with his own helicopter. But sure, use a Qatari plane. 3/
Ed Martin just got named Trump's "Pardon Attorney" (plus Associate Deputy AG). He does know the subject - in 2020, Martin brokered a pardon for Michael Flynn in exchange for Flynn's speaking at Stop the Steal rallies. Martin knows how to cut a pardon deal. 1/
This 2023 thread covers the story. Nov. 4, the day after the election, Ali Alexander spun up Stop the Steal with Ed Martin as a top recruit. Nov. 7, Martin reaches out to the White House with a deal: pardon Flynn and he'll help with "base-rallying". 2/
People like to think of Michael Flynn as a villain but in 2020, it was Ed Martin leading. Flynn would do nothing til he got that pardon - a straight quid pro quo. But Ed Martin was all-in from the start, busily working to overthrow the rule of law. 3/
Trump just declared Harvard ineligible for all grants and the NYT botches the story. It's not that "Harvard.. relies on federal money..[for] its projects". It's the federal government that relies on Harvard for its projects. Harvard provides services for you, the taxpayer. 1/
The NYT's phrasing is as dumb as saying gosh, your plumber relies on your money for HIS plumbing projects! What happens is the federal government puts out a call for research in some area, on YOUR behalf. Individuals then submit proposals to do that work. Just like plumbers. 2/
The NYT article is astoundingly backwards. You'd think @alanblinder, an education reporter, would know better, if he'd ever lifted his head beyond admissions grievances and culture wars to consider what universities actually do. Unpaywalled link. 2/ archive.is/Mcwtc#selectio…
Reporters: yes, alt-right gadfly Ivan Raiklin says crazy stuff, but what's most interesting about him is the backstory, how he was groomed to be an influencer. Because Raiklin is of Russian origin: parents are Russian emigres, brother a Russian scholar, wife a Russian teacher. 1/
Ivan Raiklin could have been on a list since his summer in Moscow in 2002. His brother Ben would be known from his PhD ("Stalin’s Documentary Filmmaking Industry, 1926-1946"). And Ben's insecure little brother, an officer in the National Guard, would be such a tempting target. 2/
We have to stop pretending far-right influencers appear spontaneously. They have histories: normal childhoods, then they're recruited into the game. It's rarely natural. Always ask: how did this person become known, who set them onto this new path? That's the bigger story. 3/
Stephen Miller confirms what anyone who studies Jan 6 knows: Trump's government wants to control education and impose a national 'patriotic' curriculum. It was OBVIOUS this was coming: Trump promised this in 2020 in exchange for support for his coup. But pundits ignored it. 1/
This account first called it in 2022. THE DAY BEFORE THE ELECTION Trump set up a commission on patriotic education. The people who led it - from Hillsdale & Claremont - then wrote his election-fraud lawsuits, arranged fake electors. They met on Jan 5. 2/
Education was Trump's barter with the religious right: public funds for private religious schools and a national 'patriotic' curriculum. It could have been stopped: Michigan should have indicted Larry Arnn, Hillsdale president, 176 Commission leader. 3/
Our new Navy Director of Communications watched the action at the Capitol on Jan 6 for Breitbart News. Her worst post might be this one: she flippantly captioned a video of people attacking the North Doors: "Things got a lil sporty here". To her it was a joke. Video tk. 1/
Here's Wong's video of the attack on the North Doors. She can claim she was just a reporter, but her caption shows that she thinks an attack on our Capitol and officers is funny. @SECNAV: is this the message you want to send to the troops, who swear to uphold the Constitution? 2/
Actual reporters, not Breitbart hacks, should ask @SecNav John Phelan: why was Kristina Wong picked? Is this the right message to send the US Navy? That attacking our own Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of power is just "a lil sporty"? 3/