#SeditionHunters - in ancient Rome, the elite Praetorian Guard kept overthrowing the emperors they were assigned to protect. In DC this January, seems the “1st Amendment Praetorians” had similar ambitions - intrigue is timeless. Here’s a 1st thread on 1AP & the Willard Hotel 1/
#SeditionHunters have been tracking 1AP since Jan; the 1/5 Freedom Plaza rally permit says: “...1st Amendment Praetorian Group will provide...security.” Founded 2020 by messianic Green Beret Robert Patrick Lewis who now hangs with the VIPs. They recruit from former military... 2/
...& now also police & intelligence officers. RPL is now on the speaker circuit. On Dec 12: ntd.com/former-green-b…
On Jan 5 in DC, warned that U.S. kids may "grow up in a communist hellhole" "This is our chance...take back the country." Listen to it. 3/
1AP speeches are crazy enough but videos are worse - the Oct. 2020 “What is 1st Amendment Praetorian?” ends with RPL saying “we’ve activated the counter-insurgency” against fellow Americans. They’re so scary #SeditionHunters had kept quiet about them. 4/ facebook.com/RobertPatrickL…
Now that 1AP is getting some press, tho (Daily Beast, Vice) it’s time to shine the spotlight - & they’re crawling all over DC on Jan 6. So we’ll post several threads. This one covers RPL’s associates on Jan 6, and their circle. 5/ thedailybeast.com/1st-amendment-… vice.com/en/article/4av…
On Jan 6, RPL headed to Trump’s rally with two companions. We call the tall one #TallWillardGuy; he’s easy to see above the crowd. They watched from the VIP section with other A-listers. 6/
On 1/5 both were in the VIP tent at the Freedom Plaza rally. Here’s #TallWillardGuy wearing an earpiece, near Roger Stone & election-fraud conspiracist Joe Oltmann. (Joe’s data/marketing co.: “We start conversations & make sure that they’re going in the right directions.”) 7/
On 1/6, after Trump’s speech many VIPs headed to the Capitol. RPL isn’t seen there yet, but tweeted 1:18 PM “Today is the day true battles begin.” #TallWillardGuy ended up at the Willard Hotel in Rudy Giuliani’s hotel suite, in the famous photos found by @BitsButterfly... 7/
...from the Insta of CT lobbyist & Ukraine schemer Robert Hyde. Call it the Sore Loser room: it holds 3 failed Congressional candidates (Hyde, Eastman, Ramsland) + the son of a 4th (Daniel Bostic, dad is Curtis). Seems like a political / propaganda group, not military ops... 8/
Rudy couldn’t book the right 4 Seasons, much less run a coordinated crowd attack! Election-lie promoters include Oltmann, Ramsland (Allied Security Group), Eastman (ex-law prof), Bobb (OANN, ex-DHS), & Ryan (Rudy’s girlfriend). Bostic is pals with Ali Alexander since 2013… 9/
Note Bostic’s signature haircut. Bostic & Ali’s schemes include “a cryptocurrency project, a listless consulting agency, a defunct MAGA gossip blog, & a scam donation project created with R-wing trolls Jacob Wohl and Laura Loomer”. And now sedition. 10/ salon.com/2021/01/19/how…
On 1/6 Bostic sat up front at the rally, then walked to the Capitol in a “stack” of 15+ VIPs, OathKeepers, and security guys. Most went to the East side; 6 entered the Capitol & have been arrested (red text). 11/
Bostic, Courtney Holland, & Megan Barth of Stop the Steal went West instead, arriving on Capitol grounds at 2:53 PM just in time for the Giant Flag drop. (Finds & analysis by @bennybryant17) 12/ youtube.com/watch?t=102s
So Bostic was at the Capitol late, & the Willard Hotel photos were taken after 3 PM, maybe even the “night” of 1/6, as Hyde writes, after police cleared the Capitol building. We don’t know yet what the Willard group were doing, but the timing is important. 13/
Multiple 1AP figures are seen on Capitol grounds, so stay tuned for more threads.
As always, research is a crowdsourced effort by many, often anonymous volunteers. @bennybryant17 led on figuring out Bostic’s “stack”. All results go to the FBI first. 14/
Correction, t/y @bennybryant17! Though #AdamWeibling has been arrested, #BrittneyWeibling stayed outside the Capitol doors and has not. So here she's correctly marked in black, not red. 17/
#SeditionHunters - #TallWillardGuy IDd! Nailed by @visionsurreal as Philip Luelsdorff, Director of Business Development for 1AP; he & RPL filed the Sep. 2020 incorporation docs. A small-timer: serial DC business owner, unsuccessful poker player, arrest for theft. So..why him? 18/
He’s a bit overshadowed by mom, who claims she's an exiled Russian aristocrat, Baroness von Luelsdorff; Dad likely a multilingual professor. Philip whined in 2017 to NPR “You are expecting to do as well as your father and you can’t.. It’s emasculating” 19/ pbs.org/newshour/polit…
Mom tells her story in video on Russian site; judge for yourself. Full Luelsdorff OSINT report at link. What does he offer to a wannabe “elite” organization? Besides maybe Russian language, and self-pity, and gambling debts...20/
Now let's find #GreyBlazerGuy! He's in animated conversation with RPL and #TallWillardGuy while walking in, and sticks with them at the Ellipse rally, so #SeditionHunters might look for him in rally footage... 21/
And some video! For people searching for #GreyBlazerGuy, here’s the clip of him walking in, from a Twitch stream (DylanBurnsTV, Protesting in DC.mp4). Next up, a reel of the Bostic “conga line”... 22/
As usual this research is done by many dedicated individuals, often anonymous. @visionsurreal has been tracking 1AP for months, & @StevieG54099097 has put together a video reel with map to help people understand #IamDanielBostic’s walk to the Capitol 22/
And in case you still had doubts about the politics of Philip Luelsdorff aka #TallWillardGuy, here are his tweets, h/t @PabloRedux! Twitter acct. private but many archived. November 2020, ~1 month after 1AP started, ~1 week after election day: "The election is not over." 23/
Dec. 13, 2020, #TallWilllardMan replies to Joseph Flynn (Michael Flynn's brother) thanking "RPL and Yoda and the entire crew of 1AP for taking great care of #TeamFlynn yesterday". 1AP provided security for the Dec. 12 `Defend America' rally in DC, where Michael Flynn spoke. 24/
Here's Michael Flynn at the Dec. 12th DC rally, with Joseph Flynn behind him and his faithful 1AP bodyguard #ShadowFlynn in front. (More on him to come!) 12/12 might seem like a dress rehearsal for 1/6; everyone was there - Proud Boys, militia, right-wing speakers, 1AP... 25/
Watch the 12/12 activities for yourself at link below! Then count how many figures here appeared on Capitol grounds on 1/6. #2 in this pic is currently-serving Army Reserve officer & insurrectionist #IamThomasSpeciale, spokesman for Vets for Trump. 26/
Or, if video is not enough, you can watch 1AP live soon - they're scheduled to appear in Palm Beach FL on July 4th. The July 4 event is run by the "Coalition to Defend America", same folks who put on the 1/5 rally in DC. (More on them coming!) FBI might be watching too... 27/
Still don't think 1AP is scary? Read RPL's Tweet from June 28 calling on "Patriots" to "take back and keep this Republic" by turning into "Old Testament, full wrath of God, destruction of their house and salt the earth beneath them Christians." Hope FBI is watching July 4th. 28/
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Journalists reporting on Pete Hegseth's brother Phil seem to be missing his work in 2017-2018 - he worked for Cliff May's Foundation for the Defense of Democracies as a "social and digital media specialist", and also wrote some articles for them. 1/ web.archive.org/web/2017100314…x.com/MilitaryTimes/…
This doesn't seem like earthshaking stuff, but it's trivial to find and oddly he omits it from his LinkedIn. Phil Hegseth shows up on the FDD staff page in Feb 2017 and is gone in June 2018. Here's one of his articles, a summary of a report. 2/ web.archive.org/web/2017110221…
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies had a roster of very well known conservative voices so there's a lot of people you can call for stories about Phil Hegseth - including Michael G. Waltz, now Pete Hegseth's Signal buddy. 3/ web.archive.org/web/2017091201…
Today 19 Dem Senators helped enable both Trump's attack on science and the techbro power grab by confirming the most unqualified person ever to lead the Office of Science & Technology Policy: a non-scientist (BA in politics) who spent 8 years working for Peter Thiel. 1/
The Senate-confirmed head of OSTP has ALWAYS been a high-level scientist - this is the person who advises the president on science and technology. Why Kratsios? Because he's a Thiel protege. In 2017, Trump picked him up directly from his job at Thiel Capital - a VC guy. 2/
By now Kratisos is in AI. In Dec. Trump nominated a slew of AI-tinged science advisors. Of 4 names here, only one (the woman) has science PhD: Lynne Parker is an EE prof & NSF director. The other 3 are Thiel / Andreessen VC men, techbro nepo babies. The Pete Hegseths of tech. 3/
Mother Jones has written on this story from 2023, that our now-US-Attorney for DC brokered Michael Flynn's pardon as a quid pro quo. I can't QT Dan Friedman since he's since blocked me. But Martin's involvement in Flynn's pardon is an important story and it's worth revisiting. 1/
This paragraph in the article, which says Ali Alexander used Ed Martin to process funds for the Jan 6 rally, seems wrong, maybe got scrambled. Charlie Kirk's TPUSA handled the money, which Caroline Wren got from donor Julie Fancelli. There IS an Ed Martin connection tho... 2/
Ali Alexander's testimony shows the J6C were going after Ed Martin's involvement with busing people to DC. They ask if Martin fronted money for buses and got reimbursed by Kirk's TPUSA. Ali swears he doesn't know about logistics, just helped publicize. 3/ govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GP…
As Trump begins disobeying court orders, watch for support from Josh Hawley (Yale Law, here with new theories on how US courts work) and Ted Cruz (Princeton). Both are proteges of Peter Thiel (Stanford), as is JD Vance (Yale). Hawley & Cruz were key to Trump's plans on Jan 6.. 1/
In the weeks leading up to January 6, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz were treated as a pair by other Senators, and were assumed to be LEADING the plot. Trump called them over and over in the hours before the attack, threatened them after. He'll use them now. 2/
On Jan 6, Hawley and Cruz were the two Senators who stood to sustain objections to the vote - vital for producing a delay. Then night before, Trump called Hawley 3 times and Cruz once. On Jan 6 he called Hawley again. He needed them then, and will now. 3/
Why is Chuck Schumer caving and supporting Trump's spending bill, despite public outrage? Note that Schumer's in deep with the crypto industry, the largest donor of the last election cycle and the same Silicon Valley set trying to take over the U.S. now 1/ cnn.com/2025/03/13/pol…
Schumer had already caved by staying servile to the industry that denied him a Senate majority by spending $40M to knock out Sherrod Brown. They took Schumer's power! For him to rationalize supporting Trump's spending bill is just a small step further. 2/ commondreams.org/news/sherrod-b…
In 2024 Schumer feuded with Sherrod Brown, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, over Brown's push to regulate crypto. Schumer then became Kamala Harris' crypto liaison, even as crypto poured millions into taking the Senate from him by defeating Brown. 3/ prospect.org/power/2024-04-…
This story is truly alarming - @kyledcheney has buried the lede. The FBI has told Citibank that recipients of EPA climate grants are being considered as potentially liable for fraud. That is, the Trump administration wants to criminalize work on climate science and impacts. 1/
It's staggering that this could happen in the US: an incoming administration not only cancels federal grants but declares recipients as criminals. All these grantees applied under government calls FOR ENVIRONMENTAL WORK, were reviewed and accepted. Trump wants to jail them. 2/
Obviously we need more details but the letter from the FBI lists 28 organizations, mostly nonprofits serving communities: e.g. the DC Green Bank helps DC residents finance solar energy and building efficiency projects. This is not fraud. This is targeted harassment. 3/