#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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A part of the Epstein nothing-to-see-here fiasco no one's talking about: what happened to the "army of FBI agents" pulled off their cases in March to work on the Epstein files? Pam Bondi made people move to DC, pull all-nighters redacting the files. Did they just.. go home? 1/
Bloomberg: Pam Bondi demanded all the FBI's Epstein files, then ordered "hundreds" of agents to work on them (bizarrely via their personal phones). They were "holed up in offices at the bureau’s sprawling Central Records Complex". Are they still there? 2/ bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
The public should know what happened to Bondi's redaction effort, when and why (and if) the decision was made to send FBI agents home. And if she won't answer maybe one of those hundreds of agents is mad enough to leak. Keep your eye on who is next laid off at the FBI, too. 3/
As Hungary's Viktor Orban sucks up to Putin and accuses Ukraine of "choos[ing] war", a reminder, again, that Orban, Netanyahu, and Trump all owe their careers to the same US political operative - Arthur Finkelstein. Arguably the man most responsible for our dystopian times. 1/
Arthur Finkelstein was the dark master of the negative campaign, orchestrating facts-free and values-free assaults on political opponents. A gay, Jewish man who specialized in electing anti-gay homophobes. 2/
No one's explained yet if Finkelstein had a direct tie to Russia, but Finkelstein created Putin's bootlicker Orban, and Finkelstein is the one who brought Paul Manafort to Trump out of Ukraine where he was busy installing pro-Russia politicians. 3/
Yes, the NYT is shameful for sourcing an anti-Mamdani article from notorious white supremacist Jordan Lasker. But it's worse. Lasker, who they call an "academic", is a student whose only paper of note is INFAMOUS for unethical data use that got his tenured co-author fired. 1/
Who is the NYT's "academic" source? Lasker is or was a PhD student at Texas Tech, but his only paper of note is earlier, from 2019: "Global Ancestry and Cognitive Ability", whose misuse of data triggered a major investigation and got Cleveland State Prof. Bryan Pesta fired. 2/
The Chronicle of Higher Ed wrote about the scandal. It wasn't just that the article was "racist pseudoscience". It was that the authors misused data from the NIH and lied on their data application - filed by Bryan Pesta. A flagrant ethics violation. 3/ archive.is/KwbGy
Reminder: Elon Musk, whose Starship just blew up on the test stand (with its extra fuel tanks nearby), was allowed for THIRTY YEARS to lie about his training in science. He started lying in 1995, kept lying - and suffered no consequences. But physics itself has consequences. 1/
Just listen to the man's nonsense about how he is shaped by physics and consider: the press allowed him to bullshit like this for 30 YEARS. Of course he got convinced he can just make up his own reality. If anyone died in the Starship explosion tonight, blame the press too. 2/
In 2022 I did a 69-Tweet thread on Elon's fake AstroBoy Genius image, hoping to ward off what was coming: Elon helping to overthrow democracy. What you saw on the launchpad tonight, that's what he's doing now to US science, to our country: exploding it. 3/
Sure, it's funny that Fox News is now using "86" in talking about a fired reporter, when less than a month ago they demanded the FBI investigate "86" as a death threat. But the joke is on us. Performative outrage over bullshit is a test of YOU, to see if you'll accept it. 1/
You can't criticize Fox's words as hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is when someone committed to the truth is inconsistent. Fox and others are post-truth: they're just making noises to see if they can get you to react. They're gaming you. 2/
All of us have a psychological need for rationality. We need to feel that words have meaning, that people mean what they say. We do understand that people lie: a lie is a meaningful but false statement, to deceive. But what Fox is doing here is worse, and harder to cope with. 3/
ABC's explanation of why they suspended correspondent Terry Moran misuses the word "objective". Moran said Stephen Miller was a "world-class hater" and "his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment". Those are objectively true statements. Miller's hatred is deeply documented. 1/
Moran ascribed to Miller an emotion: "hatred". A decade of reporting has documented, objectively, that Miller hates. In 2018, LA Mag interviewed his high school classmates and reported their stories of how Miller hated minorities. "Hate" is their word. 2/ lamag.com/politics/steph…
Terry Moran also said that for Stephen Miller, "hatred is his spiritual nourishment". That's colorful language, but also documented. Here's a high school classmate of Miller's with a story of Miller saying awful, provocative things to immigrants: "he wanted to be hated". 3/