#SeditionHunters have worked for months to understand the order & organization under the seeming chaos of the Capitol attack. New analysis suggests: U.S. democracy hung by a thread for critical minutes. And we owe an immense debt to the men and women who fought to preserve it. 1/
New public resources include detailed timelines of the Jan 6 attack, backed up by hours of synchronized video; and a heartbreaking study of the fight for the “tunnel” door, & one of its heroes, by Emmy-award winning director Consuelo Gonzalez. Watch it. 2/
To understand why the tunnel was so important, pull back & consider patterns on Jan 6. Beneath the chaos are ordered motions, directed by people with bullhorns. The seeming plan: to hit multiple entries at once, flood the building, & block police reinforcements. But it failed. 3/
The plan faltered on the W. Plaza when police resistance bought crucial time - but a series of coordinated attacks broke successive police lines on both E & W sides. By 2:41 PM, invaders were pouring into the Capitol from 4 breaches and walking into the basement-level tunnel. 4/
Imagine had this succeeded: the Capitol mobbed, lawmakers hiding, police unable to reach them from inside (access tunnels blocked) or outside (surrounded by 1000s of ‘protestors’). It took swift coordinated action to position crowds just right - watch. 5/
But MPD commanders had chosen the tunnel to retreat into, and around 2:41 PM the call went out: “They’re not getting into this building”. Exhausted officers had fought on the Plaza for 1.5 hours, but they turned around, and they held the door. 6/
Watch for yourself in two new sync’d videos. The first, from @StevieG54099097, starts minutes after the initial breach of the East doors - then it was go time on the West. A rush broke through on the W Plaza and people surged up to the tunnel entrance. 7/
The second, from Consuelo Gonzalez (Mohair Media) starts 10 minutes after the mob hit the entrance - watch them regroup & organize surges and brutal attacks. By 3:19 PM, police had pushed back, but Officer Fanone was dragged out into the mob. 8/
What you don’t see here is what happened inside the building. While police fought in the tunnel, new reinforcements materialized inside: MPD, SWAT teams, who came up from below unimpeded. By 3:21, Fanone is unconscious, but police are gaining upstairs. 9/
The re-establishment of control is clear in new video released by the DOJ: quietly, and unseen from the outside, law enforcement had moved in and re-taken the Rotunda by 3:27 PM. While battles outside raged for another 1.5 hours, the momentum had turned. (h/t @JordanOnRecord) /10
How did this all play out, and why did people keep fighting afterwards? You can read the full timeline yourself at links below, and watch video - every individual event has a link to supporting video evidence. Here is the timeline in table form... 11/ docs.google.com/document/d/1jx…
And here is the timeline as a detailed source list. The new HBO documentary (released Oct. 20) is called “Days of Rage”. But the timeline implies that not everyone was raging. Someone had been building that rage, and was planning to use it. 12/ docs.google.com/document/d/1yM…
The timeline here is made possible by 9 months of work by volunteers in the #SeditionHunters community, mapping, timing, and synchronizing video. We organized it to help people understand, with links to primary-source evidence, so everyone can watch and judge for themselves. 13/
The @January6thCmte's work and FBI arrests will continue to focus attention on those responsible for the Capitol attack. We will keep working as well. To follow along, here’s a list of resources - you can see what has been done, what is left to do. 14/ docs.google.com/document/d/1zB…
Correction - the HBO documentary is "Four Hours at the Capitol". It's the NYT visual piece that is "Day of Rage". HBO includes extensive interviews with J6 figures; brace for a "Who Shot Ashli Babbitt" T-shirt. 15/ nytimes.com/video/us/polit…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
#SeditionHunters - while the depth of foreign influence on the Jan 6 Capitol attack remains unclear, hopefully will get clearer soon... because FBI just raided the DC mansion of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, connected to Trump advisor and potential J6 figure Paul Manafort 1/
As a reminder, Manafort's company, Event Strategies, arranged the Jan 6 Ellipse rally. Longtime lobbyist and fixer for dubious figures: helped get pro-Russian strongman Yanukovich elected in Ukraine in 2010, then managed Trump's 2016 campaign. 2/ time.com/5003623/paul-m…
After Manafort was convicted of election-related crimes, The Atlantic wrote "That he would be accused of helping a foreign power subvert American democracy is a fitting coda to his life’s story." But it wasn't a coda - pardoned by Trump Dec. 23, 2020.. 3/ theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
The report - all 400 pages - covers actions by Acting Asst. Attorney General Jeffrey Clark. It includes the shocking finding that on Dec. 28, senior DOJ leaders threatened to resign en masse if Trump carried out plans to use to DOJ to pressure states to appoint new electors. 2/
The report explicitly links Trump's attempts to "weaponize" the DOJ to the January 6 attack: they "created the disinformation ecosystem necessary for Trump to incite almost 1,00 Americans to breach the Capitol in a violent attempt to subvert democracy" 3/
#SeditionHunters - is this the downfall of Alex Jones, the “king of conspiracy” (CNN), the most famous figure at the Capitol attack? He’d tormented the Sandy Hook parents for years; last week lost by default their multi-$M lawsuit. Will the law come for him for Jan 6 too? 1/
Alex’s reel shows how central he is on Jan 6: VIP section at the rally, marched w/ entourage to the Capitol (trailed by shouts: “Alex Jones!”), speechifed from the E. steps..& then decamped to a rented rooftop overlooking the besieged Capitol. He KNEW. 2/ rumble.com/vndge8-alex-jo…
Alex films himself so much we had to edit to keep the reel to 17 mins - but he must hate our reel since it keeps getting banned from YouTube. It's on Rumble now; hope to repost on the ‘Hunting Insurrectionists’ YT channel (itself shadowbanned -use link) 3/ youtube.com/channel/UCboWX…
#SeditionHunters - today's arrest of former Green Beret & Florida Congressional candidate Jeremy Brown suggests that FBI now has a strategy for going after the semi-organized groups who arrived armed and ready on Jan 6, but remained on the edges waiting. 1/
Brown's Signal chat (L) shows intent to storm the Capitol; he called his group "Ground Force One". But, on Jan 6, while he was on the E. Plaza, he didn't attack. (The pic at R is him shoved BY police). How to avoid a defense of `selective prosecution'? 2/ extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/…
Brown's charging documents start with 11 pages describing the Capitol attack in detail as an attempt to stop certification of the election. Only on p. 12 do "facts specific" to him appear. He's quoted as telling police they're "violating the laws"... 3/
#SeditionHunters - the @January6thCmte issued subpoenas today to 11 rally organizers, including the Kremers, Cindy Chafian, Caroline Wren, & folks from Event Strategies who helped with the Jan 6 rally. Event Strategies is part-owned by Paul Manafort... 1/ january6th.house.gov/news/press-rel…
Manafort chaired Trump's 2016 campaign, was indicted and convicted on federal charges relating to Ukraine after the Mueller investigation, then was pardoned Dec. 23, 2020 by Trump... 14 days before the Capitol attack. 2/ washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…
Manafort has a long trail of cons, grifts, lobbying for shady foreign actors. He's also a pioneer of "black ops" to influence public opinion, including armies of Twitter trolls. Was Event Strategies' role on Jan 6 more than just setting up the chairs? 3/ theguardian.com/us-news/2018/a…
#SeditionHunters - this week’s hack of the roster for the ultra-secretive Council for National Policy, “the most powerful conservatives in the country” (NYT), reminds us that longtime CNP member Jason Jones (#VIPCamel) was at the front of the East Capitol breaches on Jan 6. 1/
Anti-abortion activist Jones has been a CNP member since the last hack in 2014. ID’d in January, he was so brazen people thought first he might somehow be legal. Instead he may be the first CNP member arrested for Jan 6 actions - he helped pull down the barricades. 2/
On Jan 6, Jones began the day in the VIP section at the Ellipse near others later seen at the Capitol (labeled in blue here, including #IamDougMastriano). 3/