Thread by @twoodiac

There are two passages in the Oath Keepers indictments whose significance has gone unnoticed by the commentators. These passages suggest that someone in the inner circle of the Oath Keepers has already flipped and become a DoJ informant. 1/20

Paragraph 19 of the charging document: The charging document identifies individuals Rhodes trusted as part of his inner circle, and names them. Question: why is the *operation leader* not named, and why was s/he not indicted? 2/20 tinyurl.com/y7sb2fmh

The above paragraph is incorporated in the part of the document (paragraphs 14 through 134) concerned with the key seditious conspiracy charge (18 USC § 2384). 3/20

Now consider paragraph 136. Eleven individuals are named, but note that the paragraph refers to “other persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury.”

Those other persons were co-conspirators, but they have not been charged--at least not yet. 4/20

That raises the distinct possibility that one or more of these individuals has flipped and become a confidential informant, having reached a plea deal with the DoJ. 5/20

If key rally organizers and leaders (like Roger Stone, Alex Jones, and Ali Alexander) and their lawyers have read these two paragraphs (as they surely have) they have good reason to be alarmed. 6/20

Some have suggested that Stone now has to be concerned about possible criminal liability because of the new indictments. They have suggested that he could face indictment(s) himself if an Oath Keeper flips. But maybe that has *already* happened. 7/20 tinyurl.com/y7pcxbvg

Stone had his usual retinue of Proud Boys in DC on Jan 6 as bodyguards “protecting” him. The Proud Boys have been charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, but have not been charged with seditious conspiracy, unlike the eleven Oath Keepers. 8/20 tinyurl.com/ybt5nacc

The Oath Keepers were also “protecting” Stone on Jan 6 in Washington DC. According to Stone’s usual BS, the Oath Keepers were just good Boy Scouts and Good Samaritans who were there voluntarily to protect Stone from angry mobs of Antifa terrorists (who never showed up). 9/20

But the relationship between Stone and Oath Keepers must have been much closer than that. Stone has been a longtime de facto insurrectionist himself, just like Stewart Rhodes. Both appeared frequently on Alex Jones’s Infowars, spewing seditious rhetoric. 10/20

So Rhodes could trust Stone (and Jones) to maintain confidence. And we know that Rhodes was frustrated that he didn’t know what Trump was going to do on Jan 6, 11/20

including whether he would invoke the Insurrection Act, which Rhodes feared was necessary if Jan 6 wasn’t going to turn into a disaster. 12/20

Trump could have gotten advance information through Stone (and Jones) of what the intentions of the Oath Keepers and others were. (This was dangerous information for him to have, but I doubt that Trump has enough discipline not to want to have it.) 13/20

Under a very likely scenario, then, Trump was simply lying--as he always does--and covering his ass when he said, after sending the irate mob to the Capitol, “what I don’t know is what they are going to do there.” He probably *did* know, 14/20

at least enough to know that key players intended to use force to delay the execution of the transfer of power to Joe Biden. (Rhodes, who went armed to the teeth to the Capitol, said his group needed to scare the shit out of members of Congress to block the certification.) 15/20

I regard it as totally implausible that Trump lacked foreknowledge that this was going to happen. After all, it was the only way that the certification could be stopped, once Pence had declined to be a “patriot,” refusing to decertify the lawful electors. 16/20

The only remaining question in my mind is how long it will take Garland to get the goods on Trump, if he doesn’t have it already. 17/20

It won’t be enough to indict Stone and Jones, because they will invoke the Fifth and will not squeal. So it all depends on getting the phone, text, and other electronic messages that passed among Stones, Jones, and the WH before, during, and after Jan 6. 18/20

Many, maybe all of these, were encrypted, but one of the significant revelations in the Oath Keeper indictments is that the DoJ obtained and decrypted electronic messages sent and received inside the inner circle of the Oath Keepers. 19/20

Once Garland has obtained the electronic communications he needs, the two ends of Jan 6 will be tied together for presentation to a jury: Trump’s foreknowledge of what happened on Jan 6, and his encouragement and approval of it once the assault was underway. 20/20

PS A conspiracy charge requires a quid pro quo. Trump did not invoke the Insurrection Act, but Rhodes might have been encouraged by advance knowledge of Trump’s planned pre-march speech. (The size of the mob thrilled Rhodes.) That could be enough to charge Trump for conspiracy.

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