#SeditionHunters - Alex Jones finally appeared for his deposition yesterday, mostly pleading the 5th. To remind: on Jan 6 Alex began trekking to the Capitol exactly when needed to bring crowds, seemingly on instructions, and the whole InfoWars crew seemed to expect the attack. 1/
Alex did not rush to the Capitol - instead he leads a crowd there only about 1:34 PM, when the attack had stalled. It's the same moment Proud Boy Zach Rehl texts "We’re at a standstill, cops are dropping concussion bombs and pepper spraying..." 1/
You can see the sequence in our agency response timeline. Breaches are in red. Notice after an initial swift attack, there's a blank: for nearly an hour, officers held off the attack on the W. Plaza. That's when Rehl texts, and Alex Jones and Ali Alexander head to the Capitol. 2/
During this "faceoff" period, you can the Proud Boys re-regrouping. You can also see efforts to build up the crowd; Alex & Ali are involved. This is the ONLY time all day when Ali Tweets instructions to his followers: first come to the Capitol, then go around the other side. 3/
That "messages" timeline was made for the Alex Jones and Ali Alexander depositions, to show how their actions served a strategic purpose on Jan 6th. Yesterday Alex pleaded the 5th rather than explain them. 4/
The InfoWars Jan 6 show makes clear they expected the attack. Listen to host Harrison Smith cheerfully talk about expected attacks on State Capitols - and then stop, dumbfounded and angry, after a rumor spreads that Trump has called the National Guard. 5/
Joe Biggs, who marched over 200 Proud Boys to the Capitol and led the attack, is a former employee of Alex Jones at InfoWars. Alex is deeply tied with the people directing the assault - and on Jan 6, they openly say they met with him. (h/t @creek_twit) 6/
These people are all connected, deeply, and with links that pre-date Trump. Biggs first appears on Alex's show in 2013, 8 years before the Capitol attack. But to understand their tangled connections you need to go back further, to when Biggs says he served in Afghanistan... 7/
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Lots of people are reading @anneapplebaum's 2020 essay "History Will Judge the Complicit" today to understand Lindsey Graham. It's sobering to compare to Dorothy Thompson's 1941 "Who Goes Nazi?". Both try to classify collaborators. Both separate "resenters" and "opportunists" 1/
Applebaum provides a gift link here. I read it and "Who Goes Nazi" side by side; the parallels are instructive. Both women - Applebaum in 2020, Thompson in 1941 - saw a movement gathering and asked, who would join? 2/ theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Applebaum cites Stanley Hoffman, who fled from Nazis as a child. He sorts true-believer collaborators into two types: ancient elites resenting a loss of status (resenters), and low-life deviants seeing a chance to rise up (opportunists). (He also flags the "rationalizers") 3/
Politics is personal. Dan Moraff who recruited Platner and fed him rants about "the establishment", was a child of wealth who got canceled for sexual misconduct. Platner was his revenge, a way back to power. Please see: Platner's campaign was about intra-elite resentments. 1/
It matters that Moraff's grandfather founded Toys R Us. Platner's campaign and much of our "populist" movement is people of generational wealth. It's not about helping the poors. It's resentful elites who thought they deserved more, punching at the "center" who denied them. 2/
The dirtbag left are elites resenting successful strivers. PodBro Jon Lovett: "perfect candidates off the harvard law conveyor belt.. all boxes checked.." Matt Stoller: "rule following perfect resume ladder climbing Harvard law grads..lizard people creeps" Petulant babies. 3/
New today: Peter Thiel's secret society of illuminati had a website so insecure it exposed his entire membership list. And it's... interesting. His Palatantir folks, sure. Leonard Leo. The president of Stanford. Ezra Klein. And some D politicians who really shouldn't be there. 1/
Going to post the membership list in chunks. It's tech-fascists and fake-centrist pundits and Silicon Valley business guys and health wackos like Peter Attia and Trump toadies like Scott Bessent and a few arts folks and then.. Cory Booker? 2/
Dan Driscoll, our SecArmy, is JD Vance's friend from Yale tasked with giving your tax dollars to Peter Thiel's friends with defense startups. Pundit Sam Harris, no surprise. Rob Hur was the Special Counsel who wrote a hit-piece biased report on Joe Biden. 3/
People seem surprised that Trump's AG was using private email. But the Jan 6 investigation showed: Trump officials do EVERYTHING on private email. That's why their comms had to be subpoenae'd. Nothing was archived.
1000 Hillarys, and not one article mentioned it. 1/
This account has been pointing out for years now: in 2020 Trump's officials openly flouted the Presidential Records Act and did official business on insecure devices. And they kept doing it in his second administration, because no one called it out. 2/
The Trump-appointed chairman of the panel approving his fascist arch turns out to be an architect who restores palaces in Russia, lectures in Russia, and publishes in Russia: Rodney Mims Cook Jr., son of a famous GA politician, a cartoonishly pretentious monument builder. 1/
The current version of Rodney Mims Cook Jr.'s floridly self-aggrandizing website lists five lectures or presentations in Russia (including at the Kremlin) and one at the Russian embassy in DC. He's proud of his ties (h/t @nycsouthpaw) 2/
Another bio for Rodney Mims Cook Jr. (oddly, he's on the board of a Caribbean medical school) omits a talk at 'Spaso House, Russia' and a 2017 presentation at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, but does include writings in Izvestia and Pravda. 3/
The only bright side of the DOJ's disgusting effort to vacate the convictions of the Proud Boys who led the Jan 6 Capitol attack (they weren't pardoned, just commuted): now they can all be subpoenae'd to testify and can't plead the 5th anymore. They'd have to talk. 1/
The next DOJ dirty trick to watch for is an attempt to throw the pipe bomber case, to let Brian Cole wiggle out scot-free by casting doubt on the case. He's already filed a motion fingering an innocent cop. Expect Todd Blanche to do everything in his power to help him. 2/
The Jan 6 pipe bombs were deeply connected to many people including sitting Congressmen. No way do Trump and Blanche want any of that to come up in court. They will want that case to go away and if they will work the corrupt DOJ to make it go away quietly. 3/