Thread by @SethAbramson

MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Proud Boys Leader and Four Other Top Members Charged with Seditious Conspiracy

https://twitter.com/cnnbrk/status/1533900974552756225

PS/ Ever since Oath Keepers head Stewart Rhodes was charged with Seditious Conspiracy, and ever since PROOF reported on the secret January 5 parking-garage meeting between Rhodes and Tarrio, it was anticipated Tarrio’s Conspiracy charges would become Seditious Conspiracy charges.

PS2/ Three men who head paramilitary units were subpoenaed by the House January 6 Committee on the same day in November 2021: Tarrio (Proud Boys), now charged with Seditious Conspiracy; Rhodes (Oath Keepers), now charged with Seditious Conspiracy; and Robert Patrick Lewis (1AP).

PS3/ Mother Jones recently reported that a subordinate of Robert Patrick Lewis in 1AP (the First Amendment Praetorians), Michael Kenny, issued a death threat to a House January 6 Committee witness that he (Kenny) said was made on behalf of 1AP leadership. motherjones.com/politics/2022/…

PS4/ Congress made a key claim in subpoenaing Tarrio, Rhodes and Lewis on the same day—that the men had critical non-public info about January 6—and Lewis has boasted about being in contact with Rhodes and the Proud Boys both pre- *and* post-January 6, so Lewis is worth watching.

PS5/ We don’t yet know if Lewis has honored his federal subpoena; if the FBI has investigated the alleged death threat a Lewis subordinate made against federal witness Staci Burk; or if the House is about to reveal the *content* of comms between Rhodes, the Proud Boys, and Lewis.

PS6/ Here’s what we know: Lewis and 1AP spent late 2020 and early 2021 acting as security for or attending meetings with people who were liaisons between the White House and radicals—Ali Alexander, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, Patrick Byrne, John Eastman, Joe Oltmann and others.

PS7/ So if Stewart Rhodes and many Oath Keepers, and Enrique Tarrio and many Proud Boys, are now confirmed by DOJ to be—in the view of DOJ—participants in a Seditious Conspiracy, its next step will be to consider *other* paramilitaries those men and entities were in contact with.

PS8/ IOW, DOJ has yet to bridge the gap between its two criminal investigations: of the foot-soldiers and their leaders and the leading coup plotters inside the White House. Rhodes and Tarrio hail from the first investigation, so we have to look at possible bridges to the second.

PS9/ Needless to say no federal criminal investigator—and I briefly was one—jumps to accusing someone of wrongdoing. You rather ask, who were these new defendants (all these Seditious-Conspiracy defendant Proud Boys and Oath Keepers) talking to? And *one* answer is 1AP and Lewis.

PS10/ Of course *another* answer is the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were in *direct* contact with 1AP protectee Ali Alexander (not to mention Stop the Steal co-organizers Roger Stone and Alex Jones). But what of Flynn, Powell, Eastman, Oltmann, and Byrne? This is why 1AP matters.

PS11/ Flynn, Powell, and Byrne were driven to the White House by 1AP the night of their fateful three-hour—Oval Office and Presidential Residence—meeting with Trump and (by phone) Eastman co-counsel Rudy Giuliani. Lewis protected all three and says he met with Eastman repeatedly.

PS12/ So as the FBI now has way over a dozen Proud Boy and Oath Keeper leaders to squeeze through federal felony charges—some of them Seditious Conspiracy—one would expect it and DOJ are trying to get a look inside the Trump-adjacent Alexander, Eastman, Flynn, Powell, Byrne camp.

PS13/ And based upon what we know of January 6 so far, one of the few folks who’s repeatedly boasted of contact with the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers *and* Stop the Steal/Team Kraken/Trump Legal is the subpoenaed Lewis, who runs an unlicensed paramilitary unit. thedailybeast.com/1st-amendment-…

PS14/ So my reaction to Tarrio and four Proud Boys being charged with Seditious Conspiracy is not so much surprise—this was anticipated—but to focus on what it means for a DOJ trying to slow-march its way from foot-soldiers to their leaders to the “liaison” class to Donald Trump.

PS15/ As ever, we’re just discussing investigative maneuvers. It’s up to DOJ to say if someone committed a crime; Americans have a 1st Amendment right to say what they think of someone and journalists can assess anyone’s potential investigative value, but the *FBI* makes arrests.