This is the second big conspiracy case to be unsealed in the sprawling FBI investigation of January 6. All signs suggest there will be more to come. This one is notable for alleged coordination between a pro-Trump political group and members of a militia group, Three Percenters
For all the Republican leaders who insist January 6 was “not an insurrection,” also notable from today’s unsealed indictment: One of the charged co-conspirators disagrees with you. “Insurrection!” he declared triumphantly in a text message, according to prosecutors
3/ And remember when Trump was impeached for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection? More stark evidence of that today as well, per that same defendant: "We will be part of the large effort for the ‘Wild Rally’ that Trump has asked us all to be part of." motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
“Sex addiction” may be the Atlanta mass shooter’s preferred narrative, but the real story on that count is toxic masculinity. Motive in mass shootings is often complex. But given the victims he targeted, his attack was inherently both racist AND misogynist motherjones.com/crime-justice/…
Evangelical doctrine, sex addition, "purity culture"—it's baffling that coverage of the Atlanta mass shooter keeps focusing so heavily on all this. (And as if the guy had no agency!) The much bigger story: He targeted Asian women. He bought a gun same day. washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/…
To be clear, these aspects of the killer's background are worthy of reporting. But their media emphasis in the initial aftermath feels way off to me—especially after the awful comments from the Georgia sheriff, establishing a narrative about "sexual issues" and "he had a bad day"
In fact, veteran national security experts do say this. The January 6 assault on Congress was part of an ongoing story, not an ending. With GOP acolytes continuing to push Trump's Big Lie, there will be more of this. Not if, but when. #StochasticTerrorismmotherjones.com/politics/2021/…
“The FBI and DHS have warned that the Jan. 6 riot could have lasting consequences. Some domestic violent extremists “have been emboldened in the aftermath of the breach of the US Capitol,” Jill Sanborn, head of counterterrorism at the FBI, told Congress” nytimes.com/2021/03/17/us/…
IMPEACHMENT THREAD: At least 13 people charged with crimes in the insurrection say that Trump incited them to act—and at least three of them were caught on video participating in violent confrontations at the Capitol motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
This man can be seen in Capitol footage striking a police officer in the head with a fire extinguisher. According to a FBI informant, the man “had followed the president’s instructions and gone to the Capitol” motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
This man draped in a ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag was recorded in a mob trying to smash through the speaker’s lobby doors, just before one rioter was fatally shot by police. Traveling from Texas at Trump’s behest was “the least we can do,” he said afterward motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
It's fitting that Trump is down to the most incoherent, embarrassing, bottom-of-the-barrel legal defense imaginable. If anyone can make sense of this guy's word salad please enlighten me?
my god, Castor is being mugged by his own metaphors 🤡
cat videos used to break the internet but now it's gonna be this guy
Trump’s impeachment trial will expose a lot of ugly evidence about his campaign of incitement that led to the siege of the Capitol. It went far beyond his speech on January 6—he also talked up a "fight to the death" and repeatedly promoted a deranged video motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
Top national security experts came to see Trump, literally, as a terrorist leader.
Kori Schake called him "an arsonist of radicalization."
A particularly haunting bit about Trump from January 6:
"As his supporters marauded through the Capitol and lawmakers hid, Trump watched the chaos on TV from inside the White House. He was entertained and buoyed by it, according to multiple news reports." motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
NEW: More than a dozen people charged in the January 6 insurrection—including at least three involved in violence and destruction at the U.S. Capitol—say Trump incited them to act motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
“President Trump said to do so”
“I was doing what he asked us to do”
“An event inspired by the President of the United States”
“Calling on us to come back to Washington”
“Await orders from our Commander in Chief”
“Trump told the crowd to go to the Capitol”
This Trump insurrectionist, draped with a "Don't Tread on Me" flag, can be seen at the center of an assault that led just moments later to a fatal shooting. He helped try to breach the doors. He'd traveled from Texas at Trump's behest—"it's the least that we can do," he said.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is now threatening House Democrats about potentially being stripped of a committee post. One week before Election Day, Greene endorsed political violence—a Trump loss, she said, would mean “the price of blood.” Here’s the video motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
The predictable problem for Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Trump-rotted GOP is that she has consigned herself to endless performance of phony rage and extremist incitement. She spends her days declaring war against "Hate America flags" and "murdering babies with your tax dollars"
How telling is it that Mitch McConnell won't even name MTG as he denounces her? The #GOP bought the Trump ticket, and now they take the ride thehill.com/homenews/house…
THREAD: Here’s the deeper story of how Donald Trump unleashed a domestic terrorist movement—and what national security experts say must be done to defeat it motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
2/ This story goes to the heart of Trump’s impeachment trial—he conducted a campaign of stochastic terrorism. It's the strategic incitement of violence using veiled language, a method historically known to counterterrorism experts from ISIS, al-Qaeda and anti-abortion extremists
3/ Remarkably, veteran national security experts came to see Trump literally as a terrorist leader. As @JulietteKayyem put it, “He tells them where to go. He tells them what to do. He tells them why they’re angry.” motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
How much longer do Mitch McConnell and other GOP power brokers want to say and do nothing? How much more damage do they want to watch Trump do to American democracy? Their complicity in this only grows more historically damning by the day
When something like this goes down — and it will if Republicans with power don’t help put a stop to the Trump madness soon — then the blood will be on their hands too 6abc.com/amp/pennsylvan…
“police got a tip about a group, possibly a family, driving up from Virginia in a Hummer to unleash an attack at the Convention Center where votes are being counted in Philadelphia,” reports @6abc
We’re watching the nation’s electoral system under attack in real time by a US president. No surprise from Trump, who made clear long ago he would do this, but still a stunning moment in history
Trump has done only one thing so far on Twitter since Election Day: push disinformation and conspiracy theories aimed at undermining legitimate voting. (With some throttled by Twitter as violations.) Again, we are watching an unprecedented attack by him on American democracy
"what Trump has already done is what the Russians have always tried to do: cast doubt on American elections and destabilize the United States....He may hug and kiss American flags and pretend to be a great patriot, but this is a betrayal of our country." nytimes.com/2020/11/04/opi…
Trump looks and sounds mostly sour, defensive and angry. His base will of course celebrate it, but he'll persuade no one else. He's losing.
Biden is quietly landing punches, especially on the Covid 19 disaster. His talking directly to the audience is also effective. He sounds mostly prepared, cogent, presidential. Meanwhile Trump just keeps interrupting, making petty insults, badgering him and Wallace...
"I don't want to pay tax." —Donald Trump, on his life before becoming president
A person who behaves dangerously unhinged like this has zero business working in a high-profile *communications* role in the US government. Michael Caputo should resign immediately bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
The details on Caputo’s freakout are quite disturbing. If he doesn’t resign the House Democrats should act — his incitement is dangerous nytimes.com/2020/09/14/us/…
Caputo: “And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin. The drills that you’ve seen are nothing.”
Early warnings on Trump inciting white supremacist violence: A brief story in 5 parts
Aug 2017: “A disaster. There are real concerns about where it leads the country.” —A senior U.S. law enforcement official on Trump’s response to Charlottesville motherjones.com/politics/2017/…
1/5
Sept 2017: “I hit ’em with neo-Nazi. I hit them with everything. I got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazi. I got them all in there, let’s see. KKK, we have KKK. I got them all.” —President Trump, ridiculing the media during a political rally motherjones.com/politics/2017/…
2/5
July 2018: “The racist rhetoric has empowered white supremacist groups to be much more public. It’s very dangerous because these people who have a history of violence now feel they have state sanction to commit violence.” —Ex-FBI agent Michael German motherjones.com/crime-justice/…
3/5
Stopped counting long ago how often Trump has feigned ignorance or claimed to be just "joking." If you haven't figured out yet that Trump is a racist who is glad to endorse "white power" in an ugly bid to cling to his own, you haven't been paying attention washingtonpost.com/politics/trump…
"Trump’s enduring campaign tactics—from calls for black protesters to be “roughed up” to circulation of racist, anti-Muslim, and anti-Semitic language and memes—is proof for them that white nationalism has not only arrived, but has found a champion in a nominee for US president."
Trump boasting about Tulsa a few days ago: “I think we’re also going to take the convention hall next door, and that’s going to hold forty thousand, so we’ll have twenty-two thousand plus forty thousand”
COVID-19 does not select its victims on a partisan basis—and Trump's campaign knows it, as they are requiring a liability waiver with tickets to his Tulsa rally. Who will he blame if packing an arena next weekend precedes a spike in sickness and death? reuters.com/article/us-usa…
Cases in Tulsa County spiked to a new high on Friday. Will Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt — a Trump-Pence cheerleader and recent skeptic of vaccinating children — take the fall if the disease spreads further after Trump's rally? cnn.com/2020/03/15/pol…
"Tulsa Health Department investigations indicate that the latest outbreak is linked to indoor gatherings where large groups of people congregate for prolonged periods." tulsaworld.com/news/local/cov…
today Trump extolled Confederate generals and announced he will hold a political rally on...Juneteenth. In Tulsa, no less, site of one of the most awful racist massacres in American history
Trump literally called for his #MAGA supporters to rally at the White House this weekend. No one showed up. Then he hid in an underground bunker. nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/…
Truly extraordinary that Trump not only hid from view but had “nothing to say” to the American people as cities from coast to coast continued to burn Saturday night and Sunday
Journalists covering the turmoil have been under attack the past 48 hours. They've been under attack by Trump for 3+ years. Do the math. And please donate to @MotherJones so we can keep relentlessly investigating this divisive, dangerous president secure.motherjones.com/flex/mj/key/7D…
Like clockwork...Trump will never stop doing this. But we won't stop exposing his corruption and malevolence as long as we have your support.
Seriously: Imagine America without a free press, under this president. No longer as remote of a possibility as you might like to think.
And if you don't believe Trump's endless attacks on journalists are seriously dangerous, you haven't been paying attention to the rising consequences motherjones.com/politics/2019/…
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