Month: January 2021

They may be wrong about this, but you can’t blame them for thinking it’s possible. What would we think if we saw this in another country?

The supporters of President Donald Trump who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday to stop the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory were attempting a violent coup that multiple European security officials said appeared to have at least tacit support from aspects of the US federal agencies responsible for securing the Capitol complex.

Insider spoke with three officials on Thursday morning: a French police official responsible for public security in a key section of central Paris, and two intelligence officials from NATO countries who directly work in counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations involving the US, terrorism, and Russia.

They said the circumstantial evidence available pointed to what would be openly called a coup attempt in any other nation. None were willing to speak on the record because of the dire nature of the subject.

While they did not furnish evidence that federal agency officials facilitated the chaos, Insider is reporting this information because it illustrates the scale and seriousness of Wednesday’s events: America’s international military and security allies are now willing to give serious credence to the idea that Trump deliberately tried to violently overturn an election and that some federal law-enforcement agents — by omission or otherwise — facilitated the attempt.

One NATO source set the stage, using terms more commonly used to describe unrest in developing countries.

“The defeated president gives a speech to a group of supporters where he tells them he was robbed of the election, denounces his own administration’s members and party as traitors, and tells his supporters to storm the building where the voting is being held,” the NATO intelligence official said.

“The supporters, many dressed in military attire and waving revolutionary-style flags, then storm the building where the federal law-enforcement agencies controlled by the current president do not establish a security cordon, and the protesters quickly overwhelm the last line of police.

“The president then makes a public statement to the supporters attacking the Capitol that he loves them but doesn’t really tell them to stop,” the official said. “Today I am briefing my government that we believe with a reasonable level of certainty that Donald Trump attempted a coup that failed when the system did not buckle.

“I can’t believe this happened.”

The French police official said they believed that an investigation would find that someone interfered with the deployment of additional federal law-enforcement officials on the perimeter of the Capitol complex; the official has direct knowledge of the proper procedures for security of the facility.

[…]

The third official, who works in counterintelligence for a NATO member, agreed that the situation could only be seen as a coup attempt, no matter how poorly considered and likely to fail, and said its implications might be too huge to immediately fathom.

“Thank God it didn’t work, because I can’t imagine how hard it would be to sanction the US financial system,” the official said. By sanctions, he means the imposition of the diplomatic, military, and trade blockages that democratic nations usually reserve for dictatorships.

“The broader damage around the world will be extensive in terms of reputation, and that’s why Putin doesn’t mind at all that Trump lost. He’s got to be happy to take his chips and count his winnings, which from the Trump era will be a shockingly quick decline in American prestige and moral high ground.

“Every moment the Americans spend on their own self-inflicted chaos helps China, it helps Putin, and, to a lesser extent, it helps the mini-dictators like [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban, who breathe cynicism about politics, human rights, and democracy as their air,” the official said. “They won’t miss Trump; they’ll be glad to see his drama leave so they can enjoy the poisoned political climate.”

That political climate is very, very poisoned. I don’t know how this ends.

A thread from Connecticut congressman Jim Himes:

Catching my breath after the attack on the Capitol, I’m reflecting on all that we have to do. First, everyone involved in the insurrection, from the President to Josh Hawley to the Lectern Guy must be held accountable. That appears to be happening. But long after Lectern and Viking Guy are in jail, and ex-President Trump is wrestling with various prosecutors, we will be struggling with the toxic apocalyptic violent hate religion that is their legacy.

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Second, this isn’t just Lectern and Viking Guy and a deranged President. This letter was sent by a parent in New Canaan whose child’s teacher had offered suggestions on how to talk to kids about the attack. Every sentence is provably untrue and filled with hate and violence.

For context, New Canaan is an enormously affluent, educated, center-right town. It’s GOP, but old-school New England Republican. I actually won the town for the first time in 2020, thank you Donald Trump.

And yet, one of it’s citizens produces a screed worthy of Alex Jones

Speaking of Alex Jones, here’s a video of him at DC’s pre-insurrection MAGA rally: grievance, rage, incitement of violence. IMO, it’s this stuff, not the wokeness of Professors of Semiotics at Middlebury that put 1A at risk. The professors have never tried to kill me.

Third, there’s religion. I was overwhelmed by the intensity of the “Christianity” that pervaded the MAGA rally. In case you haven’t seen it all, here’s Roger Stone at the MAGA rally telling us about his relationship with God.

Here’s more. You don’t need to know a lot of history to know the mayhem that comes from mixing religion with violent political movements. BTW, “Deus Vult” is a crusader thing: “God wills it”.

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Like all religions, Christianity is fragmented and diverse, but as an Elder in the Presbyterian church, I will say that no branch should consider itself exempt from self-reflection.

Like I said, WE have work to do. All of us. We the people. Government can’t solve this. If we don’t start taking our obligations to be careful and humble stewards of our democracy seriously, it will go away. It almost did. Here’s what I saw in its heart last week.

Originally tweeted by Jim Himes (@jahimes) on January 9, 2021.

Ben Sasse went on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show and shared some interesting information:

BS: [T] he President is addicted to social media and to television, and to division, and he’s been lying to the American people for eight straight weeks and planned it long before. No matter what was happening in any state, he was going to say the election was being stolen, and the people needed to rise up.

HH: So Senator…

BS: But Wednesday morning, he said repeatedly to go wild when you get to the Capitol. And they went to the Capitol, and well, let’s be clearly, Hugh, there are 30,000 people here. The vast majority of them are honorable, freedom-loving people. The vast majority of them, but not all of them.

HH: Do you, I’ve got to land the plane, though, Senator. Do you think he intended for the riot and the occupation, the insurrection to happen?

BS: I think Donald Trump wanted there to be massive divisions, and he was telling people there was a path by which he was going to stay in office after January 20th. That was never true. And he wanted chaos on television. I don’t have any idea what was in his heart about what he wanted to happen once they were in the Capitol, but he wanted there to be chaos, and I’m sure you’ve also had conversations with other senior White House officials, as I have.

HH: I have.

BS: As this was unfolding on television, Donald Trump was walking around the White House confused about why other people on his team weren’t as excited as he was as you had rioters pushing against Capitol Police trying to get into the building.

HH: That said…

BS: That was happening. He was delighted.

He heard that from senior White House officials. The New York Times reported similar:

As supporters stormed into the Capitol on Wednesday, Mr. Trump was initially pleased, officials said, and disregarded aides pleading with him to intercede.

Unable to get through to him, Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, sought help from Ivanka Trump. Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a longtime friend who has publicly criticized his efforts to invalidate the election results, tried to call Mr. Trump during the violence, but could not get through to him.

The video that Mr. Trump eventually released on Wednesday justified the anger of the rioters even as he told them it was time to go home. Rather than condemn their action, he embraced them. “We love you,” he said. “You’re very special.”

Mr. Christie said he believed that Mr. Trump deliberately encouraged the crowd to march on the Capitol as a way to put pressure on Mr. Pence to reject the election results during the congressional count.

https://twitter.com/59dallas/status/1346963199778828290?s=20

Update:

CNN is reporting that aides have told them Trump regrets calling for a peaceful transfer of power. Of course he does.

Some people did. This twitter thread was from December 20th:

On January 6, armed Trumpist militias will be rallying in DC, at Trump’s orders. It’s highly likely that they’ll try to storm the Capitol after it certifies Joe Biden’s win. I don’t think this has sunk in yet.

These people are angry at the Democrats. They’re angry at the GOP for not suspending democracy. They hate the media, and many consider police to be the enemy even as they fly the “blue lives” flag instead of the Stars and Stripes.

They are convinced that Congress will, somehow, declare Trump the winner on Jan 6. Maybe Pence will just refuse to count the Electoral Votes from states Biden won? Or the Senate will throw those votes out? Or Justice Thomas? Alternatively…

…some think Trump will win because *they* will ensure it. Maybe by forcing Congress to certify him as the winner at gunpoint. Maybe as backup forces to Trump’s supposed military coup.

Pro-Trump forums are very excited about Trump's call for a mass DC protest on the day Congress counts the Electoral College votes. Many see it as the mobilisation call they've been waiting for. pic.twitter.com/KQhK57eoSx

— Arieh Kovler (@ariehkovler) December 19, 2020

When Congress certifies Biden, these people will be shocked. Their worlds will collapse. And it’ll happen while they’re (illegally) armed and gathered in DC. It’s the nitroglycerine of explosive mixtures.

How will January 6 be policed? We’ve already seen that the White House can effectively commandeer the DC police, and construct ad-hoc paramilitary forces out of prison officers and CBP. Will Congress get the protection it needs?

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The Capitol Police has 2200 officers, but I’m guessing they mostly aren’t riot trained or SWAT types. The question here is if federal forces will be *allowed* to help them.

To be clear here, I don’t think the 3%ers, Proud Boys, Oathkeepers or boogaloo types are going to seize the Capitol. But some of them are going try. And people will die.

How will US Conservatives react? Well, they made Kyle Rittenhouse into a hero. They ignored the Whitmer kidnap plot, except as a way of calling for more violence against her.

I note that @Robertwaldeck reckons I’m completely wrong here and that DC forces including the Capitol Police, DC police and Nat Guard, which he knows well, will be able to keep things completely under control.

More than a year back, I wondered if Trump would be the first President to be impeached twice. Tonight, members of Congress are seriously considering it.

Will Trump be the first president to be impeached TWICE? Thread: 1/

— Arieh Kovler (@ariehkovler) October 24, 2019

Originally tweeted by Arieh Kovler (@ariehkovler) on December 21, 2020.

Amazingly prescient. Maybe the police agencies thought they were dealing with the kind of “resistance” that happened when Clinton lost. Millions of people wore pink hats and marched peacefully on the capitol. Trump voters are different.

This is the reason twitter and the others suspended Trump’s account. They were seeing more of this focusing on the inauguration. Now everyone’s paying attention.

I’ve been watching all these GOP politicians wring their hands over impeachment, saying that people are hurting because of the election and we need healing and reconciliation. Then why were mad when they won too?

I wrote this after the 2016 election when the Trump voters were running around assaulting people. Yes, they did it then too.

It’s not surprising that the election of Donald Trump would cause an upheaval in civil society. The differences between the two visions of America that were presented in this campaign couldn’t be more stark, and it’s inevitable that they would play out beyond the political system.

Much of the unrest on the left has taken the form of protest marches and school walkouts, while the right is more inclined to drunken hooliganism, flying the Confederate flag and the like. This is America. We have free speech and a right to assemble, and regardless of how we feel about the “message” being sent by people on the other side, they have a right to say it.

But there also have been many reports of anonymous defacing of property with white power slogans and other racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic phrases. And there are now hundreds of stories of individual acts of bullying and even hate crimes coming from people who call themselves Trump supporters, aimed at fellow Americans they see as their enemies.

We could see this in the Trump rallies, of course. They bristled with resentment and barely repressed violence. And no one can possibly argue that the candidate didn’t use those dark emotions to motivate his followers. In a “60 Minutes” interview with Lesley Stahl, Trump admitted that he did that consciously. When Stahl pointed out that people are scared, Trump had to be coaxed to say this:

 Don’t be afraid. We are going to bring our country back. But certainly, don’t be afraid.

Has any president-elect ever been asked to reassure the American people that they needn’t be afraid of him and his followers? It’s astonishing. Trump’s lack of understanding about why they are afraid is even more so. He seems to think people are soothed by his saying “don’t be afraid” — followed by “we’re going bring our country back,” as if that were a threat.

And that’s exactly what scares them. It’s clear he wants to go back to a time when women, people of color, immigrants and those with minority religions were second-class citizens. They are terrified of what Trump has promised to do to deliver that lost world back to a swath of America that seems to hate them.

Trump outfoxed the system and won the whole thing without even getting a majority. He heads an undivided government and has the chance to leave a mark on the country for generations with at least one appointment to the Supreme Court. He has the power to enact his entire agenda with very little institutional resistance. And yet his followers are still filled with outrage and frustration, lashing out at the reeling and defeated left.

An incident in Brooklyn this past weekend illustrates the phenomenon. Two women in a restaurant were bemoaning the election of Donald Trump when a man and his wife sat down next to them and became incensed about what the two women were saying. The manager moved the couple to a different table and gave a meal without charge to calm the two down. But after leaving the restaurant the man stormed back in and punched one of the women in the face. He told the manager he wanted to kill her. (Fortunately, the woman was not seriously injured.)

This is just one random incident but it raises the question: Who gets that mad after winning? It’s not as if the two women were rubbing the man’s nose in defeat. Why would something so ordinary as complaining about the election cause a man to hit a stranger (a woman) in the face?

In fact, America has been divided along two moving tribal lines for a very long time, and this odd reaction has happened before when this political faction has come to power, although it doesn’t normally get this violent or ugly. The political right often seems to take little joy in its victories, instead remaining focused on its defeated enemies. Compromise is unacceptable: Right-wingers seem to demand total capitulation and when their adversaries continue to resist, they are enraged.

The best description of this phenomenon comes from Abraham Lincoln in his famous address at New York’s Cooper Union in 1860. Trying to explain how impossible it was to deal with the Southern slave states using normal democratic means, he asked, “What will it take to satisfy them?”

This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas’ new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

This is why the right-wingers are so angry. It’s not enough for them to win. Those who opposed Trump must stop opposing him. We must agree that Muslims should be banned from entering the country, agree we should torture and kill suspected terrorists and their families, agree immigrants should be rounded up and deported, agree there should be guns in schools, agree women should be punished for having abortions and agree to all the rest of it. Until we stop resisting completely and declare that we are “avowedly with them,” they will continue to believe that “all their troubles proceed from us.”That is not going to happen. Trump’s forces may have won the election but they have not won the hearts and minds of the American people who didn’t vote for him. And they won’t. This administration will be met with fierce resistance from millions of people, from the moment Trump takes office until the day he leaves. There will be no appeasing him, and no easing of his followers’ guilt for what many of them know in their hearts to be ugly and cruel impulses in consenting to this white nationalist program. It’s all on them.Lincoln had this to say to his fellow Unionists about how to proceed in a situation such as this:

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

What else can we do?

They are perpetually angry, whether they win or they lose, because they simply cannot accept that people disagree with them. I don’t know what kind of psychology this is, but it’s pervasive. And it’s a very difficult problem for a democracy.

Democracy is the greatest threat to white supremacy, said a cable new guest (Sally Kohn) after this week’s assault on the U.S. Capitol. *

Despite there being one or two black faces among them, Trump’s MAGA followers tend to deny race has anything to do with their authoritarian, anti-democracy cult. Despite relatives’ confirmation that he had made racist remarks in their presence, insurrectionist veteran Larry Rendall Brock, Jr. denied he held racist views. He stormed the Capitol over baseless claims of election fraud seen on social media.

While Brock stood with zip-ties in the well of the U.S. Senate on Jan. 6, another MAGA mob was beating up Berlinda Nibo, 25 and Black, in downtown Los Angeles just feet away from a cluster of police officers (L.A. Times):

Nibo said she unwittingly found herself in the midst of Wednesday’s pro-Trump demonstration in downtown Los Angeles, where she was accosted and assaulted. Parts of the melee were captured in photos and video that were posted to social media, and the Los Angeles Police Department is looking into the battery as a hate crime.

Nibo was headed to eat breakfast when she encountered the “Stop the Steal” MAGA Rally. Seeing she was the only Black person around, she decided to move away but had to stop to help a friend who had dropped a cell phone. People broke away to follow her from the crowd of about 200. Taunts and jeers began. Did she know who Joe Biden was? Had she voted for Donald Trump?

The racial slurs started coming, she recalled, then chants of “White lives matter.” Nibo said she flipped off the group and kept walking.

Nebo has friends with COVID-19. Her mother is a nurse working with coronavirus patients. The protesters were not wearing masks. They demanded (NBC News) she remove hers. She asked them to social distance and told them to put on masks themselves.

“As soon as she told them to put a mask on, they swarmed her and circled her and started pushing her around amongst them, and trying to intimidate her,” said photographer Raquel Natalicchio, 29.

The L.A Times story continues:

Someone shoved her from behind. Another man knocked her phone out of her hand, scratching her face in the process.

Then a woman reached up and grabbed her long, wavy mahogany wig — a brand-new hairpiece Nibo wore for the first time Wednesday in celebration of the new year — and tore it off.

Nibo said she punched the woman in the face.

A video posted later showed the woman in the photo, holding a Trump flag in one hand and Nibo’s wig in another: “I did that,” she boasted. “I did the first scalping of the new civil war.” The crowd around her roared in cheers.

More punches. Nibo was pepper-sprayed.

“You know the scenes in cartoons when the villagers were coming at you with pitchforks and fire and all that? Literally, I thought that was it,” she said. ”I’m going to be on the front page: a young African American girl has been beaten to death on the streets of downtown L.A.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJuc25AMsnS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1347625514903605249?s=20

Race had nothing to do with the “first scalping of the new civil war,” naturally.

*UPDATE: I identified where I heard the statement in the first sentence and credited Sally Kohn. I believe she read it in an essay by Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation..

Since early in this week’s tragedy in Washington, D.C., the MAGA insurrections who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday seemed to fall into two categories.

First, the revolution tourists and rioters. Several already identified have lost their jobs and more likely will. Jenna Ryan, the Texas real estate broker who flew into Washington, D.C. with friends on a private jet was one of the more well-heeled of these; Elizabeth from Knoxville probably drove. The white-nationalist Proud Boys are the semi-pros, regulars at protests and MAGA rallies where they show up to bluster about civil war and pick fights with counter-protesters.

The second category are the zip-tie guys. These insurrectionists came in military-style tactical gear on Wednesday, with helmets and military vests ready to do … what exactly? Video captures a small “team” in tactical gear and backpacks climbing into the Capitol through a broken-out window.

https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1347214087474835456?s=20

Dan Kois described some of them for Slate:

Call the zip ties by their correct name: The guys were carrying flex cuffs, the plastic double restraints often used by police in mass arrest situations. They walked through the Senate chamber with a sense of purpose. They were not dressed in silly costumes but kitted out in full paramilitary regalia: helmets, armor, camo, holsters with sidearms. At least one had a semi-automatic rifle and 11 Molotov cocktails. At least one, unlike nearly every other right-wing rioter photographed that day, wore a mask that obscured his face.

John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, began collecting crowd-sourced still images and video clips to try and identify them. Friday night, Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker published a profile of retired Air Force retired Lieutenant Colonel Larry Rendall Brock, Jr. (in the helmet, above) after confirming Scott-Railton’s findings.

BREAKING I can now confirm Male #2 w/ restraints is highly decorated combat vet & @AF_Academy graduate Lt. Colonel. Ret. Larry Brock of Texas.

Releasing his name now after 24h of collaboration w/@RonanFarrow & his investigations team to confirm.https://t.co/nog9HI7DzX pic.twitter.com/ClHImsFucM

— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) January 9, 2021

Brock’s pattern of radicalization by now sounds familiar:

Two family members and a longtime friend said that Brock’s political views had grown increasingly radical in recent years. Bill Leake, who flew with Brock in the Air Force for a decade, said that he had distanced himself from Brock. “I don’t contact him anymore ’cause he’s gotten extreme,” Leake told me. In recent years, Brock had become an increasingly committed supporter of Donald Trump, frequently wearing a Make America Great Again hat. In the days leading up to the siege of the Capitol, Brock had posted to social media about his plans to travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in Trump’s “Save America” rally. Brock’s family members said that he called himself a patriot, and that his expressions of that identity had become increasingly strident. One recalled “weird rage talk, basically, saying he’s willing to get in trouble to defend what he thinks is right, which is Trump being the President, I guess.” Both family members said that Brock had made racist remarks in their presence and that they believed white-supremacist views may have contributed to his motivations.

In an interview, Brock confirmed that he was the man in the photos and videos. He denied that he held racist views and echoed Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, saying that he derived his understanding of the matter principally from social media. He told me that he had gone to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate peacefully. “The President asked for his supporters to be there to attend, and I felt like it was important, because of how much I love this country, to actually be there,” he said. Brock added that he did not identify as part of any organized group and claimed that, despite the scenes of destruction that day, he had seen no violence. When he arrived at the Capitol, he said, he assumed he was welcome to enter the building.

Considering “Operation Occupy the Capitol,” let that last line sink in.

Brock said he wore the paramilitary gear to defend himself from attacks by “B.L.M. and Antifa.” He claimed to have found the zip-tie handcuffs on the floor and wishes now he had not picked them up.

As of this morning, less is known about #ZipTieGuy or his plans. After multiple crowd-sourcing sleuths identified him late Friday as Eric Munchel from Nashville, Tenn, Scott-Railton confirmed it. A live stream from the Grand Hyatt hotel lobby helped ID Munchel, now maskless but wearing much of the same gear.

After Munchel affirms, “You guys are obviously patriots,” and his female companion checks to be sure the videographer is not an Antifa infiltrator, he spills his guts.

“I am very worried about our country and where it’s going politically, religiously, and just morally … as we are as humans, to our heart to strangers,” he said after just attempting the overthrow of the government. “If we were on different sides of the fence, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We would just be yelling at each other, spitting in each other’s face.”

Perhaps neither he nor Brock has not seen the 40 min. video of the violent assault that ends with the shooting of a female protester. She tried to climb into the Speaker’s Lobby through busted-out glass after an angry mob tried breaking down the door.

Now Scott-Railton is working to ID Male #3 from the Senate chamber.

https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1347790212085280768?s=20

Rioter Josiah Colt of Boise, Idaho was last photographed hanging from the balcony of the Senate Chamber. In an interview with Newsweek, Colt “begged for forgiveness, saying he got caught up in the moment.'” He had previously posted an Instagram video in which he called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “that bitch” and “a traitor.”

More and more of these insurrectionists will be receiving visits from the F.B.I. The agency will want to know much more about the planning and intent of these people before deciding on what charges to file.

In theory (if I have this right), under Department of Defense guidelines, Brock, 53, could be recalled to service and then court martialed.

#FBIWFO is seeking the public's assistance in identifying those who made unlawful entry into U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6. If you witnessed unlawful violent actions contact the #FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit photos/videos at https://t.co/NNj84wkNJP. https://t.co/iSeA3UMeyz pic.twitter.com/TW7fma4QDE

— FBI Washington Field (@FBIWFO) January 8, 2021

UPDATE: Guy stealing the Speaker’s lecturn: Busted.

Dearest prodigal sons and daughters of the Trump Administration,

How wonderful that you have come to your senses. Now, get out of the way so we can clean up your messes.

No, thanks for the offer, but no need to help. You’ve done enough already.

Love,

tristero

I think we need a little reminder that there are decent people in this world right now:

Have a drink folks, take a walk, a hot bath or whatever you need to de-stress. It’s been a helluva week.

I’m just going to put this here for the record:

Mr. Trump initially resisted taping the video, agreeing to do it only after aides pressed him and he appeared to suddenly realize he could face legal risk for prodding the mob, coming shortly after the chief federal prosecutor for Washington left open the possibility of investigating the president for illegally inciting the attack by telling supporters to march on the Capitol and show strength…

“We are looking at all actors, not only the people who went into the building,” Michael R. Sherwin, the U.S. attorney in Washington, told reporters. Asked if that included Mr. Trump, he did not rule it out. “We’re looking at all actors,” he repeated. “If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged.”…

In the weeks since the election, Mr. Trump has shrunk his circle, shutting out those who told him to concede and favoring those telling him what he wanted to hear, that he was somehow cheated of the presidency.

As supporters stormed into the Capitol on Wednesday, Mr. Trump was initially pleased, officials said, and disregarded aides pleading with him to intercede.

Of course he was pleased. He went on video as it was happening and told these people that he loved them. They had chanted “we love you” at the rally in which he directed them to go to the Capitol and stop the vote. The only reason he gave in an did the phony video last night is that they persuaded him that he is in legal jeopardy.

And lest you think the GOP establishment is ready to back away, check this out:

The anxiousness extended to cocktail parties held Wednesday night at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee in Florida.

“People are freaking fed up. Repeatedly, what I kept hearing over and over again was that the president is responsible for the loss in Georgia and the president is responsible for what happened yesterday,” said one Republican operative at the event, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. “It may well mean that he will not have the same kingmaking power.”

Nonetheless, Trump was showered in adulation when he called in to a Thursday RNC breakfast, an audible signal of his continued pull over many activists…

On Thursday, less than 24 hours after the riot, he called into the RNC’s winter meeting in Florida, where he was greeted with cheers at an all-members breakfast when placed on speakerphone. He did not mention the rioting and only spoke for about a minute. He complained about the media.

“We love you!” some in the room yelled when the president spoke.

I don’t know where this is going but I sure hope that all government offices around the country and all the inauguration planners have enhanced security right now.