Hi Amy,
I’m not a journalist. I’m just a guy with the access to information, like everyone else. I read reports and listened to recordings. I cross-checked for accuracy and consistency among various media. This is a compilation of what I discovered.
The attack on the Capitol was planned! Authorities investigating the siege of the Capitol made more arrests amid revelations from a white supremacist monitoring group that the attack was openly planned online for weeks. This was in no way spontaneous riot. Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group tweeted that the riot came after a month of "rampant strategizing and incitements to storm and occupy Congress and kidnap/arrest lawmakers." Protesters were urged to come prepared. "Consider bringing zip ties" and make citizens arrests.”
Up to 40,000 Trump supporters, flown in and bussed in from all over the country, were assembled outside the White House and stirred into a frenzy by scheduled slate of speakers, Trump Jr, Alabama congressman Mo Brooks, Rudy Giuliani, and finally Trump.
Donald Trump Jr., warmed up the audience, warning Republican members of Congress who did not back the pro-Trump efforts: “We’re coming for you!”
Rudy Giuliani told the crowd to march to the Capitol and “exercise combat justice.”
Mo Brooks said: “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” and asked the throng of all white Trump supporters if they were “willing to sacrifice their blood or lives as their ancestors had done.”
Trump stepped on stage and told the crowd “be there, it will be wild!” He said, “Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. And we want to be so nice. We’re going to have to fight much harder. We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them, because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.” He went on, “When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed play by very different rules. “
Trump said, “I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do, and I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he’s listening to.” He said Republicans who did not go along with his effort to overturn the election - Mr. Pence as well as senators like Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who did not join in the objections led by Mr. Hawley and Mr. Cruz - were actually the ones being courageous, implying they were putting themselves at risk by not backing Trump’s effort to overthrow the election. The crowd understood and during the riot, the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence. Hang McConnel.” A noose was found at the Capitol.
“You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can’t let that happen,” Trump said “These are the facts that you won’t hear from the fake news media. It’s all part of the suppression effort. “We must fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
“We will never give up; we will never concede,” Trump said to thunderous applause from the increasingly angry crowd, “We will stop the steal. We’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, and we’re going to the Capitol…We’re going to give our Republicans, the weak ones…the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”
Later, during the riot, from the safety of the White House he said, “We had an election that was stolen from us. We won a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away, from all of us—from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election.” To the rioters, “We love you. You’re very special,” he said as white supporters stormed through the Capitol threatening representatives, destroying property, causing deadly violence, waving Confederate flags, wearing battle gear, armed, carrying explosives, and displaying white nationalists’ symbols. Trump continued, “You’ve seen what happens. You’ve seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel.”
It does not take a genious to see that Trump intended to overturn the election using an insurrection of violent followers. It is disturbing to read how Capitol security was reduced prior to this attack and how some officers even aided and abetted the rioters by letting them pass and even giving them direction to locations of interest within the Capitol. It is also disturbing to see some media downplay the seriousness of this attack on the US Capitol implying a false-equivalency to other rallys, marches, and protests.