Capitol Hill riot and reactions

• Right-wing riot organizer works with Georgia Republicans

Why did the Georgia GOP team up with a Riot Instigator? “WE’LL LIGHT THE WHOLE SH*T ON FIRE!” by Greg Palast in Atlanta – The star of the GOP’s get-out-the-vote door-knocking program in the Georgia Senate run-off, standing next to Alex Jones, was blasting his threat through a megaphone in front of the Governor’s home. “We’ll light the whole sh*t on fire!” Ali Alexander’s threat in December would become all too real when he repeated his performance on January 6 in Washington, DC. In the US Capitol that day, looking over the scene of screams, teargas, and mayhem, Alexander said, “I warned you this would happen.” Yes, he did. Nevertheless, the Georgia Republican Party’s Metro Atlanta Field Director Kevin Mason was more than happy to team up with Alexander. With his huge reach within the Alt-Right, Alexander could bring in a swarm of volunteers for the door-knocking campaign they desperately needed to hold back the looming Democratic victory in the US Senate run-offs. The far-right celebrity was the magnet to draw scores of young enthusiasts to a January 3 training session at the DoubleTree Hotel in Roswell, an Atlanta suburb. The Palast Investigative Fund’s photojournalist, Zach D. Roberts, a specialist in white fringe violence who’d been tracking Alexander’s pitch for mayhem across the nation, signed up. Roberts, who joined up through Alexander’s website, StopTheSteal.US, was quite surprised to receive instructions, not from the right-wing group, but from Daniel George of the National Republican Senate Committee. Why would the GOP team up with Alexander, a leader of the Stop the Steal extremists, especially after his well-broadcast warning of violence? The threat was not out of character. There are widely circulated films of Alexander with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes. And there is a video chat with Alexander yucking it up with a right-wing jokester holding up a giant flag with a Nazi Swastika flag. Alexander in an online chat with a right-wing chum holding up a Swastika flag. That is, if “Alexander” is his real name. He adopted it after his reported conviction for a felony crime under the name “Ali Akbar.” Alexander is a shapeshifter, sometimes the eye-swiveling crazy, sometimes the dapper guest for Alt-Right podcasts. We cannot link to his most incendiary outlets such as WildProtest.com because they’ve been taken down for inciting violence. Yet, you can see him in this photo at a door-knocking training seminar run by the Georgia Republican Party surrounded by grinning young Georgia volunteers. Alexander (circled) a training seminar run by the Georgia Republican Party. Curious, I called both the Georgia Republican Party’s Field Director, who worked with Alexander, as well as the National Republican Senate Committee to ask why they’d join forces with a known Neo-Fascist instigator of violence. So far, my calls have gone un-returned. In Georgia, with Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes, a known white nationalist, Alexander hid nothing of his hopes for Washington on January 6. “Either they take Trump, prove that they won or they’re not going to hand them back the country again. We’ll light the whole sh*t on fire!” Alexander in Georgia with Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes. Photo: Zach D. Roberts, © 2020 Looking down on the Capitol, as the mayhem unfolded, he told his Twitter audience, “I don’t disavow this,” but later insisted, without evidence, that the Capitol violence was committed by slyly disguised Antifa rioters. To fire up its base, the GOP is apparently willing to cavort with the violence-threatening fringe. The Grand Old Party dismissed Alexander’s warnings. And they also forgot John Kennedy’s warning that “Those who ride the tail of the tiger soon end up inside.”

Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, out as major motion non-fiction movie: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of the Stolen Election, available on Amazon and Amazon Prime.     Support The Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive. Become a monthly Contributor.   Or support us by shopping with Amazon Smile. AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Sustainable Markets Foundation which automatically goes to the benefit of The Palast Investigative Fund and you get a tax-deduction! Follow Palast on Twitter and Instagram | Like Palast on Facebook | Forward to a friend  Subscribe to Palast’s Newsletter or his separate list for Poems & Stories.

AOC calls for support for COUP Act bill

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls on people to support Rep. Bowman’s Congressional Oversight of Unjust Policing (COUP) Act, which would establish a commission to investigate whether there are any links between Capitol Hill police and the right-wing rioters who “stormed” the Capitol:

Grayzone article with video of riot inside the Capitol, including shooting of rioter

“Smoking gun”

Smoking Gun for Impeachment: Proof Trump’s Call to March on Capitol Was a Crime by Greg Palast Here is the smoking gun. Trump’s GOP defenders say that Trump merely called for a march to the Capitol, a legal act of protest. Except for this: it wasn’t legal. And Trump and his team knew it. During Wednesday’s trial, House impeachment manager Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) laid out the evidence the Palast investigative team first broke in Consortium News and on the Thom Hartmann Program: The sponsors of the January 6 rally at the Ellipse repeatedly promised, in writing, there would be no march on the Capitol. Watch my interview with Law & Crime’s Brian Ross. In fact, the Park Service reiterated, days before the Trump rally, “The permit does not authorize a march from the Ellipse.” As an insider who planned the rally told us, sponsor Women for America First was stunned by Trump’s seemingly spontaneous call for a march in violation of the permit. “It was shocking. It’s something we advocated against doing for exactly the reasons that ended up playing themselves out.” In other words, the riot was foreseeable and resulted directly from Trump’s call to march. As the permit holders understood, sending thousands of angry people, some armed, meant there was no warning to the Metro or Capitol police, no monitors to direct or control the crowd. While the House prosecution team referenced our story, it appears that neither the senators nor media understood the importance of the damning evidence. Because there was still a missing piece of evidence: did Trump know a march was not permitted, illegal, and dangerous? The evidence is that Trump had to know. While his call to march on the Capitol appeared spontaneous, it was anything but. On January 5, the night before the riot, two participants foolishly posted (in posts since removed, but recorded) that they were meeting at Trump’s personal residence at his DC hotel with top Trump strategists about the next day’s events. The group included notably, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. Both would speak at the rally the next day. Crucially, during the meeting, Don Jr.’s girlfirend Kimberly Guilfoyle called Ali Alexander—who’d been calling for a “Stop the Steal” march from the rally despite admonitions from the rally organizers that it would be illegal and dangerous. We’ve previously reported on Alexander’s threats of violence to overturn the election [“We’ll light the whole sh*t on fire!”]. Guilfoyle gave Alexander the go-ahead. And indeed, Alexander was escorted by White House emissaries to a place just outside the rally to lead the march—which he did. It is not minor that neither Trump, nor the White House, nor Trump fils told the organizers that Trump would issue a call to march. The permit holders, Women for America First, told this reporter that both the White House and Alexander, had been warned repeatedly against attempting the uncontrolled march. The point is simple: when you promote an illegal action—exhorting an angry, armed mob to head to the Capitol, you are legally liable for its foreseeable outcome even if you did not plan nor endorse the outcome. When a law is broken and someone ends up dead, that’s murder. Trump knows that. In December, Trump proudly authorized the execution of Brandon Bernard. Bernard was 18 years old when his friends killed two people in a robbery in which he took part. The kid had no idea the couple would be killed, but joining in an illegal act which led to death, put him in the electric chair. Could the House have added an Article II to the impeachment charge: accessory to murder?   The Coming Riot in March Ali Alexander, founder of Stop the Steal, led the deadly march to the Capitol, knowing it was illegal—but blessed by Trump. Alexander immediately went into hiding. But, as there has been no known attempt to arrest him nor even question him about the march to the riot, he’s now emboldened Alexander resurfaced this week to announce, “I’m going to have indoor gatherings in March. …I’ve been plotting, I’ve been planning, I’ve been scheming… A lot of people will end up rioting in a couple of months.” [We will not, as we normally do, link his remarks, to avoid giving promoters of violence a platform.] Welcome to the new America, where you can put a riot into your calendar.   Capitol Police let perps escape In the aftermath of the riot, it was astonishing that the police did not seal and secure the Capitol and identify, if not arrest, everyone leaving — and confiscate cell phones with photos of the murdered officer and other crimes. Why were criminals allowed to simply walk away? The police response was a violation of standard operating procedure. From the US Department of Justice guide, Crime Scene Investigation: “Identify all individuals at the scene, such as: • Suspects: Secure and separate • Witnesses: Secure and separate. This obvious violation of standard operating procedures is more than troubling. It sends a signal to the white supremacist, neo-Nazi groups that if you’re going to cause mayhem, you may have some help from the people who are supposed to stop it.

Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, out as major motion non-fiction movie: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of the Stolen Election, available on Amazon and Amazon Prime.