As investigations of the 1/6 insurrection continue, one thing that's become clearer is the key role played by an organization called Women For America First, run by Amy Kremer.
Kremer is an old hand at this stuff. She was an early Tea Party activist and in 2016 founded a couple of Super PACs dedicated to electing Donald Trump, one of them in partnership with Roger Stone's wife, Ann. The PACs raised little money but she stayed in the fight, spending the next couple of years supporting far-right candidates in both primaries and general elections. Then she switched gears and founded WFAF in 2019. It was originally aimed at protesting the Trump impeachment; then at COVID-19 restrictions; and finally, after the 2020 election, at promoting "Stop the Steal," which claimed the election had been stolen by Democrats.
It was here that Kremer finally hit her stride. Her Facebook group, "Stop the Steal," became one of the fastest growing groups in Facebook history and was quickly shut down. But that didn't stop her. Kremer instead took to the streets, driving a bright red bus around the country to spread the word. The New York Times describes how things unfolded:
As Mr. Trump’s official election campaign wound down, a new, highly organized campaign stepped into the breach to turn his demagogic fury into a movement of its own, reminding key lawmakers at key times of the cost of denying the will of the president and his followers. Called Women for America First, it had ties to Mr. Trump and former White House aides then seeking presidential pardons, among them Stephen K. Bannon and Michael T. Flynn.
As it crossed the country spreading the new gospel of a stolen election in Trump-red buses, the group helped build an acutely Trumpian coalition that included sitting and incoming members of Congress, rank-and-file voters and the “de-platformed” extremists and conspiracy theorists promoted on its home page — including the white nationalist Jared Taylor, prominent QAnon proponents and the Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.
It was Kremer who got the permit for the 1/6 rally at which Trump spoke. However, although they've done their best to hide this, she had the help of several people close to Trump himself:
Megan Powers was listed as one of two operations managers for the Jan. 6 event, and her LinkedIn profile says she was the Trump campaign’s director of operations into January 2021....Caroline Wren, a veteran GOP fundraiser, is named as a “VIP Advisor” on an attachment to the permit that Women for America First provided to the agency....Maggie Mulvaney, a niece of former top Trump aide Mick Mulvaney, is listed on the permit attachment as the “VIP Lead.” She worked as director of finance operations for the Trump campaign, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Caroline Wren in particular was instrumental in setting up the 1/6 rally:
Wren was no ordinary event planner. She served as a deputy to Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, at Trump Victory, a joint presidential fundraising committee during the 2020 campaign. The Justin mentioned in her text was Justin Caporale, a former top aide to first lady Melania Trump, whose production company helped put on the event at the Ellipse.
Text messages and an event-planning memo obtained by ProPublica, along with an interview with Chafian, indicate that Wren, a Washington insider with a low public profile, played an extensive role in managing operations for the event. The records show that Wren oversaw logistics, budgeting, funding and messaging for the Jan. 6 rally that featured President Donald Trump.
Finally, Trump essentially took over the rally himself:
On Saturday, Jan. 2, Kylie Kremer posted a promotional video for Wednesday’s rally on Twitter, along with a message: “BE A PART OF HISTORY.”
The president shared her post and wrote: “I’ll be there! Historic day.”
Though Ms. Kremer held the permit, the rally would now effectively become a White House production....New planners also joined the team, among them Caroline Wren, a former deputy to Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Trump fund-raiser and partner of Donald Trump Jr. The former Trump campaign adviser Katrina Pierson was the liaison to the White House, a former administration official said. The president discussed the speaking lineup, as well as the music to be played, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversations.
This all leads us to the key question: How much did Donald Trump know about all this, and when did he know it? Trump, of course, insists that he knew nothing, and given his hummingbird-like attention span this could well be true.
On the other hand, Kremer was a longtime activist, well known and friendly with Trump's friends. Lots of Trump's campaign people apparently assisted with the planning of the 1/6 rally. And Trump's interest in having the Senate overturn the Electoral College results is a matter of record.
Given that, what are the odds Trump knew nothing about the rally and had no plans to use it as a last-ditch effort to bludgeon the Senate into carrying out his will? I'd say it's unlikely he was totally in the dark, but you can take a look at the evidence and decide for yourself.
As always, Trump has mob-boss deniability. He never SAID to do thus and so, he never participated in a meeting where anyone else SAID they would do thus and so. Instead, he made his general wishes known, and some favor-seeking flack got the message and did all the dirty work. The flack gets busted; the boss skates. SOP for mobsters.
Everybody knows what he did. The fact is, a big chunk of the country approves of it, at least for now. And that's why he'll skate on impeachment, which is (correctly) a political process rather than a criminal one, some procedural similarities notwithstanding. But the historical record is clear: he's not merely a one-term loser; he's a dishonorable loser.
Yes, but he did, on national television, clearly. Nobody can doubt it, legally or otherwise. IF he is not convicted (in any court or the Senate), and clearly Incitement to Insurrection is simply dead as far as being a law is concerned.
Well, YOU heard it "clearly," *I* heard it clearly, and the rioters heard it clearly -- indeed, some of them (eg the "Q shaman") are saying so publicly -- but he never said anything like "cross police lines" or "break windows" or "threaten harm" or "commit insurrection." All he said was, "march" and "fight" and "be strong" and that sort of thing -- all words that can easily be portrayed as "robust political speech," which is protected.
He's always been very careful about that. He learned the same way a 16-year-old who deals drugs to middle-schoolers learns: don't put anything in writing, use code and implication when you're speaking, etc. It's not particularly tough, especially for someone who's naturally pathologically paranoid.
Indeed, Trump's entire MO is essentially NYC area Mob/Mob-Adjacent "plausible deniability" real estate corruption.
Hi Kevin!! Hilbert & Hopper look lovely. Hope we're joined by everyone soon.
Really, read the speech he gave, then watch him deliver it. I admit to bias; I despise the man. But I also think a fair review leaves little doubt about what his ask was.
There is a clear threat to Pence and House Democrats, and his one line containing the word 'peaceful' barely registers.
Additionally, I suspect we'll be learning more about the stand-down orders to the National Guard and Military; if we don't find out who on the Executive side ordered that, then there will have been a successful coverup. In any case, this is less provable, but I have a hard time imagining any of these actors going behind Don's back on something like that. If this were a, uh, normal authoritarian takeover of replacement-level competency, I could believe a cut out would have been used to keep it deniable, but not with Don.
I mean, yes, rolling up the conspiracy is clearly vital. I just don't think there's any real question about what Don knew.
'The president discussed the speaking lineup, as well as the music to be played'
And, like so many Republicans before him, he illegally stole the intellectual property of artists by playing songs without permission or paying royalties- indeed, against the repeated expressed demand by the artist to stop using their work.
#LockThemUp
Meanwhile, Twitter Fauxgressives like M*ch**l Tr*c*ey & Glemm Greemwald are blasting the SnowflakeNeoliberalFascists for calling 1/6/2021 a coup, & saying the events in Myanmar are what a real coup looks like.
Glenn is worthless.
Of course Myanmar is what a well executed military coup looks like.
Defining "real coup" as "not clownishly incompetent and actually successful" is of course pathetic of Glenn (and I am happy I despised his smarmy self all the way back to the Bush period when too many Lefties were all seduced by him)
Amen.
Were all those lefties men? Because my guess is that very few thinking women ever admired him.
He is welcome to stand with the deplorables.
People think I want to be an edgelord, but aside from an 8th grade affection for the outsider politics of the post-Soviet sideways style of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, I feel I have developed into more of a pooflinging prickvocateur, like a slightly less sexually precarious GG ALLIN or a TESCO VEE who doesn't know how to code.
Really, it's the #OurRevolution leftish & Proud Boy falangists who are the edgelords, always on the margins, moving from Perot to Ventura to Nader to Ron &/or Rand Paul to Sanders to Trump to Hawley. In the comfort of their privilege -- my mom was an RN, my dad was a property manager in urban neighborhoods; the online left & right have parents who were partners in law firms or hedge fund managers -- the gasoline bombthrowing of a Jesse the Mind or Donald Trump, the idea of Ronald Reagan that government is the problem taken to its extreme, seems winning & exciting because, by & large, it won't touch them. So, they can be for the Iraq War, then against, turning on a dime, & Occupy Wall Street but then cheer the Security of the First World at CHAZ murdering Black passersby &/or Kyle Rittenhouse killing protestors in Kenosha in service of protecting business owners from looting, because really, it doesn't matter what they stand for since they will very likely never be knocked down.
The #OurRevolution Guevaristas & Proud Boy VICElords are not anarchists trying to upset the State, Deep or otherwise. They aren't Chumbawumba. They are scions of gated communities on the rumspringa of the 1%.
I first started following Glenn on his blog back in 2005. I was happy to see someone calling out the Bush admin. as well as those members of the msm that were at best gullible and at worst complicit. He struck me as shrill even then but shrill when people like Tom Friedman were still calling for another 6 months seemed a good quality. Then I made the mistake of asking a question in comments and got the full Greenwald self righteous verbal assault in response.
In fairness, my question was based on an incorrect understanding on my part. I don't remember the details but it was a question I think about his source for some information and not a comment .
Greenwald could have just answered it and straightened me ou. Iinstead he delivered a self righteous flaming. From then on I checked hi takes on things t more carefully and it became clear he was an arrogant a-hole who never admitted fault. And it turns out that like the rest of us h'es not always righ about everything but he is always an arrogant a-hole.
Don't be entirely absurd, people do not get 'locked up" over unauthorized playing of music. Sued, yes. Locked up, no. It's really extremely silly to go to this for.
Not that I would not be happy for said artists to sue Trump and Campaign but it's not some deep and great scandal as such.
The "scandal" seems to be that he can, in fact, get away with not paying contractors, musicians for the use of their work (IF permitted), proper taxes, cities for use & trashing of their venues - & he can't be charged with wrong doing while in office OR out of office.
At this point, I'd be pleased if he were held accountable for ANYthing - even use of music against the wishes of the artist.
But the choice of music is bizarre. It demonstrates a sort of lack of self awareness that I can’t quite put my finger on but is jarring. “favorite son” is exactly Donald Trump but in the most unflattering way imaginable. “Born in the USA” is critical of the country and is a harsh depiction of the political movement Trump leads. And “YMCA” is about gay sex.
Yes, indeed - it's the SOUND that the mob & its leader like; no comprehension of the lyrics, like those who choose "Every Breath You Take" for "their song" - or even their wedding dance
What you think the stalker's anthem is inappropriate at a wedding ?
What did DOnnie know?? He STARTED the conspiracy theory months earlier that mass propaganda fanned into an armed insurrection.
Keep in mind- always- that the entire time, Trump was trying to steal the election himself. There are at least three criminal cases open in three states.
GUILT BY ACCUSATION.
great phrase
Why the disparagement of a hummingbird's attention span? My impression is that they maintain a laser-like focus. Sometimes one bird will spend the entire day in a tree guarding my feeder from all comers.
+1
plus 1
i almost long for coral. almost.
Well, since WordPress doesn't allow upvoting, I hereby salute your comment.
Upvote!
WP didn't place this under bad Jim's comment- why not?
Because it’s the most primitive user interface and commenting system and one which hasn’t been updated ever. It’s also not intended for use by sites with especially active commenting. But, on the other hand, it’s the least restrictive system in terms of no using an algorithm on a hair trigger to police comments.
Disqus is roughly in the middle of the divide between being able to say what you want (within very broad limits) and the functionality and nifty stuff like editing.
Triassic Sands doesn't agree; wonder why he prefers it, obnoxious as Coral is.. Maybe WP is OK on a larger screen, but this orange print on unposted comments is hard on the eyes, even with brightness turned down, when using a cellphone.
It's also much harder to spot unwanted changes by the misnamed "autocorrect" just before posting renders it uneditable.
I suspect that Kevin could actually fix at least some of the (the weird colors, in particular) with an email to WordPress tech support.
I think the preference for WP (with its even more primitive and clumsy user interface) is that Coral was run by a series of very quirky but extremely unpredictable and aggressive algorithms that made conversation very difficult.
In fairness to WP, my belief is that the color adjustment we’re all wanting probably could be accomplished with a single email to technical support. I’ve always found WP’s tech support to be pretty good.
And while I know that moving out of the comment box changes the font color to black, it's too easy (especially on a cellphone) to post it accidentally. And editing time should be allowed after posting - even Coral allowed that.
I’m entirely sympathetic to your feelings. It’s a very primitive comment system, that’s true. But I’m certain that WordPress tech support could fix this color issue very easily if only we could persuade Kevin to bestir himself.
Also, WordPress has a quite good commenting plugin called intense debate that works well. I agree with you that we shouldn’t have to choose between a primitive interface and an arbitrary, capricious, hair trigger algorithm. But now we are at Kevin’s mercy just as before we were at the mercy of MJ.
Karens with rabies.
"This all leads us to the key question: How much did Donald Trump know about all this, and when did he know it?"
First, it is great to be rid of Coral.
As for what did Trump know and when did he know it, I don't see what difference it makes either way. Senate Republicans are not going to convict him. As in Impeachment #1, they will ignore the evidence, the Constitution, common sense, and responsible behavior and vote to acquit. Romney may get one or two (maybe even more, but not close to enough to convict) senators to join him, but in the end the worst, most corrupt president in history will be given a pass, creating yet another precedent arguing against ever holding a president accountable -- for anything.
Good post. I hope we can track down these idiotic former president supporters and legally process them.
Soylent Red will be Republicans?
If you haven't seen it, this article in Mother Jones describes how what Trump did has a precise name in counter-terrorism circles: it's called Stochastic Terrorism, and there's no question he's guilty of it. Worth a read in my opinion.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/02/trump-stochastic-terrorism-us-capitol-mob-incitement/?mc_cid=7fe047fe3e&mc_eid=0fd338b1c5
Of course that doesn't mean 17 Republicans will ever vote to convict.
Huh, interesting how a Greek word can be the root of two concepts that are so dissimilar! In maths, the term stochastic is used for something that is random, that can be described by a probability distribution. Here, the Greek word is interpreted as “to aim, to guess”. In the context of terrorism, the interpretation seems to focus more on the “aim” part, and also to assume that the aiming is performed with utmost perfection... Off topic, but an interesting etymological comparison.
Apart from that, I agree. Recommended reading!
I think stochastic is used quite appropriately here. As you say, in math, stochastic can refer to something with known probability distribution. A stochasticly driven damped oscillator has a known range of amplitudes and frequency responses. What's completely unknown is the phase: when is the response going to be at a given amplitude and frequency.
Folks like Trump throwing noise into the system, they know what the response is going to be, they just don't know the timing of it, but they know its going to happen. They're counting on it happening. I think "stochastic terrorism" nicely captures the concept.
*****what are the odds Trump knew nothing about the rally and had no plans to use it as a last-ditch effort to bludgeon the Senate into carrying out his will?*****
I'd say virtually zero.
Trump may well have the attention span of a hummingbird, and he's about as far from a general knowledge-rich policy wonk as one could be. But he was focused with laser-like intensity on stealing a second term -- of that there's no doubt.
I'm not sure Trump and his people had a particularly well thought-out, detailed plan as to exactly how the Jan 6 rally was going to help them steal it. But I believe the evidence thus far suggests they thought the sheer enormity of it would inspire/frighten the required number of GOP lawmakers to do Trump's bidding and/or a true Bastille-like explosion of violence would provide a justification for a state of emergency executive order (with Trump then using his expanded powers and the accompanying chaos to complete his coup).
This witch, along with Ginni Thomas, ought to be charged with conspiracy to commit treason.
Thomas's role does need to be looked into, but I would ascribe magical powers to them.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/02/politics/ginni-thomas-clarence-thomas-supreme-court/index.html
dag nab it....still can't edit....
I would NOT ascribe magical powers to them...
But it was nice to see that woman shamed into apologizing in a manner that could be publicized. Isn't that a first?
She certainly more than makes up for Clarence Thomas' customary silence - or dozing off on the job!
Treason is defined as rendering aid & support of some kind to a declared enemy with whom we are at war - a declared war, not something like those we have been involved in in recent decades. Unfortunately, it isn't applicable to internal enemies such as these domestic terrorists, in "peacetime."
And so far, "domestic terrorism" isn't even a legal charge, as far as I am aware, in any state in the US. There needs to be something better than current statutes to deal with this type of activity.
give bunker boy the benefit of the doubt and you can still sum up trump's actions in two words: depraved indifference. at best, what he did was the moral equivalent of handing a can of gasoline and a box of matches to a pyro.
And then watching for hours.
What I don't get is why Republicans believe that evidence of pre-planning somehow exonerates them of responsibility for 1/6. Lindsey Graham just yesterday threatened to bring the FBI in to testify about planning if the Senate decided to put on testimony. I could only think "don't throw me into that briar patch."
Graham's threat is not about suggesting the FBI information helping the defense, the threat is about telling Dem's that if a single witness is called they'll slow the process to a grind by asking to hear from every FBI analyst, janitor, coffee boy, and everyone even remotely related to the 1/6 investigations they can get, thus stopping all Senate functions for a very long time.
It is his way of saying if you want to look at this thing seriously, we'll make sure it eats up as much time as possible to block anything Biden wants to do.
I have no idea what he meant and I really don’t care. He doesn’t have squat to say about what happens or what witnesses testify or what they can testify about. The Democrats will decide, not this clown.
Ken Starr's Billable Hours havn't been this many since 1997.
I don't think that right. I've seen this in my brother-in-law's facebook posts and in other conservative oriented sites. My Trump loving brother-in-law posted a picture of a officer not doing anything as the crowd entered the capital building and seemed to think this meant that they were vindicated.
Some meme or theory is being distributed that has the Trumpsters think having official assistance or support makes the insurrection just fine. Before somehow validating the idea, I'd like to know what it is.
Imma let you finish but...
Well, just wanted to say hello, glad to be a part of Kevin's new world.
Now, he just needs a theme song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njsF1jWSWeM
Does anybody really care about all this? Whose mind would be changed by these details? QAnoners certainly don't care. To reduce the overall support for Trump probably something will have to show up Trump in a dramatically different light, or the nation's attention will have to be drawn to issues which show Biden in a more favorable light. These would be simpler and more visceral things, not what Trump and other players said to each other in the run-up to the Capitol invasion. How Senators will vote is probably already determined, based on how sentiment in their states/districts has been going.
He knew all of it from the beginning. Guilty, Guilty, Guilty
Typical Trump
He knew what was gong to happen and did NOTHING to stop it - in fact he encouraged it
When they all showed up he showered them with praise
When things got out of hand he got very quiet and kept his joy to himself
When things got CRIMINAL he started shifting the blame to others
Now we have stories like this
Do we have to wait until the bullets pass through a body before someone says its wrong