Seth Abramson

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

32/ In other words, by 1PM on Insurrection Day, Trump had done *exactly* what it’s been his M.O. for decades to do: he’d set in motion bad actors doing bad deeds in ways he could later claim to know *nothing about* because he wasn’t there and doesn’t use email. The perfect crime. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

31/ They knew, too, that they had a back-up plan: if Trump never arrived, they had text messages from the campaign showing Stop the Steal’s coordination with the White House, phone logs detailing this contact, and frankly just their own (mutually corroborated) testimony on this. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

30/ Jones, Alexander, and Shroyer knew they had no permit for the Capitol steps. They knew climbing those steps was a felony. They also knew if Trump came to the Capitol—or if they could claim he was coming, using Trump’s own words from the Ellipse—they could get the mob to move. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

29/ Keeping the film rolling to later use it to exculpate themselves, the Stop the Steal trio—Alexander, Jones, and Shroyer—went to the Capitol claiming Trump was coming even as they didn’t know if he would. But they needed the lie: it’d convince folks to go on the Capitol steps. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: (🔐) NEW at PROOF: The New York Times Has Just Published An Excellent Third-Party After-Action Report on the Battle at the… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

28/ It’s now clear none of them trusted Trump to do what he’d promised them—Trump had already fallen flat on his agent’s promise to have the USSS help them that morning—so they only continued on to the Capitol once they knew there had been an initial breach of it by their allies. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

27/ They paused because—and we know this *because you hear them saying it on the video*—they suddenly were unsure whether Trump was going to show up as he had promised or not. If Trump went to the Capitol, they could go to the Capitol steps; if not, they needed to rethink things. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

26/ PROOF published *that* video a year ago, and it’s linked to again in this new report: it’s video from Freedom Plaza, taken by Stop the Steal security, showing Alexander and Jones and (this becomes critical) their lieutenant Owen Shroyer pausing at Freedom Plaza in mid-march. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

25/ So as the Proud Boys—see the New York Times after-action report linked to in the report atop this thread—coordinated attacking the West Portico and the Scaffolding, they at first had no men around the front of the Capitol. Why? Because Ali Alexander and Alex Jones got scared. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

24/ But this is one of those situations in which it doesn’t matter: either Alexander thought he could switch the event’s location because he thought he had Trump’s blessing from Trump’s statements to him, or he got railroaded; either way, the guilt lies at the White House’s feet. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

23/ ...Alexander is telling a consistent story in at least this respect: he publicly claims that the intercession of the White House in the plan he *originally* had for January 6 is what made Trump’s mob go to the front of the Capitol rather than Stop the Steal’s permitted space. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

22/ So of *course* Alexander made a digital map of D.C. indicating the time and (illegal) location of his event and distributed it to over 100,000, including the Proud Boys. He thought himself invincible due to Trump’s involvement. Indeed, even now, facing possible indictment... — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

22/ So of *course* Ali Alexander made a digital map of D.C. indicating the time and (illegal) location of his event and distributed it to over 100,000, including the Proud Boys. He thought himself invincible, due to Trump’s involvement. And indeed, even now, facing indictment... — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

21/ Kim Guilfoyle? She spoke to Alexander by phone *multiple* times before the attack began. Alexander was in the midst of a text conversation with Trump’s campaign, he says, as he was marching to the Capitol. A Guilfoyle aide even told Jones and Alexander the *USSS* would help. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

20/ ...Trump contacted Stone’s partners—Alexander and Jones—and asked them to *lead the march* on the Capitol. He spoke to them again, per Jones, *on Insurrection Day*. (Stone would later claim in a video that Trump had asked him to lead the march as well, perhaps at Mar-a-Lago). — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

19/ And it was with this in mind that the White House—most specifically *Trump himself* and members of his family (counting Don Jr. fiancée Kim Guilfoyle)—began having regular contact with Stop the Steal leaders. Trump met with Stone at Mar-a-Lago in late December; days later... — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

18/ Well—and *this* part of the story PROOF reported over a year ago—because Stop the Steal had been told by Donald Trump that he would *speak at their event*, which meant it could pretty much be held wherever the hell they wanted (as Stop the Steal now had *presidential* cover). — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

17/ Now wait a minute, you say! Why in the world would a random far-right activist who’d met the then-sitting President of the United States multiple times—and even been given a fond *nickname* by him—be so bold as lie on federal forms and relocate his event to an illegal site? — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

16/ Instead, this Stop the Steal organizer (one of three, along with Trump associate Alex Jones and Trump friend Roger Stone) immediately put out word that his event would be on the "Capitol steps"—where it would be a federal felony for any unauthorized person to go on January 6. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

15/ Using a fake name and fake organization name, Alexander got a permit for a space far from the Capitol—in a field—to hold a small event on January 6. But Alexander had absolutely no intention of ever holding that rally or using that space as he told federal officials he would. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

14/ The man’s name was Ali Alexander. Guessing Trump isn’t unreasonable—he did falsely tell the world he’d be marching to the Capitol—but the only reason press had any idea *where* at the Capitol he could’ve been referring to was because of a man Trump knew well: Ali Alexander. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

RT @SethAbramson: (🔐) NEW at PROOF: The New York Times Has Just Published An Excellent Third-Party After-Action Report on the Battle at the… — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

13/ I’m going to pause a moment here, as it’s a Sunday and we’re not in any rush. Does anyone want to guess who told press from around the world to set up in this position and train their lenses on the Capitol’s front steps? It was a single man—you know this name—and *not* Trump. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

12/ So why was the press there? Why did so many foreign news organizations have cameras trained on the front steps of the Capitol? What information had they gotten that—instead of an absolutely empty wasteland—they were going to have something to show audiences around the world? — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

11/ The large plaza before the Capitol was empty. There was virtually no police presence; everyone was on the other side of the Capitol, the side closest to the Ellipse. Bike racks were ringing the area, but they seemed unnecessary. The whole area was, quite simply, a ghost town. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

10/ ...the front of the Capitol was almost deserted, but for a long bank of stationary media positions, many of them manned by foreign press. Even as sirens blared across the city and news came in of fighting on the other side of the Capitol, *this* end of things was... peaceful. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

9/ As the bulk of the Proud Boys’ January 6 forces—200+ strong, armed, with a full contingent of [paramilitary-equivalent] captains, lieutenants, and sergeants—focused on the Battle of the West Portico (a stalemate), and the Battle Under the Scaffolding (a Trumpist victory)... — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

8/ This footage is of the early minutes of the January 6 attack from a vantage-point that U.S. reporters have long (wrongly) thought unimportant because nothing at all was going on there: the *front* of the U.S. Capitol. But in fact, the Battle Before the Capitol occurred there. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

7/ The new PROOF report atop this thread contains footage *almost no American has seen* because (a) it was not filmed by Americans; (b) it is footage from a stationary position that apparently was never aired by its foreign media outlet; and (c) it gets interrupted in mid-stream. — PolitiTweet.org

Seth Abramson @SethAbramson

6/ In fact, a division of January 6 into *separate battles*—the Battle of the West Portico, the Battle Under the Scaffolding, and the Battle Before the Capitol, this last a battle no one talks about and video of which is never shown—reveals that this conventional wisdom is false. — PolitiTweet.org