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JANUARY 6th REPORTS: Part 6 — Traitor Trump’s mob reaches the Capitol
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Occupy Democrats
April 18, 2024

JANUARY 6th REPORTS: Part 6 — Traitor Trump’s mob reaches the Capitol

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December 31, 2022
JAN 6th REPORTS: Part 6 — Traitor Trump's mob reaches the Capitol

In Part 5 of this series on the revelations contained in the House Select Committee’s report on Jan 6th, we went over how Donald Trump instructed his supporters – many of whom he knew were armed – to march on the Capitol.

Yet, as revealed by the January 6 Committee Report, the Proud Boys were already at work trying to breach the Capitol’s perimeter, which had been ringed with fencing.

Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio was not on site, having been arrested and forced out of the city a couple of days earlier.

Instead, the group was led by Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl, all of whom had posted messages indicating their intention to blend into the crowd and look to storm into Congress to stop the electoral certification for Biden.

Before describing how the Proud Boys led the attack, though, it’s important that we address a myth that has been going around in Republican circles: that the mob was not armed.

This is false.

To begin with, the magnetometers set up by the Secret Service at the rally led to the confiscation of 269 knives or blades, 242 cans of pepper spray, 18 tasers, and more.

There were also people carrying sticks or batons, wearing helmets, or sporting body armor.

More importantly, though, many of those at the rally had refused to pass through the magnetometers, leading Trump to complain and insist that they be let in.

As for guns, there were numerous instances of them being brought to the Capitol grounds or surrounding area or stationed just outside DC.

  • The Metropolitan Police Department spotted three people from Broward County, Florida with AR-15s.
  • The National Park Service questioned one man with a rifle just as the attack was getting started.
  •  On the night of January 5, Proud Boy Christopher Kuehne stated at a meeting that the group had guns and was prepared to use them.
  • A Three Percenter named Guy Reffitt carried a loaded gun around that day, including when at the Capitol.
  • Others lost their firearms during the fighting with police.
  • One man, Lonnie Leroy Coffman, left his car by the Capitol before trekking a couple of miles to hear Dirty Donald speak. In that car were several guns and plenty of ammunition, plus some makeshift explosives in Mason jars.
  • The Committee noted as well that the Oath Keepers, cognizant of the laws about bringing guns into the city, kept stashes of weapons directly outside the city, hoping to access them if they needed to.

Some people brought unique weapons as well, such as one man who used a hockey stick to beat officers or others who used the flag poles they carried as weapons, including one person who made sure to sharpen the point of his.

As Trump was finishing his inciteful speech, the Proud Boys were communicating by phone and radio and pushing past the fencing surrounding the Capitol and beginning to assault the Capitol Police.

The first breach came around 12:51 PM. An attacker named Ryan Samsel claims that Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs showed him a gun and insisted that he “challenge the police.”

Biggs disputes this account. Regardless, Samsel did break through shortly after, and soon others started flooding past the first area of fencing, forcing the Capitol Police to move back and retrench.

Yet this did not stop the attackers, who proceeded to push past more fencing and knock down a female officer by the name of Caroline Edwards, her head smacking into the concrete.

As the Proud Boys and others were pushing past the Capitol fencing, Donald Trump was finishing up his attack speech and instructing the mob to head down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol.

Fortunately, they suffered from a degree of disorganization. Roger Stone, who might have been one of the people to lead the march, never showed up for the rally. (Perhaps he was busy buying suits at Bond Villain Apparel.)

Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, a disgrace to the military, was asked if he was marching and complained it was too cold.

Infowars host and morally and financially bankrupt conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was there with a camera crew, and there was some confusion as to whether he or activist Ali Alexander should lead things.

Jones has said “the White House told me three days before, we are going to have you lead the March.”

Yet Alexander also contends “the White House” handpicked him.

Both wound up leading marchers down toward the Capitol, though it’s unclear how many.

As they marched, they tried to figure out where the motorcade would come from, convinced that Trump himself would arrive at any moment.

Of course, he never did.

Nonetheless, Dirty Donald’s murderous mob joined in on the attack started by the Proud Boys, and the convergence of the two groups proved difficult for the Capitol Police to contain, despite having received some reinforcements.

At about ten minutes to 2, Guy Reffitt — who not only had a gun, but body armor, flexicuffs, and a helmet with a camera attached (because why not film your crimes) — led the mob past police scaffolding.

As noted in the report, Reffitt intended to “drag those people out of the Capitol by their ankles” and “install a new government.”

“We’re all going to drag them motherfuckers out kicking and screaming,” Reffit said, adding that he wanted “to see Pelosi’s head hit every fucking stair on the way out . . . And Mitch McConnell too. Fuck ’em all.”

Reffitt received a seven-year sentence for his actions that day.

At 2:13 PM, Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola smashed through a window on the Senate side of the building, the first breach of the inside of the Capitol.

Others began coming through a side door. There was nothing to stop them from pressing forward into the building’s corridors.

It was at this time that Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Pence were told an emergency exit was necessary and were led out of the chamber.

Attackers were also pushing through on the Eastern side of the building.

Somehow, Alex Jones managed to get to the top of the steps. Alternatively pleading for peace and calling for revolution, he declared, “we will never submit to the new world order!”

Yet when informed that the attack could be blamed on him, he quickly got out of there, heading back down the steps. Perhaps the “deep state” made him flee.

There was a bit of a back-and-forth, but around 2:30, the attackers on the Eastern side broke through as well. Other points of the building were soon busted into too, with multiple breach points.

Many of the attackers were chanting, “Nancy! Nancy!”

Rather than try to quell things, Donald Trump tweeted out the following message:

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

At 2:28 PM, Marjorie Taylor Greene texted Chief of Staff Mark Meadows:

“Mark I was just told there is an active shooter on the first floor of the Capitol Please tell the President to calm people This isn’t the way to solve anything”

Fox host Laura Ingraham and former OMB manager and Trump acolyte Mick Mulvaney also texted Meadows pleading with him to get Trump to do something.

Trump, playing his usual act of deniability while not taking much in the way of action, tweeted out at 2:38 PM:

But it was already too late for that and he knew it.

Surely the tweet was a calculated move: if the attack failed, he figured, he could point to it and claim it demonstrated peaceful intentions; if it succeeded, his attackers wouldn’t care about the tweet and he’d gladly take the crown they offered him.

How many of them were stopping to read tweets at that point anyhow?

In the next installment, we’ll continue to cover what Trump’s mob did and how he did nothing to stop them.

You can follow along with us on Twitter by searching under the hashtag #Jan6Reports or by joining me at @RossRosenfeld.

Ross Rosenfeld
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April 18, 2024
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