New: Leader in alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy in Capitol insurrection claims she was given VIP pass to Trump rally Jan 6, met with Secret Service agents & was providing security for legislators & others, according to new court filing. https://t.co/10MD6k23LJ
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) February 21, 2021
Claims, of course, is a word that means nothing, on its own. But the Oaf-Keepers’ loudest supporters have been put on notice: There’s a new team in the Oval Office, now…
… Watkins is central to one of the most aggressive criminal conspiracy cases yet to emerge from the insurrection. The Justice Department indicted her and eight other alleged Oath Keepers on several charges related to the riot, including allegations that the group coordinated their travel to the pro-Trump event, discussed training and weapons beforehand, suited up in body armor and broke through the crowd heading into the Capitol in a military-style formation.
Watkins’ attorney argued in the new filing she isn’t alleged to have been violent in the melee, and that, though she is charged with aiding the destruction of property, didn’t participate in vandalism and encouraged others not to as well. The court filing is the first meaty defense of the high-profile defendant in court.
Prosecutors previously said Watkins had waited for direction from Trump — and believed she had received it before she joined the siege, allegedly leading several others into the Capitol building to fight against Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote.
Watkins’ defense attorney, Michelle Peterson, wrote on Saturday that her client and other supporters of Trump had believed the then-President would invoke the Insurrection Act to use the military to overturn what he falsely said was the fraudulent election of Joe Biden. And Watkins and others believed “they would have a role if this were to happen,” the filing said…
Update on the Capitol Riots investigation: DOJ officials are adding investigators to the effort, while eyeing guilty pleas and potential cooperators as the large caseload bears down on the courts.https://t.co/UJGqkj2VJ2
— Katie Benner (@ktbenner) February 20, 2021
US going after Oath Keepers:
-Shows the govt's taking Capitol attack seriously
-Reduces threat from these violent right-wing extremists who've demonstrated they'll attack America
-Shows no new domestic terrorism law needed; existing capabilities sufficienthttps://t.co/zfhmp9hpdU— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) February 21, 2021
The Oath Keepers are especially concerning because they target military and law enforcement for recruitment, warping the concept of the oath to protect the public.
This makes them more dangerous than, say, the Proud Boys (not that the Proud Boys aren't dangerous; it's relative).— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) February 21, 2021
How it started How it’s going pic.twitter.com/BSACNiebRK
— Rational Disconnect (@RationalDis) February 21, 2021
NotMax
Mayberry Mafia.
smedley the uncertain
Good Evening
debbie
What was going on with the Secret Service?
SFAW
@NotMax:
They won’t all be that incompetent, the next time(s). Were I the “master planner” (or whatever) wanting to bring about Gilead, I’d send a bunch of patsies in first, to see what the contemporaneous tactical response was, and then plan accordingly.
Benw
There’s no bottom to your reality
THERE”S NO BOTTOM TO YOUR REALITY
Your desperation is utter and complete
What you can’t love about yourself
You have to steal from someone else
And what you can’t steal
You have to deny
Rapid decompression
RAPID DECOMPRESSION
Jeffro
Wondering if the RWNJs’ full-court press on the Sunday shows was due to concern over all of these investigations ramping up? What say you, Scalise, Paul, Graham, Johnson?
Lock. Them. Up.
Martin
Reminder:
Biden hasn’t put his own USAs in yet. And Garland isn’t yet confirmed. The law hasn’t remotely started to come down on these folks.
But if what Watkins claims is accurate, I don’t see how Trump avoids a criminal conviction here.
Jeffro
@Benw: AM! for the win
High up on the list to see once shows are a thing again!
rikyrah
@debbie:
46 changed his entire team.
So, you can interpret from that how it’s going with the Secret Service😒
JoyceH
So this woman “claims” she had a VIP pass to the rally? If true, should be easy to prove, because you know if any of these Trump cultists had a VIP pass to a Trump event, they would have kept it as a souvenir.
Major Major Major Major
Lol. Fuentes.
open thread? Went for a nice walk on the lake in Central Park today. Haven’t been out on ice in quite a long time. That was fun.
Got an invite to clubhouse, the cool new app all the cool kids are talking about (on clubhouse). It’s basically a collection of audio Zoom calls where people discuss various topics in a moderated fashion. Looks like it’s got some cool stuff but is also 40% cryptobros and VCs by weight.
Wyatt Salamanca
In spite of all the good reporting about the Jan 6th insurrection, Trump still maintains great support among flat Earth Republicans. As long as these assholes continue to live in an alternate reality, this country is seriously fucked.
h/t https://www.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-defeated-impeached-trump-still-170019540.html
Mai Naem mobile
@debbie: remember the secret service guy who got an approved break from the secret service to work on Trumpov’s birthday…he was in some supervisory position. Wonder if he was involved. Its a pity this insurrection seems to be being ignored by the media right now. Hope interest jumps when the trials get underway.
Jeffro
OT but as expected: GQP congressman goes after Cruz
It’s not like Cancun Ted only had to worry about facing a Dem in 2024.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Reading about the neo-Nazi infiltration of several spheres of German society, including the police and Germany’s equivalent of Britain’s MI5 and our CIA, I think it’s safe to say the West has a fascism/authoritarianism problem. The most pertinent question that comes to mind is, what do we and our allies plan to do about it? The AfD scares the shit out of me and state-level factions of the CDU have wanted to break the “Grand Coalition” between the CDU and SPD recently that is preventing the AfD from having significant power in the national government
Benw
@Jeffro: I’m digging White Crosses so hard this pandemic.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: he is smart, and has some very sharp people on his team. I’m glad they started with this kind of move from the get-go.
Jeffro
@Benw: yup, good call.
My musical selections had been getting louder and louder for the past five years. Working on ramping down once in a while now… =)
Mai Naem mobile
@Wyatt Salamanca: I hope Christine Rodriguez from Galveston is having fun in her blacked out Republican freedumb paradise of Galveston. Hope she’s enjoying boiling her water. I am sure she’ll blame it on the black guy who didn’t force Texas to follow federal recommendations after 2011 to keep the grid going.
Gvg
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): what? Don’t use so many acronyms. I have no idea what you just said.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I thought AfD was on the downswing? Don’t get me wrong it’s very bad.
The weird thing is that us and our allies are all undergoing a democratic backsliding at once, more broadly.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
CNN: The Supreme Court is still sitting on Trump’s tax returns, and justices aren’t saying why
SFAW
I don’t know if this will help, but: Goku doesn’t either.
[Waves to Goku]
Omnes Omnibus
@Gvg: He is scared of the right wing Germans for some reason.
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
some allies. Nazi pulses come and go on a generational cycle.
It’s been amped up in some countries by both domestic and international agents.
rp
@Major Major Major Major: it’s because WWII is passing out of living memory.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Kind of. The pandemic has dented their support quite a bit. But they’re not gone
It’s the internet and social networks, mostly. That, and right-wing media. Climate change is also helping too, what with displacement of people, most famously Syria.
What gets me are the people who look at the US and go, “America has proven it can never be trusted again” when literally every other first world democracy is having the same problems
Chetan Murthy
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): And Putin’s secret services pushing everywhere. All these right-wing orgs in Europe are tied into each other and the GRU.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Gvg:
AfD = Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) – Far right nationalist and populist party.
CDU = Christian Democratic Union – Traditional centre right party in Germany (links up with the Christian Social Union from Bavaria).
SPD = Social Democratic Party – Traditional centre left party in Germany.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus: @SFAW:
All I’m trying to say is that the global radical right is something to be concerned about. That’s it. If most of the major western countries go far-right, there’s nobody who’s going to come to our rescue like there was in WWII.
Jay
Yellowdoggranny brings the receipts,
https://yellowdoggrannie.blogspot.com/2021/02/this-perfection.html?m=1
SFAW
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Two choices for you:
(A) Calm the fuck down, or (B) grow the fuck up.
It was a fucking joke, and I’m reasonably sure that Gvg took it that way
ETA: Deleted, because it was written before I saw your follow-up. [No my initial ETA contained no profanity]
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@SFAW:
Understood. Sorry.
ETA:
Ohhh. Ok. Honestly didn’t know that.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t think you can just point to the Internet. There are plenty of places where it isn’t happening, and of course the Web was invented long ago. I definitely think social media plays a big role but people can’t get off the hook that easily.
This is gonna sound weird coming from me but I think it’s part of a broader crisis in neoliberal capitalism. We got rid of/reduced a lot of the old ways that people developed meaning and communities—church, co-living, multigenerational households, steady jobs—and then forgot to replace them with anything. So now everybody’s casting about on the internet and getting kooky.
Barbara
That filing is a petition for bail pending disposition, but it’s still quite amazing. Basically, “but your honor, my client was actually part of a much larger conspiracy with much more important people!”
Jay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
YMMV. Some Western Democracies are having trouble with Reich Wing Parties and Nazis. Others, not as much.
eg. Canada. Given a choice between Nazis and Conservatism, the Con’s split up into multiple parties ranging from the Cons, to full on Nazi parties.
SFAW
@Barbara:
Thanks for cutting through the semi-legalese.
James E Powell
@Jeffro:
I was about to same thing, but – for once – I scrolled first.
We know that the Republicans always coordinate their message & messaging. The question is, why did all four of the broadcast Sunday shows decide to join them in this assault on American democracy. I do not believe in coincidences.
Danielx
@Jay:
But aside from all that….
Jay
Bill Arnold
@Major Major Major Major:
I was afraid to search on cryptobros ’cause I knew I’d find that it was about cryptocurrencies, not cryptography. (Sigh.)
Very old school, people used “cryptology” rather than “cryptography”. The usage continues; older school, cryptology:
Crypto 2021: 41st Annual International Cryptology Conference.
Paul T
The ultimate “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM? SEE MY PASS!”?
Jay
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Ooh, like a mortgage you didn’t know you had! Sweet! [not]
Sloegin
Canada didn’t go far enough when they declared the Proud Bois a terror org, they really should have tacked the Oathkeepers to the list.
Sister Golden Bear
@Benw: When Adam Savage said “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” he was being snarky. Unfortunately these folks are being dead serious.
Jay
Frankensteinbeck
There is important context to keep in mind when looking at all these revelations, context that severely muddies the water in drawing conclusions: All these people making plans are part of a culture where discussing elaborate fantasies of rebellion and violence with your friends is routine. They go on and on about the civil war that is about to happen and what they’re going to do or what they should do. They make threatening statements about how there’s nothing left to do now but get their gun and go shoot Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton or whoever. They buy all kinds of equipment. Then the bravest go to a rally and stand around in camo with their gun and feel really tough and go home.
Throw on top of that, Trump and other important Republicans don’t have to have expected or known anything about storming the capitol to have schmoozed with these assholes. Republicans are white supremacists. They love these assholes. And these assholes worshiped Trump, which is a guaranteed way to get a personal invitation to lick Trump’s shoes.
Mai Naem mobile
@Jay: I guarantee you Texas is going to make the feds at least bail them out partially on those bills. Probably end up being in some compromise bill that the Biden folks need to pass.
patrick II
I am still waiting for Alex Jones to be charged. That they have waited this long indicates they ate building up a sizable case.
Achrachno
Roll ’em up faster, please. Thoroughness is good too.
SectionH
AL – “Oaf-keepers” is excellent and esp. appreciated by Mr S.
Jay
@Sloegin:
we have “Proud Boys” in Canada. We don’t have “Oathkeepers”.
Chetan Murthy
@Mai Naem mobile: VRA? DC Statehood? Maybe Wyoming rule for the House? *grin
Jay
Jay
Achrachno
@Chetan Murthy: Wyoming rule? Unfamiliar to me, I think. New proposal I’ve not heard about?
Benw
@Jeffro: good call. Gotta pace yourself.
:)
Chetan Murthy
@Achrachno: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule
Automatic reapportionment of the House to make sure that larger states’ voters aren’t disenfranchised. Or equivalently, that Wyoming’s voters don’t get extra weight in the House (they already do in the Senate, but there’s little we can do about that).
Mary G
@Major Major Major Major: Can’t remember where, but read an article that the permissions Clubhouse requires pretty much are a total loss of any privacy you may have, and they are using the data they get to follow you around cyberspace seeing if they find more people to suggest you invite.
Benw
@Sister Golden Bear: I don’t know how to fix that, but I can be good and kind to the people around me!
Sometimes it feels like your whole world is coming to an end.
Achrachno
@Chetan Murthy: Ah, figured it’d be something like that. I say shoot for all three. All are crucial for democracy, but all will be bitterly opposed by the Rs.
burnspbesq
@Mai Naem mobile:
Fuck that. Texas created this mess. Let Texas fix it (note: I am a Texas resident).
HumboldtBlue
I’m glad I’ll never have to shovel snow again but if I did I’d like these two guys to join in.
burnspbesq
@Achrachno:
Indictments are good. Convictions are better. There are no statute of limitation issues. Let the Feds take the time necessary to build bulletproof cases.
NotMax
@Sister Golden Bear
And not even original. Lifted from an otherwise forgettable movie, The Dungeonmaster (1984).
Major Major Major Major
@Mary G: that feels unlikely. The only permissions it’s asked me for are address book (said no) and notifications.
Here’s Avast on it: https://blog.avast.com/clubhouse-security-and-privacy-avast
mrmoshpotato
Throw the book at them? No!
Use it to bash in their fucking fascist faces! Cry harder, you maced, fascist trash!
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
Adam addresses “I reject your reality, and substitute my own.”
HumboldtBlue
Can’t you knock?
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Don’t know who the guy is and what’s more, do not care. Never heard of him.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Ok then.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t think the US will go there. Not saying they won’t try, but I think the Dem coalition knows whats up and is prepared to fight.
White nationalism is a problem in a lot of places. If the US can get through this period and emerge as a stable multicultural nation, it’ll help pave the way for others.
Achrachno
@burnspbesq: Yeah, I agree with that but in the meanwhile I’d like to get some of them off the street and wondering about their futures. Lock ’em up — isn’t that what they always say? Law’n order.
Sauce for the goose and all that.
I’m not advocating cutting any corners on respect for their constitutional rights, but these are very dangerous people who have committed an assault on our republic. We must be clear that we’re not going to tolerate that sort of thing at all and they will get hit with the full weight of the law in so far as possible.
The problem we have is that their co-conspirators in the Senate may block appointments of the Atty. Gen. and others if some of our people don’t wise up. Too closely divided!
Jay
@NotMax:
MythBusters.
NotMax
@Jay
Gesundheit.
Jay
@NotMax:
thank you.
AxelFoley
@James E Powell:
To paraphrase that noted chrysophilist Auric Goldfinger: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. All four?
Enemy action.”
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Watkins is transgender and a former member of the army.
One of the first things Dump did was throw the transgender out of the service.
Yet she still worships him.
Shaking my head.
Baud
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
Trans people have the same right as anyone else to hate us more than they love themselves.
Amir Khalid
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
Like the man himself, Trump’s base is not bound by rational thinking.
Shalimar
@SFAW: Counterpoint: Except for those who had to work and couldn’t take a few days off, this was their best. This was an Armageddon-level event they had to prevent, and they failed. Their master planner is Roger Stone, and this clusterfuck was the best he can do.
patrick II
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
And the leader of the Proud Boys is a Latino named Enrique Tarrio. I’m waiting to see who the leader of the 3%’s is.
JWR
Mike Lindell is back hawking his shitty Fascist pillows on TV. I guess he thought being out of the public eye for two whole weeks would make everything alright. I’ve only seen him on MeTV, and only in the wee hours, but at least no Trumpy Bear, so yay for small favors, I guess.
Salty Sam
Internet, social networks, and right-wing media are the delivery vehicle, and accelerant, for the message. But those messages are falling on receptive audiences, and those audiences are susceptible to being frothed up with outrage.
The big question is “why are some people so receptive to hateful rhetoric, and willing to suspend skepticism and embrace insane conspiracies?” It seems clear to me that the human population of Planet Earth stands on the precipice of a fundamental change in how we conduct our affairs, and the unspoken directive is CHANGE OR DIE! There are enough people for whom change=death, and will fight it with every ounce of strength they have.
T’is sad, but that’s what we’re up against.
lowtechcyclist
@SFAW:
Reminds me of my ‘theory’ about Trump.
Now despite being a born-again Christian and all that, I don’t believe in the Antichrist, the Tribulation, the Rapture, or any of that crap. Don’t even believe in a literal Satan.
BUT if all that stuff were a thing, if I were Satan, I wouldn’t lead off with the Antichrist. I’d start with someone like Trump to test the waters, see if the time was right. And if I were Satan right now, I’d be saying, yeah, that worked out pretty well, time to finalize plans to send in the real deal.
Amir Khalid
@Salty Sam:
My guess is they’re already full of hate, for whatever reason, and they’ve been looking for someone who can offer them a target and a ready-made rationale for their hate.
SFAW
@Shalimar:
I seriously doubt it was their “best,” whether in terms of cannon fodder, or “maximum effort.”
Ned F
Hiring the Oof Keepers for security makes as much sense as when The Rolling Stones thought it was a good idea to enlist the Hells Angels at Altamonte speedway.
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
… then try “for real” with Greg Stillson/Tom Cotton. [OK, a better-looking, more charismatic version of Tom Cotton.]
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Wow – Morning Joe is championing the 2 Trillion dollar relief package and mocking gop deficit concerns.
A Road to Damascus moment
SFAW
@AxelFoley:
For years, I have been laboring under the misconception that it was Bond James Bond who said that. Thanks for the correction.
J R in WV
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
WTF AYTA here? [what the fuck are you talking about] This makes no sense writing about undefined 3LAs!!!
CDU? SPD? AfD? WTF? pointless blather without defining the terms.
STD English requires full expression of acronyms on first use, followed by the acronym you intend to use. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) might not be required, it’s pretty common. But I read a ton of news, and don’t recall any of your three letter acronyms.
Thanks for reading. I guess.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Not a coincidence, we’re all losing the same undeclared war with Russia, destroying our culture with misinformation. Not a surprise at this point, either.
Geminid
@J R in WV: Yes, it’s not so hard to type out full names or words. And at least on my phone, after a couple letters the prompts below my text usually suggest a whole word I can hit. But some times when I read this blog I get SAD (Severe Acronym Dysphoria).
Chris Johnson
@Chetan Murthy: This. My gut level response (remembering that thinking from the gut is a Steven Colbert joke) is that Russia has worked REALLY HARD to amp up all the right wing authoritarianism, and make it friendly to them, in attempts to tear the West apart with terrorism.
And it’s been more successful than they’d ever imagined: they got Brexit and Trump out of their efforts, which is really mind-boggling. They’re also behind Q, and the whole operation is about using social media to direct people without any sort of two-way interaction: not traditional ‘spies’ in the least.
I think they’ve depended on being able to do business with big tech and get their feedback in terms of Google Analytics and Facebook demographics, which is so detailed and granular it’s like they get to have spies making detailed reports on how the propaganda is going. It’s just delivered in terms of how the media campaign is going, and it’s facilitated by big social media.
This might be why some social media (possibly Twitter, for instance) is leaning away from fascism hard enough to upset the rightwingers and techbros: some of these folks will know they are being used, and there are humans out there running these things who understand what’s happening through use of their platforms.
Steeplejack
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
That’s good to hear. Now that Trump is (somewhat) out of the picture, Joe has jumped on the “‘stimulus’ is too big” bandwagon and trotted out his old chestnut about the the need for “small government.”
I haven’t watched Morning Joe much lately, but a week or so ago he hosted some economist who was fretting about how the “stimulus” was too big, twice as much as the one in 2009—which I think was pretty much deemed to be too small in the aftermath! It reminds me of someone’s great Twitter joke about worrying about bringing too much water to put out the fire. It’s not a “stimulus” package; it’s a relief package.
And small government, Joe? You can’t run a 21st-century superstate (if we even are one any more) like some bucolic arcadia of yeoman farmers and plucky townsmen. You know what that looks like? Texas.
sdhays
@Martin: And unlike for impeachment, if he’s criminally prosecuted, he’ll actually need real lawyers, not play-actors who show up at the last minute just to go through the motions and embarrass all of the people who were going to protect him regardless.
Kathleen
@Salty Sam: Your analysis is profound and spot on.
Citizen_X
@J R in WV: See comment above by
@Thor Heyerdahl:
WaterGirl
@Jay: Totally unreadable. Has this person never heard of paragraph breaks and white space?
Jinchi
I’m still amazed that these guys think ‘We were going to start the insurrection that would allow Trump to seize control of government’ is a defense and not a confession.
planetjanet
@mrmoshpotato: I love that clip, mrmoshpotato! The best quote was at the end. I can’t believe I watched the whole thing. He relayed a story of someone else’s great impromptu line that became a Mythbusters legend. “The only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.” It really just hit may as incredibly cool.