39 Comments

Charles Herbster is the weak links here. He is a political novice and under pressure would crack

Expand full comment
author

I agree. If I were working for the FBI right now I would probably go to him first. Adam Piper is also a weak link. I just think that if it turns out the FBI needs prosecutorial leverage, they're going to have to aim their sights a bit higher in Trump's inner circle. But otherwise I agree with you completely.

Expand full comment

if the fbi or congress or grand jury can subpoena secret service logs for the former guy, then that would give his whereabouts on 1/5/21. also NSA can gather cell ph data and confirm who was at the hotel and what times. there is a way to get to the facts.

Expand full comment

Article One -- oversight

Expand full comment

I hope the FBI investigates this fully. I am still wondering about Bolsonaro’s son involvement on all of this.

Expand full comment

Birds of a feather.....

Expand full comment

This is all starting to piece together to form a very ominous outline of just how close we came to becoming another Putinocratic kleptocracy on 1/6. When I put this alongside the recent work of Dave Troy, these facts throw one another into stark relief. These bumbling fools came close on 1/6, but if we don't uncover their crimes (plodding and half-assed though they were) and punish the actors sufficiently to make a harsh example of them, I think we're going to see more 'competent' traitors attempt this in the future. This is very serious work you're doing.

Expand full comment

Brilliant analysis of the ringleader cabal. What was the strategy to change the vote? Was any one person tasked with leading it? Who did not succeed in subverting the police? Why did rioters disagree with each other so often? Who recruited such a motley crew which did not capture anyone and whose "occupation" only lasted 3 hours? To rioters this seemed like a great achievment. The giant plot morphed from dodgy lawsuits to clumsy threats and pointless motions. All failed (fortunately) due to incompetence (on this occasion). The (guilty) generals were hopeless and it's the troops who will go to jail. 

Expand full comment

I'm guessing you meant to @ the author, but my $0.02 is that the chaos was the point of it all—the problem was there wasn't *enough*; perhaps if the insurrectionists were to have captured someone like Pence, and/or captured/burned the certificates, the invoking of martial law might have been possible and the tipping point reached.

Expand full comment

sw00p's theory is correct.

A Parler user made clear that armed people would be at the Capitol that day. "They may be concealed at first, but if Congress does the wrong thing, expect real chaos, because Trump needs us to cause chaos to enact the Insurrection Act."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-says-it-informed-fbi-of-violent-content-before-capitol-riot-11616702400

Expand full comment

I think it had to be enough to trigger the desired action, but not so much that it erased plausible deniability if it didn't succeed (see: the gibberish of fools like Ron Johnson.) I think we really dodged a bullet that day.

Expand full comment

Donald Trump didn't want to "look guilty" by declaring martial law. He was hoping the crowd of "leftist ANTIFA terrorists" would kill the VP and a few Senators & Reps, so he could declare martial law, so then he could remain in power while pretending he did nothing wrong.

https://www.axios.com/trump-oval-office-meeting-sidney-powell-a8e1e466-2e42-42d0-9cf1-26eb267f8723.html

Expand full comment

Yeah, I remember reading that article at Axios. I really want to see the FBI give the Flynn and Manafort treatment to these clowns, you know? Get them squirming and lying in interviews, get them to turn on the next level up to get a deal. No pardons for lying to the FBI during this term. And the sooner the better, because the litigation & prosecution that T**** so obviously fears needs to be realized.

Expand full comment

It could also be as simple as getting hotel security footage, right?

Expand full comment

If you look at the photos of the Insurrection, 99% of the flags do not have Pence on them. That means there was premeditation on Trump’s part; someone from his team got these new flags to the insurrectionists.

Expand full comment

once again, AMAZING DETAILS and work!

Expand full comment

@FBI sure hope you have all of this information

Expand full comment

"What’s needed now is for Congress and major media to start vigorously reporting on—and investigating—this meeting." Damn Straight.

Expand full comment

My apologies, I’m too baked to understand it all right now but I’ll reread it later k thanks

Expand full comment

FBI knew in advance about the plot to storm the Capitol on Jan. 06, and they quietly allowed it to happen anyways. FBI seems complicit in the "inside job".

Parler referred violent content from its platform to the FBI more than 50 times in the weeks before the Jan. 06 riot at the U.S. Capitol. This includes a Dec. 24 post recruiting an "armed force of 150,000 people to react to the congressional events of Jan. 06". This also includes a Jan. 02 post from a user saying he would be wearing body armor to the pro-Trump rally on Jan. 06. "It's no longer a protest. This is a final stand where we are drawing the red line at Capitol Hill. I trust the American people will take back the USA with force and many are ready to die to take back USA." In another post, a user made clear that armed people would be at the Capitol that day. "They may be concealed at first, but if Congress does the wrong thing, expect real chaos, because Trump needs us to cause chaos to enact the Insurrection Act."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/parler-says-it-informed-fbi-of-violent-content-before-capitol-riot-11616702400

Expand full comment
author

I would suggest slowing your roll a little bit. Yes, the FBI had sufficient warnings about violence at the Capitol that one could argue the Bureau was negligent in not reacting by reaching out to other agencies and taking proactive steps. To leap from that to the FBI being "complicit in the 'inside job'" is the sort of declaration that goes beyond the evidence we have and turns an investigation into a criminal conspiracy that needs much more evidence to be substantiated beyond a reasonable doubt as a crime into a mere conspiracy theory.

By the same token, I think we demean this important conversation when we say, "Donald Trump didn't want to 'look guilty' by declaring martial law. He was hoping the crowd of '

'leftist ANTIFA terrorists' would kill the VP and a few Senators & Reps, so he could declare martial law, so then he could remain in power while pretending he did nothing wrong." We have no evidence for *any* of those claims. The evidence we have is that (1) Trump was considering the possibility of martial law but clearly was hesitant enough about it (and/or whether it was a viable plan) that he did not pursue it; (2) he did not care about the safety of the VP or Congress and/or simply did not believe his people would actually do violence; and (3) at a minimum these attitudes reflect a risible penchant for autocracy that it fundamentally seditious and a reckless disregard for human life. You bumping that up to "he was hoping the crowd would kill the VP" is frankly irresponsible.

My hope, in my writing, is to encourage people to think like a criminal investigator and/or an attorney working a case—not like a conspiracy theorist guided by their emotions. The story you tell of a murderous Trump hell-bent on an immediate dictatorship and hoping some bloodshed would take him from Point A to Point B may be emotionally satisfying but it is not what the evidence currently supports.

The truth is harrowing enough. There is no need for conspiracy theory.

Expand full comment

Rudy Giuliani accidentally confessed to working with FBI and Proud Boys to blame the Capitol attack on BLM Antifa.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/politics/giuliani-unfounded-antifa-claim-invs/index.html

Expand full comment

Damn

Expand full comment

So, it's another case of "what did they know and when did they know it?" …

Expand full comment

Such great work Seth, thank you for continuous pursuit of the proof.

Expand full comment

Seth, is it possible that the man on the left in first photo, facing away from the camera, is Roger Stone? He wears that type of hat and overcoat

Expand full comment

Whoever it is, judging by the motion artifact in the photo, it looks like the person suddenly spun away from the camera so as not to be identified. Look at the blurring of his lower leg and the way his coattails are flaring out, possibly from the centrifugal force of quickly turning way.

Expand full comment

The Penguin!

Expand full comment

Except the hair doesn't look grey—Stone is completely grey. That might be a scarf, though.

Expand full comment

Do we know for certain that Charles Herbster wasn’t in the White House? Odd thing for him to say.

Expand full comment

I found the photo of Flynn in your Jan 28 substack article, but not this one, however, you say above that the Flynn one is "below" in the photos and permanently archived here, so I thought I'd let you know. Including it would make 5 photos though.

Expand full comment

I stand corrected. You never said the Flynn photo was here. My bad. But you said the series of Instagram photo included Flynn. And you already posted it 1.28.21. See how I am trying to follow you...and re-read things to clarify it all in my mind. You do good work by making me a better reader/participant. Thank you.

Expand full comment