Alex Jones Used the Promise of a Permit and a Stage to Lure Hundreds to the East Steps
As I noted in this post, Zach Rehl got me to look closer at BuzzFeed’s story liberating the Capitol Police permits for the events on January 6 (even if, after he discovered my own post, he didn’t give me credit in his follow-up). The most important point in Jason Leopold’s story on the permits is that Ali Alexander’s associates used some front organizations to hide that a series of permits were actually all for the Stop the Steal rally.
But Leopold also got one of those people fronting for Alexander, Nathan Martin, to confirm that no one ever used the stage set up in conjunction with the permit.
The One Nation Under God demonstration was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. near Constitution Avenue NE and First Street. A stage, podium, and sound system were set up. But Martin said they were never used.
That’s important because of what Alex Jones told a group of more than 50 people (the limit on the permit obtained by a front for Alexander) to get them to go to the East side of the building, while Alexander was standing just a few feet behind him. The idea, per Jones, was that they would all go to the other side of the building where they had a stage and a permit so as to avoid any confrontation with the police. (h/t KarmaOneSixOne for alerting me to this video)
Listen to me. We’ve got a permit on the other side. It’s great that this happened, but they’re, Trump’s not going to come if they’re taking this over. We’re not Antifa, we’re not BLM. You’re amazing, I love you. Let’s march around to the other side. Let’s not fight the police and give the system what they want. We are peaceful, we won this election, and much as I love seeing all the Trump flags flying over this, we need to not have the confrontation with the police, they’re going to make that the story. I’m going to march to the other side where we have a stage, where we can speak, and occupy peacefully. Tell everybody behind you. March to the other side. March to the other side.
[Surround the Capitol!]
You guys are great. But the police — provocateurs have caused a problem.
These are the comments that got people like John and Stacie Getsinger to go to the East side of the Capitol, leading them to believe that if they followed Jones, they would get to hear Trump speak again.
Only, Jones didn’t go to the permitted stage. Instead, he walked right up the East steps, stack-style, with boom mikes and people chanting QAnon slogans around him. Some of the Oath Keepers were already waiting, Jones’ former employee Biggs was either there or on his way, and shortly after Biggs arrived, someone would come from inside and open those doors, only to have a Stack ready to help push through and keep those doors open. (h/t @gal_suburban who shared this video)
Right in the Stack with Jones was Alexander, the guy who had used several front organizations to obtain a permit for a stage where he could have legally protested but, in doing so, would have assembled the crowd some distance away from the Capitol rather than right at its doors.
The stage and the permit were the excuse that Jones used to move a mob to the East side of the Capitol.
But the East stairs are where he led them.
…the linked video
— https://twitter.com/i/status/1442899076161294336 —
…Alex Jones with a funky mask could pass for Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.
Not a good look–for Jones, for Bane, for democracy in our country.
The video is brief but terrifying.
“Police provacateurs are causing the problems!” yells Alex Jones into the bullhorn as he directs the Stop the Stealers towards an empty stage as the stack pressed into the Capitol Building with the crowd following in behind.
Just peaceful tourists, casually wandering outside of one of the great buildings in our nation’s capital. What’s to look at? Not a mob, not a riot, and not coordinated. Move along now. Tucker and GG will sell any garbage that promotes them, but only Chuck Todd would fall for it.
I think it proves the intent to deceive (about the permit) and that would point to planning on a larger scale (as EW pointed out there was a 50-person limit for the stage).
Not that I want to harp on it too much, but given that Epik became the web host of choice by the RWNJs, and that there is a data breach being mined, I would speculate that we’re going to find out a lot more about how involved Stone and Bannon were (and maybe Individual-1) in setting this all up. It has the stench of Stone about it in particular. Does Epik have a real-time site where the insurrectionists could have talked with each other?
I’m not so sure the Select Committee would have enough tech savvy to dig this out.
Epik hosted websites. They used to host 8chan, which was a social media platform of sorts, as well as Parler, I believe. That sort of information (what sites it hosted) isn’t typically secret. There’s probably a list somewhere on line. As to whether the content from chat on any of the current sites is part of what was hacked remains to be seen.
Touring terrorists for Trump bonded in the drug of hate.
Not a mob, not a riot, and not coordinated. And, per Stacie Getsinger, “not one fire!” Because everybody knows, it’s not a riot if they don’t torch the place.
Dr Wheeler making Alex Jones’ actions very clear.
If Alex isn’t on drugs and reads this article he’ll probably feel sick with worry.
For a little about the timing, from the Just Security video:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/01/23/crowdsourced-timeline-tick-tock-to-insurrection-and-beyond/#comment-879540
There’s some more information in that conversation at the link.
In between the videos Marcy cites of Jones sending the crowd and stacking up, here’s a bit of the great middle as they stride up the hill (lots of “fuckin’ cops”-centered chatter partially ~transcribed incl Q&A re Pence*; revealing of Jones & crew intent):
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/01/31/the-role-of-trumps-incitement-in-providing-violent-foot-soldiers/#comment-880580
Would love to know the cop’s (or cops’) response(s) to their planned request to “get Alex up there”.
Also @ linked discussion: Jones’ substitute host contemporaneously sedition-stirring (locating agency and inevitability in all those angry normies) / CYA-ing (Jones merely the God’s-eye observer); Jones sounding pretty scared later in January (pissed that he gets blamed for baiting followers to Capitol instead of or with Trump: how’dya like those agency power-relation switches now?).
—
* After Jones’ careful (?enough) answer about Pence [“Uh he he – he floundered and was neutral. He passed the ball.], someone in crowd says something that sounds like, “[He] Didn’t try”, but I’m not sure of that.
[Driving me nuts, that thing where you already know something but remember it by forgetting]
Here’s one interaction Jones & crew had with police, I suspect(ed) but can’t be sure that this is the cop(s) they intended to approach in video above:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/02/06/another-violent-foot-soldier-radicalized-by-donald-trump/#comment-881615
**THANK YOU HARPIE**
This item of the John Scott-Railton thread:
https://twitter.com/jsrailton/status/1358972931162992643
The cop tells them to go back to/through
[Twitter video keeps freezing for the last hour+, cannot replay for complete transcription.]
It goes on…before and after they are negotiating like juveniles with no good excuse, who know they have no right to that for which they ask (and are instead confronted with low-key accusations of wrong-doing). SAD.
Timestamped body-worn camera (bwc of a second cop): 1pm (13:00:XX and rolling).
—
[It’s so vexing dealing w/Alex Jones content bx so many of the original compilations (shout-out Granny Mott) got taken down and had to be relocated, and, well, the fragments, they weave differently.]
^ problem here (a couple): I have to correct calling that a bwc of a cop: it’s a “BODYCAM” (per bug top left) video, I do not know who wore it (and should have heeded hinky meter that it doesn’t look quite like typical police-worn camera footage, though it could be different gear from a different dept. like Park Svc or something). JSR does not give provenance of that video.
The timing issues: if 13:00h is correct then I don’t know how that fits with everything else (it would not be in the middle, but prior; and does/could it follow the “fuckin’ cops”/ Pence Q&A video? And maybe that one is before the megaphone video, too). Stuck not able to play (other) videos for clues.
Nevertheless it remains of interest, how they were told to back down.
If anyone can pinpoint these ordinately, advise pls.
OMG, EUREKA!
I was wondering if we were in the same rabbit hole yesterday.
UGGGG
Make that UGGG a double on ice and buckle up, lol. I came here to make a simple comment and now here we go…
I decided just to ignore that meter, lol.
[Meter…what meter?]
We haz a meter?
Map of CAPITOL GROUNDS
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ewf1vYqXMAQahCl?format=jpg&name=large
Look at the first video in the S-R thread [“we just missed the motorcade”] at 0:23. They are on a sidewalk right next to a road, just where a curved walkway has just joined it from the right. Many of them are looking back and to their left, back up the road. There’s a small [permanent] structure with a hip roof a little further on to their right, between them and the Capitol.
Also, at the very beginning, JONES is being helped up a step…or maybe over a short wall[?], maybe from grass onto the walkway.
I want the Family Circus map of their travels. But also with timestamps.
The video in the first tweet of that John Scott-Railton (JSR) thread also has the “BODYCAM” bug, so I assume that those two videos are via (a) Jones’ personnel.
That first JSR, too, says 13:01:XX – 13:02:XX so it would immediately-ish follow the third video in JSR thread (where their negotiation w/ the cop fails), assuming it’s the same cam or cam set to same time.
So are they going from ~ the North Lawn (3rd vid of JSR thread, the one I linked) directly** (not shown) then up onto the North Access Path (first JSR vid, harpie cites) headed towards the NE Plaza area?
Is one of the visible structures (the black roof behind the white umbrella-looking thing, both to the right) the NE Security Hut?
My guess is he’s being helped up from the North Lawn over the margin onto the North Access Path if the NE Security Hut is there. At another point in the video you can see another black roof to the left which *could* be the security hut marked for the (curved) Delaware Entrance.
If so even roughly, and if extant timestamps are all correct, then we have him ca. 1:01 PM heading for the East side but at some point returning to the West (NW) side to make two (at least) bullhorn speeches exhorting people to come over to the East via the North, one video of which was nearly an hour later (1:54 PM), the other likely on the West as well, possibly more westerly than the 1:54 PM one (with timing dependent on his travels) — see https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/09/29/alex-jones-use-the-promise-of-a-permit-and-a-stage-to-lure-hundreds-to-the-east-steps/#comment-903564.
[Ugh, not sure of the background buildings in bullhorn videos — sure would be interesting if in or *en route* to the one he passed through South (where Rhodes & SoRelle were hanging out, though more S/SSW in their videos) /SSE area to make one of those speeches … but they all had phones and radios and eyeballs so that’s likely of no matter anyway.]
And then he’s stacking right up the East steps (Marcy, gal_suburban).
Like I said, FAMILY CIRCUS MAP PLEASE!
[This is where I started that led to the ‘buckle up– cheers!’ detour, lol]
—
**doesn’t seem enough time has passed for them to get down to even the walkway, much less to Northeast Drive and back up; cf. Jones’ fitness level (in the Just Security/Reddit video, too, he is supported/held while on the platform and helped off with some effort).
Jones is known to apply liquid courage liberally when he’s making an appearance. I imagine it helps his cause to have loose lips. But I’ve seen him leading marches in the recent past, and he could just truck along in those videos, with no sign of physical disability. It might be that he was just staggering drunk there. (That’s the Joe McCarthy method of public speaking.)
[The second black-roofed thing on the left looks instead to be a bus shelter, not a (poss. Delaware Entrance) security hut.]
ETA: Leoghann: LOL! The Land of the Free and the Brave of the Booze!
I think he has some center-of-gravity and core muscle strength issues, judging by when and how he’s helped (ups & downs). He gets no ETOH defense for 1/6-ing!
[Was mentally mapping things out, not sure where to start so will go here — ]
There are here two separate “bullhorn” videos where Jones directs people to “the other side”: the one Marcy links from KarmaOneSixOne, and the one harpie links to the Just Security compilation above. The one at Just Security is isolated here, click Reddit link:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/01/28/tunnels-and-trump-the-missing-details-in-the-oath-keeper-conspiracy/#comment-880508
In the KarmaOneSixOne video, look at how Jones is curling his arm and looking with his head/eyes to gesture *backwards* (and to the right as you view it) to indicate “the other side” (0:33, 1:06+). [Could he be he towards the *south* with his back to the Capitol when he makes this video?] Perhaps he’s on the west with his face to Capitol and he’s just gesturing “backwards” to a walkway which will lead round –> N — > E: it’s tough to see but it looks like it could be the same building in the background as in Just Security/Reddit video, but with Jones closer to said building in the KarmaOneSixOne video.
In the Just Security/Reddit video (1:54 PM) (which also lacks that tree right next to Jones that’s visible in Karma video), the camera pans to show the Capitol in front of Jones, as he motions to the right (as you view it) to get people to the other side via the north (apparently, from other cues — seems like he is in the NW sector of the west side).
Anyone with input on location/time of KarmaOneSixOne video please advise.
Here’s a different perspective of the content in KarmaOneSixOne video which super clearly shows Jones is on the west side (NW — kicked out away from building) which explains the directional gesturing because his body is perpendicular to the building and he is trying to motion around –> N-NE around to the other side.
And FML, I’ve had this bookmarked for (at least) nearly four months. # 1/6 Capitol = TMI
https://twitter.com/CardinalConserv/status/1403768230108303364
1:36 PM · Jun 12, 2021
This video continues a little longer, after the “police – provocateurs” part Marcy quotes, Jones goes on to say:
Also, the crowd on this side follows his direction to tell the people behind you to MARCH TO THE OTHER SIDE, much yelling of same.
FINALLY: harpie or someone else who knows what they are talking about, please correct if I have left a giant croissant (error!) here @ 2:16 AM in newly thinking that the Just Security/Reddit bullhorn video was a separate event from the KarmaOneSixOne (and now this) video. I haven’t been able to find a contiguous (overlapping) video that would prove it. /Family Circus of the mind (I did warn to buckle up)
Did anyone notice the video just below the one Eureka posted where Alex Jones explains how the White House told him 3 days before that they are going to have him lead the march to the Capitol? https://twitter.com/CardinalConserv/status/1403771555172085763
I mean…that definitely sounds like the White House was calling the shots.
Alex must have a Ray Charles earworm today:
Well, I am no thief, but a man can go wrong when he’s busted
The food that we canned last summer is gone and I’m busted
So who IS the ultimate puppeteer? Is there one? These guys are all obviously mad. But is there one, who’s “method to it” is key?
Stone…
Bingo
Sure, his name is Donald J. Trump. Here’s my theory of the case.
Coming into the New Year, Trump is working a bunch of different angles to steal the Presidency. He’s lost all his court cases. Meadows is still flooding the DoJ with increasingly nonsensical fraud allegations. I think the peak was “Italian satellites changing votes”.
Jan 2Trump makes his now infamous call to Raffensperger and gets shot down. Immediately after that, he participates in a call with stage legislators from the six states he wants to contest. He tells them:
Eastman is on that call to explain what Trump wants those folks to do.
After the call with the state legislators, he participates in yet another conference call, this one with 50 House members, organized by Jim Jordan and Mo Brooks. Although they’re still talking a good game (Jordan has to earn that Medal of Insurrection, er, Freedom somehow), it’s pretty obvious Trump doesn’t have the votes to reject the six elector slates.
And that means he has to obstruct the certification on Jan. 6. After these calls on Jan. 2, Trump has three options for delaying the certification long enough for the legislatures to act.
1. Pence – at that point he’s still waffling
2. DoJ – Clark has told him that it’s possible
3. The mob – (I’ll explain how I think we can know that Trump was already considering this)
Jan. 3 Trump takes the following actions. He announces on Twitter that he would be speaking at the rally at the Ellipse. This was a surprise to both the organizers and the WH staff. He calls up Miller and tells him to protect his supporters on Jan. 6. This indicates that he’s making, at the very least, contingency plans to for violence on Jan. 6. Not directly connected to Trump, but Jan. 3 was also when a website went live promoting a march to the Capitol from the Ellipse. Ali Alexander and his crew promoted that website heavily on social media.
That evening, Trump tries to replace Rosen with Clark at DoJ, but is forced to back down. One of his options is gone.
Jan 4 Trump meets with Kathryn Pierson and takes total control of the Stop the Steal rally. He dictates who would be speaking, etc. The rabble (Alex Jones, Ali Alexander, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, III% Jeremy Liggett, and Enrique Tarrio were bumped to the Jan. 5th event). According to Alex Jones, not the world’s most reliable source, Trump asked him to lead the march from the Ellipse to the Capitol.
Jan. 5 Trump tweets about the crowds arriving. He specifically mentions McConnell, Cornyn, and Thune, but doesn’t @ them. The rhetoric in the pro-Trump speeches that day is incredibly violent. Meanwhile, Trump and his inner circle are meeting in a posh hotel for … reasons…Reuters reports that Pence won’t stop the certification. Trump is down to one option.
Concisely said, William!
All the rest – Stone, Bannon, Flynn, Alex Jones, etc – may have their own reasons and motives for taking part, but ultimately it is Trump who is driving the whole thing.
I have an uneasy feeling that it may be bigger than Trump and that Trump and his basket of deplorables are the useful idiots in a plan to not just divide the United States, but to destabilize the country make the United States of America vulnerable to something much worse than Trump.
There is a puppet master pulling Trump’s strings. There is a wanna-be-Dictator whisperer somewhere.
You can wind him up and set him on the floor, but someone is herding him in the ‘right’ direction.
This tracks pretty closely with the work that Seth Abramson has been doing (see his substack). I know there has to be some conjecture to connect some of the dots but when I see the same dots connecting on multiple fronts (and mostly not MSM) it gets very real
Seth Abramson ís a flat out crankpot. Nobody here, nor anywhere else, should listen to one word from him. And you would be well advised to not bring such garbage in here.
So…Alex Jones violated the permit terms then? What’s the fine in DC for that? Has anyone been cited by DC Metro or USCP for that violation yet?
Could also be the Park Service.
“Who is the ultimate puppeteer?”
Steve Bannon maybe? He’s been successful so far in staying in the shade of truth in the insurrection.
I sure would like to know who opened the east side doors from inside, if that’s what happened. Wouldn’t there be video?
OT but related:
Is there a chance DT will be successful with his lawsuit to block the release of WH records from Jan 6th?
Are his actions able to be determined whether campaign motivated or not? Are all decisions and actions related to Stop The Steal potentially all campaign actions and not Presidential actions?
No.
I don’t see how he can get away with claiming they’re campaign actions, since he’s a lame duck at that point.
Which campaign? 2024? Trump will claim anything that keeps his options open, and spin out litigation until the Supremes tell him, No. The GOP is following suit on every topic. Dems need to act like they understand that and govern this place without them – and relentlessly tell the public why they have to do that.
The promise of a permit and a stage?
From the overall quality of the mob Jones did attract, I would think it was more like the promise of free beer and unlimited nachos…
Just sayin’…
That was the ruse he used to get them over there, so they could conveniently storm.
Oh- and Today in Alex Jones:
Sebastian Murdock: “SCOOP: A Texas judge has ruled default judgements against Alex Jones and Infowars in two separate Sandy Hook cases. He will now be liable for all damages and a jury will now be convened to determine how much he will owe the plaintiffs. [HuffPo link]” [Thread]
https://twitter.com/SebastianMurdoc/status/1443698848698970113
6:06 PM · Sep 30, 2021
Yeah…
I read that yesterday…
Something that finally made me smile…
Just how foul and rank of a human sewer do you have to be, to try to use a horrific tragedy like Sandy Hook for personal profit and willingly step all over grieving parents in the process?
I’ll agree with the sewer part. The human part, not so much.
Yesterday I caught a YouTube clip of Rachel Maddow discussing Judge Emmet Sullivan’s reaction to the comments and behaviour of one of the January 6th rioters, Dawn Bancroft, who talked about wanting to murder Nancy Pelosi that day. Judge Sullivan said he found it hard to understand why everyday law-abiding American suddenly “morphed into terrorists” and attacked the Capitol. But in the case of Ms. Bancroft and others like her, perhaps no morphing was required and perhaps many of the January 6th insurrectionists were already primed and predisposed to act violently to help carry out Trump’s attempted coup.
There was an article by BuzzFeed News reporter Joseph Bernstein in the September 2021 issue of Harper’s Magazine, “Bad News: Selling the story of disinformation”, that addressed the question of how much influence social media really has on people’s attitudes and behaviour: “Is social media creating new types of people,” Bernstein asked, “or simply revealing long-obscured types of people to a segment of the public unaccustomed to seeing them? The latter possibility has embarrassing implications for the media and academia alike.”
Also, I just happen to be reading “The Hemingway Patrols: Ernest Hemingway and His Hunt for U-boats” by Terry Mort and came across this undated quote from Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway’s third wife: “I never for a moment feared Communism in the US but have always feared Fascism. Fascism, it’s a real American trait.”
The judge can’t really ask about specific reading material, but it would be nice if judges handling these cases could ask what gave the defendants the impression the actions they took on January 6 were legitimate, lawful exercises of free speech and not violent obstruction of government proceedings.
It’d be nice for mainstream media to have a mirror held up to its face for its role in aiding incitement. It’d also be nice to have on public record what alternative media (apart from social media) led to the insurrection.
Yes, exactly. Excellent suggestions.
Yes, those are the right questions, but not the likely ones to be asked.
She apparently also had information that the Park Police were dealing with troublemakers at the Washington Monument the *morning* of 1/6.
And today we have the beginning of Frances Haugen’s public campaign, following her release of a ton of damning information about the Zuckerberg empire. The DC judges keep asking these questions, and the media, for the most part, keeps ignoring them. But members of the public can work to deliver the answers, and some will.