Rolling Stone: Members of Congress Helped Plan Jan. 6 Rallies
Rolling Stone has a major new story out:
Some of the people involved in the January 6th coup attempt on the United States government are starting to talk to the select committee, and have also spoken to Rolling Stone as well.
Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent. [emphasis added]
The two sources, both of whom have been granted anonymity due to the ongoing investigation, describe participating in “dozens” of planning briefings ahead of that day when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as his election loss to President Joe Biden was being certified.
“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”
This is bombshell-level sh!t.
While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.
Greene was far from the only Congresshacker taking part:
Along with Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
“We would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back,” says the organizer.
The Select Committee is on top of it:
The House select committee investigating the attack also has interest in Gosar’s office. Gosar’s chief of staff, Thomas Van Flein, was among the people who were named in the committee’s “sweeping” requests to executive-branch agencies seeking documents and communications from within the Trump administration.
One of those “communications” was the possibility of a “blanket pardon” from Trump for sedition. Correction: Gosar made a suggestion that Trump would issue a pardon to some of the people involved for an “unrelated event” (unspecified) to encourage them to work on the protests. If this isn’t entirely clear, it’s because Rolling Stone says they're withholding some of the details in order to preserve anonymity.
The two sources (Rolling Stone says it also has spoken to a third) say they are willing to testify publicly. They also say they were Trump supporters and believed in him, they came forward because they were freaked out by the violent insurrection. (Potential legal liability might also be a factor.)
Despite their remaining affinity for Trump and their questions about the vote, both sources say they were motivated to come forward because of their concerns about how the pro-Trump protests against the election ultimately resulted in the violent attack on the Capitol. Of course, with their other legal issues and the House investigation, both of these sources have clear motivation to cooperate with investigators and turn on their former allies. And both of their accounts paint them in a decidedly favorable light compared with their former allies.
My feeling is that leadership, particularly McCarthy, didn’t know about this in advance. The named Congresstraitors are mostly first-termers and a few long-term idiots like Gohmert. But I’m absolutely certain that McCarthy learned about it within a few days, and ever since he’s been trying to keep this from getting out. But it didn’t work.
It’s not over by a long shot. But we’re getting there. Those Kossaks who are screeching about how nothing is getting done and the coupsters are getting away with it should take the rest of the evening off, and maybe tomorrow, while we watch how this plays out.
