UPDATE: Politico is reporting that the DHS is taking the August reinstatement conspiracy theory seriously in terms of stepping up efforts to follow discussions of extremists on social media, concerned about potential violence caused by disinformation pouring our of right wing media and lunatics like the Pillow Guy and other nonsense peddlers.  This story is coming from those who are familiar with a private briefing by DHS to members of Congress.

ORIGINAL POST: Seth Abramson, a defense attorney and author, has been after Trump for years.  His latest work is digging into how Trumpland planned and directed the insurrection on January 6, but he also has posited the only theory I’ve heard that makes any sense about one of Trump’s most outlandish lies, and that is how he’s going to be reinstated to the presidency in August.  Now, you know, and I know that there is simply no mechanism to restore someone to the presidency, even if an election was stolen, which this one most certainly was not.  Once the Congress certifies the Electoral College vote from the states and the new president is inaugurated, it’s over, game, set, and match period, end of story.  No one outside of the line of succession to the presidency can become president unless he/she is elected in the next national election.

So what the hell is Trump and his loudmouths doing?  Why is he repeatedly asserting he will be reinstated?  Abramson says that is all a dodge to avoid indictment in NY.  Abramson says that Trump believes that with his rallies starting back up and his incessant repeating of The Big Lie, he can keep his insurrectionist based whipped up and the threat of violence would be so great that prosecutors wouldn’t dare indict him for fear of major social unrest.  This is the only thing that makes any sense to me, that Trump believes he can keep the grift going long enough to run and win the presidency again in 2024, which will hold back the prosecutorial wolves from the door another 4 years.

https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1400470960587816961?lang=en

Sounds crazy, right?  Of course it’s crazy and I don’t think the NY AG or NY DA give a good goddam about Trump’s fantasies.  If they can nail him, they will, and they most certainly owe it to all of us Americans who suffered through over 4 years of the Trump Shitshow to protect our democracy by prosecuting that son of a bitch.  I do think Abramson is onto Trump, and having written about him for years, most certainly knows him well enough to have an informed opinion.  Besides that, NOTHING else makes the slightest bit of sense.

UPDATE 2: The Boston Globe is reporting that Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and her husband retreated to her office during the attack and staff barricaded and bolted the door.  When she went to her panic button (every office has one) she found that it had been ripped out.  Capitol Hill Police moved her several times to keep her away from the mob.

UPDATE 1:  New Jersey Rep. Mikie Sherrill told constituents on a live stream last night that she witnessed certain representatives actually giving tours of the Capitol on January 5th that she’s now realized were actually reconnaissance for the attack the following day.  She didn’t name them publicly, but is going to make sure that they are brought to justice along with other complicit representatives as well as Trump.  She does know what she’s talking about, being a Navy helicopter pilot and member of flag staff for a decade.  This story just piles more evidence on the emerging narrative that the attack was most certainly carefully planned and executed from the highest levels of the government.

ORIGINAL STORY: Seth Abramson, a NYTimes bestselling author and analyst for several networks, has compiled over 250 reports on last Wednesday and a seriously disturbing pattern is emerging about what events led to an invasion of the Capitol.  The punch line is that this entire sordid episode was planned and executed with the specific intent of disrupting the certification of the Electoral Vote long enough for violent extremists to actually stop the certification.  I won’t post the entire thread here, but you can read it here on Threadreader.  It is required reading to begin to understand what happened on January 6th.

To set the scene, here were the main players:

Trump
Giuliani
Rep. Biggs (R-AZ)
Rep. Gosar (R-AZ)
Rep. Brooks (R-AL)
Sen. Tuberville (R-AL)
Arizona Proud Boys
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall

Assisted by:

Ali Alexander, far-right activist
Roger Stone, friend and advisor to the president
Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign manager
Donald Trump Jr., son of the president

Roger Stone is in the center of this conspiracy (sound familiar?), is close to the Proud Boys, and coordinated the effort.  Alexander originally organized a “Stop the Steal” rally for January 6.  Stone had coined the term.  The event was eventually combined with another event, “Save America” which had been organized by a Trump dark money group.  Since the election, Trump has raised over $300 million from loyalists for “election defense” but much of the money apparently went to Stone and Manafort to organize the insurrection.  Stone recruited Biggs, Gosar, and Brooks in the house to object to the Arizona electoral vote, and got Tuberville to join in the Senate.

Here’s the money line:  THE ONLY REASON THEY WERE TO OBJECT TO THE ELECTORAL VOTE WAS TO DELAY THE CERTIFICATION LONG ENOUGH TO GIVE THE MOB, LED BY THE PROUD BOYS, TIME TO BREACH THE CAPITOL AND STOP THE CERTIFICATION COMPLETELY. 

Here are the Arizona Proud Boys at the Capitol.  They wore the orange hats to distinguish members during the invasion:

That, boys and girls, is chilling.  Seth Abramson has compiled public data that reveals a narrative that the President of the United States, one US Senator, three US Congressmen, a state attorney general, Trump’s insane attorney, two convicted felons, Trump’s shitbag son, and a violent far right group of extremists hatched a plan IN THE WHITE HOUSE to actually overturn a free and fair election, overthrow the US government, and hand it to Donald Trump, Dictator.  Apparently, idiots like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley were unwitting accomplices to the overthrow plot just trying to stay on the Crazy Train to 2024.

Read Abramson’s thread.  It will give you cold chills about how close the United States government actually came to collapsing on Wednesday, January 6, 2021.