Court records show that supporters of former President Donald Trump were openly talking about “revolution” prior to the January 6 Capitol riots and insurrection that left five people dead and did extensive damage to the Capitol building.
According to a disturbing new report from NBC News, one FBI agent informed her superiors that chatter in online groups suggested violence was planned for the day Congress came together in a joint session to certify the 2020 election and name Joe Biden 46th President of the United States:
“A review of open source and social media posts leading up to and during the event indicates that individuals participating on the ‘Stop the Steal,’ rally were angered about the results of the 2020 presidential election and felt that Joseph Biden had unlawfully been declared ‘President-Elect,'” FBI Special Agent Patricia Norden wrote. “Users in multiple online groups and platforms discussed traveling to the Capitol armed or making plans to start a ‘revolution’ on that day.”
Despite the report from Agent Norden, top FBI officials, including Director Christopher Wray, have repeatedly downplayed social media posts from Trump acolytes and said internet postings provided no “actionable” warnings of a mob event planned for Jan. 6, with Wray remarking at a congressional hearing:
“To my knowledge, sir, we did not have actionable intelligence that indicated that hundreds of people were going to breach the Capitol or storm the Capitol.”
Post-Jan.6, the Department of Homeland Security has announced a new policy of collecting intelligence “about domestic extremism from public social media posts, focusing not on individual posters but on broader narratives that can offer insights into threats.”
Media reports of postings prior to the Capitol insurrection make it clear that violence was indeed being planned, with one person posting in December:
“You know there will be riot police preventing us from getting in the capitol building. What if we created a stampede/crush situation? Start pushing from the back. Surely they will have to get out of the way or get crushed. They’re not going to start shooting people.”
It would appear that as happened prior to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, multiple U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies simply dropped the ball, as Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N) noted shortly after Director Wray testified before the House Oversight Committee:
“This was a massive intelligence failure by the FBI, plain and simple.”
Even more chilling is the fact that had the insurrectionists/would-be revolutionaries not been put down with force, we might well be living in a totalitarian state right now, with Donald Trump as Emperor for Life.
