This is the investigation that everyone has been watching, though we only see the surface. This is the one that must answer the biggest question lingering over the country. We know that Trump incited the attack on the Capitol. The question becomes, how much did he direct it, too.
We see stuff on Trump’s Twitter feed after the Electoral College count went against him. “Come to Washington January 6th, it will be wild!” We heard him on the stump, supposedly campaigning for Georgia’s senators, but instead talking about the need to “fight harder or you won’t have a country anymore!” We know of a meeting between Trump and Marjorie Taylor Green, a ridiculously underqualified and unserious Congresswoman, one who hadn’t worked a day in office yet, but famous for her Q-anon posts. In late December, she posted a video of her leaving a meeting in the White House about “January 6th.” Most freshman representatives go their entire first term without a White House visit, Marjorie Taylor-Greene was there for a “meeting” on a protest. Why?
The money? Much of it was “harvested” by Alex Jones.
And now the Washington Post says [1] that the FBI is looking into Roger Stone, the man who didn’t make it through one Trump term without being found guilty on several felonies, two of which directly related to whether he told the truth about what Trump knew about Wikileaks and their Russian origin. Trump pardoned Stone. Given that Stone was around Oath Keepers and Proud Boys the night before the insurrection, the FBI surely sees Stone as a major target.
This morning, the Washington Post is out with a new report [1]:
The Justice Department and FBI are investigating whether high-profile right-wing figures — including Roger Stone and Alex Jones — may have played a role in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach as part of a broader look into the mind-set of those who committed violence and their apparent paths to radicalization, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The Washington Post has to be entirely objective in their straight news coverage. We can say it’s hard to imagine a scenario where Stone wasn’t directly involved in organizing the insurrection.
“We are investigating potential ties between those physically involved in the siege on the Capitol and individuals who may have influenced them, such as Roger Stone, Alex Jones and [Stop the Steal organizer] Ali Alexander,” said a U.S. official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a pending matter.
Right. Left unsaid is that we can’t see how Stone could be involved without Trump knowing something, at least. In Trump’s speech, he told the protesters that he was marching up to the Capitol with them, and then rushed back to watch it “enthusiastically” on television. The question is whether there is direct evidence linking Stone, the Oath Keepers, and Trump. One thing we know, Trump doesn’t like evidence. Michael Cohen said Trump speaks in code, hates notes, hates anything on computer, and he knows that Stone will lie for him. If Trump knew the entire plan (a very tough element to prove) we suspect that the proof might have to go through someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
We published a report two days ago in which former Assistant Director of the FBI, Frank Figliuzzi, said that he believed we hadn’t heard near enough about the ongoing investigation and said he believes it is likely due to the fact that the investigation is ugly, so ugly that no one in the FBI or Capitol Police wants to talk about it, never mind the evidence being gathered.
They know the stakes:
“Just like the kingpin in a conspiracy, the fact he [Trump] gave directions doesn’t mean other conspirators are not guilty,” McCord said.
Michael M. Clarke, former lead FBI case agent, added, “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to think some people conspired.” However, he added, “That doesn’t mean you have a grand conspiracy involving everyone, but you may have loosely connected groups.”
You don’t need a grand conspiracy among the groups, you only need a few at the top agreeing among themselves and then speaking in code. And yes, it is true that even if Trump gave “directions,” it doesn’t mean the other conspirators are guilty, nor does it mean that they’re all connected in some kind of conspiracy. But the FBI wants something to pin on the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to get them talking. That is important.
Clearly, the FBI knows it cannot fumble this investigation. Once it starts handing stuff over to the DOJ (and notice that we still don’t have Merrick Garland confirmed? Puzzling, isn’t it?), we will await possible indictments. A lot of questions will be asked about Trump’s ultimate role and what the FBI found. As Figliuzzi said, if the investigation is revealing some “ugly” details, it makes sense that they will want to be very quiet until they can be so sure that it’s near undeniable. It is the only way if one wants to prosecute a former president. We might add that Trump doesn’t need to be directly involved, it could be someone else in the White House.
We suspect we will read a lot more stories like the above, each one revealing a couple more nuggets. We all know that Trump bragged throughout his administration that he had “the tough guys” with him. It is not surprising that those tough guys were caught up in what Lauren Boebert referred to as the “1776” day.
****
Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak