This is the shoe that everyone has been watching, wondering if it would drop. Everyone, all of us, wanted to know if the White House was coordinating with the people leading the insurrection.

Did the White House plan for people to get into the Capitol and disrupt the January 6th proceedings?

There have been hints, weird meetings with new representatives in Congress, the funding with Alex Jones, Trump watching it all play out “enthusiastically,” the peculiar fact that the national guard was nowhere to be seen, almost an open invitation through the front door, and a Jim Acosta tweet on January 6th quoting a “White House Official in contact” with the insurrectionists saying the goal was to stay inside the Capitol all night. All the above were just “hints.” Very strong hints.

There was and continues to be enough smoke that people need to know whether the White House helped coordinate the insurrection. What did Trump know? What did he do? When did he know it? Who did he speak to? All questions we asked in the days after the insurrection. We are still asking.

And now perhaps the biggest development yet. According to Yahoo News:

A member of the Proud Boys was in contact with someone in former President Donald Trump’s White House in the days before the Capitol Attack on January 6, The New York Times reported.

An anonymous source who is familiar with a cellphone data report from the Federal Bureau of Investigations told the Times that it’s not clear what they discussed and did not disclose the names of either individual.

The information was found partly as a result of data the FBI got from technology and telecommunications companies immediately after the riot, when Trump supporters breached the US Capitol and clashed with law enforcement.

“Via cell phone and location data, the bureau determined that person linked to Donald Trump’s White House and one of the Proud Boys corresponded in the lead-up to the mobbing…” Makes you wonder what will be revealed on the phone data of some others. https://t.co/u0WMqsGHLd

— Barbara Malmet (@B52Malmet) March 6, 2021

And this might shed light on another hint that most people had forgotten in the shock of that day:

NYT says the FBI has now found phone contacts between the Trump WH and the Proud Boys, similar to this never-further-explained @acosta tweet from January 6th https://t.co/SDsZGzUs8o https://t.co/n36Y9dxpz6

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) March 6, 2021

This raises the stakes considerably. An officer lost his life during the insurrection, several insurrectionists did as well. The insurrection could also be seen as a treasonous attempt to overthrow the government of the United States. Any conspiracy to initiate this insurrection could easily bring about charges related to that death and treason. To the extent that the White House was involved in any phase in planning the insurrection, anyone who knew anything could be considered part of the conspiracy.

We are left with the words of former assistant FBI director Frank Figliuzzi from a week ago (paraphrased): The investigation is going too slow and is too quiet, this often means that the agents themselves are uncomfortable with what they’re finding, the details are too disturbing.

If the president was involved in planning this, one almost wonders if that information would be suppressed “for the benefit of the country” rather than rip this nation into shreds with an arrest of that magnitude. We hope not. But three days ago we reported on a leak from someone “close to the investigation” which said the FBI had cellphone records from members of Congress. Now we hear this. Why are these leaks springing now?

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak