PLANNING FOR THE CAPITOL RIOT WENT ON FOR WEEKS

 

                   …This item was planned for many weeks before January 6^th.

 

The defunct forum TheDonald.win was partially responsible for the riot on January 6^th.

 

In the weeks before supporters of the then-President Donald Trump assaulted the U.S. Capitol, they were serious about physically taking on Trump’s disloyal Congress members.  On an on-line forum called TheDonald.win, the people involved were out-spoken about how best to build a gallows for hanging U.S. Congress persons.  They were serious about becoming physical against and members of The U.S. Congress deemed disloyal to the then president..

They literally discussed what kind of lumber to use for the gallows, what kind of rope was best, and how many nooses for all the many disloyal members of Congress.

A user called “Camarokirk” had a much different suggestion: “I think we should build a guillotine,” he wrotre. “A guillotine is more scary.”

Another participant called AsaNisiMAGA countered with a practical concern: “It’s better symbolism in every way. But it might prove more difficult to get that big blade into town.”

Such conversations flowed freely and visibly on TheDonald.win for weeks.  This just underscored the openly violent intent of some of the thousands of Trump enthusiasts who thronged the Capitol on Jan. 6.  Also, you must add the intelligence failures of the authorities charged with preparing for that day.. These clashes left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.

Versions of the comments on the now-defunct site, they still show the chilling precision and pragmatism of the advanced planning for the assault whose reverberations are still shaking Washington.  There was a hearing this week that turned a harsh light on the operational missteps by the Capitol Police.  Comments on TheDonald.win were made using fictious names, and it is unknown whether any of those involved are among the more than 300 people who have already been charged in the siege.

Many have argued that President Donald Trump's efforts amounted to an attempted coup on Jan. 6.  

Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan research group, collected the different versions of the comments in a 135-page report it provided exclusively to The Washington Post. The report expands previous work done by the group and other researchers in chronicling how TheDonald.win and other online forums played a crucial role in fomenting, planning and celebrating the siege.

Much of what was described in the conversations on TheDonald.win actually came to pass on Jan. 6, prompting widespread recriminations against Trump for fueling the attack through tweets and other public comments.

The comments in the Advance Democracy report demonstrate the central role played by TheDonald.win, one of the most prominent online sites dedicated to supporting the former president, said Daniel Jones, a former FBI analyst and former Senate investigator who is now president of Advance Democracy.

“The website, TheDonald, played a far more central role in the January 6th Capitol insurrection than was previously known,” he said. “There are thousands of posts, with tens of thousands of comments, detailing plans to travel to Washington and engage in violence against the U.S. Capitol. The ultimate end goal of this violence was, on behalf of Trump, disrupt the Congress and overturn the presidential election.”

Following Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden in November, the then-president relentlessly made baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud and urged supporters to come to Washington to protest.  Most notably, in a Dec. 19 tweet Trump said: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

Many of Trump’s supporters treated the tweet as a directive, the report shows.

“I’LL BE THERE, AND I’LL BE WILD, SIR!!!” wrote user donaldismydad on TheDonald.win.  BathouseBarry wrote, “And we will be armed, and we won’t leave.”  “Nothing can stop what’s coming” wrote one participant in another far-right forum.

Soon, Trump’s supporters were trading travel tips, maps, money for gas, plans for cross-country caravans and hotel suggestions. One supporter described using his federal stimulus payment to help others go to Washington.

Users of TheDonald.win also shared advice on bringing firearms into Washington as well as how much ammunition to carry in case the protest turned into a gun battle.  They also discussed the legality of carrying other weapons, such as stun guns and small knives, that might not violate the city’s strict gun-control laws.

Other subjects of discussion were the proper length and brand of zip ties for detaining members of Congress and how to use a flagpole and other objects to attack police officers.

Users of TheDonald.win also shared diagrams of the tunnel systems beneath the Capitol complex and they speculated on how pushing the mob from behind could create a “wall of death”.  This would force police officers to abandon their positions.  The prospect of a potentially violent clash with the Capitol Police officers charged with protecting the building did not appear to concern most of those chatting on TheDonald.win.

“Cops don’t have ‘standing’ if they are laying on the ground in a pool of their own blood,” wrote a user.

TheDonald.win: which described itself as a “never-ending rally dedicated to the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump”.  It had its start as a forum that was notorious for conspiracy theories, racism and violent conversation.

At its peak in December, TheDonald.win reportedly generated more than a million visits a day.

Jody Williams, an Army veteran from Texas who helped moderate the site and owned its Web address, shut it down after the Jan. 6 attack. He has declined to comment and has sought to distance himself from the worst of what happened on the forum.  He told The Post that he was seeking to support Trump, but he struggled to remove the deluge of comments violating site policies amid battles with other moderators.

“Did I compromise some of my principles to do so? Without a doubt,” Williams acknowledged then. “Sometimes you swallow pills you don’t like to get things done. That’s the world we live in. … That’s politics.”

“Get ready to occupy the Capitol Building,” a user wrote on Dec. 27. “Find the tunnels. Arrest the worst traitors.... We need over a million angry people; at least 100k armed. Let them try to hurt us as civilians. Their support will collapse overnight.”

Another user wrote of the presidential vote certification process scheduled for Jan. 6, “If they ‘certify’ Biden, we storm capitol hill. Executions on the steps.”

Another user gave detailed instructions for a prolonged attack, writing “Keep your guns hidden (outside DC proper), walk into DC (good boots a must), bring your plate carrier, your flag, radio and charging kits (NO PHONES), your trauma kits (3 tourniquets, quick clot, packing), gas mask and extra filter (you need to be clean shaven), water (3 Liter minimum per person) and food ... How many people can a dead patriot save? none.”

The same individual also suggested “180 rounds minimum for main rifle, another 50 for sidearm, per person.”

The debate over building a guillotine or gallows ultimately got resolved in favor of a gallows, which those involved estimated could be built for as little as $200 in supplies.  The above gallows was in fact built on the National Mall on Jan. 6, providing one of the more haunting images from that day.

The intended message was summed up in a memo shared on TheDonald.win on Jan. 5, (the eve of the siege,) showing a heavily sweating man labeled “Congress” as he tried to decide which of two buttons to push.

One was labeled, “Certify Trump.” The other read, “Get Lynched By Patriots.”

The disgusting event of January 6^th, was an attempt to overturn a  fair U.S. election.  But due to our “less-than-honest” former president, there are still thousands of Americans that think that think the President Biden is an illegal president.

Will the greatest democracy of all time ever be the same?  Let’s hope so.

Copyright G. Ater 2021