I want this question answered because it is insane how many people were involved in the coup.

[fightforfreedom]

From county election officials, to state officials, to state legislators, to the Supreme Court, to the halls of congress, to the Whitehouse, that's how wide spread this coup was. All these people were not randomly acting alone, they were all on the same page. Ginni Thomas did not randomly contact Arizona officials. This was coordinated and you need a group of people to organize something this big.

We know Trump, Meadows, and Eastman were part of the coup command center. There has to be more. I want to know who. I have some ideas, but I want undeniable evidence.

The good news is all the people in the command center were using texts, e-mails, phones to coordinate the attack. I believe the committee has the evidence that will draw a straight line from the people at the command center directly to all the people involved in the coup. I believe they are going to lay out the evidence in great detail. Everyone is going to see it or at least hear about it. It is going to be stunning.

Hurry up June 9th and by the way, Fuck Trump.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. They surely believed they would succeed or ignored their mountain of evidence left behind

[NanceGreggs]

4. I posted about this a few days ago ...

... the fact that they obviously thought that right about now, they'd all be flush with power - their reward from Trump for having helped keep him in the WH.

Instead, they're all shitting themselves as the public hearings are about to begin - wondering what evidence the J6 Committee has on them, and what the consequences will be.

[agingdem]

14. what amazes/amuses me is their confidence they would

never be found out if their coup failed..(1) that texts, emails, phone logs would magically disappear and they could continue as before...(2) that they spoke so freely with no thought of an audio/video trail given everyone carries a cell phone (3) the blind trust they placed in Trump, the guy who would protect them from any criminal liability if by some remote chance they were tagged...(4) that The Gang That Couldn't Coup Straight is now shitting bricks because staff and aides hiding in closets, terrified for their lives, calling loved ones to say goodbye on January 6 "trumped" any loyalty they had to their bosses and their party and were in the process of spilling their guts to the J6 committee

[Generic Brad]

18. Simply put - they thought they couldn't lose

Blind faith will get you every time.

[NanceGreggs]

19. GMTA ...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216713149

[certainot]

45. two things- trump's royal certitude and talk radio, which was all on the same page

-- for the last 30 years the right and putin's takeover of the republican party in this century have been coordinated through 1500 coordinated radio stations - for most of it through limbaugh.

the giuliani powell press conference nov 17 was timed to start at the beginning of the limbaugh show - which gave them 15 mil more audience and limbaugh's cache. he was croaking and missing shows but he was the most important part of the whole trump thing - which now rots with limbaugh. it's amazing that media has completely missed the part talk radio has played in everything trump has done and now the fragmenting of the republican party because limbaugh's unifying hold over it is gone. they're falling apart and missing the central messaging he provided in interpreting events, rationalizing and excusing the lies and stupidity, and 'owning the libs'. he actually had a calming effect on the racists and radicals, including the army of radio blowhards that are trying to outdo each other now the real king is dead. now they're loose.

trump is insane with sex on the wrong brain royal certitude. he has always compensated for his stupidity and total lack of imagination by creating certainty in everything he does and his authoritarian followers find security and calm in the way he can reduce the complicated world full of uncertainty into a simple fantasy of absolutes. life became a game of golf - just going from one hole to the next. he actually believes his lies - he has to - if there was any doubt he would fall apart with fear. he can deny anything that doesn't fit his black and white, fantastic and terrible, good and evil, winner and loser world. his 'leadership' was based on his sex on the wrong brain authoritarian insanity - certainty is more important than truth. unfortunately humans have been normalizing that insanity as 'manly', 'confident', 'winner', etc. - certain......

his followers are also very capable of denial but as the doubt seeps in they will fall apart like the nazi 'empire'. guys like stone and manafort were helping the kremlin use that sex on the wrong brain secret of authoritarian power dynamic that trump and limbaugh embodied and that whole narrative is still built into the republican right narrative. the question is how much damage will they do before they realize how they were used, and some won't.

[summer_in_TX]

51. You're on to something there, certain.

"certainty is more important than truth."

I think you're right, Trump's delivery is so absolutely certain. It's the secret of how he wins them.

[paleotn]

21. That's the thing about coups.....

And the reason they're relatively rare. If you're going to do it, you'd better be goddamn sure you'll pull it off. Because if you don't, your fucked. There's no, oops, sorry. No going back. No forgiveness. The repercussions of failure are usually brutal. In most countries it means a quick firing squad or a noose. The penalty phase of failure apparently works much slower in America. Lets hope it works. I don't expect firing squads, though I wouldn't mind that in this case. It would get the point across in no uncertain terms. But I do expect lengthy prison terms when this is all said and done. Otherwise we should have just let them win and saved us all this trouble.

[riverbendviewgal]

33. In America, No

Remember the coup attempt against FDR. Noone got punished. Among them W Bush's relatives. Wikipedia General Butler who blew the whistle on them.

[mitch96]

48. "None got punished".. I think FDR used it as a lever to get his economic package passed

Never let a good crisis go to waste...

The Businessman's plot was in 1933 and big government social changes (Social Security for one) occurred in 1935. I have no proof but I believe that FDR used this "crisis" as a lever to get the social changes passed. My guess is that the senators and congressman were given a choice being convicted as seditionists traitors and shot? or pass the bill... Pick one...
YMMV
m
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

[Talitha]

40. And they trusted tfg... stupid, stupid, stupid.

When will they realize he's a soul-sucking vampire?

[NJCher]

2. I'm not so sure it was all that well thought out or coordinated

For example, when Meadows was approached by phone with some ridiculous proposed action, he responds, "Sounds good." I wish I could recall exactly what it was, but at the time I remember thinking what a fly by the seat of your pants operation this appeared to be.

Yes, a lot of people had faulty judgment and cast fate to the wind when they joined up with phone calls, but I don't think it was all that well planned.

Recall that McCarthy and others thought it was crazy and had to be pulled back on board.

[Escurumbele]

5. I do think it was coordinated, that it didn't work as planned was because there were a lot of

fanatical people involved, and lets face it, republicans are only good at lying, creating hate, and propaganda, but they are not good at governing or planning, although they did have it thought out and were counting on Pence and other officials to run away from fear.

The way it was supposed to work was like this:
1. The mob would attack the Capitol chanting for Pence's head, which they did.
2. And here is where they failed:
2.1 Pence was supposed to get into a car and fly away from the Capitol, which he refused to do, if he had that would have stopped the count.
2.2 There were also buses lined up to take the officials away from the Capitol, so if Pence refused to leave, they had plan B which was to take the officials away and thus stop the count.

That is why they failed, neither Pence (who I think did not go fearing for his life) or the officials accepted to leave, not because they did not plan it.

[PatSeg]

30. I think it was planned and somewhat coordinated,

but not very well. Good point about assuming that Pence would get into the car and plan B. Seems they were long on hubris, but short on actual strategy, much like their leader I suppose.

[stopdiggin]

37. +1. it was a rolling sh*t show

(lucky for us)
And like a lot of what Trump is involved in. The master strategist himself! Just ask!

----- --- --- -------- ---

[PatSeg]

43. Probably too much action/adventure movies

and reality TV, plus super doses of Donald Trump. Most of them are reality-deficient. So few even thought to cover their tracks often leaving obvious and plentiful breadcrumbs for authorities to follow. Posting videos on social media and freely exchanging texts and emails with other participants was especially helpful.

Stupidity in numbers I suppose.

[wnylib]

46. Some coups do fail on the first try.

Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch, for example.

They learn from their mistakes and keep on trying.

So we are not safe from a coup now just because the first one failed.

[PatSeg]

50. Oh, I agree

This movement isn't going to just evaporate overnight. Too many of those people are still out there and a lot of them of them are not finished yet. As countless experts have said, this is just a dress rehearsal. That is why it is important that as many people be held accountable as possible. History has warned us time and time again and the same thing is still happening all over the world.

[Roy Rolling]

6. Fair Point About Who Knew What and When

But not a significant distinction. In any large organization, secret information flows down from the top. As such, those on the very bottom are always clueless devotees of what they perceive as satisfying the top person’s goal.

They are all guilty as the one at the top, but the DOJ must follow the law in deciding what specific law each person broke—an impossible task. Flooding the system is part of the Republican plan of delay until people forget.

June 9th hearings will stop the delay and cover story “I didn’t know it was a coup, don’t chickens live in a coop? I’m clueless.”

Democrats learned an important lesson—it’s more theater than substance. And who is better at theater? Hollywood or K Street.

I rest my case until June 9th.

[Hugin]

13. Now that you mentioned it...

“Flooding the system is part of the Republican plan of delay until people forget.”

This would explain the insurrectionist with the bullhorns saying, “We need more people in this room.”

It makes sense that the plan was to dilute the crimes of the worst by adding in an overwhelming stream of misdemeanors.

[PatSeg]

36. And Trump of course

He is all about theater and distractions. For him, it is like breathing and though it is often absurd, he does it quite well. The problem for Trump and republicans is they use the same tactics over and over again. Eventually, all but the diehard right-wingers see through their games, well at least the ones who are paying attention.

Then again, perhaps there are those who realize it is all a charade and they don't really care, as their only objective is to win at any cost. That is what often makes it so hard to oppose republicans; they care more about winning than the truth.

[Escurumbele]

3. The extent of the conspiracy to bring down Democracy in the USA was staggering, but it also

reminds me of other events that have occurred in the USA where many people said to those who had theories about those conspiracies "please, how can you believe that so many people would be part of a conspiracy?", well now we know, a lot of people.

The difference with Jan 6, 2021 is that many of those involved did it willingly, other conspiracies that may have occurred in the USA where people were involved unwittingly because they were following orders, and may have not even known why they were being given those orders.

Conspiracies can be massive, and Jan 6 2021 has taught us that.

Too many unanswered questions in our time.

[stopdiggin]

35. much of what transpired was talked about openly

publicly, and frequently reported on. Lawsuits, elector slates, arm twisting state officials, the Pence scheme ... Doesn't a conspiracy need to have a certain clandestine element?

----- ---- -----

[gab13by13]

7. Yeah, the select committee is going to show the world,

how many people could have been prosecuted. The insurrection continues, unabated.

[Hugin]

15. Yep, it's now a cold coup...

In direct support of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and for no other discernible reason.

But, the mass media will not even come close to reporting the reality.

[Rebl2]

25. I don't

see how the media ignores it if they come out with explosive evidence.
It’s telling that these people that have been subpoenaed recently and refused to testify have something to hide. Don’t they understand that?

[samplegirl]

8. I really hope this

is not swept under the rug as a witch hunt!
These people all need to be held accountable by every American who really does care about their country!

[wryter2000]

31. A large minority of people

Are going to believe it’s a witch hunt no matter what the J6 committee does. They think dead Kennedys have come back from the grave. How old would JFK be now?

[MiHale]

9. The Democrats need to advertise the J6 hearings...

Like it was a blockbuster movie opening or a much anticipated TV show’s premiere. This sounds a little cold and not very empathetic but we need a huge turnout for the ENTIRE event. This could/should be a course correcting time for the country. Entice people to tune in day after day, tease “upcoming” scenes make them feel out of it if they don’t watch.

It’s summer time, schools out, days will be nice for outdoor activities, vacations start.

Advertise on every known media outlet. This is probably the top political story of all time in American history. Market it as such.

[Rebl2]

24. I thought

this was supposed to take place in April and am afraid people won’t watch for the reasons you give in second paragraph-summer time, vacation, outdoor activities.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

38. Agreed

Not sure how many people will be paying attention since this is the first covid restriction free summer for a lot of people. Honestly, I'll be on vacation with my wife that entire week, and then with the kids and some other family and friends the week after that. I'll have to catch the highlights on here or elsewhere afterwards because I know there is a pretty much zero chance I will be paying attention while it's live.

[The Magistrate]

10. Any Republican Party Official Or Legislator, Sir

Must at present be presumed guilty till proved innocent of sedition and insurrection.

That is how deep the rot has gone....

[wildman76]

11. It really has rocked my faith in the republic, one day we could wake up and be in a autocracy

[radical noodle]

12. I hope they also follow the money

Who funded all those trips back and forth that all TFG's "lawyers" took? Who funded the rally? There's money behind it and we know one or two of the funders, but are there more?

[fightforfreedom]

16. Good point. the committee has followed the money.

That is another straight line to the people at the top the committee can show.

[Scrivener7]

20. Poor kiyon. He disrupted badly. Bye, kiyon, you imbecile.

[hunter]

22. Was that Kevin McCarthy?

Bye, "kiyon"

[Scrivener7]

28. Maybe it was! But whoever it was, his pea brain was concerned that we are calling it a coup.

[Evolve Dammit]

23. perfectly stated

[Irish_Dem]

26. The GOP figures the DOJ would never prosecute half the US Congress.

[kentuck]

27. Were there more recruits?

Or were there more volunteers?

It was the most organized plot in history.

[stopdiggin]

29. to call what Ginni Thomas was doing 'organized'

is a stretch. Coordinated? Meh. Sidney Powell, Giuliani, Stone, Cyber Ninjas, Meadows, Brooks - even people within the White House were calling this a "circus' and a "clown car." Strategy? More likely a joke! (and fortunate for us!) Courts (and contemporaries) were routinely laughing these people out of the building.

Were there a kernel of serious people, with real ideas, somewhere in that unfolding sh*t show? Maybe. Most likely. But Ginni Thomas? Coordinated campaign? Please!
----- -----

[fightforfreedom]

32. My point about about Ginni is this.

I believe someone asked her to contact Arizona officials. I find it hard to believe she woke one day and said, I think I call the Arizona officials and ask them to overturn their election.

[stopdiggin]

42. it was being talked about on talk radio

All kinds of "this is a travesty!" and "these people need to hear .." was being stirred up and tossed about. Want to bet that AZ 'officials' got a lot of phone calls? And Ginni is just the kind of 'entitled' (and connected) little darling - that feels herself important enough to pick up the phone and call virtually anyone, for virtually anything that she takes a whim to. (and that is with or without 'direction' from on high - which is probably where you and I are going to part in disagreement. I don't think Ginni Thomas is nearly as 'important' as either you, or she, thinks she is.)

[BumRushDaShow]

34. Consider that although initially, it was viceral and haphazard to start

much of the "organizing and planning" began to take shape when various coup plotters began to look at what they considered "legal" justifications for their actions - notably locking onto this as their "get out of jail free" card -

Article II

Section 1.

The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:

Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii

So they started rounding up loon state legislators in states they wanted to flip and the plan was set into motion to "disrupt" and try to reverse the outcome before or on each date associated with the deadlines required to complete the Electoral College process, which included the following (this is where a Ginni Thomas "pressure campaign" comes into play) -

1.) Individual state deadlines to complete vote counts and certify the election
2.) "Safe Harbor" date when all certifications need to be done
3.) Electoral College meeting date and final vote
4.) Joint Congressional session to formally receive, publicly disclose, and carry out the final tally of the Electoral College results (this date being January 6, the day of the insurrection)

Here is a good historical summary of the process -

Biden's Victory Cemented As States Reach Key Electoral College Deadline

December 8, 2020 5:00 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition

(snip)

Most Americans see Election Day as the end of the long political season aimed at choosing new federal leadership, but it's really only the beginning. On Nov. 3, voters actually voted for which Electoral College electors to represent them, not for the presidential candidates themselves. Those electors then meet and cast votes, which are counted and finalized by Congress. "The Electoral College is pretty complicated because it's a process," said Rob Alexander, a political science professor at Ohio Northern University and the author of a book on the Electoral College. "It's not one thing, it's not one event."

(snip)

Poorly written legislation

The Tuesday deadline was put in place by a piece of 130-year-old legislation widely criticized as "almost unintelligible." The Electoral Count Act of 1887 came as a reaction to the presidential election of 1876, which saw Democrat Samuel Tilden win the popular vote but ultimately lose the presidency to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes because of contested election results coming from three Southern states under the control of Reconstruction governments. Congress had no rules in place to deal with such a scenario, so it created an ad hoc commission to decide the presidency and then passed the 1887 law afterward to avoid similar situations in the future.


The legislation is "extraordinarily complex" and "far from the model of statutory drafting," according to an analysis by the National Task Force on Election Crises, but it does create a clearer timeline for when states need to have their election results finalized. Electoral College electors are scheduled to meet in states across the country on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December (Dec. 14 this year) to cast their votes. And if a state has finalized its results six days before then, according to the ECA, then those results qualify for "safe harbor" status — meaning Congress must treat them as the "conclusive" results, even if, for example, a state's legislature sends in a competing set of results.

(snip)

Key Election Dates

Dec. 8: States finish vote certification

Dec. 14: Electors vote

Jan. 6: Congress formalizes the outcome

Jan. 20: Inauguration Day

"If a state can conclude its process of appointing electors by that [safe harbor deadline] then Congress is bound by federal law to accept the slate of electors that is arrived upon by that date," said Rebecca Green, the co-director of the Election Law program at William and Mary. Both Green and Alexander, of Ohio Northern, said they expect a few "faithless electors" to vote on Dec. 14 for a different candidate than voters chose but nowhere near enough to affect the underlying result. A majority of states have some sort of law that either removes, penalizes, or cancels the votes of such errant electors, and the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of such rules earlier this year. Trump allies in Congress may still look to stir drama during the electoral vote counting on Jan. 6, but a Biden presidency at this point is virtually certain.

(snip)

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/942288226/bidens-victory-cemented-as-states-reach-deadline-for-certifying-vote-tallies

The above December 8, 2020 NPR article was sadly prophetic with the last sentence in the above excerpt -

Trump allies in Congress may still look to stir drama during the electoral vote counting on Jan. 6, but a Biden presidency at this point is virtually certain.

And with the myriad of both state court-filed and federal court-filed lawsuits that ensued against multiple states including my own, without achieving the goal of "replacing Electors" before the final Electoral vote, then the plan was to go through the "objection" process (which was coordinated so that it would be guaranteed to proceed by having both of the statutorily-required House and Senate members signing on to each objection) and then the vote to accept or reject a state's electors (which they should have known would fail since they didn't control all of Congress). And while this was going on, the "go ahead" was given at the "Stop the Steal" rally analogous to Shakespeare's Mark Antony speaking about Caesar's spirit commanding "Cry havoc let slip the dogs of war".

And so that is what happened that afternoon of January 6 (where many on DU including myself, were watching it live on TV), with all hell breaking loose, until things were finally brought under control by about 5 pm ET with the purposely delayed but eventual arrival of the National Guard.

[TigressDem]

41. Cheating is cheating. Rigging an election is still wrong. Stealing is still wrong.

Pretending to be a victim in order to commit a crime is still committing a crime.


Enough BS.


There may be people honestly deluded because the media is a propaganda hole.

[BumRushDaShow]

49. I don't disagree

But what that post was about, given I live in Pennsylvania, which was one of the states that came under a fusillade of lawsuits and harassment by the GOP loons here, those from other states (notably TX), and from the swamp creatures associated with the then-head of the federal government, as part of the "planning", they were very explicit in how they were intending to "justify" overturning the election, and were targeting specific steps along the Electoral College process to do this.

I expect part of the reason was if the "legal" challenges didn't get the nod from the SCOTUS that Turtle installed, then they had the fall-back of a "plausibly deniable" (or maybe not) coup, involving the "removal" of the VP and Speaker of the House, who were both next in the succession line.

Link to tweet

West Wing Reports
@WestWingReport
·
Jul 18, 2020
Replying to @WestWingReport
This Day, 1947:
Harry Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act, which said the Speaker of the House was second in line to assume the presidency, after the vice-president. The order of succession, first established in 1792, had previously been amended in 1886
Image
West Wing Reports
@WestWingReport
2/
Current order of presidential succession:
1. Vice President (Pence)
2. House Speaker (Pelosi)
3. Senate Pro Tem (Grassley)
4. Secretary of State (Pompeo)
5. Secretary of Defense (Esper)
(and beyond)
5:04 PM · Jul 18, 2020

[stopdiggin]

44. excellent post! thanks. -(nt)-

[TigressDem]

39. And death to those who lead the treason show

TIME TO END THESE RIDICULOUS efforts to undermine Democracy for the benefit of the rich.




https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter115&edition=prelim


§2381. Treason

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

47. Well before 1/6, I was amazed at the money being spent for travel and rally setup.

It was known people were traveling from across the country and someone had to be paying those costs. That huge setup of a stage and sound gear was very expensive, too.

So, I was saying some deep pockets had to be involved and shocked at how it was all based on one big-ass lie!

I would like to see some of those deep pockets brought before the committee and dragged over the coals. They are the root source for many of our society's troubles.

KY......