Text Messages Show Top Trump Campaign Fundraiser’s Key Role Planning the Rally That Preceded the Siege

Caroline Wren, a Trump fundraiser, is listed as a “VIP Advisor” in a National Park Service permit for the Jan. 6th rally at the Ellipse. Text messages and a planning memo show the title downplays the active role she played in organizing the event.

In the week leading up to the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that exploded into an attack on the Capitol, a top Trump campaign fundraiser issued a directive to a woman who had been overseeing planning for the event.

“Get the budget and vendors breakdown to me and Justin,” Caroline Wren wrote to Cindy Chafian, a self-described “constitutional conservative,” in a Dec. 28 text message obtained by ProPublica.

Wren was no ordinary event planner. She served as a deputy to Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, at Trump Victory, a joint presidential fundraising committee during the 2020 campaign. The Justin mentioned in her text was Justin Caporale, a former top aide to first lady Melania Trump, whose production company helped put on the event at the Ellipse. Continue reading.

Lincoln Project demands Rudy Giuliani retract “textbook act of defamation”: “Refuse at your peril”

Lincoln Project demands Rudy Giuliani retract “textbook act of defamation”: “Refuse at your peril”

Former New York City Mayor Rudy was put on notice that he must retract his allegations that the Lincoln Project was responsible for organizing the fatal Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

On Friday, Giuliani blamed the Lincoln Project for the riots by Trump supporters during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast.

Giuliani suggested that insurrection was a false flag operation, saying that it was “wolves in sheep’s clothing” that were behind the insurrection. Continue reading.

First on CNN: Trump’s impeachment defense team leaves less than two weeks before trial

Former President Donald Trump’s five impeachment defense attorneys have left a little more than a week before his trial is set to begin, according to people familiar with the case, amid a disagreement over his legal strategy. 

It was a dramatic development in the second impeachment trial for Trump, who has struggled to find lawyers willing to take his case. And now, with legal briefs due next week and a trial set to begin only days later, Trump is clinging to his election fraud charade and suddenly finds himself without legal representation.

Butch Bowers and Deborah Barbier, who were expected to be two of the lead attorneys, are no longer on the team. A source familiar with the changes said it was a mutual decision for both to leave the legal team. As the lead attorney, Bowers assembled the team. Continue reading.

How Trump’s Focus on Antifa Distracted Attention From the Far-Right Threat

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Federal law enforcement shifted resources last year in response to Donald Trump’s insistence that the radical left endangered the country. Meanwhile, right-wing extremism was building ominously.

WASHINGTON — As racial justice protests erupted nationwide last year, President Donald J. Trump, struggling to find a winning campaign theme, hit on a message that he stressed over and over: The real domestic threat to the United States emanated from the radical left, even though law enforcement authorities had long since concluded it came from the far right.

It was a message that was quickly embraced and amplified by his attorney general and his top homeland security officials, who translated it into a shift in criminal justice and national security priorities even as Mr. Trump was beginning to openly stoke the outrage that months later would culminate in the storming of the Capitol by right-wing extremists.

Mr. Trump’s efforts to focus his administration on the antifa movement and leftist groups did not stop the Justice Department and the F.B.I. from pursuing cases of right-wing extremism. They broke up a kidnapping plot, for example, targeting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Democrat. Continue reading.

Lifelong Republican Donor Quits GOP: ‘Absolutely’ Now The Party Of QAnon

“If you stay in the Republican Party, you have to pay homage to Trump and I don’t do that. I don’t pray to any man,” said Houston immigration lawyer Jacob Monty.

Lifelong Republican donor and activist Jacob Monty revealed this week he has quit the GOP and joined the Democratic Party, citing the deadly U.S. Capitol riot incited by former President Donald Trump as “a bridge too far for me.”

“I’m out,” the immigration lawyer from Houston told Erin Burnett on Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront.” (Watch the video above).

Burnett asked Monty ― who voted for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election ― if the GOP was now more the party of the unhinged QAnon conspiracy theory than of conservatives like himself. Continue reading.

Here’s What Happens to a Conspiracy-Driven Party

The modern GOP isn’t the first party to embrace huge conspiracies. But the lessons should be sobering.

The rise of QAnon beliefs in Republican politics has been treated with a degree of shock: How could a fringe Internet conspiracy theory have worked its way into the heart of a major political party? The ideas behind the QAnon movement are lurid, about pedophilia and Satan worship and a coming violent “storm,” but the impact is real: Many of the pro-Trump Capitol insurrectionists were QAnon supporters, as is at least one elected Republican in Congress. 

As tempting as it to take the rise of conspiracy theories as a singular mark of a partisan internet-fueled age, however, there’s nothing particularly modern or unique about what is happening now. To the contrary. Conspiracy theories as they say, are as American as apple pie — as are their entanglement with nativist politics.

Those currents have usually flowed beneath the surface, but for a time in the middle of the 19th century, they broke out into the open, powering a major political movement that dominated state governments, ensconced itself in the House of Representatives and became a credible force in presidential elections. The American Party, popularly referred to as the “Know Nothings,” may not have seized the White House, but its story bears an uncanny resemblance to what’s happening within today’s Republican Party. Continue reading.

Capitol Rioters Blamed Antifa For The Insurrection. You’ll Never Guess What Happened Next.

They got arrested, not antifa.

Peter Stager was at the Jan. 6 “Save America” protest rally that descended into an insurrection after then-President Donald Trump told attendees to march on the U.S. Capitol and “show strength” as part of a plot to stop the counting of electoral votes taking place at that time.

“Death is the only remedy for what’s in that building,” Stager is heard saying in a video posted to social media that was recorded as the rioters approached the Capitol building.

Soon afterward, Stager could be seen using a wooden pole bearing an American flag to beat a Metropolitan police officer who had been dragged down the west-facing steps of the Capitol. Stager later told an acquaintance — who then reported him to federal investigators — “that he thought the person he was striking was ANTIFA,” the left-wing anti-fascist group that often clashes with the far-right, according to charging documents. The words “Metropolitan Police,” were clearly visible on the fallen officer’s clothing as Stager beat him. Stager was arrested in Arkansas on charges of civil disorder on Jan. 14.

Ukraine stayed quiet during Trump-era pressures. Now it’s sharing some Giuliani tales.

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KYIV — There was a consistent message from Ukraine’s leadership over everything from the Trump campaign’s dirt digging to the country’s central role in the first impeachment proceedings: No comment.

But now, as the Biden administration settles in, some close allies of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are opening up about one of the longest-running dramas from the Trump era — the blitz of meetings, messages and public statements in Ukraine by former president Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Among the accounts emerging from Ukrainian officials is a July 2019 phone call between Giuliani and Andriy Yermak, formerly one of Zelensky’s top aides and now his chief of staff. Yermak said the conversation was the first direct contact between Giuliani and the Zelensky administration and, until now, was only discussed in general terms. Continue reading.

Trump notches court wins by running out clock on lawsuits

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Former President Trump left office as numerous lawsuits against him and his administration still hung in the balance, a result that legal experts say was part of a calculated strategy to run out the clock and avoid accountability while in the White House.

By dragging his feet in court, Trump evaded subpoenas for his tax returns and dodged a final ruling on whether his continued business dealings violated the Constitution’s ban on profiting off the presidency.

His administration also upended the legal process, experts say, by treating emergency requests to the Supreme Court as a standard litigation move, often with success. Continue reading.

White Nationalist Facing Election Indictment — And Carlson Defends Him With Lies

On January 27, the Department of Justice announced that it had filed charges against Douglass Mackey, alias “Ricky Vaughn,” regarding allegations that he had interfered with the 2016 election. Mackey, a white nationalist who was eventually banned from Twitter, allegedly conspired to use social media to spread false information about voting in 2016 – specifically, claiming that people could text in their votes. Parts of the misinformation campaign appeared to target Black and Latino people. The complaint alleges that “at least 4,900” telephone numbers did just that.

Fox host Tucker Carlson ignored what Mackey’s actual charges claim and instead shouted that Mackey had merely “hurt [the] feelings” of liberals. Carlson said that Mackey’s arrest was proof that the First Amendment is “effectively suspended,” and he declared that “we are clearly living under some form of martial law at the moment.”

Carlson was flatly pushing lies. He either didn’t read the one-page Department of Justice press release explaining the charges of voter disinformation or decided to just flat-out lie given that his own network argues no reasonable viewer takes him seriously anyway. Mackey’s posts solicited people to text a specific number to vote, and there is evidence a large number of them did. There are no “meme” or “LOLz” exceptions for breaking the law. Continue reading.