Donald Trump planned to lead a march of his supporters to the U.S. Capitol as Congress was voting to certify the 2020 election, but didn’t want anybody outside of a few in his inner circle to know.
This was the bombshell revelation from today’s House Jan. 6 Committee hearing, which detailed how Trump wanted the mob descending on the Capitol to look spontaneous.
The committee revealed an email from Katrina Pierson, a rally organizer, who informed fellow organizers after a Jan. 2 phone call with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that Trump was planning to “call on everyone to march to the Capitol.”
Another rally organizer, Kylie Jane Kremer, wrote in a Jan. 4 text message that it was important to keep the plan secret to avoid alerting the National Park Service.
“This stays only between us, we are having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the ellipse,” Kremer wrote. “POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol. It cannot get out about the second stage because people will try and set up another and sabotage it. It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’”
Not only would keeping the planned mob march on the Capitol a secret prevent a counterdemonstration, the secrecy would also, critically, keep the U.S. Capitol Police in the dark as to what to expect in terms of its planning for security needs.
‘All hell will break loose’
Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was privy to what was going on.
Bannon predicted on a Jan. 5, 2021 podcast that “all hell will break loose” the next day, and it was revealed by the committee Tuesday that Bannon had talked twice that day with Trump.
“It’s all converging,” Bannon said on the podcast, “and now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack, right, the point of attack tomorrow. I’ll tell you this, it’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen. It’s going to be quite extraordinarily different. And all I can say is, strap in.”
Bannon, who is facing contempt charges for refusing to testify before the Jan. 6 committee, agreed over the weekend to finally appear before the committee.
The judge in his pending trial ruled on Monday that the trial will go on as scheduled next week nonetheless.
The shock troops
A former spokesperson for the far-right Oath Keepers told the committee that the group saw Jan. 6 as an opportunity to lead “an armed revolution” that its members hoped could become a “new civil war.”
Jason Van Tatenhove testified that Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes aspired to be a “paramilitary leader,” and saw opportunity in Trump’s call for supporters to assemble in Washington for the 2020 election certification.
“I think we need to quit mincing words and just talk about truths, and what it was going to be was an armed revolution,” Van Tatenhove said. “I mean, people died that day. Law enforcement officers died this day. There was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there. That would have been good for no one.”
‘The president got everybody riled up’
Stephen Ayres, who pleaded guilty to one charge of disorderly conduct in connection with the riot, said he had only planned to attend the rally, but then decided to march on the Capitol because, in his words, “the president got everybody riled up, told everybody to head on down. So, we basically, we were just following what he said.”
Washington Democrat Stephanie Murphy asked Ayres how he felt as he made his way to the Capitol.
“I’m angry, you know, after everything that was basically said in the speech. A lot of the stuff he said, he already put out in tweets. I’ve already seen it and heard it before. So, I was already worked up, and so were most of the people there,” Ayres said.
Murphy then asked Ayres if he thought there was a chance that the election would be overturned.
“Yeah, at that time I did,” Ayres said, “because everybody was kind of like in the hope that Vice President Pence was not going to certify the election. Also, the whole time on our way down there, I kept hearing about this big reveal I remember us talking about. And we kind of thought, maybe that was it. That hope was there.”
Did you expect the president to march with you, Murphy asked.
“Yeah, I think everybody thought he was going to be coming down. He said it in his speech. You know, like he’s going to be there with us. So, I mean, I believed it,” Ayres said.
Trump, from previous testimony to the committee, did expect to be able to march with his supporters to the Capitol, and was upset with his Secret Service detail when he was told that it wasn’t safe.
This after having been advised by counsel that his presence at the Capitol as the certification process was playing out could lead to serious legal consequences.
What made you decide to leave, Murphy asked.
“Basically when President Trump put his tweet out. We literally left right after that came out,” Ayres said. “You know, to me, if he would have done that earlier in the day, 1:30, I, you know, maybe we wouldn’t be in this bad of a situation or something.”
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Chris Graham
