"Our government conceived in freedom and purchased with blood can be preserved only by constant vigilance."
– William Jennings Bryan (1860 – 1925), quote in the Cox corridor of the House of Representatives, United States Capitol Building
Did you ever wonder how all of those riotous Trump supporters got to Washington D.C. to protest on January 6, 2021? Who organized and funded the fateful event? In a relatively short time, many groups of Trump supporters were summoned to protest the official results of the 2020 Presidential Election.
Who provided directions, schedule information, and funds for the insurrection? The coordination of the attack was not happenstance, rather it was well-planned. Those who took part in the pandemonium caused indelible damage to both a sacred institution and to the soul of America. Their garish display of violence stained the nation's capitol and the legacy of democracy.
Besides Donald Trump himself, who was to blame?
After all, many of those in attendance flaunted Trump garb, flags, and other “stop the steal” paraphernalia that must have run a pretty penny. And, not to be judgmental, but lots of the people in the crowd looked as if they were common folks with meager means – in fact, many claimed to be representatives of that poor segment of society. Food, hotel rooms, and transportation could not have been cheap. There had to be considerable funding to support the organized mayhem.
Those who participated were scripted in their divisive actions. Big money played a significant part in the unwarranted protest. So, who helped fund what turned into a major insurrection and one of the darkest days in American political history? The answer is alarming and revealing of a tangled web of conspirators.
Dark Money and Women For America First
A web of pro-Trump dark money groups helped organize the rally that led to a deadly riot on Capitol Hill. ABC News reported that “President Donald Trump’s political apparatus worked behind the scenes with pro-Trump groups to plan and promote events in Washington, D.C., that ultimately led to Wednesday’s attack on Congress.”
(Will Steakin, John Santucci, and Katherine Faulders. “Trump allies helped plan, promote rally that led to Capitol attack.” ABC News. January 08, 2021.)
The rally, officially known as the “March to Save America,” was largely organized by a 501(c)(4) group known as “Women for America First.” The organization was certified by the Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit that can engage in limited political activities. These groups are known as “dark money organizations” as they do not publicly disclose their donors.
OpenSecrets (Center For Responsive Politics) estimated that dark money groups injected more than $750 million into the 2020 elections — and that does not account for other dark money that funds propaganda, misinformation, and astroturf organizing. It should not be controversial to subject dark money to sunlight and disclosure. In fact, understanding dark money is essential to voters’ ability to evaluate the merits of political messages – and to know how certain special interests may be trying to curry favor with politicians.
Women for America First is chaired by Amy Kremer, a longtime political operative who was once the head of the Tea Party Express, an organization that was created to support the conservative Tea Party movement.
Mother Jones reported in November 2020 that Kremer’s Tea Party Express was “well known for being run by a political action committee that raised tons of money from small donors and spent most of it on the political consultants who started the PAC rather than on candidates.” Women for America First is essentially part of Trump’s political operation.
(Ali Breland. “ A Massive “Stop the Count” Facebook Group Has Ties to Republican Operatives.” Mother Jones. November 05, 2020.)
Amy Kremer was the chair of TrumPAC, a super PAC supporting Donald Trump's campaign in the 2016 presidential election. TrumPAC later changed its name to “Great America PAC.” In 2017 she unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in a special election in Georgia's 6th congressional district.
Women for America First's Facebook pages called on their supporters to be part of what they described as a “caravan” to Washington D.C. for the “March to Save America." event on January 6. Posts said to meet at an address in Virginia on January 5, the day before the now infamous rally, to “join the caravan to D.C.”
Kylie Jane Kremer – Amy's daughter and the executive director of Women for Trump –promoted the rally through a Twitter post retweeted over 16,000 times and, she noted that it was shared by the president himself. (On January 3, Trump tweeted he would be there.) When asked if her organization would accept the results if Congress certified President-elect Joe Biden's win, Kremer said, “we will cross that bridge when we come to it.”
(Brian Schwartz. “Pro-Trump dark money groups organized the rally that led to deadly Capitol Hill riot.” CNBC. January 09, 2021.)
Kylie Jane Kremer on January 1 …
“The calvary is coming, Mr. President. January 6th Washington, DC. TrumpMarch.com. #MarchForTrump #StopTheSteal” — in a retweet, which included an image that displayed Trump’s Dec. 19 tweet promoting the event adjacent to text that says, “The President is calling on us to come back to Washington on January 6th for a big protest – ‘Be there, will be wild.’”
(Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson and D'Angelo Gore. “Road to a Second Impeachment.” Factcheck.org. January 12, 2021.)
On January 6, 2021, Women for America First hosted the event under the permit. The Washingtonian obtained the permit used for the rally and reported Kylie Jane Kremer was named on the rally’s permit as the person in charge. The permit says that the anticipated number of attendees was 5,000 people. The application was originally filed on November 24 for January 22 and 23 – the weekend after the presidential inauguration. But it was later amended for January 6.
(Andrew Beaujon. “Here’s What We Know About the Pro-Trump Rallies That Have Permits.” The Washingtonian. January 05, 2021.)
On January 6, Amy Kremer told thousands of self-styled patriots in Ellipse park, south of the White House, in one of many warm-up speeches for Trump …
“It is up to you and I to save this Republic. We are not going to back down, are we? Keep up the fight!”
On the Saturday after the riot, Amy Kremer defiantly tweeted …
“Joe Biden will NEVER be my president.”
(Joseph Tanfani, Michael Berens, and Ned Parker.”How Trump’s pied pipers rallied a faithful mob to the Capitol.” Reuters. January 11, 2021.”)
Right-wing Radicals
The crowds that rally organizers recruited were joined in Washington by more radical right-wing groups that have increasingly become a fixture at pro-Trump demonstrations – including white supremacists and devotees of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which casts Trump as a savior figure and elite Democrats as “a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles and cannibals.”
(Joseph Tanfani, Michael Berens, and Ned Parker.”How Trump’s pied pipers rallied a faithful mob to the Capitol.” Reuters. January 11, 2021.”)
Jared Holt, visiting research fellow with the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, where he has been focused on extremist online activity, reported Trump's claims fueled increasingly heated rhetoric since the election, Holt says – spiking in the last couple of weeks as Trump doubled down on conspiracy theories like the false and unfounded notion that a company that makes electronic voting systems had deleted votes for Trump.
Holt explains …
"Then it really, really went nuts After Trump promoted a January 6 protest in D.C., a lot of his extremist supporters interpreted this as a call to action for them."
Holt and his colleagues saw fringe social media sites fill with messages organizing logistics for that date, as well as activation of anti-government extremists like militia groups, conspiracy theorists and white nationalist activists "on a scale and volume that we haven't seen at any other point during the electoral process this cycle."
On forum boards like TheDonald and antigovernment and militia movement group chats, those conversations included plans to surround the Capitol on all sides, alongside maps of the U.S. Capitol complex marked with locations of tunnels and entry points.
Holt says …
"And there was discussion specifically of overwhelming police with large crowds and doing that in order to violate laws against carrying weapons and against entering federal buildings.”
(Laurel Wamsley. “On Far-Right Websites, Plans To Storm Capitol Were Made In Plain Sight.” National Public Radio. WOUB. January 7, 2021.)
On “TheDonald.Win" forum, which replaced the banned subreddit The Donald, a user wrote, “Storm the capitol” and another added, “My truck is lifted and I have a plow on it right now. What do you need Mr. President?”
In a separate thread about Congress, someone wrote, “Please, I dare them to defy the constitution while millions of patriots are anxiously waiting to hang them and gun them down in the streets like the tyrants they are.” Posters also expressed hostility towards law enforcement officers for their role in enforcing gun restrictions. Said one user in a thread about the restrictions, “Travel in packs and do not let them disarm someone without stacking bodies.”
(“Extremists and Mainstream Trump Supporters Plan to Protest Congressional Certification of Biden's Victory.” Anti-defamation League. January 05, 2021.)
Oath Keepers announced on January 4 that they will have multiple volunteer "security" teams in Washington D.C. on January 5 and 6, 2021. The organization said their members, who may be "undercover" and not identifiable as Oath Keepers, would provide security for speakers, event attendees and Trump supporters as they walked across the city.
Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, the Proud Boys president, wrote in a late-December post on Parler, a social media platform that has become popular with right-wing activists and conservatives, …
“The Proud Boys will turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th but this time with a twist. We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow. We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown DC in smaller teams. And who knows….we might dress in all BLACK for the occasion. The night calls for a BLACK tie event.”
(A.C. Thompson and Ford Fischer. “Members of Several Well-Known Hate Groups Identified at Capitol Riot.” Frontline. January 09, 2021.)
After the mayhem, the Proud Boys also celebrated on social media. On Parler, one Proud Boys leader posted a photo of members of Congress cowering in fear and captioned it with a menacing statement: “Today you found out. The power of the people will not be denied.”
Other Groups
At the request of Women for America First, “Turning Point Action,” the political action committee arm of Turning Point USA – a campus right-wing group headed by activist Charlie Kirk – added its name to the event after Christmas,
Turning Point spokesman Andrew Kolvet told Reuters that seven buses carrying 350 students were sent by “Turning Point USA” the political action committee arm of Turning Point Action to attend the rally in support of Donald Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud costing him the election.
Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, has rejected the argument that everyone who entered the Capital last week was an insurrectionist, saying that many of those taking part were merely showing "bad judgment."
(Ewan Palmer. “Charlie Kirk Says Not Everyone in Capitol Mob Was an Insurrectionist.” Newsweek. January 12, 2021.)
Another group that joined with Women for America First to sponsor the protests was “Stop the Steal,” a network of activists who assembled in the immediate wake of President Trump’s election defeat, to organize rallies around the nation against Biden’s victory.
Weeks before the mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, right-wing activist Ali Alexander – who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement – told his followers that he was planning something big for January 6. Stop the Steal set up a website that billed the event as a “Wild Protest,” a reference to a Trump tweet.”
Alexander said he hatched the plan – coinciding with Congress’s vote to certify the electoral college votes – alongside three GOP lawmakers: Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.) and Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.), all hard-line Trump supporters.
Alexander said in a since-deleted video on Periscope …
“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting. The plan was to change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”
(Teo Armus. “A ‘Stop the Steal’ organizer, now banned by Twitter, said three GOP lawmakers helped plan his D.C. rally.” The Washington Post. January 13, 2021.)
Alexander, a felon who has also been identified in media reports as Ali Akbar, gained a large following by live-streaming monologues in which he professed his conservative views and support for Trump. Speaking to Politico Magazine in 2018, he called himself an "interpreter of energy for this period."
Alexander has continued to publish violent rhetoric since the riot. In a new Internet video, he vowed:
“We are going to punish the traitors (referring to Republican politicians who endorsed Biden’s electoral victory) The Lord says vengeance is his, and I pray I am the tool to stab these motherf---ers.”
Black Conservatives PAC Fund
Political finance reporter for CNBC Brian Schwartz also says …
“A mysterious political action committee once funded by conservative millionaire Robert Mercer promoted both the rally featuring President Donald Trump and the ensuing march on Capitol Hill that led to a deadly riot last week.
“The PAC, called the Black Conservatives Fund, promotes itself as 'committed to turning out the black vote and elect black conservatives at every level of government.' The PAC didn’t raise or spend any money in 2020, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. It has shifted primarily to encourage its followers to attend pro-Trump rallies, and it’s not clear who runs the group.”
(Brian Schwartz. “Shadowy PAC once funded by Trump ally Mercer promoted Capitol Hill march that led to riot.” CNBC. January 11, 2021.)
The Mercer family has deep ties to Trump. In 2014, Robert Mercer gave more than $150,000 to the Black Conservative Fund. Since Mercer’s contribution, the PAC has raised money off a mix of smaller checks, ranging from around $200 to more than $2,000. Those who have given in recent years includes retirees, CRP data shows. The PAC has spent nearly $1 million since 2014.
In recent months, the PAC focused more on regularly promoting rallies on its Facebook page. Recently it promoted rallies in Washington, D.C., and Georgia to encourage the “Stop the Steal” conspiracy theory effort.
The fund, which has more than 80,000 followers on Facebook, called on people to come to the rally on Wednesday as well as the ensuing march on Capitol Hill. The Facebook post was published on its page Jan. 5, a day before the rally.
The post disappeared from the group’s Facebook page after CNBC reached out to the committee last week through its general email address. CNBC captured a screen shot of it.
It says: “D.C. becomes FORT TRUMP starting today. Fight to #StopTheSteal with President Trump.” It then shows a list of locations of rallies starting Jan. 5 and carrying through Jan. 6, the day of the riot. One of those locations is the Capitol building.
(Brian Schwartz. “Shadowy PAC once funded by Trump ally Mercer promoted Capitol Hill march that led to riot.” CNBC. January 11, 2021.)
The Rule of Law Defense Fund
New investigation by NBC News has revealed the day before pro-Trump rioters stormed the US Capitol building, people received an encouraging phone call from a group of Republican attorneys general telling them to "march.”
The group – the Republican Attorney General Association – is made up of some of the nation's highest-ranking law enforcement and legal officers. RAGA is a 527 political organization that helps elect Republican attorneys general and can accept unlimited contributions from wealthy individuals and corporations.
RAGA received significant funding from numerous corporations in 2020, including Koch Industries ($375k), Comcast Corporation ($200k), Walmart ($140k), Home Depot ($125k), Amazon ($100k), TikTok ($75k), 1-800 Contacts ($51k), Chevron ($50k), The National Rifle Association ($50k), Monsanto ($50k), Facebook ($50k), Fox Corporation ($50k), Uber ($50k), Coca Cola ($50k), Exxon ($50k), and Google ($25k).
Its fundraising arm, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, disseminated robocalls to people urging them to head to the Capitol on January 6, according to NBC News.
RLDF appeared in a list of groups “Participating in the March to Save America” on the “March to Save America” website alongside entities including Stop the Steal, Turning Point Action, Tea Party Patriots and others. (MarchtoSaveAmerica.com has been taken down but an archived version of the website can be accessed through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.)
A voice on the RFDL robocall said …
“I’m calling for the Rule of Law Defense Fund with an important message. The march to save America is tomorrow in Washington D.C. at the Ellipse in President’s Park between E St. and Constitution Avenue on the south side of the White House, with doors opening at 7:00 a.m.
“At 1:00 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on congress to stop the steal. We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue to fight to protect the integrity of our elections. For more information, visit MarchtoSaveAmerica.com. This call is paid for and authorized by the Rule of Law Defense Fund, 202-796-5838.”
(Jamie Corey. “REPUBLICAN ATTORNEYS GENERAL DARK MONEY GROUP ORGANIZED PROTEST PRECEDING CAPITOL MOB ATTACK.” Documented.com. January 07, 2021.)
The Rule of Law Defense Fund is closely tied to the Republican Attorney General Association, NBC News reported. The two share offices and funding. Staff members collaborate and work on the same projects.
In a statement from organization chairs and attorneys general Maura Healey and Aaron Ford, the Democratic Attorneys General Association said of the action …
"It is not enough for Republican Attorneys General to denounce the violence at the Capitol; they must publicly distance themselves from the Republican Attorneys General Association and its leadership. And we encourage any individual and entities financially-backing the committee to abstain from further supporting an organization that makes such a mockery of the rule of law and our beloved democracy."
(Yelena Dzhanova. “A day before the riot at the Capitol, people received a call from a group of Republican attorneys general urging them to 'march:' report.” Business Insider. January 09, 2021.)
Evidence Being Further Investigated
The evidence proves that the attack on the Capitol was both a sinister and well-planned attack on democracy. The Justice Department has received over 100,000 pieces of digital evidence following the mob violence. Plus, FBI officials say that the bureau has already opened around 170 cases into individual rioters.
Over the last weekend, Apple and Google removed the right’s favored social media app, Parler, from their app stores. Shortly after, Parler’s domain registrars pulled the plug on the site as well, forcing it offline until it found new hosting on Monday.
Twitter banned over 70,000 accounts for pushing QAnon-fueled conspiracies on its platform. The Washington Post reported earlier this week that a large amount of QAnon followers took part in last week’s pro-Trump riot at the Capitol.
Plenty of groups share the blame with Trump for the hateful insurrection. As officials of law enforcement now sort out who to charge with what, America comes to grips with the fact that the siege at the Capitol marked the culmination of Trump's years-long quest to cultivate a fiercely loyal base that would do anything for him. He did so by playing on their fears and resentment, Then, he lured them with his incessant lies about election fraud, and he manipulated them with his own evil, misguided conduct.
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