Who Funded The Putsch of January 6, 2021 (Bill Moyers) [View all]

The rioters who assaulted the Capitol on January 6 were better organized than the police who were charged with protecting the imposing building, which Biden called the “citadel of liberty.”

These were not just a group of people who happened to be in Washington that day to protest Biden’s victory. There was the woman named Elizabeth from Knoxville, her eyes smarting from mace, who said she came as part of the “revolution.” There was Jake Angeli of Arizona, an actor and singer, both a QAnon and Trump supporter, carrying a bullhorn and an American flag, who, in 39-degree weather, appeared inside the building shirtless and tattooed, wearing a horned helmet and red, white and blue face paint. There was the other bearded rioter wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the chilling rubric, “Camp Auschwitz, Work Brings Freedom,” the nazi slogan that greeted arrivals at the death camp. There was a fair share of white supremacists and racists. Someone erected a gallows with a noose in front of the Capitol Building.

This was not a demonstration; it was a desecration of our sacred democracy, a violent insurrection, aided and abetted by Trump and certain of his enablers. Five people died as a result of the assault.

This was a well-planned enterprise. Who financed these people? Was it Trump’s “Stop the Steal” PAC? Who paid their travel expenses, their hotel expense, their sustenance? Who were the organizers? Who assembled the small group that would storm the building, scale its hallowed walls and invade its chambers where the laws that rule us are made? Who instructed the trespassers on how to do it, and where to go? Many carried or wore Trump or QAnon paraphernalia. “Trump 2020” banners or MAGA hats, the uniforms of their seditious enterprise. Few of the male rioters were clean shaven. Was this planned also to make identification more difficult?

There is more to this than Trump’s incendiary innuendo in front of the White House exhorting the mob: “You will never take our country with weakness.” There is more to it than Trump saying to the mob of criminals, “We love you, you’re very special.”

Or Donald Trump, Jr. warning Republican members of Congress who were deserting the ship, “We’re coming for you.” Or Rudy Giuliani demanding of the same crowd “trial by combat” to settle the election.

/SNIP

The rest at https://billmoyers.com/story/the-putsch-of-january-6-2021/