By Mark Anderson
A careful read of the transcript of President Donald Trump’s early afternoon remarks Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, a 52-acre park just south of the White House, revealed no directives whatsoever to physically enter, much less vandalize, the Capitol building, which is 2.3 miles to the east, about a 45-minute brisk walk from the Ellipse. Further, several published timelines show that the first confrontations between protesters and police near the Capitol happened while Trump was still speaking. The trouble at the Capitol reportedly started around 12:50 p.m. or possibly slightly earlier. Trump didn’t conclude his remarks until 1:11 p.m.
In his remarks, Trump did strongly condemn the fake news media’s manipulations and denounced what he and his supporters consider was a stolen election. Indignation and passions ran high, and the audience occasionally chanted “Fight for Trump” while he spoke. Trump stated specifically, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” He made at least two other statements regarding the need for an orderly protest, not a violent one, as Newsmax columnist Michael Abramson carefully documented in his article “Trump Did Not Cause, Commit Capitol Riots.”
Still, once word got out that Congress did not nullify the electoral votes from the contested states—despite pro-Trumpers’ efforts to gather en masse in hopes of influencing Congress to send those votes back to the states—an understandable anger arose despite Trump’s words to the contrary. Unfortunately, a melee ensued.
Almost immediately, the media, which apparently doesn’t read transcripts, jumped into impeachment mode against Mr. Trump in ideological collusion with House Dems—who soon thereafter hastily pushed through an affirmative vote on articles of impeachment against the president.
Moreover, the media-Dem propaganda machine has gone on a warpath, insinuating that every Trump supporter on Earth is potentially a dangerous and violent rioter. There is ample video footage of Capitol police waving in a number of people through the front doors of the building.
LEFTIST LINKS
The FBI did eventually make some arrests. And while no one is excusing the violence on Capitol Hill regardless of the political leanings of those causing the mayhem, there are some leftist-revolutionary connections, which are not always readily apparent unless one knows what to look for. These are not being noted by any mainstream media; the opposite in fact.
For example, John Earle Sullivan, a 26-year-old Black Lives Matter activist “who has advocated for armed revolution on social media,” according to The Epoch Times, and was photographed inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, was charged Jan. 14 with being on restricted grounds, civil disorder, and violent entry or disorderly conduct, according to the Department of Justice. Sullivan claimed that he entered through a window that had been broken out. He also said he was nearby when Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt was shot dead by a U.S. Capitol Police officer as she tried to climb through a window into the House Speaker’s Lobby. The video he took of the entire event, filmed amidst a throng of raucous protesters, captured he himself advocating for property destruction and arson and instructing the frenzied Trumpers how to break windows with Kevlar vests and any helmets they had. He even volunteered a knife with which protesters could force the lock on the door just before Babbitt was shot and killed. In sharp contrast, the video caught multiple Capitol protesters demanding that no statues or artwork be damaged.
Meanwhile, the mass media cartel’s outlets have been awash with essentially identical stories saying that the Capitol breach was a “white supremacist” affair. The media pretends the recent sustained and destructive occupations of Washington, D.C., Seattle, Portland, and other major cities by leftist mobs who engaged in ongoing arson, looting, physical attacks, assassination attempts against cops and destruction of government and private property never really happened.
As of Jan. 18, a USA Today list of 87 arrests included Sullivan but was silent about his BLM leanings, even while many of the brief bios of others who were arrested are larded with hyped-up “rightwing” connections. Furthermore, some of those arrested simply followed the crowd into the building but did not break anything themselves and meandered like tourists around the interior of the impressive structure, often taking “selfies” with their cellphones.
HOW TO IDENTIFY ANTIFA
According to noted war correspondent Michael Yon, who’s covered hundreds of protests and is deeply familiar with the revolutionary street tactics of trained agitators such as those in Antifa, the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 happened “with Antifa leading the way, using agent provocateurs to basically guide Trump supporters into the Capitol building—very successfully.” Yon explained various Antifa tactics and tell-tale signs of determining who are Antifa activists in an extremely informative recent video interview with Epoch Times investigative reporter Joshua Philipp.
Yon noted that Antifa’s street-tactics bible, The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which includes methods of harnessing the energy of a crowd and inciting that mob toward Antifa’s prescribed goals, is available on Amazon. Some of the tactics from the handbook are obvious, Yon said, including to “show up wearing your enemy’s clothing and waving their flags. . . . That’s why they call [such tactics] ‘false flags’.” Yon suggested everyone should get and read the handbook to “understand a lot more about what they’re doing.” He added, “It’s right out of the CIA handbook. This is old stuff that we also do,” and went on to explain that the U.S. has used the same tactics in Iran and Ukraine. The CIA, as AFP readers well know, has used these tactics in its contrived revolutions and orchestrated uprisings throughout the world for decades.
Other things which aren’t as obvious include tactics that Yon has seen during his coverage of events throughout the world, which has included covering 100 large protests and numerous smaller ones during a recent seven-month period in Hong Kong. Although Yon cautioned that the Hong Kong protesters railing against Chinese communist regime rule don’t steal and only carry out limited vandalism, and only against carefully identified pro-communist targets, the Antifa agitators are much less principled and much more reckless. He added that one example of Antifa using “Hong Kong tactics” is “wearing the same sort of masks they wore in Hong Kong. Goggles and . . . 3M masks that were common in Hong Kong showed up in D.C.” on Jan. 6.
Yon added another example: “There was a lady [in D.C.] on a megaphone saying, ‘Send up the masks, send up the masks.’ She said it over and over. . . . That’s a clear Hong Kong tactic.” The masks and other items, he said, were needed due to police using tear gas, pepper spray, and, in some instances, flash-bang grenades as well as possibly rubber bullets. The “Hong Kongers” would also say, “Send up water, send up masks, send up shields,” Yon recalled, while adding that agitators with homemade shields were seen in D.C.
Yon went on to explain, “Keep in mind, there’s different elements of Antifa. What we saw in the Capitol building is your A-team. That’s like your special forces Antifa. Those are the guys that come out for special actions. That’s your 1% of Antifa. . . . That’s what we saw in the Capitol building. They know exactly what they’re doing. They’re well-trained; they’re well-organized; they show up with the gear that they need; they’ve got the statements ready. . . . They come out and they make great statements for the camera, sound bytes. These guys are professionals.”
Philipp asked Yon to define an agent provocateur. Yon, who shot footage at the Capitol from outside the building, described one example of clear agent provocateur actions: “A guy with a Trump sticker on the back of his helmet [is seen] starting to break the window with a truncheon. What appears to be a Trump supporter comes to bear hug him and pull him back. Two others, who appear to be Antifa, start to grab him. . . . These are clear agent provocateur actions.”
Referring to his and other videos that he’s watched about the Capitol breach, Yon said, “You can clearly see many Trump supporters saying, ‘Don’t break anything; don’t steal anything’.”
Mark Anderson is AFP’s roving editor. Email him at [email protected].
It’s an old tactic. Half of the membership of The Communist Party in America were FBI agents.