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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Video Appears to Expose Christian Nationalist Republican Lawmaker’s Participation in January 6 Insurrection

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Doug Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator and promoter of former President Donald Trump’s false stolen-election claims, is facing a fresh wave of criticism after evidence emerged challenging Mastriano’s claims about his participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Mastriano, who describes his entry into politics as a religious mission and has portrayed resistance to pandemic-related mask mandates as a Christian duty, is positioning himself to run for governor.

Mastriano used his state senate campaign funds to charter buses to bring Trump supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6. Mastriano has since condemned the violence at the Capitol, while claiming that “at no point” had he crossed police lines, entered the Capitol, or walked on the Capitol steps.

On Saturday, the Sedition Hunters, described by the HuffPost as an “online community that has worked to identify riot participants,” flagged footage of Mastriano on the Capitol grounds, video that has since been reviewed by other journalists. The video and images “contradict [Mastriano’s] claims that he never breached police lines and left the area before violence broke out,” HuffPost’s Josephine Harvey reported Tuesday.

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a similar analysis of the evidence, noting that it appears to show that Mastriano “stuck around longer and advanced closer to the Capitol building than he has previously acknowledged.” The footage shows Mastriano and his wife passing through police barricades being tossed aside by rioters. Other images “show the couple moving from the west side of the building—after police lines there had been breached—across the Capitol lawn toward the northeast corner with a mob that would eventually break down the barriers there, too,” the Inquirer reported Tuesday.

Pennsylvania Spotlight, an organization that investigates right-wing extremism in the state, has been examining Mastriano’s claims about the timeline of his activities on Jan. 6. It reported earlier this month that “Senator Mastriano was at the forefront of the deadly insurrection, saw the first and second attempt to breach the Capitol, and then only left not after the first few signs of violence, but after taking a few selfies with people he claims to not know.”

One of the people Mastriano posed with on Jan. 6 was former state representative Rick Saccone who posted on Facebook on Jan. 6, “We are storming the capitol,” and “Our vanguard has broken thru the barricades.” In addition to Saccone, HuffPost reported that Mastriano posed this month for a picture with Samuel Lazar, “a militant Trump supporter whose photo is included on the FBI’s Capitol riot wanted list.”

Mastriano has responded to the video evidence by smearing the investigators as “angry partisans who are so blinded by hatred for all things Donald Trump that they are distorting facts to manipulate public opinion.”

Last week, Mastriano claimed that he recently met with Trump in Trump Tower for more than an hour and said that “some months ago” Trump asked him to run for governor with a promise to campaign for him. But the next day, Trump adviser Jason Miller tweeted that Trump “has not made any endorsement or commitments yet in this race.”

Mastriano has rejected previous calls from some of his fellow legislators to resign for his participation on Jan. 6. On Wednesday, Democratic state Rep. Brian Sims, who is running for lieutenant governor, called for Mastriano’s arrest and prosecution:

After the November election was called for President Joe Biden, Mastriano used his platform as a state senator to promote the Trump campaign’s false claims of election fraud and to rail against his fellow Republican state legislators for not acting to overturn the results. He hosted a day-long “field hearing” in Gettysburg at which Trump campaign lawyers spooled out their conspiracy theories about the election. He appeared on religious-right radio programs and online prayer calls asking God to intervene and overturn the election results. Mastriano repeatedly called for “decisive action” and an end to “dithering,” language echoed by one of his bus riders who tweeted, “Truth be known about storming the capitol … we were sick and tired of DITHERING!!!”

A recent profile in the New Yorker portrayed Mastriano as the embodiment of aggressive Christian nationalism in the Republican Party, an analysis that is in keeping with Right Wing Watch’s reporting on the state senator.

 

Image: PA state Sen. Doug Mastriano (left) poses with former state Rep. Rick Saccone at U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Photo shared by Saccone on Facebook.)

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

‘Chilling’: Law Enforcement ‘Seriously’ Investigating Threats Ahead of Possible Trump Indictment Says Top WaPo Reporter

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Ahead of a possible indictment of Donald Trump, law enforcement agencies are investigating “chilling” threats, including against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, according to top Washington Post investigative reporter Carol Leonnig.

Leonnig was careful to say she is not aware of any of the threats being deemed credible, but also noted that “all sorts of law enforcement agencies” seem to be taking much more interest than some agencies did in the weeks before the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

“I have received copies and screenshots and internal documents and emails flagging concerns about specific protests, investigations into specific online threats that have been made that are not yet determined to be ‘credible and likely to occur’ but have been chilling nonetheless in terms of the threats that have been made about killing certain people,” Leonning, a Pulitzer-Prize winning author, said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” White House.”

“Claims of, you know, ‘Alvin Bragg needs to needs to die,’ and claims online that could just be, you know, bravado, but are being seriously investigated and checked into this time around, ones that were not checked into as clearly at all in the weeks before January 6, despite significant warnings to the FBI about what these threats meant.”

Mirroring Leonnig’s reporting, Rolling Stone, citing law enforcement reports, on Tuesday noted: “Violent extremists are advocating lethal attacks and proclaiming their willingness to die for the cause.”

READ MORE: ‘All-Out War’: Trump’s Attorney Tells Kimberly Guilfoyle Ex-President Will Be ‘Loud and Proud’ When Showing Up for Indictment

“U.S. Capitol Police, the D.C. Fusion Center, and the Federal Highway Administration have all circulated warnings about the uptick in online threats over the past 48 hours. The bulletins and threat assessments detail some of the online threats and discussions about the use of specific tactics and methods for carrying out attacks — including online discussions about lethal attacks if Trump is arrested.”

On Saturday in an explosive series of social media posts Donald Trump urged his supporters to “protest” and “take our nation back.”

That “announcement was met with an immediate increase in violent online rhetoric and expressed threats toward government and law enforcement targets perceived as participating in a political persecution of the former president, as well as calls for ‘Civil War’ more generally.”

The DC Fusion Center, which analyzes threats, in a report stated it “assesses that potential criminal justice actions taken toward a former US president — or actions perceived to be taken toward the former president — remain a ‘line in the sand’ for [Domestic Violent Extremist] communities and thus have the potential to manifest in violence toward government targets or political officials,” Rolling Stone added.

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Powerful GOP Committee Chair Admits He Can’t Control Marjorie Taylor Greene

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Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who’s leading Republican investigations into President Joe Biden and his family, compared firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to NBA superstar Lebron James.

The Kentucky Republican chairs the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, where he’s been tasked by GOP leadership and his constituents to investigate wild claims about the president, his son Hunter Biden and other Democrats, reported the New York Times.

“You know, the customer’s always right,” Comer said, referring to the conspiracy theories presented to him by constituents. “I say, ‘Let me see it,’ because I want to see where the source is. They don’t know that it’s QAnon, but it’s QAnon stuff.”

Greene, one of the Republicans who serves on his committee, has expressed support for QAnon conspiracies herself, but Comer admitted that he had little authority to rein in the influence she holds within the GOP caucus after a little more than two years in Congress.

DON’T MISS: C-SPAN caller blows off Trump’s Stormy Daniels payment: ‘He’s our salvation!’

“It’s hard for a coach to tell LeBron James what he’s doing wrong,” Comer said.

In addition to her history of spouting QAnon conspiracy theories, Greene has also questioned whether the Pentagon was really attacked during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has called multiple school shootings “false flag” operations staged by the American government, and has even suggested that the Rothschild family is funding giant space lasers that are starting forest fires in California.

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

‘Reacting to a Cult Leader’: Trump Supporters Organizing to ‘Stock Up on Weaponry’ Says GOP Adviser

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During an appearance on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” GOP political advisor Lucy Caldwell expressed alarm at the prospect of street protests following Donald Trump’s claim that he will be arrested on Tuesday and then pointed to reports of online chatter that hints at violence.

Speaking with host Jonathan Capehart, Caldwell was asked about the Trump Truth Social post about his imminent arrest as well as his announcement that he will be holding a rally in Waco, Texas, the site of the Branch Davidian siege in 1993.

“Am I reading too much into Donald Trump’s rally in Waco given that history?” host Capehart asked.

“I don’t think you’re reading too much into that at all,” Caldwell replied. “He knows exactly where he is going, he has savvy strategists around him, this is not coincidental .”

RELATED: Kevin McCarthy is ‘aiding and abetting’ Trump’s new threats of violence over arrest

“And I think that what was just said was right,” she continued. “He has been setting up this narrative this whole time; what he said at CPAC a couple of weeks ago, where he said ‘I’m your retribution.’ When he talks about ‘we’ he uses the first person pronouns to describe ‘we’ the collective being under attack, what ‘we’ must do what they’re doing to us.”

“He is using typical classic cult leader language to bring these people into the fold and they’re responding,” she elaborated. “In between when he announced that is that he expects to be arrested next week, and when he announced that cult rally in Waco, investigators have seen that actually his supporters did go online and start organizing to buy protective gear, to stock up on weaponry. To do all the things that people do when they’re reacting to a cult leader.”

“It’s a very grave and dangerous situation, but I think Jonathan, you are not over-reading the tea leaves at all here,” she added.

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