joshua macias

ntbcw Luke TX

in jan5 5 garage mtg w tarrio and rhodes

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an 10 23

texas GOP chair stays silent on allies’ connections to antisemitic extremists" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Faced with ongoing scandals this month involving his allies' ties to antisemitic extremists, the leader of the Republican Party of Texas has come out strongly — to attack other conservatives who’ve criticized his friends.

For three weeks, Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi has been defiant in the face of calls from members of his own party to cut ties with Defend Texas Liberty leader Jonathan Stickland, who recently hosted avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes at his office for nearly seven hours. And he’s gone after those who’ve been critical of Defend Texas Liberty, a political action committee that is funded by two of the Texas GOP’s most prolific donors.

Separately, Rinaldi is at the center of a parallel controversy involving a group for young conservatives that he recently embraced despite warnings about its leaders’ openly antisemitic views and ties to white nationalist figures.

*[Nick Fuentes is just the latest white supremacist embraced by Defend Texas Liberty]

For some Republicans, the dual scandals have raised serious questions about the party’s willingness to denounce racists — and its leader’s proximity to those who embrace them.

“He has put his friends’ interests above what is in the best interest of the party,” said Mark McCaig, an attorney and chair of the Texas Republican Initiative. “He is more concerned about protecting them and their gang.”

To be sure, Rinaldi was quick to distance himself from Fuentes. The Texas Tribune spotted Rinaldi earlier this month at the office building where Fuentes, an Adolf Hitler admirer who has called for a “holy war” against Jews and encouraged his followers to beat women, was being hosted by Stickland.

![](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/Tx3aOZlJrASWXLs0KnK2qMjNwb8=/1200x804/smart/filters:quality(75)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/58ae5caba94100de08d475567b4f1c15/1006%20Fuentes%20TT%2008.jpg)

Texas Republican Party Chairman Matt Rinaldi is seen entering the offices of Pale Horse Strategies outside of Fort Worth on Oct. 6, 2023. Credit: The Texas Tribune

Asked about the Oct. 6 meeting, Rinaldi told the Tribune that he had no idea Fuentes was inside and would never meet with him. As for Stickland? Rinaldi said he would wait until more facts came out before commenting on his longtime political kin.

“I’m not going to make assumptions based on what I'm told by a reporter,” he said on Oct. 8.

Since then, neither Rinaldi nor the Republican Party of Texas has commented on Stickland, even as other major figures — including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Kyle Rittenhouse — have issued statements that confirmed the Tribune’s reporting. Nor has Rinaldi responded to concerns from fellow Republicans and some party executive committee members who’ve called for a break with Defend Texas Liberty, which has donated $257,000 to the party since 2021.

Instead, Rinaldi has reserved his ire for House Speaker Dade Phelan, accusing the Beaumont Republican of politicizing antisemitism before demanding his resignation. Phelan has also demanded Rinaldi step down as the party’s leader and give money the Texas GOP received from Defend Texas Liberty to pro-Israel charities.

Since news of the Fuentes meeting broke, Rinaldi has posted or amplified attacks on Phelan or the Texas House on X, formerly Twitter, more than 40 times. He has not, however, publicly criticized Stickland or Defend Texas Liberty at all — even as new information continues to emerge about their close ties to white supremacists.

:{*:{[Here’s who gets money from Defend Texas Liberty, the PAC whose leader met with white supremacist Nick Fuentes]}:

On Monday, the Tribune reported that, in just the last month, at least five current and former Fuentes associates have worked with groups that are closely tied to Stickland, Rinaldi and Defend Texas Liberty. That includes True Texas Project, whose leaders have sympathized with the racist gunman who murdered 22 people at an El Paso WalMart in 2019, and who are set to host Rinaldi for a fundraiser and softball game this weekend.

On Wednesday, the Texas Observer reported that a swastika-clad neo-Nazi who was spotted handing out antisemitic flyers in Fort Worth this month had previously interned for Luke Macias, a longtime GOP consultant and Rinaldi ally who just replaced Stickland as president of Defend Texas Liberty, according to the group’s website.

And this week, the Tribune reported that the president of Texans For Strong Borders, Chris Russo, has for years been a prominent figure in Fuentes’ racist movement, and has continued to post on anonymous, hate-filled social media accounts as his group —with help from Rinaldi and Defend Texas Liberty — has emerged as an influential voice that’s pushed lawmakers to crack down on legal and illegal immigration.

Rinaldi and the Texas GOP did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.

‘A moral obligation’

The controversies come amid an internecine fight between the state’s far right and the Texas GOP’s more moderate, but still deeply conservative, wing. That strife has exploded into all-out war since the impeachment and acquittal of Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Rinaldi ally who has received nearly $4.65 million from West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris and Dan and Farris Wilks. Those billionaires also fund Defend Texas Liberty and, before that, bankrolled Rinaldi’s career in the Texas House.

Defend Texas Liberty has been one of the most important players in the state party’s ongoing civil war. Campaign finance records show that, since 2021, it has given nearly $15 million to right-wing movements and candidates. The group made headlines this summer after giving $3 million to Patrick, months before he presided over Paxton’s impeachment trial. Defend Texas Liberty also gave $3.6 million to Don Huffines, a former state senator who helped push Gov. Greg Abbott to the right by attacking him on immigration and other issues during last year’s Republican primary.

Meanwhile, the Texas GOP’s far right has continued to embrace groups and individuals that others have warned are a bridge too far. Fuentes was the best-known of those extreme figures; but his visit and the ensuing controversy were punctuated by a separate-but-related, scandal involving the party and white supremacists.

That ordeal dates back to August, when the 66-year-old Texas Young Republican Federation voted to end its partnership with the Texas GOP until Rinaldi — who the group accused of initiating a “smear campaign” and partnering with far-right figures to undermine their newly-elected leadership — was removed from his position.

Things escalated last month, when Rinaldi pushed for the Texas GOP to bring a newly-formed spinoff group into the party despite warnings that its leaders included avowed white nationalists.

The warnings proved to be right: Days after the Tribune first reported on Fuentes’ visit with Stickland, an independent journalist reported that leaders of the new young Republicans group had praised Hitler online, and published photos of some of its leaders outside of an event for Fuentes’ vitriolically antisemitic “groyper” movement.

“There was a time in my life when I hated Nick Fuentes and his white supremacy views,” one of the group’s leaders, Rylie Rae, reportedly wrote on social media last year. “Now I recognize that he is one of the smartest people in our country and we need white nationalism. Oh how the tides have turned.”

Responding to the controversy, the new group’s leadership said in a statement that it “condemns bigotry in all forms” and had removed the individuals in question.

But before that, other young Republicans said they made clear to Rinaldi and the leaders of the new group that they were in bed with extremists. Those concerns were rebuffed, a move that one person said is emblematic of a broader problem and power struggle that has allowed extremists to flourish in Republican circles.

“There is a tendency among the populist right to essentially say, ‘It doesn’t matter how awful the person is, as long as they are on our side,’“ said Matt Wiltshire, finance director for the Young Republican National Federation. “We believe that we have a moral and ethical duty to be uncompromising in our stance that there is right and there is wrong.”

One of those removed was Konner Earnest, who led the group’s Parker County chapter and also recently became involved with the European American Community, a white nationalist group that argues American citizenship should be based on European ancestry.

![](https://thumbnails.texastribune.org/HK5Swe5A-hEjGNXJHBmn64A1VbQ=/1200x804/smart/filters:quality(75)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/d7f8232dbebbc8c49e23f6ff0c924add/Konner%20Earnest%20TT%2003.jpg)

Konner Earnest outside of the offices of Pale Horse Strategies outside Fort Worth on Oct. 6, 2023. Earnest is an associate of Nick Fuentes and also worked on former state Sen. Don Huffines' gubernatorial campaign in 2022. Credit: The Texas Tribune

Earnest has other ties to Rinaldi and Defend Texas Liberty: He was spotted outside the Fuentes meeting with Stickland, and has appeared in videos for Russo’s Texans For Strong Borders, which has received considerable financial support from Defend Texas Liberty. Earnest has also written anti-immigration articles for Texas Scorecard, a prominent right-wing media website that is financed by Defend Texas Liberty’s billionaire funders.

Rinaldi does not appear to have released any public statement or made any comment on social media about the young Republicans scandal.

Meanwhile, the Texas GOP’s executive committee remains at an impasse over how to respond to the party’s ongoing white supremacist problem.

Last week, after Stickland was quietly removed as Defend Texas Liberty’s president, roughly one-third of the executive committee's 64 members, including Vice Chair Dana Myers, signed a letter saying that the party had a “moral obligation to speak boldly, publicly, and clearly on this matter” and demand an explanation for the Fuentes meeting.

“Fuentes' views and Stickland’s tactics are abhorrent and totally antithetical to the principles of the Republican Party of Texas and to the conservatives who have trusted [Defend Texas Liberty] for the cause of liberty and patriotism,” they wrote. “Whether this was caused by a lapse in judgment, conscious disregard, poor leadership, or a faulty moral compass –– Stickland and [Defend Texas Liberty] must ultimately accept responsibility.”

*..."}:

Since then, the party’s disagreements have continued to escalate in public view, as Rinaldi and his allies remain largely silent on the scandal. Two weeks ago — and after a Tribune reporter reached out to more than a dozen members of the party’s executive committee regarding Defend Texas Liberty — the Texas GOP removed contact information for executive committee members from its website.

The Texas GOP did not respond to a request for comment on the move, which has been publicly blasted as an attempt to keep members from being contacted by the public.

“You don’t stand for ‘we the people’ unless they have access to you,” said Cat Parks, a former executive committee member and vice chair of the Texas GOP. “It’s not like controversy didn’t happen during my tenure.”

For now, it’s unclear what comes next for the Texas GOP and its relationship with Defend Texas Liberty, which released a two-sentence statement saying it opposes Fuentes’ “incendiary” views but has yet to provide any other details on the meeting. Stickland may no longer be leading the group, but his removal is likely cosmetic given that he also owns Pale Horse Strategies, a consulting firm that is used heavily by Defend Texas Liberty-funded groups and candidates.

Members of the party’s executive committee have said as much this week, and reiterated their calls for the party to speak out against Defend Texas Liberty and Stickland.

The Texas GOP “must renounce [Defend Texas Liberty] until a full explanation of the Fuentes meeting is provided, those responsible are held accountable and there’s new entirely new leadership (not just the same players swapping job titles),” executive committee member Rolando Garcia wrote this week on social media.

“Don’t excuse the inexcusable just to spite your political enemies,” he added.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/27/matt-rinaldi-texas-gop-republicans-nick-fuentes/.

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Texas lawyer fired after Capitol riot files ambitious suit: Dissolve Congress, don't arrest him

"This is not a Sidney Powell lawsuit," Paul Davis assures court. True! Powell didn't argue for abolishing Congress

By ROGER SOLLENBERGER

PUBLISHEDJANUARY 22, 2021

Paul Davis live-streaming during the Capitol Riot on January 6th, 2021. (Photo illustration by Salon/Instagram)

Texas attorney Paul Davis, who was fired earlier this month after posting several Instagram videos of himself on the front lines at the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, filed an impressively grandiose lawsuit in federal court on Monday, requesting that Congress disappear entirely and that nearly everyone who holds high office in the United States, along with Mark Zuckerberg, be barred from ever seeking election or voting again. He also asked the court to tell the Justice Department and FBI not to arrest him.

The complaint, filed in the Waco Division of the Western District of Texas by Davis and co-counsel Kellye SoRelle, a failed Republican candidate for state office, claims that every vote cast in the 2020 general election was illegal, and therefore that "entire 117th Congress is illegitimate." Consequently, Davis argues, every action this Congress has taken, including impeaching former President Trump and certifying President Joe Biden's victory, is "null and void."

The lawsuit was filed in the name of a few small conservative minority groups, including Latinos for Trump and Blacks for Trump, along with a number of related but unspecified individuals. The only plaintiff whose full name appears in the document is Joshua Macias, a Navy veteran and the founder of Vets for Trump, who was arrested in November after he and a friend brought a semiautomatic rifle and samurai sword from Virginia Beach to a Philadelphia ballot processing center. Macias also submitted, under penalty of perjury, a false sworn affidavit in Davis' lawsuit, upon which hinged the suit's sole claim of actual injury.

The 54-page complaint opens by stating plainly that it is "not a 2020 presidential election fraud lawsuit," and doesn't seek to change the declared winner of any elections. (Based on the subsequent arguments, that appears blatantly false.) A footnote on the first page reads: "This is not a Sidney Powell lawsuit. This is not a Rudy Giuliani lawsuit. This is not a Lin Wood lawsuit. This is not a Team Trump lawsuit. This is not a Republican lawsuit. This is not a Democrat lawsuit."

The suit then goes on to argue that procedural election changes adopted by the majority of states out of public health concerns have, unfortunately, voided every vote cast anywhere in the country.

For remedy, Davis asks the court to throw out the results of every federal election last year, shut down the legislative branch and (re)install Trump as the country's sole legitimate elected official. He adds that the court "should rest assured that the relief requested in this lawsuit will not result in the destruction of democracy." Which is reassuring.

Davis takes the additional bold step of asking the court to ban every sitting member of the House and Senate, all 50 governors and secretaries of state, the governor of Puerto Rico and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg from ever holding elected office, voting, or publicly engaging in any political activity for all time.

This must be done post-haste, argues Davis, who at one point in the suit admits that he had been awake for 48 hours, because Biden was slated to be inaugurated in two days. (He filed when courts were closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which burned one of those days.) On the morning of the inauguration, with no action in Waco and Trump en route to Palm Beach, Davis filed a supplemental memo begging the court to issue "some sort of restraining order" to stop Biden and all sitting members of Congress from carrying on the business of government.

To get such a restraining order, however, Davis would have to show immediate and irreparable harm to his clients. He argues that a Biden presidency would precipitate a constitutional crisis that will "have a devastating effect on the Plaintiffs' ability to plan for retirement by investing in 401(k)s, IRAs, or other such accounts."

Coming as it does on the heels of a nationwide crash course in the toxic social effects of frivolous election lawsuits, the complaint left experts appalled.

"The suit is illogical and convoluted," Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, told Salon. "It misunderstands the Help America Vote Act altogether and the relationship between the U.S. Constitution, federal laws and state election law. It is filed far too long after the election to be actionable and in any event is requesting a preposterous remedy of removing every elected federal official from office who was elected in 2020 aside from President Trump. Remarkably, the lawsuit says nothing about how Vice President Pence should be treated."

"Somehow Mark Zuckerberg is also listed as a defendant," Burden added.

(Some experts have shared their analysis of the suit's merits, such as here and here.)

Other than Zuckerberg, named defendants include Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer; and Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger. That list then extends to "all current so-called members of the 117th Congress," every governor of the 50 states and Puerto Rico, and every secretary of state. The Facebook CEO is sued in his capacity as founder of the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, and at one point Davis accuses him of criminal fraud, without elaboration.

The suit does not appear to have considered that the vast majority of senators, along with a large proportion of the governors and secretaries of state, were not elected in 2020. Its legal argument, if that's the correct term, appears to rest in large part on two "expert" reports: One produced by Dennis Nathan Cain, aka the Clinton Foundation whistleblower; and one by a man whose LinkedIn page says that he had 40% of his cerebellum removed.

"One thing that Americans learned during the post-election litigation is how little patience courts have for absurd legal arguments," Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, told Salon. "This legal effort to declare Congress illegitimate will be laughed out of court and could lead to sanctions for the lawyer bringing such a claim."

"One might try to chuckle at this lawsuit but it is an abuse of the court and the judicial process," Rick Hasen, nationally renowned election law expert at the University of California Irvine School of Law, told Salon. "The lawyers should face sanctions and punishment for filing such a frivolous and ridiculous lawsuit."

Davis has genuine legal credentials, surprisingly enough. He graduated from the University of Texas School of Law, ranked 14th nationwide at the time. He gained civil litigation experience at Andrews Kurth, a large Houston-based firm that has since grown into Hunton Andrews Kurth. He later took a position as associate general counsel at Goosehead Insurance, a job he held until the morning of Jan. 7, when he was fired after an internal company investigation into his involvement in the assault on the U.S. Capitol, which Davis documented on his public Instagram account and was first widely shared by this Salon reporter via his personal Twitter account.

"We're all trying to get into the Capitol to stop this," Davis, standing in front of a line of riot police, says in one clip, referring to Congress ratifying the electoral vote. "And this is what's happening. They're tear-gassing us, and this is not acceptable — not acceptable. People are not going to stand for this."

In the filing, Davis brings up his current legal situation unprompted, asking the court to order the Justice Department, the FBI and all other federal agencies not to arrest him for his actions at the Capitol, unless they can show that he committed "some overt and intentional act of violence that directly resulting in substantial injury to the person of another." He argues that his arrest will get in the way of pursuing this important case, but does not address the fact that many actionable crimes do not involve physical violence.

Davis maintains he was peacefully protesting at the Capitol and did not go anywhere he didn't have the legal right to be. In fact, he drew attention to this in his own signature block on the lawsuit:

Davis also posted a similar denial to his since-deactivated Instagram account, claiming that he was not advocating violence when he said he was "trying to get into the capitol," and that the video had been taken out of context. In another post he says that his entire Instagram story from that day will show that had been "peacefully demonstrating" and praying over the police:

For those of you claiming I was trying to "storm the Capitol," it's obvious from my entire story that I was peacefully demonstrating. They gassed the entire crowd that was standing there with me. I was not trying to break in. Was just talking to the police officers and praying over them.

A series of clips from that Instagram story, obtained by Salon, shows Davis praying in front of multiple lines of riot officers, after which, in another clip from a separate location, he gets knocked around as the crowd and police clash, saying that they "tear-gassed us and pushed us down the stairs," and adding that "it got a little rowdy."

Some charges already handed down from that day suggest that Davis' claim to innocence may not be true, such as these, part of the government's case against Proud Boy member Joe Biggs, which alleges that he:

. . . did knowingly enter or remain in a restricted building or grounds, i.e., the U.S. Capitol, without lawful authority, or did knowingly, and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct;

did willfully and knowingly engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of any deliberations of either House of Congress.

Incidentally, the lone named plaintiff in the lawsuit, Vets for Trump co-founder Joshua Macias, was also active at the Capitol on Jan. 6. As a result, he faces a court motion to have his bail revoked, which Macias initially incurred from his arrest in November after he and a friend drove from Virginia Beach to a Philadelphia ballot counting center with two handguns, an AR-15, ammunition and the aforementioned samurai sword.

Macias, like Davis, claims that he did not enter the Capitol, but federal prosecutors say in their court motion that video from the day shows him giving "a speech to a crowd inciting a riot."

"During that speech, the rioters overran the Capitol Police Officers stationed at the door of the Capitol and invaded the building in a manner not seen since the War of 1812," the motion says.

"MIKE PENCE IS A BENEDICT ARNOLD," Macias told the mob, according to the filing, adding that Pence "backstabbed the veterans, backstabbed these patriots. That's why we're here. President Trump, you have the ability to pass, you have the strength, sir. The Insurrection Act is now! You have the power, sir, and we support you 110%."

The document says that Macias then "participated in the insurrection at the US Capitol," adding that video shows him "within the security perimeter on the Capitol Grounds in an area specifically marked 'No Demonstration Permitted.'"

In a sworn affidavit attached to Davis' lawsuit, Macias says that he voted in the 2020 elections for House and Senate in North Carolina:

My name is Joshua Macias, I am competent to make this Declaration as follows. I declare and verify under penalty of perjury that I voted in the 2020 election for the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in the state of North Carolina.

But Macias, who says that he lives in Virginia and North Carolina, has never been registered to vote in North Carolina. It is unclear how such an error was sustained, considering that Davis uses Macias to argue that every vote cast this year in North Carolina (and all 49 other states) was illegal.

Macias' right to vote, Davis writes in a motion for a restraining order, was clearly harmed in one of two ways. Davis says that he cannot specify which, however, because he was writing the motion at nearly 2 a.m., while Macias was asleep and unavailable for consultation.

Undersigned counsel would clarify whether Mr. Macias voted in person, but the truth of the matter is that its 1:54 AM and Mr. Macias is asleep while counsel has not slept in two nights drafting this lawsuit. But this fact is immaterial because either way, Mr. Macias is injured.

Salon pointed out the false claim about North Carolina to Davis as well as to a representative for Macias, who characterized it as a "clerical error" but repeatedly refused to answer Salon's questions about who made the error or its substance. Davis eventually sent Salon a draft of a second declaration in which Macias says that the confusion about where he voted stemmed from a discussion with an unidentified "member of the legal team" whom Macias had authorized to sign the affidavit electronically on his behalf.

Davis appears to be the sole author of the complaint, though his co-counsel, SoRelle, happens to be a co-signer with Macias on a separate but strikingly similar "invincible" legal argument posed ahead of the Capitol riot by conspiracy theorist and Roger Stone confidant Jerome Corsi.But Davis would not disclose the "team member's" name to Salon, citing attorney-client privilege. He declined to say whether he would retract his argument about North Carolina's "illegal" voting laws and amend it to Virginia, but indicated that the second declaration would appear on the court docket on Wednesday night. As of this writing it has not.

"This is impressive on many levels," Michael Dunford, a lawyer who tracks frivolous litigation and has analyzed the case, told Salon. "If I were a lawyer concerned about seditious conspiracy charges heading my way as a result of my actions on Jan. 6, I'm not sure that's someone I'd want to be associating with," Dunford added, referring to Macias and his prior arrest.

"Second, credit where due: It's good that the lawyers are correcting the record now that they're aware they've made a bad mistake," he continued. "That said, this is a hell of an embarrassing mistake. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require lawyers to make an 'inquiry reasonable to the circumstances' before asserting claims in court. I'm pretty sure that in any voting rights case, such an inquiry would likely include knowing where your own client voted. You'd at least hope they'd get the state right."

"None of this is likely to matter much in the long haul," Dunford concluded. "The case is frivolous no matter where Macias voted. All this second statement really tells us is that these lawyers might actually be so fear-crazed that they somehow think they're presenting a real case to the court."

Hasen, the election law expert from UC Irvine, concurred on that point. "I've already said that this complaint should open up the lawyer to sanctions," he said, "and the confusion (at best) over the truth of the first affidavit only makes things worse."

Beyond Macias, other parties to the suit have also had encounters with the law. The chief of staff of Latinos for Trump, for instance, is Proud Boy chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was arrested two days before the riot on weapons and vandalism charges. Tarrio also has not paid $1.2 million he owes Abbott Labs in restitution for stolen diabetes strips, and until he does so cannot register to vote. The founder of Blacks for Trump, Maurice Woodside aka Michael the Black Man, has trafficked in anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric and formerly belonged to a violent religious sect often described as a cult.

Neither group responded to Salon's request for comment.

Asked for comment on the lawsuit and his next moves after Biden's inauguration on Wednesday, Davis told Salon in an email, "Send me a physical address, and we will mail you a written statement." Salon declined, citing the deadlines inherent in internet news publication, and suggested a phone call. Davis demurred and bid Salon a good day.

Two days before he filed the suit, Davis asserted his confidence in a lengthy post on his since-deactivated Facebook page. He concluded:

Now let the hateful comments begin, if you dare. But, be forewarned that God will bring severe judgment on you sevenfold for every evil word you speak against me and have already spoken. Praise be to the Lord our God, and long live His chosen instrument for good in the world: The United States of America. Amen. Hallelujah.

Read the full complaint here.

Update: In a series of midnight filings on Friday, Davis retracted Macias' claim to have voted in North Carolina and adapted it to Virginia instead. He also adapted his motion for emergency restraining order to Biden's inauguration on Wednesday by proposing a restructuring of the United States government in the fashion of Gondor, a mythical realm from The Lord of The Rings.

By ROGER SOLLENBERGER

Roger Sollenberger was a staff writer at Salon (2020-21). Follow him on Twitter @SollenbergerRC.

MORE FROM ROGER SOLLENBERGER

no lnx pix

co-founder and an ambassador for the Vets for Trump group were arrested Friday in Philadelphia on weapons charges, according to District Attorney Larry Krasner.

Joshua Macias, 42, and Anthony LaMotta, 61, both of Chesapeake, Virginia, were taken into custody by Philadelphia Police outside a polling place at the Convention Center on Friday night following a tip that “armed individuals in a silver Hummer were heading to Philadelphia, possibly for a reason related to the ongoing canvas of votes,” Krasner said in a statement.

Police spotted the Hummer SUV with Virginia license plates left unattended at around 10:20 p.m. and located the two men about seven minutes later, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Both men were arrested after being found armed with handguns. They had concealed carry permits from Virginia, which are not recognized under Pennsylvania law.

Investigators also found an AR-15 style rifle with hundreds of rounds of ammunition inside the vehicle.

The silver Hummer was flying an American flag and had stickers and a hat on the dashboard promoting the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy movement, which believes the president is battling the “deep state” and a cabal of Democrats and billionaires who are Satan-worshipping pedophiles. A 2019 FBI intelligence bulletin described QAnon as a domestic terrorism threat.

The men were charged with carrying a concealed firearm without a license, a felony, and carrying a firearm on public streets or public property, a misdemeanor.

“This alarming incident is still very much under investigation regarding additional charges,” Krasner said.

According to The Washington Post:

People who know the men arrested in Philadelphia defended them Friday, suggesting they drove there to look at the scene and did not mean any harm. Macias was a co-founder of the group Vets for Trump but left it several months ago to spend more time with his family,Vlad Lemets, the group’s chairman and executive director, said in an interview. Macias remained friendly with Lemets and others within the group, speaking to Lemets by phone Friday.

Macias and LaMotta went to Philadelphia intending to do surveillance and see what was going on, Lemets said. The woman in the car who was not arrested was Macias’s mother, he said. The men brought their guns because that is how they travel, Lemets said, adding that the pair believed they could legally carry their weapons and did not realize they would be violating local laws.

The arrest of the two men came as votes were still being counted in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the 2020 presidential election which was still too close to call on Friday evening. After days of vote-counting, the state went to Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday morning, giving him the 273 Electoral College votes needed to secure the presidency.

Macias co-founded the Vets for Trump group in 2016, a “grassroots MAGA movement” that claims to be the “largest vets for Trump resource online.” On Oct. 12, Macias posted about a QAnon conspiracy theory on his website alleging that Biden had orchestrated the murder of SEAL Team 6 to cover-up the “fake” death of Osama bin Laden in 2011, calling it the “best detailed analysis” he had seen.

President Trump retweeted an article outlining the baseless conspiracy theory that same day.

‘Vets for Trump’ co-founder arrested in Philadelphia on weapons charges

LaMotta, who is listed as a Vets for Trump ambassador, is a dedicated QAnon promoter, according to The Daily Beast, which reviewed social media posts on Facebook and Twitter from the man that were described as featuring some of the darkest and most anti-Semitic ideals of the baseless ‘Q’ conspiracy.

“QAnon is a positive military operation that is working to take down the deep state,” Lamotta wrote on Facebook.

A judge set bail for both men at $750,000 each. Their next court date is Nov. 23.

Related: Meet the ‘Boogaloo boys,’ the violent extremists attracting members of the US military

Paul Szoldra is the Editor in Chief of Task & Purpose. Since October 2018, he has led a talented team of writers, editors, and creators who produce military journalism reaching millions of readers each month. He also founded and edits Duffel Blog, an influential satirical newsletter for the military. Contact the author here.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/one-loud-voice-capitol-riot/

raw story

one of the most crucial questions for both the FBI investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol and the House Select Committee inquiry is the connection between President Trump and the militant groups that carried out the attack.

The next hearing of the January 6th Committee, scheduled for July 12 and led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), reportedly “plans to detail known links and conversations between political actors close to Trump and extremists,” according to the New York Times.

While it is not clear what evidence the committee will present, a network of operatives surrounding retired Lt. General Michael Flynn — an inspirational figure for rank-and-file Trump supporters protesting the outcome of the election — helped build an infrastructure for months in advance that stoked anger, called on the president to invoke the Insurrection Act, and amplified his call to supporters to be in Washington for a “wild rally” on Jan. 6.

One of the initiatives that sprung up around Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor who was seeking a pardon after the US Department of Justice dismissed charges for lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador, was called Operation Voter Integrity.

Felisa Blazek, a New Hampshire-based event planner with ties to the QAnon community, outlined plans for the initiative in an interview with Tamara Leigh, a podcaster active in the campaign to vindicate Flynn, and Brent Hamachek, the executive editor of the right-wing publicationHuman Events. As Blazek described it, the project would deploy GOP activists to monitor polling places for voter fraud, with pro-Trump groups standing by to escalate complaints up through a network that she said would ultimately reach the White House.

Two of the groups mentioned by Blazek, Veterans for Trumpand Bikers for Trump, would later show up at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Blazek a phone tree in which one activist “would just call the head of your state for Bikers for Trump.” She continued: “One phone call. They dispatch 20 to 30 people to that precinct. Second phone call, you call inVeterans for Trump.They dispatch 20 to 30 people. They just show there and they just stand up, and they just let you know you’re not alone. The police will come. If the police don’t come, they’re all trained. We’re just standing by and letting you know that we know.”

Blazek could not be reached for comment for this story.

Two days after the election, Veterans for Trump co-founder Joshua Macias and an associate, Antonio LaMotta, were arrested on weapons charges outside the Philadelphia Convention Center, where election officials were tabulating votes. Local police made the arrests after receiving an FBI alert about a possible attempt to interfere with the vote count, according to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office. The police reportedly recovered a semi-automaticAR-15-syle assault rifle, samurai sword and hundreds of firearms cartridges from the Hummer that the two men drove from Virginia.

Macias and LaMotta could not be reached for comment for this story.

At the time, some Democratic officials and voting rights groups condemned President Trump’s instruction to supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully,” saying it amounted to voter intimidation, and the Department of Homeland Security warned that polling places could be “flash points for potential violence.”

Both Macias and Blazek were avid supporters of Flynn.

Two years earlier, Macias had organized a rally to support Flynn outside the DC federal courthouse at the former general’s sentencing hearing, where he stood alongside Tamara Leigh, according to a report in Mother Jones. Chris Cox, the founder of Bikers for Trump, also attended the protest to support Flynn.

Blazek had recently organized a two-day QAnon-friendly gathering called the Patriot Party in Scottsdale, Ariz. that featured Barbara Redgate, Flynn’s sister.

During an interview to promote the event, Blazek had said, “We’re hoping to host General Flynn and his family as our honored guests. If they would choose to speak, that would be great. But really, we just want them to come there, and support them.” Blazek added that the Flynn family was like “the tip of the spear in our movement.”

David Sumrall, a Dallas-based organizer who founded the right-wing group Stop Hate, similarly extolled the Flynn family in an interview with Redgate to promote the Patriot Party.

“We want to make sure that General Flynn’s getting a message of support and love and encouragement because we have his back,” Sumrall said. “We understand what happened to him, and the whole fact that he’s willing to take one for the team.”

Soon after Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election, Blazek and Sumrall, alongside Ali Alexander and Tomi Collins, began organizing rallies across the country to protest the electoral outcome.

Pasquali “Pat” Scopelliti, a business coach based in Charlottesville, Va. and frequent contributor on the PardonFlynnNow.com website, praised Blazek and Macias together in a post-election thread on Twitter. Referring to the two by their Twitter handles and using hashtags associated with Blazek’s election mobilization effort and a parallel campaign led by Alexander, Scopelliti tweeted: “Both @PatriotAssembly and @JoshuaMacias are on the Field of Fight, right now. I choose to support them, as should you./ #1LoudVoice/ #StopTheSteal.”

The following day, Scopelliti issued another Twitter thread, declaring that America was at “war,” with “voter fraud” being the “ultimate weapon,” while speculating that “$1,000 bottles of rice wine” were “being uncorked in Beijing.”

“There are three people I must mention,” Scopelliti continued, recognizing Sumrall, alongside Blazek and Macias. “They are: @HelpStopHate, @PatriotAssembly, @JoshuaMacias.These three patriots have known in their bones, the nature of this war. And they have joined forces to lead the ground game of its fight.”

Scopelliti attached a digital flier to the tweet with the heading “All 50 State Capitol Buildings, #1LoudVoice, Truth Rally, 12:00 PM across the nation.” The flier included URLs for nearly a dozen pro-Trump groups, including Sumrall’s Stop Hate; Blazek’s Patriot Party; PardonFlynnNow.com; and Cowboys for Trump, led by Couy Griffin, who had attended the Patriot Party event in Scottsdale. Griffin would later be arrested for his role in the attack on the Capitol, and found guilty of entering and remaining in a restricted building.

Veterans for America First, the successor organization to Veterans for Trump, currently lists Scopelliti as its community engagement advisor on the organization’s website.

Despite being out on a $750,000 bail with pending firearms charges in Philadelphia, Macias and LaMotta traveled to Washington, DC in early January for a cluster of rallies culminating with President Trump’s speech at the Ellipse. Macias was present during a brief meeting between Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes in an underground parking garage on Jan. 5, the eve of the attack on the Capitol. Tarrio and Rhodes both face seditious conspiracy charges in separate cases related to the attack on the Capitol.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner noted the meeting during a press conference last month to announce a motion to have Macias held for contempt of court due to his actions at the Capitol.

“When people are planning a bank robbery, when they are planning a mob hit, they do not let uninvolved people come to that small private meeting,” Krasner said. “When people are planning serious crimes, the only people that are going to be there, especially when they’re trying to be secretive, are people that are seriously involved.”

Also present at the parking garage meeting were Kelly SoRelle, who now serves as general counsel for the Oath Keepers, and Latinos for Trump President Bianca Gracia.

On Jan. 6, Blazek, Macias, LaMotta, Rhodes, SoRelle, Gracia and members of aBikers for Trump faction known as Boots on the Ground gathered at the MAGA Freedom Rally in front of the Russell Senate Office Building, a block away from the Capitol.

In an interview with Sumrall last fall, SoRelle said she went back to a hotel room to eat and get warm, while Rhodes went to the Capitol. Rhodes took up a position outside the Capitol, while more than a dozen Oath Keepers members outfitted in tactical gear pushed through the crowd in a stack and followed a mob into the building. SoRelle said in that interview in September that there was no plan to attack the Capitol. In January, Rhodes and 10 other members of the Oath Keepers were charged with seditious conspiracy — a charge that amounts to attempting to overthrow the government by force. Two of those charged have pleaded guilty.

“Stewart had guys that were protecting different speakers at different events, namely Ali Alexander, who was supposed to have been literally on the Capitol grounds,” SoRelle told Sumrall last September. “Then everybody’s like, ‘Well, we don’t know where everybody’s at. This is chaos. Like, what the heck?’ So, that’s why we ended up at the Capitol. We went down there just to see if we could locate his people. You know? And then next thing you take it straight to crazy la-la land, as in everybody’s the mastermind, and whatever.”

Sumrall, who used social media to raise money to take a “team” to Washington, DC, concurred with SoRelle’s account.

Sumrall said he told FBI agents: “Guys, listen: The plan was to get to DC. That’s where it stopped. That’s where it stopped. You’re never going to find anything where anybody says, ‘We’re going in the Capitol.’”

Sumrall’s voice can be heard in a video posted on Stop Hate’s Instagram account that was taken from the west side of the Capitol. The post is accompanied by a text comment from the account owner: “We’ve broken down the gates and made it onto the Capitol grounds.”

Another video on the Stop Hate Instagram account shows police in riot gear lined up on the inauguration review stand and the terrace facing rioters, with the caption, “#StormTheCapitol.”

Macias and LaMotta also went to the Capitol. Footage recently obtained by NBC News shows LaMotta inside the Capitol. He has not been arrested to date.

With LaMotta standing nearby, Macias addressed the crowd on the east side of the Capitol, according to video archived by the @capitolhunters Twitteraccount.

“Mike Pence is a Benedict Arnold,” Macias roared. “We believed in you, Vice President. We had hope that you would do what’s right for our Constitution. I stood with you onstage, sir. We believed in you.

“President Trump, you have the ability to pass — if you have the strength, sir — the Insurrection Act is now,” Macias continued. “You have the power, sir, and we support you 110 percent. Do what’s right, sir…. Defend the Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies. Those domestic enemies are here. If you’re not awake, America, be awoke. The enemy is not at the gates; the enemy is already here.”

Another person could be heard answering Macias with theQAnon slogan: “Where we go one, we go all!”

“That’s right!” Macias said. “One loud voice! We are one. We are united. I am Josh Macias, Vets for Trump.We will never quit.”

6 22 rww

On Jan. 5, Rhodes went into a D.C. parking garage and met with Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of theneo-fascist Proud Boys. The two groups—which had beenat odds with each other—had formed “an alliance,” according to Meggs. Also in attendance at the meeting wasKellye SoRelle, an Oath Keepers attorney, Joshua Macias, a scheduled speaker at the “Save America” rally, and Bianca Gracia, a Jan. 6 rally organizer with White House ties.

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Prosecutors seek to revoke bail of Va. man who appeared at Capitol siege

Joshua Macias, arrested outside a Philadelphia election center in November, faces one gun count and possibly election-related charges

Tom Jackman

Jan. 9, 2021 at 1:00 p.m. UTC

A Virginia man, free on bail after appearing outside a Philadelphia election center with a concealed handgun, was outside the Capitol during the siege by Trump supporters Wednesday and posted video of himself, leading Philadelphia prosecutors to request his bail be revoked.

Joshua Macias, 42, of Virginia Beach, is a co-founder of Vets for Trump and served six years in the Navy. He and Antonio LaMotta, 61, were arrested in Philadelphia on Nov. 5 near the Philadelphia Convention Center, where the presidential election vote was being counted. Police said LaMotta had a 9mm pistol on his hip and Macias had a .40 caliber handgun concealed under his jacket. In Philadelphia, people may not openly carry guns without permits, and although Macias has a concealed carry permit in Virginia, Pennsylvania does not recognize Virginia’s permits.

Macias has said that he did not know that Pennsylvania had changed its law and no longer recognized Virginia’s concealed carry permits. When police searched LaMotta’s Hummer H2, police said they found an AR-15-style rifle, 160 rounds of ammunition and a samurai sword. Their arrests came as Trump supporters were gathering outside election centers around the country in attempts to challenge the counting process, and Philadelphia prosecutors said Macias’s “intent in traveling to Philadelphia was to interfere with the counting of lawfully cast votes.” They did not elaborate on how they believe he may have tried to do that.

Two charged with carrying weapons near Philadelphia vote-counting site amid election tensions

Macias could not be reached for comment Friday. The chairman of Vets for Trump, which Macias has left, told The Washington Post in November he had spoken with Macias and that he had “no intention of violence, no intention of confrontation. … All they wanted to do was scope out terrain.”

A Philadelphia magistrate set Macias’s bail at $750,000 and allowed him to post $75,000 and be released. Macias posted the bail on Nov. 26 and wrote on his webpage that he had raised $160,000. Prosecutors said in a motion they would be seeking more charges against Macias related to election interference.

William J. Brennan, Macias’s lawyer, said he thought the invasion of the Capitol building was “a disgrace. Having said that, I’ve seen no evidence that my client was inside of the building. If he was outside, simply exercising his First Amendment rights, along with tens of thousands of other people, then his bail should not be violated.” He said he had no indication that Macias was an organizer of any of the demonstrations.

On Tuesday, Macias appeared in a Facebook Live video with Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfield), a Trump supporter who is running for governor. In the video, Chase introduced Macias as an organizer of the Wednesday rally, along with several other people sitting with her, and Macias said that “the enemy is here, it’s not just at the gate, it’s within, we see it everywhere.”

On Friday, the video was still available on Chase’s Facebook page, although Chase told The Post that Facebook had imposed restrictions on her and that she cannot post or comment for seven days, or post live video for 60 days on her official Senate page. She declined to comment on Macias.

Facebook suspends account of Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase

On Wednesday, according to the motion by Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Andrew Wellbrock, Macias was a scheduled speaker at a “Freedom Rally” near the Capitol. Then “the rioters, organized in part by this defendant, overran the Capitol Police officers,” Wellbrock wrote. “The defendant joined this group of domestic terrorists by breaching the security perimeter and rushing the Capitol.”

On Twitter, Macias posted a video of himself near the steps of the Capitol, interviewing a man who had been inside. Macias did not indicate he had gone into the Capitol, but he was “well within the Capitol security perimeter,” prosecutors said. Macias said twice in the 49-second video that he was part of a peaceful protest. The video was removed Friday afternoon.

“The defendant’s participation in the attempted coup of January 6, 2021," the prosecutors wrote in their motion, "implicates a variety of federal and local crimes ranging from seditious conspiracy to public property unlawful entry. … At a minimum, the defendant violated the conditions of his bail by once again traveling across state lines to interfere with a lawful democratic process. Where he failed in Philadelphia, he temporarily succeeded in the District of Columbia.”

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1447698432978718725.html

...

Vets for Trump(now called Vets for America First)was very involved in boosting Amanda Chase (VA), Jerome Cori's propaganda, and a series of election-related lawsuits.:{

Note the partnering with OK and Kellye Sorelle and Amy Vandersteel.}:

grab:

twt grfx

Thread Reader

The Warning Bell Profile picture

The Warning Bell

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11 Oct, 8 tweets,

Tell me you're a GOP (poss CNP)operative without telling me you're a GOP (poss CNP) operative.

Let's have a look at some of the 'Vets for Trump' connections...

https://twitter.com/visionsurreal/status/1447372512699068422

Image

Vets for Trump (now called Vets for America First) was very involved in boosting Amanda Chase (VA), Jerome Cori's propaganda, and a series of election-related lawsuits.

Note the partnering with OK and Kellye Sorelle and Amy Vandersteel.

Image

VFT also has another layer of connections, as seen through court filings.

Image

Robert Caron, an alleged 'whistleblower' promoted on Vandersteel's show along with Macias, has been accused of stealing money from Vlad Lemets (VFT) and other investors.

At one point Robert even joined Macias and Lemets in some business ventures.

Image

Caron was CEO of VoterTruth. I'm surprised that individuals invested money with him given his history in the criminal and civil courts.

Previous Securities Fraud conviction.

Image

Carone and Rhodes also teamed up with VFT and others in Jerome Corsi's 'Invincible Argument.'

Don't ask.

Then, of course, there's the Macias, Latinos for Trump, Vanderbol, Davis, Sorelle election-related lawsuit that died a mysterious death. ☠️

Image

Apparently attorney Davis felt that Caron was trying to insinuate himself into the Texas lawsuit.

Davis also made some accusations of Kellye communicating with Caron.

Image

Davis split from Kellye, and put together a new lawsuit with some fine plaintiffs. Case died when the only sane plaintiff threw in the towel.

Jennilyn Salinias also goes by Jen Loh and Jennylin Lohmer.

**most of the figures in this thread were at/near/in the Capitol 1/6

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