hostetter alan 3%
3% leader in mich plot, precursor to insurrection 1/5
indictment
hostetter, russ taylor...
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21046979-210609-hostetter-et-al
proud boys and OK got more attn but
https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/08/23/stop-the-steal-hints-of-the-january-5-rallies-in-the-january-6-riot-investigation/
sTOP THE STEAL: HINTS OF THE JANUARY 5 RALLIES IN THE JANUARY 6 RIOT INVESTIGATION
August 23, 2021/in 2020 Presidential Election, emptywheel, January 6 Insurrection
With the charges against Owen Shroyer, the government has now charged three people who had a speaking part in several rallies tied to Stop the Steal the day before the insurrection: Brandon Straka, Russell Taylor and his co-conspirators, and Shroyer. Because I’m working on some gaps in the government’s story — gaps that must be intentional, for investigative or prosecutorial reasons — I want to look at how DOJ is beginning to fill in the story about January 5.
With Walk Away founder Brandon Straka, who was arrested on January 25, the mention of his speech at the Stop the Steal rally at Freedom Plaza in his arrest affidavit was almost incidental, included along with the rest of his incendiary speech directly tied to the riot (but the affidavit didn’t include his other public comments over a broader period — for example, it doesn’t mention Straka’s role in sowing suspicion of the Michigan vote tally).
My review of STRAKA’s Twitter account on January 11, also found a video he had posted of himself speaking at a “Stop the Steal” rally held at Freedom Plazain Washington, D.C. on January 5, 2021. As of January 13, STRAKA had removed this video from his Twitter account, but a video of the entire event had been posted to YouTube. The video showed that STRAKA was introduced by name and brought onto stage. STRAKA spoke for about five minutes during which time he repeatedly referred to the attendees as “Patriots” and referenced the “revolution” multiple times. STRAKA told the attendees to “fight back” and ended by saying, “We are sending a message to the Democrats, we are not going away, you’ve got a problem!”
Though Straka was charged with civil disorder for encouraging others to strip an officer of his riot shield, he has not yet been indicted, with or without obstruction, which these statements would seem to support. Instead, the government has gotten two 90-plus day continuances in this case with Straka’s consent, offering the explanation that, “are continuing to communicate in an effort to resolve this matter.” Straka currently has a status hearing scheduled on August 25, Wednesday, though these things do get moved quickly.
The January 5 rally at the Supreme Court (which featured some of the same people as the Freedom Plaza one) appears in theSo Cal Three Percenter conspiracy indictment in part for the logistical challenges it posed.
On December 30, 2020, KINNISON sent a text message to MELE, WARNER, and MARTINEZ in which he attached a flyer advertising the January 5, 2021 rally outside the Supreme Court, at which TAYLOR, HOSTETTER, and PERSON ONEwere named speakers for the American Phoenix Project. After KINNISON set this message, MELE wrote, “We need to make sure we roll into town earlier on the 5th now,” to which KINNISON responded, “We can leave Saturday.”
But it still provided cause for DOJ to mention that by December 30, Russell Taylor knew of a Stop the Steal plan to “surround the Capitol.”
On December 30, 2020, TAYLOR posted to his “russ.taylor” Instagram account:
Spread the word to other CALIFORNIA Patriots to join us as we March into the Capitol Jan 6. The Plan right now is to meet up at two occasions and locations: 1. Jan 5th 2pm at the Supreme Court steps for a rally. (Myself, Alan, [and others] will be speaking) 2. Jan 6th early 7am meet in front of the Kimpton George Hotel…we will leave at 7:30am sharp and March (15 mins) to the Capital [sic] to meet up with the stop the steal organization and surround the capital. [sic] There will be speakers there and we will be part of the large effort for the “Wild Rally” that Trump has asked us all to be part of. [my emphasis]
Mentioning this rally also gave DOJ an opportunity to describe Taylor promising to “fight” and “bleed” in his speech at the rally.
On January 5, 2021, TAYLOR spoke at a Virginia Women for Trump rally in front of the United States Supreme Court as part of a panel of American Phoenix Project speakers. In his speech, he stated:
I amRussell Taylor and I am a free American. And I stand here in the streets with you in defiance of a communist coup that is set to take over America. But we are awake and we are never going back to sleep. We are free Americans and in these streets we will fight and we will bleed before we allow our freedom to be taken from us. We declare that we will never bend a knee to the Marxists within Antifa, to the tyrannical Democrat governors who are puppets, and to the deep state commie actors who threaten to destroy America…. But now these anti-Americans have made the fatal mistake, and they have brought out the Patriot’s fury onto these streets and they did so without knowing that we will not return to our peaceful way of life until this election is made right, our freedoms are restored, and American is preserved.
That is, in the conspiracy indictment charging 3 percenters with organizing not just themselves to come armed to the Capitol, but others in Southern California, the earlier rally serves as both an organizational focus and a platform to sow violence.
Shroyer’s affidavit mentions several things he said on January 5
SHROYER traveled to Washington, D.C. in January 2021, and in advance of January 6, 2021, spoke of stopping the certification of the Electoral College vote. In a video1 posted to the Infowars website on January 5, 2021, SHROYER gave an address in Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C., during which he stated: “Americans are ready to fight.We’re not exactly sure what that’s going to look like perhaps in a couple of weeks if we can’t stop this certification of the fraudulent election . . . we are the new revolution! We are going to restore and we are going to save the republic!”
In another video2 posted to the Infowars website on January 5, 2021, SHROYER called into an Infowars live broadcast and said: “what I’m afraid of is if we do not get this false certification of Biden stopped this week. I’m afraid of what this means for the rest of the month . . .Everybody knows election was stolen . . . are we just going to sit here and become activists for 4 years or are going to actually do something about this .. . whatever that cause or course of cause may be?”3
In addition, SHROYER was featured in promotional material circulated by Infowars. One promotional video urged listeners to “come to the big D.C. marches on the 5th and 6th of January, I’ll see you there.”4 The video ended with an edited graphic of SHROYER and others in front of the Capitol building. That graphic is depicted below:
1 https://banned.video/watch?id=5ff4aebaa285a02ed04c4d6e.
2 https://banned.video/watch?id=5ff511bb5a212330029f5a9c.
3 https://banned.video/watch?id=5ff511bb5a212330029f5a9c.
4 https://www.banned.video/watch?id=5ff22bb71f93a8267a6432ee.
:{:{:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:#d4d4d4;;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;height:310.15px;width:450px;position:absolute;left:0px;top:0px"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:#d4d4d4;;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;position:absolute;background:#ffffff;;z-index:300;height:310.15px;width:450px;opacity:0;transition:opacity 0.4s ease-in-out 0s;visibility:hidden"):}:While Shroyer is circled in that graphic — which demonstrates that Jones had a plan to go to the Capitol (significantly, this is the East front) days in advance — it really is all about Jones.
As I noted, this is just a trespass arrest, like hundreds of other trespass arrests (though by charging Shroyer with violating a pre-existing Deferred Prosecution Agreement, they lessen any claims of persecution that will come as they investigate Shroyer further).
But what these three arrests together show is that those involved as speakers on January 5 seem to have had advance knowledge of what would happen the next day.
One of the other mentions of January 5 rallies thus far appears in the filings for Josiah Colt, Ronnie Sandlin, and Nate DeGrave, three random guys who hooked up on the Internet and armed themselves for violence in advance of January 6. Though they have no ties to any organized militia, the day after they went to a January 5 rally, they seemed to know there would be a second front opening at the East door, and Sandlin and DeGrave were among those charged with forcibly ensuring that door was opened.
Tags: Alan Hostetter, Brandon Straka, Josiah Colt, Owen Shroyer, Ronnie Sandlin, Russell Taylor
mma 7 23
january 6 defendant Alan Hostetter will reportedly rely on three conspiracy theories at his trial, each of which he could have seen repeatedly on Fox News.
Hostetter, a former police chief, was initially charged alongside four other January 6 defendants who the government has accused of being Three Percenters — an extremist, anti-government ideology. The judge severed his case, however, “in a nod to the unusual nature of Mr. Hostetter’s proposed defense,” according to the New York Times.
The Times further reports:
Acting as his own lawyer, Mr. Hostetter has said that he intends tofight charges of conspiracy and obstruction based on what he calls“three fundamental pillars”: that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump; that he and other rioters had no desire to disrupt the challenges to the vote results that were taking place inside the Capitol on Jan. 6; and that, therefore, the assault on the building had to have been staged by “federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”
Fox News embraced Hostetter’s first false claim — that the 2020 election was stolen — across nearly the entire network.Fox cast doubt on the election results almost 800 times in the two weeks after it called the race for President Joe Biden, and falsely claimed machines run by Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic were unreliable or had been hacked to change vote totals. Dominion sued Fox for defamation, forcing a massive settlement on the day the trial was set to open. Smartmatic also filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox, which is ongoing.
Fox News also pushed Hostetter’s second inaccurate claim,that the rioters were simply tourists or otherwise not looking to disrupt the transfer of power. As recently as this March, prime-time host Laura Ingraham argued the insurrectionists were “old ladies walking through the halls of Congress taking selfies.” In January, her guest Miranda Devine, a Fox News contributor, claimed “most of the people that they've been rounding up are just guilty of trespassing. A lot of them were confused.” Fox’s Mark Levin said the rioters were simply “parading on public lands,” and compared them to “people in the civil rights movement.” On the day after the riot, Fox & Friends insisted the insurrectionists were at the Capitol to “voice their concerns” and to “defend our Republic.” That type of language was a fixture of Fox’s coverage, with on-air talent and guests calling the rioters “nonviolent” and “political prisoners." [twt]
hostetter’s final claim, that the insurrection was an inside job orchestrated and manufactured by federal law enforcement, was also a mainstay on Fox News. Like much of the network’s January 6 revisionism, this particular myth was largely, but not exclusively, driven by former marquee star Tucker Carlson. He filled his prime-time show and a documentary-style series called Patriot Purge with unsupported allegations that the riot was driven by FBI agents or informants, a claim that doesn’t stand up to even the mildest scrutiny.
Carlson promoted the series on Fox & Friends, during which co-host Brian Kilmeade asked, “Do you think maybe, perhaps and maybe you don't want to give away your series, you find indications that the FBI was actually pushing for this invasion?”
Hostetter recently criticized the network’s decision to fire Carlson in a rambling, incoherent defense motion that also referenced the JFK assassination and The Wizard of Oz. Prior to his ouster, Carlson had defended Hostetter as a victim of deep state persecution.
But Carlson wasn’t alone in spreading the conspiracy theory that the federal government was behind the attempted insurrection. Ingraham devoted a segment in October 2021 to the conspiracy theory that a man named Ray Epps was an FBI informant who had surreptitiously provoked the riot. She suggested in March of this year that FBI informants were “working the crowd either before they entered the Capitol or while they were in the Capitol.” Her guest in that segment was American Greatness’ Julie Kelly, a leading January 6 conspiracy theorist, who frequently pushed the same line on Carlson’s program as well.Levin interviewed Kelly in November 2021, asking, “Was this attack on the Capitol building instigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on January 6?” And a guest on the radio program of Fox’s Sean Hannity recently suggested that then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi “planned and conjured up” the riot to add drama to her daughter’s documentary film.
As the Times reports, prosecutors in Hostetter’s case are worried about the trial devolving to a “circuslike atmosphere.” If it does, Fox News will have played no small role in providing the elements for Hostetter’s spectacle.