A Texan’s Guide To Trump’s Coup

It’s finally time for the January 6th Committee hearings. What do we know? What will we learn?

June 9th is finally here. Political nerds and patriots alike have been waiting months for this date. We’ll finally see the first public hearing for the January 6th Committee in almost a year. While we have learned a lot about what happened that day, the days leading up to it, and other attempts the Trump regime made to subvert democracy; we haven’t seen it all sewn together. In interviews, members of the Committee have said that we will see how each piece of the puzzle fits in with the next and that we’ll also learn new information not previously released to the public.

Those who live, eat, and breathe politics and news are keenly aware of America’s threats from the far-right and authoritarianism. However, the average American isn’t as engaged. They may have missed an important news piece or didn’t catch a political speech. I hope that the hearings we see tonight and in the coming weeks help shed light on even those who are politically unaware.

This is a guide to all we have learned and to what we might see at these hearings. For those new here, you can find the initial sources of the facts below by clicking on the highlighted links. ➡️example⬅️ Hold on to your butts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Where does it all begin?

This is likely the most significant challenge the January 6th Committee faced. Do they start chronologically and talk about how Trump began planting seeds of doubt before the election? Do they start at the January 6th insurrection and build from there? Or perhaps they’ll start with new information none of us have heard before? We won’t know until tonight, but for this guide, we think the best place to start is SEDITION.

18 US Code § 2384 – Seditious Conspiracy – If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

While in the early months of the January 6th investigation, Republicans would say it wasn’t sedition because no one had been charged with sedition. Since then, 16 people have been charged with seditious conspiracy.

Stewart Rhodes and the Oath Keepers.

In January 2022, the Department of Justice charged Stewart Rhodes and ten other people with seditious conspiracy in their attempts to overthrow the United States Government. Rhodes, a Granbury, Texas resident, has long had ties with members of the Texas GOP, including Ted Cruz, Allen West, and Texit leader, Daniel Miller.

Friend of Living Blue and Granbury resident, Adrienne Quinn Martin, has spent the last few years documenting how off the hinges the local government has become in Hood County, a takeover orchistrated by Rhodes. The SPLC has been tracking Rhodes and his group since 2009, and claims they are one of the largest far-right antigovernment groups in the US today.

In the indictment from the DOJ, Rhodes and his cohorts plotted to oppose by force the 2020 lawful transfer of presidential power. They descended on Washington DC in early January with guns, ammunition, and body armor. Since bringing those items into DC were prohibited, they set up “quick reaction force teams” on the outskirts of DC, which they planned to call in at sometime during the insurrection. They were planning on using those weapons against government officials to stop the transfer of power.

Rhodes and his team were part of the mob that breached the Capitol.

The Oath Keeper crew also were some who assaulted police officers that day. Begining in November 2020, leaders of the Oath Keeper militia resolved that there was going to be a civil war and published a plan of action, which included coordinating their attack with local police forces, confronting opposition, storming the Capitol, and burning down TV stations. (All of this is listed in the indictment.)

The Oath Keepers spent all of November and December training for things like road blocks, ambushes, and their eventual storming of the Capitol on January 6th. In an interview on December 22nd, 2020, Rhodes said, “If Biden assumes the presidency, we’re going to have a massive bloody revolution against them.” Rhodes published much of this on the internet and encouraged Oath Keeper supporters from around the nation to be in DC on January 6th.

Text messages later revealed that the Oath Keepers planned to provide security for Trump associates, Roger Stone, Alex Jones, Ali Alexander and Michael Flynn on January 5th and January 6th. Although they didn’t provide security for some of those people, including Alexander, they did provide security for Roger Stone.

Recent court documents and leaked text messages show the Oath Keepers discussed protecting Texas Congressman Ronny Jackson because he had “critical data to protect.”

Ronny Jackson was one of the biggest purpotraitors of the Big Lie.

Leading up to the insurrection, Jackson posted daily tweets about Joe Biden being a Chinese opporative and how he and others had to stop the steal, because China was going to take over America trough Joe Biden. Jackson also frequently posted Biden’s picture in front of the Chinese Communist Party flag.

The January 6th Committee has been probing Jackson’s ties with the Oath Keepers and his role in the insurrection. It is also alleged that Jackson had ties with the Proud Boys, as well.

The January 6th Committee asked Jackson to voluntarily interview with them. Jackson has declined. Although, the Committee has now subpoenaed five sitting members of Congress in their roles to overturn the election, Jackson was not one of them. Not yet, anyway.

Enrique Tarrio and the Proud Boys.

Only last week, Enrique Tarrio and four others were charged with seditious conspiracy. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but this indicates that the Department of Justice is still actively working the investigation of Trump’s attempt to overtuen the election.

According to the DOJ indictment, Tarrio and other Proud Boys began their planning for a “civil war” in November 2020. In December, they started a new chapter called the Ministry of Defence and began preparations for the January 6th insurrection.

Although Tarrio was exiled from DC on January 4th, due to his several arrests in the city, Tarrio met with Rhodes in a DC parking garage on January 5th. Because Trump loves the poorly educated, Tarrio had a film crew with him who recorded the encounter. Undoubedtly, we will see this footage from the January 6th Committee hearings, but who knows if we’ll see them tonight or another date.

During the January 5th encounter between Tarrio and Rhodes, they discussed the plans to storm the Capitol the next day. The plans for January 6th insurrection was planned out, recruited for, and publish online by Tarrio and cohorts. (All of the details are available in the indictment.)

Steve Bannon and his role to overturn the election.

Authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa put out a book called “Peril.” In that book they alledge that Bannon had Trump’s ear through much of December and urged Trump to focus on January 6th. The also wrote, “It was a planned revolution. Steve Bannon’s vision coming to life. Bring it all down, blow it up, burn it, and emerge with power.” Bannon even confirmed on his podcast that he had huddled with Trump, to plot a way to fundamentally undermine the Biden presidency on January 6th.

The New York Times reported that the plan to overturn the election Donald Trump Jr. relayed to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows originated with former Trump strategist Steve Bannon. This tactic would involve two strands: pressing Mike Pence to agree to flout the Constitution on January 6th, and creating at least the appearance that there were alternate slates of pro-Trump electors from swing states that had clearly been won by Mr. Biden. The electors plan is now under scrutiny by federal prosecutors.

Bannon has also been plotting to hijack the 2022 election.

The Fake Electors Plot.

Trump campaign officials, led by Rudy Giuliani, oversaw fake electors plot in seven states, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico. Their plan was to put forward illegitimate electors in states where Trump lost, as part of their plot to overturn the election. It was an effort to subvert the electoral college and give those electoral votes to Trump, even though he lost those states.

In each of these states there were Trump supporters who claimed to be the rightful electors from seven states that President Joe Biden won. But these rogue slates of electors didn’t have the backing of any elected officials in the seven states — like a governor or secretary of state, who are involved in certifying election results — and they served no legitimate purpose. Some of the fake certificates with pro-Trump electors were sent to the National Archives by top officials representing the Republican Party in each state.

The Trump campaign was intricately involved in this plot. The Department of Justice is investigating this plot, which involves dozens of people, including Rudy Giuliani, adviser Boris Epshteyn, and campaign lawyer Justin Clark.

No one has been charged with a crime related to the alternate slates of electors. Not yet, anyway. But again, the wheels of justice turn slowly. We will likely also hear about the fake electors plot in the January 6th Committee hearings.

The coup was planned and shared on a Power Point document.

In documents shared with the January 6th Committee by Mark Meadows, it included a Power Poit document with detailed plan on committing a coup. The plan involved declaring a national security emergency to delay the certification of the 2020 election results, then manhandling the vote to favor him and stay in the White House. The 38-page document was referenced in an email on January 5th.

Under the PowerPoint plan, Trump was to declare a national emergency, citing foreign “control” of electronic voting systems, and then all electronic voting would be rendered invalid. Then, Mike Pence was to install Republican electors in states where Trump allies would baselessly declare that “fraud occurred,” according to the maneuvers outlined in the plan.

The plan was well laid out, involved several top Trump officials, and was praised and talked about by Peter Navarro on Steve Bannon’s podcast.

John Eastman’s coup memos.

John Eastman, one of Trump’s lawyers, drew up a road map for Trump to commit a coup. In the days leading up to January 6th, Eastman met with Pence in the Oval Office, laid out the plans, and encouraged Pence not to certify the election. Eastman pressured Pence to betray his oath of office and the Constitution.

As much as the left never liked Pence because of his far-right stances, we have to give him credit for being a true American patriot. If he was another Trump sycophant, today America would be a different place, but on January 6th he saved democracy. Albeit, democracy was only saved for that day, and our fight trudges on.

What will we learn in the January 6th Committee hearings?

Everything we touched on in this article will undoubtedly be covered in great detail, plus there is likely a lot of new details which will come to light.

The count down is on. Not only until the hearings air on live TV, but also for the Justice Department to hold all of these people accountable for their crimes and effort to end the American experience.