U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a "Save America Rally" near the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. (Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
President Trump’s account drafted a tweet calling for attendees of his Jan. 6 rally to march to the Capitol, the latest evidence that he long planned to sic his supporters on Congress to prevent lawmakers from certifying his election loss on Jan. 6.“I will be making a Big Speech at 10am on January 6th at the Ellipse (South of the White House). Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. March to the Capitol after. Stop the Steal!” Trump’s account wrote in an unsent tweet.Trump often writes his own social media posts, though Trump social media adviser Dan Scavino crafted many others. This draft tweet, obtained by the House Jan. 6 Select Committee from the National Archives, was stamped “president has seen,” indicating that Trump had reviewed it.“The evidence confirms that this was not a spontaneous call to action but rather was a deliberate strategy decided upon in advance by the president,” Florida Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a committee member, said during Tuesday’s committee hearing.Cassidy Hutchinson, a senior aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testified in the last committee hearing that Trump had spent more than a week demanding that he personally lead the march to the Capitol, and that there had been discussion about him delivering another speech down there—possibly even within the halls of Congress. Two days before the Jan. 6 rally, organizer and Women for Trump leader Kylie Kremer texted election-denying MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that the organization was planning a second rally at the Supreme Court, by the Capitol, on Jan. 6 that Trump would send his supporters to—but that Lindell had to keep it quiet.Trump campaign adviser Katrina Pierson, who helped plan the rally, texted Kremer that hardline conspiracy theorists including informal Trump adviser Roger Stone, podcast host Alex Jones, and Stop the Steal founder Ali Alexander were being suggested as speakers for the main rally—because Trump “likes the crazies.”
“He loved people who viciously defended him in public,” Pierson testified to the committee, explaining what she meant.Jones and Alexander were instead given speaking slots at the second planned rally, near the Supreme Court. But the riot broke out before they could speak.On Jan. 5, Alexander texted a conservative journalist, “Trump is supposed to order us to capitol at the end of his speech, but we will see.”Hutchinson testified in an earlier hearing that Trump knew many in the crowd were armed—and when Secret Service agents refused to take Trump down to the Capitol he threw a tantrum.Pierson, a hardline Trump stalwart and longtime conservative rabble-rouser, eventually grew worried enough about the planned rally that she texted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 2 asking him to call her about it.“Things have gotten crazy and I desperately need some direction. Please,” she texted Meadows.Meadows called her, and Pierson told him that many groups were coming to Washington from out of state, and that some were “very suspect,” warning about some of the behavior Alexander and Jones had displayed in entering the Georgia state capitol building at an earlier rally.Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.
Advertisement
“This stays only between us, we are having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the ellipse. POTUS is going to have us marh there/the Capitol,” she texted. “It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’”
Advertisement
“He loved people who viciously defended him in public,” Pierson testified to the committee, explaining what she meant.Jones and Alexander were instead given speaking slots at the second planned rally, near the Supreme Court. But the riot broke out before they could speak.On Jan. 5, Alexander texted a conservative journalist, “Trump is supposed to order us to capitol at the end of his speech, but we will see.”Hutchinson testified in an earlier hearing that Trump knew many in the crowd were armed—and when Secret Service agents refused to take Trump down to the Capitol he threw a tantrum.Pierson, a hardline Trump stalwart and longtime conservative rabble-rouser, eventually grew worried enough about the planned rally that she texted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Jan. 2 asking him to call her about it.“Things have gotten crazy and I desperately need some direction. Please,” she texted Meadows.Meadows called her, and Pierson told him that many groups were coming to Washington from out of state, and that some were “very suspect,” warning about some of the behavior Alexander and Jones had displayed in entering the Georgia state capitol building at an earlier rally.Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.