The Washington Post reported that a leader of the “Stop the Steal” movement collaborated with three members of the Congress.
Weeks before a mob of President Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, right-wing activist Ali Alexander told his followers he was planning something big for Jan. 6. Alexander, who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement, said he hatched the plan — coinciding with Congress’s vote to certify the electoral college votes — alongside three GOP lawmakers: Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.) and Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.), all hard-line Trump supporters.
“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Alexander said in a since-deleted video on Periscope highlighted by the Project on Government Oversight, an investigative nonprofit. The plan, he said, was to “change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”
After riots inside the Capitol left five people dead — and Alexander and his group were banned from Twitter this week — those three GOP lawmakers are now under increasing scrutiny over their role in aiding the right-wing activist. In a statement to The Washington Post, a spokesman for Biggs said the congressman had never been in contact with Alexander or other protesters and denied he had helped organize a rally on Jan. 6. “Congressman Biggs is not aware of hearing of or meeting Mr. Alexander at any point — let alone working with him to organize some part of a planned protest,” the statement said.
Neither Brooks nor Gosar responded to requests for comment from The Washington Post. But in a lengthy, defiant statement on Wednesday, the Alabama lawmaker insisted he also bore no responsibility for the riot. Brooks added he would not have promoted any action that could undermine GOP efforts to block the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory.
“I take great offense at anyone who suggests I am so politically inexperienced as to want to torpedo my honest and accurate election system effort I spent months fighting on,” Brooks wrote.
Videos and posts on social media suggest links between all three Republicans and the right-wing activist. Alexander, a felon who has also been identified in media reports as Ali Akbar, gained a large following by live-streaming monologues in which he professed his conservative views and support for Trump. Speaking to Politico Magazine in 2018, he called himself an “interpreter of energy for this period.”
In June 2019, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted Alexander’s false claim that Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris is not an “American Black.” The following month, Alexander attended a “social media summit” at the White House, alongside a number of far-right figures who had accused companies of anti-conservative bias. After Trump lost in November, the Daily Beast noted, Alexander positioned himself as a leading voice behind the movement to support the president’s challenge to the election results. He was labeled “a true patriot” by Gosar on Twitter, and on Dec. 19, the two both spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Phoenix.
“We will not go quietly. We’ll shut down this country if we have to,” Alexander told the crowd, later leading them in a chant of “1776.”
Later on at the event, Alexander played a video message from Biggs, calling him a “friend” and “hero.” In the recording, Biggs said he wished he could have attended the event and vowed to challenge the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
“When it comes to January 6, I will be right down there in the well of the House with my friend from Alabama representative Mo Brooks,” Biggs said in the recording. A tweet from Alexander, including the message from Biggs, was retweeted by Trump on Dec. 26. A Biggs spokesperson told CNN that the congressman recorded the video following a request from Gosar’s staff.
By late December, Alexander said he was planning a protest outside the Capitol on Jan. 6. His event appears to be one of at least four competing rallies that had sought permits for that date. But far-right online forums indicated Trump supporters were preparing for more than just a rally — and Alexander, too, appeared to suggest protesters might do more than just wave signs.
If Democrats got in the way of an objection from congressional Republicans, “everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building,” he wrote on Twitter in December, according to the Daily Beast. “1776 is always an option.” At a rally the night before the vote, Alexander led the crowd in chanting, “Victory or death!” The following morning, Gosar tagged the activist in several tweets.
Rep. Gosar tweeted on January 6 at 12:51 pm:
@DrPaulGosar:
Biden should concede. I want his concession on my desk tomorrow morning. Don’t make me come over there. #StopTheSteaI2021@ali
Rep. Gosar’s siblings have called for his expulsion from Congress.
The more we find out, the worse it gets. I certainly hope this isn’t true, but I fear it is.
The majority of republicans are spouting nonsense in support of the President during the impeachment proceedings. They are once again speaking lies to the American people.
Dark money GOP fund funneled millions of dollars to push voter fraud claims. Here’s the names of the groups: . https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/13/dark-money-gop-fund-funneled-millions-groups-that-pushed-voter-fraud-claims.html
Background on a couple of people mentioned in the article, Leonard Leo- he received an award (as did Bill Barr) from a Catholic organization for his accomplishments at the national level. Leo’s Federalist Society paves the way for the appointments of conservative judges to the bench. WaPo and the Center for Media and Democracy posted a description of a meeting of the Council for National Policy (a secretive Christian group) in which Carrie Severino (mentioned in the commenter’s linked article) was listed on a panel with Sidney Powell, scheduled to follow a Gold Circle Member meeting.
Below, in a comment there is additional info. about CNP.
JCGRIM: Thanks for posting this. So twisted. CBK
The plan, he said, was to “change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”
The message behind that roar of Trump’s mob of thugs: We want your hearts pounding with fear; your minds frozen with terror … Then we want you to do what we want or else we will hang you alongside Traitor Pence.
11-6-2020, “Operatives Tied to Council for National Policy Organizing Protests Alleging Voter Fraud”- Exposed by Center for Media and Democracy
CNP is a secretive conservative Christian group. The article reports Pence thanked CNP for “giving him counsel every single day”. And, less than a year ago, Pence thanked CNP for “consistently amplifying Pres. Trump’s agenda”
The article both skims and delves to give the reader an understanding of (1) Ali Alexander (2) Phyllis Schafly’s Eagles, (3) Charlie Kirk (recently linked to ALEC and to Jerry Falwell), and (4) Amy and Kylie Kremer (associated with Women for Trump and Women for Amy Coney Barrett).
ADDENDUM REGARDING Linda’s note on the National Policy Organization. I googled it, and apparently it’s NOT a “secretive conservative Christian group” as Linda says in her MISLEADING note. It’s more of an ultra-conservative POLITICAL group (it was supported by Phyllis Schafley and others of her ilk) that has a lot of POLITICALLY conservative people who call themselves Christians in it . . . overlapping with people from groups like ALEC, probably with all sorts of religious backgrounds, including atheists.
Linda’s over-emphasis on “Christian” and “Catholic” makes it look like it’s “secret” religion hiding behind National Organization tags when it’s really a bunch of ultra-conservative, neo-liberals who know how to organize politically and who haul out their religious affiliations, and the dog-whistle abortion, when it serves their POLITICAL and ECONOMIC purposes. . . . based mostly in Ayn Randian selfishness and several biases.
They are abusing the names Christian and Catholic all over the place; and if there is to be any “exposure,” its THAT that needs exposing.
Their purposes, and even when you make room for broad interpretations of Christian and other religious texts, are FAR FAR FAR from the teachings of Jesus or the New Testament which, in fact, make Jesus out to be (in our own modern terminology) more socialist than the creeds on these neo-liberal sites, e.g., like helping the poor or sharing wealth? giving to Cesar what belongs to Cesar, . . . I could go on. They are protecting their dollars and their political power while they wave a religious flag to cover for their biases and selfishness. Linda has it backwards.
Here is a snippit from the site Linda refers to (distorts):
“CMD reported in September that the Job Creators Network (JCN) is running an ad campaign called ‘Unlock Our Schools,’ which blames public school teachers’ unions for full or partial shutdowns of in-person classes, claiming that union leaders are ‘holding kids hostage. and ‘using the coronavirus crisis to push for policies such as Medicare for All and increased taxes on billionaires, and to oppose school privatization.”” Those poor billionaires!
To Linda . . . you’d do much better by focusing on the political aspects of these people and groups, not to mention their moral depravity and racism, etc. Religious questions, and so religious groups and atheism, like human frailty, will always be with us.
BTW, in case you haven’t heard, Pope Francis just loosened the Church’s stand on women’s power in the Church. It’s not fully what we want, but Francis and we also know how slow real change is . . . as did Ruth Bader Ginsberg. You really need to study some history. CBK
CNP, the Council for National Policy and the Center for Media and Democracy are distinctly different and unrelated organizations. The former, CNP, has a right wing political agenda achieved by the means described by WaPo on Oct. 14, 2020. The latter, CMD, exposes the spinning, lies, and distortions aimed at political takeover by the right wing.
Linda I already understood that, . . . you are talking past my point. In your note, you portrayed, or “cropped,” the Council for National Policy as a “secretive conservative Christian group.” I call that misleading, judging from perusing through the links on Google.
So you differ. Well then, now you can wipe your hands and ignore any criticism that comes your way: “Attacks on my veracity now, in the past and going forward are made illegitimate by the case in point.'”
I’d laugh if that statement weren’t so sad. In fact, it sounds dogmatic to me, . . . a bit like: “Be not afraid of accusations . . . ” CBK
Linda and all Let it be known that Linda is not anti-Christian or even anti-Catholic, but rather she is anti-DISTORTED Christianity and anti–DISTORTED Catholicism, as we all should be. The problem is, then, that she is playing to the extremes from her own extreme position–which gets us nowhere.
There is nothing Christian about Trump or his agenda or of supporting lies and liars. CBK
FYI Article title just in from Inside Higher Ed: “Complicit? Faculty and students at the University of Michigan are calling on a regent to resign due to his leadership role in the Republican Party and rhetoric around the 2020 election and Capitol violence.” CBK
The Washington Post, 10-14-2020, “Videos Show Closed-Door Sessions: ‘Be Not Afraid of the Accusations that You’re a Voter Suppressor’ “, documents the practices of the Council for National Policy. WaPo’s report as well as those of others like Truthout provide irrefutable support for the info. I wrote about the Council for National Policy. Those who write otherwise repeat right wing propaganda. Attacks on my veracity now, in the past and going forward are made illegitimate by the case in point.
Law professor, John C. Eastman, board chair of the National Organization for Marriage, a group founded by Robert P. George, has been identified as the man standing next to Rudy Giuliani when he addressed the mob on Jan.6. An article referencing Eastman is worth a read, “Judges, Jesus and Justifications”, Medium, 12-8-2019 by Brian Moore.
Paul Weyrich (financed by Charles Koch) co-founded ALEC, the religious right, the Koch’s Heritage Foundation and the Council for National Policy.
WaPo wrote the following about CNP, “The sessions are closed to the public and participants are told not to talk to the media about the group or its proceedings.”
One media outlet was able to get , without permission, an outdated list of members. The organization reportedly will not identify its funders.