by Sharon Rondeau
(Jan. 19, 2021) — On Sunday The Post & Email interviewed two individuals, one of whom we have known for approximately 15 years, who attended the January 6 “Save America” rally at the Ellipse in Washington, DC.
Both women told us that while there was no formal itinerary for the event, it was “understood” that after President Trump finished his remarks, physically-able attendees would walk over to the U.S. Capitol and remain outside to encourage Congress to question the reported results of the Electoral College votes favoring Democrat Joe Biden.
One of the attendees, who traveled to the nation’s capital from Connecticut, supplied copious photos and video from the event, including of Alex Jones and his entourage. Both women estimated that the crowd that day numbered in the several hundred thousands to possibly 1 million.
In his speech that day, Trump referred to “the magnitude of this crowd” in the “hundreds of thousands.”
One America News Network (OANN) and The Epoch Times covered the event, the Connecticut attendee said, with a contingent hanging the state’s flag from a tree “so that anybody that happened to be there out of a million plus people could see that there was a group that represented Connecticut.”
There were many “lawn signs” displayed in various places representing different organizations, she said, protesting social media censorship and advocating for different causes.
Everyone was very courteous, she told us, and both eyewitnesses said there was no suggestion of any violent protests.
The media, in knee-jerk fashion, immediately blamed the incursion on a “pro-Trump mob,” although some of those arrested have not been conclusively linked to the rally and emerging evidence indicates the incursion was preplanned.
Last Tuesday, the House of Representatives introduced an Article of Impeachment against Trump, passing it without any hearings or evidence-gathering, for allegedly committing “incitement of insurrection.”
Trump could conceivably face a trial after he leaves office on Wednesday at noon with the apparent purpose of preventing him from seeking the presidency in the future, although some have questioned the constitutionality of trying someone who is no longer holding office.
The joint session of Congress was abruptly interrupted by the incursion but resumed that evening. Objections voiced earlier in the day were brushed aside, and at approximately 3:45 a.m. on January 7, Congress affirmed Biden’s 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232.
In seven states, Republicans sent competing slates of electors to the Electoral College December 14 stemming from myriad reports of systemic and widespread fraud, some of which remain under investigation.
On Friday, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe confirmed in a letter to Congress that the U.S. intelligence community, and specifically some agents at the CIA, withheld confirmation that China interfered in the U.S. election for “political” considerations as determined by the intelligence community’s “analytic ombudsman.”
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret), Trump’s first national-security adviser, said in an interview conducted January 6 that China, Iran, Italy, Serbia, Spain and Germany interfered, along with “algorithms” programmed into voting machines and the “Democrat machine,” skewing the results to Biden.
Since January 6, videos have surfaced raising questions as to the Capitol Police response to the “riot”; there appears to have been no customary perimeter around the building; and the Capitol Police chief resigned the following day.
According to one eyewitness journalist, the Capitol Police were “pushed around” by the protesters.
People were distributing books and brochures, the Connecticut resident said, and petitions were circulating cautioning the public about “the evil Chinese Communist Party (CCP).” She took pictures of people who said they were representing “Asians for Trump” and “Chinese Americans for Trump.”
“The Epoch Times was right next to our campsite filming us,” she recalled.
A very outgoing individual, the Connecticut eyewitness said that at her “campsite,” she met “people from Florida, Texas, Virginia, Michigan…there were six or more couples from Connecticut.” She exchanged her contact information with many of them, she said, and is in touch with them now.
Both women, who were not always on the call together, said they noted people walking through the rally location while the rally attendees were making their way to the Capitol, indicating that the incident took place while Trump, who was the last speaker at the rally, was still addressing the crowd.
Cellular phone service was down in Washington that day, the Connecticut resident reported. “Anyone with a nefarious agenda was prepared with walkie-talkies. Those of us who are Trumpsters — we’re not bringing ladders; we’re not bringing milk; we’re not bringing walkie-talkies.”
“Did you see anyone in the crowd carrying anything that conceivably could have been used to enter or deface a building?” we asked. “Not in the community I was networking with,” she replied, “and people were saying that no knapsacks were permitted. We had signs and little coolers, and that’s when we said we needed a tree to hang our flag. People who came by where we were had their fanny-packs; they didn’t have pocketbooks or anything that could have been snatched away from them. There were a lot of people selling Trump flags, Trump T-shirts — there were a lot of entrepreneurs wanting to sell things.”
“When my friend and I exited the hotel to go back to the campsite, that’s when I bumped into the AJ (Alex Jones) contingency,” she continued, whose members she described as “over six feet tall and couldn’t have been more gentlemanly-like.”
“I continued to follow them since they weren’t discouraging me, and I spotted Owen Shroyer, who had spoken at the rally earlier,” she said. “Alex Jones got to a certain place where he was on a wall, and he was speaking with his megaphone, and his people even helped me up on the wall. They even gentlemanly helped me off the wall. At first I thought they were spectators like myself, but they were Alex Jones’s bodyguards.”
She took photos of Jones speaking, she said, and was invited to pose for photos with his bodyguards.
At the same time, the eyewitness said, she saw “20 or more police cars riding down the street perpendicular to Pennsylvania and 1500 Street making all this noise and theatrics, because if they were gong anywhere, we didn’t know where they were going. Anybody listening to AJ speak didn’t know what was going on. Once you put all the puzzle pieces together, we saw that if they did anything other than theatrics, they were just making noise.”
She then revealed: “My other friend was already there at the Capitol filming the people smashing the windows, with the Trump supporters saying, ‘Don’t break windows’ and pulling them back.”
“After I left, Alex Jones’s whole entourage went to the Capitol,” she continued. “When I got back to the hotel, I saw Alex Jones and his entourage walking without any hindrances on to the Capitol property, and that means that someone was on high at the Capitol filming this and that they were prepared to film this.
“We got there about 2:15 or 2:30, and I have pictures of me going all the way up to the top of the Capitol stairs, and there were all what I believe were the Capitol Police, all in black, with gas masks and shields. That’s as far as we went, although we weren’t prevented from going to the top. So people were walking up and down. As a matter of fact, when I saw all the benches, I thought, ‘Oh, they prepared for us — there are places to sit.’ But there was no perimeter, no barrier, no bicycle rack; there were no signs that said, ‘Don’t go beyond this point’; none of that. The punchline is if the president stopped speaking at five past one, and it takes old men with canes and old and disabled people with wheelchairs and walkers — a lot of those people, after the president’s speech, either had lunch back at their hotel room or probably had lunch before they walked to the Capitol. It was a leisurely walk, as if you were at a carnival at the Big E. They weren’t physically capable of rushing over there. These were regular people with their Trump hats on and their flags – they were just patriotic, peaceful people, over a million of them.”
Additional information from the eyewitnesses will follow in future articles.
During the January 6 certification, the vice president acknowledged only one slate of electors per slate.
Some objections were raised to some states’ slates, but no objection was successful.
“In seven states, Republicans sent competing slates of electors to the Electoral College”
Do you have a link to the votes by the state legislatures in these seven states authorizing the competing slates of electors?
The Post & Email did not say that the state legislatures sent the Republican electors in the contested states.
If they were not duly certified, they were not electors.
Since state election laws in every “swing” state were changed and/or ignored by other than the state legislators in violation of the U.S. Constitution (and likely each state’s constitution as well), the election in those states was unconstitutional.
You are entitled to your opinion. But no judge agreed with that opinion. Neither did a majority of either of the two congressional chambers during the joint session.
So some private individuals sent unofficial slate of electors to the National Archives?
I notice as each state was read Pence said “the parliamentarians advised me is the only certificate of vote from that state and purports to be a return from the state that has annexed to it a certificate from an authority of the state”. This was not done for the previous electoral vote counts in 2000 through 2016.
Is it because these competing slates were unofficial and not certified by an authority of the states that they were ignored by Congress?
Probably, but you’d have to ask them. The Post & Email is not contesting that the Republican electors from seven states were not recognized by Congress. Whether or not Biden won by fraud is another question entirely.
“Whether or not Biden won by fraud is another question entirely.”
If there was significant fraud, why didn’t any of these seven state legislatures (IIRC all with Republican majorities) vote to decertify his electors? They would have only needed simple majorities.
Did no one show them the evidence?
Whatever the case, there must not have been a majority of legislators who believed there was fraud.
Once upon a time a rabbit was accused of a crime that he did not commit, and the proof was that surveillance cameras showed him being operated on at the local hospital.
Nevertheless, the rabbit was convicted of the crime by twelve honest and impartial jurors.
The rabbit was sent to prison for many years and when he had a chance to escape, he did. About a week later the rabbit was captured and charged with not only an unlawful escape, but “resisting arrest” when a policeman tripped and sprained an ankle existing the squad car to assit in the arrest.
The rabbit was sent before a judge and sent to prison for a number of years.
The judge’s name was Mike Pence.
End of story.
“This was not done for the previous electoral vote counts in 2000 through 2016.” You have links to unedited official transcripts or videos of each of those?