New information ties key members of Individual One’s inner circle to the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results. If this information pans out, the investigation will be a short distance from the ultimate target.
More than 200 people have been arrested and charged with crimes since an angry mob of Trump supporters overran security and invaded the US Capitol on January 6th. However, most of the arrests to date have been for relatively minor charges associated with breaking into the Capitol building itself. The Department of Justice has recently made it clear that some of these are placeholder charges, and more serious charges, including sedition and conspiracy against some suspects, will be coming. www.npr.org/… This past week the DOJ began to follow on this promise by charging three members of the Oathkeepers militia with conspiracy. www.justice.gov/… More charges are expected.
Now that DOJ has started filing conspiracy charges, the obvious questions are how far did the conspiracy extend and who else will be charged. It seems inconceivable that the conspiracy to overthrow the election was limited to the handful of militia types and misfits charged so far. I have always suspected that the chief insurrectionist was none other than Individual One. Many conspiracies are hub and spoke conspiracies, with the hub in the center, and Individual One has always been the logical hub of this one. Investigations usually start at the bottom and work up to the top. This is a huge case, so it is unclear how far up up the conspiratorial spokes the DOJ has gotten so far. The Feds, as a rule, don’t like taking about active investigations. This is even more the case when the subjects of the investigations are powerful people. Therefore, we should not expect to hear anything from official sources about whether Individual One is under investigation unless or until he is actually indicted.
Notwithstanding official policy, it is possible for us to predict whether DOJ is likely to target him based on publicly available evidence. I haven’t seen a “smocking” gun yet, but there is newly published information suggesting that key members of his inner circle were involved in planning the insurrection. Per Bill Palmer at the Palmer Report:
This week the Alabama Political Reporter published a piece about a January 5, 2021 meeting at the Trump Hotel. The meeting came to light in part because a man in town for the “events at the Capitol” thought it was a good idea to post a both a video of himself and a picture of himself with others outside of the hotel. Attached to his picture, Daniel Beck, a CEO of an Idaho technology company, wrote “The Trump hotel is Amazing!! Fifteen of us spent the evening with Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Tommy Tuberville, Michael J. Lindell, Peter Navarro, and Rudy Giuliani. We talked about the elections, illegal votes, court cases, the republics’ status, what to expect on the hill tomorrow. TRUMP WILL RETAIN THE PRESIDENCY!!!”
For clarity, I underlined the part of the quote that links members of Trump’s inner circle to the planning the insurrection. The last two sentences of the quote suggest that the members of Trump’s inner circle in the meeting were privy to plans for the insurrection: “We talked about...what to expect on the hill tomorrow. TRUMP WILL RETAIN THE PRESIDENCY!!!” Mr. Beck’s words suggest that members of Trumps inner circle disclosed to him actions that were planned to occur “on the hill” the following day, and also the expected result of those actions (Trump will retain the Presidency) . Interestingly, that result matches what would have happened if the coup attempt been successful. In fact, the only way that such a result would be possible is if the peaceful transfer of power mandated by our Constitution was thwarted.
In addition to revealing the topic discussed at the meeting, Mr. Beck helpfully documented some of the people who took part in those discussions. Those individuals included the President’s eldest son, Don Jr., as well as many of Trump’s inner circle of advisors. Three other named participants are of particular interest.
First: Tommy Tuberville. Tommy Tuberville’s attendance at the meeting is significant because he was not a member of Trump’s inner circle. Rather, Tuberville was the intended recipient of Rudy Giuliani’s message sent to the wrong Senator in which Giuliani asked him to delay the certification of the electoral vote prior to the Capitol invasion. Tuberville’s presence at this meeting the evening before the insurrection raises a huge red flag.
Second: Mike Lindell. Mike “My Pillow Guy” Lindell was not a member of the administration and his role in Trump’s scheme to retain power was not publicly known at the time Beck outed him for participating in the meeting. Lindell’s role in Trump’s effort to retain power only became evident after the insurrection when he made his ill-fated trip to the White House in pursuit of martial law. Thus, Lindell’s presence at the meeting also raises a red flag.
Third: Kimberly Guilfoyle. As the girlfriend of Junior and a Trump confidante, she was a member of Trump’s inner circle. Thus, her presence at the meeting in and of itself is not surprising. Rather, what is significant about her being present at the meeting the evening before the insurrection is that Ali Alexander (organizer of the violent mob rally that preceded the Capitol breach as well as admitted author of the plan to put maximum pressure on Congress to stop the electoral vote certification process) stated that he received a call from Guilfoyle the night before the insurrection (On the morning of January 6, Alexander said on Breitbart News Daily: “The president's mood is he's in fighter mode and today will determine which Republicans are going to suffer his wrath going forward. That's the mood that he's in. In fact, I got a call last night from Kimberly Guilfoyle and none of us are stopping.”)
Based on Beck’s characterization of the meeting and Alexander’s characterization of his call with Guilfoyle the same evening, it is possible, even likely, that Guilfoyle called Alexander from the meeting to discuss “what to expect on the hill tomorrow.” Wouldn’t it be interesting if Guilfoyle had Alexander on speakerphone during the meeting, If Guilfoyle was at the meeting Beck described at the time she placed the call to Alexander, the call would provide a verifiable nexus between one of the primary organizers of the insurrection and key members of Trump’s inner circle shortly before the insurrection took place.
Finally, Mr. Beck stated that “fifteen of us” were in the meeting with the Trump insiders. Mr. Beck came to Washington ostensibly to “Stop the Steal.” It will be interesting to find out who the other fourteen “of us” were and what their connections to insurrection that occurred the following day were.
Palmer continues:
Charles Herbster, die-hard Trumper and part of a committee under the former administration also posted that evening that he was “in the private residence of the President at Trump International with the following patriots who are joining me in a battle for justice and truth”. He then proceeded to name some of the same people, but also included others, Adam Piper, Eric Trump, Michael Flynn, Corey Lewandowski, and 2016 deputy campaign manager David Bossie.
Again, for clarity, I underlined the most relevant parts of the quote. I think I recall reading about Herbster’s account of the meeting a while ago. However, Herbster was far more discrete about the subject matter of the meeting than Beck was, so the significance of that meeting was not immediately clear at the time I first read his account. Now that the Beck has revealed the nature of the meeting, Herbster’s account has gained significance as an independent source that collaborates Beck’s account. In fact, Herbster not only collaborates Beck’s statement that a meeting between “Stop the Steal” participants and Trump insiders occurred the evening before the insurrection, but he adds to it, listing a number of other Trump insiders who were participants, including Eric Trump and Michael Flynn. (It is possible Beck and Herbster attended two separate meetings. However, if that was the case, a number of the Trump insiders participated in both meetings and it appears that the purpose of both was the same.)
These two revelations are not a smoking gun of Trump’s culpability. However, they do provide a number of useful leads for investigation by the authorities. Thanks to Mr. Beck and Mr. Herbster, we now know about the meeting, its topic, and key participants in it. This will make it much harder for any of the participants in the meeting to either deny that it took place or claim it was unrelated to the events that occurred the following day.
These revelations could be a BFD. It is a long distance from the rabble in the Capitol to the inner circle of the Trump administration. However, it is a very short distance from Trump’s inner circle (including both of his adult sons and his personal attorney) to Individual One. If the leads provided by Mr. Beck and Mr. Herbster can be proven, it is possible that conspiracy charge may be brought against one or more culpable members of Trump’s inner circle. At that point, Individual One better hope there weren’t any rats in his joint.