Before the release of the Jan. 6 committee’s final report on Wednesday, NBC News reported that it obtained an email showing an FBI informant warned the agency that former President Donald Trump’s “Be there, will be wild!” tweet urging supporters to descend on Washington, D.C., was considered a “call to arms” by far-right extremists.
The tip from the confidential informant, who is reportedly still actively employed by the bureau, was made the same day as Trump’s tweet.
The former president’s s Dec. 19 post on Twitter not only urged his supporters to attend the “big protest” but included a link as well to a conspiracy-theory-laden report on so-called election fraud from former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro. (Navarro, who rebuffed the Jan. 6 committee’s request for his testimony and records, will soon go on trial for contempt of Congress.)
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Huge questions over what information the select committee drummed up in regard to the intelligence failures of Jan. 6 loom over the publication of its final report. Wednesday’s scoop by NBC only adds to that equation.
The informant told the FBI: “Trump tweeted what people on the right are considering a call to arms in DC on Jan 6.”
And it wasn’t the first time the informant warned the bureau of what could be coming as the nation grappled with a president who had already spent months by that point insisting the outcome was rigged if he lost.
Per NBC, the informant warned of talk that ranged from:
“discussion of civil war, talk of hanging traitors and calls for militias to take up arms. It highlighted messages like “war is inevitable”; “hell is going to break loose”; “locked and loaded”; “my powder is dry, my guns are clean”; and “I’m not afraid of death and I’ll gladly take lives for the preservation of our country.” It included information on a “boogaloo” extremist who was prepared to die in D.C.”
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