(ETH) – According to a new report from the Seattle Times, Wednesday’s assault on the U.S. Capitol was an organized assault by far-right forums explicitly discussing how they would storm the building, handcuff lawmakers with zip ties and disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s election.
Donald Trump is being blamed for the marching orders and social media sites have purged Twitter accounts and are even shutting down conservative social media site “Parler”. The report goes on to detail how Trump supporters reportedly exchanged detailed tactical advice about what they should bring and what to do once they assembled at the Capitol in order to conduct “citizens arrests” of members of Congress. One poster said, “[expletive] zip ties.
I’m bringing rope!” According to a statement from the Seattle Times: “Given the very clear and explicit warning signs – with Trump supporters expressing prior intent to “storm and occupy Congress” and use “handcuffs and zip ties,” clear plans being laid out on public forums, and the recent precedent of the plot to storm the Michigan Capitol building while Congress was in session –
it is truly mind-boggling that the police were not better-prepared,” said Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence Group, which was among the research groups that detailed what was coming in the weeks before the Capitol was attacked. It recapped much of this evidence in a report published Saturday.
The report also reveals that Twitter is concerned about contributing to a possible “secondary attack” on the U.S. Capitol and state government facilities next weekend and it is what likely led to the banning of so many accounts on their platform including the President of the United States himself.
Authorities are very concerned about calls for widespread protests on the days leading up to the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and have been rampant online for weeks. The report states that demonstrations are scheduled to culminate with what organizers are calling a “Million Militia March” on Jan. 20th as Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are to be sworn in on the same Capitol grounds that rioters overran on Wednesday.
“We all knew that tens of thousands of extremists would converge on DC Wednesday, so there’s no excuse for the resourcing failure,” said Brian Harrell, a former Trump administration Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, now chief security officer for AVANGRID, an energy company. “Law enforcement was ill-prepared for an event the entire country knew was coming, and one that [the president] has been signaling for weeks… It’s shocking.”
