I have been provided a first-person report of someone who left the area where people were gathered for the speech and walked to the Capitol just in time to hear flashbangs, an apparent signal for masked people clad entirely in black to emerge from buses (parked in an area where public parking is not generally allowed) and march lockstep to the Capitol building. Who were these people? I don't think they were MAGA grannies or even the so-called Proud Boys.
As soon as he saw that, he hightailed it out of there, concluding it could turn real ugly real quick. So he never actually crossed any barrier or entered the building. I don't know the exact timing of when he left the gathering area, whether it was right after Trump finished talking or several minutes prior.
That may have happened. But it doesn't change the fact that the security barrier around the Capitol was breached no later than 1 p.m. by
someone. And if you look at the people doing that, it isn't just some massed black-clad mob, but ordinary people. And clearly, there have been people prosecuted who were not Antifa, but who did break windows, assault cops, etc..
Anyway, the point is that there was no way Trump himself could have looked at that mass of people wearing ordinary clothes battling with the cops and known "those are just Antifa". So that still means that for more than an
hour, he sat there watching TV, seeing what he would he would have assumed were many of his own supporters fighting with cops to battle their way inside the Capitol, and not doing
anything to discourage that.
In fact, at 2:24, after FoxNews (which Trump was watching) reported that Congress was evacuating the chamber, Trump tweeted this:
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”
So
that's what he tweets while watching everything happening on the screen, and that Congress was evacuating?? I mean, WTF??
Like I said, I don't think it was criminal. But it was sure as hell irresponsible and way beneath the dignity of the President of the United States.
