Democrats have pushed for an investigation into the abnormally high number of guided group tours of the Capitol in the days immediately prior to the January 6 insurrection over fears that some may have been insurrectionists being led by sympathetic Republican lawmakers.
An assistant to Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a fierce loyalist of former US President Donald Trump, cheered on the insurrectionists as they stormed the US Capitol on January 6, posting a video from across the street on the Parler messaging site used by Trump supporters to plan the assault.
Gizmodo first reported on the message, but noted that ProPublica had published the metadata of Valdez’s video last month without connecting it to the staffer. According to the outlet, the video was posted at 1:14 pm on January 6, by which time the insurrectionists had broken through US Capitol Police lines at several points and were engaged in a close-in fight with security forces on the Capitol steps, meaning they were just moments from entering the building itself.
However, Jillian Lane Wyant, Gaetz’s chief of staff, told Gizmodo that Valdez believed he only witnessing a protest, not an insurrection.
Gizmodo noted there was no sign Valdez had amplified Trump’s later calls for an end to the violence at the Capitol – only the calls to “stop the steal.”
A Trump Stalwart
Gaetz has been a fierce defender of Trump, pledging to challenge the votes of Electoral College electors whose states Trump claimed ran fraudulent elections. After the insurrection, he has defended Trump against the impeachment trial for allegedly inciting the insurrection, and has sought the ouster of Republican lawmakers who voted for impeachment, including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).
This isn’t the first incident involving one of Gaetz’s aides, either: in 2017, Foreign Policy revealed that Devin Murphy, an legislative aide to the congressman, had effectively crowd-sourced legislation aiming to hijack a Democratic resolution by using content from “The_Donald,” a subreddit on the Reddit message board site. The subreddit was banned in June 2020 for orchestrating targeted harassment and was known as a hotbed of conspiracy theories and hateful ideas.
Five people died in the assault, including a police officer beaten to death with a fire extinguisher and a female rioter who was shot by a guard outside the Senate chamber. While the legislative building was damaged and looted, they failed at their goal of capturing either the Electoral College ballots or key lawmakers, and after police cleared the rioters from the building, lawmakers reconvened and finished certifying the results.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
0.00 (0%) 0 votes
