Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, March 10, 2021

The Left and its media are sticking with their still-unsubstantiated narrative about Donald Trump, Russian collusion in the 2016 election, the legitimacy of the 2020 election, and the “treasonous” rage of Trump’s supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. We are talking 24-7 since 2015.

Who need facts when power is seized by force rather than persuasion and the will of the American people?

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson was one of the first senators to suspect the Jan. 6 riot had been planned. He was written off by leftists and the corporate media as a “conspiracy theorist.”

Columnist J. Michael Waller, senior analysts at Center for Security Policy, noted in a March 1 op-ed that “From the Washington Post to Whoopi Goldberg, members of the chattering class tried to alter the state of facts and evidence they didn’t like.”

Waller’s eye-witness account of the events of Jan. 6 were  featured in a WorldTribune article of Jan. 17: ‘Covert cadre’: Eyewitness details events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Democrats and the corporate media feverishly pushed the narrative that “the violence was the spontaneous action of hordes of Donald Trump supporters incited into insurrection by the then-president’s rambling speech. That narrative collapsed weeks later,” Waller noted.

Indictments issued by federal prosecutors allege that the breach of the U.S. Capitol raid was planned well in advance. The FBI agreed. Prosecutors say that elements of the planning began as early as Nov. 3, 2020.

At a Feb. 23 Senate hearing, current and former U.S. Capitol security officials said that “wide-ranging intelligence failures” prevented detection of what became a “military-style, coordinated assault.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who co-chaired the hearing, concluded, “This was a planned insurrection.”

Also at that hearing, Sen. Johnson read extensively from Waller’s account of what transpired on Jan. 6. Johnson entered Waller’s report into the official record.

Waller identified four groups that appeared to have planned for violence well in advance of Jan. 6.

Video of the hearing shows Johnson saying, “He [Waller] describes four different types of people: plainclothes militants, agents provocateurs, fake Trump protesters, and then disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. I think that these are the people that probably planned this.”

Waller’s description of the four groups:

1. Plainclothes militants. Militant, aggressive men in Donald Trump and MAGA gear at a front police line at the base of the temporary presidential inaugural platform;
2. Agents-provocateurs. Scattered groups of men exhorting the marchers to gather closely and tightly toward the center of the outside of the Capitol building and prevent them from leaving;
3. Fake Trump protesters. A few young men wearing Trump or MAGA hats backwards and who did not fit in with the rest of the crowd in terms of their actions and demeanor, whom I presumed to be Antifa or other leftist agitators; and
4. Disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. A column of organized, disciplined men, wearing similar but not identical camouflage uniforms and black gear, some with helmets and GoPro cameras or wearing subdued Punisher skull patches.

“I presumed these fake Trump protesters were Antifa or something similar. However, that entire afternoon I saw none of them act aggressively or cause any problems. At least, not from my vantage point,” Waller wrote in the Jan. 14 article. “I didn’t know then that a notorious leftist from Utah had been at the vanguard of the fatal attempt to smash down the door to the House chamber and ran through the Capitol screaming that it should be burned down.”

Waller noted: “That didn’t matter to a lot of the journalists covering Johnson’s comments. To them, the fact that I had seen ‘fake Trump protesters’ before the riot was a fact that had to be discredited and destroyed, before it could even be evaluated.”

Seemingly in unison, the major media pushed the “conspiracy theory” narrative, “exaggerating and distorting what I wrote and what Johnson accurately said,” Waller wrote.

Pushing the new false narrative were:

• CNN: “Ron Johnson just dropped a ridiculous conspiracy theory at the Senate Capitol attack hearing,” by CNN Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza;
• New York Daily News: “Sen. Ron Johnson airs conspiracy theory about ‘fake Trump supporters’ in Senate hearing on Capitol riot,” by Dave Goldiner;
• Washington Post: “Ron Johnson’s extreme effort to distance Trump supporters from the Capitol Riot,” by Aaron Blake (who tried to discredit me by deploying a 12-year-old quote from the former head of my place of employment);
• Huffington Post: “Senator Ron Johnson Defends Capitol Rioters During Hearing,” by Matt Fuller;
• Daily Beast: “Johnson Pushes Deranged ‘Fake Trump Supporters’ Theory During Capitol Riot Hearing,” with the topic “Gaslighter-In-Chief” by a “Breaking News Intern”;
• Boston Globe: “Senator Johnson pushes false claim that insurrectionists on Jan. 6 were ‘fake Trump protesters’ during hearing,” by Amanda Kaufman and Christina Prignano.

“There you have it: A rash of fake news, whipped up in a jiffy,” Waller wrote.

Quickly following the corporate media’s lead, the “wise sages of popular culture began offering their thoughtful critiques,” Waller noted. “Actor Rob Reiner, the Lincoln Project donor most famous as ‘Meathead’ from Archie Bunker, tweeted that Johnson ‘bald faced lied.’ On ABC’s ‘The View’, Whoopi Goldberg called Johnson’s reading of The Federalist a lot of ‘boo hoo.’ ”

Waller had noted that his report was “purely my eyewitness account from notes taken the evening of Jan. 6 and morning of Jan. 7. They are not tainted by any news or information from outside sources, so they do not contain many details that are public.”

Intelligence Brief __________ Replace The Media

  2021, Coup de grace: The planned violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, J. Michael Waller, Sen. Ron Johnson, The Federalist, WorldTribune.com