C. Pierce, "I Don't Believe in This Kind of Luck" ... Trump's shock Troops knew the weak spots

[Botany]

Published Oct. 2021

"Video shows some of the first rioters to break through the police line running past 15 reinforced windows, making a beeline for a recessed area on the Senate side of the building, where two unreinforced windows and two doors with unreinforced glass were all that stood between them and hallways leading to lawmakers inside."

The majority of the Capitol’s 658 single-pane windows were quietly upgraded during a 2017-19 renovation of the historic building. The original wooden frames and glass were covered with a second metal frame containing bomb-resistant glass.

snip

And whether by sheer luck, real-time trial and error, or advance knowledge by rioters, several of those vulnerable windows and two glass-paned doors — protected with only a thin Kevlar film added after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — became easy entry points for hundreds of Trump supporters who overran and ransacked the building on Jan. 6.

snip

Video shows some of the first rioters to break through the police line running past 15 reinforced windows, making a beeline for a recessed area on the Senate side of the building, where two unreinforced windows and two doors with unreinforced glass were all that stood between them and hallways leading to lawmakers inside who had not begun to evacuate. A rioter’s fist cracked the glass of one window, video posted to social media shows. A stolen police riot shield and a wooden pole finished the job. In seconds, the unreinforced glass gave way in a single sheet. Rioters poured through the window. Similar methods were used to break glass in at least three other locations.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a37884804/january-6-capitol-riot-unreinforced-windows/

[tanyev]

1. Yes. I was reminded of that last night while watching one of the videos in the hearing.

These are the two things I really want answered:

1. How did they know which doors and windows were not reinforced?

2. Who left the pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC?

[Hekate]

23. Who gave the orders to not reinforce those spots in the first place? It was done on TFG's watch.

There are no coincidences.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

37. Thank you! I mean, wtf? I've yet to even hear any comment about the inexplicable fact

that a few spots were left unreinforced. Why purposely leave weak spots ?

[BadgerMom]

33. And who removed the panic button in Rep. Pressley's office?

[dalton99a]

2. Remember the Pink Hat lady?

She knew where to go and which windows to break

Powell, a 40-year-old mother of eight from Sandy Lake, is a "leading participant in the most violent insurrection to occur at the U.S. Capitol in over 200 years," and "fueled a situation that threatened the peaceful transfer of power in the United States," federal prosecutors wrote Wednesday.

An FBI affidavit said that Powell was with a group inside the Capitol and provided detailed instructions on the building's layout, telling rioters that "they should 'coordinate together if you are going to take this building.'" Powell also noted that they "have another window to break," the affidavit said.

Authorities said a search of Powell's house turned up several smashed cellphones and two "go bags," one with ammunition, rope and duct tape and the other with throwing stars, knives and lighters. A bag found in Powell's car had a tarp, zip ties and two loaded magazines for an AK-47 rifle, authorities said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rachel-powell-capitol-riot-prosecutors-appeal-release/

[2Gingersnaps]

12. Sounds an awful lot like those "tours" given and strongly denied by certain R Congressmen on Jan. 5

[msfiddlestix]

16. I vaguely remember the pink hat lady, but I had not read the details you provided here. ty

This information the FBI included in an affidavit is a big effin deal.



I wonder when this affidavit was filed and what has become of her case? Was she arrested, charged and prosecuted yet?

Is she facing a trial or has she pleaded out? Serving time? was she the one who planted the bombs at the DNC and RNC buildings?

[Lucky Luciano]

19. She should be thrown under the jail. Discarded forever.

All of these miscreants should face the worst possible outcome.

I would personally like them all to be executed, but the law doesn’t go there. They are subhuman vile scum.

[yardwork]

3. Somebody told them the weak spots. Who?

[Hekate]

25. Somebody created the weak spots. Who? I want to see the architect's plans, the change orders,...

… and who signed off at each stage.

[ReluctanceTango]

27. I'll have to look for it, but

I read somewhere that some of the doors and windows couldn’t be upgraded for structural integrity or maybe historical preservation concerns.

In any renovation of a building so old, there will be some elements that can’t be updated to modern specs.

[Hekate]

28. I read that too -- and no longer believe it. Bet you anything the post-insurrection repairs...

… brought everything up to modern specs.

[soldierant]

35. Well, sure - because they could.

With the damage done, "historical preservation" kind of got blown away. Any history there befpre the riot was not there after. Not that it won't be attempted.

Such repairs are in the purview of the Architect of the Capitol. The most recent repairs were a two year project completed in 2016 - I doubt the Architect of the Capitol was prescient enough to know that Trump** was going to become President in 2016 as early as 2014, and I doubt even more that the Architect of the Capitol was prescient enough to know what was going to happen in January 2021.

[Hekate]

36. I once worked for the head of my County's Public Works Dept. Though most think it's only ...

…Dumps, Sewers, and Roads, it actually covers everything in the County that you can physically touch, and there is a County Architect. It is the US government in miniature, but nothing is left out.

Everything that gets built or repaired or upgraded generates mountains of paper (or the electronic version, these days). All these papers have a sequence, and all these papers get signed.

The US Capitol has an Architect, and the Architect answers to a commission as well as his boss. Someone had an idea, the idea turned into a formal proposal, money was allocated, a contract was written, bids went out, and companies were hired. Blueprints were generated. Orders went out. Change-orders were requested and signed off on. Payrolls were generated and signed. There are names of actual people attached to every step of the process.

I don’t care what their excuse was, but someone, an identifiable someone, decided to leave part of the Capitol unprotected. I would like the FBI to find them and investigate their background. I would like to know who gave away this info and to whom and for what reason. That’s the kind of thing the FBI is supposed to be good at.

[Mozeltov Cocktail]

31. The "hardening" of the Capitol was done with a bombing attack in mind...

The windows and doors that were reinforced were selected to protect the occupants of the Capitol from a Oklahoma City type attack. Windows that were not reinforced were also chosen because of the age and location of the windows.
There are over 600 windows in the Capitol, only about 25 were not reinforced. The riotous mob ran hundreds of yards past the reinforced windows to reach the ones that were vulnerable.
When you add that to the fact that the panic buttons had been disabled, that Boebert was live tweeting the whereabouts of congressmen and Speaker Pelosi...well, I think the next hearings are going to be lit...I really can't wait.

[Hekate]

34. As Malcolm Nance says: Coincidences take a lot of planning

[usaf-vet]

39. When listening to the post hearing discussion on Maddow Podcast. Chris Hayes REPEATLY made the......

...... point that the Proud Boys didn't go to the Ellipse to hear TFG.

But went straight to Capital Building and were there and positioned at the weak point by 10:30 A.M.

TFG didn't start the rally at the Ellipse until 12:00.

The Proud Boys were the spearhead of the attack on the Capital.

They went to the place where the weak non-reinforced windows were.

THEN waited until TFG sent the mob that he incited with his speech to march to the Capital.

Where the Proud Boys waited with the "keys" to the building.

PLANNED...PLANNED...PLANNED!

[Johnny2X2X]

4. Proud Boys and Oath Keepers coordination with White House is the key

The fact the Proud Boys were at the Capitol before Trump even spoke is a big deal, they knew he was sending a mob their way to help them. There will be texts and other communications between the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and people inside the White House. Now I don't think it will go to Meadows or family, but I'd bet Trump was communicating with the more fringe elements around him, Rudy, Flynn, and Bannon. Putting those pieces together is important.

The committee planned this very well, I'd bet there's a major bombshell planned for each day of the hearings.

I have a question, was a march from Trump's speech to the Capitol planned all along or was it supposedly spontaneous?

[Botany]

5. My guess is that the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys' job was to get to the parliamentarian's ....

.... office and steal the electoral ballots so they could be replaced with the "new ones" that
Rudy and company helped to make up ...aka the alternative electors ... as the great swarm
of meth head bikers, racists, and maga-it dead enders caused confusion other places. Now
the phony ballots would have been spotted quickly but in the violence and confusion Trump
would have declared martial law and would have tried to stop the transfer of power.

Trump and his henchmen were planning to keep power no matter what even before the
election.

[Delphinus]

8. You

might be right about the job of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. It makes sense to me.

[woodsprite]

6. I had read someplace that the SS were

Scrambling because they didn’t know, especially when he said he’d walk with them.

[msfiddlestix]

18. My take is that the "march" was planned all along, I'm talking about the PB's, Ok's et al.

They began heading to the Hill before TFG even took to the podium according to the journalist who was in contact with leadership of these groups prior to the days leading up to J6.

[dpibel]

22. No permit for a march

IIRC, the event was supposed to be a rally only. The march was unpermitted.

So, at least officially, it was a spontaneous march.

After all, if it had been part of the program, Trump wouldn't have had to tell people that they were going to march to the Capitol.

[Desert_Leslie]

24. And ....

Where there is trouble, there is always ....

Roger Stone

[hydrolastic]

38. Nailed it! +100%

[Paladin]

7. Charlie Pierce is correct, as usual.

Luck didn't have fuck-all to do with it.

[Botany]

9. Out of 650 windows "they" knew the dozen or so ones that were un reinforced

Last edited Sat Jun 11, 2022, 03:22 PM - Edit history (1)

1.8% of all of the windows were un reinforced and "they" hit each one, panic buttons were
turned off in democratic reps offices, and the D.C. National Guard who up until 1/4/21 had
the autonomy to respond to things like the 1/6/21 riot on there own. Trump fired the Sec.
of Defense Mark Esper right after the election in November and replaced him with Christopher
Miller who gave this "stand down order:"

[Eyeball_Kid]

11. Yeah. Who ripped out the panic buttons.

They were damaged BEFORE the Capitol was breached.

[Hekate]

29. Bureaucracies run on paper. I want to see the work-orders for de-installing the Dems' panic buttons

If the work-orders don’t exist, I want the infiltrators found.

[TigressDem]

14. TWO DAYS before Jan 6 Riots, NATIONAL GUARDs hands are TIED by tRump Sec of DEF plant? Wow.

HOLY SHIT.

General Miley was STILL stepping out onto Shit Creek even with PENCE demanding National Guard deploy.

[TigressDem]

15. So WHICH law is broken when the pRez FIRES a Sec of Def for REFUSING to hamstring National Guard?

The outward story was Esper refused to release the National Guard on the BLM Protesters in Minneapolis quick enough.

[Traildogbob]

10. Malcom Nance famous quote

Coincidences take a lot of planning.

[Hekate]

30. This was a massive undertaking

[TigressDem]

13. Proud Boys did early recon... Nick Quested Documented it with Film and testified 6/9/22

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/proud-boys-recon-capitol-jan-6-hearing-1365850/

[doc03]

17. I have always wondered about the doorway in the videos that appears

to have wooden concrete forms around it. Apparently it was in the process of being
reinforced or something. I didn't see concrete forms around any other doors.

[FakeNoose]

20. The story we were told is that improvements were being made between sessions

In the recess that encompassed the holidays, there were housekeeping and security updates being donein the Capitol building, and that included some doors and windows being replaced. I can't provide a link but I remember reading this several times in the weeks after Jan. 6th. So there was a legitimate reason for disconnecting the "emergency" buzzers, because they were being updated and replaced. Unfortunately this was also Covid-time and things were delayed - maybe on purpose, but maybe not.

January 6th 2020 was a Wednesday but most of the Representatives and their staffs returned to the Capitol on Monday the 4th. The new legislators were also sworn in on Monday the 4th. However many of them found out their offices weren't ready because the work hadn't been completed. Security locks, buzzers, cameras etc. weren't operational yet. Was that a coincidence? I'm sure the Jan. 6th committee is looking into this.

[Upthevibe]

21. I want to know who in the Hell told the Governor of Maryland

they'd "get back to him" when he called and said his National Guard was at the ready!!!! And NO ONE EVER called him back. My bet is it was Flynn's brother.

If the Guard had been sent in, maybe it wouldn't have gotten to the point it did. Also, who unhooked the panic button in that Reps (D) office (I can't remember her name)?

[Ford_Prefect]

26. It was very clear that there had been significant advance planning prior to the day.

Some of the released testimony confirms that. The presence of poles and other such bat like weapons speaks clearly to the intent of the crowd. Such items have long been banned at political events to prevent them being used as weapons in a riot.

[Katcat]

32. I remember

I remember the day of the insurrection there were people on Twitter pointing out that they had to know exactly which window to go to because it was the only there that was barred or reinforced.