The House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol played a highlight reel showing how Donald Trump's Dec. 19 tweet was critical to motivating far-right media personalities to focus their attention on stopping the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.
"Not long after Sydney Powell, Mike Flynn and Rudy Giuliani left the White House in the early hours of the morning, President Trump turned away from both his outside advisors' outlandish and unworkable schemes and his White House counsel's advice to swallow hard and accept the reality of the loss," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said. "Instead, Donald Trump issued a tweet that would galvanize his followers and unleash a political firestorm and change the course of our history as a country."
The former constitutional law professor detailed why Trump's Twitter account was critical to his coup attempt.
"Trump's purpose was to mobilize a crowd. How do you mobilize a crowd in 2020? With millions of followers on Twitter, President Trump knew exactly how to do it. On 1:42 a.m. on Dec. 19, 2020, shortly after the left participants left the unhinged meeting, Trump sent out the tweet with his explosive invitation. Trump repeated his big lie and claimed it was, statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election before calling for a big protest in D.C. on Jan. 6, 'be there, will be wild.' Trump supporters responded immediately."
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"Women for America First, a pro-Trump organizing group, had previously applied for a rally permit for Jan. 22 and 23 in Washington D.C., several days after Joe Biden was to be inaugurated. In the hours after the tweet, they moved their permit to Jan. 6, two weeks before. This rescheduling created the rally where Trump would eventually speak. The next day Ali Alexander, leader of the Stop the Steal organization and key mobilizer of Trump's supporters, registered www.WildProtest.com, named after Trumps' tweet."
Raskin then played clips of right-wing media figures, including Alex Jones, Tim Pool, and Matt Bracken.
"You better understand something, son," pro-Trump YouTuber Salty Cracker told his audience.
"Red wave, b*tch. A red wedding going on Jan. 6," he predicted.
Red wedding refers to the famous episode of HBO's "Game of Thrones" that closed the third season. In the episode, Robb Stark, his wife, mother, and banner-men are massacred after being set up by Lord Walder Frey at the behest of the Lannister family.
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