All posts tagged "Amy Kremer"

This is the first part of a two-part Raw Story series exploring pro-Trump organizer Cindy Chafian's actions before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Read Part 2 here.

Two golf carts sped toward the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, lurching forward as space in the torrent of Trump supporters opened, then abruptly closed. Sirens wailed as Washington, D.C., police units responded to the chaotic scene.

The carts, driven by pro-Trump rally organizer Cindy Chafian and her husband, Scott, carried an assortment of passengers, including the wife of conspiracy trafficker Alex Jones and Nathan Hughes, an Arkansas man who’d later be charged with assaulting law enforcement, disorderly conduct and other offenses for actions he would allegedly take in the hours to come....

As Donald Trump plots a return to the White House in 2025, his past courtship of militant far-right groups — some of whom led the mob that overran the U.S. Capitol — highlights an ongoing threat of political violence in the United States.

Trump has continued to signal to violent extremists since Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021. In February, the former president amplified a user on the Truth Social platform who pledged that his supporters will “physically fight for him” to win the Republican nomination while warning that “we Are Locked and LOADED.”

Jacob Glick, a former investigative counsel for the January 6th Committee, told Raw Story it’s largely beside the point whether Trump directly or indirectly coordinated with the militant groups that attacked the Capitol — including, most prominently, leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. ...

Former President Donald Trump’s tweet on Dec. 19, 2020 — it summoned his supporters to “be there” for Congress’ Jan. 6 certification of the electoral vote and promised that it would be “wild” — electrified far-right militants.

One person who answered the call was Joseph Pavlik, a 65-year-old retired firefighter from Chicago.

Pavlik’s social media posts in November and December 2020 reflected a mounting sense of desperation about what America would look like with Trump forced to leave the White House. His Facebook posts manifested a logical response to the existential choice — Donald Trump or dystopian collapse — that the United States’ 45th president first defined during his 2016 campaign....

As the Women for America First bus tour wound across the country as Donald Trump refused to concede the 2020 election, chairperson Amy Kremer oversaw the operation from the road, while her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, worked from Washington, D.C.

Soon, the culmination of their effort to keep the president in power would be afoot: a massive rally scheduled for Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, just south of the White House. Trump himself would be the guest of greatest honor.

Since Trump had signaled his intention to be at the rally via Twitter on Dec. 27 , the Kremers grappled with new considerations. First, the rally would have to be moved from Freedom Plaza to the Ellipse. Second, and more pressing, Trump’s involvement aggravated a growing feud among the various organizers and MAGA hangers-on about who would get to share the stage with the president. ...

On Jan. 6, 2021, just south of the White House, Amy Kremer stood atop the stage where President Donald Trump would soon address his followers. She gazed over what she created — and what a sight it was.

Kremer and her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, were about to host the sitting president of the United States as he amassed his faithful in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election’s results. Their organization, Women for America First, was the one and only group that possessed the official permit to stage Trump’s “Save America” rally.

And amid a circus of shadowy militia groups, QAnon disciples and C-list MAGA minions staging raucous, unofficial gatherings on Jan. 5 and 6, Kremer’s “Save America” rally, and its proximity to Trump himself, carried a patina of slightly-less-crazy. ...