All posts tagged "Jason Funes"

This is the second 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 1 here.

Cindy Chafian, who handled permits for two pro-Trump warm-up rallies in Washington, D.C., and then hosted her own rally on the eve of President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” speech at the Ellipse, stood atop the U.S. Capitol’s inaugural grandstand the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021.

Standing beside her, Mariposa Castro, a former yoga and tea shop owner from California, excitedly addressed viewers on her Facebook livestream as rioters busted out a window to a Senate conference room....

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....

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....