It is quickly becoming clear that senior figures in our government--and in the White House--not only supported the idea and goals of the January 6 terrorists, but provided material support, funding, and operational intelligence.

It got as far as holding the Guard in barracks.

The State Department has condemned foreign coups where strongman regimes kept their armies in barracks while inflicting violence on their political opponents. We correctly call them attacks on the rule of law itself.

THAT is what President Trump wanted, and why he must go.

That Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz cynically cheerled this insurrection is true. It also pales in severity to a public effort by the President of the United States to terrorize his own government into violating the Constitution.

Follow the thread on the National Guard story. Trump's power is in freefall--chasing down the leads and getting people to talk shouldn't be hard.

This is a Truth and Reconciliatiion Committee-level attack on democracy such as our country has never experienced before.

The clearing out of the Pentagon and its filling with Trump loyalists now appears in much darker and more calculated terms. It was that Pentagon that prohibited the D.C. Guard from carrying weapons during the protests. It is that Pentagon that refused repeated requests for help.

Donald Trump decided for his own reasons to test the limits of his power, both official (through his remaining loyalists in the Pentagon) and the unofficial (through the paramilitary he unleashed on the Congress he despises.)

We cut out the cancer now or it grows out of control.

So I hope you'll consider sharing this thread with your members of Congress, and amplifying it to those you think need to hear this. The time for action is now, and our nation will be measured by the decisions we make over the next 48 hours.

Thank you for providing the visual aids! https://twitter.com/evanshumeyko/status/1348036938788438020

I will simply add that reports from the NYTimes and WaPo that detail an increasingly contained Trump--an internal attempt to "25th" him without formally doing so--indicates at least a few key WH officials are trying to put obstructions between Trump and power. That's telling.

If even some senior WH officials are concerned enough about the president's involvement in this terrorist attack that they are working around him, there is likely broader @GOP support for removal than is currently being publicly expressed.

These insurrectionists built a gallows in front of the Capitol. They kicked in the doors of a federal building. They had zip-ties. They had guns. They had explosives.

We must be clear-eyed about exactly what Donald Trump incited Americans to do, even if that hurts.

These terrorists wanted to hang Mike Pence just as much as they wanted to hang @AOC. They faced no meaningful resistance because the White House actively prevented the National Guard from entering.

This was an attack on all of us, for the benefit of one man.

UPDATE: Focus seems to be tightening around the Pentagon--and the Trump loyalists who make up its skeleton crew. Questions are multiplying around why the Pentagon refused to approve multiple dire requests for support. https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1348478220505657346

We also learned from Rep. Crow's meeting with federal officials that the Pentagon had no functioning crisis operations at the time emergency calls began arriving from Capitol Hill. It took over an hour for DOD to get a clear sense of the crisis. https://twitter.com/RepJasonCrow/status/1348391040370282501

Given the Pentagon was fairly quick to recognize its own lack of preparedness, that raises further questions about why, then, they adamantly refused to allow Virginia and Maryland to mobilize their nearby National Guard troops.

We also now know Pentagon officials "didn't like the visual" of National Guard troops protecting the Capitol from Trump's army of violent insurrectionists.

In the midst of a terrorist attack on the Capitol, Pentagon brass were making decisions based on how they'd look on TV.

I'd also like to quickly clarify that I casually said "keep the Guard in barracks" in the first tweet. I know the National Guard doesn't have barracks, they're part-time soldiers. It would have been more accurate to say "prevented states from mobilizing their Guards."

Based on what the Washington Post is reporting and what I've heard privately, one working theory is that the pipe bombs left at DNC and RNC HQs were meant to draw the limited police presence away from the Capitol. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sund-riot-national-guard/2021/01/10/fc2ce7d4-5384-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html

The same Department of Defense that said it "didn't like the visual" of putting National Guard troops in front of the Capitol signed off on this display of force in response to the George Floyd protests in May:

It appears from the collected statements of MD Gov. Hogan, VA Gov. Northam, and the D.C. Mayor's Office that the White House knew Capitol Police were significantly outnumbered (roughly 8,000 rioters vs. 1,200-1,400 police) and yet actively refused to send backup.

It was not until the Vice President stepped in and, from what earlier reporting implies co-opted the chain of command, that the National Guard was authorized to recapture and secure the U.S. Capitol complex.

That hour-plus gap is a damning silence from President Trump.

There was good reason for Pence to have finally lost his patience, given that he and Congress were trapped in the Capitol while insurrectionists roamed the halls beating police officers and shouting about lynching the Veep.

Tomorrow is gonna be a busy day on Capitol Hill. Members are incensed at Trump's inaction. They haven't received formal briefings from the White House, or the Pentagon, or even Capitol Police. Even the Vice President is out of the loop.

Monday will bring a lot of movement.