TRUMP'S COUP TIMELINE

* This thread will use military time and EST time zone for any times provided.

November 7, 2020 - The press calls the 2020 presidential election for now President-elect Joe Biden, 4 days after the election.

November 9, 2020

After meeting with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and in violation of standing Department of Justice policy not to interfere in elections, US Attorney General Bill Barr authorizes federal prosecutors to investigate claims of electoral fraud.

Richard Pilger, the head of the DoJ’s Election Crimes Branch, resigns in response to Barr’s memo.

Trump fires Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. In response, Esper says, “Who’s going to come in behind me? It’s going to be a real ‘yes man.’ And then God help us.”

Trump immediately names Christopher Miller Acting Secretary of Defense.

Trump follows Esper’s firing with firing the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, and the Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Defense, constituting a “near total decapitation of civilian leadership” at the Pentagon.

"Lofgren asked whether Capitol police had enough officers to handle the capacity, and if they had the National Guard on standby and available to quickly help if needed.

"Sund insisted, yes, they had both bases covered, Lofgren said."

I have

Sund told Tim Ryan the same thing, BUT:

"In fact, three days earlier, Capitol police had told the Pentagon that it was not requesting National Guard support for the event, according to defense officials."

So either Sund was lying about requesting support or DoD is lying.

Both are plausible given everything that happened the day of. But either the Capitol Police Chief or the Department of Defense lied about whether Capitol Police had requested National Guard back-up.

We do know DoD hamstrung Guard units' ability to respond to rioting.

So there was a designated protest zone on the Capitol grounds, but when folks left the rally and marched toward the Capitol, no one was directing them toward the designated protest zone? There was nothing ensuring they went there and not...wherever they wanted?

"A seeming fortress from a distance, the Capitol contains more than 400 separate doors, entryways and ground-level windows."

I hope limiting entry points is one of the first major steps they take to preventing something like this again.

"Multiple European security officials told Insider that President Donald Trump appeared to have tacit support among US federal agencies responsible for securing the Capitol complex in Wednesday's coup

"Today I am briefing my government that we believe with a reasonable level of certainty that Donald Trump attempted a coup that failed when the system did not buckle." - NATO Intelligence official

Yikes on bikes.

"The French police official said they believed that an investigation would find that someone interfered with the deployment of additional federal law-enforcement officials on the perimeter of the Capitol complex...

"...the official has direct knowledge of the proper procedures for security of the facility."

We know that:

1) Sund told Representatives that he had requested additional National Guard back-up. That did not happen.
2) National Guard was deployed for "traffic control" at...

...the Capitol perimeter. Though this was a fairly small number of Guard troops, none were deployed to help inside the perimeter.
3) Additional Guard support was delayed by Sec. of Army Ryan McCarthy, Sec. Def. Christopher Collins, and allegedly by Trump himself for 90 minutes.

CITATIONS FOR COUP TIMELINE

Barr authorizes investigations into election fraud: https://t.co/h7MSjSYblJ

Pilger resigns: https://t.co/lR9iS1Z7g2

Esper’s firing: https://t.co/ADh5PxZ4t4, https://t.co/EgKUX05qYq

Pentagon firings: