Ways Trump obstructed intelligence gathering prior to the Capitol assault

How close was America to a political and military coup? Closer than we know.

Countervailing intelligence played a role in Wednesday’s breach of the nation’s Capitol. Consider that Trump placed obstructionists at the nexus of civilian/military intelligence. With Trump loyalists resisting a “smooth transition” to the next administration, three questions emerge: first, what intelligence about domestic terrorist cells was not shared with the Capitol police and the DC Mayor’s Office; second, why did DC and Capitol Police not accept Maryland Governor Hogan’s offer of Maryland National Guard (1).

Third, what intelligence remains concealed from the incoming administration, thereby benefitting a select few to exploit for future acts of insurrection.

What does ‘too late’ mean?

While the nation is playing rope-a-dope naming and blaming, are we ignoring the plausibility that counter-intelligence was “lacking” OR WAS BLOCKED AND RESISTED.

We don’t know. And this is a problem.

“Willful ignorance concentrates power, centering power at the feet of the despot.”

-Anonymous

Sunday, January 10

As other MSNBC political contributors were discussing post-1/6 accountability and reckoning on “Jonathan Capehart Weekend,” Marylander and former RNC Chair Michael Steele accurately targeted the discourse, “when are we going to..we have to start dealing with domestic terrorism as a threat.”

In other words when are we going to accept that ‘domestic terrorism’ is not another partisan epithet: domestic terrorism is a ‘thing.’

Trump not only has left a gaping hole in the democracy-accountability discussion, he bungled a military coup.

According to Fiona Hill, former Foreign Security Official: This (the Capitol assault) was “Plan B:”

“Fiona Hill, who is presumably still somewhat wired into the national security apparatus, put out a statement that seems to indicate that Trump’s incitement for his supporters to attack the Capitol was actually the Plan B for his coup. She intimates that using the military, presumably to somehow prevent Congress from certifying Biden, was his initial plan. Says Hill, ‘The President was trying to stage a coup. There was little chance of it happening, but there was enough chance that the former defense secretaries put out that letter, which was the final nail through that effort. They prevented the military from being involved in any coup attempt. But instead, Trump tried to incite it himself.’” (2)

It has been written that Adolph Hitler disdained aides-de-camp, military advisors. At several moments in Germany’s downward trajectory, “outside-the-cell” intelligence became conflated with distraction. Trump’s game, like Hitler’s, is to work “inside” ignorance by obstructing “outside” experience. “He (Trump) led us here,” “ the President wants us here,” are the cries from the Capitol steps. And then the rioters breached the nation’s Capitol to claim elected officials as traitors and hostages.

January 11

1- “Maryland’s Governor still baffled by delay in approval for National Guard help,” January 10

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/10/hogan-Capitol-National-guard-rioting-457028

2- “Total Breakdown of Constitutional Order,” m2c4, Medium, January 9