Photo via @dellcam/Twitter, @realJoelValdez/Twitter
February 1, 2021, 2:57 pm
Representative Matt Gaetz is going to have a bit of a problem after ProPublica published hundreds of Parler videos from January 6 in and near the assault on the Capitol, including one that came from his press assistant Joel Valdez.
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This particular five-second video shows the crowd of Trump supporters as they surround the building, which Valdez posted with a rather encouraging message for the insurrectionists.
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“From the top of the Capitol office buildings, WE HEAR YOU LOUD AND CLEAR!” he wrote.
Valdez apparently took the video from the roof of Gaetz’s office building on Independence Avenue, across the street from the Capitol building complex.
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Gizmodo was able to link the video’s metadata to Valdez and discovered that by the time it was created, the rioters had “breached at least three police barricades and forced officers back onto the Capitol steps where they were violently engaged.”
Gaetz has been criticized for his own response to the attempted coup, including being one of several Republican legislators who tried to blame the actions of people who could not have been more clearly Trump supporters on anti-fascist activists.
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“I don’t know if the reports are true, but The Washington Times has just reported some pretty compelling evidence from a facial recognition company showing that some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters,” he claimed in a House floor speech. “They were masquerading as Trump supporters and were, in fact, members of the violent terrorist group Antifa.”
This theory was rapidly debunked as those identifies and/or arrested for being active participants in the attempted coup have all been found to be long-time conservatives and Trump supporters and even the FBI said antifa was not involved. Rather than apologizing, Gaetz is setting his sights on Rep. Liz Cheney for voting to impeach Donald Trump again for inciting the mob.
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He might instead want to focus on his own staff, but has so far only sent his chief of staff, Jillian Lane Wyant, to say that cheering a mob descending on the Capitol wasn’t bad because he didn’t know they were currently beating police officers and erecting gallows for Mike Pence.
“A staff member in our office posted on his personal Parlor [sic] account about the President’s rally before the Capitol had been breached or anyone was harmed,” Wyant told Gizmodod. “He also immediately amplified President Trump’s call on social media for those in attendance to go home. He regrets that the post has been misinterpreted as support for violence by some. It was not.”
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As Gizmodo points out, any Parler posts amplifying Trump’s calls for the insurrectionists to “go home” (was that the one where he called them all “very special,” too?) cannot be found on Valdez’s account.
*First Published: February 1, 2021, 2:57 pm
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