An arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a national group representing the top law enforcement officers in their states, sent out robocalls encouraging people to march to the U.S. Capitol the day before the building was stormed by a pro-Trump mob.
“At 1 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal,” said the voice on the recording, which was obtained by NBC News.
The calls, which did not advocate violence or suggest the building should be breached, was sent out by the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a fundraising arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association. The groups share funding, staff and office space in Washington, D.C.
In a statement to NBC News, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who runs the fund, said the calls were sent out without his knowledge.
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Adam Piper, the executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association, and Peter Bisbee, the executive director of the fundraising arm, did not return requests for comment about the robocalls, which were first reported by the watchdog group Documented.
Rebecca Klar at The Hill:
Posts on websites including Parler, a Twitter-like platform with minimal content moderation, and TheDonald.win, a message forum that sprung up after Reddit banned a “subreddit” of the same name in June, were rife with posts about storming the Capitol in the days leading up to the deadly riot that prompted a lockdown and forced lawmakers to evacuate.
But posts on mainstream platforms, including Twitter, also mused about a potential attack coinciding with the day Congress was set to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s win, according to a report from Advance Democracy, a non-partisan, non-profit organization that conducts public-interest research & investigations.
For five days leading up to the riot, when a mob forced its way into the Capitol, there were 1,480 posts on Twitter from QAnon-related accounts about the Jan. 6 date that contained “terms of violence,” according to the Advance Democracy report.
One account related to the QAnon conspiracy theory late Tuesday night tweeted, “WE are all done being the bigger person, no more MR. NICE PATRIOT! it’s Time for Patriots to Rise up, Kick The Tires and Light the Fires, and Kick Ass and Take Names!!,” according to the report.
Advance Democracy also identified four TikTok videos with between 1,900 views and 279,000 views that called for violence or rebellion during pro-Trump demonstrations scheduled for Jan. 6.
