The private security force surrounding Michael Flynn was on the ground at the Capitol on Jan. 6

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Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's former national security advisor who was convicted of lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador and subsequently pardoned, emerged as one of the most high-profile inspirational figures in the effort to keep Trump in office, which culminated with the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6.

Flynn's private security force, a group called 1st Amendment Praetorian that was launched less than two months before the Nov. 3 election, played a key role trafficking propaganda to convince Trump's supporters that the election was stolen. The group also fielded members on the ground in Washington DC on Jan. 6, and then helped promote the revisionist falsehood that the assault on the Capitol was "staged," as insurrection apologists sought to whitewash the attempted coup.

The self-described "group of military, law enforcement and intelligence community" veterans has received relatively little attention, compared to the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers — two right-wing paramilitary groups that have seen dozens of members charged with offenses related to the Capitol assault. In contrast, none of 1st Amendment Praetorian's members have been charged, although at least two are documented as being in a restricted area near the Capitol on Jan. 6. And to a much greater degree than the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, members of 1st Amendment Praetorian maintained direct contact with major Trump allies like Michael Flynn, his brother Joe Flynn, lawyer Sidney Powell, and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, chaired by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), is seeking information about 1st Amendment Praetorian founder Robert Patrick Lewis, along with Michael Flynn, Trump confidant Roger Stone, InfoWars hosts Alex Jones and Owen Schroyer, Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander, Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, Oath Keeper leader Kenneth Harrelson and dozens of other high-profile Trump supporters. The committee's interest in the individuals is part of a probe into "recruitment, planning, coordination, and other preparations for the rallies leading up to and including January 6th and the violence on January 6th."

Much of the information about 1st Amendment Praetorian's involvement in the events of Jan. 6 come from the accounts of its own members in contemporaneous social media posts and retrospective interviews with sympathetic right-wing podcasters.

1st Amendment Praetorian's most conspicuous role in the run-up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol was providing security for a string of gatherings in Washington DC that built momentum for the Save America Rally where Trump addressed supporters on the Ellipse on Jan. 6. 1st Amendment Praetorian was listed as "demonstration marshals" on event permit applications of the Million MAGA March on Nov. 14 and the Rally to Revival on Jan. 5, both of which took place at Freedom Plaza. And 1st Amendment Praetorian members accompanied Michael Flynn and his family members when Flynn spoke at the Supreme Court on Dec. 12. Following that assignment, Lewis lauded Flynn as a "personal hero and motivation in this fight," while saying that serving on his personal security detail "takes the cake."

Lewis has spoken openly about his involvement with both Flynn and Sidney Powell. Powell represented Flynn in his quest to have his case dismissed after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Following the Nov. 3 election — and while still representing Flynn — Powell briefly served on Trump's legal team. Representing Trump, alongside Rudy Giuliani thrusted Powell into the public spotlight, where she was to become one of the loudest and most persistent tribunes of baseless conspiracy theories, largely around the false claim that Dominion Voting Systems conspired with the Venezuelan government to steal the election.

"We also had our intelligence team working in a couple different aspects, assisting her team," Lewis, a retired US Army Special Forces operative with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, said in a Dec. 9, 2021 YouTube video. "So, our intel team has been processing a lot of OSINT, doing a lot of open source intelligence, a lot of digging, a lot of collating of all these different things that people have been sharing on social media regarding different pieces of this election fraud puzzle, whether it be digging into the companies that we know are behind it — Dominion, Smartmatic, SIDL, and all their ownership and their connections to Venezuela and Iran and China and all these other places."

In an interview with "The Right Side with Doug Billings" in June, Lewis elaborated on 1st Amendment Praetorian's inside role in the multi-pronged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

"You know, that's from November to January; we had a team in DC with General Flynn and Sidney Powell and Patrick Byrne, and so we got a front-row view to a lot of this stuff coming in, and really what was going on and how that was happening," Lewis told Billings.

As has been widely reported, Flynn, Powell and Byrne visited Trump in the White House for a Dec. 18 meeting that reportedly devolved "into shouting," with White House counsel Pat Cipollone pushing back against the trio's insistence that Trump take dramatic action to halt the transfer of executive power.

During the June 2021 interview, Lewis told a clearly star-struck Billings that 1st Amendment Praetorian had provided intelligence "directly to the president" during the same timeframe as the Dec. 18 meeting. Raw Story was unable to independently confirm that any information compiled by Lewis' group was consumed by Trump.

"But we have other things where we do national objectives, like the intelligence that we're delivering to the White House, right, directly to the president," Lewis said. "That was stuff based on China's influence in the United States, and specific propaganda that we were outlining, because we have former military intelligence and NSA people that were very Asia-focused, that can pick this up. That's their job, right? They were in the military for decades specifically doing that."

The notion that China engineered the election of Joe Biden, an extension of Powell's baseless claim that Dominion Voting Systems conspired with Venezuela to steal the election that is also false, was cited by many of the Capitol rioters as a justification for violence.
And it goes on as a long read but interesting. Seems many of this people at least claim to be Special Forces and operative in the murky world of the intelligence agencies. Seems Flynn has or had his own private army to takeover the government in a coup d'état.

https://www.rawstory.com/praetorian/?cx ... 2#cxrecs_s
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: The private security force surrounding Michael Flynn was on the ground at the Capitol on Jan. 6

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lurker wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 4:16 pm per wikipedia:
Praetorian Guard (Latin: Cohortes praetoriae) was a unit of the Imperial Roman army that served as personal bodyguards and intelligence agents for the Roman emperors.
Also known to remove and select Emperors.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: The private security force surrounding Michael Flynn was on the ground at the Capitol on Jan. 6

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Same as Jack Ripper. Yee-haw.

Flynn isn't the one I worry about. I worry about paramilitary groups with training, experience, and a basic understanding of OPSEC.

Once they get someone high enough in the chain of succession - Speaker is ideal, but Senate President pro-tem will suffice - we have a real danger that they'll move. The danger of the unlimited pardon power is that someone can assassinate and pardon their way to the top. After that, the problem becomes the ungodly assortment of emergency powers under the purview of the executive.

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