July 12, 2022: Jan. 6 panel zeroes in on Trump tweet

Today at 1 p.m. Eastern, the House Jan. 6 committee “plans to make its most complex case yet,” write Nicholas Wu and Kyle Cheney: “that Donald Trump's words and actions influenced extremists and brought them to the steps of the Capitol.”

Central to that case is Trump’s tweet on Dec. 19, 2020: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” 

Rep. Stephanie Murphy's (D-Fla.) described that tweet as a “clarion call” to members of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. “We’ll show you how they began to organize around that date,” she said in an interview. Doing so, Nick and Kyle write, “will require investigators to delve into the sordid world of internet extremism and specifically lay out how Trump’s words rippled through its corners.” 

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