For once, Trump wasn’t full of hot air. He knew just what was going to happen on Jan. 6
For weeks, the famous faces of the U.S. Congress have been showing up in your living rooms, home offices and on your smartphones. They have been making a great show of seeming to pursue, yet again, that time-worn Watergate question:
What did the president know and when did he know it?
But you never got the clear answers you deserve. Until today.
As a longtime investigative journalist, I’m pleased to be able to share with you today the best evidence I’ve come across about what former President Trump really knew — and knew before all hell erupted at the U.S. Capitol. Also, we know a lot more about what all the other top officials with clout and constitutional duty knew — but failed to act on with bold leadership to protect the cradle of our democracy — from that day and night of insurrection terror.
But I must begin by telling you it’s not my big scoop at all. It’s the result of outstanding reporting by Vanity Fair’s Adam Ciralsky, an enterprising correspondent who was smart enough to think outside Washington’s journalistic box. (It’s a rare concept that I’ve always considered the only way Washington should be covered.)
Ciralsky’s Vanity Fair reporting produced evidence showing Trump knew on Jan. 5 that all hell would be erupting on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.
Also: Trump warned his acting secretary of defense that he’d need to deploy a massive force of 10,000 National Guard troops to protect the Capitol the next day. Alas, Trump’s top Defense officials failed to take the quick protective action that could have saved five lives and prevented more than 140 injuries in the most flagrant assault on the cradle of American democracy since the War of 1812. They apparently thought Trump was just being Trump.
Although that Vanity Fair piece was published back on Jan. 22, just two days after Joe Biden’s inauguration, I hadn’t read it until just the other day. But the facts that Ciralsky uncovered and pieced together reveal a big-picture reality that should have reshaped those frustratingly pedestrian congressional hearings we’ve been watching ever since.
Timing is all: It is Jan. 5, and Trump is meeting with his new Acting Secretary
of Defense Christopher Miller, a formerly obscure national security official who was given a caretaker appointment after the November election. Miller’s chief of staff, Kash Patel, is also there in the Oval Office. Just a day earlier, Vanity Fair’s Ciralsky had come to Miller with an idea — he wanted to go everywhere with the acting secretary and chronicle his fast fleeting final days, all on the record and recorded. Miller agreed.
They were in the Oval Office to talk about Iran. But Trump had something else on his mind, so out it came. Trump asked how many troops the Pentagon was going to deploy in Washington for the next day’s event.
And the acting secretary recounted it for his chronicler, who then shared it with us:
“We’re like, ‘We’re going to provide any National Guard support that the District requests,’ ” Miller responded. “And [Trump] goes, ‘You’re going to need 10,000 people.’ No, I’m not talking bull----. He said that. And we’re like, ‘Maybe. But you know, someone’s going to have to ask for it.’ ”
At that point, Miller remembered the president telling him, “‘You do what you need to do. You do what you need to do.’ He said, ‘You’re going to need 10,000.’ That’s what he said. Swear to God.”
And when the Vanity
Fair reporter asked why Trump used a number that was absolutely enormous by Washington crowdcontrol standards, the acting defense secretary replied: “The president’s sometimes hyperbolic, as you’ve noticed. There were gonna be a million people in the street, I think was his expectation.”
But in the run-up to Jan. 6, Trump was playing no expectations game.
The big reveal in that Vanity Fair piece was that Trump — even as tightly wound as he was in his final daze — clearly knew the big plan that had been carefully masterminded for Jan. 6. Trump especially knew his mega-rally behind his backyard fence was just the incitement foreplay for the real big event — a massive megaeruption insurrection at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Congress would have to shut down — unable to certify his defeat. It would be YUGE. History would give it the ultimate 10,000-troop rating! Joe Biden would be trumped.
And Donald J. Trump could finally ride his golden Escalator One down to Mar-a-Lago in total triumph.
Rodney Barreto, a prominent Miami businessman who chairs the state’s wildlife commission, is selling a property along the Lake Worth Lagoon after environmentalists mounted a campaign against his company’s plans to fill more than 10 acres of submerged land to build more than
300 condos and a marina.
“I’ve instructed my lawyers to sell the property,” Barreto told the Miami Herald on Thursday. “It’s under contract. I’m getting out of it and the property will no longer be a part of my portfolio.”
Barreto, who was became chairman of the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in December, came under fire two weeks ago after one of his companies filed a motion to be allowed to dredge and fill part of a 19-acre property just south of the John D. MacArthur Beach State Park in Riviera Beach. The plan, court documents show, was to develop three buildings with 110 units each, 15 single-family lots with docks and a marina.
Lake Worth Waterkeeper and other advocates said the property, part of the last shoreline stretch that remains undeveloped along the Lake Worth Lagoon, is environmentally significant because its extensive seagrass beds provide a healthy nursery for green sea turtles, manatees, horseshoe crabs and other marine life. Advocates represented by the Everglades Law Center moved to intervene in the case last month, asking the court to block the project, as first reported by The Palm Beach Post last week.
The center’s Lisa Interlandi, Lake Worth Waterkeeper’s Reinaldo Diaz and at least a dozen environmentalists flooded the FWC Commission meeting on Feb. 26 with harsh criticism of the project. They said that as FWC chairman, Barreto should be protecting that area instead of planning to build on it.
“I can’t believe we have to fight you guys, you are the ones who are supposed to protect this ecosystem,” said Matt Lynch, a Singer Island resident. “This is a nursery, this is where life begins.”
Barreto — who is a wellconnected Republican developer and founder of an influential Miami lobbying firm — is serving his second stint on the commission. He initially defended his right to develop the property in comments to The Palm Beach Post. And he responded during the FWC meeting by defending his track record of FWC conservation work, including the setup of statewide manatee speed zones and sanctuaries in the early 2000s. He also said there were no “shovel-ready plans” to build anything at the property.
The controversy led the developer, an avid outdoorsman who loves to hunt and spends most of his free time fishing in the Keys and in the Everglades, to give up on the project.
“It goes with the territory,” Barreto said. He said he could not reveal any details of the land sale because the deal hasn’t closed yet.
The Miami-born developer had bought the property at North Ocean Drive in December 2016 for $425,000 using the name of Government Lot 1, a limited liability corporation. Under a 1990 circuit court order, the previous owners had been granted the right to fill the site without asking the Florida Department of Environmental
Protection for permits.
In April 2018, records show Government Lot 1 sought permits from the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge, bulkhead and fill about 12 acres of the property.
The district said it had “considerable concerns” about potential impacts of the proposed project on mangrove and seagrass habitats and did not recommend approval of the project. The district also said “the project is located in proximity to Outstanding Florida Waters and has the potential to significantly degrade OFW, requiring additional measures to render the project clearly in the public interest.”
Isan Diaz has heated up for the Marlins in the past couple games. Don’t write off the 24-year-old in Miami’s second-base competition, even after two rocky years.
On the day Isan Diaz arrived in the majors, he was briefly the most exciting hitter in MLB.
He debuted for theMarlins deep into the summer of 2019, for a last-place team playing out the string and starting to give some of its top prospects their first major-league shots. Diaz was one of those — the No. 5 prospect in the organization at the time, according to MLB.com — and he happened to begin his career in New York against Jacob deGrom. In the second at-bat of his career, he clobbered a 422-foot home run off the New York Mets’ star starting pitcher, while his father was being interviewed on Fox Sports Florida.
It was a thrilling moment for one of baseball’s most promising infielders and one he
hasn’t been able to replicate often in his rocky,
two-year career.
“Obviously,” Diaz said, “I went through some adversity.”
He batted just .173 with a .566 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 201 plate appearances as a rookie and followed it up by playing in just seven games last year. He now admits he started to lose confidence in his ability. Still, the Marlins are giving him every chance to win their second base job this spring with the hope he can still be their second baseman of the future.
A little more than a week into Grapefruit League play, Diaz is finally putting together results worthy of a starter, with two extra-base hits in his past two games.
“He’s starting to get in a little bit of a rhythm,” manager Don Mattingly said Sunday after Diaz tripled in Port St. Lucie.
Diaz saw 19 pitches in three at-bats Sunday against the Mets, with the triple, a hard-hit ground out and a near homer he just pulled foul. On Monday, he added a two-run double — a 99.9-mph line drive into the right-field corner — in Miami’s 7-7 tie with the St. Louis Cardinals at Roger Dean Stadium. He also drew a walk later in the game.
As he competes with middle infielder Jazz Chisholm to start at second, Diaz is recapturing some of the confidence he lost in his first two seasons with the Marlins.
Diaz, at one time, was considered the No. 65 prospect in baseball and he was one of the centerpieces Miami got back from the Milwaukee Brewers in the Christian Yelich trade. While outfielder Lewis Brinson struggled through 2018 and 2019, Diaz emerged as the Marlins’ best chance to salvage something from the lopsided exchange. He hit .305 with a .973 OPS in 102 games with Triple A New Orleans before the Marlins called him up. It was the start of a frustrating 14 months.
His disappointing debut season could be written off, to a degree. Diaz has a history of struggling early when he arrives at a new
level, so Miami looked at him as its favorite to start at second for the
2020 season. Instead, the COVID-19 pandemic began and Diaz opted out of the season, then he opted back in a month later and then got hurt after just 22 at-bats.
In the meantime, Chisholm, still a top-100
prospect, became a fixture at second base as the Marlins reached the MLB postseason for the first time since 2003.
“I’m not going to lie and say here that I was confident in myself,” Diaz said. “I was trying to find who I was at the plate.”
It’s only spring training, but March has been encouraging
— even before he was collecting hits.
Diaz started 0 for 6 before going 1 for 3 on Sunday and 1 for 2 on Monday in Jupiter. Mattingly said Diaz’s three at-bats Sunday were “his best at-bats of the spring,” but he added he thought Diaz was having good at-bats even before the hits. After another hit Monday, Mattingly continued to praise the young hitter.
“His at-bats were good today,” he said. “He looks good right now.”
While the Marlins haven’t explicitly outlined a plan at second base, the winner of the competition will get the nod on Opening Day and the loser will likely head to the minors to get consistent plate appearances.
Chisholm is “electric,” Mattingly said, and, as the sport’s No. 68 prospect, projects as a long-term starter somewhere in the infield. Diaz, still only 24, is eager to prove it’s too soon to write him off, though.
“I feel right now that
I’m getting closer back to where I was when I was in Triple A with the Baby Cakes and that’s what I’m kind of aiming for,” Diaz said, “to get that vibe, to put those good ABs together and do damage with runners in scoring position.”