One thing that was proven beyond the shadow of a doubt during Tuesday’s House Select Committee hearing is that Donald Trump intended to sic the crowd from the January 6th “Stop the Steal” rally on Congress.  A draft tweet and early drafts of his speech made it clear he knew for days before the event that’s what he intended to do:  push the crowd down Pennsylvania Avenue.

In the days after the attempted coup, Trump apologists claimed that it was an off-the-cuff remark, that it was done in the heat of the moment, that Trump was just too passionate.  They were making those claims to absolve Trump of any blame for setting his mob to Congress.  He didn’t plan it, they said, so it couldn’t have been an insurrection.

Now we know it was part of the plan all along, and there is no denying it.  From Rudy Giuliani’s statement to Cassidy Hutchinson, to the draft communications, to the foreshadowing by people like Steve Bannon, they all knew it was the plan, belying their previous claims.  Violence was the plan all along.

The next question relating to the attack is, who knew that was the plan, and how did they learn it?  According to the hearing, even Ali Alexander, a conservative personality, knew, a day before the rally, that Trump was going to “unexpectedly” announce a march to the Capitol.  If Alexander, Bannon, Giuliani and others were told, who told them?  The most likely culprit is the person who told the same thing to the White House social media team and Trump’s speechwriters.

That might also explain Trump’s aggression toward Secret Service agents when he was told the US Secret Service would not take him there:  he told all his Secret Squirrel friends that he was going to show up, and he didn’t want to miss his coup.