With the goal of driving the inauguration of Donald Trump on Friday inside the Capitol, a group calling itself Disrupt J20 plotted to use violent means to shut down intersections and train lines in Washington, D.C., and even to plant a stink bomb at an inauguration-eve party, two undercover Project Veritas videos have revealed.
Disrupt J20 is apparently an umbrella organization for several radical groups that plan to use extreme methods to disrupt Friday’s inauguration activities. Among the organizations included, according to Project Veritas, are the Socialist Alternative, the League of Conservation Voters, and Industrial Workers of the World.
In the present case with Disrupt J20, the videos have revealed nefarious plots to cause so much lawlessness and disorder during Trump’s inaugural ceremony that the festivities will be forced inside the Capitol.
In the first video, organizers are seen discussing the plot to disrupt an Inauguration Eve party, which is being called a DeploraBall in reference to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton dismissing half of Donald Trump’s supporters as “deplorables.” The D.C. Anti-Fascist Coalition members were caught on film planning to use butyric acid (a stink bomb) to ruin the Thursday night event. Another way mentioned in which to disrupt such pro-Trump events was to set off fire alarms and sprinklers “all at once,” which would give the “added benefit” of driving party-goers out into the freezing cold.
It was discovered that several members of DisruptJ20 had purchased tickets to the DeploraBall, causing event organizers to issue several refunds.
Among the planned activities documented in the second Project Veritas video are an effort to blockade all major ingress points into the city. This includes a plan to use chains to shut down D.C.’s metro rail system, specifically at Metro Center, Gallery Place, and L’Enfant Plaza.
Plotter Legba Carrefour explained to his audience of radical protesters how this could be done. “So we figured out the trains pull up … one person is going to lock one end of a chain to an edge and on the other end of the chain the end of the car, so on and so forth. Done.”
Carrefour is seen on the video saying, “It takes 15 seconds and everyone can leave and literally it can’t go anywhere at that point, it’s anchored. And you can use a really thin chain — you don’t need a heavy chain. That would require like a bolt cutter to undo, basically to shut down that line.”
James O’Keefe, the investigative journalist who founded Project Veritas, noted that these actions are considered terrorist acts under federal law, and constitute felonies. “Disabling trains constitutes an act of terrorism,” he said, with offenders subject to “fines under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if the offense results in the death of any person, shall be imprisoned for any terms of years or for life, or subject to death.”
Carrefour is captured on film advising that there will be several blockades, which he said could include “shutting down major bridges and highway access points as well as shutting down metro rail. So to do that we are going to try to break into several teams kind of like the checkpoints.”
Another tactic discussed was to feed homeless people in intersections, so as to snarl traffic that way. In another part of the video, there is a discussion on the need for more people so as to successfully barricade bridges. It is even planned to pretend to be practicing yoga at a certain point in the city, so as to disguise their radical efforts.
Smash Racism co-founder Mike Isaacson is seen in the second video discussing the merits of “throat punching” on Trump supporters, whom he depicts as Nazis. “I would say that’s where you do the throat punching,” Isaacson said. “Generally speaking, Nazis will only actually attack people if they have, if they strongly outnumber them, because Nazis are essentially cowards…. Bring it. Throat punching is probably a good thing.”
Project Veritas did alert the D.C. police, the FBI, and the Secret Service to the plots revealed in the videos. Consequently, Disrupt J20 released a statement denying that there were any such plans. They claimed they were aware of what Project Veritas was doing, and so they conducted a counter-sting operation, in which they discussed “false plans in order to protect themselves, and did not discuss any real intentions.” The statement called it “laughable that Project Veritas believes that organizers would discuss secret stink bomb plans with an unknown individual in a public venue,” adding, “Project Veritas’ lack of judgment portrays the poor quality of their work.”
One may wonder, however, why DisruptJ20 would go to the trouble of inventing and discussing “false plans,” risking trouble with law enforcement. Why not just out the undercover Project Veritas reporter and ask him to leave? Furthermore, would anyone actually expect DisruptJ20 activists to admit that they were making such plans after being caught? Rather, one could realistically expect them to respond the way they did, saying, in effect, “Just kidding.” Project Veritas has since released a third video basically refuting DisruptJ20’s claim that the operatio was a counter sting.
Project Veritas has uncovered other embarrassing activities of left-wing groups in the past. Not surprisingly, these groups have also challenged the integrity of the videos, claiming they were “edited.”
The previous record for numbers of protesters was the 1973 inauguration of President Richard Nixon, which drew in excess of 25,000 activists. Dozens were arrested, but Jim Bendat, author of Democracy’s Big Day: The Inauguration of Our President, 1789-2013, predicts that this year’s numbers will break that record.
The ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, a U.S.-based international activist umbrella group, claims it will draw 20,000 activists, with the intention of sending “a powerful message of opposition to the extremist Trump agenda, which includes attacks on Muslim and immigrant communities, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and the wholesale privatization of the public sector, among other pro-Wall Street extremist plans that constitute the core of the Trump Agenda.”
Some protesters are pro-Trump, such as Bikers for Trump, who have obtained a permit for their event at John Marshall Park, which is expected to draw 5,000 people.
One man tried to set himself on fire outside the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. this week. The 45-year-old man was treated for burns on about 10 percent of his body. He said that his motivation was “to protest the fact that we elected somebody who is completely incapable of respecting the Constitution of the United States.” (That description would seem to describe many American presidents over the last 100 years.)
Such a tactic is very rare in the United States, but is reminiscent of the suicide of Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk who committed self-immolation in Saigon, South Vietnam in June, 1963. The monk was protesting the anti-Buddhist policies of South Vietnam’s President Ngo Dinh Diem, and the incident was used by the Communist Viet Cong to advance their efforts to overthrow the non-Communist regime. Though the self-immolation was a shocking sight to Americans at the time, it was actually a centuries-old tradition among Buddhists. An earlier, similar protest against North Vietnam’s Communist dictator Ho Chi Minh did not receive nearly the amount of publicity, partly because it was not caught on film for American nightly news. Buddhists also committed self-immolation in Communist China to protest that totalitarian regime’s anti-religious persecution; again, however, little was made of those incidents.
It is not expected that any protesters will set themselves on fire Friday to protest against the new president. If the Project Veritas videos are a good indication, these protesters would much rather hurt others by disrupting traffic, setting off stink bombs, or punching others in the throat.
Whatever form of protest is performed, one can expect the mainstream media, mostly anti-Trump, to feature it in their reports. When this author attended the 2001 inauguration, he observed that the news media’s cameras were focused on any protester who could be found, rather than the thousands of average citizens just there to watch the festivities.
Hopefully, the protests will remain peaceful, and there will be no blocking of traffic, no stopping of trains, no stink bombs, and certainly no one setting himself on fire.
Image: screenshot from Project Veritas YouTube video
