Original article. Hugh article of truth and “more coming very soon.”
June 18, 2022
If the Regime’s broader purpose in hyping the so-called January 6 “insurrection” is to cast all Trump supporters as de facto domestic terrorists, its more urgent and immediate purpose is to kneecap the political prospects of Trump and his allies as the 2024 elections approach.
That the overhyped January 6 Committee hearings turned out to be a major ratings flop may not therefore ultimately matter, depending on the Committee’s success in pressuring its audience of one, Attorney General Merrick Garland, to pursue criminal charges against the former President. Garland himself took the ominous step of noting that he is watching the hearings and he can “assure us that all of the January 6 prosecutors are watching all the hearings as well.”
We’ve gotten a taste of this in the egregious (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempts of Democrat lawfare operations to use the Jan 6 Fedsurrection as a pretext to remove MAGA stalwart Marjorie Taylor Greene from the ballot. AG Garland’s ominous announcement, coupled with the January 6 Committee’s singular and absurd focus on President Trump’s alleged culpability in an attempted “coup” on January 6, brings the immediate political objectives of the regime into still sharper focus. The January 6 committee and its careful observers in the DOJ are the Biden Regime’s way of holding the threat of criminal prosecution over the head of Donald Trump, who just happens to be Biden’s presumptive rival in the 2024 Presidential election. If the deterrent effect alone isn’t sufficient to neutralize Trump and his supporters, jail time might have to do the trick.
As it so happens, an individual by the name of Norm Eisen has emerged as one of the leading voices formulating January 6 Committee’s purpose as teeing up a criminal indictment against Trump for the Justice Department. If the name sounds familiar, it is because Revolver News brought Eisen’s name to national attention as a key Democrat legal hatchet man and color revolution professional driving a coup attempt against then sitting President Donald Trump:
This third installment of Revolver News‘ series exposing the Color Revolution against Trump will focus on one quiet and indeed mostly overlooked participant in the Transition Integrity Project’s biased election “war games” exercise—a man by the name of Norm Eisen.
As the man who implemented the David Brock blueprint for suing the President into paralysis and his allies into bankruptcy, who helped mainstream and amplify the Russia Hoax, who drafted 10 articles of impeachment for the Democrats a full month before President Trump ever called the Ukraine President in 2018, who personally served as special counsel litigating the Ukraine impeachment, who created a template for Internet censorship of world leaders and a handbook for mass mobilizing racial justice protesters to overturn democratic election results, there is perhaps no man alive with a more decorated resume for plots against President Trump.
Though Norm Eisen kept a low profile for months after Revolver’s expose on him, he has been positively giddy as of late at the prospect of the January 6 committee serving up a criminal indictment of President Trump.
A quick glance at Norm Eisen’s Twitter account confirms his passion for criminally prosecuting Trump and for using the January 6 Committee as a vehicle to build a “case” to hand over to an eager Merrick Garland on a silver platter.
And again.
It would be one thing if Norm Eisen were just a bystander, cheering on the prospect of a potential political prosecution of his nemesis, President Trump. But unsurprisingly, a little digging reveals that Norm Eisen has enjoyed a much more direct and disturbing involvement in shaping the January 6 Committee than previously understood. The details are scandalous, but not surprising. After all, we reported years ago that there is no man alive more decorated for plots against Trump, and why should January 6 be any different?
To understand Norm Eisen’s role as the hand guiding the January 6 Committee, we will first go back to February, 2021. In an opinion piece for USA Today, Norm Eisen praised Bennie Thompson for filing a lawsuit against Trump (emphasis ours):
The repetition of the core falsehood that led to the deadly insurrection is not to be taken lightly. Trump used the lies about his election loss to fuel the rage of his followers for months — culminating in the deadly attack on the Capitol. If Trump and his ilk successfully co-opt the bona fide patriotism felt by their millions of followers, turning a love of country into a potent anti-democratic force, they will very likely stimulate more violence. They are also breaking the bedrock of our democracy: faith in our free and fair elections.
This ongoing campaign of lies must be stopped with an aggressive legal campaign.
First and foremost, all civil remedies for the ongoing peddling of the Big Lie need to be pursued. We welcome Democratic Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson’s lawsuit with the NAACP alleging that Trump, Rudy Giuliani and the far-right groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers conspired to incite the violence during the Electoral College vote.
Thompson alleges that all of these defendants violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 — a law created during Reconstruction and aptly deployed here — to “prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat,” any office holder from performing their duties.
Eisen is referring to a memory-holed lawsuit that most of the American public has never heard about.
As Revolver reported last year, five months before he was tapped as chairman of the Commission, Rep. Thompson filed a lawsuit in his personal capacity, with himself as lead plaintiff, against four parties: Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, the Oath Keepers organization, and the Proud Boys organization. In his complaint, Thompson alleges an “Alley Oop” conspiracy theory of January 6. According to this theory, Trump and his agents on the inside conspired with the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and agents on the outside to incite a crowd to attack the Capitol (emphasis ours):
The insurrection at the Capitol was a direct, intended, and foreseeable result of the Defendants’ unlawful conspiracy. It was instigated according to a common plan that the Defendants pursued since the election held in November 2020, culminating in an assembly denominated as the “Save America” rally held at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, during which Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited a crowd of thousands to descend upon the Capitol in order to prevent or delay through the use of force the counting of Electoral College votes. As part of this unified plan to prevent the counting of Electoral College votes, Defendants Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, through their leadership, acted in concert to spearhead the assault on the Capitol while the angry mob that Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited descended on the Capitol. The carefully orchestrated series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol was no accident or coincidence. It was the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.
Bennie Thompson ultimately dropped his lawsuit when he was appointed to head the January 6 Committee in order to “avoid the appearance of conflict.” Thompson’s dropped lawsuit against Trump was predicated on a theory that the “insurrection at the Capitol was a direct, intended, and foreseeable result” of an “unlawful conspiracy.” How is it not already a conflict of interest for Thompson to go from that lawsuit to chairing a congressional committee tasked with fairly and objectively investigating, without any preconceived notions, what happened on January 6th? Appointing Thompson to chair the January 6 Committee after he initiated the lawsuit in question is just as much a conflict of interest as, say, appointing Henry Kissinger to chair the 9/11 commission.
If Bennie Thompson walked into the Committee with a preconceived theory of the case for January 6 advanced in his lawsuit, the question arises as to where this theory ultimately came from. After all, the lawsuit had a well-laid-out theory of January 6 in mid February, which is barely a month after January 6th. That’s a pretty quick turn around. Did Bennie Thompson come up with the Trump, Giuliani, Proud Boy, Oath Keeper conspiracy theory himself? Of course not.
In the Norm Eisen quote above, Eisen refers to Thompson’s “lawsuit with the NAACP.” Along with the NAACP, Joseph Sellers of the law firm Cohen Milstein represented Thompson in the lawsuit.
As it turns out, Joseph Sellers and Norm Eisen are friends. The following excerpt is from an interview with Norm Eisen on a podcast called “Talking Feds” (emphasis ours):
One interesting lawsuit that happened and one that seems possibly to be ripening toward market. And I just wanted to talk briefly about them, so there’s first this Bennie Thompson suit under, let’s get nerdy a little bit on ’em, Norm… USC 1985, Section 1. And there was a kind of at least poetic justice there, given it’s the Ku Klux Klan Act. And Norm, how about the quick skinny on what that suit is, and whether you think it’s a serious prospect to have Trump at least have to be deposed?
Norm Eisen [00:40:30] A very serious threat to Trump. It’s Representative Thompson suing Trump, Giuliani, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Section 1985 is a well-known grounds for civil litigation. What’s unusual is that it’s Section 1985-1, which is a prohibition on conspiring to prevent anyone holding an office of the United States from discharging their official duties…
Harry Litman [00:41:04] From doing their job, right? It’s like perfect for this.
Norm Eisen [00:41:07] It’s very seldom deployed, very clever. They’ve got great litigants on the poetic justice front. It’s called the Klan Act because it was passed after the Civil War because the Klan was running rampant, blocking reconstruction by fighting federal, state and local officials in reconstruction, and the poetic justice of having the NAACP litigating the case as counsel for Congressman Thompson and also one of the great, great civil rights lawyers, my friend Joe Sellers at Cohen Milstein.
So the January 6th conspiracy theory lawsuit that Bennie Thompson launched against Trump, Giuliani, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers was essentially conceived of and written by Cohen Milstein lawyer Joe Sellers, Norm Eisen’s friend.
It is hard to imagine that Eisen wouldn’t have offered strategic and legal direction to his friend Joe Sellers in the preparation of this lawsuit. In fact, not only are Norm Eisen and Joe Sellers friends, they have a professional history of working together in anti-Trump operations.
Recall that way back on January 23, 2017, Norm Eisen’s lawfare outfit CREW filed a civil suit against Trump for his alleged violation of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution. The absurd suit was predicated on the theory that some foreign government officials would stay at Trump properties while visiting D.C., therefore violating the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the constitution banning presidents from taking gifts from foreign officials.
The merits of the now defunct complaint are unimportant for our purposes. What’s relevant for our purposes is the fact that Joe Sellers was co-counsel to Norm Eisen in this anti-Trump lawsuit dating back to just days after Trump’s inauguration in January 2017:
CREW, ROC and Washington, DC-based events booker Jill Phaneuf are represented in the case by an all-star team of top constitutional scholars, ethics experts and litigators who have combined to argue 45 cases before the Supreme Court. The lawyers on the case include CREW’s board chair and vice-chair Norman Eisen and Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyers for the last two presidents, constitutional law scholars Erwin Chemerinsky, Laurence H. Tribe and Zephyr Teachout, Deepak Gupta of Gupta Wessler PLLC and Joseph Sellers of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
It is notable that Joe Sellers and Norm Eisen had a lawsuit teed up and ready for Trump just days after he was inaugurated President. If it appears the legal hit job was set up in advance, it’s because it was. In fact, Norm Eisen’s entire lawfare outfit CREW was teed up in advance as part of David Brock’s infamous multi pronged strategy to remove Trump from office on day one:
David Brock, the seasoned liberal operative and Clinton loyalist who founded Media Matters, huddled with more than 100 donors last weekend at the swanky Turnberry Isle Resort in Aventura, Fla. to map out how Democrats will “kick Donald Trump’s ass.”
The Washington Free Beacon attended the retreat and obtained David Brock’s private and confidential memorandum from the meeting. The memo, “Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action,” outlines Brock’s four-year agenda to attack Trump and Republicans using Media Matters, American Bridge, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and Shareblue.
The memo contains plans for defeating Trump through impeachment, expanding Media Matters’ mission to combat “government misinformation,” ensuring Democratic control of the Senate in the 2018 midterm elections, filing lawsuits against the Trump administration, monetizing political advocacy, using a “digital attacker” to delegitimize Trump’s presidency and damage Republicans, and partnering with Facebook to combat “fake news.”
This leaked David Brock memo was written before President Trump took office, further suggesting that all of the efforts to undermine Trump have not been good faith responses to his behavior, but a pre-ordained attack strategy designed to overturn the 2016 election by any means necessary. Eisen conducted most of his impeachment activity before there was any discussion or knowledge of President Trump’s call to the Ukrainian President in 2018–indeed, before the call even happened. Impeachment was very clearly a foregone conclusion. If you will recall, Norm Eisen and Joseph Sellers dropped the emoluments clause civil complaint against Trump just days after Trump’s inauguration.
But the attempt to overturn the 2016 election failed, as did Eisen’s various impeachment attempts. But Norm Eisen and crew are nothing if not persistent. The next step in their master plan is to use similar lawfare tactics to take Trump and his supporters out of the running for 2024. And that explains why Norm Eisen’s old lawfare accomplice Joseph Sellers represented Bennie Thompson in a lawsuit against Trump whose conspiracy theory of Trump’s allegedly unlawful incitement on January 6 then became the basis for the nominally bipartisan and unbiased January 6 Select Committee, chaired by none other than Bennie Thompson!
Though Norm Eisen resigned from CREW, he founded a new lawfare arm shamelessly called the States United Democracy Center. States United appears to pick up where CREW left off. When it is not targeting so-called “election deniers” running for office (that is, those who dare question the integrity of the 2020 election), States United is directly engaged in anti-Trump lawfare related to January 6.
Through his new lawfare arm States United, Norm Eisen served as council for the District of Columbia in its lawsuit against several January 6 defendants. Although Trump is not named in the suit, the lawsuit’s theory of the case closely tracks Bennie Thompson’s original February 2021 lawsuit against Trump, authored by Eisen’s friend and lawfare accomplice Joseph Sellers. Indeed, Norm Eisen’s lawsuit on behalf of D.C. explicitly follows the thesis of Bennie Thompson’s lawsuit that Trump unlawfully incited the January 6 rally goers to the Capitol:
Eisen’s States United lawfare organization also stepped in directly to help Bennie Thompson in an amicus brief on behalf of Thompson in Trump v. Thompson–a case in which Trump invoked executive privilege in an effort to prevent Thompson from gaining access to certain White House records.
As we can see, Norm Eisen has been a busy man since Revolver News’ first groundbreaking expose. Furthermore, we see that all of the major January 6 legal efforts against Trump, including the activities of the January 6 Committee and its chairman, carry Eisen’s dirty fingerprints. It is not a surprise that this should be the case. Indeed Eisen’s lawfare efforts surrounding January 6 are just an extension of his efforts dating all the way back to before Trump’s inauguration, as exposed in the infamous David Brock memo alluded to earlier in this report. If Eisen’s lawfare couldn’t nullify the 2016 election with Russiagate, and if he couldn’t successfully impeach Trump, the next best thing is to kneecap Trump’s political prospects in 2024–and what better way to do this than the looming threat of criminal prosecution permeating every waking moment of the sham January 6 Committee?
Before we conclude this study, it is worth noting something about Norm Eisen’s new lawfare outfit, States United Democracy Center. Besides the characteristically cynical use of the term “democracy,” we are struck by some of Eisen’s colleagues who are also associated with the group. Eisen co-founded States United with Christine Todd Whitman:
Christine is a blue blood aristocrat whose storied career as a deep state lackey dates back to the Bush years, where she was the head of the EPA during September 11, 2001. Whitman gained notoriety for providing misleading assurances in the days after 9/11 that the air in Manhattan “didn’t pose a health hazard”–a potentially deadly mistake given that over four thousand first responders have died since 9/11 due to complications of breathing air contaminants.
A 2003 report by the EPA Inspector General criticized Whitman harshly for her behavior in the aftermath of 9/11. Indeed, Whitman’s behavior was so damning that she eventually capitulated and apologized on the 15th anniversary of 9/11.
If Whitman’s track record make her an odd choice to partner up with Norm Eisen in his latest lawfare venture, Eisen’s other associates are still more ominous.
Take a look at the advisory board and see if you can notice a pattern:
If the pattern you noticed is that everyone is anti-Trump, you get a consolation prize. The truly striking thing is that the advisory board to Norm Eisen’s new lawfare group contains not one, not two, but three former heads of the Department of Homeland Security–that’s right, Michael Chertoff, Janet Napolitano, and Tom Ridge were all heads of the DHS.
The overwhelmingly heavy presence of top DHS officials at States United contrasts dramatically with the absence of any top DHS officials at CREW, Norm Eisen’s previous lawfare outfit. More importantly, the heavy DHS presence at States United takes on a special significance given States United’s special focus on January 6 lawsuits and in directly assisting the January 6 Committee and its Chairman. As Revolver has reported extensively, the Department of Homeland Security is the tip of the spear when it comes to the “Domestic War on Terror,” that is, the reconfiguration of the national security apparatus as a political weapon to target Trump and his supporters.
READ MORE: Revolver Investigates Disturbing Link Between DHS and the Domestic War on MAGA
Given that the “insurrection” narrative of January 6 serves as one of the foremost pretexts for the domestic war on terror, there is something deeply improper — even ominous — about the Department of Homeland Security’s close ties with the January 6 Committee. It just so happens, as Revolver previously reported, that Bennie Thompson is the Department of Homeland Security’s stooge within Congress. Indeed, Bennie Thompson was Chair of the Homeland Security Committee the last time the Democrats controlled the House from 2007-2011, and of course, since the Democrats won back the House in 2019, Thompson has resumed the Chair role:
Thompson is a key component in the establishment DNC’s merger with the national security state after 9/11, using the pretext of fake “domestic terrorism.” As an untouchable incumbent in Mississippi with 28 years in Congress, Thompson was the chair of the Homeland Security Committee from 2007-2011 and has been back in charge again since 2019.
Essentially, whenever Democrats have a majority in the House, Thompson is put in as the hatchet man to control oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.
In 2007, Thompson’s first act as chair of the Homeland Security Committee was to sponsor a bill that granted sweeping new police powers to DHS, using the pretext of 9/11.
Bennie Thompson scratches the back of an ever-expanding US national security state. In turn, Thompson is rewarded with plush committee chair roles and an expanding DHS turf of his own.
Ironically, in 2004, Thompson was one of only 31 House Democrats who voted to overturn the results of the Bush-Gore election. But today, the vast Department of Homeland Security agency reports to him. And that agency now calls anyone who claims fraud in the 2020 election “Potential Terror Threats.”
In fact, according to recently leaked documents, one of the Department of Homeland Security’s ill fated “Disinformation Governance Board’s primary tasks was to censor disinformation “surrounding the validity of the 2020 election underpinning calls to violence on January 6, 2021.”
A recent piece in The New Yorker on January 6 and the Consolidation of Right Wing Extremism quoted John Cohen, who was acting chief of intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security under Biden until this April (emphasis ours):
For Cohen, the former D.H.S. intelligence official, the deliberate spread of false election-fraud claims is a recipe for continued polarization and violence. “I’ve seen intelligence calling on people to go self-deploy as poll watchers, to take actions to determine whether people should be legitimately voting,” he said. “We can anticipate as we get closer to the midterms that polarization will increase.” He added, “The more that’s out there, the higher the likelihood that someone will consume that disinformation and act in response to it.”
[The New Yorker]
Another former DHS official, Elizabeth Neumann, who was Assistant DHS Secretary of Counterterrorism under Trump (oh, the swamp!) came out and actually identified the prospect of a second term for Trump as a national security threat:
Neumann, the former D.H.S. Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism, has an additional fear: a second Trump Administration. The former President’s return to the Oval Office would signal to white supremacists and other right-wing groups that they have “an ally in government,” Neumann said. “I think you would see mass resignations, not just at D.H.S. but across the government.” Neumann and other former Trump Administration officials said that Trump and his allies were initially slowed by their lack of experience in running large government agencies. “But toward the end they were figuring it out,” Neumann said. “And it concerns me that the damage they could do would far exceed what they did in their four years in power. Exponentially worse—because he has no constraints at that point.”
[The New Yorker]
Unsurprisingly, Elizabeth Neumann can be found on the internet palling around with her fellow DHS pal Miles Taylor, also known as the disgraced “Anonymous” official who penned a letter to the New York Times on how he was working to undermine the Trump administration from within.
By striking coincidence, Elizabeth Neumann happens to be one of the very first witnesses Bennie Thompson, Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, called upon in the Committee’s first January 6 hearing back on February 4th, 2021, just a week before Bennie Thompson filed his lawsuit against Trump, and months before he became Chair of the January 6 Committee:
In a particularly shocking portion of the this Homeland Security Committee’s hearing, Neumann addresses the supposed threat of terrorist violence (as on January 6) emerging from those who dare to question the validity of the 2020 election. Neumann estimates that there are approximately 51 million American citizens who are skeptical about the 2020 election, though she is generous enough not to characterize the entire group as terrorists. She does however go on to say that at least 250k of those pesky election deniers are terrorist threats, and she likens their existence to the presence of an equivalent number of ISIS sympathizers in the country!
When asked whether the Department of Homeland Security should take the lead in addressing the alleged terror threat emerging from “disinformation” about the 2020 election, Neumann replies in the affirmative:
And as it so happens, the Department of Homeland Security did end up establishing a Disinformation Governance Board (DGB). As we have covered above, leaked documents revealed one of the DGB’s primary tasks was to address disinformation “surrounding the validity of the 2020 election underpinning calls to violence on January 6, 2021.”
The Disinformation Governance Board had to be temporarily disbanded, largely due to the negative press directed at Nina Jankowicz, the clownish deep state lackey chosen initially to head the board. Revolver News published a major investigative piece exposing Nina’s ties to a NATO and US State Department-funded group called the Integrity Initiative that used Twitter to engage in secret influence operations to meddle in elections of other NATO countries.
With Nina Jankowicz now removed from the Disinformation Governance Board, guess who the DHS has tapped to clean up the mess and come up with the next version of that Orwellian Disinformation Board…
If you guessed Michael Chertoff, you get a prize:
To help instill trust in our work, Secretary Mayorkas has asked former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick to lead a thorough review and assessment, conducted through the bipartisan Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). This assessment will focus on answering two pivotal questions. First, how can the Department most effectively and appropriately address disinformation that poses a threat to our country, while protecting free speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy. Second, how can DHS achieve greater transparency across our disinformation-related work and increase trust with the public and other key stakeholders. The Secretary has requested the HSAC’s final recommendations within 75 days. During the HSAC’s review, the Board will not convene and its work will be paused, but the Department’s critical work across several administrations to address disinformation that threatens the security of our country will continue.”
This is the same Mike Chertoff who is one of the three former heads of the Department of Homeland Security serving as an advisor to Norm Eisen’s January 6 lawfare organization.
Norm Eisen was certainly wise, even prescient, to call upon the advice and collegiality of so many former DHS heads for such a group. Norm Eisen is many things, but he is no idiot, and he was smart enough to understand the DHS’ intimate role in the sham January 6 Committee and in the national security state’s draconian crackdown on Trump and his supporters as a response to the false narratives generated out of the committee.
Unfortunately for Norm Eisen, Bennie Thompson, and the folks at the DHS, Revolver News has only begun to scratch the surface of this sordid collaboration.
Strap in and stay tuned. More coming very soon.
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