(MORE TO COME...)
Sometimes he's humble, sometimes he's defiant. Sometimes he's calmly calling for peace. Other times he's inciting violent actions.
Before he supported Mitt Romney's unsuccessful 2012 campaign for president, Alexander was a hardcore critic. He once managed a teenager who falsely claimed President Obama had blocked him on Twitter, then began trolling him after they had a falling out. And Alexander has spent the last few months, alternating between violent rhetoric and calls for peace, much like President Trump.
After being suspended for a week by Twitter at his @ali account, roughly at the same time Trump was on Wednesday, Akbar has tried to use other social media outlets to defend himself.
For the last two days, Alexander has made contradictory statements in rambling videos, claiming he's for violence, but against it, and he also began bashing Trump.
Yesterday, on a Periscope video (see link), posted at the StopTheStealUS twitter account, Alexander profusely defended himself - but alternated between praising insurrectionists wanted for domestic terrorism for breaking windows and storming the US Capitol, while the Vice President and Congress were certifying the results of the election, that Alexander has vociferously contested, with no real evidence to back up his claims - and condemning violence.
He blamed "mass psychology and peer pressure" as the reasons why most had gone into the US Capitol building, but that "99.9%" of the protesters on Wednesday "did nothing wrong."
The Stop the Steal tweet reads: "@Ali Alexander, calls for PEACE, Twitter suspends him for 7 days. Please share." He called on Twitter to stop suspending accounts that were needed for the "coming civil war."
Alexander began turning against Trump in the video, yet his entire Stop the Steal movement was formed to defend Trump.
"I'm disappointed that the president has pumped the gas and the brakes," Alexander complained, adding: "A lot of these failings are his own. The fact that Trump did not regulate big tech when they were regulating our speech illegally was a failing. He did not recognize the moral importance of the issue there and that was his own arrogance."
Everyone from the government to the Supreme Court to the US Senate and anyone "not well read" is "illegitimate", according to Alexander.
Alexander kept saying he was against violence, but that it was wrong to say he denounces all violence. He oddly called anyone that calls the police or uses a bodyguard a hypocrite, because those are acts of "force." Yet, one day later, Alexander began asking for money so he could hire a full-time bodyguard.
He "doesn't denounce all violence," but does support violent "revolutionary acts against tyranny" or to defend women and children.
"Force is an unfortunate, natural, and justified, and obvious end to the threat of other force," Alexander stated.
Today, Alexander complained about another Twitter suspension ("Twitter just suspended General Flynn. We are under attack") and quoted Rush Limbaugh on Parler (see link), a right-wing leaning social media network that is less stringent about hate speech and threats than Twitter: "There’s a lot of conservatives on social media who say that any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable, regardless of the circumstances. I’m glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine — the actual Tea Party guys, the men at Lexington and Concord — didn’t feel that way."
Later today, the @StopTheStealUS twitter account showcased another Periscope video, while claiming he was "being targeted by ANTIFA" and "forced to flee DC."
"I won't take an iota of blame that doesn't belong to me," Ali intones slowly but firmly.
Alexander calls comments by Trump that criticized protesters on Wednesday "frankly reckless" and comments by Democrats about BLM demonstrations during the summer were "satanic and demonic." But, even though he sported a Stop the Steal sweatshirt, he only mentioned Trump once or twice during the entire video.
Then he spent much of the video, defending nearly every single person involved in what is widely being called domestic terrorism and sedition, arguing that they might have "violated norms, but remained broadly peaceful." In contrast, Alexander argued, Black Lives Matters demonstrations were far worse than what transpired on Wednesday. He doesn't even seem to think many people violated laws this week, but, that, in contrast, Antifa and BLM protesters were committing "heinous crimes, destroying businesses and lives, and assassinating police officers", despite Democrats calling it the "summer of love."
Alexander believes no one should have gone inside to begin with, but blasted anyone on the right or in law enforcement who were "maligning the patriots that followed" a few "agitators" into the US Capitol building. No one that entered the building that didn't destroy property or commit violence should be facing charges, according to Alexander. He also called Vice President Pence a "scumbag."
Alexander repeatedly said "I will sue your fucking ass" if you blame anyone in the Stop The Steal movement for anything that happened on Wednesday. "My rally never turned violent," Alexander insists.
(1/26th Update: I just noticed that I accidently deleted parts of my last paragraph, where I noted that Ali Alexander threatened to sue the FBI, and said he would "fight the FBI." I'll try to find the video, so I can add direct quotes regarding that.)
According to Alexander, he and Alex Jones - a crackpot conspiracy theorist (who I saw personally trying to get protesters to attack police officers at the WTC remains during the 2004 RNC) - acted like heroes, on the outside of the building, on the steps. And he made up conspiracy theories, blaming Antifa for all the bombs that are being found around D.C.
In the video posted yesterday, Alexander claimed that Secret Service agents escorted him and Jones away from the initial rally, before Trump finished his speech, so that they could "be servant leaders" and march to the US Capitol to "help rescue people", and that they "could have died" doing it. They led 25,000 to the backside of the Capitol, according to Alexander, then went to the top of the steps, and allegedly asked everyone else to back down the steps, but they were overwhelmed.
(Update:On Saturday, January 9, 2021, @andrewkimmel tweeted a video of Infowars' Alex Jones, in which the "performance artist" asserts that "the White House told him three days before" the rally: "We're gonna have you lead the march, the Secret Service, before Trump finishes thirty minutes before...and take you out of the front row and lead you to the place where they want you to start the march and Trump will tell people, 'go and have a meet at the Capitol.'")
Alexander argued that everyone was only rowdy outside, but since no one was harmed, it was all justifiable.
In the second video he posted today, Alexander used lots of profane language, while also claiming that he was called on by Jesus Christ to lead the Stop the Steal movement.
He said that his followers should remain "truthful, moral and rowdy", but not "violent, yet." Then, he whipped himself into a fury, advocating violence against the government in other circumstances: "If the government starts pushing us into camps, I say get violent. I say get very violent. If the government seeks to take your children away from you, get violent. If the government seeks to force shots into you or put chemicals inside you, you should get violent."
As usual, Alexander asked for money, and complained about others who called it "begging."
"My friends, we've been asked to walk on water, Alexander said, "so, lets walk on water."
According to a video posted today by controversial (see link) journalist Greg Palast - who helped expose voter purges in Georgia a few years ago (see link) - Alexander was at a protest in Georgia in December with Alex Jones outside the governor's mansion, where he screamed through a bullhorn, "We'll burn the whole shit down!" (see link)
Also in December, the Associated Press reported (see link): "The Arizona Republican Party late Monday appeared to ask supporters to consider dying to keep Trump in office. The state party’s official Twitter account retweeted conservative activist Ali Alexander’s pledge that he was “willing to give my life for this fight."He is. Are you?” the Arizona GOP added."
From an article posted at the Anti-Defamation League (see link): "Many extremist and mainstream Trump supporters are framing the rallies as a last stand to prevent Biden from being sworn in as the next President, and some chatter indicates that there is a desire to engage in radical and sometimes violent tactics to ensure that the election is not stolen from President Trump. For instance, “Stop the Steal/Wild Protest” organizer Ali Alexander warned in video posted on Twitter on December 27, 2020 that if President Trump tells people not to leave D.C. then he will not leave and he will have truckers sit on the bridges so that no one else can get out."
UPDATES
On Friday 1/8/21, CNN reported, "Ali Alexander, a political activist who has organized pro-Trump rallies, including one of the demonstrations that converged on the Capitol lawn Wednesday, accused the left of 'trying to push us to war.' In late December, Alexander told followers on Periscope that he and three GOP congressman -- Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona and Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama -- were planning something big."
CNN's investigtive team - Rob Kuznia, Curt Devine, Scott Bronstein and Bob Ortega - reported that Alexander said on the video: "It was to build momentum and pressure and then on the day change hearts and minds of Congress peoples who weren't yet decided or who saw everyone outside and said, 'I can't be on the other side of that mob.'"
A spokesman for Rep. Biggs told CNN: "Congressman Biggs is not aware of hearing of or meeting Mr. Alexander at any point -- let alone working with him to organize some part of a planned protest. He did not have any contact with protestors or rioters, nor did he ever encourage or foster the rally or protests. He was focused on his research and arguments to work within the confines of the law and established precedent to restore integrity to our elections, and to ensure that all Americans -- regardless of party affiliation -- can again have complete trust in our elections systems."
Alexander claimed that he "was the one who came up with the January 6th idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks and, then Congressman Andy Biggs. We forced schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting so that who we couldn't lobby we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body hearing our loud war from outside."
At a Stop the Steal rally held in Phoenix, Arizona on December 19, 2020, Ali said: “We will not go quietly. We’ll shut down this country if we have to." Congressman Paul Gosar also spoke at the rally, and tweeted: "I took the stage and made it mine. Arizona patriots are not giving up. Some conspiracy theorists claim, without evidence, that it was a fair election. Right. #StopTheSteaI2020."
"Smile," Gosar said at the Stop the Steal rally (see video), "Arizona and the USA are worth fighting for." After a woman from the crowd shouted out the New Hampshire state motto, Gosar repeated it: "Absolutely, live free or die."
While he didn't attend the rally, Congressman Andy Biggs did address the crowd by phone (link).
However, Biggs and Alexander were interviewed in Washington, D.C. by Brave Hearts host Sean Lin, who wrote on December 14, 2020 (see video), "After the huge Stop The Steal Rally over the past weekend, we had dialogues with Congressman Andy Biggs from Arizona, religious leader Brian Gibson, and his wife Jessica Gibson, along with Stop The Steal organizer Ali Alexander about Trump's campaign's path forward and their challenges ahead."
Alexander told Lin that Brooks would object to the certification on January 6, and that they would prove "foreign agitators and domestic enemies" had "compromised our election in key swing states."
Biggs and Alexander don't appear on camera together, but Lin is wearing the same clothes, and the interviews took place at the same location, as shown in the following screenshots:
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Alexander's history as a felon was first revealed by a blogger who called himself Liberal Grouch in 2012, while I was being falsely sued for a series of swattings committed against conservatives, related to Weinergate, and I was wrongly accused of working with convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin and accused cyberstalker Neal Rauhauser. Ali helped spread lies about me, and raised money for the multi-million dollar lawsuit that was tossed out of court. Liberal Grouch defended Kimberlin and Rauhauser, but viciously smeared me, and has also been accused of cyberstalking by a few far right bloggers that worked with Ali Alexander.
As a result, even though I've reported on Alexander many times since 2012, including just a few days before the Georgia Senate run-off, it's been extremely difficult to get mainstream media journalists to report on the Stop the Steal founder's many ties to the Romney president campaign, Senator Ted Cruz, and other established conservatives, instead of the far right kooks that Ali has mostly worked with since Trump was elected president in 2016.
I've had the same problem trying to get journalists to report on my stories about Kimberlin and Rauhauser, who have a long history of spreading hoaxes about Republicans during presidential races.
Past stories include:
Former Leadership Institute operative linked to a convicted felon now works for Romney campaign
Team Romney Did Not Quietly Fire Social Media Director Bill Murphy
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