I was in the Capitol on Jan 6 as a journalist, should I return home to Lancaster from Russia? (1 of 5 in a series)
A shot I took from a window of the Capitol
Moscow, Russia – In the fall and early winter of 2020, I was working from Lancaster, where my family and I live, with Russia’s largest media holding company, VGTRK, on a documentary film about the origins of the Covid virus. During the same time, I had been involved with the ‘Stop the Steal’ activism in Lancaster County. I am mostly a political journalist and editor, with extensive experience covering the activities of the “deep state”, and it was immediately obvious to me that the November 3rd elections had been falsified, that the election had been stolen from Trump, for whom I voted and enthusiastically supported. I attended his rally at Lancaster airport in late October, and reported from there.
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That fall, I attended rallies several times in Harrisburg and DC, and helped organize rallies in Lancaster County. Tragically, most of our Republican representatives, state and federal, were slow to understand what had transpired, and we activists sought to educate them, and urge them to stand up for our rights, before they disappear entirely. I consider it a great honor to have been in a position to make even a small difference and I thank God that he gave me that opportunity.
While most of my journalism experience is political, it is Christianity that primarily informs and guides my worldview. I grew up Episcopalian, (my grandmother and father attended St. James in Lancaster), and while working for many years in Moscow, Russia, I became Russian Orthodox. I eventually created a website to explain to Westerners about the extraordinary Christian Renaissance happening in Russia, called Russian Faith. It is currently the main focus of my activities. In my more famous publication, Russia Insider, I included as much Christian content as possible, because I believe that our turning away from the teachings of Christ is at the root of all the troubles we face as a society, as I explain in the lead article on this site.
I mentioned to my colleagues in Moscow that I was planning to go to the Jan. 6 rally and they said, well, if you see anything interesting, send us the footage, maybe we can use it. None of us had the slightest inkling I was about to stumble into an historic event.
When the fighting broke out, I was on my way home back to Lancaster. I was a couple of blocks away, off to the side of the Capitol building in the direction of Union Station. I RAN over, and seeing people on the balcony, realized I had major scoop for Russian TV. I RAN up to the balcony, and seeing people going into the Capitol, went in with them. It occurred to me that going in was risky – what if violence were to erupt? – but I took that risk, in full “intrepid news hound” mode.
There was no fighting, and nowhere were there any police preventing people from going in. Protestors were wandering around the corridors on the floor beneath the Senate and House chambers, entirely peacefully. Some were crowding further corridors going deeper into the Capitol. I spent about 6 minutes on that floor, just enough to get footage, which I shot entirely on my phone, and then RAN to the Hyatt, the closest place that had fast enough WIFI to upload the video. As an experienced news journalist, I knew that literally every second counted. I hadn’t seen any other news crews inside or out, and realized I had possibly world-beating breaking footage. By sheer luck, I had arrived at exactly the right time. I am nearly 58 years old, and I learned that day that I am not able to run like I used to!
Sure enough, my footage was the best hi-definition material the Russian news networks had access to, and within minutes it was in their newscasts, beamed out across the country and internationally via their global partners in Europe, China, South America, and the Middle East, literally around the world. It was seen by hundreds of millions of people. The audience in Russia alone is about 70 million viewers. They repeated the broadcasts again and again for the next 24 hours until better footage was available. They were extremely grateful, and paid me for my work.
About 20 minutes later the largest Russian 24 news channel “Rossiya-24” called me and I gave an eye-witness interview of what I had seen, live on air. The whole experience was exhilarating – my mind sped as I tried to process the historic events I had just witnessed, and that I had been one of the first people to share them with the world. It never occurred to me that I was in any legal jeopardy. I shared a few of the clips I took with my wife and friends on Telegram. Exhausted and cold, I drove back to Lancaster.
Here is an English language version of a half-hour analysis about January 6th I did for Russian television, shot on Jan. 7 in Lancaster. It aired in Russia on Jan. 17. Russian original broadcast follows. A lot of the footage used in this episode I shot myself.
English:
Russian:
The following days were jammed with making longer segments for Russian TV. Russian TV shows wanted to have me on in studio and work on the longer segments was easier to do from Moscow. Having long planned to make a family visit to Russia, (my wife is Russian and we hadn’t been back in 2 years), we booked a flight and flew over a week after Jan. 6, where I went on various news shows, explaining the historic events I was eyewitness to. A few days before we left, people started getting arrested for entering the Capitol and I realized that I could be arrested too, and thought, all the more reason to go sooner rather than later. How grateful I am that God led us to that decision.
At the time, I thought it was political theater – they’ll hold people for a week or so, and let them out with symbolic punishment, as occurred with the George Floyd riots. Sadly, what has transpired since then is one of the greatest crimes to ever stain our nation. The civil rights of the people who entered the Capitol have been trampled on, many of them still in jail 10 months later, where they are subjected to the most disgraceful abuse and physical violence. Reading about their treatment, one can hardly believe it is happening in our country. Why are our local Republican representatives not raising hell about this? That they are not is an outrage.
But it’s worse than that. It now seems undeniable that the breach and storm of the Capitol was a deliberately planned deep state, false flag operation carried out by the FBI and other intelligence agencies, which would never have happened otherwise. The goal of the false flag was to 1) damage Trump in his efforts to prove that the election was stolen, and 2) use the fake specter of “domestic terrorism” to further tighten the tyrannical screws on a nation rapidly losing its civil liberties. This week alone Tucker Carlson released a devastating 90-minute documentary film making this case without a shadow of a doubt. (In the footnotes of the 2nd article in this series (see below), I explain where you can find this film, both free and paid.)
Because I am in potential legal jeopardy, I have retained a lawyer, and as they usually do, they advised that I not talk to media, and not to write about this, because I might say something that prosecutors might use against me. To the best of my knowledge, there is no ongoing prosecution at this time, although, who knows. I am in touch with the FBI and they know how to reach me.
I have given this a great deal of thought, and decided not to follow that advice, because what is at stake here is far more important than my possible legal troubles. I have watched in dismay and with a broken heart as defendant after defendant has groveled in front of a haughty judge, like some scene out of the Chinese cultural revolution or Inquisition, recanting their political beliefs in exchange for leniency. Our judges are so partisan that they have at times forbidden defendants, as part of their sentencing, from publicly questioning the election results, on pain of reincarceration, including even using the internet!, or watching Fox News!, for fear they might read an article that the judge disagrees with. Hello? What country is this again? You can find the details about this in the excellent Tucker Carlson interview with Julie Kelly discussed in the next article in this series.
Many are locked away in jail without trial, in gross violation of their constitutional rights, and therefore cannot speak out. I will never agree to be silent about all this, even if I have to pay a dear price for it. I gladly take this risk in order to speak out for our freedoms.
Recently, the local Lancaster newspaper, the LNP, reported on my presence in the Capitol. I am of two minds about their coverage. On the one hand it was defamatory and dishonest to the point of being preposterous. On the other hand, they did convey a small amount of what I told them, and for that I am grateful, as they were under no obligation to do so. The reporters and editors were always professional and polite, and I think, in their own way, did their best to report on what are very important events for our county. Ultimately, they did more good than harm, because they put this discussion in front of a large audience, and people can now hear both sides of the story, and draw their own conclusions.
I don’t think the reporters at the LNP are bad actors. That they did such an abysmal job getting their facts straight speaks not to their intentions, which I think are admirable, rather to the pitiful state of political misinformation in the minds of so many. People have been so bamboozled by relentless lying in the mainstream media that they exist in a kind of fog of lies about just about everything. Basically, I think the folks at the LNP are good people, just badly mistaken and uninformed, as are our local Republican representatives. I have many lifetime friends and not a few relatives who are the same, have spent a lot of time discussing these things with them, and I understand why they think the way they do. They have been deceived. It is as simple as that.
To avoid writing a huge long piece, I will write a series of articles which address different aspects of the LNP’s articles. I will try to explain why the LNP keeps getting things so badly wrong, what exactly what went on in my barn with those “white nationalists”, what exactly I said about Jewish elites and the largely positive reaction to it, and most importantly, the grave danger our country is in, exposed now for all to see because this false flag plot is wide out in the open. I will also explain why I believe I should not return to the US at this time – basically, because I cannot trust OUR government to act lawfully. I will make sure to make the following pieces as short as possible. This introductory one is a little long to give the background. The rest will be short and to the point.
Some of you might be wondering what this website is. It is crucial that conservatives in this county have a media voice. The appalling leftism of the LNP, their embrace of sodomy, abortion, antifa, the Marxist BLM, unrestricted immigration, endless wars, demonizing of Russia, and Covid tyranny and wokeness in general is doing real harm to the county and misleading and misinforming many of its residents, with tragic consequences we conservatives are now reaping.
I make news websites for a living, and since moving to Lancaster in 2018, kept trying to explain to conservatives that it is absolutely essential that they start their own news website for the county, and that it is essentially criminally negligent for them to not do so. Part of the reason why the county and state are in this current mess, is because of the failure to do so years ago. Part of the reason our local Republicans are so badly informed, is due to this failure. It has been a tragic and frankly, naïve, oversight.
Building a good news website is not nearly as difficult or as expensive as people think, and it is desperately needed. I was delighted when the Lancaster Patriot, a print-only newspaper, appeared. I think our local Republican party and elected representatives, federal and state, are insane to govern and run in elections without having a conservative, biblical voice to explain their views and positions, and to advocate policies which they support. They foolishly put themselves in the position of having to curry favor with the ultra-liberal LNP, which forces them to essentially be RINOs, out of step with the views of the people of this county, especially the Christians.
Sitting here in Russia, hoping to be able to return home with my family, I thought the least I could do for the county I love so dearly is to create this website. At this point it is basically just a blog where I will post an occasional article from time to time. Perhaps it will serve as an example of what Lancaster conservatives need to do to start fighting back against the madness of the leftists in the city. It still has some kinks in it. It has literally just been lying around since early summer when we built it. I thought it might come in handy at some point. Now that the LNP has attacked me, what better place from which to respond?
If any Lancastrians want advice in how to create such a website quickly, how to fill it with good content, and do so inexpensively, I am happy to explain it all, for free.
This sets the scene. Here are the remaining articles in this series:
False flags, political prisoners, torture, no civil rights – Should I come home? (2 of 5 in a series)
Why the LNP Keeps Getting Things so Badly Wrong (3 of 5 in a series)