COLUMBUS: The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published in News5Cleveland.com under a content sharing agreement.
A member of the state Board of Education organized a bus trip to Washington DC to participate in a “Stop the Steal” event, which descended on a chaotic and seditious mafia raid on the United States Capitol while the Congress voted to affirm the presidential election.
Kirsten Hill, who was elected for a four-year term in 2018, arranged for a bus to travel from Elyria, Ohio (departing at 3 a.m. on Jan. 6) to arrive in Washington DC to join. at the event, according to an online event page. hosted by a group he leads.
The site, run by Lorain County’s TEA party, hosts links to the now-defunct site “www.wildprotest.com” to encourage registration. List Hill specifically as an organizer.
“#DoNotCertify # Jan6 #StopTheSteal #WildProtest,” indicates a graph of the event. “President Trump wants you in DC on Jan. 6.”
The event and the riots are inextricably linked to the false claim that President Donald Trump won the November election, not to Biden. Proponents of this theory have unfoundedly alleged electoral fraud in several states that Biden won despite the lack of evidence, increasingly unknown theories of fraud that sometimes link state governors to Hugo Chávez or dozens of courts that they reject the claims.
The director of the Agency for Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security, Chris Krebs, said within 60 minutes that the election was “the safest in American history.” Then Trump fired him.
On January 6, a day likely to live in the infamy of U.S. history, a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, rushed to the U.S. Capitol. Five people were killed, including Brian Sicknick, a Capitol police officer who was reportedly hit in the head with a fire extinguisher, and Ashli Babbitt, a woman shot by police who tried to break down a door. to the Chapters. Dozens of police officers were injured during the raid.
The insurgents attacked officials, destroyed historic properties inside a lighthouse of American democracy and delayed by a few hours the certification of Congress from the votes of polling stations by brute force as lawmakers were evacuated.
It is unclear what role Ohio bus patrons played in the riots, if any. Hill did not respond to several phone calls and emails Monday.
The Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, which first reported Hill’s involvement in the rally, cited no members of the Ohio bus group entering the Capitol.
“We are not damaging the property,” he told the dam. “This is an important place on our list. We respect people’s property and public property. “
“If by chance (or design) President Trump will be the one to be inaugurated on the 20thth, our bus fleet is ready to start, ”he says.
The site’s “Who We Are” page states that it is a declaration of independence from the “New World Order” written on December 20th. The place is full of conspiratorial misinformation.
“We recognize that our country is LITERALLY AT WAR and that the enemy has penetrated behind our lines of defense, through the means of corruption over a long period of several decades,” he says. “This war is primarily ideological, both political and economic, technological, biological and cyber. It is a silent war with the most devastating effects of taking control and control masked by the disinformation campaign unleashed by the global media empire.
Hill is also one of several plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Health challenging the “absolute tyranny” of state health orders, such as the mask warrant issued to curb the spread of COVID-19.
The lawsuit is based on conspiracy theories related to COVID-19, including that the government consciously suppresses the relative harmlessness of COVID-19 compared to other diseases.
Republican parties in some Ohio counties promote bus travel
Several bus trips carrying Ohioians to the country’s capital on Jan. 6 were promoted by county Republican Party organizations.
Republican parties in Ashtabula, Portage and Trumbull counties shared a pamphlet for an overnight trip that cost $ 219. The flyers designate the trip organizer as Cathy Lukasko, identified in several 2020 news items as the assistant chairwoman of the Republican Party in Trumbull County.
In an independent publication, the Ashtabula County website noted January 6 as the date of a “savage protest” in DC
The Geauga County Republican Party shared registration information at www.OHpatriots.org, while the Van Wert County Republican Party provided details of a trip from northwest Ohio. On New Year’s Eve, the Jefferson County Republican Party asked interested supporters to make a trip out of Steubenville to contact the party by email, “so that it can be determined if there are enough people “.
“We’re posting this, but it’s not sponsored by the Jefferson County Republican Party. We’ll forward your information to the organizer,” the post states, noting a cost of approximately $ 50-75 per person. “
The Hocking County Republican Party shared its own pamphlet of a meeting on Jan. 6 in the capital with the headline “BACK AMERICA.”
“BE IT,” the steering wheel says. “IT WILL BE WILD.”
Tyler Buchanan contributed to this report.