COLUMBUS – The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on 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 Theft” event, which turned into a chaotic and seditious invasion of the crowd on the US Capitol when Congress voted to approve the presidential election .
Kirsten Hill, elected for a four-year term in 2018, organized a bus to travel from Elyria, Ohio (departing at 3:00 am on January 6) to arrive in Washington DC to join the event, according to an event page online hosted by a group she runs.
The site, managed by the Lorain County TEA Party, hosts links to the now defunct website “www.wildprotest.com” to encourage applications. He specifically lists Hill as the organizer.
“#DoNotCertify # Jan6 #StopTheSteal #WildProtest”, states an event graph. “President Trump wants you in DC January 6.”
The event and the turmoil are inextricably linked to the false claim that President Donald Trump won the November elections, not Biden. Proponents of this theory have argued baselessly about electoral fraud in several states that Biden won, despite the lack of evidence, increasingly unbalanced theories of fraud that sometimes link state governors to Hugo Chávez, or dozens of courts rejecting the claims.
The director of the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Agency, Chris Krebs, told 60 Minutes that the election was “the safest in American history”. Trump then fired him.
On January 6, a day that is likely to live in the infamy of US history, a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, invaded the United States Capitol. Five people died, 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 the police trying to break into a door inside the Capitol. Dozens of police were injured in the operation.
The rebels attacked officials, destroyed historic properties within a beacon of American democracy, and delayed Congressional certification of electoral college votes by brute force by a few hours while lawmakers were evacuated.
It is unclear what role Ohio bus users played in the riots, if any. Hill did not respond to several calls and emails on Monday.
The Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, which first reported on Hill’s participation in the rally, quoted her as saying that no member of the Ohio bus group entered the Capitol.
“We are not damaging properties,” she told the agency. “This is at the top of our list. We respect people’s property and public property. “
“If by chance (or design) President Trump will be the one who will take office on the 20thº, our bus fleet is ready, ”he says.
The “Who We Are” page on the site claims it is a declaration of independence from the “New World Order” written on December 20. The site is full of conspiracy misinformation.
“We recognize that our country is LITERALLY AT WAR and the enemy has penetrated behind our lines of defense, through corruption, for a long period of several decades,” he says. “This war is primarily ideological, as well as political, economic, technological, biological and cybernetic. It is a silent war with the most devastating effects of seizure and control masked by the disinformation campaign unleashed by the globalist 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 mandate issued to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The lawsuit is based on conspiracy theories related to COVID-19, including that the government is deliberately suppressing the relative harmlessness of COVID-19 compared to other diseases.
Republican parties in some Ohio counties promote bus travel
Several other bus trips transporting the Ohioans to the nation’s capital on January 6 were promoted by county Republican Party organizations.
Republican parties in Ashtabula, Portage and Trumbull counties shared a booklet for a $ 219 night trip. The flyers name the trip organizer as Cathy Lukasko, identified in several 2020 reports as the auxiliary president of the Republican Party of Trumbull. .
In a separate post, the Ashtabula County page noted January 6 as the date for a “Wild Protest” in DC
The Republican Party in Geauga County shared registration information at www.OHpatriots.org, while the Republican Party in Van Wert County offered details of a trip originating in northwest Ohio. On New Year’s Eve, the Jefferson County Republican Party asked supporters interested in taking a trip out of Steubenville to contact the party by email, “so that it can be determined if there are enough people.”
“We are posting this, but it is not being sponsored by the Jefferson County Republican Party. We will forward your information to the organizer ”, states the post, noting a cost of“ approximately $ 50-75 per person ”.
The Republican Party of Hocking County shared its own pamphlet announcing a January 6 meeting in the capital with the title “REMOVE AMERICA”.
“BE THERE”, says the brochure. “IT WILL BE WILD.”
Tyler Buchanan contributed to this report.