Make no mistake: modern information warfare is here and January 6th was just the first battle. That day, an unhinged mindset led to an attack on the Capitol, the most serious assault on American democracy since the end of the Civil War. And that thinking portends even darker days ahead.
In The Breach, a former House Republican and the first member of Congress to sound the alarm about QAnon, Denver Riggleman, provides listeners with an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the January 6th select committee’s investigation. Riggleman, who joined the committee as senior technical advisor after he was asked to help, lays out the full intent and scope of the plot to overturn the election. The book includes previously unpublished texts from key political leaders. And it also contains shocking details about the Trump White House’s links to militant extremist groups—even during the almost-eight-hour period on January 6th when the White House supposedly had no phone calls. The man responsible for unearthing Mark Meadows’s infamous texts shows how data analysis shapes the contours of our new war, telling how the committee uncovered many of its explosive findings and sharing revealing stories from his time in the Trump-era GOP.
With unique insights from within the far-right movement and from the front lines of the courageous team investigating it, Riggleman shows how our democracy is balanced on a knife’s edge between disinformation and truth. Here is a revelatory peek at the inner workings of the January 6th committee and a clear-eyed look at the existential threats facing our republic—and a blueprint for how America can fight to survive the darkest night before the dawn.
Though most of the texts sent to and from Meadows that Riggleman includes have been public for months, the book offers new insight and fills some gaps about how all three branches of government were seemingly involved in strategizing ways to obstruct the congressional certification on January 6.
The former president sent the pivotal tweet in the early hours of 19 December 2020. The panel previously described it as the catalyst that triggered the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups, as well as “Stop the Steal” activists, to target obstructing the certification.
But the tweet also coincided with efforts by Republican lawmakers to finalize objections to the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win, new texts from some of Trump’s most ardent supporters on Capitol Hill sent to Meadows show.
Hours after Trump sent his tweet, according to texts published in the book, the Republican congressman Jody Hice messaged Meadows to say he would be “leading” his state’s “electoral college objection on Jan 6” – days before Trump is known to have met with Republicans at the White House to discuss it.
The congressman also told Meadows that Trump “spoke” with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican who had been elected to a House seat in Georgia but had yet to be sworn in, and was interested in meeting with the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.