Page:Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/554

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CHAPTER 6

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White House social media director Dan Scavino Jr.

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room at Trump Tower was monitoring social media trends, including TheDonald subreddit . . . and privately communicating with the most active users to seed new trends.”[346] “Campaign staffers monitored Twitter and TheDonald subreddit, and pushed any promising trends up to social media director Dan Scavino, who might give them a boost with a tweet.”[347] In 2017, President Trump tweeted a video of himself attacking CNN.[348] The video had appeared on The Donald four days earlier.[349] In 2019, Politico reported that Scavino “regularly monitors Reddit, with a particular focus on the pro-Trump /r/The_Donald channel.”[350]

The Select Committee sought to question Scavino about how he andothers on President Trump’s social media team interacted with The Donald subreddit and then TheDonald.win. But Scavino refused to cooperate with the committee’s subpoena.[351]

After President Trump’s December 19th tweet, users on the site postedsimple maps of the U.S. Capitol and telegraphed their intent to invade the building.[352] “If we occupy the capitol building, there will be no vote,” one user wrote.[353] “The media will call us evil if we have to occupy the Capitol Building on January 6th. Let them,” another post read.[354] One user argued the goal should be to "surround the enemy" and "create [a] perimeter" around the Capitol on January 6th, such that no one was allowed to leave