A protester threw a handful of Russian flags at President Trump and shouted “Trump is treason!” as the president passed a group of reporters in a Capitol Hill hallway Tuesday.
Wow. Random guy in press pool just threw Russian flags at Trump and shouted “Trump is treason!”
— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) October 24, 2017
There were lots of cameras on hand so there are several angles on what happened. You can see it here from just behind the man:
Wow…protester gets in w/ gathered press, throws something @ POTUS, yells "Trump is treason" (📽 via @elizacollins1) pic.twitter.com/7UGhgidZ4I
— Pat Ernityleave (@WardDPatrick) October 24, 2017
This ABC clip doesn’t show the protester but you get a clear view of the flags and how close this was to the president:
Here is another video of the protestor yelling "Trump is treason."pic.twitter.com/XFklanH2bf
— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) October 24, 2017
“This president conspired with agents of the Russian government to steal an election, we should be talking about treason in Congress, not about tax cuts,” he shouts. A reporter asks his name and he identifies himself as Ryan Clayton from Americans Take Action. Here’s video of that:
https://twitter.com/pnashjenkins/status/922869868772429828
If you visit the Americans Take Action website you immediately learn that this isn’t Clayton’s first stunt involving Russian flags. Back in February, Clayton distributed Russian flags with “Trump” stamped on them to attendees waiting to hear Trump speak at CPAC. Some members of the crowd, not knowing what the flags were, waived them before they were collected by CPAC staff.
Crowd at CPAC waving these little pro-Trump flags that look exactly like the Russian flag. Staffers quickly come around to confiscate them. pic.twitter.com/YhPpkwFCNc
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) February 24, 2017
Clayton’s group doesn’t really seem to have much going on beyond this Russian flag thing. The group’s 3 goals are vague and disjointed. What exactly is a “purpose-driven” economy? Who knows. It doesn’t seem to matter. Americans Take Action is a fundraising page for stunts like the one Clayton pulled today (“Support the progressive pranksters!”).
Despite the fact that we’ve been talking about Russian collusion for 10 months, there is still no evidence of any coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. There is evidence that Russia tried to interfere in U.S. politics, likely over a grudge Putin held against Hillary Clinton, but Russia did not “hack the election” or decide the outcome.
I’m not sure the Capitol Police and potentially the Secret Service are going to be as amused with this stunt as Clayton thinks. If there’s an update on his status today I’ll update this post. In the meantime, if you need more Ryan Clayton here’s how he treated one of James O’Keefe’s undercover reporters:
Ryan Clayton, the guy who was just arrested on nat TV once accosted and verbally harassed a young female- one of my undercover reporters. pic.twitter.com/ttVc8eLYls
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 24, 2017
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