Batesville mayoral candidate Eddie Nabors traveled to Washington, D.C., as Donald Trump sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6. Social-media posts also show that, in November, he marched in a group that included The Proud Boys, a far-right extremist organization. Some members of The Proud Boys, federal investigators say, later helped orchestrate and carry out the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It is unclear whether Nabors, who won the Republican primary to run for mayor in April, was near the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection; he did not respond to repeated requests for comment since Thursday. But he was in town at the time along with his adult daughter, Laura Nabors, a post on his personal Facebook page says.
“Just arrived in D.C. Went to the room and came back to the lobby for refreshments and senator Mastriano stopped and talked to Laura and me for 15 minutes,” reads a Facebook post from Nabors, referring to Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano, on his personal Facebook page. “I’m sure it was my charm that made him stay.”
Mastriano had been in contact with then-President Trump and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, since November about strategies for overturning Joe Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania, a key swing state. Ahead of Jan. 6, the Pennsylvania senator’s campaign spent thousands chartering bus rides for Trump supporters to travel to Washington, D.C., to demand that Congress refuse to certify Biden’s electoral victory—and grant Trump another term instead.
“(Mastriano) led the charge today in PA and got a letter passed from senate to demand delay of electoral college certification,” Nabors, who served as a Batesville alderman from 2009 to 2017, wrote on Jan. 5. “Had just been on the phone with Trump. A genuine patriot. Honored by his visit. Good to be inner circle.”
A day after meeting with Nabors, Mastriano joined other Trump supporters outside the U.S. Capitol after he delivered a speech urging supporters to “fight like hell” to force Congress to change the outcome of the election. Mastriano, who said he did not join those who stormed the inside of the Capitol, initially said he left the Capitol “when it was apparent that this was no longer peaceful.” But Sedition Hunters, a group of internet sleuths, found videos last month that appear to contradict his initial claims.
‘The Minority Agenda Will Decide Who Is The Next Mayor’
On Tuesday, June 8, Eddie Nabors will appear on the ballot for mayor alongside two independents: Jerry Autrey, the incumbent mayor who boasts of bringing new industries to the city during his four terms, and independent businessman Hal Ferrell, who is promising more assistance for local businesses and to establish after-school programs for young people.
Nabors himself is the longtime owner of Video South, a company that produces videos for depositions and courtroom trial presentations. He cites downtown renovations during his time as an alderman and vows to “build our workforce” and to “build relationships at the state and national level (to bring) attention to our potential.”
During a candidate forum last month, Panola County NAACP President Gloria Tucker drew attention to the proverbial elephant in the room: Though Batesville is a 42% Black city, all three candidates for mayor are aging white men.
Nabors defeated Margaret Eubanks, a white woman, in the April 6 Republican primary; she still made history as the first woman to run for elected office in Batesville’s history.
“I think all three of you candidates recognize that whoever gets elected will win because of the minority vote,” Tucker, who ran unsuccessfully for a Panola County election commission seat in 2020, told the candidates, The Panolian reported. “I hope you all realize that the minority agenda will be what decides who is the next mayor of Batesville.”
Nabors’ steadfast support for Trump and his travels to D.C. for rallies with Trump’s supporters as Trump sought to overturn the election have drawn suspicion to him from some Black Batesville residents, including one tipster who alerted the Mississippi Free Press to the candidates’ early January trip to D.C. and others who likewise shared information on condition that their names not be reported.
“I just don’t think anybody who was up there during an insurrection ought to be running for mayor of Batesville,” said one Batesville resident, who also shared a photo of Nabors and his daughter at the Million MAGA March in November.
But while Nabors has been quiet publicly about his trips to Washington, D.C., since Jan. 6, he did not shy away from explaining why he chose to run as a Republican during the candidate forum. Unlike his opponents, he ran under a party banner, he said, because he believes in the GOP’s conservative ideas. He said he is from “the Make America Great Again side” of the party.
Two months of social-media posts by Eddie and Laura Nabors preceding the Capitol insurrection reveal that the candidate repeatedly traveled to rallies for supporters of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
‘Divine Providence Works Through Us’
Trump’s odds of winning were narrowing as a handful of states continued counting their last batches of ballots on Nov. 5, 2020—two days after the election. On his Twitter and Facebook pages, Nabors shared a video from Steve Bannon, Trump’s nationalist 2016 campaign CEO and former White House chief political strategist.
After the Department of Justice under Trump charged Bannon with money laundering and conspiracy to commit mail fraud last year, Trump granted him a pardon hours before leaving office.
“Steve’s prayer advice … along with a little Mark Twain,” Eddie Nabors wrote on Nov. 5, 2020, attaching a two-minute video clip from Bannon’s radio program.
“Prayer is very important, but divine providence works through us. It’s human agency and human action,” Bannon says in the clip. “Donald J. Trump is a very imperfect instrument. Steven K. Bannon is even a more imperfect instrument. But divine providence works through President Trump, divine providence works through every one of you, so pray, but also, through your prayers, commit yourself, your whole being, to this fight.”
Laura Nabors’ social-media accounts include photos of herself with Bannon, including one of her standing between the future-Trump-pardon recipient and her father.
“‘A rose between two thorns’- Stephen K Bannon, CEO of Breitbart News and former Senior Adviser to President Trump,” reads Laura Nabors’ caption of a Dec. 5, 2017 photo on Facebook showing Nabors tagged in New Hope, Ala., where AL.com reported Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore had held a campaign rally that day.
The photo shows Eddie Nabors wearing a white pro-Moore pin on his jacket. Weeks earlier, three women had accused Moore of sexually assaulting them when they were younger, including one who said she was 14 at the time. Bannon helped steer Moore to victory in the Republican primary, but the allegations helped sink Moore’s campaign, and he narrowly lost to Democrat Doug Jones.
Almost three years later, Bannon was once again telling Republican listeners that victory was assured even as it steadily slipped from the Trump campaign’s grasp.
“We’ve won this. It’s all about driving the second-term agenda to make sure we take our country back and we destroy and crush these elites who have led us into managed decline,” Bannon said in the Nov. 5, 2020, clip that Eddie Nabors shared on Twitter.
‘We’re Gonna Walk With The Proud Boys’
Two days afterward, on Nov. 7, the Associated Press called the 2020 election for Biden after the Democratic candidate’s wins in swing states including Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania gave him a decisive electoral and popular-vote victory. That same day, Laura Nabors traveled to Philadelphia, Pa., where the Trump team was planning to announce election challenges.
“And I’m headed right now to the Four Seasons because Trump has put on Twitter that there’s going to be a big announcement,” Laura Nabors said in a selfie Snapchat video as she walked the streets of the City of Brotherly Love. “I asked the guy at the desk how easy it was to walk there, and he said, ‘An idiot could do it.’”
Minutes after sending a Snapchat video of herself riding up the escalator in the Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia, Nabors snapped a photo of herself sipping on a cup of tea with a caption: “At the wrong four seasons.”
Instead of the five-star hotel, the Trump campaign had accidentally booked Four Seasons Landscaping, a small business that, in a more normal year, would not be asked to rent out its parking lot for a presidential press conference. Videos of Snapchat messages on Twitter show that Laura Nabors left the hotel and arrived at the landscaping business soon afterward.
“All the networks thought Biden was going to win by 10%. Gee, what happened? Come on, don’t be, don’t be ridiculous,” Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said, while standing in front of an old garage door with 42 Trump campaign signs plastered across it, a rolled up water hose spooled up nearby. “Networks don’t get to decide elections; courts do.”
Dozens of federal judges, including some appointed by Trump, would shoot down the Trump campaign’s fabricated claims of voter fraud. But in the interim, the Nabors joined thousands of other supporters of the sitting president across the country who took to the streets.
On Nov. 14, Eddie and Laura Nabors traveled to Washington, D.C., for the “Million MAGA March” to protest the results and demand retabulating of the votes in Trump’s favor.
“I’ve never marched amongst millions before, but I’d do it again. It was awesome,” Laura Nabors wrote in a Nov. 14, 2020 Facebook post that included a photo of her posing at the outdoor march alongside her father. He was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat along with a matching red jacket over a blue-checked shirt. (Reuters estimates that the crowd numbered only in the tens of thousands, not millions).
Throughout the day, Laura Nabors shared photos from the march, including a photo showing the father-daughter duo posing with U.S. House Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, who would later sign an amicus brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the election.
Laura Nabors also shared videos on her Snapchat account that she later uploaded to Twitter.
“So we’re gonna walk with the Proud Boys to the Supreme Court,” she said in one of her Snapchat selfie videos, her father visible over her shoulder.
She shared a photo of herself and Eddie Nabors posing with a group of men wearing black, khaki and bright yellow colors. “Guess who found the Proud Boys,” she wrote in the photo’s caption. She shared a second photo posing with the group of men but without her father present. “Proud Boys were loving this MS girl,” she wrote. (She later said in a video that her father was unhappy when, she said, one of the men hit on her).
The Proud Boys, which were established during the 2016 election, describe themselves as proud “Western chauvinists” with an “anti-white guilt” agenda. In 2018, the FBI designated the Proud Boys as an extremist group that included members with ties to white nationalists.
Since the Jan. 6 insurrection, the U.S. Department of Justice has indicted members of the group in relation to the storming of the U.S. Capitol. The Canadian government formally designated the Proud Boys as a terrorist group earlier this year.
‘Legislators Must Find The Will’
Two days after the Million MAGA March, on Nov. 16, Eddie Nabors shared a video to his Facebook page from “WarRoom Pandemic,” a show on the pro-Trump online video platform “Real America’s Voice.” The clip featured an interview with Justin Wilson, a Black Trump supporter from California.
“One side of the country claims that Biden won, but they kind of know he didn’t win. He’s kind of like the O.J. Simpson of today, where everyone knows he’s guilty, but they kind of just want him to win anyway just to get back at the other side,” Wilson said.
The man also repeated a conspiracy theory about the origins of the novel coronavirus.
“I feel like COVID was injected in America to just bring us down underneath China and the rest of the countries so we can fall behind them and continue, I guess, their gravy train, and right night it seems like everyone is against Trump because he’s stopping their gravy train,” Wilson said.
“And just this crowd is evidence of their fraud. I mean, you did not see this energy from the other side. And of course, for anyone to deny the reality, you have to be dishonest with yourself. You have to.”
As he shared the clip on Facebook, Eddie Nabors offered praise for the Black Trump supporter’s remarks. “Justin explains everything for us in two minutes! Watch his facial expressions as he talks. Great communicator,” he wrote.
Laura Nabors’ social-media pages also show that she attended a pro-Trump “Stop The Steal” rally in Georgia on Nov. 21, where she tweeted a photo showing Jenny Beth Martin, who in 2009 founded one of the nation’s first Tea Party groups in Atlanta, speaking outside the Georgia Capitol. “Hey Georgia GOP Legislations, Courage Required, Stop The Steal,” read a sign on stage beside Martin.
Eddie Nabors quote-tweeted his daughter’s photo of Martin with a similar message of his own: “Legislators must find the will!”
‘And Then The Lord Spoke …’
In early December 2020, Eddie Nabors, a United Methodist Sunday School teacher of 35 years, directed a tweet at Dutch Sheets, an apostolic minister who preaches Christian dominionist beliefs. Followers of this theology, which is sometimes described as “Christian nationalism,” believe Christians have a duty to take control of the culture, including the legal and political system. In May, some of Mississippi’s top political leaders appeared at a prayer event hosted by an organization that teaches dominionism.
“@dutchsheets please post the Liberty Bell video,” Eddie Nabors tweeted at 2:23 a.m. on Dec. 2, 2020. The preacher, who believes God used Trump to further the Christian gospel, had shared a message with a packed room of believers weeks earlier.
At the Global Prophetic Summit at Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas, on Nov. 12, 2020, stage lights illuminated the apostle whose black shirt and slacks matched the dark room around him. As simulated flames appeared to lick the untroubled air beside him, Dutch Sheets repeated a “dream” or “vision” (“I forgot which it was,” he said) that a woman had shared with him days earlier.
“In this dream or vision the person had about me, I was climbing a rope. It was very high and there were knots tied along the way. It was a big rope,” he said. “So when I got to the knot, I could actually stand there, hold on, and rest for a bit.”
At the top, Sheets said, was a replica of the Liberty Bell that had the words, ‘United States of America’ and the year ‘2020’ written across it.
“When I got to the bell that said 2020, the Liberty Bell, I reached up weakly, and I just rang as best I could. But the sound was loud,” the preacher said. “And it reverberated across the nation. It was so loud that all across the nation, people came out of houses, stores, schools, businesses—looking for the sound and the movement they could feel. And then the Lord spoke to her in this dream and said, ‘America, now that I have your attention, you’ve been saved by the bell.’”
The ringing of the bell, he said, would usher in a “Year of Jubilee,” referring to the the ancient Hebrew year that, according to the Book of Leviticus, arrived every 50 years and served as a “reset” in the nation of Israel, when slaves and indentured servants would go free, debts be forgiven and any property that had been sold would return to its original owner or heir.
The dream, Sheets told the Texas audience, meant that God was ready to “reset” America. While a group of musicians cloaked in shadow behind him plucked strings, struck keys and to match the drama of his words, Sheets issued “prophetic decrees” over the nation, saying that “heaven’s reset has taken place” and “the covenant root of this nation is now intact.”
“We just decree over this land that the giants, the principalities that rule a portion of this nation, that don’t want us to follow God, that don’t like his son, that don’t like his word… . We just say, Lord, you’ve already made your decree, and you said, ‘This is my son, and I say the nations belong to him, and you’re either going to submit to that or a rod of iron is gonna crush you.”
Operation Valkyrie
As Trump’s challenges to the election moved forward, Sheets’ ministry grew in popularity among the Trump faithful, including among some who previously had little affiliation with the apostolic, charismatic form of religion that Sheets represents. On Dec. 1, 2020, Laura Nabors tweeted information about an event Sheets was orchestrating called “Operation Valkyrie.”
“The historical meaning of Valkyrie is derived from the Nazi plan to regain control of Germany should the people of the nation rebel. They called it Valkyrie,” Sheets explained in a Facebook post. “The German soldiers who tried to assassinate Hitler were actually using this same ‘Valkyrie’ plan to kill him and take over Germany. Thus, Valkyrie, in its simplest definition, is ‘a plan to take over a country.’ In our situation, it couldn’t be more obvious, Valkyrie represents the plan to take back America by stealing the election. The literal definition would mean they have decided Trump must be taken out or ‘die on the battlefield.'”
Sheets’ “Operation Valkyrie” amounted to asking the faithful in each state, at a specific time, to spend three minutes issuing “decrees” across the land over a two-and-a-half hour period, culminating with a team delivering the final decrees at Independence Hall in Philadelphia at 3 a.m. EST on Dec. 2.
“Mississippi is ready for 12:27 central,” Laura Nabors wrote in response to one of Sheets’ tweets on Operation Valkyrie at 11:29 p.m. on Dec. 1, referring to the time Mississippi believers were set to recite the decree.
At 12:27, the Mississippians who joined Operation Valkyrie, whether from their living rooms or in assemblies, began reciting the decree: “As Christ’s ekklesia on the earth, we have been delegated his supreme authority to declare into the spiritual realm what is lawful and unlawful, forbidden and allowed. We have been given Christ’s keys with which to close doors no one can open, and open doors no one can close.
“According to his first instructions, we join together in unity across our nation tonight, from the first state to the last, in order to end Valkyrie’s plot to steal America’s 2020 elections. We agree with the angel of the Lord and using his very words join him in decreeing that when the clock strikes 3:00 a.m., Valkyrie will fall and will not sing. The plot will end. We declare that our prayers are causing the witchcraft and curse to bounce back on the sender. We decree that the commander’s judgments are supreme.”
Participants then issued a declaration based on the dream or vision Sheets had described in Texas weeks earlier: “We decree the next 4 years of Donald John Trump’s presidency will see the fruit of God’s divine reset of America. We will experience a third great awakening. We will return to our ancient paths and foundations, including being a voice of the gospel of the kingdom to all the earth, and America’s heart will be captured once again by her creator, Yahweh.”
‘Inside The Walls Of The Deep State’
In Washington, D.C., 10 days after Operation Valkyrie, Laura Nabors joined another biblically themed event with the Trump faithful’s own version of the biblical tale: “The Jericho March.” (It is not clear whether Eddie Nabors was also in attendance).
In the Book of Joshua, the Israelites lay siege to the enemy City of Jericho, marching around the city seven times; the priests blow their shofars, a Hebrew instrument made of a ram’s horn, and the Israelites let out a shout, bringing the walls of the Canaanite city tumbling down. The Israelites then burn Jericho with fire, slaughtering all within except the prostitute Rahab and her family.
On social media on Dec. 12, Laura Nabors tweeted video clips from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court where Gen. Mike Flynn, who served a short stint as Trump’s national security adviser in 2017, was speaking. The general, who had confessed to lying to the FBI about the Trump team’s communications with Russian officials, had received a pardon from Trump 12 days earlier.
Like Bannon, the unburdened Flynn was now offering advice on the power of prayer. He began his remarks with a recitation of the Lord’s prayer, and soon after told those gathered for the Jericho March that they were “in a spiritual battle for the heart and soul of this country.”
At 9:30 a.m., some of the attendees imitated the Israelites outside the walls of Jericho as they blew shofars around the U.S. Supreme Court. The event’s website explained that the marches were “simultaneously taking place around the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court, and Department of Justice with prayers for the walls of corruption and election fraud to fall down.”
Later, marchers traveled to the national mall to listen to a cast of speakers that included the likes of Eric Metaxas, a well-known evangelical preacher; MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell; and famed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones—who, on this occasion, spoke the language of Christian dominionism.
“Humanity is awakening. Jesus Christ is King,” Jones declared with his trademark wailing shout. “This is the beginning of the Great Revival before the Antichrist comes.”
Flynn also spoke at the mall, where he told those gathered for the Jericho March that they were “in a spiritual battle for the heart and soul of this country.”
“Nothing can resist the power of prayer. … (We’re in) Jericho, we’re inside the walls of the Deep State. And there is evil and there’s corruption. And there’s light and there’s truth. We’re going to get to the light and we’re going to get to the truth,” said Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI before Trump pardoned him. “And us, inside of the barricade, we’re gonna knock those walls down.”
Instead, later that day, as many other courts had done before, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would not hear a case backed by Republican leaders nationwide (including Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch) that sought to invalidate the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—all swing states that had secured Biden’s victory.
The Jericho March scheduled another siege for Jan. 5 and 6—a last ditch-effort to change the outcome of the election by getting Vice President Mike Pence and the U.S. Congress to throw out Joe Biden’s victory and reinstall Trump for another term.
“Marchers plan to blow ritual Jewish horns called shofars on the first day before circling the Supreme Court building seven times in imitation of the Israelites’ siege of the city of Jericho described in the Bible’s Book of Joshua. On Wednesday, they plan to do the same around the U.S. Capitol building,” Religion News Service reported on New Year’s Eve.
Far from celebrating victory against the “Deep State,” though, the Jericho March’s organizers were distancing themselves from those who infiltrated the Capitol two days after the violent storming of the Capitol, insisting that its events had been peaceful.
“Jericho March denounces any and all acts of violence and destruction, including any that took place at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” the organizers said in a Jan. 8 statement. “Jericho March has a history of totally peaceful marches and we have not, did not, and never will condone violence or destruction. Our mission is peace and prayer. … Any information to the contrary is defamatory, baseless, and a direct attack on the First Amendment freedoms we enjoy as people of faith.”
‘Warring For What Is Right Is Always Right’
The day after the Jericho March disavowed the insurrection assault, on Jan. 9, Laura Nabors tweeted a YouTube video Dutch Sheets had posted earlier that day. In the 13-minute message, which has now garnered more than a quarter of a million views, the apostle told followers to “keep in mind this is a spiritual battle” involving “demonically inspired hatred driving an ongoing plan to turn America away from God and our roots.”
“The reason Satan is so bent on this is because of the destiny hanging over this nation. We must stop it. We are a nation created to carry the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. There has never been another nation created specifically for this purpose,” Sheets said, offering an ahistorical version of America’s founding that historians say conflicts with the founding fathers’ stated intent. “The enemy hates this and has worked diligently in the last 50 years to turn us away from that destiny.
“When President Trump was elected and the momentum of this backsliding was stopped, anger rose within Satan’s kingdom. He hates Trump’s resistance.”
The apostle assured followers that God “had 40 to 50 dreams sent to me during the past few months by credible prophets” who assured him that “the battle was not over.” He once again described a dream, this one featuring a “distraught,” somber President Trump seated behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
“All I ever wanted to do was release freedom in America. All I wanted was for the people to hear the sound of freedom. The sound of freedom has been captured. I tried for four years to free this sound,” the dream-Trump said as he began to weep. “Have I failed?”
“No sir, you have not failed,” dream-Sheets assured the crestfallen man.
After sharing the latest dream with his viewers, Sheets said he believed God was “going to work a miracle in the midnight hour” before the inauguration to keep Trump in office. But, the apostle added in the video, even if he turned out to be wrong “and we lose this battle,” he would “not regret having stood.”
“Not for a moment,” Sheets said. “Warring for what is right is always right. Always. Stay in this fight.”
He urged Christians to “declare that the president will be saved by the one who put him in office” and that “every enemy of the Lord will be struck down.”
The next week, on Jan. 14, the organizers of the Jericho March released another statement, citing “public reports of possible future armed protests by violent groups” as it cautioned “praying people to suspend local self-led prayer marches at this time until public security and safety can be guaranteed and restored.”
Dutch’s predicted miracle did not come to pass; President Joe Biden took the oath of office on the site where rioters had wreaked havoc weeks earlier. Due to ongoing security concerns, the ceremony took place in front of a National Mall covered in state flags rather than the traditional crowd of hundreds of thousands of joyous supporters who normally attend presidential inaugurations.
Nabors On Ashli Babbitt: ‘Say Her Name!’
Though neither Eddie Nabors’ nor his daughter’s social-media accounts indicate their whereabouts on Jan. 6, 2021, and neither responded to requests for comment, he did tweet one reference to the events of the day that evening at 8:24 p.m., in defense of Ashli Babbitt. She was a 35-year-old Trump supporter who had joined the violent crowd that stormed the Capitol that day. As Capitol Police were evacuating lawmakers from the congressional Chambers, Babbitt attempted to break through a barricaded door; a Capitol Police officer shot her in the shoulder, killing her.
“Say her name!” Nabors wrote, appropriating the slogan from a movement aimed at elevating awareness for Black women who are victims of police brutality. (Babbitt was white). “And publish the name of the officer who put a bullet in his chamber and kept his finger on the trigger and killed Ashli with his gross incompetence in his histrionic effort to protect against an illusion of a threat. And cc George Floyd please.”
Five died at the Capitol during the violent insurrection, including Babbitt, four other Trump supporters and Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. A medical examiner determined that Sicknick died from natural causes after suffering two strokes during the attack, but said “all that transpired played a role in his condition.” Another 140 officers were injured during clashes with insurrectionists that day, Capitol Police later revealed.
The U.S. Department of Justice has since said it will not charge the officer who shot Babbitt its “investigation revealed no evidence to establish that, at the time the officer fired a single shot at Ms. Babbitt, the officer did not reasonably believe that it was necessary to do so in self-defense or in defense of the Members of Congress and others evacuating the House Chamber.”
“Acknowledging the tragic loss of life and offering condolences to Ms. Babbitt’s family, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and U.S. Department of Justice have therefore closed the investigation into this matter,” the Department of Justice said in an April 14, 2021, statement.
Aside from his anger over Ashli Babbitt’s death and his reference to police violence victim George Floyd, Nabors hinted at some support for policing reform during a candidate forum last month. The candidate said he wants Batesville to update its policing policies to make its training more “current” in its approaches to “communities,” but that he does not support “community policing.” He did not offer details.
‘If My Candidate Doesn’t Win, I’m Going To Tear Up City Hall’
Hours after the insurrection, U.S. House Rep. Bennie Thompson was the only member of Mississippi’s U.S. House delegation who voted to certify the election results. The state’s three House Republicans—Reps. Michael Guest, Trent Kelly and Steven Palazzo—each voted for Trump’s attempt to stop the House from formalizing Biden’s victory.
In the U.S. Senate, Roger Wicker, a Republican, opposed the attempted congressional coup, but Mississippi’s junior GOP senator, Cindy Hyde-Smith, backed Trump’s hail mary.
All three House Republicans voted against impeaching Trump for incitement of insurrection as Thompson voted for impeachment; Wicker and Hyde-Smith both voted to acquit their party’s leader in his Senate trial. Thompson has since filed a civil suit alleging that Trump and Giuliani “conspired” with the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, a violent militia group, to stage the Jan. 6 insurrection (charges the accused deny).
After Thompson forged a deal with the top House Republican on the Homeland Security Committee for an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection, Rep. Guest was the only Mississippi Republican to support the bill. Wicker and Hyde-Smith both helped Republicans filibuster the bill as Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell quietly expressed fears that an independent commission could hurt his party’s electoral chances in 2022.
Earlier this week, Michael Flynn appeared to endorse another coup-attempt before walking those comments back. Thompson, who chairs the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, told MSNBC host Chris Hayes that he considers Flynn “a clear and present danger.”
“The First Amendment allows freedom of speech, but there are some things that Louie Gohmert and Michael Flynn and these other folks are saying that borders on sedition,” Thompson told Hayes this past week. “So I am convinced that we will look at that in due time because they can’t just say anything and go untouched.”
Thompson warned that, if Congress does not pursue accountability and take the threat of further insurrectionist efforts seriously, no election in the nation will be safe.
“That means if my candidate doesn’t win, I’m going to tear up city hall,” he hypothesized those who want to steal elections will be able to say.
Eddie Nabors has not tweeted since Jan. 6. He announced his mayoral campaign in February. Neither he nor Laura Nabors responded to repeated requests for comment on this story.
In Batesville and other municipalities across the state, general election polls will open on Tuesday, June 8, at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Voters must present an accepted form of voter ID. More information on voting and voter ID is available online at sos.ms.gov.
Editor’s Note: Eddie Nabors lost his bid for mayor.
