Archive for February, 2023

Domestic Threat to Democracy

Wednesday, February 15th, 2023

Denver Riggleman spoke about the disinformation and conspiricy theories that are pervading the public, and the damage that they do.  A large percentage of the public believe this information and some extremest are acting in a destructive way.  There was a good Q&A session, and the meeting was moderated by SSV Board Member Peyton Williams.

Mr Riggleman was a member of Congress from the Fifth District of Virginia elected in 2018, and an Air Force intelligence officer and National Security Agency consultant for over 20 years. He is the only Republican member of Congress to speak out against QAnon on the House floor. He co-authored a report entitled, “THE QANON CONSPIRACY:Destroying Families, Dividing Communities, Undermining Democracy” which was published by the Network Contagion Research Institute prior to the January 6, 2021 insurrection.

In August of 2021, he was appointed as a senior staffer to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack on the US Capitol. His mission was to collect, analyze and make sense of the text and other electronic signals among participants in the attack. He left this position in April of 2022.

Denver Riggleman and Peyton Williams

Mr. Riggleman also spoke about the attack on the U.S. Capital and other threats to democracy. He coauthored The Breach, an account of the attack and the information that was gathered by his team. A good summary of this book can be found on Amazon.com.  The SSV session was covered by NBC29 News, and this is a link to the video.