Mainstream trucking organizations are disavowing connections with the rumored protest. Truckers' protest: Convoy or con?

Right-wing activists who have made a media splash by claiming they’ll use big trucks to jam Beltway traffic this weekend are off to a rocky start.

Barely a day after U.S.News & World Report wrote about the “ Ride for the Constitution,” organizers are condemning a former compatriot who suggested that the group will “arrest” congressmen. Meanwhile, mainstream trucking industry organizations are disavowing any connection with the activists, including some protest supporters who alleged they plan to snarl traffic for three days by circling Interstate 495 at 55 mph.


The protest website talks about bringing a million truckers to D.C. or instigating a nationwide trucker strike that would soon mean empty store shelves. Pete Santilli, an Internet radio host who has been serving as the official spokesman for the ride, said the trucker convoy is a “photo op for the press” intended to spawn a larger outcry.

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“We’re looking for an Egypt moment, where 100 million people will get out on the street, get out on the roads and demand that our legislature follow the Constitution,” he said.

But then another organizer, Earl Conlon, told The Washington Post on Tuesday that the whole protest is a hoax. “Nothing gets the attention of the mainstream media like some sort of disastrous threat,” he said.

Hoax or not, police agencies say they’re keeping an eye out.

“Virginia State Police is aware of the proposed protest, but we are not in a position to comment on any preparations at this time,” spokeswoman Corinne Geller wrote in an email to POLITICO. She later added that “as long as the vehicles comply with Virginia law, then the Virginia State Police will not interfere with their protest.”

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A Maryland state police spokesman similarly said officers there are prepared to “keep the highways clear and safe.”

The threats have also caught the attention of two major trucking industry organizations, which said they’re not participating in any such protest — despite the industry’s disputes with the Obama administration and Congress over regulations.

“The individuals leading this particular effort have no direct affiliation with trucking and appear to be using truckers in order to gain media attention and air grievances not related to trucking,” the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said in a statement. “We do not support assembling in an unlawful, unpermitted manner, committing crimes, making threats on our lawmakers or behaving in such a way to cast safe, professional truck drivers in a negative light.”

Both OOIDA and the American Trucking Associations said legal means are the best way to battle unfriendly regulations.

“The American Trucking Associations is not a sponsor of this ‘strike’ nor do we endorse or condone the activities of these few individuals,” ATA spokesman Sean McNally said. “ATA and the vast majority of America’s truck drivers will continue to deliver the nation’s most essential goods unabated even while we continue to work through whatever policy disagreements we have with Congress and the administration.”

The organizers have complaints related to trucking regulations but also embrace false claims about Barack Obama’s birthplace and accuse the president of “treason” for funneling weapons to Syrian rebels. Conlon also told U.S. News on Monday that the truckers will seek the “arrest of everyone in government who has violated their oath of office.”

That led Santilli to ask the media not to quote Conlon as a spokesman.

“We are also very concerned about provocateurs and people intent on subverting our peaceful protest,” Santilli wrote in one of several emails to U.S. News that he posted about the tiff.

At the top of the demands on the protest website is the repeal of new hours-of-service rules that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration put into place July 1. The rules, upheld by a federal appeals court in August, require a 34-hour rest break each week and 30 minutes of off-duty rest for each eight-hour day.

The activists’ other trucking-related complaints include other federal regulations, the price of fuel and a lack of parking.

On their website, the organizers also attack the president’s health care program as unconstitutional and claim Transportation Security Administration officers are given “the right to commit crimes of sexual misconduct.” During the interview, Santilli attacked politicians who want to raise the debt limit and suggested that a POLITICO reporter and homeless veterans would do a better job than the current Congress.

Close to 50,000 people have “liked” the ride’s Facebook page, which “declare(s) a GENERAL STRIKE on the weekend of October 11-13, 2013! Truck drivers will not haul freight! Americans can strike in solidarity with truck drivers!”

There is some precedent for truckers clogging up roads. In 2010, French truckers blocked roads to protest then-President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age to 62. In 1997, a French truckers’ union did the same as part of a strike against trucking companies.

Matt Daily contributed to this report.