The House committee investigating last year’s Capitol riot will soon turn its attention to the role of far-right extremists, examining not only the influence of nationalist networks in carrying out the attack, but also what coordination, if any, the White House had on Trump with these groups leading to the violence.
Panel investigators have already teased a potential connection between former President Trump and the group of extremists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, using last month’s public hearing with a former West Wing aide to suggest direct links between some of those closest to Trump allies and leaders of several prominent nationalist groups now accused of masterminding the attack.
Heading into the next hearing on Tuesday, panel members are already promising to reveal previously undisclosed information they say will prove those connections.
“We’re going to connect the dots, as people know,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a member of the select committee, told MSNBC on Thursday. “This was not just an event that took place. It was planned. Who planned it and who were they connected to? How did it develop?’
The cast of characters the commission has already implicated in the scheme to overturn the election results reads like a who’s who of Trump’s inner circle.
It includes John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, two of the former president’s legal advisers, who set up a “war room” in a Washington hotel on January 5; Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, two allies in the Stop Theft movement who were charged with unrelated crimes but pardoned by Trump; and Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff who acted as a liaison between Trump and the other four men, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, a former senior aide to Meadows, who testified before the election commission on June 28.
On the fringes were extremist groups, including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who rallied in Washington on Jan. 6 as part of Trump’s effort to reverse his election loss.
The lines between the two worlds form a complex matrix, and the commission has yet to demonstrate direct links between Trump confidants and the extremist groups that have been on the front lines of violence in the Capitol.
However, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a constitutional lawyer who sits on the select committee, promised to dig into those associations when he leads the inquiry, along with Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), at Tuesday’s hearing. And outside experts who monitor hate groups are eager to see what emerges.
“If coordination existed, what form did it take?” What were the channels of information?” said Cassie Miller, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups of all stripes across the country.
“But we must also recognize that official coordination was not necessary for Trump to influence the actions of groups like the Proud Boys in the months leading up to the riot or on the day itself,” Miller quickly added. “This is a group that has long wanted to act as the foot soldiers of Trumpism, and the Stop Theft movement and the uprising have given them the opportunity to do so.”
Some links between Trump associates and far-right groups were established long before the special committee began a series of public hearings last month.
Both Flynn and Stone, for example, have long been known to use security information provided by far-right groups, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and the 1st Amendment Praetorians, who defended Flynn during a campaign protest in Washington in mid december. Stone had rallied with Proud Boys leaders, including Chairman Enrique Tario, at a similar protest that month and was reportedly protected by members of the Oath Keepers at the Capitol on January 6.
Although neither Stone nor Flynn were part of the Trump campaign or administration on Jan. 6, the investigation found a direct connection.
On. On Jan. 5, Hutchinson told investigators that Trump asked Meadows to contact Stone and Flynn about their plans for the next day, when Congress would convene to certify President Biden’s election victory. She said she was “under the impression” that Meadows had spoken to both men, but had no indication of what was said.
Meadows refused to speak to investigators, even when subpoenaed, prompting the House to impeach him in contempt of Congress.
Hutchinson also testified to the West Wing’s interest in a meeting of Trump allies at the Willard Hotel, an upscale venue near the White House, on the evening of January 5. That meeting was attended by Eastman and Giuliani, among others, she said, and Meadows had tried to join them there. Hutchinson told Meadows it was a bad idea, she testified, and Meadows ended up calling the meeting instead.
Hutchinson suggested that Giuliani was also associated with extremist groups.
“I remember hearing the word ‘Oath Keeper’ and the word ‘Proud Boys’ closer to the planning of the Jan. 6 rally when Mr. Giuliani was going to be around,” Hutchinson said.
Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the Trump campaign has courted militia groups from the start, praising their presence at rallies as they increasingly become part of event security.
Those calls would become more specific over time, including a message to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand aside” at a debate during the 2020 election cycle.
“Trump knew that the militia groups liked him, strongly supported him and were willing to protect him and were willing to offer to protect him. He knew he could mobilize these groups through tweets and appeals like “stand back and stay away,” which the Proud Boys [documentarian] at the first hearing they said they tripled their membership,” Kleinfeld said.
Both Stone and Flynn spoke with committee investigators only to plead with Petya repeatedly. The commission showed little of that taped testimony other than a clip of Flynn refusing to answer whether he believed in a peaceful transfer of power.
Documentary footage reviewed by The Washington Post earlier this year showed a member of the Oath Keepers, later charged with seditious conspiracy, in Stone’s suite at the Willard Hotel on the morning of Jan. 6. The video also shows Stone using an encrypted messaging app to chat with Tario and Stuart Rhodes, the head of the Oath Keepers, later that month.
Both Tario and Rhodes were indicted, along with other members of their respective groups, on seditious conspiracy charges for their roles in the Capitol attack. If convicted, they face up to 20 years in prison.
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Kleinfeld said that even if there is no evidence of direct contact between Trump and extremists, the former president’s success in mobilizing those groups was a major factor in the violence at the Capitol.
“It’s not that Trump called the Oath Keepers — although Roger Stone might have,” she said. “Trump or the Trump campaign orchestrated this response so that it was ready and so that it could put pressure on Republicans who would not go along with his proposals and ultimately put pressure on actors who would [were needed] to carry out one part or another of this plan.”
“As all the different dominoes kept falling and his plan wasn’t working,” she added, “this was a last ditch effort for January 6.”
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