January 6 Committee Focuses On The Seditious Conspiracy Co-Conspirators

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, with the latest round of subpoenas issued, clearly signals that it is focused on a Seditious Conspiracy charge, 18 U.S. Code § 2384 – Seditious conspiracy:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

The details included in the subpoenas are a clear indication that the 200 or so witnesses, including former Trump administration officials who have voluntarily cooperated with the committee investigation, have already provided substantial evidence to the committee. What the committee is looking to achieve now is to get the co-conspirators to start turning on one another under oath. The committee is building a case from the bottom up to the head of the snake behind the MAGA coup d’etat on January 6. Donald Trump is clearly in the committee’s sights.

The relevant question is, “Is the Department of Justice doing a similar investigation, or not?” The DOJ should not be waiting on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol to do the job that it should be doing. Where are the indictments of the co-conspirators?

The New York Times reports, House Panel Subpoenas Roger Stone and Alex Jones in Capitol Riot Inquiry:

The House committee investigating the Capitol attack issued five new subpoenas on Monday, focusing on allies of former President Donald J. Trump who helped draw crowds to Washington before the riot on Jan. 6, including the political operative [long-time GOP ratfucker] Roger J. Stone Jr. and the conspiracy theorist [provocateur] Alex Jones.

The subpoenas, which come after the committee has interviewed more than 200 witnesses, indicate that investigators are intent on learning the details of the planning and financing of rallies that drew Mr. Trump’s supporters to Washington based on his lies of a stolen election, fueling the violence that engulfed Congress and delayed the formalization of President Biden’s victory.

“We need to know who organized, planned, paid for and received funds related to those events, as well as what communications organizers had with officials in the White House and Congress,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Stone promoted his attendance at the rallies on Jan. 5 and 6, and solicited support to pay for security through the website stopthesteal.org [which he founded in 2016]. While in Washington, he used members of the Oath Keepers as personal security guards; at least one of them has been indicted on charges that he was involved in the Capitol attack.

From earlier this year: New video shows long-time Trump advisor Roger Stone surrounded by far-right Oath Keepers just hours before the Capitol riot:

A new video released by ABC News on Friday shows longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone standing outside a DC hotel surrounded by members of the Oath Keepers militia group just hours before the deadly Capitol riots on January 6.

The footage shows Stone taking pictures and shaking hands with Trump supporters outside the Willard InterContinental hotel, located only a few blocks from the White House.

As Stone walks around greeting people, a group of Oath Keepers can be seen following him closely. The men are wearing military-style clothing and other accessories that appear to have Oath Keepers logos on them.

At one point in the video, Stone can be seen exchanging a few words with them.

Another notable moment in the video is when a supporter off-camera asks Stone: “So, hopefully, we have this today, right?” to which he responds: “We shall see.” It’s not clear what the two are referring to.

[It] had previously been reported that Oath Keepers were traveling with Stone on the day before the Capitol riots as Trump’s former adviser was helping to set up the rally, which was held to dispute the results of the 2020 election. 

The ABC News video is the first time there is visual evidence that the militia group was also with him on the day of the insurrection. 

The Times continues:

Mr. Jones helped organize the rally at the Ellipse near the White House before the riot — including by facilitating a donation from Julie Jenkins Fancelli, the heiress to the Publix Super Markets fortune — to provide what he described as “80 percent” of the funding, the House committee said. Mr. Jones has said that White House officials told him that he was to lead a march to the Capitol, where Mr. Trump would speak, according to the committee.

Mr. Stone and Mr. Jones were among the group of Trump allies meeting in and around the Willard Intercontinental Hotel near the White House the day before the riot.

Mr. Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, was seen flashing his signature Nixon victory sign to supporters as members of the Oath Keepers protected him. He was also photographed on Jan. 5 with Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser who has also been subpoenaed. But Mr. Stone has claimed that he was leaving town as rioters stormed the Capitol.

Mr. Stone said he had decided against a plan to “lead a march” from the Ellipse to the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to a video posted on social media.

Mr. Jones conducted an interview of Mr. Flynn from the Willard on Jan. 5 in which the men spread the false narrative of a stolen election. Mr. Jones was then seen among the crowd of Mr. Trump’s supporters the next day, amplifying false the claims but also urging the crowd to be peaceful. Among those who marched alongside him to the Capitol was Ali Alexander, a promoter of the “Stop the Steal” effort who has also been issued a subpoena, the committee said.

“The White House told me three days before, ‘We’re going to have you lead the march,’” Mr. Jones said on his internet show the day after the riot. “Trump will tell people, ‘Go, and I’m going to meet you at the Capitol.’”

The panel is also demanding documents and testimony from Dustin Stockton and his fiancée, Jennifer L. Lawrence, who assisted in organizing a series of rallies after the election advancing false claims about its outcome.

The Jan 6 committee subpoenaed a couple familiar names to AZ politicos. Jennifer Lawrence and Dustin Stockton worked for @kelliwardaz's Senate campaign in 2018, broke with her, then joined Arpaio's campaign and spent the rest of the year blasting her. https://t.co/AST7wCVLp5

— Jeremy Duda (@jeremyduda) November 22, 2021

Mr. Stockton was concerned that the rally at the Ellipse would lead to a march to the Capitol that would mean “possible danger,” which he said “felt unsafe,” the committee said. These concerns were escalated to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff.

Mr. Stockton and Ms. Lawrence are known to be close to Stephen K. Bannon, a former top aide to Mr. Trump, who has been charged with federal crimes after refusing to comply with his subpoena. The couple worked at the conservative website Breitbart and then at Mr. Bannon’s nonprofit seeking private financing to help complete Mr. Trump’s border wall.

A former organizer for the hard-line Gun Owners of America, Mr. Stockton had come to know members of the Three Percenters militia group — and was photographed with several members in military-grade body armor at a rally on Dec. 12.

The committee also issued a subpoena to Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, who reportedly solicited nonprofit organizations to conduct a social media and radio advertising campaign encouraging attendance at the rally at the Ellipse and promoting unsupported claims about the election.

The subpoenas issued on Monday require that all five people produce documents and testimony by mid-December. With the exception of Mr. Stone, the recipients did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The committee has issued 40 subpoenas in total, investigating everything from the planning and financing of the “Stop the Steal” effort to Mr. Trump’s every movement as the violence spread on Jan. 6.

The subpoenas come as the committee is struggling to compel some allies of Mr. Trump to comply with its investigation. In addition to the charges against Mr. Bannon, members of the committee have said that they are considering recommending contempt of Congress charges against two other potential witnesses: Mr. Meadows and Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer involved in Mr. Trump’s plans to overturn the election.

The New York Times in a subsequent report, House Panel Investigating Capitol Attack Subpoenas Proud Boys and Oath Keepers:

The House committee investigating the Capitol attack issued subpoenas on Tuesday to three militia or paramilitary groups, including the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers [Trump’s fascist paramilitary], that investigators believe have information about the deadly siege on Jan. 6.

The subpoenas were issued to the Proud Boys International, L.L.C., and its chairman, Henry “Enrique” Tarrio; the Oath Keepers and its president, Elmer Stewart Rhodes; and the 1st Amendment Praetorian and its chairman, Robert Patrick Lewis. They came a day after the panel subpoenaed the political operative Roger J. Stone Jr., the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and three others.

Note: The Department of Justice should bankrupt these far-right militia groups, as occurred this week against the far-right groups responsible for violence in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Jury finds Unite the Right defendants liable for more than $26 million in damages:

A jury has awarded more than $26 million in damages after finding the White nationalists who organized and participated in a violent 2017 rally here liable on a state conspiracy claim and other claims.

Some of the most prominent figures of the alt-right — Jason Kessler, Matthew Heimbach, Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell — were among the defendants.

Half of the $24 million in punitive damages awarded were against Fields. In addition, the jury awarded punitive damages against Kessler, Spencer and Cantwell at $700,000 each, and Heimbach for $500,000.

“The select committee is seeking information from individuals and organizations reportedly involved with planning the attack, with the violent mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 or with efforts to overturn the results of the election,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said in a statement. “We believe the individuals and organizations we subpoenaed today have relevant information about how violence erupted at the Capitol and the preparation leading up to this violent attack.”

The panel said members of Proud Boys International called for violence before Jan. 6, and the Justice Department indicted at least 34 people affiliated with the group.

People associated with the Oath Keepers were similarly involved in planning and participating in the Capitol riot, the committee said, including 18 members who were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly planning a coordinated attack to storm the building. Mr. Rhodes repeatedly suggested that the Oath Keepers should engage in violence to ensure their preferred election outcome. He was also allegedly in contact with several of the indicted Oath Keepers members before, during and after the attack on Jan. 6, including meeting some of them outside the Capitol.

Mr. Rhodes has a long history of using violent language, including calling for the hanging of John McCain, the former Republican senator from Arizona.

On Oct. 27, Mr. Rhodes appeared on Mr. Jones’s show claiming that Democrats were stealing the election and that the Oath Keepers would protect President Donald J. Trump’s supporters at the polls. On Nov. 10, Mr. Rhodes said he had “good men on the ground” in Washington prepared to “go in” if Mr. Trump needed them. On Dec. 12, he called on Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and warned that the Oath Keepers would mount a “much more bloody war” if he did not, the committee said.
The 1st Amendment Praetorian, a shadowy organization that appears to be largely made up of former intelligence officers and special forces operators, served as bodyguards to Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, at rallies in Washington between the election and Jan. 6. In publicly posted videos, Mr. Lewis, the leader of the group, has also acknowledged being involved in the effort to help the lawyer Sidney Powell file lawsuits challenging the integrity of the presidential vote count.

The group provided security at multiple rallies leading up to Jan. 6 that amplified former Mr. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. The group’s Twitter account suggested on Jan. 4 that violence was imminent, the committee said.

“There may be some young National Guard Captains facing some very, very tough choices in the next 48 hours,” the group wrote.

1st Amendment Praetorian provided security for at least two men who have also been issued subpoenas by the House committee: Mr. Flynn, and Ali Alexander, a promoter of the “Stop the Steal” campaign to undermine the election.

“Today is the day that true battles begin,” Mr. Lewis wrote on Twitter on Jan. 6.

Mr. Lewis, a former Green Beret, was on a list of speakers for a demonstration held in Washington on Jan. 5 hosted by Cindy Chafian, the founder of a group called The 80 Percent Coalition. She also received a subpoena from the House committee in September.

Mr. Lewis, who said he was in contact with Mr. Rhodes, also claimed to be involved with “war-gaming” to continue efforts to overturn the election results even after the mob violence, the committee said.

Mr. Rhodes said by text message on Tuesday afternoon that he was traveling and would soon issue a written statement. A lawyer who has previously represented Mr. Tarrio could not be reached for comment. Mr. Lewis did not respond to a request for comment.

The panel has issued 45 subpoenas and interviewed more than 200 witnesses as it investigates the violence that engulfed Congress and delayed the formalization of President Biden’s victory. The latest subpoenas demand records and testimony by mid-December.

They reflect the broad scope of the committee’s inquiry, which is investigating not only the role of the White House and Mr. Trump’s allies in the Capitol attack, but the militia groups and rioters associated with them.

[W]hile no one from the 1st Amendment Praetorian is currently facing criminal charges in connection with the attack, prosecutors focused on the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers soon after Jan. 6.

Several members of the Proud Boys — far-right nationalists who style themselves as “Western chauvinists” — have been charged with taking part in the assault. Among them are presidents of the group’s chapters in Seattle, Philadelphia, Hawaii and North Carolina.

Mr. Tarrio has not been charged [yet] in the Capitol attack; he was ordered to leave Washington after being arrested on Jan. 4 in a separate case for burning a Black Lives Matter banner at a Black church after a pro-Trump rally in December. He is currently serving 155 days in jail in connection with those charges.

Though he was not in Washington on Jan. 6, Mr. Tarrio was in direct contact with some of his lieutenants on the ground that day and on the evening before the riot, according to private chats obtained by federal investigators. Prosecutors also say that Mr. Tarrio ordered his men to avoid their usual black-and-yellow polo shirts on Jan. 6 and instead go “incognito.”

The Oath Keepers, a decade-old antigovernment militia group, has also been a chief focus of the Justice Department’s inquiry. Dozens of members have been charged, including several in what amounts to the largest conspiracy case that prosecutors have brought to date.

I’m still waiting on the committee to subpoena Republican members of Congress who were involved in the planning and organizing of the January 6 coup d’etat. EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff. That’s what I want for Christmas.