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Explosive new reporting places several of the House GOP’s most extreme members at the center of planning the right-wing January 6th “Stop the Steal” rally that turned into a deadly attack on our Capitol.
According to two sources who helped lead much of the organizing for the events of January 6th, House Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Mo Brooks, Madison Cawthorn, Andy Biggs, and Louie Gohmert participated in many planning conversations, presented “evidence” to organizers to back their false election claims, and even went as far as offering a “blanket pardon” to encourage protesters.
“We would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back,” said the organizer.
The organizers also claimed that they warned President Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about “the potential that it could spark violence,” yet Trump’s team did nothing to prevent it.
We’ve seen Extremist Ringleader Kevin McCarthy and his caucus repeatedly choose to protect insurrectionists over our democracy, and these disturbing new allegations suggest that House Republicans were even more integral in planning the rally that turned into a deadly attack on our nation’s Capitol than previously known.
Is this why Kevin McCarthy is hellbent on obstructing the select committee’s investigation?
“House Republicans’ frightening extremism has cost far too many American lives,” said DCCC Spokesperson Nebeyatt Betre. “The American people deserve to know the truth of just how involved House Republicans were in planning the events of January 6th, and just how much danger they present to our country.”
Read key excerpts from the story:
EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff
Hunter Walker, Rolling Stone
As the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack heats up, some of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.
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While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.
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“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”
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Along with Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
“We would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back,” says the organizer.
And Gosar, who has been one of the most prominent defenders of the Jan. 6 rioters, allegedly took things a step further. Both sources say he dangled the possibility of a “blanket pardon” in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage them to plan the protests.
“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” the organizer says, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”
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In another indication members of Congress may have been involved in planning the protests against the election, Ali Alexander, who helped organize the “Wild Protest,” declared in a since-deleted livestream broadcast that Gosar, Brooks, and Biggs helped him formulate the strategy for that event.
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Both sources also describe Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as someone who played a major role in the conversations surrounding the protests on Jan. 6. Among other things, they both say concerns were raised to Meadows about Alexander’s protest at the Capitol and the potential that it could spark violence.
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The two sources also claim to have been concerned about drawing people to the area directly adjacent to the Capitol on Jan. 6, given the anger among Trump supporters about the electoral certification that was underway that day.
“They knew that they weren’t there to sing “Kumbaya” and, like, put up a peace sign,” the planner says. “These frickin’ people were angry.”
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