The commander of the far-right Oath Keepers extremist organisation phoned someone on the phone with an urgent message for then-Former President Trump after they seized the Capitol on January 6, 2021, according to another extremist.
While meeting at Phoenix Park Hotel’s private room, a member of the Oath Keepers claims he heard its commander, Stewart Rhodes, repeatedly call for Trump to call for militia groups to fight to maintain the president in power.
Rhodes hung up the phone with the person who had rejected his request to talk directly to the president, according to court filings.
In court records in the case of an Oath Keeper member who has pled guilty in the riot, federal prosecutors haven’t stated who they think Rhodes was speaking to on the conversation, which was detailed.
According to a lawyer representing Rhodes, the call never took place.
Despite this, concerns have been raised as to whether the leader of the extremist group had Trump’s attention on January 6, which might be a focus of the House committee’s next public hearing on the uprising on Tuesday.
Members of Trump’s inner circle are suspected of having connections to extremist organisations, according to the January 6 committee, which is investigating the violence at the Capitol.
Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders and members have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the most severe charges filed by the Justice Department so far in the January 6 assault. ‘
Even while Trump’s longtime buddy Roger Stone has known ties with far-right organisations and extremists claimed to be engaged in the January 6 shootings, he has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
After the Stop the Steal event in Washington on January 6, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former adviser to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified that she had heard the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers discussed. However, no more information has been made public concerning this.
It’s all extremely hazy right now, according to Miller.
When asked about Trump’s orders to Meadows, Hutchinson admitted to Congress that he spoke with Stone and Flynn the day before to the disturbance. She claimed Meadows phoned both Flynn and Stone on January 5, but she didn’t know what they discussed.
After the hearing, Stone claimed in tweets on the Telegram social media site that he had never spoken to Meadows via phone. An email response from Flynn’s brother, when asked for comment by The Associated Press on the call, said the hearing on January 6 is a “clown show.”
Both Stone and Flynn have used their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination before the House committee and have not been prosecuted in connection with the Capitol disturbance. After being found guilty by a jury or pleading guilty in instances unconnected to the events of January 6, Trump granted them all amnesty.
The Oath Keepers, a far-right militia organisation composed of past and current members of the military, first responders, and law enforcement, served as security for Stone’s activities in Washington prior to the violence.
Photographs and video taken on the 5th and 6th of January demonstrate People in Oath Keepers garb surround the stone. Joshua James, who was once the Alabama chapter’s commander, has pled guilty to seditious conspiracy and is assisting with the investigation into the rebellion.
There is no evidence that Stone had any role in anything criminal that occurred on January 6, according to an informal Trump advisor.
On January 5, the Oath Keepers volunteered to provide protection for me. He recently commented on Telegram that he wanted nothing more than that.
In a letter to the committee on Friday, Rhodes’ lawyers said that their client wanted to testify in person and in public. Rhodes’ criteria are unlikely to be accepted by MPs, according to a committee spokeswoman.
The Oath Keepers have denied any involvement in a Capitol-stomping plot since its inception. They claim that their conversations and preparation before to January 6 were only focused on safeguarding right-wing personalities like Stone and defending themselves against antifa violence.
Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chairman who is slated to face trial in December on sedition charges with other members of the hardline organisation that refers to itself as a politically incorrect men’s club for Western chauvinists, has a strong relationship with Stone.
First charged with witness tampering and other offences during Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, Stone was brought back to court for a post on Instagram in February 2019 showing what seemed to be crosshairs on the judge’s forehead. When Stone testified in court, he publicly named Tarrio as one of five or six volunteers who supplied him with photographs and information for social media postings. Volunteers used Stone’s residence as a base of operations, he said.
On the day before he was scheduled to go to jail, Trump shortened Stone’s 40-month sentence and pardoned him months later.
According to Miller, the Proud Boys have been attempting to engage with mainstream Republican personalities since Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes launched the organisation in 2016.
A Proud Boys member told the January 6th committee that Trump’s refusal to reject the organisation outright during his first debate with Biden increased participation in the group. But Trump urged them to keep their distance and watch.
Even while most extremist organisations fall apart when their senior leaders are jailed by law enforcement, the Proud Boys appear to have survived. The radical group’s operations picked up again in 2021 after a short respite after the incident, according to Miller.
Flynn was also in communication with several far-right organisations prior to January 6. A prominent participant in Trump’s post-election effort to discredit the results and encourage him to take exceptional steps to remain in power, Flynn rose quickly in the weeks after the election.
In a letter to 1AP Founder Robert Patrick Lewis, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform summoned Lewis, claiming that he had been in frequent touch with Flynn and that he had also been in contact with Rhodes before January 6.
