Jan. 6 Panel Explores Links Between Trump Allies and Extremist Groups

Of their relationships with President Donald J. Trump in recent times, Roger J. Stone Jr., his longtime political adviser, and Michael T. Flynn, who was briefly his nationwide safety adviser, have adopted an identical trajectory.

Each had been both convicted of or pleaded responsible to costs stemming from the investigation into the Trump marketing campaign’s connections to Russia. Each had been pardoned by Mr. Trump after the 2020 presidential election. And each supported Mr. Trump in his relentless, multilayered efforts to reverse its end result and stay in energy.

The 2 had been, in a way, collectively once more on Tuesday, when each had been talked about inside an prompt of each other on the Home choose committee listening to by Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s last chief of employees. Ms. Hutchinson advised the panel that on Jan. 5, 2021, a day earlier than the Capitol was stormed, Mr. Trump had directed Mr. Meadows to succeed in out to Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn.

Ms. Hutchinson acknowledged that she didn’t know what her boss could have mentioned to the lads. However her testimony was the primary time it was revealed that Mr. Trump, on the eve of the Capitol assault, had opened a channel of communication with a pair of allies who had not solely labored on his behalf for weeks difficult the outcomes of the election, however who additionally had intensive ties to extremist teams just like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who had been quickly to be on the forefront of the violence.

The query of whether or not there was communication or coordination between the far-right teams that helped storm the Capitol and Mr. Trump and his aides and allies is among the many most necessary dealing with the Jan. 6 investigators.

Barring a legal prosecution — or one thing else that might drive the main points of the calls into the general public sphere — it could possibly be robust to be work out precisely what Mr. Meadows mentioned with Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn.

Since late final yr, Mr. Meadows has refused to adjust to a committee subpoena that seeks his testimony in regards to the weeks main as much as Jan. 6 — a transfer that risked his indictment on contempt of Congress costs. As for Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn, each repeatedly exercised their Fifth Modification rights in opposition to self-incrimination throughout their very own interviews with the committee.

Mr. Flynn’s interview was particularly outstanding, in response to a recording of it performed on the listening to on Tuesday. A former three-star basic who nonetheless collects a navy pension, Mr. Flynn pleaded the Fifth Modification even when he was requested if he believed the violence on the Capitol was fallacious, and whether or not he supported the lawful switch of presidential energy.

Ms. Hutchinson additionally advised the panel that she recalled listening to in regards to the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers whereas the planning was happening for Mr. Trump’s public occasion close to the White Home on Jan. 6 — a time, she defined, when the previous president’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, had been round.

It’s attainable that Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn will obtain extra consideration when the panel reconvenes for its subsequent public listening to in July. That’s when Consultant Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, has mentioned he intends to guide a presentation that can give attention to the roles far-right teams just like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the first Modification Praetorian performed within the Capitol assault. Mr. Raskin has additionally promised to discover the connections between these teams and the folks in Mr. Trump’s orbit.

Each Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn match that description, having maintained intensive ties to far-right teams within the postelection interval. A lot of the contact got here at pro-Trump rallies in Washington when the lads had been guarded by members of the teams, who served as their bodyguards.

For over a yr, Mr. Stone has repeatedly denied that he had any function within the violence that erupted on the Capitol. Shortly after Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, he denied in a put up on social media that Mr. Meadows had known as him on the day earlier than the assault.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyer has failed to answer quite a few requests for feedback in regards to the function his shopper performed within the occasions of Jan. 6 and the weeks main as much as it.

As early as Dec. 12, 2020, the first Modification Praetorian protected Mr. Flynn when he appeared as a speaker at a pro-Trump march in Washington. Becoming a member of the group as safety on the occasion had been members of the Oath Keepers, together with the group’s chief, Stewart Rhodes, who has since been charged with seditious conspiracy in reference to the Capitol assault.

The first Modification Praetorian additionally helped Mr. Flynn’s onetime lawyer, Sidney Powell, collect open supply intelligence about allegations of election fraud that was in the end funneled right into a collection of conspiracy-laden lawsuits she filed difficult the voting outcomes, in response to the group’s chief, Robert Patrick Lewis.

Mr. Lewis, by his personal account, performed a minor function in one other, much more brazen, try and overturn the election. He has claimed that, on Dec. 18, 2020, he drove Mr. Flynn and Ms. Powell to the White Home for an Oval Workplace assembly at which they sought to steer Mr. Trump to make use of his nationwide safety equipment to grab voting machines across the nation in his bid to remain in energy.

On Jan. 6 itself, in response to audio recordings obtained by The New York Occasions, a number of members of the first Modification Praetorian protected Mr. Flynn once more. Across the identical time, in response to court docket papers filed in a latest defamation case, a member of the group, Philip Luelsdorff, was briefly current within the so-called struggle room on the Willard Resort the place pro-Trump legal professionals, together with Mr. Giuliani and John Eastman, had arrange store to plan the objections to the certification of the Electoral Faculty vote rely.

Ms. Hutchinson advised the Home committee that Mr. Stone and Mr. Flynn had been additionally on the Willard on Jan. 6. She additional testified that her boss, Mr. Meadows, wished to make plans to go to the struggle room, a choice that she felt was “inappropriate.” She testified that Mr. Meadows in the end determined to not go to the resort and “mentioned that he would dial in as a substitute.”

Mr. Stone, a Florida resident, had ties to the Proud Boys nicely earlier than Mr. Trump misplaced the election, particularly to Enrique Tarrio, the group’s former chairman, who lived in Miami earlier than his arrest on sedition costs related to the Capitol assault.

In 2019, after Mr. Stone was indicted by the particular counsel Robert S. Mueller III on costs associated to investigation into Russian efforts to sway the result of the 2016 presidential race, Mr. Tarrio responded by carrying a T-shirt studying “Roger Stone Did Nothing Mistaken” at one among Mr. Trump’s political rallies. At one level, Mr. Tarrio’s private cellphone had a voice mail message recorded by Mr. Stone.

On Jan. 6, when he was staying on the Willard, Mr. Stone was in shut contact with members of each the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. A Proud Boy from Florida named Jacob Engels accompanied him to Washington and served as one thing like an aide-de-camp for him on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6.

At that very same time, a small element of Oath Keepers was additionally assigned to offer Mr. Stone with private safety. A minimum of 4 members of the element are dealing with costs in reference to the Capitol assault.

Even when the Home committee doesn’t present new insights about Mr. Stone at its subsequent listening to, it’s attainable that the Justice Division’s inquiry into the Capitol assault may unearth one thing contemporary about his ties to the Oath Keepers specifically.

One of many males on Mr. Stone’s safety element was Joshua James, an Oath Keeper from Alabama. In March, Mr. James pleaded responsible to sedition costs.

As a part of his cope with prosecutors, Mr. James has agreed to cooperate with the federal government’s sprawling investigation of the Capitol assault.