Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer of pro-Trump events after the 2020 election, has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation into last year’s attack on the Capitol, the first high-profile political figure known to he has provided assistance to the new government’s extensive criminal investigation.
Alexander said through an attorney on Friday that he had recently received a subpoena from a federal grand jury seeking information about several broad categories of people involved in pro-Trump demonstrations that took place in Washington after the election.
In a statement from the attorney, Mr. Alexander that he took “a cooperative stance” with the Justice Department’s investigation, but was unsure of what useful information he could provide. He also rejected anyone who participated in or planned to commit violence on January 6.
While it remains unclear what Mr Alexander would tell the grand jury, he was heavily involved in the extensive effort to mount political protests challenging the election results, and liaised with other organizers, extremist groups, members of Congress and, according to the House committee investigating Jan. 6 White House officials in the period after Election Day.
The grand jury, composed by federal prosecutors, is investigating a wide variety of issues surrounding former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to reverse the election results after months of the Justice Department targeting rioters directly involved at the storming of the Capitol.
In early December, Mr. Alexander volunteered to testify before the House Committee and gave it a wealth of documents that helped shed light on the activities leading up to the Capitol attack.
The grand jury subpoena Alexander received suggests prosecutors significantly expanded the scope of their investigation to not only include people who were inside the Capitol, but also those who staged and spoke at pro-Trump events in November and December 2020. and on January 6, 2021.
In an indication that the investigation could reach the Trump administration and its allies in Congress, the subpoena also seeks information on members of the executive and legislature who were involved in the events or who may have helped certify the election. of 2020 .
Alexander attended two so-called Stop the Steal meetings in Washington that preceded the former president’s event at the Ellipse, near the White House, on January 6 – one on November 14, 2020 and the other a few weeks later on December 12. — as well as events in Georgia’s main swing state in December.
In the run-up to those meetings, Mr. Alexander contacted a large number of rallies and right-wing groups such as the Oath Keepers militia and the 1st Amendment Praetorian who ensured both public and personal safety at the events. In his lawyer’s statement, he said he “did not coordinate any movement” with far-right extremist groups during his events.
Mr. Alexander was also licensed for an event on the east side of the Capitol on Jan. 6 that never took place due to the violence that erupted. In the days and weeks before that meeting, he interacted with people in the White House and members of Congress, according to the House committee letter requesting his statement.
Alexander has said that he, along with representatives Mo Brooks of Alabama, Paul Gosar of Arizona and Andy Biggs of Arizona, all Republicans, helped set the events of January 6 in motion.
“The four of us planned to put maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Mr Alexander said in a since-deleted video posted online, “so that whoever we couldn’t lobby, we could change the hearts and minds of the Republicans who were in that body and heard our loud roar from outside.”
Alexander declined to answer questions about his ties to the White House or members of Congress. He also declined to discuss whether he came up with the idea of marching to the Capitol himself or whether the idea came from conversations with others.
Although Alexander is the first pro-Trump political organizer to acknowledge his collaboration with the government, several far-right militants, including members of the Oath Keepers, have also entered into partnership agreements with prosecutors.
The Oath Keepers working with the government could help prosecutors with the extensive seditious conspiracy case filed in January against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and 10 other members of the group.
During a court hearing in Washington on Friday, a leader of a North Carolina branch of the Proud Boys also announced that he would cooperate with the Justice Department’s investigation under a plea deal with the government. The leader of the Proud Boys, Charles Donohoe, was charged in a conspiracy case with five other Proud Boys, including the organization’s former president, Enrique Tarrio.
In court documents released after the hearing, Mr. Donohoe admitted that several leaders and members of the Proud Boys had spoken of using “violence and violence” to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election “in order to disrupt Congress.” show that ‘we the people’ were in charge.”
The Aftermath of Capitol Riot: New Developments
The attempt to disqualify ‘insurgents’. New lawsuits were filed against three Arizona officials, including Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, seeking to remove them from office under the 14th Amendment. This is part of a larger legal effort to disqualify GOP lawmakers from reelection if they participated in events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack.
The papers also say that the Proud Boys discussed the storming of the Capitol before heading to Washington in January and that Mr. Donohoe believed the attack on the building would “achieve the group’s goal of deterring the government from transferring the to exercise presidential power.”
One topic that Mr. Alexander could help prosecutors better understand is the bitter rivalry that often divided the small group of planners who staged pro-Trump events in Washington post-election.
When testifying before the committee, Mr. Alexander told congressional investigators that he blamed poor planning by organizers like Amy Kremer and her daughter Kylie Kremer, who led a group called Women for America First that helped set up Mr. Trump in the Ellipse. For example, he said that Ellipse event leaders had removed instructions from their program to tell attendees exactly where to go and what to do after the meeting ended.
Mr. Alexander may also be able to shed light on some of the activities on January 6 of a man he considers a sort of mentor: Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to Mr. Trump. Mr. Alexander, through his attorney, said he spoke to Mr. Stone about “logistics” and the “warring parties” of organizers in the run-up to Jan. 6, and delivered all his communications to Mr. Stone to the House Committee on the day of the Capitol attack. .
That day, Mr. Alexander attended Mr. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse and then marched with the crowd to the Capitol, along with Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. He arrived, as he put it in his prepared remarks to the House Committee, “in the early stages of the violation of the law.”
But on Friday, he insisted through his lawyer that he had not observed any crimes during the planning of the rally.
“I did nothing wrong and I have no evidence that anyone else planned to commit illegal acts,” his statement said.
After the building broke through, Mr. Alexander posted a video of himself on social media as he saw the crowd marching on the Capitol from a terrace a few blocks away.
“I’m not denying this,” he said in the video, which was preserved by the Right Wing Watch organization. “I don’t disapprove of this.”
In his statement on Friday, Mr. Alexander said the video did not contain any comments he made that day, specifying that he was only talking about the protesters approaching the Capitol grounds. And he reiterated that he did not support violence.
“I want to be clear now,” he said in his statement. “I reject and disapprove of anyone who in any way intended to occupy buildings or commit violence on January 6.”
