Around the same time, 1AP got involved in another project related to election challenge. Members of the group, as Mr. Lewis put it in his video in December, began scouring the Internet for “OSINT” – or open source information – about allegations of voter fraud. Whatever evidence they found, he said, they sent them to Sidney Powell, a Dallas attorney who filed four federal lawsuits in late 2020 to challenge the results of the presidential election.
The lawsuits, which ultimately failed and led to a federal judge imposing sanctions on Ms. Powell, described without any credible evidence a plot by a cabal of international powers to hack into American voting machines and turn the count away from Mr. Trump.
Key figures in the January 6 survey
In mid-December 2020, 1AP took a job protecting one of Ms. Powell’s former clients, Mr. Flynn, during a second major pro-Trump rally in Washington. The rally was organized, according to public permits, by Cindy Chafian, an organizer of the pro-Trump group Women for America First, which ensured caravans of supporters of the president’s supporters converge across the country after the election. (Mrs. Chafian has also been subpoenaed by the House selection committee.)
This rally – on December 12, 2020 – helped to strengthen 1AP’s relationship with Mr Flynn and Ms Chafian. It also brought the group into contact with the Oath Keepers, who, according to a television interview which the leader of the militia, Mr. Rhodes, gave that day.
In the interview, Mr Rhodes described how the two groups worked together during the rally. He then urged Mr Trump to “make war” against “traitors” at home by imposing martial law. That was the same message that Mrs. Powell, Mr. Flynn and others in their jobs advised at the time.
Mr Lewis says he played his own small part in trying to persuade Mr Trump to declare martial law. On December 18 he said in a podcast last year, he drove Mrs. Powell and Mr. Flynn to the White House to meet Mr. Trump. It’s not clear whether Mr. Lewis attended the meeting, where Ms. Powell and Mr. Flynn urged the president to declare a national emergency and demand a recount of key swing states on live TV, the businessman said. Patrick M. Byrne, who was also there.
It wasn’t long after the White House meeting that Mr. Lewis, like others, turned his attention to January 6, which was widely seen as the last chance for Mr. Trump and his allies to halt the certification of the presidential election. .