Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) ran up a hefty legal bill in his unsuccessful quest to avoid testifying before a special grand jury in Georgia investigating former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election – and he’s not shy about asking for help.

“I’m trying to get people to help me pay my legal bills,” Graham told Raw Story. “Anybody is welcome to help.”

As previously reported by Raw Story, nine of Graham’s Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate have already contributed a total of $78,000 through their leadership PACs to the Lindsey Graham Legal Expense Trust Fund.

Graham testified in November 2022 before a special purpose grand jury called by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to investigate “the facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 elections in the state of Georgia.”

Prosecutors were interested in hearing from Graham about two phone calls after the Nov. 3, 2020, election in which the senator allegedly questioned Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his staff “about reexamining certain absentee ballots cast in Georgia in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump.”

Last year, Graham hired a high-powered legal team that included Donald F. McGahn II, a former White House general counsel and former Federal Election Commission chair, to try to get the subpoena quashed. The legal fight ended with the US Supreme Court upholding a lower-court decision denying Graham’s motion.

The legal team included McGahn and two other attorneys with the Jones Day law firm, along with two attorneys from the Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough law firm in South Carolina.

Roughly a week after Graham testified before the Fulton County special purpose grand jury, his campaign paid Nelson Mullins $268,228 for “legal services.”

Beginning in December 2022, Graham’s Senate colleagues began contributing to the legal expense fund. Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY), John Boozman (R-AR), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Steve Daines (R-MT), John Hoeven (R-ND) and James Lankgford (R-OK) all donated the maximum allowable amount of $10,000, while Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) donated $8,000, while Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) donated $5,000.

The special purpose grand jury in Fulton County concluded its work last month. Under Georgia law, special purpose grand juries can be impaneled to review specific matters involving complex facts and circumstances and take longer to work than a normal grand jury. Unlike regular grand juries, special purpose grand juries are not empowered to issue indictments, but may recommend criminal prosecution.

Last month, Willis told Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney that “decisions are imminent” as to whether to indict Trump and others. Prosecutors are believed to be considering state charges including solicitation to commit election fraud, making false statements and violation of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

On Monday, Judge McBurney ruled that portions of the special grand purpose grand jury report may be released.

Nick Fuentes, the Holocaust denier and white nationalist head of the so-called Groypers movement, received $14,719 late last year from the 2020 presidential campaign committee of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, according to a campaign disclosure filed today with the Federal Election Commission.

A Nov. 22 payment of $9,026.46 from the Kanye 2020 committee to Fuentes coincides with the date Ye and Fuentes dined with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago and political consultant Karen Giorno.

Fuentes received a second payment of $5,693 from the Kanye 2020 committee on Dec. 27.

The purpose of the expenditures for both payments to Fuentes are described as “travel reimbursement,” accompanied by a parenthetical note indicating “see below,” which is followed by multiple reported expenditures to United Airlines, Uber and Courtyard by Marriott for airfare, transportation and lodging.

It is not clear why Fuentes was reimbursed for travel if, as the report indicates, the campaign paid directly for the services.

A representative for the Kanye 2020 committee did not immediately respond to messages from Raw Story seeking comment.

The Kanye 2020 campaign committee stems from the rapper and businessman’s unsuccessful 2020 presidential campaign — although the expenditures to Fuentes are designated as pertaining to the 2024 presidential election.

Ye late said last year — amid a string of antisemitic tirades that included a threat to go “death con 3 on Jewish people” — that he would run for president in 2024. But he has yet to formally file paperwork with the FEC to do so and has no current 2024 presidential campaign operation, per se.

Fuentes has admired Ye as a MAGA avatar since the rapper started tweeting his support for Trump soon after the 2017 presidential inauguration.

Kanye 2020’s new report, which covers the period from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, also reveals payments totaling $49,955 to right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in November and December. Yiannopoulos received $9,955 in November for something described as “domain transfer” and $40,000 in December for “campaign wrap-up services.”

Yiannapolous, a former protégé of Trump acolyte Steve Bannon and former senior editor for Breitbart, joined forces with the “alt-light” movement, a far-right formation that downplayed explicitly white supremacist beliefs around the time of Trump’s 2016 election.

In a social media post following Ye and Fuentes’ dinner with Trump, Yiannopoulos appeared to take credit for bringing Fuentes into the campaign, celebrating “what a powerful and deadly alliance I have assembled.”

Three days after the Mar-a-Lago meeting, Yiannopoulos donated to Fuentes’ livestream on Cozy.TV, while commenting: “My last super chat ever… because the next cash I send will be your paycheck. God bless you, Nicholas… and see you at the office on Monday.”

The Kanye 2020 committee, for its part, reported having about $229,000 remaining in its account as of Dec. 31, per its filing with the FEC.

A North Carolina man indicted for allegedly teaching a government informant how to make explosive devices for the purpose of killing law enforcement officers is scheduled to face trial next month after he attempted — and failed — to get charges against him tossed.

U.S. District Court Judge James C. Dever III rejected Christopher "Kit" Arthur’s motion for dismissal last week that argues he has a First Amendment right to teach people how to make explosive devices.

Dever's order clears the way for Arthur's case to go to trial, with jury selection set to begin on Feb. 28. If convicted, Arthur could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A retired Army scout and former sheriff’s deputy in Mount Olive, N.C., Arthur published manuals and YouTube videos that he promoted as teaching “wartime tactics to civilians for civil defense purposes,” while also providing consulting services to specific clients.

Dever wrote in his order that Arthur "provided the CHS with a strategy to engage and kill ATF agents, by trapping them in a 'fatal funnel.'"

The order quoted Arthur as instructing the confidential government informant: "What these dumbasses are going to do, they're going to hunker down right behind that damn armored vehicle and the other guys are going to run. And that's when you start lobbing your grenades on them with your freaking shotty."

Arthur's prosecution highlights a growing concern, particularly in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, about violent threats to law enforcement coming from former or actively employed members of the profession.

More than 1 in 10 people charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol are former or current law enforcement officers or military veterans, according to recent USA Today report. In September, a retired New York police officer was sentenced to 10 years for assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly and dangerous weapon during the attack.

Arthur told his clients that his trainings were based on his experience from two combat tours in Iraq, and later, working in a covert drug enforcement and anti-terrorism unit in the Army National Guard. He was arrested in a federal sting operation at a gun show at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh last January.

An FBI investigation into one of Arthur’s clients brought him to the attention of law enforcement.

In early 2019, the FBI began investigating Joshua Blessed, a Virginia long-haul trucker whose birth name was Sergeia Jourev. The investigation was “based on information that Blessed was organizing and recruiting for an extremist militia group attempting to engage in an ‘apocalyptic battle against the United States government,’” according to a recent court filing.

On May 27, 2020, Blessed died during a shootout with law enforcement after fleeing a traffic stop.

Investigators reportedly learned that Blessed had communicated with Arthur through his website and traveled to Mount Olive weeks before his death to train with Arthur.

In May 2021, court documents indicate that the FBI used a confidential informant to record Arthur during a training session at his home in Mount Olive.

During the training, the confidential informant hinted to Arthur that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had come to his house to take inventory of his firearms. According to the government, Arthur spent several hours outlining options for the confidential informant to “defend” his home, ultimately arriving at an option of last resort called the “spiderweb defense.”

“It evolves back to this technique,”

FBI Special Agent Greg Garey testified during a detention hearing in March 2022 that Arthur's approach involved "a spiderweb or creating fatal funnels on your property, setting up perimeter charges — explosives — around the CHS’ house, installing explosives in the walls to render the ATF or any other law enforcement to, when they come to the house, to render them useless, to kill them.”

Arthur’s lawyer has countered that the training was merely “a conversation between two adults where one person provided instruction and opinion on home self-defense measures,” and “not a clandestine event where Mr. Arthur was speaking to a radical activist whom he believed was likely to commit a criminal act.”

Arthur is charged with “the making and use of an explosive, a destructive device, and a weapon of mass destruction, knowing that such person intended to use the teaching, demonstration, and information in the furtherance of an activity that constituted a federal crime of violence, to wit, the murder and attempted murder of federal law enforcement.”

After executing a search warrant at Arthur’s home, the government also brought charges against him for possessing an unregistered PA-15 rifle — a weapon similar to an AR-15 made by Palmetto State Armory — as well as an illegal firearm silencer and other various illegal explosive devices.

In his motion to dismiss, filed in August, Arthur argued through his public defender that the federal law criminalizing bomb-making instruction for the purpose of furthering a crime of violence violates his First Amendment right to free speech. Arthur’s motion stated that the law “potentially criminalizes the myriad of published books, articles and internet materials." He also argued that “the conversation about how a person who has a lawful right to possess and use a firearm can be criminalized.”

The judge also cited a 1972 Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding convictions of two members of the Black Afro Militant Movement in south Florida who had given instructions to other individuals on how to “assemble explosive and incendiary devices” in order to “prepare the members … for the coming revolution."Two days after Dever denied the motion to dismiss the case, Arthur’s wife sent out an email to subscribers who are interested in a “home defense wartime tactical education” that her husband's business markets.

The massive body of depositions and phone texts published by the January 6 Committee just before it disbanded systematically demolishes any notion that the attack on the US Capitol was spontaneous, or that the rally headlined by Donald Trump at the Ellipse was a stand-alone event distinct from the throngs of supporters that swarmed over the Capitol afterward.

“So, we’re going to go walk down Pennsylvania Avenue,” Trump told his supporters at the conclusion of his speech. “And we’re going to the Capitol, and we’re going to try — the Democrats are hopeless…. But we’re going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones — because the strong ones don’t need our help — but we’re going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”

Before Trump uttered those words, Caroline Wren, a fundraiser for the Trump 2020 reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee, escorted InfoWars host Alex Jones and Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander out of the VIP section at the Ellipse so they could lead a march to the Capitol, according to multiple accounts.

The testimony and contemporaneous communications of those who organized the Jan. 6 rally show that the movement from the Ellipse to the Capitol was far from just a spontaneous response to a galvanizing speech. Plans for a march led by influential figures within Trump’s orbit — and perhaps even by the president himself — were an ongoing topic of discussion among organizers, and were well understood at the White House at least four days before Jan. 6.

Dustin Stockton, an organizer for Women for America First — led by mother-daughter duo Amy Kremer and Kylie Kremer, told the committee during his deposition in December 2021 that long after Jan. 6 he had heard about Jones claiming that the Secret Service “to get him early.” It jogged his memory, he told committee investigators, reminding him that he remembered Wren and another event organizer “pulling that group, like, out of the VIP section a little early.” He added, “I remember us, like, taking note of them leaving, as kind of odd.”

While Jones’ and Alexander’s early departure from the Ellipse may have caught Stockton off guard, the notion that Trump himself would go to the Capitol, as he hinted in his speech but ultimately did not follow through on, would not have come as a surprise to Kylie Kremer, Stockton’s boss.

“This stays only between us,” Kremer told Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, in a Jan. 4 text exchange that the committee obtained. “We are having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the Ellipse. POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol.

“It cannot get out about the second stage because people will try and set another up and sabotage it,” Kremer continued. “It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the National Park Service and all the agencies, but POTUS is going to just call for it ‘unexpectedly.’”

The documents also reveal that Trump’s longtime confidant Roger Stone and his former national security director, retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, were contemplated as candidates to lead the march to the Capitol, alongside Jones and Alexander.

Wren came to play a central role in the planning for the Jan. 6 rally after Publix heiress Julie Fancelli reached out to her to express an interest in funding the Jan. 6 rally, ultimately committing to spend up to $3 million. As the person with control of the purse strings, Wren was in a position to exercise influence over important decisions like who would speak and who would receive VIP passes for the rally. In late December, Wren began coordinating with Cindy Chafian, who had been responsible for securing permits for previous rallies organized by the Kremers, but split off to join Jones and Alexander’s more militant faction in the runup to Jan. 6.

“Hi Caroline. I just got a message from Kristin,” Chafian said in a Dec. 27 text to Wren. “I’m actually working with her already.”

Wren testified to the committee that she didn’t know Kristin Davis at the time, but would later learn that she was Stone’s “publicist.” Wren also told the committee that Davis informed her that Stone “was looking to fly private” to DC for the Jan. 6 rally “if I knew anyone.” Wren said she arranged for Stone to use her Fancelli’s plane to fly from south Florida to DC. Stone declined to answer the committee’s questions about the flight, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, but the committee obtained a flight itinerary that listed Stone and Davis as passengers that was billed to Wren’s consulting company.

In a video posted to his wife’s Instagram account six days after the attack on the Capitol, Stone reportedly said, “While I was supposed to speak at the Ellipse and lead a march from the Ellipse to the Capitol or speak at the Capitol, or at least allegedly was so, I decided I was not interested in doing any of those things.”

Stone later told Fox News host that he received a call on the house phone at the Willard hotel from two Secret Service agents who wanted to escort him to the Capitol on Jan. 6. Stone again invoked the Fifth Amendment to declined to answer questions from the committee, and he could not be reached for comment through his lawyer for this story.

A text from Jones’ security guard, Tim Enlow, to Wren also suggests an understanding that Stone would help lead the march to the Capitol. On the evening of Jan. 5, Enlow texted Wren about a call he had received from Joe Flynn, Michael Flynn’s younger brother.

“The General and his group need 6 VIP passes,” Enlow wrote. “He also wants to join Roger, Alex etc in leading the march to the Capitol.”

Text from Tim Enlow to Caroline Wren (US Congress)

Stone did not show up at the rally at the Ellipse, and expressed frustration in a text to Alexander that he was denied a “speaking spot” and that there was “no VIP entrance for any of my people.”

Wren testified that “Alex Jones’ expectation was that he and Roger Stone would lead a march from the Ellipse to their rally at the Capitol.”

Asked by a committee investigator to confirm that she escorted Alexander out of the VIP area at the Ellipse, Wren responded: “Yeah, because he was going to go with Alex. Roger Stone didn’t show up. And so, I asked Alex who, like, is there anyone else he’d want to, like, walk with, march with, whatever you want to call it, to go down to their event since Roger didn’t show up.”

According to Wren, Stone told her that he would like to march alongside Michael Flynn. Wren testified that she conveyed the request to Flynn, and he told her: “Hell, no. It’s freezing.”

Responding to a request for comment, Joe Flynn said in a phone text on Tuesday: “Anyone who believes anything Raw Story reports needs a frontal lobotomy.”

Texts exchanged among Wren, Stone, Enlow and Alexander throughout the afternoon of Jan. 6 reveal a real-time stream of information about Trump’s movements as well as conditions at the Capitol, as police lost control and rioters overtook the building.

“What’s the latest on when I go to set up?” Jones asked Wren at 12:27 p.m.

“Soon,” Wren replied.

Jones notified Wren that he needed “to hit the bathroom” on the way out.

“He’s about halfway,” Wren told Jones. “So 15-20 more mins then I’ll grab you.”

Wren told the committee she missed Trump’s call for his supporters to march to the Capitol because she was with Jones and Alexander.

“That was when I was walking Alex and Ali over to the perimeter and we stopped by the bathroom,” she said.

At 1:15 p.m., Alexander sent a text to group labeled “STS Management” that included at least five associates: “Get out early and get those golf carts down Pennsylvania ahead of the president.”

At 1:19 p.m., according to a text Alexander produced to the committee, he asked Wren: “Is POTUS walking? Can you give me an update every five minutes?”

“He is not,” Wren responded.

After leaving the Ellipse, Alexander texted Stone: “Get your ass to the US Capitol.” He added, “We have a stage & the presidents order.”

A note appended to Alexander’s production of the text to the committee explains that the text was sent while he was traveling to the Capitol.

“Alexander merely was urging Stone to join him in Lot 8 for the previously scheduled peaceful prayer rally,” the note reads. “Upon arriving to the Capitol area AFTER sending these two texts to Stone, Alexander saw chaos unfolding and, as a result, his planned peaceful prayer rally and protest never happened.”

About five minutes after Alexander’s text to Stone, court records indicate that two men led a crowd that included hundreds of Proud Boys past a fence line to a line of barricades manned by US Capitol police officers, who were quickly overrun.

“We are D escalating the front side of the capital,” Alexander reported to Wren at 1:56 p.m. “We are going to the southside, Senate side.”

“Ok KEEP THE PEACE,” Wren responded.

“There is no control on the front side,” Alexander reported at 1:58 p.m. “The police have retreated.”

“I think you should leave,” Wren advised. “This will come down on you hard.”

When the first rioters breached the Capitol grounds, Trump was still speaking at the Ellipse.

“He’s wrapping up 5-10 mins,” Wren reported to Enlow, Jones’ security guard. “He said ‘let’s walk down Pennsylvania.’”

“Ok,” Enlow replied. “Let me know when he departs please.”

Wren duly notified Enlow when Trump had departed the Ellipse in the presidential motorcade, adding, “Please please keep alex away from the violence at the Capitol.”

Wren could not be reached for comment for this story.

At 3:36 p.m., a friend lamented to Alexander: “The Capitol is a mess. Any chance we had of winning is gone. I am literally heartbroken.”

Alexander texted back: “POTUS is not ignorant of what his words would do.”

“He wanted this to happen???” the friend asked.

“I dunno but the anger of the people was never gonna go away without a legitimate result,” Alexander replied. “Wish it didn’t happen, but understand the people and I won’t denounce them.”

‘Are people going to the Capitol?’

The idea that there would be a march to the Capitol on Jan. 6 to coincide with Congress convening to certify the electoral vote was baked into early promotional messaging for the rally that materialized almost immediately after Trump’s infamous Dec. 19 “be there, will be wild” tweet.

Later that day, Kylie Kremer tweeted “The calvary is coming, Mr. President! JANUARY 6^TH.” The tweet attached a graphic with the text “March for Trump” that advertised the website TrumpMarch.com. Trump himself retweeted the appeal on Jan. 1.

The contemporaneous emails and texts of rally organizers, coupled with their testimony to the committee, suggest Wren’s efforts to facilitate Jones and Alexander’s early departure from the Ellipse was in line with expectations shared among organizers and confirmed by Trump himself.

Taylor Budowich, who was brought in by Wren to help arrange for busing Trump supporters to DC on Jan. 6, told Wren in a phone text at 10:48 p.m. on Dec. 31: “POTUS needs to end his speech by saying something like, ‘Now go march on the capital. March to save America!’”

Budowich, who was employed as the spokesperson for Trump at the time that he gave his deposition in December 2021, claimed that organizers ultimately decided against a march to the Capitol.

Asked by a congressional investigator why he would say Trump should call on his supporters to do that, Budowich said, “Because, as I said, we were talking about a march through this process that was ultimately decided against.”

Wren confirmed to the committee that she had the same understanding.

“He’s just saying it didn’t seem like something crazy at the time, because we were still operating under this time like there was probably going to be some kind of march,” she testified.

By then, a feud between two separate camps of organizers had come to a head, with the Kremers and their allies maneuvering against Chafian to keep more controversial speakers like Jones, Alexander and Stone away from the main stage at the Ellipse where Trump would be speaking on Jan. 6. Katrina Pierson, senior advisor to the Trump re-election campaign who was enlisted into the effort by Wren, sided with the Kremers.

On Jan. 2, Pierson texted Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, and asked him for direction. That evening, they talked for seven minutes. After she expressed her concerns about the more controversial speakers tainting Trump were they allowed to share a stage with him, Pierson testified that Meadows told her: “So, why don’t you just take this over and make sure it doesn’t go bad.”

Meadows confirmed to her that he understood that Trump’s supporters would be going to the Capitol following the speech at the Ellipse, Pierson said.

“Yes,” she testified. “That is correct. When I gave him the lay of the land, told him where people were going to be speaking and that some people were going to the Capitol, yes, he agreed.”

Meadows received a subpoena, but failed to appear on two separate occasions in late 2021 to testify before the committee.

At 10:49 p.m. on Jan. 2, Pierson sent an email to Wren and Budowich, reporting, “Hey guys, I spent the better part of the day on the phone with these organizers, and was able to get a little guidance from the White House. Pierson’s email explained that she had color-coded some speakers as already being confirmed to speak on the day before the Ellipse rally, others who she suggested moving to Jan. 5 or a separate stage in front of the Supreme Court on Jan. 6, and still others as not passing vetting or raising additional concerns. In the subsequent paragraphs, Pierson clearly noted that Trump was expected to call on his supporters to march to the Capitol.

“POTUS expectations are to have something intimate at the ellipse, and call on everyone to march to the capitol,” Pierson wrote. “This actually works out, because Ali’s group is already setting up at the Capitol, and SCOTUS is on the way.”

Email from Katrina Pierson to Caroline Wren and Taylor Budowich (US Congress)

On Jan. 4, with the Ellipse rally only two days away, Pierson was again hearing rumors about an effort to sneak controversial speakers onto the stage with Trump, and she reached out to Dan Scavino, the president’s social media director at the White House.

“You need to come and talk to him, and let him put this to bed,” Scavino said, according to Pierson. At the time, Pierson was spending the holidays in Texas, and she booked a flight that day to DC.

At 4:30 p.m., Pierson met Trump in the President’s dining room, off the Oval Office.

“He asked me, he says, ‘Are people going to the Capitol?’” Pierson told the committee. “And I said, ‘Yes, there are some people going to the Capitol. There is a permit for a stage at the Capitol.’ And he says, ‘Well, I should walk with the people.’”

During the meeting, Pierson testified, Trump had indicated to her that he was not familiar with Alexander, but asked her to speak with Scavino about him.

At 4:23 a.m. on Jan. 5, after returning from a rally with the president, Scavino texted Pierson: “Just got in from Georgia a couple hours ago. He brought up Ali. Just keep him on stage not associated with POTUS or main event, POTUS said.”

Jones would claim that his march to the Capitol was coordinated with the White House. Dismayed at a tweet that described Jones as “admitting the orders were coming from Donald Trump,” Budowich texted Pierson four days after the attack on the Capitol, commenting: “Sounds like what Caroline would tell him.”

Asked by a congressional investigator if she was “aware that Alex Jones has said publicly that he was talking with the White House about leading the march from the Ellipse to the Capitol,” Wren responded, “Right.”

When Jones and Alexander would make public statements suggesting that someone from the White House told them to go to the Capitol, Wren told congressional investigators that she “got the sense that they meant me.”

“And I didn’t work in the White House, and they knew that,” Wren said. “But I didn’t, like, go correct them after the fact.”

While the final report of the January 6^th Committee emphasizes Donald Trump’s responsibility for the violence on the US Capitol, a passage in the chapter detailing the role of the militant groups illuminates the organizing infrastructure built over the two months leading up to the attack.

“Marsha Lessard, the leader of a vaccine-skeptic group, Virginia Freedom Keepers, worked to stage an event with Bianca Gracia, the leader of Latinos for Trump on January 6^th,” the report notes. “The women had ties to the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, respectively — two groups central to the violence on January 6. Latinos for Trump reportedly advertised their January 6^th event with the same QAnon-inspired banner, ‘Operation Occupy the Capitol.’”

While the prosecution of members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys for seditious conspiracy has preceded on separate tracks, evidence from thousands of pages of depositions released by the committee over the past two weeks shows that the two militant groups were intertwined, and its leaders were working closely with rally organizers and influencers.

The report also highlights the Phoenix Park Hotel as a hub for the militants on Jan. 5 and 6, similar to the role played the Willard Hotel for figures like Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, and strategist Roger Stone in the political echelon of the effort to overturn the election.

A map of the web of relationships among militant actors emerges from the testimony of Kellye SoRelle, a former prosecutor from Texas who got involved with the Oath Keepers and came to serve as the far-right group’s general counsel.

SoRelle testified that she got to know Lessard through the “Friends of Stone” Signal chat [link to previous story], which she joined in early November while investigating allegations of election fraud in Detroit. It remains unclear who set up and administered “Friends of Stone” — described by SoRelle as a clearinghouse for coordinating “Stop the Steal” rallies and compiling “data” on election irregularities — but SoRelle testified that she believed that Jason Sullivan, a one-time social media consultant for Stone, added her to the chat. Sullivan declined to answer questions from the committee about his involvement in the chat, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to avoid giving testimony that might expose him to criminal prosecution.

SoRelle and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who traveled together to multiple rallies in Washington, DC, as well as Atlanta and Dallas, during the critical period following the election, forged a close relationship with Lessard.

SoRelle testified that she and Rhodes joined Lessard at her home in northern Virginia for dinner while they were staying nearby around the time of the Nov. 14, 2020 Millions for MAGA Rally in DC. In her deposition, SoRelle also confirmed that Rhodes sent night-vision devices and a rifle sight to Lessard’s home one day before the attack on the Capitol. The New York Times has reported that members of Lessard’s group, Virginia Freedom Keepers, took part in a Dec. 30, 2020 conference call in which Sullivan said Trump supporters should “descend on the Capitol.”

Sometime in the period between the Nov. 3, 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack, SoRelle also became acquainted with Gracia, who was the president of Latinos for Trump (since renamed Latinos for America First).

Gracia was close to Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who served as the Florida state director for Latinos for Trump. Gracia reportedly made a Facebook post in November 2019 displaying a photo of Tarrio posing alongside Donald Trump Jr. During a Dec. 12 pro-Trump rally, Gracia and Tarrio took a public tour of the White House. SoRelle testified that she learned about a Proud Boy named Jeremy Bertino getting stabbed during a confrontation outside Harry’s Bar through a text from Gracia.

The January 6^th Committee concluded in its final report that Tarrio’s travel to DC for the Nov. 14 rally “appears to have been paid for by Patrick Byrne,” the former Overstock.com CEO who met with Trump on Dec. 18 and urged him to mobilize the National Guard to seize election machines and re-run the election in swing states. Tarrio told the committee that Gracia booked the flight.

The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys were working together as early as Nov. 14, according to SoRelle’s testimony. She told the committee that members of the Oath Keepers flanked a group of VIPs that included herself, Lessard, Jones and his InfoWars crew and cancer treatment skeptic Charlene Bollinger, as they marched from Freedom Plaza to the Supreme Court, SoRelle said Rhodes was personally responsible for providing security to herself, Lessard and Bollinger. She added that members of the Proud Boys formed an outside “box” to protect the contingent from counter-demonstrators.

Later, following Trump’s infamous “be there,will be wild” tweet, the January 6^th Committee reports that Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs called Tarrio and the two spoke for more than three minutes. As detailed in court documents Meggs bragged on Facebook that he formed an alliance between the Oath Keepers, the Florida Three Percenters and the Proud Boys “to work together to shut this s*** down.” The Florida Oath Keepers also became increasingly close to Stone during that period, and SoRelle testified that she learned from one of the members that they were going to pick up Stone from the airport in late December.

During her deposition, SoRelle identified both Gracia and Lessard as members of a core group assembled around Stone, Jones and organizer Ali Alexander that helped coordinate “Stop the Steal” rallies. The group also included members of 1^st Amendment Praetorian, or 1AP, a security group associated with retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, according to SoRelle.

SoRelle testified that she observed 1AP co-founder Robert Patrick Lewis and “Yoda” — the nickname for 1AP member Geoffrey Flohr — “coordinating with everyone else.” She added, “And that’s Bianca Gracia, Marsha Lessard. Like, basically they kind of become, like, this — Ali and them are the ones coordinating everything.”

SoRelle testified that separate from the “Friends of Stone” group, there was an “organizational” chat she was not privy to.

“I know Bianca was” part of the chat, SoRelle told the committee, adding, “I know Marsha was because she was kind of telling me — like she was giving me details one time when she called, you know, like it looks like it’s going to be like this or whatever.”

SoRelle also included Flynn in the mix in her testimony to the committee.

“So, General Flynn is then the one that’s kind of over that,” she said. “So, as time goes by, I start realizing the controller of 1AP is General Flynn.

“Flynn is the one coordinating,” SoRelle added. “Bianca after that. So, I’m watching that Flynn is the one coordinating; then transitioning into, like, a giant speaking thing and all of that.”

Shortly after her indictment last August on charges of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, SoRelle told Raw Story: “Only thing I have to say, I hope they get the real perpetrators. Flynn, Byrne, Powell, etc those behind the Big Lie that set up the conservatives.”

Powell told Raw Story in response that she “urged everyone not to be in DC” on Jan. 6, adding that “Ms. SoRelle is way out of line.” Byrne called SoRelle’s statement “silly.”

Gracia and Lessard cohosted a “Freedom Rally” in front of the Russell Senate Office Building, a couple blocks from the Capitol, on Jan. 6. SoRelle told the committee that Alexander wanted the women to merge their event into a rally he had planned at the Capitol, but they declined. Gracia, SoRelle said, was “upset because she basically was, like, I’ve sunk all this money into this and I’m not going to go, you know, just because Ali wants to.”

Lessard joined Gracia for a Dec. 29 appearance on InfoWars to promote the rally.

“Being at the previous rallies, we realized that a lot of speakers on this particular topic — a lot of people who knew the truth about the Gates Foundation and what’s going on behind the scenes here really weren’t getting stage time,” Lessard told host Owen Shroyer, explaining the anti-vaccine focus of the event. “So, we just went ahead and we got a permit, and Bianca was so great; she helped me with that. And we decided to split the time.”

In response to an inquiry submitted on its website contact form, Virginia Freedom Keepers emailed Raw Story late Monday night: "We were not involved in anything other than a medical freedom event that day. The stage hosted separate events that day. Bianca had a morning event (we did not participate) and we had a separate afternoon event; this was detailed in the permit process. We never worked with or collaborated any of the other events that day and declined when offered.

"We had no other interactions with the Oath Keepers or their other associates outside of agreeing to let them do security," the statement continued. "The only capacity we known them in is free security. We do not condone any violence, ever. We were never aware of any planning or conversations for anything other than our specific event. If we had any indications this was going to be anything other than a peaceful event we would have reported that and canceled."

The organization referred additional questions to its attorney, who did not respond to an email from Raw Story.

Gracia could not be reached for comment for this story.

SoRelle and Rhodes arrived in DC on Jan. 5, the eve of the attack on the Capitol, and went to Freedom Plaza, where high-profile Trump supporters like Flynn were giving fiery speeches. While they were there, SoRelle told the committee, she received a phone call from Gracia. Up until then, the two had only exchanged texts, but Gracia invited them come by her room at the Phoenix Garden Hotel to pick up their VIP passes for the Freedom Rally the following day.

While they were visiting, Gracia received a phone call from Tarrio, who had just gotten out of jail for charges of burning a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from an African-American church and bringing an illegal firearms magazine into DC. SoRelle said she had been asked to help find a lawyer for Tarrio, and she testified that Gracia invited them to go down to a nearby parking garage to meet Tarrio. During the meeting, the committee noted in its final report, Tarrio told Gracia that the authorities had confiscated his phone, but assured her “they couldn’t get in there,” apparently referencing the two-factor authentication. Footage of the infamous meeting recorded by a documentary film crew captured Rhodes telling Tarrio that he “has three groups in Tyson’s Corner,” an apparent reference to quick reaction forces that he had mustered, according to the committee.

Later, during a car ride from DC to Baltimore, the committee reported that footage recorded by the film crew captured Tarrio expressing appreciation for Rhodes and saying that “for situations like this where there is a need to unite regardless of our differences… what he did today was commendable.”

After the parking-garage meeting with Tarrio, SoRelle testified that she, Rhodes and Gracia went back to the hotel and joined a large group in a lobby on one of the upper floors that included Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, along with members of 1AP and Latinos for Trump.

“We were drinking,” SoRelle told the committee. “There was lots of — and this is where the ‘storm the Capitol’ stuff will come into play.”

Around 4 p.m. on Jan. 6, Rhodes and SoRelle huddled with several members of the Oath Keepers who had gone into the Capitol. Later, they went back to the Phoenix to meet Gracia again. Looking back on it, SoRelle would tell the committee that she felt angry.

“So, after that, we go back to the Phoenix because Bianca, at that point, is checking in,” she said. “I don’t even know where Bianca’s at. That’s when she tells me that she came back and took a nap. And I’m like, ‘You had a staged event.’ I think it was kind of odd that she went and took a nap while her event was going on.”

The final report of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol heavily focuses on Donald Trump’s role as a driver of events that day.

But evidence reviewed by staff investigators points to a coordinated effort by high-level Trump allies that directed the activities of the militant groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys that stormed the Capitol.

Testimony by Kellye SoRelle, a former prosecutor from Texas who is associated with the Oath Keepers, to the January 6^th Committee illuminates the role of the “Friends of Stone” Signal chat in coordinating activities of militant groups tasked with providing security at Stop the Steal rallies, who then participated in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.

SoRelle, who sat for deposition over the course of more than nine hours spread over two days last April, told investigators she believes she was added to the “Friends of Stone” chat in early November 2020 by Jason Sullivan, a digital media strategist who had worked on the Trump campaign for Roger Stone during the 2016 election. Stone is a longtime Trump confidant and the namesake of the Signal chat.

Sullivan is a relatively obscure figure in the sprawling investigation into the effort to overturn the 2020 election, which unfolded through a series of dramatic hearings held by the January 6^th Committee last summer. His name doesn’t appear in the committee’s 845-page final report, although he was deposed last August. But SoRelle’s testimony indicates that Sullivan acted as a convener, helping to bridge the efforts of high-level Trump allies like Stone, his one-time mentor, and the militant groups.

SoRelle is currently under indictment for conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and obstruction of justice for her role in the Jan. 6 attack.

SoRelle told the committee that while she was in Detroit volunteering to investigate election irregularities around the time of the Nov. 3, 2020 election, Sullivan contacted her to ask her to follow up on specific investigative leads in Michigan. SoRelle said that the basis for her belief that Sullivan added her to the chat is due to the fact that she received an invitation to join shortly after speaking with him.

“And I end up basically on the phone with Jason Sullivan,” SoRelle said. “Then I get added to this Friends of Stone stuff at this point. And I really have no relationship with any of them, other than they’re just trying to, like — they’re basically — because I’m on the ground, they’re trying to incorporate me in the loop, so to speak.”

Sullivan invoked his Fifth Amendment privileges based on a good-faith belief that telling the truth might expose him to criminal prosecution when asked by the committee who enlisted him to track election activities in Michigan, and who put him in contact with SoRelle. During his deposition, an investigator told Sullivan that committee staff understood that Sullivan was the administrator of the “Friends of Stone” chat. Sullivan again invoked the Fifth Amendment.

SoRelle had gotten involved with the Oath Keepers in the spring of 2020 through the anti-lockdown protests in Texas, and members of the far-right group went to Detroit to provide security for her while she was investigating election issues. SoRelle told the committee that by the time she joined “Friends of Stone,” around Nov. 10, Oath Keepers founder and executive director Stewart Rhodes was already a member of the chat. SoRelle said she believes that InfoWars host Alex Jones brought Rhodes into Stone’s circle. (In a statement provided to Raw Story in September 2022, Stone’s attorney said that “Stone has never met, talked to, or otherwise interacted with Mr. Rhodes.”)

Sullivan invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to questions about whether he ever came into contact with the Oath Keepers and about whether he was aware of Stone having a relationship with Rhodes from the January 6^th Committee.

SoRelle told the committee that she perceived the “Friends of Stone” chat as a hub for coordinating the Stop the Steal rallies, as well as collecting “data” on election irregularities. The roster of members of the “Friends of Stone” chat also included Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio, who is currently on trial for seditious conspiracy for his role in the Jan. 6 attack.

Sullivan remained behind the scenes throughout the series of rallies in state capitols and Washington, DC leading up to the Jan. 6 attack. But on Dec. 30 he appeared on a conference call that included members of 1^st Amendment Praetorian and QAnon followers. During that call, which was recorded by a woman named Staci Burk, Sullivan called on Trump supporters to “descend on the Capitol,” while indicating he was aware of plans by militant groups to prevent Joe Biden from taking office as president.

“There’s dates floating around for some of the people in the militia, okay?” Sullivan told participants on the call, as previously reported by Raw Story. “They will not allow Biden to go into the White House. That’s a fact. I’m not part of that. I don’t applaud that. I don’t endorse it. I don’t encourage it. But I do have my ear to the railroad. We have all the real-time social media intelligence you could imagine.

“And I don’t see any other way around it,” Sullivan continued. “Because, first of all, they’re not going to allow any election fraud to take place. It’s not gonna happen. Biden will never be in that White House. That’s my promise to each and every one of you.”

Sullivan again pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked by the committee what he meant by “descend on the Capitol” and whether he was referring to the Oath Keepers when he mentioned “the militia.” Sullivan told the committee he didn’t recall who invited him to speak on the conference call.

Sullivan testified that he had expected “peaceful protests” at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and was surprised by the violence that day.

“I think it’s appalling what took place, you know,” Sullivan testified, when asked by the committee how he felt about Jan. 6. “Some of these Proud Boy folks I think were nefarious. I think some of these Oath Keeper folks were nefarious.”

Stone has attempted to distance himself from Sullivan. In an April 2022 letter shared with the press, Stone’s lawyer threatened Sullivan with legal action if he did not stop publicly representing himself as “Roger Stone’s senior social media advisor,” while acknowledging that Sullivan worked for Stone’s consulting business for 30 days in 2016. Sullivan told the committee during his deposition last August that he "was engaged by Roger Stone's super PAC for social media listening and consulting."

In his letter, attorney Grant Smith also accused Sullivan of leaking his own appearance before a grand jury as a witness against Stone in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.

SoRelle told the January 6^th Committee during her April 2022 deposition that Sullivan told her during their conversation in November 2020 that “Stone was mad at him over” his grand jury testimony.

“But he tells me that he’s basically trying to make amends with Roger Stone during that time,” SoRelle added.

SoRelle’s testimony received a brief spotlight during the sixth televised hearing of the January 6^th Committee in July 2022 when the committee showed a video clip of her identifying Stone and Jones, along with organizer Ali Alexander, as the leaders of the “Stop the Steal” rallies.

“Those are the ones that became, like, the center point for everything,” SoRelle said.

Asked about “Friends of Stone” last July, Stone’s attorney told Raw Story: “Mr. Stone was included in the chat group by whoever established it at the time. Mr. Stone did not participate in any discussions in the chat and has no recollection of ever posting anything in the chat.”

But the final report of the January 6^th Committee indicates that two days after the 2020 election, Stone sent out a text, reading: “We provide information several times a day. So please monitor the FOS feed so you can act in a timely fashion.”

Grant Smith, Stone’s attorney, said in an email to Raw Story on Monday that his client was not available for comment.

The brief snippet of SoRelle’s testimony included in the televised hearing last July has overshadowed her more detailed explanation to committee investigators about how the “Friends of Stone” chat served as a hub for organizing the election denial rallies leading up to Jan. 6. Immediately after confirming Stone, Jones and Alexander’s central roles in the campaign, SoRelle told investigators about her interactions with 1^st Amendment Praetorian, a security group that worked under retired Lt. General Michael Flynn.

“They’re the ones orchestrating the majority of it,” SoRelle testified. Asked to elaborate, SoRelle told the committee: “So, the meetings that the Oath Keepers end up having, they’re the ones coordinating — they’re in the group chats with those particular groups.”

SoRelle confirmed in her testimony that 1^st Amendment Praetorian, better known by its initials 1AP, helped delegate responsibility among the militant groups for providing security to influencers during the rallies.

“And from what you remember, 1AP played somewhat of a planning role, along with Mr. Alexander, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Stone, about where to send people for Stop the Steal rallies after the election?” one of the investigators asked.

“Correct,” SoRelle said.

Robert Patrick Lewis declined to answer a question from the committee about whether he coordinated with Rhodes or the Oath Keepers, invoking his Fifth Amendment privilege to avoid giving testimony that could potentially incriminate himself during his deposition last April.

SoRelle testified that 1AP’s role became apparent to her when the Oath Keepers went to Atlanta to provide security for a rally that featured Alexander, Jones and prominent white nationalist Nick Fuentes at the Georgia state capitol. SoRelle testified that when they arrived in Atlanta, 1AP leaders Robert Patrick Lewis and Geoffrey Flohr — whom she referenced by his nickname “Yoda” — along with Alexander, summoned Rhodes to a meeting at a hotel.

“And so, he was like, ‘Hey, we need to go over to this hotel, and I’m going to, you know, chat with these guys,’” SoRelle testified. “And he’s telling me it’s Rob Lewis and Yoda and Ali Alexander and that they’re coordinating just basically where all the rallies are going to be and trying to figure out schedules and stuff.”

Describing the scene in a “lobby area” on an upper floor of the hotel, SoRelle said, “It’s just, like, a giant open area. And, anyway, they brought beer and stuff, and we’re all just kind of hanging out and chatting and stuff like that.”

Following the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, SoRelle told the committee that Rhodes conferred with a member of 1AP who joined them for dinner at Olive Garden, although she could not identify the member by name.

SoRelle testified that Tim Enloe, Jones’ security guard, asked Rhodes to provide a security detail to Fuentes, and Rhodes refused. The dustup exposed a tension between what SoRelle described as “the conservative/libertarian” and “fascist/crazy” camps in the Stop the Steal coalition. As SoRelle described it, Rhodes and Fuentes got into an argument at a restaurant area near the Georgia state capitol about white supremacy and why the Oath Keepers refused to work with Fuentes. SoRelle said Rhodes walked off while Fuentes was “talking crap,” and she turned around and gave him the middle finger. Fuentes’ Groyper followers filmed SoRelle and made her gesture into a meme.

The committee report has identified Trump’s tweet in the early-morning hours of Dec. 19, 2020, in which the president tweeted, “Be there, will be wild,” as the singular, galvanizing event leading to the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse, which then set the stage for thousands of Trump supporters to overrun the Capitol.

The report emphasized the effect of Trump’s tweet by highlighting a Facebook message sent by Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs on Dec. 22.

“Trump said it’s gonna be wild!” wrote Meggs, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy alongside Rhodes last month. “It’s gonna be wild! He wants us to make it WILD that’s what he’s saying. He called us to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild! Sir Yes Sir! Gentlemen we are heading to DC pack your s***!”

Asked about the Dec. 19 tweet, SoRelle argued that it wasn’t only Trump’s call that mobilized the Oath Keepers to begin planning for Jan. 6; the set of relationships that had grown out of the “Friends of Stone” chats provided an infrastructure for delegating responsibility and a division of labor.

“Then it would have been whenever they started coordinating through Ali Alexander,” SoRelle told the committee, in response to a question about when the Oath Keepers started planning for Jan. 6.

“That’s what I’m saying,” she said. “It wasn’t based on President Trump. Everything was done off of the coordination that was being sent out. Like, ‘Here’s our next rally. What’s the next plan? Like, can you do security for this? Here’s the events that we’re planning.’”