CNN’s Jake Tapper asked if “will there be witnesses describing real conversations between these extremist groups and someone in Trump’s orbit?” MP Bennie Thompson replied: “Yes.
. said the Mississippi Democrat.
Thompson did not delve into the nature of the talks, although evidence gathered in the Justice Department’s Oath Keepers and Proud Boys cases showed that both groups stayed close to some right-wing VIPs, especially those in whom they believed they were offering voluntary “security”. January 5 and 6, 2021.
Joshua James, an Oath Keeper who pleaded guilty to a seditious conspiracy, drove Roger Stone, for example. Stone also has close ties to prominent members of the Proud Boys, dating back years. During the riots, some Oath Keepers talked about trying to help Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, although they were unclear who they were in contact with to find out Jackson’s condition. And according to other evidence in the case against the Oath Keepers, a lawyer working with the group discussed being in touch with people around the Trump campaign at a conference recorded in November 2020. However, not all contacts are they describe so explicitly. An Oath Keeper said as part of his guilty plea that he witnessed group leader Stewart Rhodes call an unnamed person on the night of Jan. 6 and ask to speak directly with Trump. The person did not comply. Thompson’s comments came after the panel held its first hearing at prime time, detailing the findings of his investigation and playing a new closed-door video of members of Trump’s team representing violence in the Capitol. The committee introduced to the American public two of the most militant far-right groups in the country, present on January 6: The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.
These groups were at the forefront of the riot. They were among the first to rape the building and are accused of planning violence.
Explaining the committee’s approach to the hearings, Thompson told Tapper that “everything the audience heard tonight is real. We can prove it. Because as you know, fact-checkers will look at everything that was presented and we made a conscious effort to put only what we could prove. “
“So we put the president’s tweets. We put the president’s video,” he continued. “We put everything in place, but we put it in order so that the public could see now that even when the chief law officer told the president that he appointed, Attorney General, there was no guilt in the elections. Obviously, the people who were listening were not reputable in terms of evidence analysis. And so the president left him speechless and started listening to people who had no real basis in the matter. “
Thursday’s hearing was the first in a series this month that will highlight the findings of the panel’s investigation, which included interviews with more than 1,000 people about how Trump and his team tried to overturn the results of the 2020 elections on multiple fronts.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.