Transcribed Interview of Dustin Stockton/11:04am
[11:04 a.m.]
Okay. We're back on the record now.
And just to—I understand you may want to take a smoke break at some point. Just to give you a sense of where we're headed in terms of the timing, I think that if you're okay to hold out, next break, it might make sense if we just make it, like, a lunch break.
The Witness. That's fine.
It's 11:00 now. So if you think you can go till noon?
The Witness. I think I'll be all right.
Okay. Perfect.
The Witness. Somehow I'll manage.
Q So you were just talking about an interaction you remember the night after the December 12th rally.
A I believe it was the night after. It could've been the night before. Things really bleed together—
Q Sure.
A —at that point, dealing with not a lot of sleep. But there was specifically another interaction outside the Willard from somebody who represented himself as, like, a true believer but who was from the Vice President's office.
Q Okay. And that person gave you a business card indicating they were a member of the Vice President's staff?
A Correct. And spoke specifically about an overseas junket that we saw verified in the press.
Q And you said this person told you that the boss was going to make sure people were taken care of. Who did you understand that to refer to?
A It was very broad, but, specifically for us, everything pardon-related was We Build the Wall. It's really the only legal trouble that Jen and I have ever had, and we had no expectation that anything criminal would happen at any other point.
Q And I want to be clear. I'm not asking you to get into any of the details the We Build the Wall—
A It's a pretty awesome project.
Q —information—
A We actually built that thing.
Q I—
A You may not have read that in the press.
Q I just want to clarify for you that we are aware of what's in the public record about that case, and obviously we know ultimately that there were some pardons. I just want to make sure that you understand the questions I'm asking really just have to do with this pardon—
A Sure. I—
Q —dynamic.
A I just—I think it's important to make sure to specify that anything pardon-related was backwards looking towards We Build the Wall. I think some of the press has characterized some of what was in the Rolling Stone article that we were being offered a pardon for what was coming, and that's just, frankly, a mischaracterization.
Q Sure.
So, specifically, when this individual from the Vice President's staff said "the boss," who did you understand that person was referring to as the boss?
A President Trump.
Q Now, did you or Ms. Lawrence make any direct requests to the White House for a pardon?
A No.
Q Separate from the conversations from Representative Gosar's office, were you lobbying anyone else for a pardon?
A No. We didn't even think that a pardon would apply to us, because we hadn't been charged. So even the conversation with Tom Van Flein and Congressman Gosar had left us somewhat confused because we'd never been charged with anything, so how would we accept a pardon for something that we weren't accused of.
Q And so the question I'm asking is just trying to get to the sense of where did this idea of a pardon even orignate.
A Well, there was a violent raid that happened to us August 20th. It also ended up being the primary motivator for Jen and I to do this tour. So the way the raid was carried out, the fact that our political network, which included the campaign seal of the winning 2016 campaign, was disrupted that way 2 months before the election, led us—that was what primarily motivated our belief that the election had been improperly interfered with.
And so the idea of the pardon for We Build the Wall made a lot of sense to us, because it—for several reasons: the timing of it, the—I have to be somewhat careful here, but the—the unfactual information contained in the indictment of the people who were indicted in that matter, where, specifically, when I had time to go through and go through the indictment, I had evidence that was exculpatory to some of the claims that were made within the indictment. That fact led us to believe that that action—so that raid was actually part of the broader election interference issue that we were raising.
Q So I guess my question is a simpler one, which is this: When you hear from Tom Van Flein and Congressman Gosar's office about this conversation, that your name came up in the Oval Office, before that phone call, had you spoken with Congressman Gosar's office or staff about the potential for you to be pardoned or remove any doubt about liability?
A No, we hadn't.
Congressman Gosar had been involved in the We Build the Wall project. We had sought his advice several times going into that. He also appeared at the symposium Louie put together after we completed construction. But we had never sought that out, except to be—except as generally publicly advocating that Brian, specifically, we give him a pardon.
Q I'm sorry. When you say "publicly advocating," are you saying, like, on social media?
A Social media, probably Substack. I'd have to go through and review my articles.
But I was—I was very passionate and felt a responsibility to protect somebody I saw as a war hero, a regular citizen who had sought the advice—who had—we'd brought on these expensive attorneys, Kris Kobach, the former AG of Kansas, Steve Bannon, the former White House chief of staff—of, I'm sorry, chief strategist. We had specifically went to get him what we thought was the best people to help guide him through that process. And I felt a—because I had facilitated most of those introductions and agreements, I felt a particular responsibility to try to help Brian out of the legal jeopardy he was in.
Q Did you talk to anyone at the White House about the pardon?
A No.
Q Now, obviously, I think you know that Steve Bannon did receive a pardon for the We Build the Wall conduct in January 2021. Did you discuss the possibility of a pardon with Steve Bannon before he was pardoned?
A No. So one of the difficult things in all this, having been a—I mean, the media describes me as a longtime Bannon associate, which doesn't happen to many people because he's tough to work with. Having—when the raid happened in August and the indictments were handed down, Steve and Brian and Andy and Tim were all issued gag—or orders not to speak to anybody related to We Build the Wall, and we honored that all the way through the process.
Q So—
A I should say, to clarify, outside of a short greeting one time in the lobby of the Willard.
Q So, after January 20th of 2021, did you find out why you were not selected for a preemptive pardon?
A Not—not conclusively.
Q What do you mean by that?
A So I assume that—well, to be specific with your question, I assume I didn't get a pardon because I wasn't charged with anything.
Why Steve Bannon got a pardon—Brian Kolfage—is something that has, frankly, angered and frustrated me immensely. Steve is the one person in the group who had the money and political connections to handle something like this. That he would be the only one to receive it just seemed absurd on its face to me.
Q Before we get away from the topic, you mentioned the conversations with Members of Congress about the objections that would need to be made on January 6th. Why were you asked to—or, what was your understanding of the purpose of making those objections on January 6th?
A So there was a sense of frustration that the media had immediately come out and said that "no evidence, no evidence, no evidence" before we'd really had any opportunity to wrap our head around if there was evidence or not. I mean, we had bits and pieces that we had seen.
The court cases had largely been dismissed based on procedural grounds, right? Things like standing. So we felt that we hadn't had the opportunity to really present our case to the American people more broadly.
And my understanding of this process with Members was that that our—that everybody was—mostly everybody was realistic about the possibility of actually overturning the election this way, but we saw the objection process as being our opportunity to have all the cameras on and present everything we had found that we thought was compelling that made the argument of why we were so passionately running around the country and holding these rallies.
Q What do you mean about being realistic about the potential for overturning the election?
A I think Matt Boyle had an article in Breitbart right before that that became a point of controversy for a lot of the organizers of these different factions that had sprung up because of who was put on the people who would be speaking on the 6th and who wasn't and the confusion surrounding that.
But, in that article, he very clearly expresses, like, listen, this objection is not going to change the fact that Joe Biden is going to be the President. However—and we were realistic about that. But we saw it as an opportunity that, when we had this kind of dramatic objection and the Senate splits off and the House splits off and we had these hour or two to make the argument, that that would be our opportunity to present our case to the world, even if it didn't change the result of the—like, what was going to happen, that the electors would have to be sat in accordance to standard procedure.
Q So, if I'm understanding you correctly, it's an opportunity to be heard on the information you think should be made public, but, realistically, you did not expect to change the outcome that Joe Biden would be inaugurated.
A Yeah. I mean, we've reached a point where persuasion doesn't seem to play that much of a role in voting anymore, like, in legislative voting. Right? Things seem to—especially, on these big, controversial issues, seem to be locked in. The cake's baked before any of the arguments are made.
But we were really frustrated that we'd never really had the opportunity to, like, present our case. And we saw that objection process as, like, that was the moment.
And we actually talked about it like you would a court case, that the opening statement would be the rally at the Ellipse, then different Members of Congress would present different parts of the case to the public, and then there would be a closing argument made at the Ellipse, where everybody was supposed to—well, our understanding, I should say—and when I say "our," Jen and I's understanding was that everyone would stay at the Ellipse until the proceeding, like, the legislative procedure at the Capitol had reached its conclusion.
Q So you mentioned going in—earlier, I think you said something about identifying people and trying to connect them with Members or provide information about allegations in the States.
A Yes.
Q Could you tell me a little bit more about what that process looked like, maybe with some examples?
A Well, I'd say, Matt Sealy, I specifically remember that one. We had seen a video presentation. We reached out to him, I believe, through Meshawn Maddock, I believe, because we found it to be—there was a lot of stuff that seemed kooky and not legitimate, like, as far as the allegations of what happened, right? And so we were trying to—because we were consuming all of this and we were also giving people a platform to speak on our stages at rallies in these different States, we kind of knew who was credible or who came across as credible and who didn't and which evidence came across as credible and which evidence came across as, frankly, ridiculous. And—
Q How did you make that determination between credible and not credible?
A Just as—as a normal citizen, right, which is—also as somebody with an advanced understanding of the, like, election processes, having been a long-term political operative.
The way we would—what would help us determine: Frankly, some people were standing up and saying things that just sound, right—you could just tell that, like, the conspiracy necessary to make that happen was not realistic.
You were also seeing now, like, people make vastly more credible and seemingly accurate statements from people who had more realistic backgrounds. They weren't as partisan or they—right? They didn't come across as just less credible.
And so the Matt Sealy thing— I think there was some of this with State Senator Mastriano in Pennsylvania too. We'd been following along with what he was doing. There was several people who were doing statistical analysis who had prestigious educations in mathematics and statistics who were also doing, like, some statistical analysis that we felt was really strongly compelling. And we would connect Members and their staffs with those people when we met them.
Q And, to clarify on that, were you receiving guidance from Members about what kind of evidence to be looking for? Or was the communication, sort of, the other direction; you were made aware of things and then you were trying to filter that information up to Members?
A Amy primarily was, like, the centerpiece of those communications. And it was definitely a mixture of both, which is—I think that—State-related, so the objectors from each individual State were obviously interested in what the best stuff we had seen as far as election fraud in that State.
There was also, right, like, with Matt Sealy or Senator Mastriano, when we would listen to what they were saying or if there was something that was particularly compelling, we would make sure to pass that along.
Q You mentioned Mr. Mastriano from Pennsylvania. Are there other State elected officials other than—you mentioned Attorney General Paxton earlier. Setting those two examples aside, additional State elected representatives that you remember having communications with like that?
A I know we—there were a lot of them who came across our stages. Frankly, the only ones—I remember Attorney General Paxton. I remember Attorney General Landry, the Louisiana attorney general who was opposed to the legal strategy. And then Senator Mastriano. Matt Maddock, Michigan, have a long-term—he's a State representative in Michigan—we have a long-term relationship with him and his wife for campaigns and activism we've done in Michigan over the years. Those are the only ones I remember specifically.
Q Okay.
We're going to talk about, in detail, the planning for January 6th in a little bit. But, setting that aside, during this time period of traveling the country, were you in communication with either the White House or the Trump campaign to get guidance or coordinate your actions?
A So we had made a decision early on that all of that communication would be filtered through Amy Kremer. You don't want to, for example, like, be contacting—you don't want five different people contacting the White House or the campaign with the same information.
And so we had settled early on, since Amy had the closest relationship with both the Trump family and the administration, that she would be the primary filter there. But there was probably dozens of examples of Amy relaying to us what she was hearing from the White House and the campaign.
Q Were you ever present for communications with the White House or the Trump campaign?
A The only one I specifically remember after the—I remember Amy telling me that the President was going to do a flyover for the December rally. And then I remember her on the phone with Mark Meadows. And this is in front—like, we have a—in the suite in the Willard, and everyone was sitting around a large table, and her hanging up the phone and saying, "I just got off the phone with Mark Meadows, and he wanted to congratulate everybody on a job well done."
Q So, other than those two recollections, are there any other communications that you remember—
A I—but—
Q —being present for with the White House or the Trump campaign?
A Can we come back to that question? I want to mull it over. I think there were. A lot of this bleeds together, like, in my recollections of what came back to me in message or what I could've been on the bus for as she was talking to it.
But it—another—I don't know if they're technically the White House or the campaign, but I do remember, when we were heading to Las Vegas for Christmas, we needed a place to park these buses—or a bus. Anyway, we had a parking issue with the bus. And Scott Johnston, who is a long-term volunteer and friend of Jen and I's who, like, we kind of looped into this process, we needed to—we wanted to park the bus at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, and he called the hotel, and the hotel manager had told him that the only way he'd let us do it is if a member of the Trump family personally called him. And I remember Andy immediately getting on the phone with Lara Trump and getting it done right away.
Q So the reason I ask about that is, to get back to the October 25th Rolling Stone article that sort of provided the jumping-off point for us this morning, it describes I think from you or Ms. Lawrence, you know, the statement that Mr. Meadows was 100 percent made aware of what was going on and that he's a regular figure in these really tiny groups of national organizers.
And so what I understand you to say it, obviously, to the best of your recollection right now, you don't remember having, other than the three conversations you've mentioned—
A So—and there's actually a ProPublica article that preceded that article that we also go into detail on this on and provided the same chain of events to their fact-checkers.
So, very specifically, we had an issue with the permits being changed temporarily by Cindy Chafian that had, I see it as, kind of a butterfly effect point. When we go back, I'm sure we're going to get into detail on that, because it's critical in all this.
But, as part of that, there had been, I call it an appeasement deal made with some of the other organizing elements that, frankly, we had been working to suppress and who had been attacking what we were doing relentlessly. We were—we had chosen a tack not to even acknowledge them, to the best of our ability.
We had had the—in the initial November rally, there was a blowup between Kylie Kremer and Ali about what could be said on the stage and what couldn't be said that had split, like, that initial group up irrevocably. And so, as we were doing all this stuff, there was them attacking us and us ignoring them for the most part.
We were asked to—so, for January 6th, initially the plan was to use the same template that we had used in November and December. Because, frankly, for organizing purposes, it was—we knew what—we had all the—everything put together already. We had the permits and paperwork. Everything would look very similar to what we did in the November and December rally—same vendors, et cetera, et cetera.
When we found out just before Christmas that the President was going to speak, that changed—like, the whole plan changed completely and, frankly, got taken out of our hands.
I should exclude—Kyrie Kremer left the bus tour, flew to D.C. to kind of join the—to represent us on what would become the January—what would become the rally at the Ellipse.
As part of that, I mentioned that we had reached out to Biggs about, like, what are you doing? Like, why are we associating—like, here are some of his Periscopes where this guy's talking. You know, like, is this really what we want to be promoting here?
With the pastor—Pastor Locke and Pastor Gibson, who were on the bus tour with us, there was kind of an appeasement deal reached. And this deal was that we would set up a rally on January 5th, same template—Freedom Plaza stage, jumbotrons, secur-—the same template we'd been using, that would be split into four separate sections. So you would—initially, it was Katrina Pierson/Save America would have the first 2 hours, the pastors would have the second 2 hours, Ali would have the third 2 hours, and Cindy Chafian and Alex Jones would have the final 2 hours.
And we didn't—I didn't like it, but I was asked to help kind of play Switzerland in that, because I hadn't been engaging in any of the, like—I hadn't really been engaging much in the, like, fighting, because I was so busy putting all this stuff together. So I'd been asked to, like, help facilitate that and help guide the pastors into the agreement and the permitting process and politically what it looked like.
And part of that agreement was that all planning and promotion of anything but the one rally on January 6th would stop. And we saw a tweet from Matt Couch, who's a friend of mine, that was continuing to promote this event at the Capitol. And we sent that around, like, one of the internal groups, and were upset by it.
And what we decided—me and Amy put our heads together and decided that it seemed like there was a stalemate between the two factions and the D.C. organizer group. One side was, as we were being told, one side was Katrina Pierson and Kylie, who were advocating for no involvement of the Ali-Alex Jones faction, and Caroline Wren, who was kind of, like, advocating for their participation.
And that showed us—I was upset because part of the agreement was that they would drop promotion of it. And I, frankly, didn't want to work with them in the first place, right? But I had agreed to kind of do this January 5th thing and help out with it on the understanding that, like, all right, this is going to stop the crap and we're going to come together for this one last thing and drop all this infighting.
And so we put our heads together, and we decided that we would go over everybody's head. And we specifically talked about reaching out to Mark Meadows and other people with direct regular contact with President Trump, including Mercedes Schlapp and Gina Loudon. I mean, it was kind of a—we kind of decided, like, we're full-—and the family—let's full-court press this. Like, let's put an end to this garbage.
I believe I went outside to do a rally, and, shortly after that conversation, Amy sends a text to the full group that both the White House and the campaign are aware of the Ali and Cindy situation and it's taken care of, or it's handled. I'd have to go back to look at it. But I took it to mean that, like, their participation is done. Like, the stalemate is over, it has been settled and in our favor.
Q That's very helpful. And there's obviously a lot of detail in the explanation you just gave.
A Absolutely.
Q So I'd like to pick back a couple of things, just to get clarification.
A Sure.
Q One thing you said was having raised concerns to Representative Biggs about Ali Alexander. What were the concerns that you had about Ali Alexander?
A So he had been making unhinged public statements. I mean, from our perspective, he was kind of mentally ill and was exhibiting signs of a messiah complex, like, you know, technically. Like, we were genuinely concerned.
He had also been leveling really serious attacks against the Kremers that were misogynistic. And him and Roger Stone and Alex Jones had been attacking us because we—for being too soft, that we wanted—that we were doing Tea Party rallies and that, you know, this called for far more masculine and angry action.
And having traveled the country and having done this for a long time, we knew how high tensions were, and we were concerned, like, between the Periscopes, which made it very personal, I mean, calling the Kremers fat and, you know, Miss Piggys and gluttons and—right?—really nasty attacks. Alex Jones was calling me Satanic Santa on his show.
We saw what they—while we weren't engaging with them publicly, because we didn't—as I kept saying to the group, we didn't want to reach back and elevate them to our level by engaging in fighting with them, we were paying close attention to what they were doing. And we had real concerns about both their—about their rhetoric, about what they were doing, but then, secondarily, there were several instances where it was clear—so, after the November rally, which was kind of, like, all one, they did their, kind of, own thing in December in D.C., where—and this is kind of a tangent, but I'm just going to run with it, because it's necessary to explain.
So I get a call from Jason Funes on the morning of December 12th before the rally at Freedom Plaza was set to start. Our program was: event at Freedom Plaza starting at noon that runs for, like, 3 hours; and then, an hour later, a second program starts at the Supreme Court. And we move people from Freedom Plaza to the Supreme Court, where we have a second stage set up.
I get a call from Jason, who was at the stage at the Supreme Court, telling me that apparently General Flynn is going to be here in a couple minutes and he expects to speak on our stage. And that was somewhat disconcerting, right, because we didn't want people at the Supreme Court. Like, we had this whole program put together.
So I grabbed two of our security guys, and we jumped on a golf cart. And, on the way, I called Patrick Byrne, who I'd met with the night before, and confirmed that, indeed, General Flynn was on his way to the Supreme Court to give his first speech since being pardoned, right, and didn't have the legal stuff hanging over his head.
And I got there, and I don't know what Jason had said to the crowd, but it was kind of a volatile situation, because the Kremers were adamant that, no, we're not going to let anyone use our stage in this circumstance. But I was sent to deal with it. So I get there and quickly make the decision that we would allow General Flynn to speak in this instance.
An activist, who has since passed, Alice Butler-Short, had put together a program that included another Member of Congress, who I'd have to go back and—I can't remember. I think it was Connecticut or something. I didn't know him before. But she had a whole program put together. And they had—they were under the impression that they had paid for the stage at the Supreme Court, and—because they'd given money to Ali. This is as it's explained to me, like, on the ground.
And General Flynn shows up, and me and General Flynn get into a heated engagement about whether or not—like, what's going to happen with the stage here, because, as I explained, like, I'm not going to let you guys do your full program because it would bleed into what we're doing at Freedom Plaza in a little bit. So I'm willing to let you do this because I think what you've done warrants that, but I'm going to set—before you speak, I'm going to introduce you and I'm going to let the crowd know that, like, you're not doing your full program. I will—I will be generous and, despite, like, what the Kremers are telling me right now, I will allow you guys to do, like, a truncated version of your program.
So, you, General Flynn, can speak, and the girl can sing the national anthem, or whatever patriotic song she sang, and any Members of Congress that you have can speak, and then we're going to cut it off, and I'm going to get back on stage, and I'm going to send everybody back to Freedom Plaza.
And we had kind of a brief, somewhat heated exchange over that where I eventually just said, no, it's happening this way or I will cut the mikes and you guys will do nothing.
And so there were several examples where I would find out later that people had given Ali money to set up specifically a stage at the Supreme Court that never got done, and so, when they saw our stage at the Supreme Court, they assumed that that was their stage.
And then this came up in a conversation I had with Alex Jones, where he assumed that the stage—because we had two—in November and December, we had issues with Alex Jones and our stage at the Supreme Court. When he apologized to me about it on January 4th or January 5th, he explained to me that he wasn't an organizer; he had paid money for a stage at the Supreme Court and had assumed the stage at the Supreme Court was his.
We also had concerns about security. So we used licensed, insured security to handle, like, crowd security. I mean, these guys—like, these guys do major concerts. They work with Live Nation. They are professionals. They are not volunteers. No. Lots of people wanted to volunteer to help with security staff. We would do our best to, like, give them stuff that made them feel they were involved, but that the actual security was handled by people who were licensed and insured. We did not see that same level of professionalism from the security that Ali was running.
And a specific example: In November, I remember us teasing or joking about—Ali had these four Special Forces-looking guys that we later found out was from the 1st Amendment Praetorian, right, that literally would have—like, would be on—he had four of them, and they were touching him at all times everywhere he moved around, which, from a professional security standpoint, like, it was really kind of silly, right, especially when I'm sure I was getting the same level of threats and intensity that he was and I was running around by myself on a golf cart all over the place trying to get stuff done.
And, in December, Cindy wanted to use the 1AP to do our security. And we had hired RMS at that point to handle our security. We didn't have them in November because we, frankly, were caught somewhat off guard by how big the crowds were at that. December, it was clear we needed topnotch security.
The 1AP folks gave us a security briefing, a security briefing that, frankly, when we compared it to the security briefings that we were getting from the professionals, was laughable. Like, it was not to the same level. And so there was a genuine concern about—the example I used was that Hells Angels in '69 being hired, right, and put into the Summer of Love, quite famously.
And so there were concerns about the rhetoric, right, and what they were advocating for, and then there was also concerns about, like, their ability to pull off something of this magnitude safely.
Q How would you distinguish what they were advocating for versus what your group was advocating for?
A So their group—Jen says it better than I do, but, as she says, these assholes will run around yelling "1776," "This is the revolution." And we were running what essentially we've been doing for 10 years, like, Tea Party rallies, which is, yeah, we're fired up, we're passionate, but, like, we clean up after ourselves and we visit local businesses, you know? And, like, we don't want to portray ourselves in a way that would weaken our credibility with the public.
And so the primary dispute—and they were very specific. Roger Stone and Ali very specifically and in their public Parlor posts and social media posts were very specific; they think, they're not allowing people on their stages who speak too harshly—because we'd just had an incident at one of our rallies where a speaker we didn't really know that well, we give them a chance to get on stage, and he talked about putting a Glock to the head of anyone who shows up at his door, like, to vaccinate his kids. So we kicked him off the tour, right? Like, for us, it's a fine line, but you can't ramp up the tensions that way.
And they were attacking us for being weak and unmasculine and a bunch of fat, gluttonous, like, women, because it's Women for America First who we were organizing under.
So they were pushing for a much more violent rhetoric, while what we were pushing for, frankly, was, like, procedural inside the House to, like, "All right, this is our chance to make our case, like, to the world. Let's make sure that, like, we put our best face on this thing."
Q So, if I had to characterize this—you tell me if this is a fair characterization of what you've explained—the concern about the association with Ali Alexander and Alex Jones and Roger Stone stemmed, at least in part, from the fact that these were folks who were ramping up the tensions in a way that might lead to violence.
A Absolutely.
Q And those communications or concerns were relayed to Mark Meadows by Amy Kremer?
A Amy Kremer. And I believe it was more than Mark Meadows, right? I don't—she said "the White House and the"—so we had this conversation in the back of the bus that I recall vividly, because, like, I was fed up with the whole thing at this point, and so was Amy. And Kylie was kind of representing us, and we—there was lots of tension between Amy and I and Kylie about, like, what kind of feedback we were getting. And we literally just made the decision, like, full-court press, everybody we know who could have influence over this, to put an end to it.
Because—for all of these reasons. It's a bad look. It's bad, optically, to have people who are running around saying the things they're saying. It's dangerous logistically, because they aren't running the same level of secure, right? We haven't seen the same—seen any evidence that they have the capability of pulling off, logistically, a project of that magnitude. So, when you combine that with their violent rhetoric, that's a—that's a dangerous situation.
Q And you also said, from your experience traveling the country, you knew tensions were high among the President's supporters. Is that right?
A Absolutely. I had been approached several times from people who were, like, "All right, well, when's the revolution starting?" And I've dealt with that as part of the Tea Party movement, right, and I have a very specific, like, program of talking them down. If it reaches too far, I alert law enforcement. But I always direct them to community groups and self-reliance and taking care of, like, immediately there. And I always, frankly, explain to them, like, it's not a winning strategy. Like, this isn't 1776. We're not living in those kinds of times. That is not—like, frankly, you're just suiciding yourself, is the basic message.
But we could tell, like, just by the level of, like, anger when we were, like, going to some of these rallies—because we could tell that some of what Ali and Alex were putting out regularly was bleeding into some of the crowds that were coming, because they would challenge us on, like, why we weren't being more harsh or why we weren't organizing this or that. And so, yes, we could tell that the pressure cooker was, like, close to capacity.
Q So, recognizing all of that, why the appeasement of those folks and allowing them the opportunity to speak on January 5th?
A So, against my objections, the conclusion was reached that, because we had this stalemate, that the way to handle it so that the events in D.C. would be focused on the mission and not internal conflict, it was reached that that would be the, quote/unquote, "appeasement."
I really didn't like it. Like, we wrestled with actually just completely pulling the permits of even setting up a separate stage on January 5th. Like, Pastor Gibson had worked out with the Parks Department that we could even split Freedom Plaza if we had to, because we really wrestled hard with that, whether we wanted to—frankly, being at same stage with those kind of people did not seem like good optics or something that we wanted to do.
The argument that was made and relayed to us was that, if you don't, then on January 6th all it's going to be is, like, them running around fighting everybody, causing problems. So this is the way that we give them enough so that it's not—that they don't cause trouble on January 6th.
Q So who, if you know, kind of forced that appeasement compromise through?
A I'm not sure who forced it through. I know that it—where it was relayed to me and where I was asked to kind of jump in and manage it was from Kylie Kremer and Katrina Pierson.
Q Okay.
I think that's a good stopping point.
- BY
Q Can I just ask—quick followup question from earlier. I think you mentioned someone named Nick Funes. Is that right?
A Jason Funes.
Q Jason Funes, excuse me. Who is he?
A So Jason Funes worked as—doing advance work on the bus tour and some of the D.C. rally stuff for us.
He was a—he was a little unhinged, right, and had, like, a—he would dive into some of the, like, crazier conspiracy stuff and just kind of seemed all over the place. But he had worked for the Department of Interior under Ryan Zinke. And I only met him the night before the November rally, and he was wearing the Trump team jacket and was introduced to me as a member of the campaign's advance team until just recently.
And so we used him for advance, although we—I continued to take responsibility—more and more responsibility away from him the longer I worked with him, because he seemed—it seemed like he was—suffered a little bit of mental illness stuff.
Q And for Ali Alexander, was it your impression that he was working with General Flynn with respect to any of these rallies or just taking Mr. Flynn's money?
A So this is a little—it's kind of a challenging question, because I've learned a lot, even in recent days, that has surprised me considerably.
My assumption was that everything Ali was saying was bullshit, frankly. Like, it didn't surprise me that he was talking to some Members of Congress, but the idea that he really was working with the—just seemed laughable. Like, it was inconceivable to me that that would—that a guy like that would actually be working with the White House on anything. Like, there's a great solemnity to the White House, and the people who work there—and they kind of have a responsibility to live up to that. And so, to me, the idea that Ali was doing anything but blustering on that was inconceivable.
So, since, I think as things have come out post- that there has—like, I've come to find some things. I didn't think General Flynn, he seemed to be surrounded by, like, the same group of Oath Keepers, with Stewart Rhodes, that Ali was kind of floating around with. But I kind of assumed that they were just doing that because they were cheap.
But it was not—I did not think—I thought that—well, not because—I remember we had—and I believe we talked to General Flynn about why he was planning to speak at Ali's event that was in conjunction with the Jericho March in December, and our takeaway was that he was just kind of—he didn't know how to navigate the different political groups or whatever.
So, yeah, we weren't real sure whether he was directly working to—or not. But I do remember it stuck out to me that, when I would encounter General Flynn, it was the same guys, like, the same volunteer guys that, like, tac'ed up, who, like, did the shoulder-on-hand thing as they moved through the crowd, that I also saw with Alex Jones and Ali.
Q And was it—did you understand, from talking to General Flynn or other conversations, that General Flynn had paid money to Ali Alexander to get on the stage—
A I was not—
Q —for the December rally?
A I think I may have heard from Patrick Byrne that that was the case. I do remember hearing that Ali was charging—like, if you wanted to speak on Ali's stages, like, right, he wanted money from you. Because I remember just thinking, like, how odd that seemed to me and how pathetic that people would pay to get on that kind of stage.
But there were, frankly, so many instances, of people coming to us being like, "Yeah, we gave this guy Ali money, and things weren't delivered."
And, with the general public and the media, while we were being—while we took—differentiating between Stop the Steal, roughly, which is kind of what Ali was organizing under, and March for Trump, which is what we were organizing under, while we took that differentiation very seriously, I don't think that the public or the media really understood, like, the internal dynamic there, and so there was kind of a general sense that, like, we're all one.
And so, when Ali would burn somebody—like, Alice Butler-Short, the example, one of—and Alex Jones are the two examples that really stand out to me. Alice Butler-Short, I mean, she broke down in tears with me that morning of December 12th, because she had called in all her favors to have General Flynn there and to have Members of Congress and her friend with a beautiful voice who was going to sing to everybody, right? Like, she had really passionately put something together and felt devastated that, when she got there,there was no stage set up, right? It wasn't put together. And that—right? But then I had to cut short their program so that it didn't prevent those people from seeing the program that we'd worked so hard to put together at Freedom Plaza.
Q For Ali Alexander, Alex Johnson, and Roger Stone, I believe you mentioned they were ratcheting up the rhetoric, and your group did not agree with that.
Did you have any understanding that they, the three of them, were taking any sort of direction from either the White House or the Trump campaign about the type of rhetoric they should be using?
A Well, so we had—in the Periscopes, right, they were claiming, oh, we just talked to the White House, President Trump is on board with this and that. And, frankly, like, we did not find it credible. Now, like, since, it does seem like maybe they were communicating with—maybe even more than we were.