Transcribed Interview of Dustin Stockton/12:04pm
[12:04 p.m.]
- BY
Q And why do you say that?
A My takeaway from the media coverage after Ali's deposition last week and the subpoenas that followed the next day, I think that Ali was actually being far more at—my guess is that he produced—my assumption is that he produced receipts that show that he actually was in communication with who, I guess, would be probably Dan Scavino and some others at the White House.
Again, I'm just guessing, based on what I've put together, but having watched their reactions since, and what they've talked about publicly since, I've actually come to think that I was wrong and actually they had better access to the White House than we did.
Q And you mentioned Dan Scavino. Why do you think it's possible that like Mr. Alexander could've been talking to Dan Scavino?
A I can't remember specifically why, and it may be in the text messages with me and Amy, or me, Amy in one of the threads that included Amy and I. I remember there was one point where we theorized, or we talked about it, because we had seen Scavino post something after Ali that like mirrored—like the talking points mirrored each other. And I remember, I was thinking, like, What the hell is this?
Q And was this message, to the best of your recollection, something that concerned the 2020 election, or just something like completely random?
A I think it was—it was definitely around either the election or one of the events or, right, the—maybe even January 6th. I just remember specifically that Scavino put something out that led us to think, like, is he really endorsing what Ali is doing here?
And it was subtle, like it wasn't overt, but it just happened that like we had watched what Ali had done his Periscope right before, and it seemed like Scavino mirrored that message, like right afterwards. And so it became, well, maybe that's one of the people.
And then when I spoke with—I spoke to—I worked at Breitbart for—both Jen and I worked for Bannon at Breitbart leading up to the 2016 election. When I spoke to Matt Boyle about that article, right, it's not realistic that we're going to see Joe Biden at all in this thing, right, very expressly in the first paragraph.
When I called Boyle about that, because it had listed January 6th speakers to include Alex Jones, Ali Alexander, and Roger Stone. And I remember calling him and being like, dude, listen, I'm engaged in the—like, right, I'm on the bus. You see me at all the rallies. I can tell you, those people are not—they don't have any role on January 6th.
And I remember him, he wouldn't—he wouldn't tell me who, but he said, that came directly from a source at the White House. And when I theorized who that could be, it really—to me, it really boiled down to Donald Trump, Jr., Dan Scavino.
Q And had you interacted with Don, Jr., in the context of the 2020 election?
A No, I—no, I had not, no.
Q In terms of the rhetoric that you said, Alex Jones, Ali Alexander, and Roger Stone, that you said you didn't agree with and was ratcheting up, would you include Steve Bannon's rhetoric in that category too?
A So to a degree. Like so, I thought—my thought when I heard Steve say the heads on pikes thing, I theorized that he was purposely—that he had come to the conclusion that the effort to, right, that Joe Biden was going to be the President and that he ramped up the rhetoric to do that to take himself off the field, if you will, like in a way that he didn't have to concede or appease.
Now, that's just based on my own assumptions, but it seemed out of character a little bit for Steve to cross the line like that. And he's not somebody who I've ever known to make mistakes like that, right, that—i thought that it was intentional. And what I thought was is that it was a strategic play to take himself out of the broader argument so that when Joe Biden was inaugurated to be the President, it allowed him basically just the take himself off the field.
- BY
Q I want to go back a little bit towards the beginning of our conversation just to clarify. You mentioned you and Amy and there was others making these calls to Members of Congress, seems like primarily Senators, about putting up the pressure for the objections that were going to take place on January 6th. Who else was a part of those conversations, or would have had knowledge about those conversations?
A James Lyle, Amy Kremer's long-term partner, would often be a part of that group. Probably Matt Couch to a lesser extent, not that he would sit in on them, but he also has like a broad network of elected officials that—so we would talk about who would be reaching out to who in that instance.
I think Kylie was still on board. I'd probably point to Scott Johnston and Matt McClesky because they were primarily the drivers and in the car with Amy and Kylie when they were doing many of the calls. And maybe Keri Morgan, who is a sweetheart, and I really hope doesn't get too sucked into all this, because like we literally—she just reached out to us, and we were like, yeah, come help and—but she may be somebody else who—right, she was kind of working as a personal assistant to all of us, so starting—I think I picked her up at the Iowa event in Des Moines for the Iowa event. Yeah, that's right.
And generally other people like who were on the bus tour, maybe Jeff Rainforth, who was our video photographer, videographer. Who else was—lots of people were coming on and off the bus, but most of those people, at some point or another, were likely engaged and were, like, Hey, does anybody know or have a connection to this person, and somebody would or they wouldn't or, right.
So there was definitely dicussion amongst the more broad group about how to get to, like, Senator Kennedy, for example, like does anyone have a direct connection, those kind of conversations. So that might be a way to confirm what we were talking about there.
Q And Ms. Lawrence as well?
A Yes, absolutely.
Q And did you all have any sort of like spreadsheet or document where you were kind of tracking who you were contacting or who was assigned to contact whom?
A I don't think so. There may have been, but I know both Amy and I tend to kind of operate this stuff from memory.
Q And were you aware of any parallel efforts that were being conducted by the White House or the Trump campaign similarly to Members of Congress or State legislators during this time period?
A I do remember occasionally hearing back from people like that—the Trump team, and I don't know whether to distinguish White House or campaign. But the Trump team had also been in touch recently, right, like that sometimes we would reach out to somebody and we'd hear stuff like that. So we—there was a sense that there was a parallel organizing effort going on, and that we were trying to make sure that we were running congruently.
Q But you weren't directly coordinating with one another in terms of, like, strategy, who to contact and when?
A Well, we did have the sense that Amy was acting as like the liaison there, that Amy—Amy and Kylie were in regular contact to make sure that we weren't doing anything that was in opposition to what they were doing.
Q And "they" being the Trump campaign or White House or Trump team?
A Yeah, Trump world, if you will.
Q And is it fair to say that the members—where you were directing your efforts, it was where at least the media had called Joe Biden to be the winner of that State?
A Yeah, I think so.
Q Okay.
A I mean—
Q The battleground States that you referenced earlier?
A Yeah, like Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona. I don't remember when in the process, right. I remember some of them were very delayed, like as far as like the official call. I remember some media outlets were calling some and some media outlets weren't calling them, and, right, there was contention that way. So I'm—it's hard for me to be specific, but there were definitely some States that the media had called that we were still looking into and that we still wanted to look into.
Q Were you calling in, let's say, States like Arkansas or Texas where it was, I think, resoundingly like a State that Trump had won and they were not contesting?
A Yeah, there was some degree of that. Like we had—so one of my best teams, like one—so when you do these bus tours, it's not possible to like micromanage what happens when you get there, like it's just not feasible from the back of a bus with spotty connection, driving down the highway, stopping at Love's every once in a while.
One of my best teams was the Iowa team. I love those guys, right, like really super organized, put together. And I remember us specifically saying, Well, you know, like we need to make sure that we're looking for these kind of issues. Very specifically for us was around the mail-in ballot, like last-minute mail-in ballot changes due to COVID emergency, right. And I do remember specifically in Iowa and Texas encouraging them to look in their own State even though they had been called for President Trump.
Q Okay. So you do recall looking into some places where Trump had won, but there were mail-in ballots?
A Yeah, basically the—we thought that the opportunity to get across to the information and audits would likely be easier in a place that is—that had overwhelming control by Republicans. And so, there was discussion of maybe that's the place, like maybe some of those places are the place that we can get in and get a foothold on what to look for in these other places.
Q But in terms of your calls for like the objection purposes, were you looking in States that—
A No.
Q —Trump had won—
A No, those were all Biden States.
Q Okay. So but—
A And there were—there ended up being, I believe, eight with a potential for nine.
Q But when you were looking for, maybe, instances of potential fraud and how to go about looking into how fraud could've occurred, you did look at Trump—at places he won—
A We—
Court Reporter. One at a time.
The Witness. Oh, sorry.
- BY
Q You looked at areas or locals that Trump had won because you thought it might be easier to access information and learn the process?
A Well, we didn't look for those places necessarily to object, right. We weren't looking to object in States that Trump won, right, because we wanted Trump to win, like, frankly. And we prioritized States where Biden had won by a narrow margin.
Q Thank you for clarifying. Do you recall any phone calls to governors or Secretaries of State?
A No. Like I assume we probably did. I actually wouldn't be surprised to find out that one of them spoke at like Michigan or something, right, like that we had some Secretary of State even maybe come speak. I don't remember that ever being an emphasis at all.
Q What about any, like, poll workers for any—in any States?
A Yeah, we did speak to several poll workers, especially those who had given sworn affidavits in different places. The lady who got lampooned on Saturday Night Live in Michigan, Mellissa, I think, Mellissa Carone, I remember speaking to her. I think James Lyle was the one who had made initial contact with her. I think Matt Seely was an election worker, like a poll worker.
I know we had some people in Georgia who came on stage and spoke about what they had witnessed, and that they were willing to sign sworn affidavits to. So that there definitely was a—an emphasis on the people making allegations, but not necessarily—I think kind of—I’ve heard a similar line of questioning about this stuff in regards to organizing efforts since to elect and install election officials in some of these positions. And to that regard, I think all of that started post like all January 6th and January 20th.
Q So your—from what you recall or what you were involved with, the conversations with poll workers, it was just to the extent that they had submitted sworn affidavit or had talked publicly about instances of fraud that they thought that they had believed?
A Correct.
Q And for the, like, the sworn affidavits, were those things—affidavits you obtained or they had already been prepared?
A Primarily, they’d been submitted to Sidney Powell or Lin Wood. I remember them specifically, like she submitted her—I remember reading through her submission and it was like hundreds of pages long with, right, lots of different things. And I remember—I remember it specifically, because we disagreed on some of the tactics in that some of what was included there had come from people that we had kind of deemed when we evaluated them to be less credible.
Q So did you say you disagreed on tactics with Sidney Powell, Lin Wood?
A Yeah, so when we saw what they were doing publicly and presenting publicly, and I read through the hundreds of pages of what they had submitted to the court, I remember thinking that it had—it was a mistake to include some of the people that they included, because we’d met them at the stop. I think in several instances we hadn’t even allowed them to speak on the stage because we found them that un-credible.
- BY
Q If—with respect to these election observers, witnesses, et cetera, I think that the question is, to what extent were you involved in identifying people who could provide that kind of information, separate from just noticing these are people who have already kind of been made publicly aware, and then involving them in your rallies?
A Yeah. So there was no kind of outreach campaign to be like, Hey, if you're a poll worker who witnessed something funky, reach out to this email or phone number or whatever. For us, we were consuming all the information that was being put out of these individual places, and because our networks are very deep and were growing in these, quote/unquote, "battleground States," right, we were able—we were seeing that information come in raw and then kind of making our own evaluations about it and then trying to—and then we would provide a platform if we could to what we found to be more compelling.
- BY
Q For the phone calls that you've testified about to Members of Congress, and also State legislators, did those just occur in December or do you recall if any happened in November?
A So most—all the way through. So, I mean, most of—before December was more logistical about who would appear at what rallies, and if we could get so-and-so to come speak or not. The kind of strategic organizing didn't start until after the December rally.
Q And that happened after you had a conversation with the chief of staff for Representative Gosar, is that right?
A Nick Dyer was the one who really kicked that process off.
- BY
Q Wait, Representative Greene?
A Yes, correct.
- BY
Q Excuse me, Representative Greene. Apologize.
A No worries.
Q I misspoke.
A It gets—there's a lot to process.
Q I think it's a good time for a break?
Yeah, why don't we—this is a good time for us to take a break, so we'll go off the record.