Transcribed Interview of Dustin Stockton/3:02pm
[3:02 p.m.]
The Witness. So she tells me that she raised $3 million. She's the one who raised all the money and paid for everything at the Ellipse, and the Kremers paid absolutely nothing, which was news to me because the Kremers had been pressuring me to ramp up fundraising since like Christmas-ish, saying that like we were completely out of money, and we weren't going to be able to continue unless, like, I pulled a rabbit out of the hat. And I was able to go to another guy who's in my business, who was able to do a rev share that was wildly successful in, like, cover stuff.
But it was portrayed to me that like we were spending a massive amount of money on this January 6th event. And Caroline told me that she raised the $3 million, and that she parked the money with the Republican Governor's Association, TPUSA, and Tea Party Express.
And I actually clarified with her, because, like, I assumed she meant Tea Party Patriots, but she clarified that it was Tea Party Express, which seemed interesting because both Amy and I have our political roots there.
And she tells me that she's not giving—that she's not giving the VIP badges over to the Kremers to fuck them over, that's her language, because Kylie Kremer is the worst human being she's ever interacted with, ever, and that—she also says that Kylie is so stupid that she actually fought to make her organization the one on the, like, headlines, which is just a liability nightmare, right.
She's like, I don't—these people are having, like, blowups over something no one else wants anyway. And she tells me that—so she tells me about the money. She tells me about the badges. She tells me about parking the money at the different organizations. And she gives me a couple of badges for Jen and I.
And I immediately—and I believe I included these, so it's one of these text threads that might not make sense if you just read it outright, but I text the pastors late at night, because I had made an appeal to her to make sure that like the—make sure the pastors got in without trouble.
I was still processing, like, everything I had heard from her at that point. But I remember when I told Jen about it, like immediately afterwards, I remember telling her how sad these people are to think that in one conversation you would be able to separate me from people I've been working with from a decade with anything you say.
And I had made—so I made it my mission to make sure that all our VIPs got in. So the next morning I got up—like I basically didn't sleep at all.
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Q Can I ask you one question?
A Yes.
[Discussion off the record.]
The Witness. Oh, super important, yep.
The other thing that stood out, and I'll never forget because it was just so ridiculous. She said that the reason—she goes, you want to know why I've advocated so hard for Alex Jones and Ali? And I said, sure.
And she said that whenever she calls them or talks to them, their focus is just on the mission, and they are just so selfless, like they really just{[--}}it's always, how can we help, what can we do for the—what can we do to help President Trump. And it just—having watched Ali's Periscopes and, right, had the interactions we had, it was just so ridiculous on its face. I remember like struggling to keep a straight face when she said it to me.
And so the next morning—
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Q So let me, before we move away—
A Sure.
Q —while we're talking about this conversation, let me clarify a few things. This is at the Willard Hotel?
A Correct.
Q On the night of January 5th?
A Correct.
Q That's after the end of the Freedom Plaza rally?
A Yes.
Q Who else is there with you?
A Alexandra Preate.
Q And did she hear all of the same things that Caroline told you?
A I believe so, yes. I mean, they had a big suite. It was—right, it was almost—maybe even the same layout that we had. I think we were in the Jefferson suite, right. It's big. It had two big rooms and a big dining room, and they were kind of moving in and out. I remember Alexandra had a conversation with her dad about like political strategy and what was happening for a little bit. So I don't know for sure that she heard all of it, but I think she was present for almost all of it.
Q Did Caroline tell you anything about her contacts or ability to sort of have persuasion with the White House?
A Well, I knew beforehand, I knew Caroline as, like, Kimberly Guilfoyle's, like, fundraising girl. And so, I kind of—she didn't say it because people who do high-dollar fundraising like that really hoard their like contacts closely. But she was very specific about how much she raised, where she sent it, and what it—like that she—that was the money used to pay for everything at the Ellipse event.
Q In your professional experience, is it common for fundraisers to, in your words, park money at different organizations?
A There is. In the 501(c)4 world, there are these organizations that because of the idiotic way our nonprofit laws are designed, my personal opinion, the (c)4 groups are 51/49, so 51 percent have to be nonpolitical but 49 percent can be political, and you don't have to report the donors in the (c)4 structure.
So if you have a big donor who is willing to write you a big political check, you have to have a robust enough percentage, right, to still be 51/49, to stay within the legally mandated, like, percentages of activity. I think I described that pretty well, actually.
So there is, on the shadier side of stuff, right, an understanding that there are certain groups that if you have a big political donor who wants to remain anonymous, that, like, they have the extra space to take that money in and spend it politically without it exposing the donor.
Q And you said those three organizations were—
A RGA, Republican Governors Association; Turning Point USA; and Tea Party Express.
Q Did she mention anything about the Republican Attorneys General Association?
A I actually may be wrong with the RGA. Maybe it was the—I actually think you're right, actually. I'm sorry. It was RAG—the acronyms get mixed sometimes. I think it was the Republican Attorneys General. I think I got mixed up with the Republican Governors Association.
Q So the organizations that Caroline Wren told you she parked the $3 million with was the Republican Attorneys General Association, Turning Point USA, and the Tea Party Express?
A A I can say with 100 percent confidence TPUSA and Tea Party Express. It could've been RGA or, right, attorneys general, but it was something "R."
Q And that was, by Caroline's own telling, all the money that was being used, or all of that money was going to pay for the Ellipse rally?
A So she didn't say all of the money is being—but that she was paying for everything at the Ellipse rally with that money, that she had raised all the money to cover everything that happened at the Ellipse.
Q And so that raises another question about the—I'm blanking—appeasement setup. You had mentioned this morning that the conflict between the different groups, sort of Women for America First on one side, and you actually mentioned Caroline Wren as being on the other side. But Ali Alexander and Alex Jones and Roger Stone only speak at the appeasement event despite Caroline Wren having bragged about paying for all of the Ellipse event.
A And Amy and Kylie end up speaking, which I—she also was very not happy about, like clearly had fought all the way up until, like, that night right before. And I really do remember just thinking, like, did you really think that like the President of the United States was going to share a stage with, like, I think I call them clown show and side show, and, like, I mean, there's lots of texts of us like just mocking them outright. It seemed inconceivable, like just inconceivable.
And so it just—I've theorized—like, I've spent a lot of time thinking and theorizing about what that might be, right, like how that played out. My initial assumption was that they were just being full of it, like that they were just lying about having these connections and talking to people, right, or they were talking to somebody who talked to somebody and somebody.
But the Matt Boyle article, which I believe was like January 3rd or 4th, was the first time that like, I kind of saw those cracks. But we had been hearing back about this internal conflict between basically one side led by Katrina, and one side led by Caroline about what the program and the setup for January 6th would look like.
Q And then how, if at all, did the concerns that you and Amy Kremer and others on the bus tour had about who Ali and Alex Jones were, and what they advocated for play into this conflict that Caroline Wren was on one side of?
A I mean, it was central, right, which is we were incredulous that we were even still having this discussion. Then reluctantly, we, like, were helping put together primarily through the pastors, but like, first, I'm helping the pastors negotiate, like their agreement with Ali and Cindy, and Cindy's trying to charge like what I know to be outrageously marked-up prices for vendors and other stuff, right.
So I'm already really, really not happy. And there's a thread that has started, and I don't think I even text in it once. Like they put me on it, so I'm aware of like what's happening, but like, frankly, I was less than pleased like to be stuck on that duty and was continuing to be assured that, like, we would have a prominent role on the 6th.
And that conflict, I steer it back to that moment when Cindy had the permits in her name, and what I have theorized, and I don't know for sure, but I've always thought that somehow an—like they were promised in return for coming up with the donor or the money, and that once we got the permits back, that put them in a tough spot where they probably promised Ali and Alex prominent roles that they weren't going to be able to deliver on.
That was—and, again, that's just me theorizing and kind of what I was thinking at the time.
Q So let me ask a specific question then. Earlier today, you talked about raising concerns to the White House about the potential for—
A Problems.
Q —problems, violence.
A Yep.
Q And what you said this morning was that it was your understanding, or you were led to believe, Amy Kremer was taking those concerns to Mark Meadows?
A Yes, among others, but that was—when we talked about it, we saw taking this kind of thing to the White House Chief of Staff as like a serious, like we're only going to call in that card if we absolutely have to, but it's reached that point now.
Q So are those communications separate from the communications that have been reported on about Katrina Pierson going to the White House to help resolve conflicts over speakers?
A Yes. So the decision to take it to Meadows and others was because we were frustrated with—that Katrina didn't seem to be able to settle it. And then there was also another piece, that somebody represented as Trump campaign or White House, we were told to get a second bus to—that if we got a second bus, we could park it behind the President stage, like it could be parked prominently behind the stage at the President's rally in Valdosta.
That second bus ended up costing us, my off-the-top-of-the-head number is between like $2- and $300,000 to like get it wrapped at the last minute and get it sent. And when they got there, so like Amy and Lindell and a contingent broke off. The bus, like, met them somewhere along the way. We had to get new security guys, right, like because we had double security, double driver, right, last-minute cost to wrap the bus, but if we could park it behind the President at a speech, it was probably worth it.
And they didn't end up parking within like 2 miles of the stage, like of the event. And I remember being irate about that. And it's also what led to the cash crunch that we had going into like Christmas, when we're in Vegas, and Amy comes to us and basically says, like, We don't have enough money to keep going unless we come up with something.
And at that point I approach another like digital fundraising vendor, and am able to get him to come down on his insane rates and make like a decent deal with Amy. And he proceeds—he raised something like, I want to say, $350,000 over the course of like 3 or 4 days, which allowed us to continue the tour.
Q And who is that person?
A Jack Daly.
Q So, but my question was about the line of communication to Mark Meadows about violence.
A Yeah. So we had tried with Katrina, right. So like Katrina was the primary person, because you set up, like, lines of communication so that you're not inundated—right, you want—we didn't want to come across as unprofessional where everybody is calling everybody. So it was primarily Amy, and then Amy to Katrina, and then Katrina on. And I should say, Katrina and Kylie once Kylie joins them in D.C.
When that—when we see things like the Scott Presler tweet and the Matt Couch tweet, it's clear it's like still an ongoing issue, and that's when we decide to kick it up to Meadows for optics and violence and organizationally. Like I remember specifically, those people don't have the wherewithal to, like, put something together to handle what—like the intensity or the scale of an event at the Capitol on January 6th.
Q Now, while we're talking about communications, there's been public reporting about the Kremers' use of prepaid phones, burner phones. Are you familiar with this reporting?
A I am familiar.
Q Is there any truth to that, that there was the use of these burner phones to communicate with the White House?
A I do believe that's true.
Q Did you see that happen?
A I did see the—I did—I do recall Jen asking Kylie why she had multiple phones. I do recall like—sorry. I"m just thinking about this one. There's a lot of people who get caught up in this stuff who are mostly just innocent bystanders, volunteer-type people. I know who the source of that story is.
Q I'm not asking you who the source of the story is, but—
A Yes, and I know he actually did it. Like I remember that morning, like him having to run like to the store because like we had limited vehicles, so like somebody—right, you had to run by if you were taking one of the vehicles out. I remember him going to do it and then mentioning that he'd bought three phones.
Q Do you know why they were using prepaid phones?
A No idea. I mean, the obvious answer is to, right, conceal who they were communicating with.
Q And who was using the prepaid phones?
A To my knowledge, Kylie. I didn't recall Amy having one, but I know the public reporting says that one was given to Kylie, one was given to Amy, and I don't think it's reported where the third one went.
Q The communications that you've produced to us, are any of those, to your knowledge, with any—the Kremers using a burner phone?
A No, not—I never had the burner phone numbers, called them on it and, to my knowledge, never used it for calling or anything else.
Q So you don't even know the phone numbers that are associated with those burner phones?
A I do not, no.
Q Do you know about what—when those burner phones were purchased?
A I—off the top of my head I don't, but I do know how to get—I know that they were purchased from a, either a CVS, or a Walgreens in California, specifically—it might be—I can't remember—Santa Monica or wherever we stayed that night, and, like, approximately like when they were bought.
Sorry, when was that?
The Witness. I'd have to look specifically, but it was—
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Q As part of the bus tour—
A —as part of the bus tour when we were starting out in California. So I think it was actually the first night in California, so it would be the next morning when we woke up is when we took one of the SUVs to go make that run for that.
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Q And what month would this have been?
A This would be December.
Q Okay. And is it your understanding Kylie or Amy directed someone to go get these phones?
A I don't know, but the way it's been represented to me is that they directed this person to go get them.
Q All right. And who made this representation to you?
A The person who purchased them.
Q Okay. And you don't want to reveal who that person is?
A I mean, I imagine you guys are going to get to it at some point anyway. I'd like to clear it with him, like—he—it's Scott Johnston.
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Q And you mentioned that Mr. Johnston was someone who had volunteered as a car driver on the trip?
A Well, so he had volunteered—he'd been a volunteer of Jen's and I for like political stuff going way back. And we invited him, at first, just to come out when we needed extra hands. He was initially to be, like, my personal assistant that handled my incoming messages. He quickly was reassigned to like basically driving Kylie around and helping her.
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Q Just a follow-up on something you said earlier. You were talking about your conversation with Ms. Wren at the Willard, and it seemed to me that you were surprised that she had raised all this money, or she was representing that she raised $3 million for the Ellipse rally because you'd been working really hard to do your own fundraising, because you understood Women for America First was in a cash crunch.
Do you have an understanding where that money for Women for America First was going if it wasn't going to the Ellipse rally, or did you think Ms. Wren was just lying that only her money was being used for the rally?
A I wasn't sure. At that point, my frustrations with Kylie Kremer especially, like, had kind of reached a close to fever pitch anyway. So I was somewhat inclined to believe, like, that something was happening there, but I wasn't sure.
And my biggest frustration was that in the cash crunch, like, I had agreed to take less money, and I had also incurred extra—like, I had started paying extra expenses, picking up nights at the hotel and other things out of the money that I was under no obligation to, because of that cash crunch. So I do remember being upset at the idea that none of that money had spent for the rally at the Ellipse.
Q You've mentioned the name Mercedes Schlapp a few times today. Can you just clarify her involvement in the January 6th rally or, I guess, the bus tour?
A I don't know—I honestly don't know if she had any involvement or how much involvement. I just know that she was a—somebody that Amy knew in Trump's immediate orbit and had like communicated regularly with not just in this but in other matters.
Q And is she, Ms. Schlapp, one of the people you said that you or Ms. Kremer reached out to with concerns?
A I don't know that Amy reached out to—but I remember when we were sitting there talking about, like, who we could go to, Meadows was the obvious choice, but Mercedes was another person whose name we brought up that she might contact and reach out to.
Q And were there any others who were potential people to reach out to—
A The Trump family.
Q So that would be Donald, Jr.—
A Laura Trump specifically, I think Amy had the closest relationship with. As far as the Trump family goes, it would be Laura. I also think she was in contact with Don, Jr. But yeah, I'm not 100 percent sure, just the family is kind of how we brought it up, like kick this to whoever we've got to kick it to.
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Q Do you know if Ms. Kremer raised the concern about Ali and Alex Jones and their group to Mercedes Schlapp?
A I don't know to Mercedes. I don't know specifically. All I have is that the text message after the conversation where we decide to kick it up the food chain where she says that the White House and the campaign are aware of the situation with Ali and Cindy.
And it's also around the time that I'm helping the pastors negotiate the, quote/unquote, "appeasement rally" because that's—the introduction on that text starts with Pastor Gibson, somebody has to—like I can't remember exactly what it says, but basically, like, tell Pastor Gibson to be careful who he talks to or whatever.
I have reached the campaign and the White House, and she's very specific that both are aware of the situation with Ali and Cindy. And my take on it was, she had kicked it up the food chain like we talked about, and it was handled, and I moved on to dealing with other concerns.
Q We've been going now since lunch for about 2 hours. Are you good? Do you want to take a break?
A Let's keep—I'd rather keep knocking it out.
Q Sure, let's keep going.
So why don't we—I understand from having read the text messages that you've provided to us and your testimony today, I understand in general terms this appeasement rally to have been an opportunity for some of the people with viewpoints you disagree—or messaging tactics you disagreed with, to share a space with other folks, the pastors, and yours, and some other folks like you had mentioned.
Is there anything we haven't covered about the January 5th event that you think stands out and is important for us to understand?
A There is two separate incidents that, in hindsight, seem more important than we realized. At one point during the day we get a call from the press pen that there is—this is as it's described to us—that there is a journalist here, like a credentialed journalist here who has brought antifa as their security and are provoking the crowd and somebody needs to come take care of it right away.
And Jen and a couple of the security guys go and take some pictures of the guys and kind of clear it out, and it kind of goes away a little bit.
Later in the evening, during the Alex—like the final Cindy Chafian portion of the day, Grace Saldana from Right Side Broadcasting calls Jen in tears, like literally crying that the same guy and same people are causing problems, have pushed their cameras over and it's getting really intense.
And so we grab—this time Jen and I grab Greg Kurbatoff, I think Jerry Anders, and I think two other security guys, and head to, like, see what happened. When we get there, there is a cameraman who is credentialed as NBC, who has clearly stirred some stuff up because the—there are members of the crowd like screaming at him, like, right, like really, really intense situation.
Jen and I go into the press pen where his camera is. We pull him aside. We tell him to pack his shit up and, right, like now. And I remember thinking, wow, the crowd is going to tear this guy apart. And he's packing up like as quickly as he can. I think even he got nervous at that point.
It also becomes clear that he's not really NBC News, right. So having extensive relationships with the media, Jen and I start asking questions about who his producer is, like who he works with, what branch he's in, blah, blah, blah. He can't provide any of that or a business card or anything else. And clearly had provoked or tried to provoke the crowd into doing something untoward.
And we ended up using security to escort, like, to walk him probably close to a mile away from the event at Freedom Plaza until we were sure that no one was following him and he could leave safely.
Subsequently in videos, we have seen some of the same characters we encountered there at the Capitol on January 6th, and this is just in the videos. Like to be clear, like we didn't see this in person, but we did recognize some of the same people that we dealt with in that incident around the press pen at the Capitol in some of those videos.
Q Okay. Any—were you there for when Ali Alexander spoke at Freedom Plaza?
A I was not there. Well, I should clarify, I was in the Willard. I got the call from Grace. I'm not sure who was speaking. The only interaction I had with Ali on the 5th is that the pastors ran, I think, 5 minutes long, and they were doing like their—they wanted a couple extra minutes to finish their program.
And me and Pastor Gibson approached Ali to make sure that, like, Hey, we're running a couple minutes long, we don't want it to be an issue. Are you okay with this? And that was the one interaction I had with him.
Q So then tell us what your experience was on January 6th. Walk us through your day.
A So I'm up almost all night. There's an issue. We had moved to set up a stage at the Supreme Court, like we'd be prepared there. There was some kind of issue setting up there. I don't even remember really what it was. Then I had the late-night meeting with Caroline, which, right, took us late into the hours. Then I was freaked out about getting the VIPs in.
So the morning I get ready, I go downstairs. Our VIPs are kind of collected there outside the Willard. And it is a logistical mess to try to get to the gates properly. And so, I spend most of the morning running people back and forth individually and getting them through the line into security, and I'm literally the last of our VIP group into the Ellipse.
Q Did you tell anybody else with Women for America First about the conversation you had with Caroline?
A Yeah, I ended up telling everybody. That's why I told Amy, Kylie about it. I told Jen. I told—I probably told Keri and Scott. Like it—it was so shocking to me that, yeah, I made no secret about it.
Q Okay.
A Then, so I'm getting the VIPs in. I finally come in. It is really cold. And I remember sitting there, and I walked around, talked to the other VIPs, took some pictures, and then I sat in my chair and I actually nodded off briefly. They kept playing the same annoying song, like three songs over and over and over again. And so I remember feeling like just a sense of general annoyance.
And then the program was very frustrating. To steer it back, in the middle of all this, I spent a considerable amount of time on what we call like the case that we were going to present to the world that day, and it was supposed to start with, like, a rock-solid hook of an opening statement, and what we were getting was the same general stuff that we'd been hearing.
And I remember being especially disappointed in, like the presentation from Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, in that—because I kind of expected that to be like, oh, okay, now, this is where we are going to get—right, this is where we're going to get the facts like we've been waiting for. And it was very generic, like very, very generic.
And by the time Trump gets up to speak, and it is way delayed, he's like 2 hours late, something ridiculous, he gets up and he starts speaking. And I'm really kind of getting disillusioned because his is even worse as far as like nothing new here. And I remember turning to Jen and being like, is he really giving the same speech over again? Like is that—is this really all we're getting right here?
And so we keep watching. And then we hear him say, and then we are going to walk to the Capitol. And I kind of like lost my shit, because to me, it was like a complete betrayal of everything, like the appeasement rally, all the lead-up we had put in. It meant that he had taken like the Ali/Alex side of stuff, like when I heard him say that.
And I was so angry, and Jen was so angry, right. And Jen who is Miss Trump girl, like if you look at her Instagram, like, right, she's like the Trump pinup and goes back, you know, to like 2010, 2011 with him personally. And she was calling him like motherfucker and like—I'm sorry. I'm just relaying it as I remember it. And I remember turning and being like, let's get the fuck out of here.
And so we went to secure—went to RMS. I believe Greg Kurbatoff took us in a golf cart back to the Willard. I went up to the room. I ordered room service. I ate the burger, and I went unconscious. And maybe 4:30, 5:00ish Jen wakes me up and she says, all hell has broken loose. They've overtaken the Capitol, and a bunch of people are dead.
And I just—I remember like my stomach dropping. And the first thing I did was account for every member of our staff, so, right, I individually make sure that everybody on the staff is accounted for. And then I go down to the suite where—right, the big suite, and I immediately start talking about how we denounce what's going on here, like how we provide some—that this is going to ruin us forever, that we are forever going to be tarnished by the violence that has happened here unless we scream from every mountaintop to every person who will listen that that's not us, that's not what we believe in, we can't do this.
And so—yeah, so Amy is not—right, is not happy, like, no, I think we need to—well, let's get Chris on the phone, Chris Barone, the media guy, let's get him on the phone and maybe we'll put a statement out. And I am—I'm freaked at this point. Like, I can see how this plays out for us in just our lives, right. All this great stuff we did, that we are frankly really proud of, and now we're going to be known as these violent assholes forever.
And, so, I start really, really pushing hard. And me and Jen independently start—I put some of these text threads, even though they're with journalists, in it to back up this part of the story. Like we reach out to our senior producers at CBS. We're lining up interviews. We're setting up a press conference at the Ellipse the next day. We want to do it earlier. Eventually, we keep pushing it back because she's talking to the lawyers and other people. And eventually we're told that Katrina says no press, the lawyers say no press, and the statement will just have to be enough at this point.
And I remember it was so bad I went downstairs at the Willard like smoking a cigarette and Lyndon was out there. And, right, the security guys don't get involved in like the internal stuff. And I remember, like, he came over to try to like calm me down, because I was like angrily pacing around, and he said—right, he's like you know you're right that you guys have—like you guys are in—you guys need to do this bad.
And I recruited him to come up and like try to even back me up. Like at that point I was so desperate to get across the finish line, and I continued to fight to do the press conference where we took every question from everybody, right, to make it clear, we don't know who those people are, right.
And there was an early sense from a lot of people even including Jen like, oh, this was a, you know, antifa or Black Lives Matter, we don't know any of that at this point. All we know is that this is not us, like we did the peaceful thing over here with like 1 million people. That's something completely separate and we have to do it.
And right up until—like, we are scheduled to do an interview with Tony Dokoupil at CBS at like 1:30, and then we are going to do the press conference at 3:00. Like we kept pushing the times back as kind of a —on the 7th. And word comes back that we can't do it. The lawyers are saying no. The White House is saying no. And that ends up leading to like what has been a continued falling out between us and the Kremers.
Q When you say the White House is saying no, do you mean Katrina Pierson on behalf of the White House, or is there actually direct communication from the White House?
A I remember it, and there's a—it's been a while, and it was a very emotional time. But the—there is a text, clearly it's Katrina. So I know for sure it's Katrina, and I remember being told that the White House said no press, but I did not see that reflected in the messages anywhere.
Q So as you've explained today, and I think you've been quoted in the media, your expectation was a single event that would start and stay at the Ellipse?
A Correct.
Q And when you talk about feeling betrayed when the President says to go down—that we're going to march to the Capitol, you understood that as buying into this Capitol grounds production that Ali Alexander's group wanted to put together.
A I also know—the reason I was the lead organizer on things like logistics and security at the—all of these different events, is that I understand how to manage a large crowd. And to be honest, the most effective way is through a professional sound system, and an emcee who knows what the hell they're doing, right. That's number one.
Then you have the different layers of security and on and on. I knew none of that was in place. I also knew that the permit expressly forbid an organized march to the Capitol, like expressly. And so, that was—it was[{--}}it really was like just a—like a complete deflation. Like I hadn't slept. It was cold. And I just remember like almost wanting to cry, like I was so upset about it.
Q So help me understand then this setup at the Supreme Court on January 6th, because it seems like there might be some tension between assuming it's an all-day event at the Ellipse, and at the same time—and there's even—we can look at exhibit 9, at page 23. This is the March For Trump II text thread. And you're writing on, and I can—we can flip back a page or two and see that this is on January 6th, "My Supreme Court volunteers from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. appear to have bailed on me. I don't know what to do but go myself." So what was this idea of having a stage or something set up at the Supreme Court on January 6th?
A Well, and I also advocated by the way, I really wanted to have a stage at the Capitol as well, because, right, my assumption of what was going to happen that day, what I understand procedurally, was that the main action was going to be at the Capitol and at the Ellipse.
There was also a possibility that some issue had to be resolved by the Supreme Court. And if a large crowd was going to move to the Supreme Court, I wanted to make sure that we had a stage available there to like manage that.
And in the same way that the Capitol got overrun that day because there wasn't these procedures in place, there wasn't a stage, there wasn't a sound system, there wasn't security, if on the off chance that something got kicked to the Supreme Court and that was where, like the crowd had to move for some reason, I wanted to make sure that there was something in place there to kind of maintain order, and also as a secondary backup if we needed a venue for people who got denied last-minute speaking at the Ellipse rally.
Q So when you say something gets kicked to the Supreme Court, do you mean like actually in the vain of like a legal objection that the court would have to resolve?
A Yeah, so if—an example, as it was brought up, is that somehow, one of the States tries to certify an alternate slate of electors and, right, there's some kind of—it's not out of the question that the Supreme Court could be asked to resolve one of those issues. And in that scenario, the assumption would be that there would be people moving to there.
I'd also advocated fiercely for us to set up a similar setup at the Capitol, so that it would be in place if that happened. And so, the Supreme Court stage, they're, A, we never end up using it for anything for obvious reasons, but it was kind of a backup plan for both if something happened there and if we needed a secondary stage for people who got denied speaking at the Ellipse anyway; and two, one of the things in the Bonnie and Clyde article that was most important to me when I read it and that I hadn't realized is that I had told David Friedlander on the record on the 5th that the plan was to stay at the Ellipse all day on the 6th.
And because I understand, less with the Supreme Court but more with the Capitol, that as things played out that it's somewhat—it comes across as somewhat incredulous that that's what we believed, especially because the President ended up directing people away from what we thought was going to happen.
Q So, but it sounds like what you're saying is this idea of having a stage at the Supreme Court was a contingency?
A It was, yes.
Q It was not, in your view, an actual for-sure event that was going to happen.
A Correct.
Q Okay. Pastor Brian responded to this, he said, "The Viking is handling it. We got you."
A Yes.
Q Do you know what he's referring to?
A Yeah, so Pastor Jordan Kreisle, who was another one of the pastors involved, we refer to him as the Viking, the volunteers who were supposed to hold the stage for me from 8:00 to 10:00 had not showed. I was going to go to it myself, and Pastor Kreisle volunteered to take a couple of people they knew to go handle it for me.
Q Okay. And then he says, "Don't let him do it," and Pastor Brian says, "Not him. One of out of guys that came to serve."
A Correct. So Pastor Jordan was kind of like—he was a regular part, he had done a lot of work. I didn't want to see—I didn't want him to miss out on the event at the Ellipse, and so, when I say don't let him do it, I'm saying don't make the pastor—the Viking pastor, as we friendly refer to him, don't let him do it because like he's earned being at the event at the Ellipse. And Pastor Gibson says, no, I'm not going to send him specifically, but like some of his under guys to go make sure that they hold the stage down from that 8:00 to 10:00 period. And then after 10:00, that's when we have professional security show up there.
Q So further down on this same page, on exhibit 9, page 23, Keri Morgan Warner texts, "Ali trying to rearrange our Women for America seats." And then your response is, "Stop that shit. Is Amy at the stage?!?" Did you witness this kerfuffle over the seating at the Ellipse rally?
A I did not because I was still sherpa'ing VIPs like between the Willard and the entrance, but I was getting regular communication—the people who did witness it were Keri and Jen and Jennifer Hulsey and Greg Kurbatoff, and I think maybe Lyndon or Zack, I can't remember, but one of the two leadership guys at RMS.
Q And it's also my understanding that there was a pretty pointed conflict between Caroline Wren and Kylie that morning. Were you there for that?
A I was at the Ellipse. I did not witness it, but there is—I can't remember in which one of these it's in, but there is—where Kylie tells me that I believe her and Katrina called like to have Caroline arrested. It reached like that level of whatever. So that definitely was.
And then I do remember saying, like, I can't remember which agency they were with. Bud I do remember law enforcement like going up to Caroline and having a discussion, and then I think they went over and talked to Katrina, and then they kind of just left.
Q Did Caroline Wren talk to you at all about events happening on the Capitol Grounds on January 6th?
A No. So all she told me was that she had—she had—that she had—that she was—and she didn't—she said it by saying the reason I've—do you want to know why I advocated so hard for Ali and Alex? And that was kind of the extent of it. She did not mention like the march or anything at the Capitol other than the Ellipse rally and then just really bashing the Kremers to me.
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Q I want to go back a little bit ago when you were talking about what Ms. Wren said to you about why she liked Mr. Jones and Ali Alexander, and I think you said something to the effect of like they believed the mission or something like that. What was your understanding of the mission?
A As she put it, every time I call them, just—I remember it pretty vividly, because it was so ridiculous, but every time I call them, it's what can we do to help, what can we do for President Trump, like how can advance the mission. And the Kremers are just all about self-promotion, and she's not wrong necessarily about like one side of that. But trying to pass off that a person who I think has a messiah complex is like the most selfless person like going, like just rang as so ridiculously un-genuine that it was somewhat hard to believe.
Q So the mission being, like, whatever it takes to promote Trump?
A Yeah.
Q Okay.
A I mean, I didn't really delve into it.
Q When you mentioned you were sherpa'ing, in your words, between, I think, the Willard and the Ellipse on January 6th, were you taking folks in the golf carts or were you walking back and forth?
A Initially, we were in the golf carts. Eventually, one of the golf carts basically got swallowed by the crowd and we—like we took the key and abandoned it temporarily and kind of brought people in one by one from that point on.
Q We've seen videos of folks associated with Ms. Chafian and on golf carts. Do you know, were those your golf carts or someone else's golf carts?
A Cindy had always been the point of contact like with the golf carts. And, in fact, on January 5th, I had to—we needed Cindy to sign off on allowing the bus into the perimeter. And she had kind of been, like because of the conflict with the Kremers, like had initially denied letting the bus like get into the perimeter to come park at the Willard. And so, I had to personally go up to, like, their suite and ask her to please, like please, just let the fucking bus in, like please.
And she did do that, and she also offered me a golf cart that I ended up not using. She ends up—there's a later thread where she asked me about the keys. I tell her I never ended up taking it. But we definitely had our own golf carts that day and she also had some.