Jan. 6 Committee Invites Wingnut/Felon Organizers In For Little Chat. Attendance Non-Optional.

Pony up, assholes.

It will never not be weird that Republican politicians pal around with the most disreputable goons in the country. The GOP is screaming bloody murder about critical race theory and pretending that teachers unions are the second coming of Stalin, and meanwhile they're hanging around with Alex Jones and bringing guys like Chuck Johnson to the State of the Union address. But now it looks like those chickens may be coming home to roost, with the January 6 Select Committee issuing subpoenas to rightwing rabble rouser Ali Alexander, his sidekick Nathan Martin, and their company Stop the Steal LLC, through which they organized events leading up to the January 6 Insurrection.

Alexander, a convicted felon and prolific MAGA grifter , has long been a fixture in Trumpworld, even earning an invitation to the White House in 2019 for a "social media summit." He has a long history of spouting violent rhetoric, including telling a supporter of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, "I would *literally* put you down if you came near me, Marxist. I would call 911 to come retrieve your body. Have a Good Friday!" But this is hardly disqualifying in GOP circles, and so it's no surprise that Alexander appears to have played a central role in organizing the rally that led up to the riot.

He's taken down this video in which he claimed to have planned the event in concert with Reps. Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, and Andy Biggs to put "maximum pressure" on Congress not to certify Joe Biden's Electoral College win — "we four schemed up putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting." But the internet is forever.

Here's that nice young man at the January 5 rally where the White House parked Alexander, Jones, and the rest of the weirdos too dodgy to share the stage with Trump and Giuliani on the Big Day, leading the crowd in a chant of "Victory or death."

Looking over the violence on January 6, Alexander posted a video to social media saying, "I don't disavow this, I do not denounce this." But afterward he retreated into "hiding," demanding his supporters kick up $2,000 per day for "security" to protect him because "Witches and wiccans are putting hexes and curses on us." Also Antifa, obvs.

By February, he was back to his old tricks posting on social media "There are 3 outcomes before us: 1. Civil War 2. Civil War 3. Concession. And we ain't getting a concession."

Yesterday Alexander and his buddy Nathan Martin got love notes from the January 6 Select Committee demanding documents and the pleasure of their company on October 29. As BuzzFeed's FOIA warrior Jason Leopold was first to report , Capitol Police strongly suspected that an organization calling itself "One Nation Under God" was a sock puppet for Alexander's "Stop the Steal" outfit, filing duplicative permit requests in an attempt to evade capacity restrictions.

"The speakers that will be speaking at both Stop the Steal and One Nation under God has Ali Alexander and CJ Pearson to name a few," an officer wrote in a December 31, 2020, email. "I explained that it appears that Stop the Steal and the One Nation under God is one in the same due to the similarities and the affiliation with Ali Alexander. I advised Mr. Brown of my concerns of not being able to regulate their numbers to 50 persons or less. I explained that once information is on social media it is hard to regulate the number of participants. If his event is in fact one and the same Capitol Police will not be able to accommodate his event due to the participant numbers being out of regulations and a public safety issue."

Spoiler Alert:  Yeah, all of that. 

And it appears from yesterday's press release announcing the subpoenas that the Select Committee has homed in on just this discrepancy:

Nathan Martin's phone number and email address were listed among the contact information for "One Nation Under God." A vendor who was also listed on the permit application informed Capitol Police that he was reporting to Ali Alexander and Mr. Martin and identified them both as being affiliated with Stop the Steal. On two of its websites, Stop the Steal advertised the Capitol rally event and sought donations to offset expenses for January 6th.

However, the permit application did not disclose any connection between Stop the Steal and the Capitol rally event. Further, when a Capitol Police official spoke with Mr. Martin at the end of December 2020, Mr. Martin claimed not to have any information about the rally and directed the official to speak with the vendor. According to the police official, the vendor was "shocked" to learn this because he was in "daily communication" with Mr. Martin about the event.

On Telegram, Ali is whining that "FBI failures, agitators dressed in militant outfits, and police brutality which escalated into a manufactured 'riot' disrupted our two legally permitted peaceful rallies."

Yes, yes, the FBI and agitators and the police did 1/6. Third verse, same as the first! 

"There is no place for vandalism or violence in our Stop the Steal movement. I made that clear in countless speeches. I am being targeted because I am a Black patriotic man peacefully agitating an insecure government," he complained last night. (Boy will he be surprised to meet Committee Chair Bennie Thompson.)

So, they should have lots to talk about on October 29. And while they're at it, the Committee can ask Alexander and Martin about their contacts with the White House and Reps. Gosar, Biggs, and Brooks, the latter two of whom insist they never had anything to do with these guys.

As someone once said , "Be there. Will be wild!"

[ Select Committee Press Release / BuzzFeed / Politico ]

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