Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., spoke on July 12 as the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack presented its findings to the public. The focus of the hearing was on extremist far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and the role they played in the Capitol insurrection.
He laid out the connections that former President Donald Trump associates like close adviser Roger Stone and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had with those far-right groups. Raskin also showed how the groups started working together to coordinate ahead of Jan. 6, 2021.
“Trump’s Dec. 19 tweet motivated these two extremist groups, which have historically not worked together to coordinate their activities,” Raskin said. “Hours after President Trump’s tweet, Kelly Meggs, the head of the Florida Oath Keepers declared an alliance among the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and the Florida Three Percenters, another militia group,” he said.
Raskin said phone records show that later the same day, Meggs called Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was later charged with seditious conspiracy after his role in Jan. 6.
“The very next day, the Proud Boys got to work. The Proud Boys launched an encrypted chat called the Ministry of Self Defense. The committee obtained hundreds of these messages, which show strategic and tactical planning about January the 6th, including maps of Washington, D.C., that pinpoint the location of police in the weeks leading up to the attack.”
Raskin said leaders of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers worked with Trump allies, like Flynn.
In the year since its creation, the committee has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, seeking critical information and documents from people witness to, or involved in, the violence that day.
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