The Republican Attorneys General Association was involved, as were the activist groups Turning Point Action and Tea Party Patriots.
At least six current or former members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), an influential group that for decades has served as a hub for conservative and Christian activists, also played roles in promoting the rallies.
The two days of rallies were staged not by white nationalists and other extremists, but by well-funded nonprofit groups and individuals that figure prominently in the machinery of conservative activism in Washington.
Before the rallies, some used extreme rhetoric, including references to the American Revolution, and made false claims about the election to rouse supporters to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s victory Unless Congress responds to the protests, “everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building,” tweeted Ali Alexander, a former CNP fellow who organized the “Stop the Steal” movement. “1776 is *always* an option.”
On Jan. 5, at Freedom Plaza in D.C., Alexander led protesters in a chant of “Victory or death.”
Members of Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally.
A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, a federally owned patch of land near the White House. But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign.
In a statement, the president’s reelection campaign said it “did not organize, operate or finance the event.” It said that if any former employees or independent contractors for the campaign took part, “they did not do so at the direction of the Trump campaign.”
At least one was working for the Trump campaign this month. Megan Powers was listed as one of two operations managers for the Jan. 6 event, and her LinkedIn profile says she was the Trump campaign’s director of operations into January 2021. She did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Caroline Wren, a veteran GOP fundraiser, is named as a “VIP Advisor” on an attachment to the permit that Women for America First provided to the agency.
Between mid-March and mid-November, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. paid Wren $20,000 a month, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Wren was involved in at least one call before the pro-Trump rally with members of several groups listed as rally participants to organize credentials for VIP attendees, according to Kimberly Fletcher, the president of one of those groups, Moms for America.
Wren retweeted a message from “Stop the Steal,” another group identified as a rally participant on a website promoting the event.
The Jan. 2 message thanked Republican senators who said they would vote to overturn Biden’s election victory.
Maggie Mulvaney, a niece of former top Trump aide Mick Mulvaney, is listed on the permit attachment as the “VIP Lead.” She worked as director of finance operations for the Trump campaign, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The AP reviewed social media posts, voter registrations, court files and other public records that found the crowd was overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump supporters, including Republican Party officials, GOP political donors, farright militants, white supremacists, off-duty police, members of the military and adherents of the QAnon myth that the government is secretly controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile cannibals.
A website, Marchto SaveAmerica.com, sprung up to promote the pro- Trump events and alerted followers, “At 1 PM, we protest at US Capitol.” The website has been deactivated.
Another website, Trump- March.com shows a fistraised Trump pictured on the front of a red, white and blue tour bus emblazoned with the words, “Powered by Women for America First.”
Justin Caporale is listed on the Women for America First paperwork as the event’s project manager. He’s identified as a partner with Event Strategies Inc., a management and production company. Caporale, formerly a top aide to first lady Melania Trump, was on the Trump campaign payroll for most of 2020, according to the FEC records, and he most recently was being paid $7,500 every two weeks. Caporale didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Tim Unes, the founder and president of Event Strategies, was the “stage manager” for the Jan. 6 rally, according to the permit paperwork.
Unes has longstanding ties to Trump, a connection he highlights on his company’s website.
Trump’s presidential campaign paid Event Strategies $1.3 million in 2020 for “audio visual services,” according to the campaign finance records. The company declined to comment for this story.
On Jan. 5, the attorneys general group, which is based in Washington, used an affiliated nonprofit called the Rule of Law Defense Fund to pay for a robocall that urged supporters to march on the Capitol at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6 to “call on Congress to stop the steal.”
A recording of the robocall was first obtained by Documented, a left-leaning watchdog group.
“We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue the fight,” a recording of the call says.
On Monday, as criticism of the robocall mounted, RAGA Executive Director Adam Piper resigned. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Tea Party Patriots leader Jenny Beth Martin also condemned the violence and said in a statement to The Post that her group provided no financial support for the rally. “We are shocked, outraged, and saddened at the turn of events Wednesday afternoon,” Martin’s statement said. “We are heartbroken.”
Martin, also an executive committee member at CNP, was listed in promotional material as a rally speaker, though she did not ultimately speak. The Tea Party Patriots were listed as a “coalition partner” with Alexander’s Stop the Steal, RAGA and other groups.
Charlie Kirk, the leader of Turning Point USA, an organizer of conservative students, and Turning Point Action, its activist arm, also condemned the violence and called Jan. 6 “a really sad day for America,” according to a spokesman.
Before the rally, Kirk — a featured speaker at CNP meetings over the past two years and at the Republican National Convention in August — offered to pay for buses and hotel rooms for protesters.
That tweet has been deleted. In a video posted in late December, Alexander claimed he worked with three lawmakers — Reps.
Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.; Mo Brooks, R-Ala.; and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. — on an unspecified plan to disrupt election ratification deliberations at the Capitol.
“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Alexander said in a since-deleted video on Periscope highlighted by the Project on Government Oversight, an investigative nonprofit.
In a statement, Biggs denied meeting Alexander. Gosar did not respond to requests for comment from The Post. Brooks’ office said in a statement that he “has no recollection of ever communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is.”
Other establishment conservatives who condoned the protests include Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Thomas and listed last year as a CNP Action board member, who praised rallygoers in tweets.
“LOVE MAGA people!!!!” she tweeted early in the morning on Jan. 6. “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAY- ING.” She did not respond to requests for comment.
Since the early 1980s, CNP has served as a bridge between Washington’s establishment conservatives and scores of Christian and right-wing groups across the nation. It convenes closeddoor meetings for members and wealthy donors at least twice a year. CNP officials and their allies met weekly with White House officials under President Donald Trump, in part to coordinate public messaging about the administration’s agenda, internal videos show. Trump spoke to the group in August.
Another coalition webpage featured a 36-page election analysis by Trump adviser Peter Navarro, a speaker at CNP in May 2019. It claimed that Trump’s loss was a statistical impossibility and was due to a “whitewash” by journalists and politicians. Navarro warned about “putting into power an illegitimate and illegal president.”
He did not respond to requests for comment. One of those behind the rallies was Arina Grossu, an anti-abortion activist listed as a contract outreach coordinator for a religious freedom office at the Department of Health and Human Services, according to HHS promotional material and an agency directory.
Grossu was co-founder of Jericho March, one of the coalition partners that organized the Jan. 6 rallies. In December, her group described some protesters against the election as a “prayer army” that would take the case before “the Courts of heaven, the Supreme Court, and the court of public opinion seeking truth and justice in this election.”
Includes material from The Associated PressCourt Justice Clarence