The effect of then-President Donald Trump's posting one of his many baseless claims about the presidential election on Twitter, alleging that it was "statistically impossible" for him to have lost to Joe Biden and alerting his supporters to a Washington protest -- as well as other messages from Trump and his allies -- will be explored this week as the committee resumes its public hearings. Today's session will focus on Trump's connections to those far-right and political extremist groups.
"People are going to hear the story of that tweet, and then the explosive effect it had in Trumpworld, and specifically among the domestic violent extremist groups, the most dangerous political extremists in the country at that point," Rep. Jamie B. Raskin, D-Md., said on the CBS News program "Face the Nation."
Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., who is scheduled to lead Tuesday's hearing with Raskin, said on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" that the Dec. 19 tweet was a "siren call" to those groups that Jan. 6 would be a "last stand" to keep Trump in power.
Trump had already mounted a broad and ongoing pressure campaign -- on Vice President Mike Pence, the Justice Department and state election officials -- to help overturn the election results, she added, and his tweet amounted to a call for those violent groups to provide "additional support" leading up to Jan. 6.
The hearing today will be the committee's first since Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, g testified about Trump's rage and inaction on the day of the Capitol attack. Hutchinson testified on June 29 that Trump knew that some of his supporters were armed but urged them to march on the Capitol anyway, and that Trump had told Meadows to talk to some of his aides who had relationships with far-right militia groups.
Neither federal prosecutors nor House investigators have alleged that anyone in the Trump White House was in communication with extremist groups in the run-up to Jan. 6.
But at least two men close to Trump -- longtime friend Roger Stone and his former national security adviser Michael Flynn -- have known contacts with far-right groups and extremists who, in some cases, are alleged to have been involved in Jan. 6.
In posts on the social media platform Telegram after the hearing, Stone denied ever speaking to Meadows on the phone. When asked by The Associated Press for comment about such a call, Flynn's brother replied in an email that the Jan. 6 hearing "is a clown show."
Neither Stone nor Flynn has been charged in connection to the Capitol riot, and both of them have invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before the House committee. Trump pardoned each of them after they were convicted by jurors or pleaded guilty in cases unrelated to Jan. 6.
During events in Washington before the riot, Stone used members of the Oath Keepers -- a far-right militia group that recruits current and former military, first responders and law enforcement -- as security guards.
Photos and video on Jan. 5 and 6 show Stone flanked by people dressed in Oath Keepers gear. Among them was Joshua James, then the leader of the group's Alabama chapter, who has pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and is cooperating with authorities investigating the insurrection.
Stone, an informal Trump adviser, has denied having any knowledge of or involvement in anything illegal on Jan. 6.
"The Oath Keepers provided security for me on the voluntary basis on January 5. Nothing more nothing less," he wrote recently on Telegram.
Stone has also not been shy about a close association with Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chairman who is scheduled to stand trial in December on sedition charges alongside other members of the extremist group that refers to itself as a politically incorrect men's club for "Western chauvinists."
Flynn also had contact with some far-right groups before Jan. 6. In the weeks after the election, Flynn became a leading figure in the campaign to sow doubt about the results and urge Trump to take extraordinary measures to stay in power.
Flynn called Trump's loss a "coup in progress," and publicly suggested Trump should seize voting machines and floated the idea of martial law. He and several allies ultimately brought those ideas directly to Trump in an Oval Office meeting that December. Flynn was also a featured speaker at a large rally in Washington on Dec. 12, 2020, backing Trump's desperate efforts to subvert his election loss.
In text messages later filed in court, Rhodes -- the Oath Keepers leader -- and other members discussed how members of the group had worked with another far-right group, 1st Amendment Praetorians, or 1AP, to provide personal security to Flynn that day. A photograph taken by UPI shows Flynn leaving the rally with Rhodes and at least one member of 1AP.
The House committee has subpoenaed 1AP Founder Robert Patrick Lewis, noting in a letter to Lewis that he claimed to coordinate regularly with Flynn and also claimed to be in contact with Rhodes prior to Jan. 6.
Lewis, who has not been charged in the Jan. 6 riot, has said the group was made up of military and law enforcement veterans, and provided pro bono security and intelligence in the months after the election. In a recent defamation lawsuit, Lewis and another member of 1AP, Philip Luelsdorff, have denied involvement with the planning or execution of the Capitol attack, and said that 1AP has never been a militia or paramilitary group.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said Sunday it would be "a logical conclusion" that Trump was aware the mob that day included members of those violent extremist groups.
"We are going to be connecting the dots during these hearings between these groups and those who are trying in government circles to overturn the election," Lofgren said on CNN's "State of the Union." "So we do think that this story is unfolding in a way that is very serious and quite credible."
Raskin, Murphy and Lofgren all indicated that testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone would be played during the hearing. In a closed-door hearing on Friday, Cipollone testified before the committee for eight hours, providing information that "corroborated key elements of Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony," committee spokesman Tim Mulvey said in a statement Sunday.
Hutchinson had testified that Cipollone sought to prevent Trump from traveling to the Capitol on Jan. 6 with his supporters, fearing criminal liability and telling her "something to the effect of: 'Please make sure we don't go up to the Capitol, Cassidy. Keep in touch with me. We're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.'"
There was a lot of information from Cipollone's testimony that "fit into this bigger puzzle" that the committee is assembling, Murphy said Sunday.
"The overall message that we have been gathering out of all of these witnesses is that the president knew he had lost the election, or that his advisers had told him he had lost the election, and that he was casting about for ways in which he could retain power and remain the president, despite the fact that the democratic will of the American people was to have President Biden be the next elected," she said.
The next hearing will also focus on "the fundamental importance" of a Dec. 18, 2020, meeting of Trump allies that took place at the Willard hotel in downtown Washington, according to Raskin.
During that meeting, a group of outside lawyers that included Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani -- dubbed "Team Crazy" by some in the Trump White House -- discussed efforts to try to overturn the election results. Potential steps included seizing voting machines around the country, Raskin told "Face the Nation."
"But against this 'Team Crazy' were an inside group of lawyers who essentially wanted (Trump) at that point to acknowledge that he had lost the election, and were far more willing to accept the reality of his defeat at that point," Raskin said.
Twitter banned Trump from its platform after the Capitol attack, citing the risk of further violence.
Information for this article was contributed by Jacqueline Alemany and Isaac Stanley-Becker of The Washington Post, as well as Alana Durkin Richer, Michelle R. Smith, Michael Kunzelman and Eric Tucker of The Associated Press.