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Two golf carts and a MAGA mystery: How much did Cindy Chafian know on Jan. 6?

This is the second part of a two-part Raw Story series exploring pro-Trump organizer Cindy Chafian’s actions before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Read Part 1 here.

Cindy Chafian, who handled permits for two pro-Trump warm-up rallies in Washington, D.C., and then hosted her own rally on the eve of President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” speech at the Ellipse, stood atop the U.S. Capitol’s inaugural grandstand the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021.

Standing beside her, Mariposa Castro, a former yoga and tea shop owner from California, excitedly addressed viewers on her Facebook livestream as rioters busted out a window to a Senate conference room.

“We’re breaking in,” she said. “We are breaking in. We’re doing this. We’re breaking in, right?”

Castro swiveled her phone to Cindy Chafian, who nodded emphatically.

“Right, we’re… this is our Capitol,” Chafian replied, appearing to endorse the breach. “We the people. We’re not taking it anymore. We’re taking our house back.”

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Chafian has claimed that she doesn’t remember saying those words, doesn’t know who Castro is, and doesn’t know anything about the video.

But a Raw Story investigation indicates that Chafian is linked to at least three people who have faced charges related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, including Castro. A fourth defendant, InfoWars host Owen Shroyer — who, like Chafian, used provocative rhetoric in the runup to Jan. 6 and went on restricted Capitol grounds — recently received a 60-day prison sentence.

Chafian, however, remains a free woman. No indictments, no charges, no imminent legal peril.

The obvious question: why?

The answer is one that’s equally uncomfortable and elusive.

‘I’m not complying’

Nine months after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the January 6th House select committee issued a subpoena to Chafian, ordering her to appear for deposition and produce documents related to the committee’s investigation.

The subpoena noted that Chafian submitted the original permit application for the Jan. 6 rally on behalf of an organization called Women for America First on the same day that President Trump tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild.”

The subpoena also noted that Chafian organized and sponsored the Rally to Revival at Freedom Plaza on the eve of Trump’s speech at the Ellipse.

Chafian failed to appear for her deposition in October 2021. Subsequently, Chafian received a letter from the committee warning her that as a consequence of noncompliance with the subpoena, she could be held in contempt of Congress.

Chafian’s response? Open defiance.

“I’m not complying,” she announced during a stop on the ReAwaken America Tour in Dallas in December 2021. “Pretty simply, there was no insurrection…. If there was, Trump would be in the White House. I’m just saying.”

Taking the stage during the event — a political rally crossed with a religious revival and conspiracy theory expo that provided a refuge for MAGA supporters during the lull between Jan. 6 and Trump’s 2024 campaign launch — Chafian seemed to relish the notoriety that the subpoena brought to her.

Chafian was one of at least five people who ignored subpoenas from the committee. Others include former White House strategist Steve Bannon, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House adviser Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino, Trump’s former social media coordinator.

Only weeks before Chafian’s appearance in Dallas, Bannon — who predicted on his podcast on the eve of the insurrection that “all hell is going to break loose” on Jan. 6 — had been indicted for contempt of Congress.

Chafian told the audience in Dallas that congressional investigators had visited her home and warned her that she could face the same fate. She said her response was a shrug.

“Let the chips fall where they may because, look, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Chafian said. “I planned an event that let people come. We, as Americans, have the right to voice our opinions. We have the right to address our government with our grievances. And that is what happened on January 5th. And that is what happened on January 6th.”

Cindy Chafian drives a golf cart through a crowd in the Pennsylvania Avenue parking lot on the way to the Capitol. YouTube screengrab courtesy MrYogiEntertainment

The committee voted to refer Bannon, Meadows, Navarro and Scavino for contempt charges.

But not Chafian.

“I would imagine it’s because in the brief conversations I had with investigators, and the little information I gave them, they figured out that I had nothing to do with any of it,” she told Raw Story.

The Department of Justice ultimately declined to bring charges for contempt of Congress against Meadows and Scavino. But Bannon and Navarro have both been found guilty of contempt on two counts — failure to appear for testimony and failure to provide records — by D.C. juries. In October 2022, Bannon was sentenced to four months in jail and ordered to pay a $6,500 fine, but his sentence has been stayed while it’s under appeal. Navarro faces up to one year in jail and is scheduled to be sentenced in January, although he plans to appeal.

Few of the organizers — those who produced and hyped the D.C. rallies, worked out logistics and lined up speakers — have been prosecuted. One exception is Shroyer, the InfoWars host, who accompanied Alex Jones and pro-Trump provocateur Ali Alexander as they made their way around the Capitol and eventually wound up ascending the steps on the east side.

Like Chafian, Shroyer did not enter the building.Nevertheless, a judge sentenced Shroyer to 60 days in prison earlier this month. Shroyer has asked the court to release him pending appeal, in a motion filed with the court on Tuesday through his lawyer, he said he will argue “that reliance on protected speech as relevant offense conduct in the context of a political rally turned riot sets a dangerous and chilling constitutional precedent.”

Prosecutors noted in Shroyer’s sentencing memorandum that before leading the crowd to the Capitol, Shroyer exhorted them with a bullhorn: “The Democrats are posing as communists, but we know what they really are: They’re just tyrants, they’re tyrants. And so today, on January 6, we declare death to tyrants. Death to tyrants!” While at the Capitol, Shroyer led a chant of “1776.”

In his motion for release pending appeal, Shroyer through his lawyer cited the 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio ruling, in which the Supreme Court ruled that “the mere abstract teaching… of the moral propriety or even necessity for a resort to force and violence, is not the same as preparing a group for violent action and telling it to take action.”

What is most unique about Shroyer among the Jan. 6 organizers, including Chafian, is that he had previously been arrested for disrupting a House Judiciary Committee meeting at the Longworth House Office Building in December 2019. As part of a deferred prosecution agreement in February 2020, Shroyer agreed to not engage in any disorderly conduct on the grounds of the Capitol.

Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, told Raw Story that Chafian’s conduct at the Capitol, where she appears to have expressed support for the breach, likely falls in a gray zone that poses prosecutors with a tricky decision.

Painter likened the conduct of people like Chafian to left-wing protesters who chanted, “Burn, baby, burn,” while a police precinct burned in Minneapolis during the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020 — somewhere between the peaceful protesters and those who set fire to the building.

Prosecutors would likely ask whether someone like Chafian was “part of a plan to obstruct a proceeding to count the electoral votes” and whether she was “engaging in conduct intended to stop the proceeding,” Painter said.

“They don’t want to push their luck with a case that’s borderline,” he said. “If they get acquittals on these — and they’ve got a good track record now — if they start striking out, that gives Donald Trump a lot of ammunition.”

From Cindy Chafian's vantage point, the government said she "would have seen and heard some of the most extreme violence of the hours-long battle between the rioters and law enforcement officers who were defending the Capitol building." Facebook livestream by Mariposa Castro, courtesy U.S. Department of Justice

In Shroyer’s case, prosecutors homed in on a statement that he made at the Jan. 5 Freedom Plaza rally that Chafian organized.

“Americans are ready to fight,” he said. “We’re not exactly sure what that’s going to look like perhaps in a couple weeks if we can’t stop this certification of the fraudulent election… we are the new revolution! We are going to restore and we are going to save the republic!”

When Chafian took the stage at her rally, she told the crowd: “Those people on that [Capitol] hill up there are going to make a decision tomorrow, and we are going to hold every single one of them accountable. We are not going back to the way it was.

“Let me just tell you: The Deep State ruled by communists and people who want to destroy this country have taken advantage of us for far too long,” she continued. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m pissed. Are y’all pissed? Are you ready to fight back? They have smacked a lion on its ass, and that lion is not backing down, are we?”

Chafian told Raw Story that government officials “are willing to arbitrarily target anyone who doesn’t abide by their agenda,” adding that “it would be naive of me to not be concerned about being a target of unjust prosecution.”

Since Jan. 6, 2021, Chafian’s political outlook appears to have significantly darkened.

Later in 2021, she organized a U.S. tour for Artur Pawlowski, a Canadian pastor who was arrested for flouting COVID-19 restrictions. Beyond championing Pawlowski’s cause, Chafian told Raw Story, she is “no longer engaged nor interested in political organizing,” adding that she is focusing “more on helping people achieve their best lives through true health and wellness.”

Chafian told Raw Story that she is “not a sycophant for any political figure,” including Trump, but she echoed the ominous themes of his 2024 campaign — Deep State corruption, weaponized justice and dark forces arrayed to destroy the country.

“I no longer have faith in our system of elections nor the belief that government cares about any citizen,” she told Raw Story in an email. “The people are nothing more than pawns in a system rigged against them.”

‘They looked like they’d gone through hell’

Jason Funes, a former Trump campaign staffer and former Department of Interior employee who helped Chafian produce the Jan. 5 rally at Freedom Plaza, had gone back to his room at the Sofitel hotel and watched events at the Capitol on Jan. 6 unfold on TV.

“I couldn’t believe what I was watching on TV,” Funes would later tell the January 6th House select committee. “It just seemed so surreal. Like, another Twilight Zone moment.”

He went over to the tony Willard Hotel, near the White House, and picked up one of the golf carts under Cindy Chafian’s control. When he arrived at the Capitol, he encountered Cindy and Scott Chafian as they were leaving.

“They looked like they had gone through hell,” Funes told the committee. “They looked like s---. I don’t know what the f--- was going on in their heads, but, like, it was f---ing weird.”

Cindy Chafian told Raw Story she was shocked that police had deployed teargas on the crowd.

“It made me sad and frustrated that the situation had devolved into such a chaotic mess,” she told Raw Story. “It was so easily preventable.”

Chafian added: “It’s the right of every free person to protest peacefully. That is what I endorse. Peaceful protest when a government disregards its own laws.”

Funes said he told the Chafians he was going to the Capitol, and they told him: “Well, just be careful, be safe.”

Funes — who to this day pushes a discredited theory that “antifa” instigators combined with deliberate indifference by law enforcement was responsible for the insurrection — narrated a video that was tweeted out by Maryam Henein, a filmmaker/journalist known for pushing COVID-19 disinformation.

With the Capitol behind him, Funes declared on Jan. 6: “We are in the middle of a militant leftist Deep State globalist operation, trying to make Trump supporters look like idiots and that we’re violent agitators, when truth in fact there are people dressed up in MAGA hats and other gear that are pretending to be MAGA supporters, and they’re instigating.”

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Not everyone on Team MAGA agreed.

“I’m completely confused,” Brandon Straka, a social media influencer who went inside the Capitol, tweeted. “For 6-8 weeks everybody on the right has been saying ‘1776!’ & that if congress moves forward it will mean revolution! So congress moves forward. Patriots storm the Capitol- now everybody is virtue signaling their embarrassment that this happened."

Straka, who launched the #WalkAway campaign in the summer of 2020, had been a speaker at the Jan. 5 Rally to Revival at Freedom Plaza that Chafian organized.

“Also- be embarrassed & hide if you need to- but I was there,” Straka continued. “It was not Antifa at the Capitol. It was freedom loving Patriots who were DESPERATE to fight for the final hope of our Republic because literally nobody cares about them. Everyone else can denounce them. I will not.”

More than two years after the insurrection, Trump was indicted in federal court, accused among other alleged offenses, of conspiring to “to corruptly obstruct and impede an official proceeding, that is, the certification of the electoral vote” on Jan. 6, 2021.

Although the former president is not specifically charged with inciting violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, the federal indictment alleges that he “directed” his supporters “to the Capitol to obstruct the certification proceeding and exert pressure” on Vice President Mike Pence to fraudulently reject the Biden electoral votes.

The indictment also accuses Trump and unnamed co-conspirators of exploiting the attack on the Capitol “by redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.”

Around 7 p.m. on Jan. 6, after police had flushed rioters out of the Capitol building and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had declared a curfew, Cindy Chafian read a tweet reporting that the Senate would soon reconvene to complete the Electoral College count.

She, like Straka, appeared to be in no mood to distance herself from the day’s events.

“Guess it [is] time to go back,” she tweeted in reply.

‘Thank you, Proud Boys!’: How a J6 organizer cultivated extremist ties and remains a free woman

This is the first part of a two-part Raw Story series exploring pro-Trump organizer Cindy Chafian's actions before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Read Part 2 here.

Two golf carts sped toward the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, lurching forward as space in the torrent of Trump supporters opened, then abruptly closed. Sirens wailed as Washington, D.C., police units responded to the chaotic scene.

The carts, driven by pro-Trump rally organizer Cindy Chafian and her husband, Scott, carried an assortment of passengers, including the wife of conspiracy trafficker Alex Jones and Nathan Hughes, an Arkansas man who’d later be charged with assaulting law enforcement, disorderly conduct and other offenses for actions he would allegedly take in the hours to come.

But at this moment, as the golf carts wove through the parking lot at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue, one of the passengers stood on the back, pointed toward the Capitol and heralded the beginning of something unthinkable.

“We’re inside, they need help, let’s go!” he shouted. “We’ve breached the Capitol.”

‘All those guys keep you safe’

Hughes’ arrest last month throws a unique spotlight on how some of the people who planned and organized a series of pro-Trump rallies appear to have enthusiastically endorsed the storming of the Capitol, despite claiming they went there peacefully and opposed violence.

Few, if any, of the organizers responsible for mobilizing thousands of Trump supporters have faced legal repercussions amid the more than 1,100 people that authorities have charged to date for their participation in the riot on Jan. 6.

That these rally leaders haven’t faced charges is notable considering their close connections to — and frequent communications with — high-level leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, two far-right militant groups that provided the engine for the attack on the Capitol in the days leading up to Jan. 6.

Leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are currently serving prison sentences of up to 22 years for their role in the attack on the Capitol.

Few of the rally organizers and planners endorsed the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers more enthusiastically than Chafian.

ALSO READ: ‘Our best face’: How ‘peaceful’ MAGA leader Amy Kremer cultivated ties to a violent Three Percenter group

A veteran Tea Party organizer, she had been responsible for securing the permit for two warm-up rallies at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., during November and December 2020.

Chafian also helped organize the Jan. 5 “Rally to Revival” on Jan. 5 at Freedom Plaza that showcased some decidedly militant speakers in the day before then-President Donald Trump would himself the next morning headline the “Save America Rally” just south of the White House.

Public reporting and the investigation of the January 6th House select committee has since uncovered evidence that organizers at those rallies augmented security with additional muscle from the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and other militant groups.

During the Rally to Revival at Freedom Plaza, Chafian expressed gratitude to these extremists.

“Thank you, Proud Boys!” she shouted at the end of her speech. “The Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters — all of those guys keep you safe.”

Chafian told Raw Story in an email earlier this week that she made the statement in reference to the Proud Boys protecting people walking back to their cars after people associated with antifa and Black Lives Matter attacked Trump supporters. (After the Dec. 12, 2020 rally that Chafian helped organize, hundreds of members of the Proud Boys marched through downtown D.C., randomly attacking local residents and anyone who wasn’t clearly allied with them, while police penned in counter-protesters at Black Lives Matter Plaza.)

Chafian said she was unaware that the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were planning to use force to prevent the peaceful transfer of power at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

‘All hands on deck’

All the same, Chafian served as a linchpin in the frenetic machinery of rally organizers and militants that built a launchpad for the violent events of Jan. 6.

Beyond her vocal support for groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, Chafian was involved in financing the rallies through her coordination with Republican National Committee fundraiser Caroline Wren, with whom she exchanged dozens of phone texts in the 10 days leading up to Jan. 6. Those messages show the two women negotiating who was going to pay for rally security, golf carts, speaker accommodations and portable toilets.

And while Chafian may have kept a lower profile than other organizers such as Amy Kremer and her daughter Kylie Kremer, as well as conservative provocateur Ali Alexander, her production of the Rally to Revival on the eve of Jan. 6 helped provide significant momentum for — in Trump’s words — the “big protest”.

It was only because of a falling-out with the Kremers that Chafian didn’t herself organize the mainstage rally on Jan. 6 that featured Trump himself. Despite getting pushed aside for the rally at the Ellipse, Chafian nevertheless obtained VIP passes for fellow organizers, security personnel and family members.

Her journey to this moment was an unlikely one.

A self-described “integrative life coach” and “mom of five” from the Tidewater region in Virginia, Chafian has said she became disillusioned with politics after her initial run as a Tea Party organizer — a time that coincided with a battle with polycystic kidney disease.

A 2017 CNN story chronicled how her husband — a retired Naval commander — saved her life by donating one of his kidneys to her. Having resolved to not go back into politics, Chafian recounted that God “kicked me in the butt,” leading her to join Women for America First to mobilize Trump supporters to protest Trump’s first impeachment, in 2019.

Cindy Chafian kidney transplant story produced by Sentara Healthwww.youtube.com

After working for the Kremers to secure permits for rallies hosted in Washington, D.C., in November and December 2020, she broke off and began working with InfoWars host Alex Jones. Working both under the Kremers and on her own, Chafian coordinated security for the rallies, primarily through a private security group called 1st Amendment Praetorian.

By then, Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio had been arrested — after flying into the city on Jan. 4 — for carrying an illegal ammunition cartridge and burning a Black Lives Matter flag stolen from a Black church at the Dec. 12 rally.

Chafian drafted Matt Couch, a former sports announcer from Arkansas to serve as emcee for the Rally to Revival. Couch achieved minor right-wing celebrity for promoting the baseless Seth Rich conspiracy theory as a means of deflecting attention from Russian meddling in the 2016 election. And she hired Jason Funes, a former Trump campaign staffer in 2016 and 2020 and former Department of Interior employee, paying him $1,500.

Chafian told Raw Story she asked Funes to assist with the buildout of the stage at Freedom Plaza on Jan. 5 so she wouldn’t have to be there at 5 a.m. But Funes assumed a larger role than she had planned, and she eventually sidelined him.

Shortly after their arrival in D.C., Funes and Couch walked the grounds of the Capitol.

Couch used his sizable social media following to urge Trump supporters to come to Washington, D.C.

“I want to encourage you to get to Washington, D.C.,” Couch said on a Periscope video. “I’ve already walked the grounds today.”

After introducing Funes by his first name, Couch continued: “And so, we walked the Capitol grounds. We’ve looked at the events. We’re checking security protocols. We’ve got guys on the ground doing ahead-of-the-game surveillance with different groups that we’re in coordination with and talks with. There’s a lot of things happening here, a lot of moving parts. You will be safe. We need to send a loud message that we need you in D.C.”

Funes suggested in his interview with the January 6th House select committee that his interest in the Capitol grounds was piqued by learning that Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander had secured a permit to hold a rally there on Jan. 6. Funes was helping another flank of organizers set up a stage nearby in front of the Russell Senate Office Building.

“I just wanted to go and see it and kind of poke my nose around, right?” Funes told the committee. “And by this time, I was kind of a little more arranged to helping Cindy Chafian, so I had a reason to be there nonetheless. I just wanted to be there ahead of everybody else and scope it out.”

During a recent interview with Raw Story, Funes said there was nothing nefarious about the walk-through.

“I worked advance for POTUS,” he said, referring to his time working on the Trump campaign. “I’m damn good at my job. Keeping people safe — that was my forte. I was a licensed EMT since 2008.”

While Chafian was singing the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers’ praises, her two associates were reportedly communicating directly with the leadership of those two groups.

Couch was among the first to learn about Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio’s arrest on Jan. 4, thanks to a phone call from Proud Boys deputy Joe Biggs. Couch knew Biggs from his days promoting the bogus Seth Rich conspiracy theory two years earlier and had described Biggs as someone “that we trust and that we know will have our back.”

Nathan Hughes (right) and Jason Funes are shown in a photo tweeted by Matt Couch on Jan. 4, 2021.U.S. Department of Justice

A screenshot of a tweet by Couch, which is included in the FBI affidavit supporting charges against Nathan Hughes, hints at the defendant’s high-level connections in the days leading up to Jan. 6.

ALSO READ: A judge let this Jan. 6 defendant deliver his FedEx route. But FedEx says he doesn’t work there.

“All hands on deck working to get a leader and friend in our movement out of the corruption and grip of DC police and the Tyrannical DC Mayor,” Couch wrote, attaching a photo of Hughes and Funes scrolling through their phones while seated across from one another in a hotel room at the Sofitel, near the White House.

Later that night, Funes received a phone call from Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. It lasted about 10 minutes, according to records obtained by the January 6th House select committee. It’s unclear what the two men discussed. (The following day, after the Proud Boys leader’s release from jail, Tarrio and Rhodes would infamously meet in an underground parking garage.)

Funes has said he doesn’t remember the phone call with Rhodes, and doesn’t recall meeting Rhodes until after Jan. 6. Funes explained his inability to recall the details of the exchange to committee investigators by saying that “Stewart Rhodes wasn’t a known quantity to me as much.”

Notwithstanding Funes’ claim, Rhodes was by then a fixture in the broader Stop the Steal movement, having been a featured speaker at the Jericho March in D.C. on Dec. 12 while members of the Oath Keepers helped provide security for the rally.

Couch would soon dial back his rhetoric, but not before publishing a tweet on Jan. 4 that was anything but conciliatory.

“In 1776 the British underestimated the American Patriot and they kicked ass, on December 7th 1941 the Japanese underestimated the American Patriot and they kicked ass,” he wrote. “January 2021, to all ELECTED officials are you really going to make the same mistake? Just saying…”

Couch could not be reached for comment for this story.

‘We’ve breached the Capitol’

It’s not clear how Nathan Hughes wound up riding a golf cart to the Capitol with Cindy Chafian’s husband on Jan. 6. Cindy Chafian told Raw Story that she had never met Hughes and was never introduced to him.

“He jumped on the back of a flatbed cart that was driven by my husband,” Chafian told Raw Story by email. “That’s the extent of any connection.” (In fact, two different videos show Hughes riding in the passenger seat, alongside Scott Chafian, not on the back.)

When Hughes arrived in D.C., he was firmly ensconced in the crew assembled by Matt Couch, the designated emcee for the Rally to Revival that Cindy Chafian organized. Couch was on the VIP list that Chafian submitted to Republican National Committee fundraiser Caroline Wren, although Hughes was not.

Couch announced on Twitter on Jan. 4 that his team was on the ground, tagging Hughes, along with a collection of pastors and internet influencers.

“Big Events planned all day Tues/Wed!” he added.

“See you soon brother!” Hughes replied.

ALSO READ: Why Trump indictments haven’t triggered another Jan. 6 — and why the worst may be yet to come

Publicly available video shows Hughes and Couch walking up to the Chafian-organized rally at Freedom Plaza on Jan. 5 with Ali Alexander and his entourage. The two can also be seen in photos hanging out in the VIP tent with MAGA luminaries such as Pastor Mark Burns and Dr. Simone Gold.

Couch was the link between Hughes and Chafian.

At 5:08 p.m. on Jan. 5, Hughes tweeted in all caps: “WE ARE HERE AND ON THE GROUND MR. PRESIDENT! WE WILL NOT LET THEM STEAL IT!”

On Jan. 6, Hughes was present and ready.

After attending Trump’s speech at the Ellipse, Hughes rode in one of the golf carts that the Chafians maneuvered down Pennsylvania Avenue. Occasionally, Hughes raised his body above the roof to scan the crowd. J.T. Mott, a coffee-shop owner from northwest Arkansas, stood on the platform on the back of the cart, also pointing his finger in the direction of the Capitol.

“We’re inside, they need help,” Mott shouted. “Let’s go. We’re inside. We’ve breached the Capitol.”

J.T. Mott shouts from the back of a golf cart driven by Scott Chafian. Nathan Hughes can be seen in the passenger seat.GoPro video filmed by Anthony Puma, courtesy U.S. Department of Justice

The scene was captured by Anthony Puma, a rioter from Michigan, on his Go-Pro camera as he walked to the Capitol.

Mott eventually pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating or picketing inside a Capitol building, and received a sentence of 36 months probation.

Reached by phone, Mott declined to comment to Raw Story on how he learned that the Capitol had been breached. It’s not clear whether Mott learned about the Capitol breach from someone else in the Chafian party.

When asked how she learned that the Capitol had been breached, Cindy Chafian told Raw Story: “I had a security team who informed me that people were starting to become problematic.”

She added: “I had no idea anyone was going to enter the Capitol. There were several people there well before Trump spoke.”

Funes, who helped Chafian assemble the stage at Freedom Plaza on Jan. 5, said she shouldn’t be taken at her word.

“Although they act ignorant, I fully believe they had foreknowledge about what was going to happen that day and were a part of it happening,” Funes told Raw Story. “That includes Matt Couch and Nathan Hughes.”

Chafian, for her part, told Raw Story that Funes is “unhinged and untrustworthy.” She added that he “lied through his teeth” to the January 6th House select committee because “he desperately wanted to be known as someone who mattered.”

Ahead of Scott Chafian, Cindy Chafian drove the other golf cart on Jan. 6. Ken Goodwin, a security guard and former Prince George’s County, Md., police officer, rode in the passenger seat.

“We’re going to take our republic back,” Goodwin said through a bullhorn. “They work for us. Remind them: They work for us. The politicians work for us. We’re going to take the Capitol.

“That’s our Capitol,” Goodwin continued. “That’s our house up there.”

As Goodwin spoke, Chafian took her right hand off the steering wheel and jabbed it in the direction of the Capitol, punctuating his words.

Video filmed by MrYogiEntertainment shows Cindy Chafian driving a golf cart to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.www.youtube.com

Asked what the rush was to get to the Capitol, Chafian told Raw Story: “I foolishly thought that I could help prevent anyone from doing something stupid.”

By the time the Chafian party arrived at the Capitol, it had been roughly two hours since a mob led by the Proud Boys had breached the police barricades at the Pennsylvania Avenue walkway.

By then, Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola had used a stolen police shield to break out a window in the Capitol building, allowing rioters to stream through. Other had breached the Columbus Doors on the east side.

Still more rioters ascended the scaffolding stairs to enter the building from the west side or took part in the assault on the east side. A growing crowd of rioters massed at the Lower West Terrace.

A tunnel traditionally used for the entrance of dignitaries during the inauguration opens onto the terrace, and the Chafians took up a position on the inaugural grandstands. There, they could view the intensifying maelstrom.

One of the most violent confrontations of the insurrection took place on the Lower West Terrace, which was retrofitted for the inauguration on Jan 6. Courtesy Architect of the Capitol

Hughes, meanwhile, went to the center of action. Dressed in a black InfoWars T-shirt worn over a gray sweatshirt and black Mechanix gloves, Hughes yelled to the crowd outside the tunnel, “C’mon! C’mon! C’mon!” while waving his gloved hand in the direction of the tunnel, according to his charging document.

Then, he charged into the tunnel toward a line of officers blocking the rioters from entering the Capitol. Hughes and an unidentified rioter allegedly rocked their bodies, in synchronization with the crowd, to push the officers back. Hughes is also accused of helping other rioters pass stolen police shields out of the tunnel and personally grabbing an officer’s shield and attempting to pull it away.

Video shows Nathan Hughes urging other rioters forward, and then charging into the Tunnel.www.youtube.com

Hughes, who is charged with assaulting law enforcement and disorderly conduct, is accused of using his elbow “to strike in the direction of” an officer who was holding a shield he was trying to grab.

At roughly the same time, according to the charging document, Hughes was nearby when other rioters dragged Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone out of the tunnel and tasered him. Roughly 30 minutes later, the government alleges, Hughes called out to other rioters from a position near the tunnel mouth: “Pull them out!”

Hughes’ role in the attack on the Capitol was first reported by Raw Story in August 2021. Last week, Hughes declined to comment for this story through his lawyer, William Shipley.

‘We’re taking our house back’

The attack on the Capitol continued with pitched violence. Almost an hour after the assault on Fanone, Hughes can be seen — in a video filmed by fellow rioter Mariposa Castro — standing beneath the window of a Senate conference room to the side of the tunnel mouth. As another rioter bangs on the glass with a pole and others begin to sing the National Anthem, Hughes can be seen jumping up and down and jabbing his finger in the direction of the window.

Standing atop the inaugural grandstands, Castro, a former yoga and tea shop owner from California, excitedly addressed viewers on her livestream.

“We’re breaking in,” she said. “We are breaking in. We’re doing this. We’re breaking in, right?”

Castro swiveled her phone to Cindy Chafian, who nodded emphatically.

“Right, we’re… this is our Capitol,” Chafian replied, appearing to endorse the breach. “We the people. We’re not taking it anymore. We’re taking our house back.”

“We’re taking our house back,” Castro repeated.

“This is our Capitol,” Chafian said.

“This is our Capitol, and we’re taking it back,” Castro said. “No more bulls---!”

“No more bulls---,” Chafian agreed.

Cindy Chafian and Mariposa Castro at US Capitolwww.youtube.com

Asked about this exchange, Chafian told Raw Story: “I have no idea what video you’re talking about or who this person is. I don’t recall making any kind of statement like that. I absolutely was not endorsing any destruction of the Capitol, violence, or criminal behavior. Quite the contrary. When I witnessed this happening, I and several others were screaming at people to stop.”

Raw Story then sent Chafian the video recording of her comments on Jan. 6 as depicted in Castro’s video.

Chafian declined to comment further.

Citing Castro’s words in the exchange, though without mentioning Chafian, the government asserted in a sentencing memorandum filed in Castro’s case: “From that location and at that time, Castro would have seen and heard some of the most extreme violence of the hours-long battle between the rioters and law enforcement officers who were defending the Capitol building. During the time that Castro was nearby, officers were pepper-sprayed, assaulted with numerous makeshift weapons, and even beaten and tasered by the mob.”

Chafian told Raw Story any statements she made at the Capitol that day were “not at all” an endorsement of the violence of the mob.

After the other rioters succeeded in breaking out the window to the Senate conference room, Castro was among those who went inside.

Like J.T. Mott, Castro eventually pleaded guilty to parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building, and Judge Reggie B. Walton sentenced her to 45 days in prison.

“I would have never gone into the Capitol that day,” Chafian told Raw Story. “The only reason I was where I was, was due to the fact that the crowds down below almost crushed me. I almost fell several times and had to get to safety. The only place to go was up. So I was there waiting until I could get back down, which didn’t happen until the crowd was dispersed.”

During her sentencing, Walton confronted Castro about her declaration, “We’re taking our Capitol back.”

“Who do you think you were taking your Capitol back from?” Walton asked.

“Well, I was just repeating what other people were repeating, and that just came out,” Castro testified. “I don’t know what we were taking the Capitol from. It was just something that was repeating from other people. I don’t have no idea, Your Honor.”

Similar to Nathan Hughes, Brandon Straka, an internet influencer who spoke at the Jan. 5 rally at Freedom Plaza, stood outside of the Capitol on Jan. 6. “Go, go, go” he barked as rioters attempted to push through a police line to gain entry to the building, according to his statement of offense. And as rioters attempted to take a U.S. Capitol police officer’s shield, Straka joined a chant of, “Take it, take it.”

Known for the #WalkAway hashtag, Straka was recruited to assist the Stop the Steal campaign by Ali Alexander shortly after the November 2020 election. He pleaded guilty in August 2021 to disorderly conduct, and received a sentence of 36 months of probation, including three months of home detention.

A court filing inadvertently unsealed by a clerk in 2022 revealed that as part of his cooperation with the government while making good on his plea deal, Straka provided “significant information” to investigators about Chafian and other organizers, including Alexander, and Amy and Kylie Kremer, according to a report by NPR.

Given this development, coupled with the similarities of several Jan. 6 participants’ actions to those of Cindy Chafian, a question looms: Why hasn’t the government also charged her with a crime?

‘Our best face’: How Trump-backing Jan. 6 ‘marshals’ ditched their pink vests and staged an insurrection

Former President Donald Trump’s tweet on Dec. 19, 2020 — it summoned his supporters to “be there” for Congress’ Jan. 6 certification of the electoral vote and promised that it would be “wild” — electrified far-right militants.

One person who answered the call was Joseph Pavlik, a 65-year-old retired firefighter from Chicago.

Pavlik’s social media posts in November and December 2020 reflected a mounting sense of desperation about what America would look like with Trump forced to leave the White House. His Facebook posts manifested a logical response to the existential choice — Donald Trump or dystopian collapse — that the United States’ 45th president first defined during his 2016 campaign.

Joseph Pavlik, a former Chicago firefighter, served as a marshal for Women for America First at the Ellipse rally on Jan. 6. U.S. Department of Justice

“Democrats told us they were going to steal this election RIGHT TO OUR FACES…. AND WE DID NOTHING,” Pavlik wrote on Nov. 5, 2020, according to a statement of facts establishing probable cause for his arrest. “So get ready young guys because YOU WILL LIVE ON YOUR KNEES from this day forward.”

On Dec. 14: “These aren’t Americans they are indoctrinated socialists that hate America and hate Americans. We need to be much more brutal than punching and kicking. This is not some simple street disagreement.”

Again, on Dec. 14: “These are now indoctrinated terrorists that have made a conscious choice to ruin America … the sooner it is taken to a serious level to remove these terrorists the sooner the terrorists climb back into their basements … only until their bodies hit the ground will the terrorism stop.”

And on Dec. 26: “WE ARE THE STORM THAT THE DEMOCRATS AND RINOS THOUGHT WOULD NEVER SHOW UP and we just getting started.”

These weren’t idle social media screeds. On Jan. 4, Pavlik rented a car and drove from Chicago to Washington, D.C., according to court documents, and checked into a room at the Hampton Inn Washington Downtown.

Pavlik’s room was part of a bloc reserved by Jeremy Liggett, a firearms instructor from Florida who had founded a militant group called Guardians of Freedom. Liggett’s group aligned with the Three Percenter movement, whose followers view themselves as a revolutionary vanguard in the mold of the original American patriots, while pitting themselves against the U.S. government as equivalent in their eyes to the British crown.

Like Trump himself, Liggett and his group had been hyping Jan. 6 in a bid to attract people like Pavlik to the nation’s capital.

And in doing so, they weren’t reluctant to advertise ties they had forged with Women for America First, a “peaceful” pro-Trump nonprofit, led by former Tea Party organizer Amy Kremer, which was organizing the Jan. 6 rally.

“On Jan 6th, 2021, the March for Trump Bus tour powered by Women for America First, is rolling into Washington, D.C. to demand transparency and election integrity,” read a December flyer Guardians of Freedom had distributed. Headlined “Calling All Patriots!” it announced the group’s intentions to come to D.C. on Jan. 6 and played up their connection to the Kremers’ organization.

The flyer further stated that “The Guardians of Freedom III% are responding to a call from President Donald J. Trump to assist in the security, protection, and support of the people as we all protest the fraudulent election and re-establish liberty for our nation.,” it continued. “JOIN US & Thousands of other Patriots!”

Liggett himself made a Facebook post on Christmas Day that personalized the appeal. “I will be in D.C. on January 6th!” he wrote. “Patriots, I urge you to come with me!”

Pavlik was among those reading.

“I will be there,” he commented in the post’s thread.

When Pavlik arrived in D.C. — along with dozens of other Guardians of Freedom members and associates, mainly from Florida — Women for America First indeed had a job for him although it would be hard to describe it as anything as glamorous as saving the republic.

At least initially.

‘Would’ve been nice to shake Trump’s hand’

The union between Women for America First and the Guardians of Freedom was one of chance, happenstance, convenience and common cause.

Dustin Stockton, an organizer who had worked alongside founder Amy Kremer since the Tea Party days in 2010, described how his friend, Charles Bowman, connected Women for America First with Guardians of Freedom while introducing Liggett as a speaker at a raucous Jan. 6 pre-rally held at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5.

“I got a phone call from a friend of mine,” Stockton said. “He’s like, ‘Hey, there’s this group. They’ve been coming here. They came to your first event in November. And they want to look out for everybody. And the thing is, they don’t want anything from you. And they don’t want to step on, like, your guys’ toes. But they want to be around to help out.’”

Bowman, at Stockton’s invitation, had joined Women for America First on a bus tour to spread the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Kremer was impressed enough that she delegated responsibility to Bowman for lining up “marshals” for Jan. 6-related events.

Bowman, in turn, called Liggett, someone he knew from Republican circles and right-wing rallies in Florida.

On the morning of Jan. 6, Pavlik and Liggett donned pink reflective vests, along with about 30 other volunteers associated with Guardians of Freedom, and posed for a photo in front of Women for America First’s “March for Trump” tour bus.

Guardians of Freedom and other volunteers pose for a photo in front of the March for Trump tour bus on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021. U.S. Department of Justice

Pavlik and Liggett — along with Brian Preller, a firearms instructor who had recently worked for a company registered under Liggett’s name — were among 10 people tapped to serve as marshals at the “Save America” rally headlined by Trump at the Ellipse. Other volunteers pitched in on the outside of the rally perimeter.

Jason Funes, a former Trump campaign worker and former Department of Interior staffer who assisted Women for America First with the bus tour and D.C. rallies, told the January 6th Committee that some of the volunteers he saw near the security checkpoints and magnetometers were Bowman’s “people,” and that Bowman “was arranging to help coordinate who those people were going to be.”

“When I walk up to the Ellipse event on the 6th, like Secret Service knows they’re there, they’re helping people, like, remove backpacks and put things into a pile and, you know, make sure they try to get them back to people,” Funes said.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson would later testify before the committee that Trump urged the Secret Service to remove the magnetometers because “they’re not here to hurt me.” Court records and trial testimony show that multiple people brought firearms, chemical spray and other weapons to D.C. on Jan. 6.

“But, like, yeah, there was militia-type groups outside the Ellipse event, and that was coordinated,” Funes told the committee during his interview. “It wasn’t them just standing there by chance.”

Bowman could not be reached for comment for this story.

The number of Three Percenters in the crew assembled under the Guardians of Freedom banner ranged from 40 to 60, based on the estimated number of people who checked into the hotel and the estimate Bowman gave to the January 6th Committee. The actions of all the volunteers at the Ellipse, and later at the Capitol, on Jan. 6 has yet to be fully accounted.

For all the bluster about responding to a call by the president to assist in security, some of the volunteers’ experience at the Ellipse initially felt underwhelming.

One Guardians of Freedom volunteer marshal, Joe Diamandis, commemorated the day by posting a photo on Facebook that showed him stationed next to barricades draped in bunting with Donald Trump Jr. speaking on the Jumbotron in the background, accompanied by the text, “Cool experience, VIP entrance.”

Liggett’s assignment? Escorting rallygoers to the bathrooms, showing people to their seats and handing out signs. As a guy who liked to project alpha-male toughness, Liggett would later tell the January 6 committee that he was less than thrilled to be wearing a pink vest. And to add injury to insult, the organizers didn’t bother to provide the volunteers with lunch.

“I mean, it would’ve been nice to shake Trump’s hand,” Liggett said. “Would’ve been nice to have lunch. I mean, do you see what I’m saying? Like, you know, it was really boring.”

Violence at the Capitol

Liggett may not have shook Trump’s hand, but he and other Guardians of Freedom would soon feel Trump’s presence.

As planned, Trump ended his fiery speech at the Ellipse by telling his faithful that they would “walk down to the Capitol.” As with everyone at the event, individual responses among the event organizers and the gathered militants varied. Some went back to their hotel rooms. Others headed straight to the Capitol. Some initially went back to their hotel rooms, and then, upon hearing reports of disturbances at the Capitol, ventured out again to see what was happening.

As part of his marshal duties, Liggett escorted Pastor Greg Locke, one of the speakers on the bus tour, back to his hotel room.

But after hearing that “antifa was attempting to start issues,” Liggett and five other people headed over to the Capitol — although once there he was disconcerted to discover there was no one who looked like antifa, he’d tell the January 6 committee.

Joseph Pavlik, the retired firefighter from Chicago, shed his pink reflective vest. He walked to the Capitol wearing a black jacket and a borrowed tactical vest with a Three Percenter patch reading, “When Tyranny Becomes Law Rebellion Becomes Duty.” He also brought a gas mask and pepper spray.

By the time he reached the Lower West Terrace, Pavlik had joined up with Brian Preller, one of the other marshals, along with four other men — Benjamin Cole, John Edward Crowley, Jonathan Alan Rockholt and Tyler Quintin Bensch — who were also part of the Guardians of Freedom group. The six men gathered outside the entrance of the Capitol Tunnel, which led to the stage where President-elect Joe Biden was slated to take his oath of office in two weeks.

The Tunnel became the focal point of a fierce, prolonged battle for more than two hours as Metropolitan police officers repelled rioters, who attacked them with poles and crutches, and sprayed chemical irritants at them.

Pavlik and Crowley arrived at the Tunnel entrance first, according to charging documents, and Pavlik entered before the others.

Liggett, who has not been arrested, walked up close enough to the Capitol that he could see people standing on the steps and sitting on the inaugural stage, he later told the January 6th Committee. Later, he walked around the Capitol building, and gave a CNN reporter a hard time, explaining to the committee that he regarded the network as “fake news.”

“I don’t even know why you’re here,” he told the reporter. “You shouldn’t be here anyway.”

Liggett said he left around the time Capitol police started firing flash bangs at the crowd.

Wearing the helmet and gas mask, Pavlik appeared to push on the police line, according to charging documents, and was allegedly present in the mouth of the Tunnel when other rioters assaulted police officers. Pavlik allegedly struggled with an officer who can be seen in police video pushing against Pavlik’s face and helmet to try to force him out of the Tunnel.

The charging documents emphasize that at various times during the battle of the Tunnel, rioters “attempted to use their numbers and collective mass in a heave-ho effort to push the officers back” and that “at times, the rioters forcibly pressed the officers’ bodies against each other and against the doorway, crushing them.” Authorities allege that Preller, Cole, Crowley and Rockholt specifically participated in the heave-ho effort.

The charging documents allege that Pavlik, Preller, Cole, Crowley and Rockholt “participated in at least one attempt by rioters to force their way into the Capitol through the line of police officers. During the battle, the men reportedly wore large goggles, helmets and tactical vests while variously carrying chemical irritants, an expandable baton, a walking stick and a knife.

Pavlik faces multiple charges, including engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon. Pavlik pleaded guilty and was released on personal recognizance bond last month. He was expected to appear in D.C. federal court for a status hearing on Tuesday.

Lawrence Beaumont, Pavlik’s lawyer, told Raw Story that his client is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

A witness later told the FBI that Tyler Bensch posted videos of himself on his Snapchat account on Jan. 6 that appeared to show him at the Capitol wearing a gas mask, a body armor vest, camouflage and an AR-style rifle. Apart from the witness’s description, open-source photos show Bensch at the Capitol wearing a tactical vest with a Three Percenter patch and black gas mask, while carrying chemical spray canisters, a black radio and antenna, and a GoPro-style camera mounted to his shoulder. Bensch is accused of spraying an individual in the crowd in the face with chemical irritants.

Rockholt allegedly picked up a U.S. Capitol Police riot shield, and Bensch was later seen carrying it off the Capitol grounds.

Bensch and Rockholt are both charged with civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and disorderly and disruptive conduct. Bensch and Rockholt could not be reached through their lawyers for comment.

Police body camera video shows Brian Preller, John Edward Crowley, Benjamin Cole, Tyler Bensch and Jonathan Rockholt inside or near the entrance of the Tunnel at the U.S. Capitol. U.S. Department of Justice

Preller faces multiple charges, including engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Crowley faces multiple charges, including engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds and theft of government property and aiding and abetting. He has pleaded not guilty on all counts.

Cole is charged with civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and disorderly and disruptive conduct.

Preller, Crowley and Cole could not be reached through their lawyers.

Despite planning for a rally at the Supreme Court, where they could showcase speakers like My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell who didn’t make the cut for the Ellipse event, the lead organizers for Women for America First, including Amy Kremer, her daughter Kylie Jane Kremer and Dustin Stockton, went back to their rooms at the Willard hotel.

“We were going back to the hotel, going to order food, and watch the joint session play out on TV,” Amy Kremer told the January 6th Committee. “I think it was supposed to start at 1 o’clock. So that was our plan. And when I tell you we were exhausted, we were exhausted. But then, when all the stuff started happening at the Capitol, I said to everybody: ‘We don’t need to be a part of that. Just stay put, stay here.’”

‘We don’t know who those people are’

Immediately following the insurrection, Women for America First issued a statement distancing themselves from the violence.

“We unequivocally denounce violence of any type and under any circumstances,” the statement read. “We are saddened and disappointed at the violence that erupted on Capitol Hill, instigated by a handful of bad actors, that transpired after the rally.

“We stand by and strongly support the men and women of the Capitol Hill police and law enforcement in general and our organization played absolutely no role in the unfortunate events that transpired,” the statement continued. “What is truly sad is that the misdeeds of a handful of people will overshadow the overwhelming success of the peaceful event — attended by hundreds of thousands of Americans — that we sponsored today.”

Stockton told the January 6th Committee that he had absolutely no conversations with organized groups about going to the Capitol. He said he had wanted to hold a press conference to clear up any questions of responsibility, while suggesting that someone higher up the chain shut down the proposal.

“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,” Stockton said.

At least a month before the insurrection, Women for America First had sought to portray itself as a responsible alternative to more provocative organizers such as Ali Alexander and InfoWars host Alex Jones.

“So, they started pushing a much more violent rhetoric,” Stockton told the committee, “while what we were pushing, frankly, was, like, procedural inside the House, to, like, ‘All right, this is our best chance to make our case, like, to the world. Let’s make sure that, like, we put our best face on this thing.’”

During the massive manhunt that ensued after the insurrection, the FBI was preoccupied with charging people who went inside the Capitol or assaulted law enforcement officers. When a tip led them to Stockton in Nevada, the agent didn’t know what they had. In February or March 2021, Stockton told the committee, he received a call from an agent in the FBI’s Reno office.

“Ah, you know we have reports that you were in D.C. on January 6th,” the agent told Stockton.

“I assume or I hope that you’re aware that, like, I was an organizer of these events and was intimately involved in them, responded, chuckling.

They only spoke for 10 or 15 minutes, Stockton said. That was the extent of his conversations with law enforcement about Jan. 6, Stockton told the committee in December 2021. It’s unclear whether he’s talked to the FBI since that time.

Since Jan. 6, Dustin Stockton has continued to promote an ahistorical narrative of the insurrection, valorizing many of the groups who carried out the attack while claiming without evidence that it was a setup orchestrated by infiltrators.

“On November 14th, December 12th, and January 6th, I helped rally millions of people in Washington, DC,” Stockton wrote in a July 2021 Substack article. “The individuals and groups who answered the call included Oath Keepers, III%ers, Anons, Tea Partiers and patriots. Together, we worked to keep people safe and to peacefully and patriotically protest the theft of America.”

In a tweet around the same time, Stockton claimed implausibly that “infiltrators thought the crowd would follow them on J6, [but] they didn’t count on patriots stopping nearly everyone from falling into the trap.”

Stockton told Raw Story he doesn’t have anything else to add about Jan. 6th.

“I’ve gone out of my way to be honest, like, even before everybody else, when it wasn’t popular to do it,” he said. “For like me, at some point, man, you guys gotta let us move on with our lives. Three years [sic] we’ve been exhaustively covered in every outlet. We’ve answered every question. We’ve gone out of our way to do it. And, like, if you want to talk about other stories or other things, but to be honest, I’m just done taking questions on January 6th.”

Since Jan. 6, 2021, roughly 1,000 people have been charged with offenses related to the attack on the Capitol, including dozens of Oath Keepers. Kelly Meggs, who communicated with Jeremy Liggett in the runup to Jan. 6, and founder Stewart Rhodes are among the members who have been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

“My organization — I say my organization because, obviously, I helped found it, right? — okay, we didn’t do anything violent whatsoever in Washington, D.C., at all,” Liggett testified to the January 6th Committee in March 2022.

After his appearance, Liggett took to Facebook Live to denounce the committee as “a scheme of the devil,” while portraying himself as a victim.

“I wholeheartedly believe with all my heart that none of us were in Washington, D.C. to do any harm,” he said. “And their narrative — what they want to get out there is that every single one of us conservatives — every single one of us patriots are nothing but terrorists. And I believe that they want our neighbors to believe this. They want our family members to believe this. And that gives them power.”

Among members of the Guardians of Freedom group, there was at least some inkling that arrests were on the horizon.

In a September 2021 online conversation with another individual cited in his charging document, Brian Preller referred to a statement made to a “room flooded with 3% Patriots” where he insisted that “no one goes to jail at all cost.”

“F*** that man let em arrest you for doing nothing wrong,” the unidentified individual responded. “Lawsuit + makes them look bad.”

“Flagler county sheriffs is on our side 80/20,” Preller replied. “But I’m not ever seeing the inside of a cell brother. Ever.”

FBI agents assigned to a counter-terrorism investigation staked out a parking lot outside a school board meeting in Florida to monitor a Guardians of Freedom member, according to a recent House Judiciary Committee report.

In mid-August 2022, FBI agents in the Jacksonville and Tampa field offices began preparing to make arrests and execute search warrants against Jan. 6 suspects. Stephen Friend, a former special agent assigned to the Daytona Beach Resident Agency under the Jacksonville Field Office who has since resigned, expressed concern that the agency was taking an unnecessarily heavy-handed approach on learning that an FBI SWAT team was enlisted to carry out some of the arrests.

During a meeting with his supervisor on Aug. 19, 2022, Friend told his supervisor that he thought the use of the SWAT team was inappropriate, according to a declaration submitted to Republican members of Congress after Friend was suspended from the agency.

“I suggested alternatives such as the issuance of a court summons or utilizing surveillance groups to determine an optimal, safe time for a local sheriff deputy to contact the subjects and advise them about the existence of the arrest warrant,” Friend wrote, describing his conversation with Senior Supervisory Resident Agent Greg Federico.

Lira Gallagher, an FBI spokesperson at the Washington Field Office, said the agency would decline to comment.

On Aug. 24, Tyler Bensch, Jonathan Rockholt and John Edward Crowley were arrested in Florida. Friend, the former special agent, conceded to Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee earlier this year that it was reasonable for the FBI to conclude that Bensch possessed a firearm based on the description of him posting photos and videos of himself outside the Capitol with an AR-15 rifle, and that under such circumstances it would also be reasonable to deploy a SWAT team to make an arrest, according to a recent congressional report.

Preller, who had talked about allyship from the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, was arrested on Aug. 24 in Hardwick, Vt., while Benjamin Cole was arrested in Louisville, Ky.

Although Liggett was not arrested, he reportedly made a Facebook post announcing that the FBI had served a search warrant at his home in Florida that day.

Reached by phone by Raw Story, Liggett said, “I have nothing to hide,” before referring questions to his lawyer. Kevin C. Maxwell, the lawyer, told Raw Story that he and Liggett decided they were “not going to give any interviews until the government finishes its investigation and has determined what they’re going to do,” including potentially charging additional defendants.

Joseph Pavlik, the retired firefighter, would be arrested in Chicago in January.

In September 2022, the leaders of Women for America First signaled that they, too, were under legal scrutiny.

Harmeet Dhillon, a prominent lawyer who recently lost a bid to chair the Republican National Committee, tweeted on Sept. 9 that Women for America First was among clients that had been “served w/ extremely broad subpoenas, or warrants for phone/device.”

During an appearance on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Dhillon told Carlson that three of her clients received “subpoenas or warrants” from the “Capitol siege section of the United States Department of Justice’s D.C. office. Dhillon said her clients were asked for all communications with dozens of people in late 2020 regarding topics in three categories — “alternate electors, fundraising around irregularities around the election, and also a rally that happened before the January 6th situation at the Capitol — the Save America rally.”

It’s unclear whether the federal probe involving the Women for America First leaders is related to the ongoing FBI investigation of the Guardians of Freedom.

Kylie Jane Kremer responded to a direct message from Raw Story on Twitter by providing the email for Christopher Barron, Women for America First’s publicist. Barron did not respond to multiple voicemails and emails. Dhillon also could not be reached for comment.

Although a grand jury in Georgia is reportedly considering criminal charges against Trump, the former president has so far managed to avoid entanglement in the roughly 1,000 cases involving supporters implicated in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The former president has fused his political identity to the hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants in a shared victimhood grievance, describing them in a recent speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, D.C., as “great patriots” who were “sitting in a jail nearby rotting away, and being treated so unfairly, like probably nobody’s ever been treated in this country before — except maybe me.”

Trump has suggested that the multi-pronged federal investigation surrounding the Jan. 6 attack would be hamstrung if he is re-elected, saying, “To those that are in the FBI that are with us, I want to thank you very much. I really do. I want to thank you. Stay strong. Help is coming.”

Some of the defendants have unsuccessfully attempted to call Trump as a witness, while one, Dustin Thompson, based his defense on the argument that he had been following orders from Trump when he broke into the Capitol, only to be convicted of a felony charge for obstructing an official proceeding and five misdemeanors.

Despite the legal hurdles to putting a former president on the witness stand, the lawyers for Joseph Biggs, one of the Proud Boys currently on trial for seditious conspiracy, are still trying. Biggs’ lawyers drew up a subpoena for Trump last month, and it is scheduled to be served next week.

“We think he has personal information about what he did and said that day,” Dan Hull, one of Biggs’ lawyers, told Raw Story. “He obviously played some role. We’d like to find out about it and have him testify at trial. We look at it as an opportunity for him.”

'Focus on moving forward'

For Women for America First, the organization that put on a rally for a sitting president of the United States, the violence at was an unfortunate occurrence from which they quickly washed their hands.

“What should have been an amazing day, turned into something it should have never been because of some asshats,” Amy Kremer complained in a group text to her daughter and Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser to the Trump 2020 campaign, only two weeks after the insurrection. “I think it is time the movement purge itself of the bad and evil. I believe that will take care of itself in due time.

“I’m hoping that we can put this all behind us,” she added, “and focus on moving forward.”

Amy Kremer, whose group Women for America First hosted the rally for Donald Trump at the Ellipse, said after Jan. 6: "I hope we can put this all behind us." Gage Skidmore

Forward has led to March 2023.

Last weekend, Trump posted on Truth Social that he expected to be arrested on charges stemming from an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney. He urged his supporters to “Protest, take our nation back!”

Kremer was on alert.

But this time, there was no bus tour to hype crowds in Middle America. No Jumbotrons, stages or entourages of pastors and MAGA influencers lined up to provide a focal point for gatherings at Mar-a-Lago or New York City.

There is nothing — nothing at all — akin to the Jan. 6 rally.

Kremer was just another Trump supporter with a Twitter account, advising her followers that they could protest without a permit with signs and megaphones on public sidewalks.

“Keep moving & they can’t remove you,” she advised. “Be happy & peaceful warriors. Don’t be baited & if they try, move away quickly.”

Key figures and groups in this series

1st Amendment Praetorian: Volunteer security group associated with retired Lt. General Michael Flynn that provided personal security details for Ali Alexander and other speakers at pro-Trump rallies leading up to Jan. 6, 2021

Guardians of Freedom: Three Percenter group led by Jeremy Liggett based in Florida whose members joined a mob in the Tunnel at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and tried to break through a line of D.C. Metropolitan Police Officers.

Oath Keepers: Far-right militia group that targets military veterans and former law enforcement for recruitment; dozens of members equipped with military gear entered the Capitol in a column formation

Proud Boys: Neo-fascist street fighting group that served as the engine of the insurrection by leading a mob to the Capitol, including one member who broke out a window, leading to the initial breach of the building

Stop the Steal: Coalition led by Republican operative Ali Alexander that organized protests in battleground states after the Nov. 3, 2020 election, followed by large rallies in Washington, D.C., culminating in Jan. 6

United Constitutional Patriots: Militia group that allegedly detained more than 300 migrants in New Mexico while carrying firearms and fake badges; their spokesman interviewed Dustin Stockton for a Facebook livestream during an event to promote a privately-funded section of the border wall in 2019

Women for America First: Nonprofit led by Tea Party organizer Amy Kremer that hosted the Jan. 6 rally featuring Donald Trump, along with the March for Trump bus tour and two large rallies in Washington, D.C. preceding Jan. 6

This is the final installment in a three-part series about ties between Women for America First, which held the permit for the rally where Donald Trump spoke on Jan. 6, and the Three Percenter group Guardians of Freedom. Read parts one and two.