On Enrique Tarrio’s Complex Password and Other Reasons the January 6 Investigation Can Now Move to Organizer-Inciters

A Wednesday filing in the Proud Boy leadership conspiracy revealed that, between cracking his password and conducting a filter review, DOJ had not been able to access Enrique Tarrio’s phone — which was seized even before the riot he allegedly had a central role in planning — until mid-January.

On January 4, 2021, Tarrio was arrested in Washington, D.C., and charged with destruction of property for his December 12, 2020, burning of a #BLACKLIVESMATTER banner and possession of two large capacity magazines. At the time of his arrest, Tarrio’s phone was seized by law enforcement. The government promptly sought a search warrant for that device in this investigation. Despite diligence, the government was not able to obtain access to Tarrio’s phone until December 2021. Thereafter, a filter team was utilized to ensure that only non-privileged materials were provided to the investigative team. The investigative team did not gain access to the materials on the phone until mid-January 2022, and it has worked expeditiously since that time to review these materials.

I can think of just a few other phones that have been this difficult for FBI to access (those of Zachary Alam and Brandon Fellows are others). The delay means that the very first phone DOJ seized pertaining to the January 6 investigation was one that, to date, has taken the longest to access.

This is the kind of delay — presumably due to the physics involved in cracking a complex password and the due process of a privilege review — that is unavoidable. Yet it stalled DOJ’s efforts in the most pivotal conspiracy case as it tries to move from rioters at the Capitol through organizer-inciters to Trump himself.

The delay in accessing Tarrio’s phone is one thing to keep in mind as you read the multiple reports that DOJ has sent out subpoenas to people who organized the rallies. WaPo reported that these subpoenas first started going out two months ago — so late January, shortly after the time DOJ accessed Tarrio’s phone content. NYT reported that the subpoenas focus on the rallies and the fake electors.

One of the subpoenas, which was reviewed by The New York Times, sought information about people “classified as VIP attendees” at Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 rally.

It also sought information about members of the executive and legislative branches who had been involved in the “planning or execution of any rally or any attempt to obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the 2020 election.

And it asked about the effort by Trump supporters to put forward alternate slates of electors as Mr. Trump and his allies were seeking to challenge the certification of the Electoral College outcome by Congress on Jan. 6.

Another person briefed on the grand jury investigation said at least one person involved in the logistics of the Jan. 6 rally had been asked to appear.

None of this is a surprise or unexpected. Dana Nessel formally referred Michigan’s fake electors to DOJ for investigation (the kind of referral that may have been important to DOJ assuming jurisdiction in state elections) on January 18, and Lisa Monaco confirmed DOJ was investigating the fake electors on January 25.

As to the organizers, on December 16, I wrote a piece describing that DOJ would need to turn to “organizer-inciters” next — people like Alex Jones, who had a central role in turning rally-goers who imagined themselves to be peaceful protestors into an occupying force. We know of several other pieces of evidence that would have been important, if not necessary, to lock down before DOJ moved to those organizer-inciters.

For example, DOJ likely first obtained direct information about tensions involving VIPs in Brandon Straka’s first and second FBI interviews in February and March of last year, information that the government claimed during his sentencing provided valuable new leads. Straka was one of those VIPs who expected to have a speaking slot on January 6 only to discover all he was getting was a seat at the front, next to Mike Flynn. Access to his phone would have provided the government comms depicting growing tensions tied to the extremism of Nick Fuentes and Ali Alexander described in this ProPublica article.

“Is Nick Fuentes now a prominent figure in Stop the Steal?” asked Brandon Straka, an openly gay conservative activist, in a November text message, obtained exclusively by ProPublica. “I find him disgusting,” Straka said, pointing to Fuentes’ vehemently anti-LGBT views.

Alexander saw more people and more power. He wrote that Fuentes was “very valuable” at “putting bodies in places,” and that both Jones and Fuentes were “willing to push bodies … where we point.”

Straka, Fuentes and Jones did not respond to requests for comment.

Straka was part of a Stop the Steal listserv on which Michael Courdrey and Alexander were on the day of the riot.

The Stop the Steal group chat shows a reckoning with these events in real time.

“They stormed the capital,” wrote Stop the Steal national coordinator Michael Coudrey in a text message at 2:33 p.m. “Our event is on delay.”

“I’m at the Capitol and just joined the breach!!!” texted Straka, who months earlier had raised concerns about allying with white nationalists. “I just got gassed! Never felt so fucking alive in my life!!!”

Alexander and Coudrey advised the group to leave.

“Everyone get out of there,” Alexander wrote. “The FBI is coming hunting.”

The government described learning new information about Straka as recently as December 8 followed up in a January 2022 interview. Some of this appears to have been a late discovery of his own grift and, possibly, his role in inciting a riot at the TCF center in Michigan. But at sentencing, prosecutors reaffirmed that the sealed contents of his cooperation remained valuable.

Some other existing defendants whose phone and/or cooperation could provide such insight are Simone Gold (who pled guilty in early March but who had not yet done her FBI interview) and Alan Hostetter and Russell Taylor; prosecutors described still providing primary discovery in the latter case the other day, meaning they’re still getting phone contents there, too.

Tarrio’s phone would include comms with many of the people DOJ has turned its focus to; he had known communications with Alex Jones, Ali Alexander, and Cindy Chafian, to say nothing of his close ties to Roger Stone.

In addition to Tarrio’s phone, exploiting that of Stewart Rhodes — seized in May — took some time because he had so many Signal texts that it was an extended process sorting through the inculpatory and exculpatory ones.

The hold up on Rhodes’ phone is one of the things that held up his own arrest and charges for Seditious Conspiracy. In that superseding indictment, DOJ completely hid what new information they had learned about the Oath Keeper ties with the Willard planners.  But the seditious conspiracy charge (along with the cooperation of Mark Grods) appears to have persuaded Joshua James to flip. James’ cooperation would provide lots of new testimony about what Stone and other VIPs were doing on January 5 and 6, including an explanation as to why James felt he needed to call into Mike Simmons to report on what is almost certainly Stone’s anger about the sidelining of his extremist group at the main rally, something clearly at issue in these recent subpoenas.

James would have proffered before he pled guilty (meaning prosecutors would have know what he would say if he did plead), but they would hold off on using his testimony for legal process until he testified before a grand jury in conjunction with his plea on March 2.

Public reporting has revealed that both the January 6 and DOJ investigations have obtained at least some of the documentary footage implicating Tarrio and Stone from the day of the riot.

And if the January 6 committee works like the SSCI investigation into Russia, it could share transcripts from obviously problematic testimony with DOJ. Ali Alexander spent most of day telling a story to the committee that had already been debunked by DOJ.

On the anniversary of January 6, Merrick Garland explained that all of the arrests from the first year had laid the foundation for more complex cases.

We build investigations by laying a foundation. We resolve more straightforward cases first because they provide the evidentiary foundation for more complex cases.

Investigating the more overt crimes generates linkages to less overt ones. Overt actors and the evidence they provide can lead us to others who may also have been involved. And that evidence can serve as the foundation for further investigative leads and techniques.

In circumstances like those of January 6th, a full accounting does not suddenly materialize. To ensure that all those criminally responsible are held accountable, we must collect the evidence.

We follow the physical evidence. We follow the digital evidence. We follow the money.

This is the kind of thing he was talking about: working your way up through Mark Grods to Joshua James to Stewart Rhodes to Roger Stone, taking the time to crack and exploit Tarrio’s phone, exploiting early access to Straka’s comms to get to the organizers. The investigation “aperture” hasn’t changed; what has changed is DOJ has acquired information it needed before it could take the next step.

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63 replies
  1. Leu2500 says:

    “ The delay in accessing Tarrio’s phone is one thing to keep in mind as you read the multiple reports that DOJ has sent out subpoenas to people who organized the rallies. WaPo reported that these subpoenas first started going out two months ago — so late January, shortly after the time DOJ accessed Tarrio’s phone content.”

    EW – thank you for reporting at the forest level/fitting the puzzle pieces together. Sadly, the msm doesn’t do this any more – they just breathlessly report what happened today. They seem to have no long term memory. & for an investigation that’s been going on for over 1 year, they aren’t providing the lengthy Sunday pieces that step back & paint the big picture.

  2. Phil says:

    I have to agree with Leu that the MSM really does a very poor job of providing any context into why the DOJ’s investigation is taking as long as it does. MSNBC regularly trots out “experts” like Glenn Kirschner who simply echoes the host’s outrage over why DOJ hasn’t indicted Trump yet. You’d hope that someone like Kirschner – a former AUSA – would bring a more refined and knowledgeable perspective on the question of why it takes as long as it does to bring indictments for massively complex cases like the J6 insurrection case. Grateful to MW for providing more drilled down and better sourced analysis on this issue.

    [Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use a more differentiated username when you comment next as we have several community members named ” Phil,” “Philip,” or “Phillip.” /~Rayne]

    • bmaz says:

      You have been repeatedly told by Rayne to differentiate your screen name. You apparently refuse. This may be your last comment here if you do not.

      • Former Philadelphian says:

        Maybe you’re confusing me with someone else? I don’t recall a prior instance where Rayne told me this and I honestly don’t remember the last time I posted a comment on EW. I generally use Phil (or on some sites “Former Philadelphian”) as a reference to my hometown when I post on website because it’s just easier. Not trying to cause trouble. If there’s a pre-existing Phil on the website, I’m happy to change my name going forward.

        [This situation is an example of the confusion using undifferentiated common names causes. I’ve changed your username to “Former Philadelphian” to end the confusion; if there’s a different name you’d prefer to use here, let me know in replies and I’ll change it. Thanks. /~Rayne]

        • Peterr says:

          And then, of course, there’s the more infamous “Phil,” about whom Marcy has had conversations with the FBI.

          From what Marcy has said on this blog about him, I’m fairly sure I would not want to be mistaken for him.

        • Leoghann says:

          This is obviously a different Phil than the Phil who commented a couple of days ago talking about Trump nationalizing oil companies and some other Soviet fantasies.

    • Belyn says:

      I agree about the importance of context, and how that connects to the value of sites like this. It seems to me that the inability of the MSM to provide context is baked in. I don’t think the audience or sponsors have the time or patience for it. There are some exceptions like the the TRMS for those who can take 15 or more minutes of context setting (which she does superbly).

      • john paul jones says:

        Yeah, but Hollywood called and Maddow’s currently on hiatus. They want to make a movie about her book on Agnew (which I for one would love to see). I think Ali Velshi does as good a job as her at context-setting, though he moves at a faster speed, and spends less time than Maddow does on actually asking the questions. He likes to keep things moving, which I appreciate.

        • Belyn says:

          Maddow was due for a break, but I wish she would return. Velshi is doing a good job now. I need some time to consider whether he is better at context setting. I agree he is faster. I give Maddow a point is her investigations into stories.

        • bmaz says:

          Velshi is 100 light years better than the preening, loves her own voice, monologue Rachel Maddow.

        • J R in WV says:

          Have to disagree with your description of Maddow as “preening, loves her own voice, monologue …”

          I think she does a better job with complex issues than any other news person.

        • FiestyBlueBird says:

          Yes. This. Often times she seems be unconsciously (or not!) channeling an over the top repetitive Ed McMahon before the jokes begin in a Carnac The Magnificent skit.

          If she’d cut that shit out it would be a big improvement, because sometimes her stories are otherwise interesting.

        • blueedredcounty says:

          I’m laughing as a I read this, because I’m picturing Rachel doing the Ed McMahon BIG “haw-haw-haw” between Carnac saying his prediction, and then opening the envelop to read the question.

  3. Silly but True says:

    Did “Nazi” the drama coming! Ernst Rohm also tried to complain to Adolph Hitler that Heinrich Himmler was disgusting, and see how far that got him.

    • Fran of the North says:

      Exactly what is your point? Does it relate to this specific topic or is it just o/t drivel?

      Mostly, why did it need to be said twice 30 minutes apart?

      Mods: Apologies if I’m out of bounds here, please delete this comment if appropriate.

      • Rayne says:

        Thanks, Fran. I missed the duplication. I’ve deleted the first POS left at 9:23 am.

        Knock it, Silly but True. We don’t need the DDoSing of our threads with crap. Up your game or play somewhere else.

  4. BobCon says:

    There’s an underlying problem of producers sticking to the tropes of TV news shows to a degree that makes no sense from even a ratings perspective.

    The potential advantage of having a former prosecutor on a show is that producers pick the right one, they can have a great storyteller who can put things into perspective with past cases. But overwhelmingly what producers give is quick hits for a few minutes of sound bites.

    What’s really puzzling is the degree to which popular media has gone the other way. Movies have gotten longer, TV creates tons of serial dramas, and podcasts continue to grow.

    I think there is probably a class bias among news execs that their audiences can’t stand longform news, but if they ever paid attention to talk radio they’d know how much of it is storytelling. It’s not just prestige TV drama that has gone longform — it’s superhero movies and reality TV too.

    News execs are stuck in a mindset of what a news broadcast is, and simply cannot imagine a world without sound bites.

    • Belyn says:

      Imo, many people genuinely lack time for the longform news. And sometimes they just need the little escape provided by news, podcast, movies etc. I don’t turn there, but sometimes I need to stick my nose in a book, sometimes just any book. But I appreciate your analysis, especially the reminder of the appeal of talk radio.

    • Rayne says:

      And yet CBS’s 60 Minutes, NBC’s Dateline, and ABC’s 20/20 have been around for decades. Even comedic coverage like John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight has successfully handled longform.

      There’s a pointed problem with news over the last 6 years: the big broadcast media companies don’t want very specific stories to receive deep investigative and ongoing coverage. They’ll let cable programs cover them but not broadcast. Why?

      • arbusto says:

        Can’t talk to Dateline or 20/20 but I know of two instances on 60 Minutes (though many years ago) where it appears the reporting were structured for sensationalism not facts. Don’t know if that’s still the case as I quit watching the show.

      • gmoke says:

        Dateline and 20/20 do not do any news now. They started as clones of 60 Minutes with a mix of news, celebrities, and crime stories and 20/20, in particular, did yeomen work on the Rumanian orphans story a few decades ago; but now Dateline and 20/20 are wall to wall true crime and that’s about it, although 20/20 does celebrity stories from time to time.

        A few years ago, I went to a seminar at Harvard’s Institute of Politics where news executives from NBC and MSNBC gave students a short history of network news. Neither of them mentioned this retreat from real news for such hour-long prime time shows nor the tradition of NBC White Papers or CBS Reports.

        We’ve forgotten more than we realize.

        • Rayne says:

          At some point we’re going to have to blame the audience for the shift because broadcast networks aren’t going to air content which isn’t drawing eyeballs in order to sell ads.

          True crime and celebrity crime stories apparently draw more attention than investigative reporting of any other kind presented in long format. Why is that?

        • Scott Johnson says:

          A lot of this has shifted to podcasts, Youtube, etc. There are dozens of streaming programs out there that offer similar material to the network newsmagazine shows, some specializing in things like unsolved or bizarre murder cases, etc.

        • Rayne says:

          The shift deserves examination of demographics. You can bet the remaining Greatest Generation and their Boomer and Gen X kids are less likely to consume longform news on the internet than on broadcast with oldest least likely than youngest.

          Also the location makes a difference; in flyover country where internet access is shitty but broadcast remains, consumption of longform news on the net is less likely.

          And then other demographic considerations — ESL Hispanic/Latinx are more likely to consume broadcast but not news unless it’s Spanish language.

        • P J Evans says:

          Entertainment value, I suspect. You can do “docudramas” about them, you can make them headline news for days or weeks, and you don’t have to do any actual journalism.

        • Rayne says:

          So you’re thinking this is a replacement for scripted content which might fail and cost more money than unscripted infotainment.

        • P J Evans says:

          Not sure about that part, but they can do all kinds of stuff that isn’t really news (or new) coverage but gets ad money.

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          I’ve been working on a book about true crime TV for two years. I’ve watched every episode of all these shows, plus those on Oxygen and ID for comparison. Rayne is right about broadcast television, and especially Dateline: they essentially process “true stories” into fairy tales, myths with reassuring narrative contours and familiar hooks.

          48 Hours occasionally does real news, for example the Ahmaud Arbery case. And 20/20, with the least to lose, ratings-wise, takes the most risks, venturing into territory the others don’t. The cable shows lack newsrooms and thus can’t do current events.

          But the failure of broadcast TV when it comes to real journalism comes straight from corporate ownership, as witness CBS’ recent hire of Mick Mulvaney for “access.” When that, rather than in–depth investigation (or even, say, having Dr. Wheeler on for some real insight), is your priority, all news value is lost.

    • rosalind says:

      i had the good fortune to dine with Robert Scheer and our mutual bud Jason Leopold a few years back, where he delivered one of the most depressing bits of news – that UCLA, where he taught courses & guest lectured – had to re-work their journalism department because students had no interest in journalism and all wanted to work in Public Relations instead.

      thought that so encapsulated the course our Country is on: all style over substance.

      • Rayne says:

        Can you blame students, though, when the jobs aren’t in journalism? When newspapers across the country are being bought up and bled dry by vampiric VCs, when workers are chronically underpaid and attempts to unionize are fought tooth and nail?

        No one wants to go $100,000 into debt to find there’s no job waiting, or jobs that pay poorly and are precarious.

        What schools need to do is develop a PR program which is flippable, responsive to journalists by teaching journalism as part of PR. And then schools should work with nonprofit journalistic ventures to develop future opportunities which are less precarious than the current environment for news.

        • Pete T says:

          To this point: https://www.axios.com/miami-herald-journalists-walk-out-f6a3b167-4ecd-4072-ab2a-188ffaf4ff65.html

          Even this, if successful, isn’t in and of itself going to up the game of newspaper journalism. I still subscribe to the local paper even though I have noticed the decline. It just needs to survive, but I don’t see how. I should save the paper subscription and am long overdue dropping some coin into this site’s cookie jar. Going to fix that now come to think of it.

        • Rayne says:

          McClatchy bought the Miami Herald and other papers, IIRC. I saw other McClatchy journalists tweeting they were walking out.

          I don’t know why after more than 15 years since newspapers migrated to the internet why they haven’t figured out a business model. Even outlets which have never been print like BuzzFeed have a problem.

        • Leoghann says:

          BuzzFeed’s problem is that enough soulless investors have bought in to skew the direction of the brand. They consider the quality work the marque has done to be an unnecessary diversion from making tons of money, Pulitzer be damned.

          Unless you’re reporting a McClatchy walkout that’s happened in the last few days, I’m not seeing a problem at the McClatchy paper I subscribe to.

      • HW3 says:

        My high school best friend got a master’s in journalism from UNC; not sure he ever worked in journalism other than writing op-eds; information officer/pr has been where the jobs are. Where I work, all the io/pr’s have come from newspapers. Bouncing around among vc/mclatchy chains is definitely a good setup for leaving the field.

  5. arj says:

    Regarding the physics of getting into Tarrio’s phone… it took about a year to gain access to the contents. That is a strong hint that Tarrio did not volunteer the passcode to unlock it; investigators would have needed to “brute-force” the passcode to gain access to the phone’s contents. Assuming it is an iPhone, which has special features designed to introduce delays based after failed attempts, the passcode would have had to be lengthy to withstand a year’s worth of repeated attempts. Matthew Green of Johns Hopkins–a cryptographer, someone I respect greatly–has estimated times it takes to brute-force iOS passcodes. Based on Matthew’s estimates and from prior research from NIST, the passcode would have likely had about 30 bits of “guessing entropy” or roughly 1 billion combinations to try.

    What kind of passcode might he have chosen to result in those odds? If he picked it himself, a 25-digit PIN or a 16-character password with special characters would work. It would seem more likely, though, that he generated the passcode randomly and committed it to memory. A 9- or 10-digit truly random numeric PIN would result in equivalent odds.

    A 10-digit PIN for the phone, or equivalent, is several standard deviations out from what most people do, and annoyingly convenient unless also using biometrics (FaceID, TouchID) for routine access. Speculation about potential passcode lengths aside, the broader inference is that Tarrio cared enough about his operational security (OpSec) to go to quite a bit of trouble to protect his phone, even before considering the apps he might have used, such as Signal encrypted messaging, Tor browsers, etc.

    [Note: I’m attempting to be consistent with my username this time.]

    [Thanks for letting us know about the username. /~Rayne]

    • emptywheel says:

      Yes, that’s what I’m thinking.

      It was probably something “Antifa sucks Roger Stone’s dick.”

    • Peterr says:

      Tarrio’s problem, however, is that OpSec is a *communal* endeavor, not an individual one. The minute he calls someone who doesn’t have the same concerns about having a robust password (for instance), his personal OpSec is breached.

      As Poor Richard once put it, “three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

  6. Ed Walker says:

    I despise TV news. Speaking is too slow a form of communication. It’s hard to keep track of things unless you are fully focused. The segments are too short for any real information to leak out. In a typical segment, a well-prepared speaker can put out a couple of ideas, between the parts where the hosts butt in with inane comments.

    For me, the perfect example of a TV news segment is that bit in Don’t Look Up where Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry play the news hosts and Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence are trying to explain about the comet. More here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11286314/characters/nm1347153?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t8

    Dr. Randall Mindy : I don’t feel so good.

    Brie Evantee : Alright, so I think what we’ll do, we’ll go to commercial break…

    Dr. Randall Mindy : No, please, please Brie. Don’t cut away. Let me say something

    Jack Bremmer : You came to the right place because on this show, we like to say things…

    Dr. Randall Mindy : Would you please, just stop being so

    [bleep]

    Dr. Randall Mindy : pleasant? I’m sorry, but not everything needs to sound so goddamn clever or charming or likeable all the time. Sometimes we need to just be able to say things to one another. We need to hear things! Look, let’s establish, once again, that there is a huge comet headed towards Earth….

  7. FL Resister says:

    TV lawyer and WAPO Opinion columnist George Conway, speaking with Molly Jong Fast on her podcast The New Abnormal this week, cited Marcy Wheeler as someone, unlike him, who reads all of the Jan 6 briefs.
    This exchange was interesting not only because the WAPO opinion writer named Marcy as an example of what he is not but admires, but also because he prefaced it with admitting his lack of experience in certain areas of the law.

    Raising awareness of the value in factual, detailed reporting and disallowing the screaming nonsense from both sides by people who aren’t really focused on the facts is not an easy job. But it is an effective antidote if applied liberally to the corruption of civil society that has escalated in recent years.

    • bmaz says:

      Eh, Conway now seems all nice and fuzzy, but is the epitome of cancerous conservative jurisprudence. Before he married the odious KellyAnne, his date was the equally odious Laura Ingraham. He is a lifetime political operative for bad things, not a good guy, nor his career causes good.

      • APB says:

        Tacking on to this point, after praising ew to Ms. Jong-Fast Conway mostly did cleanup in the Thomas aisle.

      • Molly Pitcher says:

        In thinking of Laura Ingraham dating, I’m surprised that Conway escaped with his head. I see here more like a praying mantis eating her mate.

  8. harpie says:

    DOJ made sure to say that TARRIO [at the 1/5/21 parking garage meeting]
    thought “no one” would be able to get into his phone:
    https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/03/14/a-white-board-of-the-sedition-curious/#comment-927143

    – [? Approx. 5:15 – 5:45 PM?] MEETING in DC parking garage: TARRIO, RHODES, SORELLE, GRACIA [Latinos for Trump], MACIAS [Vets for Trump] A documentary film crew was present in the garage and, at one point, picked up audio of a person referencing the Capitol. TARRIO said he had cleared all of the messages on his phone before he was arrested; no one would be able to get into his phone because there were “two steps” to get into it.

  9. harpie says:

    James’ cooperation would provide lots of new testimony about what Stone and other VIPs were doing on January 5 and 6, including an explanation as to why James felt he needed to call into Mike Simmons to report on what is almost certainly Stone’s anger about the sidelining of his extremist group at the main rally, something clearly at issue in these recent subpoenas.

    Maybe JAMES was actually letting SIMMONS know that JAMES himself [and MINUTA] might no longer be able to be wherever and whenever they were supposed to be, because STONE was [maybe] having a hissy fit. STONE has said his PLAN was to have his followers join him just NORTHEAST of the CAPITOL by 3:30 PM.

    • harpie says:

      Most of this is from The Roger STONE tapes:
      https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/03/08/enrique-tarrio-gets-his-chance-to-fit-in-or-fuck-off/#comment-926082

      12:00 PM Stone watches TRUMP’s speech on TV in his hotel suite with a group of guests and tells DAVIS: “I just caused a little problem for them with Julie FANCELLI.” [] ”I just told her, ‘You spent 300 grand and neither Jones nor I are speaking.’ [] ”One of my biggest donors financed this whole thing.” [] “They conned her.”
      12:40 PM Some of Stone’s guests leave; STONE team and the filmmakers agree to separate for lunch and reconvene two hours later
      12:58 PM MINUTA call to RHODES, 1:11
      1:02 PM RHODES to MINUTA Call 1:48
      Shortly before 2:00 PM

      on an invitation-only Signal group chat titled, “Jan 5/6 DC Op Intel team” – which included RHODES, JAMES and OTHERS – a participant posted a link to a video titled “live stream of patriots storming capital.” Another participant asked, “Are they actually Patriots – not those who were going to go in disguise as Patriots and cause trouble[?]” RHODES responded, “Actual Patriots. Pissed off patriots[.] Like the Sons of Liberty were pissed off patriots[.]” JAMES followed with, “Were coming to Capitol ETA 30 MIN[.]”

      2:30 PM Plans change; Marbell, the director of photography, rushes to STONES’s room: “Kristin DAVIS opened the door and said that ROGER was taking a nap, so I couldn’t film.”
      2:30 PM JAMES and MINUTA Start Grand Theft Golf Cart
      2:31 PM PERSON TEN to RHODES; Call 5:25
      2:32 PM RHODES to K. MEGGS; Call 1:37
      2:33 PM MINUTA and JAMES End Grand Theft Golf Cart
      2:33 PM MINUTA to [SIMMONS]; Call :49
      3:03 – 3:30 PM Marbell [the director] attempts to reach STONE by text; STONE responds and offers to go to Marbell’s room, but had still not arrived by 4:00 PM.
      3:30 PM STONE does NOT speak at a smaller rally near the Capitol at this time, as he had planned

  10. harpie says:

    This is the kind of thing he [GARLAND] was talking about: working your way up through Mark Grods to Joshua James to Stewart Rhodes to Roger Stone, taking the time to crack and exploit Tarrio’s phone, exploiting early access to Straka’s comms to get to the organizers. The investigation “aperture” hasn’t changed; what has changed is DOJ has acquired information it needed before it could take the next step.

    Joshua JAMES has also been linked to STONE’s “personal security” guy, NYPD officer Sal GRECO who “has dined with” former NYPD commissioner Bernie KERICK, who was GUILIANI’s investigator.

  11. harpie says:

    DURING the “GAP in WH call logs” from 11:04 AM – 6:54 PM
    [CIPOLLONE, HERSCHMANN and MEADOWS are AT the WHITE HOUSE; ROSEN is AT DOJ, and
    I think DONOGHUE is AT the CAPITOL at this time]

    11:17 AM TRUMP c/w UNKNOWN [>Kelly LOEFFLER]
    11:20 AM TRUMP call with PENCE [NOT in LOGS] (during which Trump reportedly tells him: “Mike, you can do this. I’m counting on you to do it. If you don’t do it, I picked the wrong man four years ago.” [] “You’re going to wimp out!”)
    11:39 AM TRUMP departs WH for ELLIPSE; joins aides, allies, family in tent
    11:57 AM TRUMP SPEECH BEGINS [1 hr. late + it lasts 70 minutes [NOT the planned 30]]
    12:03 PM ROSEN call from CIPOLLONE [1m]
    1:00 PM [approx]

    TRUMP: When you catch somebody in a fraud, you’re allowed to go by very different rules. So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope he doesn’t listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he’s listening to.

    1:10 PM [approx] TRUMP’s speech ends

    TRUMP: So we’re going to, we’re going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we’re going to the Capitol […] So let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. Thank you

    1:19 PM TRUMP is back at the WH
    2:24 PM TRUMP tweets:

    Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth! [Twitter: This claim about election fraud is disputed]

    2:26 PM TRUMP c/w TUBERVILLE [NOT in LOGS]

    TRUMP: Coach, how’s it going?
    TUBERVILLE: Not very good, Mr. President. As a matter of fact, they’re about to evacuate us.
    TRUMP: I know we’ve got problems.
    TUBERVILLE: Mr. President, they just took our vice president out. They’re getting ready to drag me out of here. I got to go.

    [unknown] AT LEAST ONE c/w JORDAN (Jordan has confirmed he spoke with Trump multiple times that day. Politico reported this call took place early in the insurrection and featured Jordan and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida asking Trump to call off his supporters.)
    2:57 PM ROSEN call from CIPOLLONE [h-w] “+ Meadows” [4m]
    3:11 PM ROSEN call from CIPOLLONE [4m]
    3:15 PM DONOGHUE call from CIPOLLONE [2m]
    3:30 PM TRUMP c/w McCARTHY [NOT in LOGS]
    3:44 PM DONOGHUE call from WHITE HOUSE Phone Number [11m]
    3:57 PM DONOGHUE calls HERSCHMANN [1m]
    Shortly before 4:17 PM TRUMP c/w SCAVINO (duration?) [NOT in LOGS]
    4:17 PM TRUMP tweets VIDEO:

    TRUMP: I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home at peace.

    4:27 PM DONOGHUE call from CIPOLLONE [3m]
    4:34 PM ROSEN call from WHITE HOUSE Phone Number [7m]
    5:05 PM DONOGHUE call from CIPOLLONE [2m]
    5:16 PM DONOGHUE call from CIPOLLONE [3m]
    5:30 PM DONOGHUE call from CIPOLLONE [1m]
    5:31 PM ROSEN call from CIPOLLONE [1m]
    5:32 PM ROSEN calls CIPOLLONE [2m]
    5:38 PM DONOGHUE call from HERSCHMANN [1m]
    5:56 PM DONOGHUE call from WHITE HOUSE Phone Number [33m]

    **** [GAP in WH call logs from 11:04 AM – 6:54 PM]

    • harpie says:

      Quotes we know from the 3:30 PM TRUMP c/w McCARTHY [NOT in LOGS]

      M: “I just got evacuated from the Capitol! There were shots fired right off the House floor. You need to make this stop.” [] “You have to denounce this.”
      T: “You know what I see, Kevin? I see people who are more upset about the election than you are. They like Trump more than you do.”
      M: “You’ve got to hold them” [] “You need to get on TV right now, you need to get on Twitter, you need to call these people off.”
      T: “Kevin, they’re not my people.”
      M: “Yes they are, they just came through my windows and my staff is running for cover. Yeah, they’re your people. Call them off.”

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