Sunday, July 10, 2022

There are tapes

More documentary evidence.
Weeks before the Capitol attack, top Republican political activists Roger Stone and Ali Alexander identified the January 6 congressional certification as the final chance for Donald Trump to attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

[...]

As Stone and Alexander mounted their political operation, their activities were recorded by two conservative film-makers in the post-2020 election period and in the weeks before January 6.

The access meant the film-makers, Jason Rink and Paul Escandon, captured footage of the leaders of the Stop the Steal movement and their interactions with top Trump allies, according to a teaser for the documentary titled The Steal.

In following Stop the Steal, the film-makers’ project documented key moments in the timeline leading up to the Capitol attack, including an “occupation” of the Georgia state capitol in November, and rallies in Washington that almost seemed like dry runs for January 6.

They also caught on camera public and private moments at Stop the Steal events. Among others who appear in the documentary are the House Republican Paul Gosar, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

[...]

[P]arts of the footage reviewed by the Guardian make The Steal Movie seem like a detailed account of the behind-the-scenes efforts to stop Biden from becoming president.

[...]

The House January 6 select committee emailed a letter earlier in January asking to review the footage, but a lawyer for Rink declined the request, citing the need to maintain journalistic independence and fears the content would leak from the inquiry.

House investigators did not ultimately pursue the matter after the lawyer indicated he would litigate a subpoena; unless film-makers have said they would only turn over footage in response to a subpoena, the panel has generally avoided that route.

[...]

The question about the footage, however, recently resurfaced inside the select committee, days after former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified under oath that Trump ordered his then chief of staff to call Stone on the night before the Capitol attack.

Stone has denied that the call took place, just as he has denied that he had anything to do with the events of January 6. He declined to cooperate with the select committee in an interview, asserting his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.

[...]

The activities of Stone with respect to stopping Biden’s certification is of interest to January 6 investigators since he had close ties to leaders of the far-right Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups that stormed the Capitol and have since been indicted for seditious conspiracy.

Many of the key moments for the Stop the Steal movement, managed by Alexander but ultimately controlled by Stone, according to sources familiar with how they worked in practice, were captured on tape by Rink and Escandon’s film crew.

  Guardian
Add this to the Alex Holder documentary, Unprecedented.
The film-makers are also understood to have captured some footage the day before and the day of the Capitol attack, including discussions between Stone and Alexander, as well as the fate of the “Stage 8” rally that Alexander had planned on January 6 yards from the Capitol.

Stone never went to the Save America rally at the Ellipse where Trump spoke, after a dispute over VIP passes, according to people familiar with the incident. He also never went to the planned Stage 8 rally on the East Front of the Capitol and instead left Washington in a hurry.
That sounds like Stone. The Snake.

Also, that "teaser" for the documentary looks pretty lame.

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