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It was often called F.O.S. — or Buddies of Stone — and whereas its members shifted over time, they had been a motley forged of characters.
There have been “Cease the Steal” organizers, right-wing influencers, Florida state legislative aides and a couple of failed candidate loyal to former President Donald J. Trump. One participant ran a web site that promoted disinformation concerning the Capitol assault. One other was an officer within the Military Reserve allied with Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser.
At the least three members of the group chat are actually dealing with expenses in reference to the riot on the Capitol in January 2021. They embrace Owen Shroyer, the right-hand man of the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; Enrique Tarrio, the onetime chairman of the Proud Boys; and Stewart Rhodes, the chief of the Oath Keepers militia.
However the focus of the chat was all the time the person whose photograph topped its dwelling web page: Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime political operative and adviser to Mr. Trump.
Whereas little is understood about what was mentioned on the chat, the membership record of Buddies of Stone, supplied to The New York Instances by one in every of its contributors, gives a form of highway map to Mr. Stone’s associations, displaying their scope and nature within the essential interval after the 2020 election. Throughout that point, Mr. Stone was concerned with a strikingly big selection of people that participated in efforts to problem the vote rely and maintain Mr. Trump within the White Home.
Among the 47 folks on the record are recognized solely by nicknames or initials, and Mr. Stone had pre-existing political ties with a lot of them. Nonetheless, as prosecutors deepen their inquiry into the storming of Capitol, the record means that Mr. Stone had the means to be in personal contact with key gamers within the occasions of Jan. 6 — political organizers, far-right extremists and influential media figures who subsequently performed down the assault.
Reached by electronic mail, Mr. Stone mentioned that he didn’t management who was admitted to the group chat and famous that Cease the Steal actions had been protected by the First Modification.
“There isn’t a story,” he wrote. “Simply harassment.”
Whereas the origins of the group chat stay considerably obscure, Buddies of Stone has existed since no less than 2019, when Mr. Stone was indicted in reference to the Russia investigation by the particular counsel Robert S. Mueller III, mentioned one in every of its contributors, Pete Santilli, a veteran right-wing radio host. In keeping with Mr. Santilli, the group chat — hosted on the encrypted app Sign — was a form of protected area the place pro-Stone figures in politics and media, a lot of whom had been banned from social media, may get collectively and commerce hyperlinks and tales about their mutual good friend.
“The first motive for the chat was to have a spot for supporters to share stuff,” Mr. Santilli mentioned. “You drop a hyperlink and everybody shares it on their nontraditional channels.”
However after Mr. Trump’s defeat, Buddies of Stone appeared to imagine one other function as Mr. Stone discovered himself in the course of the accelerating Cease the Steal motion devised to problem the outcomes of the election. The Washington Put up, citing footage from a Danish documentary movie crew that was following Mr. Stone, mentioned that in early November 2020, he requested his aides to direct these concerned within the effort to observe the chat for developments.
In latest weeks, the Justice Division has expanded its investigation of the riot from those that bodily attacked the Capitol to those that weren’t on the constructing however might have helped to form or information the violence. Investigators seem like fascinated by discovering any hyperlinks between organizers who deliberate pro-Trump rallies on the Capitol that day and right-wing militants who took half within the assault.
The group chat’s membership record consists of a number of individuals who match that description.
Named on the record are activists like Marsha Lessard and Christina Skaggs, leaders of a bunch referred to as the Virginia Freedom Keepers who helped to prepare an anti-vaccine rally scheduled for the east aspect of the Capitol on Jan. 6. Ms. Lessard and Ms. Skaggs labored with one other anti-vaccine activist, Ty Bollinger, who was additionally on the record.
Members of the group had been amongst those that took half in a convention name on Dec. 30, 2020, when a social media skilled who previously labored for Mr. Stone urged his listeners to “descend on the Capitol” one week later, promising that Joseph R. Biden Jr. “won’t ever be in that White Home.”
Ms. Lessard, Ms. Skaggs and Mr. Bollinger didn’t return telephone calls in search of remark.
Ali Alexander, some of the outstanding Cease the Steal organizers who deliberate his personal occasion on the Capitol that day, was on the record as nicely. His lawyer didn’t return a telephone name in search of remark.
Within the days main as much as Jan. 6, Mr. Stone was scheduled to talk at each Mr. Alexander’s occasion and the rally hosted by Ms. Lessard, Ms. Skaggs and others, together with Bianca Gracia, the chief of a bunch referred to as Latinos for Trump, in accordance with permits and occasion fliers. Mr. Stone by no means spoke at these occasions, nonetheless, and hurried out of Washington even because the police had been nonetheless securing the Capitol, in accordance with the movie footage cited by The Put up.
Mr. Stone’s connections to Mr. Rhodes and the Oath Keepers had been primarily based, no less than partly, on the truth that the militia group supplied safety for him on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. The Oath Keepers additionally protected Mr. Alexander and his entourage on Jan. 6 and served as safety on the occasions hosted by Ms. Skaggs, Ms. Lessard and Ms. Gracia, courtroom papers say.
At the least one in every of Mr. Stone’s Oath Keeper bodyguards, Joshua James, has pleaded responsible to seditious conspiracy expenses within the Capitol assault and is cooperating with the federal government’s inquiry. Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer for the Oath Keepers, was a part of the Buddies of Stone chat as nicely and can be mentioned to be cooperating with prosecutors within the riot investigation.
Mr. Stone, a Florida resident, has lengthy maintained shut ties to the Proud Boys, particularly to Mr. Tarrio, who lived in Miami earlier than his arrest. Members of the Proud Boys have acted as bodyguards for Mr. Stone and have served as a few of his most vocal supporters.
In 2019, after Mr. Stone was indicted by Mr. Mueller on expenses together with obstruction and witness tampering, Mr. Tarrio responded by carrying a T-shirt studying “Roger Stone Did Nothing Incorrect” at one in every of Mr. Trump’s political rallies. At one level, Mr. Tarrio’s private cellphone had a message recorded by Mr. Stone.
Nayib Hassan, Mr. Tarrio’s lawyer, declined to touch upon his consumer’s function within the chat.
Throughout his prosecution, Mr. Stone posted a picture on social media of the federal choose in his case, Amy Berman Jackson, with cross hairs subsequent to her head. When questioned in courtroom concerning the picture, he acknowledged that he had been despatched a sequence of photographs by Mr. Tarrio and two different Florida Proud Boys whose names seem on the Buddies of Stone membership record: Jacobs Engels and Tyler Ziolkowski.
Mr. Engels was with Mr. Stone in Washington on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. He initially agreed to speak concerning the group chat however then didn’t return a telephone name due to what he later described as a household emergency.
One other one that appeared on the Buddies of Stone record — beneath the title “Ivan” — was Ivan Raiklin, an Military Reserve lieutenant colonel who promoted a plan after the election to strain Vice President Mike Pence to not certify electors from a number of disputed swing states. This plan, which Mr. Raiklin referred to as the “Pence Card,” was in the end taken up by Mr. Trump and a few of his authorized advisers, just like the lawyer John Eastman.
Mr. Raiklin, who didn’t return telephone calls in search of remark, was on the Capitol on Jan. 6, however confirmed no signal of coming into the constructing. Intently aligned with Mr. Flynn, he has continued to query the outcomes of the 2020 vote, showing at so-called election integrity occasions and arguing that Mr. Trump was arrange by members of the “deep state.”
Whereas the federal government has gathered hundreds of pages of personal messages in its huge investigation of the Capitol assault, it stays unclear if prosecutors have gotten entry to the Buddies of Stone group chat. Together with the membership record, The Instances was given photos of some snippets of conversations to confirm the chat’s authenticity.
In one in every of them, Ms. Skaggs instructed the group that she had simply spoken with the pro-Trump lawyer L. Lin Wooden, who took half within the effort to overturn the election. Ms. Skaggs’s message, which doesn’t bear a date, mentioned Mr. Wooden was claiming that the Riot Act — a type of martial legislation — had been invoked the night time earlier than.
Responding to her message, Mr. Rhodes, who had repeatedly urged Mr. Trump to make use of the Riot Act to remain in energy, answered incredulously.
“I’ll consider it once I see it,” he wrote, dismissing the account with an obscenity.
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