It was referred to as F.O.S. — or Pals of Stone — and whereas its members shifted over time, they have 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 an internet 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.
Not less than three members of the group chat at the moment are dealing with prices in reference to the riot on the Capitol in January 2021. They embody 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 residence web page: Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime political operative and adviser to Mr. Trump.
Whereas little is thought about what was stated on the chat, the membership listing of Pals of Stone, offered to The New York Instances by certainly one of its members, presents a form of highway map to Mr. Stone’s associations, displaying their scope and nature within the crucial 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 depend and hold Mr. Trump within the White Home.
A number of the 47 individuals on the listing are recognized solely by nicknames or initials, and Mr. Stone had pre-existing political ties with lots of them. Nonetheless, as prosecutors deepen their inquiry into the storming of Capitol, the listing 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 e-mail, Mr. Stone stated that he didn’t management who was admitted to the group chat and famous that Cease the Steal actions have been protected by the First Modification.
“There is no such thing as a story,” he wrote. “Simply harassment.”
Whereas the origins of the group chat stay considerably obscure, Pals of Stone has existed since a minimum of 2019, when Mr. Stone was indicted in reference to the Russia investigation by the particular counsel Robert S. Mueller III, stated certainly one of its members, Pete Santilli, a veteran right-wing radio host. Based on Mr. Santilli, the group chat — hosted on the encrypted app Sign — was a form of secure area the place pro-Stone figures in politics and media, lots of whom have been banned from social media, might 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 stated. “You drop a hyperlink and everybody shares it on their nontraditional channels.”
However after Mr. Trump’s defeat, Pals of Stone appeared to imagine one other objective 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 Submit, citing footage from a Danish documentary movie crew that was following Mr. Stone, stated 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 could have helped to form or information the violence. Investigators seem like inquisitive about 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 listing contains a number of individuals who match that description.
Named on the listing are activists like Marsha Lessard and Christina Skaggs, leaders of a gaggle referred to as the Virginia Freedom Keepers who helped to arrange an anti-vaccine rally scheduled for the east facet 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 listing.
Members of the group have been amongst those that took half in a convention name on Dec. 30, 2020, when a social media knowledgeable 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 cellphone calls looking for remark.
Ali Alexander, one of the outstanding Cease the Steal organizers who deliberate his personal occasion on the Capitol that day, was on the listing as nicely. His lawyer didn’t return a cellphone name looking for 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 gaggle referred to as Latinos for Trump, based on permits and occasion fliers. Mr. Stone by no means spoke at these occasions, nonetheless, and hurried out of Washington even because the police have been nonetheless securing the Capitol, based on the movie footage cited by The Submit.
Mr. Stone’s connections to Mr. Rhodes and the Oath Keepers have been based mostly, a minimum of partly, on the truth that the militia group offered 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, court docket papers say.
Not less than certainly one of Mr. Stone’s Oath Keeper bodyguards, Joshua James, has pleaded responsible to seditious conspiracy prices 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 Pals of Stone chat as nicely and can also be stated 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 prices together with obstruction and witness tampering, Mr. Tarrio responded by sporting a T-shirt studying “Roger Stone Did Nothing Improper” at certainly one 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 shopper’s function within the chat.
Throughout his prosecution, Mr. Stone posted a picture on social media of the federal decide in his case, Amy Berman Jackson, with cross hairs subsequent to her head. When questioned in court docket concerning the picture, he acknowledged that he had been despatched a sequence of pictures by Mr. Tarrio and two different Florida Proud Boys whose names seem on the Pals of Stone membership listing: 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 cellphone name due to what he later described as a household emergency.
One other one that appeared on the Pals of Stone listing — beneath the title “Ivan” — was Ivan Raiklin, an Military Reserve lieutenant colonel who promoted a plan after the election to stress 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 finally taken up by Mr. Trump and a few of his authorized advisers, just like the lawyer John Eastman.
Mr. Raiklin, who didn’t return cellphone calls looking for 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 Pals of Stone group chat. Together with the membership listing, The Instances was given photographs of some snippets of conversations to confirm the chat’s authenticity.
In certainly one of them, Ms. Skaggs advised 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, stated Mr. Wooden was claiming that the Riot Act — a type of martial regulation — 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 after I see it,” he wrote, dismissing the account with an obscenity.
