Video surfaces showing Trump ally Roger Stone flanked by Oath Keepers on morning of Jan. 6

 

Video surfaces showing Trump ally Roger Stone flanked by Oath Keepers on morning of Jan. 6

 

Some Oath Keepers were later involved in the riot at the U.S. Capitol.

 

ByMatthew Mosk,Olivia Rubin,Ali Dukakis, and Fergal Gallagher

5 February 2021, 20:42

https://abcnews.go.com/US/video-surfaces-showing-trump-ally-roger-stone-flanked/story?id=75706765

 

A new video has surfaced showing former President Donald Trump's longtime adviser Roger Stone in Washington, D.C., on the morning of Jan. 6, flanked by members of the Oath Keepers militia group just hours before the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol building.

 

In the video, which was obtained and reviewed by ABC News, Stone takes pictures and mingles with supporters outside a D.C. hotel as Oath Keepers hover around him, one wearing a baseball hat and military-style vest branded with the militia group's logo.

 

"So, hopefully we have this today, right?" one supporter asks Stone in the video, which was posted just after 10 a.m. on the morning of the rally. "We shall see," Stone replies.

 

It is not known to what they were referring.

 

Stone has maintained that he played "no role whatsoever in the Jan. 6 events" and has repeatedly said that he "never left the site of my hotel until leaving for Dulles Airport" that afternoon. He has also decried attempts to ascribe to him the motives of the people around him.

 

"I had no advance knowledge of the riot at the Capitol," Stone on Friday told ABC News about the video. "I could not even tell you the names of those who volunteered to provide security for me, required because of the many threats against me and my family."

 

In recent weeks, photos have surfaced online showing several people involved in the assault on the Capitol posing at various events with Stone. At least two of those arrested after the melee posted photos on social media late last year showing themselves with the longtime Trump associate. Stone, long a provocative strategist in Republican circles, attained an added degree of celebrity after being convicted in connection with the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and later being pardoned by President Trump.

 

Oath Keepers were known to be providing security for Stone during his D.C. visit. Reports surfaced in January that militia members were traveling with Stone on the day before the Capitol assault, as the Trump loyalist helped set the stage for the "Stop the Steal" events that were intended to give a forum to the president's false claims that the 2020 election had been rigged.

 

The newly surfaced video is the first to show militia members with Stone on the day of the Capitol riots.

 

Whether men seen standing with Stone on Jan. 6 were participants in the mob assault on the Capitol is unclear.

 

Cybersecurity researcher John Scott-Railton, at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, said he and others are trying to make that determination.

 

The wife of one of the men seen with Stone, Robert Minuta, confirmed to ABC News that her husband did go to the Capitol that day, but denied he went inside. He was "another patriot outside the Capitol Building ... standing up for freedom," she said.

 

Scott-Railton has been working in concert with other researchers -- including a group calling itself "Capitol Terrorists Exposers" -- to painstakingly gather and compare images and videos found on social media of those who appeared at the Capitol.

 

"I think it's extremely important and urgent that we all understand what happened on the sixth," Scott-Railton told ABC News. "Not just who was there, but who they were with, and what their plans and intentions were. This work solidly falls into that vein."

 

Minuta, the Oath Keeper in the video with Stone, also appeared to be in images marching in December alongside Trump's former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn at a rally to contest the election results. Speaking at the Dec. 12 rally in Washington to promote the Trump effort to overturn the election, Flynn told supporters: "We're in a battle ... for the heart and soul of the country ... we will win."

 

Rudy Giuliani also appears briefly during the video outside the D.C. hotel, though the president's personal attorney does not appear to speak to Stone or any of the Oath Keepers alongside him. Giuliani, who appears to be exiting the D.C. hotel, moves quickly in a circle of people into a black car waiting on the street.

 

The Justice Department has aggressively gone after individuals who participated in the insurrection and continues to explore the role extremist groups may have played in coordinating the incursion that left five dead, including a Capitol police officer.

 

At least five people associated with the Oath Keepers have already been arrested for their alleged role in the attack. Three of them have been charged with conspiracy. The FBI said in one court filing that some members of the Oath Keepers "took steps to plan an operation to stop, delay, and hinder Congress' certification of the Electoral College vote."

 

Stone has said he played no part in such an effort. None of the men seen with him in the video has been arrested.

 

"A careful review of my language of Jan. 5 indicates that I played no role whatsoever in advocating violence or any inappropriate or illegal activity," Stone said in the statement to ABC News in January. "Indeed anyone breaking into the U.S. Capitol, trespassing and destroying property would only be hurting the America First movement that I support."