Ahead of the hearing, committee members said the presentation would focus on ties between then-President Donald Trump’s administration and groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.
Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys leader from Florida and a former InfoWars correspondent, has taken a senior leadership role in the Proud Boys following the Jan. 4 arrest of Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tario, according to the Justice Department. Biggs is said to have led the Proud Boys in a march to and around the Capitol building and was present at the initial break-in on the Capitol grounds.
Biggs faces nine federal charges, including seditious conspiracy, and has pleaded not guilty.
Michael Flynn
Michael Flynn is a retired lieutenant general in the US Army and served as national security adviser during the first 23 days of Trump’s administration. After reports that he misled the administration about his communications with Russia before Trump took office, Flynn was forced to resign. He was accused, pleaded guilty to — and then tried to withdraw that charge — lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts. Flynn eventually received a presidential pardon from Trump, ending the three-year legal saga.
Since the 2020 election, Flynn has been heavily involved in the Stop the Steal movement. His outlandish theories about overturning the election eventually reached the White House, most notably during a December 2020 Oval Office meeting where Flynn and attorney Sidney Powell suggested the then-president impose martial law or confiscate voting machines .
Kelly Meggs
Kelly Meggs is the leader of the Florida branch of the Oath Keepers and is one of several members charged with a seditious conspiracy. He pleaded not guilty. Text messages from around January 6 show that Meggs discussed the possibility of using the Proud Boys as a “force multiplier” on January 6 with other Oath Keepers and that he was in contact with former Trump adviser Roger Stone about providing security for time of the Stop the Theft Rally. Meggs allegedly led the infamous first “pile” of Oath Keepers up the stairs and into the Capitol building on Jan. 6, according to the Justice Department. Once inside, Meggs allegedly went looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Ethan Nordian
Ethan Nordian, leader of the Washington State Proud Boys, has also taken a leadership role in Tario’s absence. Nordean, along with Biggs, led a large group of proud boys in a march from the Washington Monument to the Capitol.
Nordean faces nine federal charges, including seditious conspiracy, and has pleaded not guilty.
Dominic Pezzola
Rochester Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola is accused of smashing a window with a stolen police officer’s riot shield, prompting the first break-in at the Capitol building. He is said to have been one of the first rioters inside and was at the head of the group that chased Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up the stairs.
Pezzola faces 10 federal charges, including seditious conspiracy, and has pleaded not guilty.
Sidney Powell
Sidney Powell is a lawyer and former prosecutor who became a legal hero in the Trump world for his defense of Flynn when he faced charges in Robert Mueller’s investigation and later for her failed attempts to challenge the results of the 2020 election d. After the 2020 election, she joined Rudy Giuliani and other Trump lawyers in lobbying for some of the most outlandish false claims of election manipulation, as she vowed to “unleash the Kraken” in her legal gambits. She now faces legal ethics complaints about how she handled the post-election litigation collusion with Trump. Before the 2020 election, she represented Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, when he tried to back out of a plea deal he made with Mueller over false statements he made to the FBI.
Stewart Rhodes
Stewart Rhodes, an Army veteran and Yale Law School graduate, founded Oath Keepers in 2009 and has led the far-right organization since then. Rhodes was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, but is not said to have entered the building, although phone records show he communicated with members who entered the Capitol and with members organized into an armed “quick-fire force.” response’ just outside Washington, DC. Rhodes was also a member of a Signal “VIP” chat room along with Roger Stone, Ali Alexander, Alex Jones and other key Trump allies, according to people familiar with the Signal messages prosecutors obtained. Rhodes, along with nine other members of the Oath Keepers, are due to stand trial in September on charges of seditious conspiracy. He is currently in a federal detention center near Washington, DC. Rhodes has pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges stemming from Jan. 6.
Kelly Sorrell
In 2020, Kellye SoRelle volunteered for Lawyers for Trump and assisted in some of the Trump campaign’s efforts to challenge the outcome of the presidential election. She is a close ally of Rhodes and was photographed with him outside the Capitol on January 6. She has provided information to both the House Select Committee and the FBI, but has not been charged with a crime.
Roger Stone
A longtime Trump political operative and ally, Roger Stone had a large presence until Jan. 6, with ties to both Trump and far-right extremists involved in the Capitol riot. Stone, who Trump pardoned in July 2020 after being convicted of crimes that included lying to Congress, attended the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally and had a defense group made up of Oath Keepers members, some of whom have been criminally charged in a rebel plot. According to former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the committee last month, Trump — the night before the Capitol riot — told chief of staff Mark Meadows to ask Stone and Flynn what would happen on Jan. 6. Stone also testified before the committee, asserting his Fifth Amendment rights on every issue.
Enrique Tario
Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tario was arrested on unrelated charges two days before January 6 and was not in Washington on the day of the attack, but was said to have been in contact with a rally planning group within the Proud Boys called the Ministry of Self Defense, or MOSD.
MOSD’s first event, according to prosecutors, was Trump’s Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., and Tario sent the group a Jan. 4 voicemail admitting they wanted to “storm the Capitol.” As the attack unfolded, Tario allegedly wrote in an encrypted message: “Make no mistake… We did this.”
Tario, Biggs, Pezzola and Nordean are among the leaders of the Proud Boys charged with a seditious conspiracy. Like the other three, Tario pleaded not guilty.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.
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