A far-right activist who helped organise the rally outside the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 says he will return to the site in 2025 regardless of the results of the upcoming presidential election.
Ali Alexander made the vow during an interview with the Nebraska Examiner amid a gathering of election deniers in Omaha. He remains a vocal supporter of former president Donald Trump and the attempts to overturn the 2020 election, as Mr Trump himself called for as recently as Monday.
“I usually think of it in terms of, ‘Do I regret organizing on Jan. 6th or not?’ and I don’t,” Mr Alexander told the newspaper after being asked what he would have done “differently” in regards to Jan 6.
“In fact, I plan to be at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2025, … for whatever the Congress certifies,” he continued. “There’s going to be a winner. There’s going to be a loser. And I intend to hold a peaceful event.”
His remarks betray a confidence in the notion that he will not be prosecuted amid the Department of Justice’s ongoing grand jury investigation into January 6; Mr Alexander has testified before that grand jury, but stressed that investigators told him he remains a witness, not a target, of their probe.
Whether Donald Trump or any of his associates will be prosecuted over the bloody attack on the US Capitol remains to be seen. The Justice Deparment has as of yet only brought charges against individual participants in the attack itself, while members of Donald Trump’s administration and campaign who participated in the effort to overturn the election and rally supporters to Washington that day remain an unaddressed issue.
There are signs, however, that the DoJ’s probe is going further than just targeting rioters. Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed to follow the facts of his probe to whevever they lead and in recent weeks a top aide to Vice President Mike Pence was among witnesses who testified to the grand jury.
The “Stop the Steal” rally hosted by Mr Alexander was one of two major events hosted by pro-Trump parties on the day of the attack. The second was hosted and attended by Donald Trump himself, in coordination with outside groups, on the grounds of the Ellipse — a park outside the White House.
At that rally, the former president urged his supporters to march down to the US Capitol, pledging to join them, and “fight” for his outright false claims about the 2020 election.
