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Salon
Salon
Politics
Tatyana Tandanpolie

New Jan 6 video: Trump lawyer at Capitol

On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump-aligned attorney Kenneth Cheseboro, donning a red "Trump 2020" cap, was following alt-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones around the Capitol before pro-Trump rioters eventually stormed the legislative building, according to an investigation carried out by CNN. Videos and photographs the outlet reviewed showed Cheseboro recording Jones with his phone as the talk show host ascended to the "restricted area" of the Capitol grounds.

When asked by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack where he was the first week of January 2021, Cheseboro opted to plead the Fifth. Though his newly revealed actions outside the building that day did not prompt much scrutiny, Cheseboro's alleged role as the architect of former president Donald Trump's efforts to overthrow the 2020 election has placed him in the limelight. Several media outlets and legal experts have identified the lawyer as the unnamed, unindicted fifth co-conspirator described in the government's latest indictment against Trump.

"Even if Chesebro is simply a diehard 'Infowars' fan, I think that would further illustrate how thin the line was between the serious, credentialed people who sought to undermine election results and the extremist figures who sought to unleash havoc was in that period, to the extent it meaningfully existed at all," Jared Holt, an expert at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which investigates extremism, hate and disinformation, told CNN. Nothing indicates that Cheseboro entered the Capitol building or took part in the violence. Far-right extremist Jones did not enter the building or engage in the riots but had "warned of a coming battle the day before and urged his supporters to converge on the Capitol," CNN reports. 

Jones, for his part, is set to launch a new show after suffering major financial setbacks under his Infowars brand. 

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