The story had a date in it
In one lineQ promised a day of reckoning, and on January 6, 2021 some believers decided it had come. This chapter lays out where people from this file stood in the weeks before, the night before and on the day, each link with its own source and stamp. It is a record of where people stood, not a charge against anyone.
A man in a Q shirt was at the front of the crowd that chased a police officer up the Senate stairs. His name is Douglas Jensen. Asked later why he put himself up front, he said he “wanted Q to get the attention.”
Remember the shape of the story from the door: an anonymous insider, an elite ring, arrests coming any day now. In Q’s world that day had a name, “the Storm.” NPR reports that “many QAnon followers at the Capitol believed they were participating in what is called ‘The Storm’ in QAnon lore.”
So the question for this chapter is narrow. Not who broke in. Where were the people this file has been following while the date approached?
Witness account · Arturo TafoyaI wasn’t in Washington, and nothing here comes from my inbox. Every line in this chapter rests on public reporting or on the House Select Committee’s final report. My own reading is at the end, marked as mine.
The weeks before
Powell, Flynn and Byrne inside, then “Be there, will be wild!”
Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne reached the Oval Office with a junior aide’s help and spent time alone with Trump. The plan floated had Powell as special counsel over “seized voting machines.” In NPR’s account of the hearings, a White House aide texted that “the West Wing is unhinged.” Hours later Trump posted: “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
The Select Committee’s report says Byrne “encouraged the President to authorize the seizure of voting machines in a December 18th meeting.” Byrne denies that the military-seizure idea was raised.
You have met two of these people already. Powell is the Flynn attorney on the Dallas program in chapter 24, and Flynn runs through the whole file. Byrne enters here, for this meeting only.
Bannon, the day before
NPR reported that a day before the assault on the Capitol, Steve Bannon said all hell was going to break loose tomorrow. He later defied the committee’s subpoena, was convicted of contempt of Congress, and was sentenced to four months. His worldview is the subject of chapter 23.
Alex Jones and the “day of reckoning”
The committee’s report says Jones “repeatedly told his InfoWars’ viewers that January 6th would be a day of reckoning.” After the Dec 12 Jericho March he led a march on the Supreme Court: “we need 10 million people there.”
Separately, the New York Times, citing evidence gathered by the committee, reported that White House officials told Jones he was to lead a march to the Capitol, and that he helped organize money for the rally at the Ellipse. That part is the Times’s reporting, not a line in the report.
Jones’s show is where, in October 2016, Pieczenik thanked Bannon and Kushner for “the most brilliant psychological operation” (chapter 03).
The night before
Flynn on the stage
At the Freedom Plaza rally Flynn told the crowd: “We stand at a crucible moment in United States history.” And, separately: “This country is awake now.”
The committee’s report also shows Stewart Rhodes of the Oath Keepers coordinating with a group called “1st Amendment Praetorian” on security for VIPs, Flynn and Byrne among them.
Stone, with the Oath Keepers around him
The report: “The Select Committee found that at least seven members of the Oath Keepers provided security for Stone.” “Some of these Oath Keepers guarded Stone during an event at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC on the night of January 5th.” The Washington Post reported that Stone “was transported and guarded on Jan. 5 by multiple Oath Keepers,” and that he told the crowd he would stand with them “shoulder to shoulder” the next day.
“One of the Oath Keepers who provided security for Stone was Joshua James.” James later pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. The report gives the plea as seditious conspiracy.
Stone sits in the file’s cast table (chapter 01), and his 2019 conviction and pardon are noted in chapter 10.
The day, and after
The people who came
Ashli Babbitt. AP reported that her Twitter account “included references to the QAnon conspiracy theory.” On Jan 5 she posted, in part: “the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours.” She was shot and killed inside the Capitol.
Jacob Chansley, the man photographed as the “Q Shaman.” He pleaded guilty to “a charge of obstructing an official proceeding.” He left a note for Pence: “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.” His lawyer says he “has since repudiated the QAnon movement.”
Douglas Jensen, the man in the Q shirt from the top of this chapter: he “wanted Q to get the attention.”
None of these three appears anywhere else in this file. They are here because they are where the story landed.
Stewart Rhodes, met once before in this file
Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy in the January 6 attack. You met him in chapter 24: in 2018 he was on the program of “Operation Classified” in Dallas, a fundraiser for Flynn’s legal defense where the host said “Q is real,” with Sidney Powell on the same bill.
Same standard both ways: the committee’s report describes Rhodes as “not a follower of Q at all.”
What the committee itself said about Q
The final report has a section titled QAnon: “Operation Occupy the Capitol.” Read it for what it is. It names Q believers, and Ron and Jim Watkins. It does not name Flynn, Powell, Byrne, Bannon, Jones or Stone. Nothing in that section ties the people above to Q.
Flynn and Stone both invoked the Fifth before the committee. The transcript reads “General Flynn: The Fifth.” For Stone the report gives two counts: “nearly 90 times” in §6.6, and “over 70 questions” in an endnote.
Jim Watkins, the owner of the board where Q posted, is the man Thomas said on a stream he’d had “some amazing conversations” with (chapter 05). That is a stream, not a role on January 6.
It does not blame anyone in this file for January 6, or say that anyone here planned the breach or is legally answerable for it. Nobody named in the weeks-before and night-before entries is shown entering the Capitol. It does not say the committee tied any of them to Q; its Q section names other people. It does not say Rhodes followed Q; the report says he did not. Other people this file follows appear nowhere in this chapter, because no January 6 record for them has turned up. The one claim that rests on newspaper reporting rather than the report, Jones and the march to the Capitol, is labelled as the Times’s.
My reading · Arturo TafoyaLine it up and here’s what I see. A story with a date built into it ran for three years. In the last weeks, some of the people this file documents were in the Oval Office, on the stage the night before, or surrounded by the men later convicted of sedition. And people who believed the story came. None of them broke a window. The story told people the day had come, and that was enough. That’s my reading. The entries above are the record, and you can weigh it without me.
Sources: House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, Final Report, H. Rept. 117-663 (Dec 2022), ch. 6 “Be There, Will Be Wild!”, §§6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.6, 6.9, and “Efforts to Avoid Testifying” (ch. 6 read via Wikisource transcription; to be checked against the GPO PDF) · NPR (Sprunt), “Inside the ‘unhinged’ West Wing meeting on Dec. 18,” Jul 12, 2022 · NPR (Fadel, Johnson), Bannon sentencing, Oct 21, 2022 · New York Times via Boston Globe, Alex Jones text messages, Aug 2022 · AP (Khalil, Balsamo), Jan 5, 2021 · Washington Post (Bennett, Swaine), Mar 4, 2022 · AP, Babbitt, Jan 8, 2021 · Reuters (Trotta, Borter, Allen), Jan 7, 2021 · AP (Billeaud), Chansley plea, Sep 3, 2021 · NPR (Joffe-Block), Dec 30, 2024 · AP (Kunzelman, Richer, Whitehurst), Rhodes sentencing, May 25, 2023 · Salt Lake Tribune, Byrne denial. Archive links to be added before publication.
Last: the five sentences from the cover, closed. What’s documented, and what hasn’t happened yet. Chapter 28 →