Gosar denies role in Jan. 6 attack
Report claims people in WH, Congress involved, offered ‘blanket pardon’
Rep. Paul Gosar encouraged people to plan rallies on Jan. 6 because thenPresident Donald Trump could provide them a “blanket pardon” in another investigation, according to a new story in
Rolling Stone.
Citing two unnamed sources who participated in the main rally near the White House, which was followed by violence at the U.S. Capitol, and are communicating with congressional investigators, the magazine said Gosar, R-Ariz., indicated that he had discussed the matter with Trump in the Oval Office and gave them the impression it was likely to happen.
“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” one of the sources said, according to Rolling Stone. The story
claims extensive planning and involvement in the rallies in Washington on that day from people in the White House and in Congress.
The House Freedom Caucus, headed by Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., would give a boost to the accompanying paperwork for a presidential pardon, the magazine reported. That group of Republicans was Trump’s most loyal faction on Capitol Hill and has remained in his corner even after the deadly riot at the Capitol.
Gosar denied the allegations in the article without elaborating.
“The Rolling Stone ‘story’ is categorically false and defamatory,” he said in a statement.
Gosar has been one of the most prominent Republicans in Congress trying to recast Jan. 6 as a day of peaceful, patriotic protest, and has claimed a California woman shot to death by police as she climbed through a barricaded door was “murdered.”
Biggs’ office maintains as it has for nine months that he was not involved in
the events that led a pro-Trump mob to storm the Capitol.
“Congressman Biggs has addressed the events of Jan. 6th several times and has made his lack of involvement abundantly clear,” said Hilton Beckham, a Biggs spokesperson. “Rolling Stone’s reputation is already tattered and the baseless claims it’s making about Congressman Biggs from ‘anonymous sources’ only calls its credibility further into question.”
The Rolling Stone article comes as a House select committee investigates what precipitated the unprecedented assault on the Capitol.
It reports the pre-riot involvement of several other House Republicans or top members of their staff. They are: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia; Lauren Boebert of Colorado; Mo Brooks of Alabama; Louie Gohmert of Texas; and Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina.
Mark Meadows, Trump’s thenchief of staff, also participated in planning sessions, the magazine reported. “Meadows was 100 percent made aware of what was going on,” the magazine said.
The House committee has subpoenaed records from Meadows.
Apart from Gosar’s involvement, his chief of staff, Tom Van Flein, is identified as “personally involved in the conversations about the ‘blanket pardon’ and other discussions about pro-Trump efforts to dispute the election,” Rolling Stone reported. The magazine noted that the committee also wants records involving Van Flein.
Biggs and Gosar figured prominently in the unfounded efforts to cast the 2020 presidential election as riddled with fraud.
Ali Alexander, a Texas man viewed as the lead organizer in the “Stop the Steal” rallies that ensued, singled out Biggs and Gosar, along with Brooks, for their assistance in a video published before the riot.
The House committee has reportedly sought phone records for nearly a dozen Republicans, including Gosar and Biggs. Both opposed the creation of the special committee and have cast it as a partisan attack on Republicans.
Alexander called Gosar the “spirit animal” of the effort. Gosar attended at least one rally in Phoenix and referenced “Stop the Steal” dozens of times on social media before Jan. 6.
Biggs has maintained he had no role in it and never contacted Alexander. He did provide an audio message played by Alexander at a rally in Phoenix he said Gosar’s aides requested.
Biggs and Gosar were part of a report of social media posts by those who voted against certifying the election compiled earlier this year by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who is a member of the special committee.