Witness claims Trump’s Chief of Staff was on phone planning Jan. 6 march on Capitol

According to one individual, who says he overheard a planning conversation, Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff and a national campaign spokesperson were collaborating on efforts to encourage Trump supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6th of last year.

The witness has since testified to House investigators regarding the phone call he overheard.

Scott Johnston was working on the team that helped put together the Ellipse rally, which took place on the day of the riot. Johnston claims the leading individuals in the Trump administration as well as on his campaign had deliberately planned to have the crowds descend on the Capitol as the results of the 2020 election were being certified. He added that they were told to “make it look like they went down there on their own.” 

Johnston apparently described the phone call he overheard to the House select committee investigators, and he later detailed his allegation in several conversations with Rolling Stone.

He claims he heard Mark Meadows, who at the time was Trump’s chief of staff, and Katrina Pierson, the former president’s national campaign spokeswoman, speaking with Kylie Kremer, who had served as the executive director of Women for America First. According to Johnston, their conversation included discussions of a march to the Capitol. 

“They were very open about how there was going to be a march,” Johnston recalled. “Everyone knew there was going to be a march.” Still, the former president’s team insists there was no such pre-planned push for the riot. In his book recounting his time in the White House, Meadows describes the January 6 attack as “the actions of a handful of fanatics across town.”