Ali Alexander, some of the essential organizers of the Jan. 6 “Cease the Steal” occasion that preceded the tragic Capitol riots has mentioned he would cooperate with a congressional subpoena for his participation within the tried insurgency. Alexander appeared on digicam for the primary time in months in a video uploaded to Telegram Saturday night time, by which he acknowledged that he can be “privately dropped off in December” and that he has no intention of difficult the subpoena as a result of he “had no cash.” has to spend”. authorized accounts.”
“The one purpose I am going is as a result of I do not wish to go to jail. So underneath the specter of jail time and spending tens and tens of hundreds of {dollars} on legal professionals, I shall be personally impeached earlier than this fee in December,” he mentioned.
After the indictment of Steve Bannon in early November, Alexander went right into a daze, arguing that one ought to reside one’s life “settle for[ing] that you’ll die.” In a Saturday Telegram message, Alexander mentioned he “did not” [be] withdraw” from the Congressional Committee which he claims goals to “lock him up”.
Alexander disappeared from public view, hiding someplace within the US and speaking solely on social media. Just lately, one thing occurred that uncovered his actual location.
Domains linked to Alexander selling Cease the Steal, together with domains he publicly commented on as himself, had been scrambled within the wake of the incident to cover possession. Nonetheless, info disclosed reveals that they could be traced again to Ali and the anonymization service of the Epik webhosting firm.
Alexander had positioned himself because the de facto head of the motion along with his “Cease the Steal” marketing campaign within the run-up to the failed rebellion, sparked by weeks of false claims of mass vote fraud within the 2020 presidential election.
Alexander made his plans for January 6 clear at a rally the place he spoke in Arizona on December 19: he and his military of supporters would do all the things they might to forestall Congress from recognizing President Joe Biden’s victory.
Alexander was already planning the January 6 protest with far-right Republican lawmakers.
“We will persuade them to not verify the vote on January sixth by marching tons of of hundreds, if not thousands and thousands of patriots, to sit down their asses in DC and shut that metropolis down, proper?” Alexander mentioned that December day. “And if we now have to discover the choices after that…”
Alexander has been a serious Republican backchannel determine for greater than twenty years. He beforehand pleaded responsible to prison prices underneath the title Ali Akbar.
Laura Loomer and Jacob Wohl, each far-right cops, are amongst his mates.
He additionally has connections to Roger Stone, who’s underneath investigation for his involvement in instigating the violence on the Capitol. Alexander had practically 1 / 4 of one million Twitter followers on the time of the Capitol incident.
Alexander was seen on digicam shouting “Victory or Dying” to a raucous viewers the night time earlier than the incident. He had additionally branded himself because the official coordinator of the protest and was filmed on a rooftop throughout the demonstration, gushing about how effectively all the things was going.
Because the mud cleared on January 6, Alexander appeared to have already begun an try to cover his connections to the motion. The conspiracy theorist can be completely banned from social media earlier than finally going into hiding after 5 deaths, tons of of accidents and important injury to the Capitol.
As public anger on the violence grew, it appeared that work was happening behind the scenes. Alexander, or somebody working with him, took steps on January 15 to anonymize his private info on greater than 100 area registrations, simply 9 days after the failed rebellion.
Cease the Steal is straight linked to nearly half of these websites. Within the wake of the incident, domains like stopthestealmovement.com, stopthestealnews.com, and stopthestealupdates.com had been all scrambled.
Alexander had chosen to assign his net addresses to Epik, a site registrar that gives the “Anonymize” choice of area privateness. The ruling would theoretically stop the general public from realizing which domains he managed.
On September 13, nevertheless, Nameless claimed it had stolen ten years’ price of knowledge from Epik, an organization greatest identified for internet hosting extremist web sites. Regardless of initially denying any data of a compromise, Epik CEO Rob Monster then admitted in a wierd four-hour video convention that hackers had obtained a backup of the corporate’s information.
Launched on-line as a torrent, the 180 gigabyte information cache contained area registrations and account passwords, in addition to the non-public info of people that registered a number of the Web’s most notorious far-right websites.
The Day by day Dot was capable of hyperlink an e mail from Alexander to 122 different websites after analyzing the info. The far-right determine acquired an e mail on January 15 from a ProtonMail handle congratulating him on creating an Anonymize account.
“Pricey Ali A,” the e-mail begins. “Thanks for signing up with us. Your new account has been arrange and now you can login to our buyer space utilizing the main points under.”
Anonymize Alexander’s profile by looking out the stolen information for the ProtonMail handle used to create the account. Alexander’s login and hashed password, in addition to his cellphone quantity and handle, are all included within the information. Appears to be like just like the handle of a UPS retailer is in Texas. The UPS handle is beforehand linked to Alexander.
An try and contact Alexander utilizing the cellphone quantity and e mail handle listed within the breach was tried many instances, however acquired no response.
The account creation date listed underneath Alexander’s account info, January 15, corresponds to the day he signed up for the anonymization service within the e mail.
Alexander’s account was given a novel ID that shall be used instead of his actual title along with his public area registrars.
Anonymize assigns an e mail handle to every of its customers primarily based on the 5 digits of their distinctive ID. These numbers will be seen throughout Alexander’s web site.
Querying the Anonymize e mail handle of the breach reveals any web site that seems to have tried to cover the far-right determine. If Epik’s breach hadn’t been so widespread, linking some domains to Alexander would have been tough, if not unattainable, primarily based solely on the Anonymize e mail handle.
Nonetheless, most of the domains do nothing to cover their actual proprietor. AliAlexander.org, Alexander’s fundamental web site soliciting contributions as “essentially the most deplatformed man on the planet,” is among the domains talked about.
The postal handle of the web site corresponds to the handle in Alexander’s Anonymize profile.
ChristianNationalism.us, Apostolates.com, and CommunionOfPatriots.com are only a few of the websites that record Alexander’s non secular views.
Other than just a few websites related to politicians, similar to TheOfficeOfDonaldJTrump.com and HarrisAdministration.internet, Alexander’s domains had been principally related to the Cease the Steal marketing campaign. A listing of 57 related domains was obtained for viewing.
Within the wake of the Capitol riots, all the things was made nameless.
In line with regulation enforcement officers who spoke to the Washington Publish, the FBI launched an investigation into Alexander after the Jan. 6 incident. So no prices have been filed in opposition to him but.
Surprisingly, simply in the future after he signed up for Epik’s area privateness service, the handle related to Alexander determined to register the title CapitolInvestigation.org.
Regardless of the unhealthy press surrounding Alexander, the far-right determine in February mentioned he was nonetheless dedicated to “dismantling this complete system”.
“I’ve licked my wounds, however I’ve made plans,” Alexander mentioned. “I used to be planning. I have been scheming.”
Alexander’s intentions for the longer term are unknown. For now, Alexander is funding his struggle by charging $500 a 12 months to learn his private weblog.
