When advisers for former President Donald Trump were helping to set up the Jan. 6 rally outside the White House, Trump’s inner circle tried to prevent “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander from speaking.
Trump confidants were so concerned about associating the president with Alexander that, despite Alexander being a central organizer for the Jan. 6 rally, they repeatedly took steps to distance Trump from Alexander.
Alexander—whose real name is “Ali Akbar”—had a criminal record from 2007, when he pled guilty to felony property theft and was sentenced to 12 months probation. But more than that, Alexander had become a far-right agitator. Ahead of Jan 6, he pushed the baseless conspiracy theory that now-Vice President Kamala Harris was not “Black,” and when the Hotel Harrington closed its doors in the lead-up to Jan. 6, Alexander said that, if something bad happens to the downtown tourist hotel in response to their decision, “don’t ask me to denounce it.”
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And still, despite all the warnings, Trump overruled his advisers and made sure Alexander had a speaking spot—if not on Jan. 6 during Trump’s rally at the Ellipse, then at least at Freedom Plaza on Jan. 5.
That is one of the takeaways from a number of the depositions released by the Jan. 6 Committee in recent days, and it’s yet more evidence of just how far outside the mainstream Alexander had become even before the Jan. 6 rally turned violent—and the lengths to which Trump went to give the far-right a platform.
According to a trove of depositions released by the Jan. 6 Committee this week, many of Trumpworld’s most loyal and plugged-in advisers were hellbent on ensuring Alexander didn’t have a seat at the table.
The depositions include, for example, the fact that Republican operative Arthur Schwartz—advising on behalf of Donald Trump Jr. at the time of the text messages—asked senior Trump adviser Katrina Pierson, “Why are we letting our people share a stage with Ali Akbar and people like that?”
Pierson was no less disturbed. “I’m so fucking pissed. Such bullshit,” she replied.
“This is fucking retarded,” Schwartz fired back.
Others—entwined in a chaotic Trumpworld at the time—believed including Alexander and far-right provocateur Alex Jones was not wise.
Among those who quietly attempted to make a case for Alexander not to be included was former senior Trump campaign adviser Taylor Budowich. He made a rather candid admission in his deposition with the committee: “How Ali Akbar and Alex Jones speak about political engagement run contrary to my belief of how we should act and be involved in political discourse,” he said under oath.
Budowich called the two “irresponsible people,” citing an experience when he was a student in Egypt around 2010. Specifically, Budowich told a story to the committee about how a cab driver of his suggested burning Egypt “to the ground” and letting it “rise like a phoenix from the ashes.”
“I kind of rolled my eyes and said, ‘Okay buddy,’” Budowich told the committee.
Yet, while advisers expressed concern about including Alexander in the Jan. 6 rally, the former president saw it differently.
According to depositions and the committee’s final report, as Pierson said to Women for America First and Jan. 6 organizer Kylie Kremer, Trump wanted the “crazies”—such as Alexander—to be included. The former president noted that, after the election, “Stop the Steal” leaders defended Trump “viciously” in the public square.
It was Deputy Chief of Staff of Communications and Trump social media guru Dan Scavino who wrote in a subsequent text message that Trump had “brought up” Alexander by name and instructed that he be “on stage not associated with POTUS or main event,” according to the committee.
All the while, Pierson still objected to Alexander. She went to Scavino to make the case as to why controversial speakers shouldn’t be included. But that plan to nix Alexander, Jones, and Roger Stone was “initially vetoed” by Scavino.
Pierson wasn’t deterred. She gave it one last shot by going to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, writing in a text message, according to the committee: “Things have gotten crazy, and I desperately need some direction.”
Moving the cast of controversial characters didn’t work, and she had to make the case to Trump himself at a Jan. 4 meeting, to “keep the fringe on the fringe” and prohibit “convicted felons”—a not-so-veiled dig at Alexander—from damaging the reputation of other pro-Trump speakers.
In the end, Trump demanded that Alexander be issued a speaking slot, according to the committee.
All the while, to this very day, those around the former president remain convinced that Trump doesn’t know who Alexander is, despite asking to learn more about the far-right activist.
“Trump definitely doesn’t know who Ali Alexander is,” one source close to Trump insisted to The Daily Beast. And while Alexander might not have had—or have—a direct line to the former president, at one point, he had Trump’s eye, most likely after conducting a similar protest in Georgia.
Other top figures in Trumpworld also seem to be shaky on Alexander. When Kimberly Guilfoyle—a MAGA influencer who is engaged to Don Jr.—was asked about “Ali Akbar” by committee investigators, she replied: “Isn't that what terrorists yell?”
A source close to Guilfoyle insisted to The Daily Beast that she doesn’t know Alexander. “Kimberly has no idea who this person is or what he does,” the source said.
(Guilfoyle, for her part, pocketed $60,000 for a two-minute speech on Jan. 6.)
When reached for comment by The Daily Beast, Alexander wouldn’t comment about his relationship with Trump or if he has a direct line to the former president. But he insisted Trump was a fan of his work.
“Trump, the donors, and the organizers wants [sic] me. And it was the movement I created,” he told The Daily Beast. “Losers who grifted didn’t want me.” He further accused Pierson of reverting back to her “ghetto grifter ways” and claimed she betrayed Trump. “Trump supported me,” he argued. (Pierson declined to comment.)
As Scavino pointed out, Trump did support Alexander speaking—at least to an extent. As Trump instructed, Alexander spoke at a rally at Freedom Plaza on the eve of Jan. 6, where he declared: “Victory or death!”
The next day, as the Capitol was under siege, Pierson sent a text message to fellow senior Trump adviser Max Miller about why she’d “fought so hard to keep certain people off that damn stage.”
“Good news is that I was able to keep the crazies off the stage,” she texted, according to the committee.
“Thank God,” Miller replied.
While Alexander’s precise relationship with Trump—or lack thereof—remains blurry, one source close to Trump insisted Alexander’s future in Trumpworld isn’t promising.
The far-right activist is “irresponsible,” the source said, and “makes it about himself a lot of the time.”
