A Comprehensive Overview of All Five of Donald Trump's January 6 War Rooms
During Insurrection Week, Trump's insurrectionists had at least five secretive war rooms inside Washington. Here's everything we know about each of them so far.
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Introduction: The Five War Rooms
Research by Proof into the January 6 insurrection reveals that Team Trump opened five “war rooms” during Insurrection Week. Trump lawyer John Eastman was the first to call his own space (of the five) a “war room”; another participant in the same room, Joe Oltmann, called it a “command center”; and at another point Eastman noted that he had been working in a “communications coordination [center].” The five spaces that answer to such descriptions are summarized below and then discussed in more detail.
#1: The Trump International War Room
Location: Trump Townhouse in Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC
Occupants: 19+ (see below)
Occupant Categories: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 (see below)
Duration: January 5 and possibly January 6
#2: The Willard Hotel War Room
Location: The Willard InterContinental Hotel DC in Washington, DC
Occupants: 25 to 30
Occupant Categories: 2, 4, 5, 10, 11
Duration: January 4 to January 12 (minimum)
#3: The White House War Room
Location: The White House
Occupants: 4+
Occupant Categories: 1, 9, 12 (and then-president Donald Trump)
Duration: mid-December 2020 through January 20, 2021
#4: The Downtown Marriott Hotel War Room
Location: The Washington Marriott at Metro Center in Washington, DC (at times incorrectly identified by the insurrectionists as the JW Marriott Hotel)
Occupants: 4+
Occupant Categories: 6, 8, 11, 12
Duration: January 5 and January 6
#5: The Vice President’s War Room
Location: 1 Observatory Circle at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC
Occupants: 2+
Occupant Categories: 6 (and then-vice president Mike Pence)
Duration: January 4
War Room Occupant Categories
{1 = closest relationship with Trump, 12 = most distant from Trump}
These include: Trump family (1); Trump lawyers (2); Trump campaign officials (3); Trump nongovernmental advisors (4); Trump associates (5); Trump donors (6); Trump administration officials (7); GOP officials or operatives (8); foreign Trump associates (9); far-right media (10); Stop the Steal militants (11); and far-right agitators (12).
War Room #1: The Trump International War Room
Known and Identified Participants (Alphabetical by Last Name)
(1) Ali Alexander, Stop the Steal organizer, convicted felon, currently in hiding^
(2) Layne Bangerter, 2016 Trump elector, Idaho GOP official
(3) Daniel (“Dan”) Beck, Trump donor, Txtwire CEO, owner of Combat Armor Defense (an armored-vehicle company with a factory in Brazil)
(4) Doyle Beck, 2016 Trump elector, Idaho GOP official, father of Daniel Beck
(5) Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president
(6) David Bossie, Trump campaign adviser, Defense Business Board appointee^^
(7) Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor to then-president Trump^^
(8) Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney to then-president Trump
(9) Kimberly Guilfoyle, adviser to Donald Trump and girlfriend of his eldest son
(10) Charles W. Herbster, Republican gubernatorial candidate from Nebraska
(11) Corey Lewandowski, 2016 Trump campaign manager
(12) Michael Lindell, Trump donor and MyPillow CEO
(13) Peter Navarro, Assistant to the President, Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, National Defense Production Act Policy Coordinator^^
(14) Adam Piper, executive director, Republican Attorneys General Association*
(15) Donald Trump Jr., eldest son of then-president Trump
(16) Eric Trump, second-eldest son of then-president Trump
(17) Tommy Tuberville, United States senator from the State of Alabama^^^
(18) an unnamed U.S. senator, the second of three present at the meeting and now believed to be Ted Cruz, United States senator from the State of Texas
(19) an unnamed U.S. senator, the third of three present at the meeting
^ Attended via telephone.
^^ Confirmed present by an eyewitness but denies being present
^^^ Denied being present, but ultimately confessed to being present.
* Since resigned.
Suspected Participants (ranked by 1-10 “Likelihood Ranking”)
{1 = distant possibility of presence; 10 = certain to have been present}
(LR9) Phil Waldron, self-described intel analyst and aide to Rudy Giuliani
(LR6) Sidney Powell, former federal prosecutor and attorney for Michael Flynn
(LR1) Roger Stone, longtime Donald Trump adviser and confidant
(LR1) Sal Greco, friend of longtime Trump adviser and confidant Roger Stone
Description
Conducted in the most exclusive property in Trump’s real estate empire, the Trump Townhouse, this war room was open for as many as twelve hours in the afternoon of January 5 (noon to midnight). As with all of the war rooms described in this article, it’s unknown if this war room was linked to any of the four or more others via telephone or video conference, though it’s worth noting that the Trump Townhouse is technically Trump’s “private residence” in DC, and Trump has held events there and stayed there in the past, which makes it a necessity that it have high-tech links to the White House and other key locations. A dining room that functions as a meeting room seats from 16 to 24 people, and indeed the estimated size of this gathering from eyewitnesses is 24.
Eyewitnesses confirm that the purpose of the gathering was to discuss strategies to keep Trump in power, with an emphasis on what would be required from the joint session of Congress on January 6—and perhaps even from events outside the building—for that to happen. It is the call-in from Ali Alexander adds the latter dimension.
This was the most high-powered war room; it contained most of Trump’s inner circle. The reason to believe Waldron was present is that he was photographed in the lobby of Trump International, steps from the entrance to the Trump Townhouse, at the same time confirmed attendees Donald Trump Jr. and Michael Flynn were photographed in that space. As importantly, Waldron had been a constant presence at the side of Trump lawyer Giuliani in the weeks leading up to the opening of the Trump International war room on January 5, so it’s unlikely Giuliani would have shut Waldron out of the event.
Attendee Michael Lindell said in a January 6 livestream that he’d spent “the last three days” with Giuliani, Flynn, and Powell, so it seems unlikely that Flynn, Lindell, and Giuliani would have ditched Powell simply to attend a meeting of Trump’s inner circle.
Roger Stone was seen leaving the Willard with Sal Greco an hour after the end of the Rally for Revival/Rally to Save America at Freedom Plaza, heading in the direction of Trump International.
Relevant Proof Articles
“Meeting at Trump International Could Hold Key to January 6” (January 26, 2021)
“More Revelations About War Council at Trump International” (January 27, 2021)
“A Profile of Trump War Council Attendee Daniel Beck” (January 28, 2021)
“Senators and Trumps Met with Man Who Endorsed Sedition” (January 29, 2021)
“Update on January 5 Trump War Council Expands Its Size” (February 6, 2021)
“Flynn Denies Being Present at Trump International” (February 11, 2021)
“Tuberville Admits Lying About Trump International Meeting” (March 8, 2021)
“Trump’s Pre-Insurrection War Room Revealed” (April 26, 2021)
“Revelations About Trump's January 5 War Council (Parts 1-3)” (May 22, 2021)
War Room #2: The Willard Hotel War Room
Known and Identified Participants
(1) Christina Bobb, One America News Network (OANN) host, aide to Giuliani
(2) John Eastman, then-professor at Chapman University School of Law
(3) Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney to then-president Trump
(4) Robert Hyde, Trump associate involved in the Trump-Ukraine scandal
(5) Joe Oltmann (a.k.a. “Joe Otto”), co-founder of FEC United, a Colorado group closely linked to the United American Defense Force (UADF), a far-right militia
(6) Russell (“Russ”) Ramsland, Jr., Allied Security Operations Group
(7) Maria Ryan, girlfriend of Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani aide
Known But Unidentified Participants
(8) an unnamed man in a white tee shirt, a guest at Trump International Hotel
(9) an unnamed tall man in a dark jacket and brown hat, appears in two photos
(10) an unnamed man with a military-style haircut, appears in one photo
Suspected Participants
(LR9) Boris Epshteyn, senior adviser to 2016 Trump campaign, strategic adviser to 2020 Trump campaign, ex-assistant comms director in Trump administration
(LR9) John Baker, professor emeritus at Lousiana State University Law School
(LR9) Doug Frank, math and science chair, Schilling School for Gifted Children
(LR9) Jim Penrose, former head of the Operational Discovery Center of the NSA
(LR8) Matthew S. DePerno, attorney at DePerno Law Office, PLLC
(LR6) Paul Coyer, associate professor at l’Ecole Speciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr
(LR6) Joe diGenova, partner at diGenova & Toensing (the law firm representing Erik Prince), legal adviser to then-president Trump
(LR6) Sal Greco, NYPD police officer and friend of Roger Stone
(LR6) Roger Stone, longtime Donald Trump adviser and confidant
(LR6) Victoria Toensing, partner at diGenova & Toensing, legal adviser to then-president Trump, wife of Joe diGenova
(LR5) David Harris Jr., far-right author and fellow at The Falkirk Center
(LR5) Sidney Powell, former federal prosecutor and attorney for Michael Flynn
(LR4) Alex Jones, conspiracy theorist and InfoWars
(LR4) Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to then-president Trump
(LR3) Jennifer Lynn Lawrence, GOP strategist and associate of Steve Bannon
(LR3) Owen Shroyer, top lieutenant of Alex Jones at InfoWars and InfoWars host
(LR3) Dustin Stockton, GOP strategist and associate of Steve Bannon
(LR2) Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor to then-president Trump
(LR1) George Papadopoulos, 2016 national security adviser to candidate Trump
Description
Per Joe Oltmann, there were “25 to 30” total participants in the Willard war room. To be sure, the Willard was a hive of activity during Insurrection Week. Roger Stone was staying there, wandering the halls with a binder of information and hanging out with “literally fifty” insurrectionists—among them the six Oath Keepers who guarded him—when he wasn’t attending Jones’s interview with Flynn in one of the hotel rooms. Jones’s lieutenant, Shroyer, is photographed at the hotel twice on January 5, the second time while instigating the lighting of a fire on the sidewalk outside to honor arrested Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio; the founder of Stop the Steal in Arizona, the Oath Keeper and Republican state representative from Arizona Mark Finchem, rushes to the Willard on January 6 to jump on a golf cart with two fellow Oath Keepers and head to the Capitol; George Papadopoulos is spotted hanging out in the lobby by a patron; David Harris Jr., a top Trump ally, was staying at the hotel, and so too, apparently, was top Trump comms guy Boris Epshteyn, who is photographed leaving the hotel with Giuliani on the morning of January 6, and says he watched Trump’s Ellipse speech with Sebastian Gorka. Steve Bannon had at least two associates staying at the Willard—both of whom now say they received “marching orders” while at the hotel.
Given that Ali Alexander says Stone “advised” Trump’s Willard Hotel-headquartered legal team, we must ask not only whether Stone was inside the Willard war room but whether other Trump attorneys were also there. Indeed, Eastman says he spent his war room hours with the attorneys who had been working on post-election lawsuits in Michigan—John Baker and Matthew DePerno—and also mentions being with Doug Frank and Jim Penrose. Paul Coyer wrote a friend, Lance Wallnau, telling him he had “stayed up all night at the Willard” on January 5 working on Oltmann/DePerno data.
Giuliani broadcast interviews from the Willard war room, as did girlfriend Maria Ryan. Oltmann launched, from the Willard, a successful bid to get to the State Department on Insurrection Day to brief “leadership”; he appears to have been staying at the hotel.
About the “Known and Unidentified” Participants
(8) “WhiteTee.” He wears a Trump International lanyard and appears in one January 6 Willard war room photo and one January 5-6 Trump International Hotel lobby photo.
{UPDATE: Proof has now identified the man in the white shirt above as Philip (or sometimes “Phillip”) Luelsdorff, the Director of Business Development for the militant extremist 1st Amendment Praetorian group run by Robert Patrick Lewis.}
(9) “TallMan.” No frontal photos of this man’s face are available. He appears in two Willard Hotel war room photographs, with the better of these two photographs below.
(10) “A man with a military-style haircut.” This man stands beyond Robert Hyde, with the bottom of his face obscured, in the one Willard photograph in which he appears.
Relevant Proof Articles
“Roger Stone’s Fingerprints Are All Over the Insurrection” (January 25, 2021)
“What Flynn and Jones Were Doing on Insurrection Eve” (January 28, 2021)
“Federal Prosecutors Appear to Be Closing In on Roger Stone” (February 4, 2021)
“The Link Between Stone and the Insurrectionists’ Funding” (February 6, 2021)
“New Information Further Links Jones, Stone, and Watkins” (March 25, 2021)
“Roger Stone Buries Himself in New Interview” (March 31, 2021)
“Team Trump Had a Second Pre-Insurrection War Room” (June 6, 2021)
“Inside the Willard Hotel on January 6” (June 8, 2021)
“New Member of January 6 Willard Hotel ‘War Room’ Revealed” (June 13, 2021)
“Sixth Willard Hotel ‘War Room’ Member Confirmed” (June 14, 2021)
“Stone Keeps Lying About the Willard—and Now We Know Why” (June 15, 2021)
“We Now Know What the Willard Hotel War Room Was For” (June 16, 2021)
War Room #3: The White House Room
Known and Identified Participants
(1) Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president
(2) Nestor Forster Jr., outgoing ambassador to the United States from Brazil
(3) Jared Kushner, son-in-law of then-president Trump
(4) Rogan O’Handley, far-right agitator and “MAGA” digital influencer
(5) Donald J. Trump, then-President of the United States
(6) Ivanka Trump, eldest daughter of then-president Trump
Suspected Participants
(LR7) Rudy Giuliani, personal attorney to then-president Trump
(LR7) Corey Lewandowski, 2016 Trump campaign manager
Description
The White House is the strangest war room of the insurrection. It was the earliest to be activated—Trump held critical meetings about his January 2021 political plans on December 18 with, among others, Powell, Byrne, Flynn, and ex-administration official Emily Newman, and on December 21 with representatives Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and Jody Hice (R-GA)—and it featured, of course, the most important actor in the run-up to the insurrection, Donald Trump. All the most critical White House meetings happened after Women for America First announced its plan for a January protest, and some came before Insurrection Eve; besides December 18 and December 21, key meetings include January 3 (with Trump and acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller) and January 4 (in which Eduardo Bolsonaro visited the Trumps under highly suspicious circumstances, thereafter returning to the White House a second time, on January 8, to meet with Jared Kushner). But the two most important meetings at the White House remain the one on December 18 mentioned above and the one focused on this article, which was held on January 5—Insurrection Eve—and may be the most mysterious war room meeting of the January 6 insurrection timeline.
On the night of January 5, Rogan O’Handley, invited by Ali Alexander to speak at the Rally for Revival/Rally to Save America at Freedom Plaza, said from the event stage that he had just come from a meeting at the White House whose participants he couldn’t name. Given that Alexander had had substantially more contact with the White House and indeed Trump himself—besides meeting the president on several occasions, Alexander was in touch with Trump adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle on Insurrection Eve and with an unnamed representative of the Trump campaign throughout the day on January 6—the idea that O’Handley would have been invited to the White House and not Alexander borders on the preposterous. And yet, as the FBI has thus far declined to interview Alexander, his whereabouts between the morning and evening sessions of the Rally for Revival/Rally to Save America remain unknown.
What we do know is that Corey Lewandowski says he met with Donald Trump on January 5—he told the Atlantic so—but won’t reveal where the meeting took place, though he dared his interviewer to try to get White House records for that date. In a Facebook post, Trump International war room participant Charles W. Herbster first wrote, before editing it, that the meeting he was attending was at the White House.
Relevant Proof Articles
“Brazil’s Connection to Trump’s War Council Is Getting Clearer” (March 6, 2021)
“Did Trump ‘Attend’ a War Council From the White House?” (March 9, 2021)
“Here Is the Twelve-Point Plan Trump Had for January 6” (March 10, 2021)
“A January 6 Secret Service Scandal Is Brewing” (March 25, 2021)
“Questions for the Secret Service on Its Conduct on January 6” (March 26, 2021)
“Lewandowski Had a Meeting With Trump on January 5” (March 27, 2021)
“Secret Insurrection Eve Meeting at White House Confirmed” (April 1, 2021)
“Trump-Brazil Plot to Steal Election Seems to Have Been Plan B” (May 20, 2021)
“Trump Spoke to Stop the Steal Leader Jones on Insurrection Day” (June 11, 2021)
War Room #4: The Marriott War Room
Known and Identified Participants
(1) Ali Alexander, Stop the Steal organizer, convicted felon, currently in hiding
(2) Michael Coudrey, Stop the Steal organizer, far-right agitator
(3) Mark Finchem, Oath Keeper and Republican state legislator in Arizona
(4) Carl Prewitt, Trump organizer in Florida, associate of rapper Forgiato Blow^
^ Present but possibly not a participant.
Known But Unidentified Participants
(5) an unnamed woman with brown hair, appears in one Marriott photo (below)
Description
The Marriott was a key hub for Stop the Steal activity pre-insurrection. Not only did Alexander stay there, but so too—on Stop the Steal’s dime—did Mark Finchem, who founded the Stop the Steal movement in Arizona, and Michael Coudrey, an infamous disinformation agent who became a top Alexander lieutenant in Stop the Steal. In the foreground of the photo above is an influential Trump organizer from Tampa, who is significant here not because Proof is certain yet of his involvement with Stop the Steal (it is not) but because in other photos from Prewitt’s voluminous Insurrection Eve and Insurrection Day photo-set, he not only appears at the Capitol but at other times and places alongside MAGA “rapper” Forgiato Blow, a known Roger Stone associate who appears with Joe Oltmann in a video from the Rally for Revival/Rally to Save America.
Relevant Proof Articles
“Trump Told Organizers He Would Speak at the Capitol” (February 8, 2021)
“Solving the Biggest Mystery of January 6” (February 10, 2021)
“January 6 Golf Cart Use Points to White House Coordination” (April 12, 2021)
“Stop the Steal Leader Confirms He’s on ‘No-Fly’ List” (April 27, 2021)
“Alexander Says His Group ‘Owns’ GOP Legislature in Arizona” (April 29, 2021)
“Trump’s Insurrection Is in Arizona Now” (May 2, 2021)
“Senators Were in Contact with Ali Alexander on Insurrection Eve” (June 9, 2021)
War Room #5: The Vice President’s War Room
Known and Identified Participants
(1) Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States
(2) Bubba Saulsbury, Trump donor
Suspected But Unidentified Participants
(3-8) the six individuals who signed Bubba Saulsbury’s invitation to the Vice President’s war room in Facebook photo (below)
Description
As Proof exclusively reported, a January 4 dinner party at the Vice President’s mansion, intended for insurrectionists who’d come to DC to hear Trump speak and to thereafter march to the Capitol, ended with the one known attendee—Trump mega-donor Bubba Saulsbury, who’d publicly been thrilled about the upcoming events in DC—fleeing the city on January 5 (a pattern observed in nearly everyone entering a Trump war room). So what was discussed in VP Pence’s dining room? Investigators will need to find out.
Relevant Proof Articles
“War Council May Have Had More Attendees Than Known” (January 29, 2021)
“Chris Miller Lied to Congress on the Most Critical Topic” (May 13, 2021)
It baffles me that with all that was going on, to our knowledge it is not being investigated by the FBI. How does it happen? How do you write the 3 books totally documented and nothing touched Trump. It is like there is a collaborative effort to never let the public know that the 2016 election was stolen from Hillary Clinton and it would start the second Civil War if it ever came out? In the meantime our democracy is being threatened like never before by those same people in the war rooms. Unless somebody stands up as you are doing and exposes it all, the United States of America will cease to exist in the next election. Instead it will be the United States of Russia, God forbid! This is Putin's goal and he is halfway home. Donald Trump was his asset and still is.
Also, Seth, this is an incredible synopsis! Great work! You are amazing!