Group tied to SC AG Alan Wilson urged ‘patriots’ to attend Trump pre-riot rally
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson says he did not know a Republican group he’s closely tied to was involved in the Wednesday “Save America” rally that ended with rioters breaking into the U.S. Capitol and the deaths of five people including a Capitol police officer.
“I was completely unaware and had absolutely no involvement in the Republican AG group’s participation in the rally. I disagree with the staff’s decision to be involved and strongly condemn the violence that followed,” Wilson tweeted Saturday evening as news of his group’s role in getting people to the rally spread.
Wednesday’s rally, in which Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, urged thousands of his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol as Congress was meeting to certify the Electoral College results,quickly turned into a riot. In addition to the five dead, some 50 police were injured, including one whose screams while being crushed by a metal door by the Trump-inspired mob were captured on a video that went viral.
Within an hour of Trump’s speech, hundreds of his supporters stormed the Capitol, broke through police lines, vandalized Congressional offices and forced senators and representatives — who were meeting in a peaceful joint session — to flee through underground tunnels and take refuge in various underground “safe spaces” around the area. Hours later, lawmakers returned to the Capitol and confirmed Joe Biden as the next president.
Since then, House Democratic leaders have threatened to impeach Trump. Twitter also has permanently suspended the president from tweeting “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” Specifically, Twitter said in a public notice, Trump’s tweets during the riot were being perceived by his supporters “as further confirmation that (Biden’s) election was not legitimate.”
It had been well-known for weeks that people who were attending the rally were discussing right-wing internet sites plans to shut down Congress when it tried to certify Biden’s Nov. 3, victory, according to news reports by NPR, The New York Times and other organizations that track far-right extremist activity.
Last Monday, two days before the rally, the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors far-right groups, posted this: “Many extremist and mainstream Trump supporters are framing the rallies as a last stand to prevent Biden from being sworn in as the next President, and some chatter indicates that there is a desire to engage in radical and sometimes violent tactics to ensure that the election is not stolen from President Trump.”
Wilson, a staunch Trump supporter, is a member of the Republican Attorneys General Association, whose policy arm is the Rule of Law Defense Fund. The Fund was listed on a website for the rally alongside other participating organizations, according to media reports. That site has been taken down.
In December, Wilson was one of 16 Republican state attorneys general who signed on to an amicus brief in a lawsuit aimed at overthrowing Biden’s victory that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. The lawsuit Wilson signed on to amplified falsehoods being spread by Trump on Twitter and elsewhere, in which the president claimed without evidence there had been widespread election fraud that resulted in Joe Biden winning the election.
“Regardless of your ideological beliefs, we must all agree that free and fair elections are the keystone of democracy,” said Wilson, the state’s top lawyer, in a press release explaining why he was challenging Biden’s election.
At the time there was no evidence any substantial fraud had occurred. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit, one of more than 60 filed by Trump or his supporters challenging the election. All but one was either dismissed, rejected or withdrawn. Trump’s own Attorney General, William Barr, had the FBI and federal prosecutors around the nation investigate and found no significant election fraud anywhere. .
The day after Wilson showed support for the lawsuit, he was invited to meet with Trump at the White House along with other GOP attorneys general.
The RLDF sent robocalls encouraging “patriots” to join Wednesday’s “March to Save America” and urge Congress to “stop the steal,” according to an audio clip captured and reported by Documented, an investigative reporting group that first reported that the RLDF was participating in the rally Wednesday. The robocall did not call for violence or suggest that the Capitol should be stormed.
Wilson has been deeply involved in the Republican Attorneys General Association and with the Rule of Law group, which share staff and office space in Washington, D.C., according to NBC.
He’s one of nine members of RAGA’s executive committee. He’s hosted policy forums with the RLDF group and was listed as one of the organization’s directors in 2017, according to the the group’s federal tax filing for 2017. He also attended several events for both groups, according to state records.
In his financial disclosures filed with the state, Wilson reported in 2019 that he attended seven RLDF events valued at $11,482 and seven RAGA events for a value of $14,070. The events, disclosed as gifts, are described as summer and fall meetings, tech summits, dinners in Washington, D.C., and donor meetings.
Wilson’s financial disclosure detailing his trips and gifts in 2020 is not due until March.
A longtime Wilson political aide, Adam Piper, is now RAGA’s executive director, and from March 2017 to February 2019, Piper was the president and executive director of the Rule of Law Defense Fund, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In 2016, Piper, at that time Wilson’s deputy chief of staff, explored ways to discredit special prosecutor David Pascoe personally, politically and professionally, according to emails obtained by The State newspaper. Pascoe, the 1st Circuit solicitor, was investigating associates of Wilson who were later found to have been involved in illegal influence schemes in the General Assembly.
Piper later expressed regret for his actions and left the Attorney General’s Office.
The events Wednesday have thrown fuel on the firestorm of controversy surrounding the Nov. 3 election. Trump’s insistence that the election was stolen has forced leaders to side with him or face his wrath and that of his family and allies.
Wednesday’s events were a breaking point for many who have aided the president.
Perhaps most prominent was U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a once loyal defender of the president, who on Thursday in a press conference repudiated Trump’s voter fraud claims and condemned as “beyond the pale” the narrative, pushed by Trump and his allies, that Pence had the power to thwart the electoral vote count and create a pathway to victory for the president.
Later, as Graham tried to catch a plane at Washington Reagan National Airport, he was chased by furious Trump supporters, who called him a “traitor” because he had voted to certify Biden as president.
Graham and two fellow South Carolina Republicans — U.S. Sen. Tim Scott and newly elected U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace of Daniel Island joined U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Columbia Democrat, in refusing to support objections to the electoral vote. Meanwhile, their GOP colleagues in the House — Jeff Duncan, Ralph Norman, Tom Rice, William Timmons and Joe Wilson, Alan Wilson’s father — joined Trump’s effort and cast votes against certifying Biden as president.
Mace told The New York Times, in a Saturday article, that Trump’s lies had fooled millions and caused a constitutional crisis.
“Their hearts, minds and wallets were taken advantage of,” Mace told The Times. “Millions of people across the country who were lied to. These individuals, these hardworking Americans truly believe that the Congress can overturn the Electoral College.”
Mace told The State newspaper on Thursday that she no longer believed in President Donald Trump, the man she helped elect in 2016.
“No, I don’t,” Mace said. “I can’t condone the rhetoric from yesterday, where people died and all the violence. These were not protests. This was anarchy.”
Neither Alan Wilson nor Adam Piper could be reached Saturday evening. Questions sent to them by The State newspaper included: do they and the Republican Attorneys General Association believe Joe Biden is the legitimate president-elect of the United States and do they believe the election was stolen from Trump?
This story was originally published January 9, 2021 at 9:45 PM.