Ali Alexander

Alexander is a familiar social media personality among American conservatives. In early 2019, he was known for his livestream videos published via Periscope, in which he discussed his conservative and pro-Trump opinions.[20][11] In July 2019, Alexander attended a social media summit at the White House, an event attended by a mix of politicians and far-right pundits.[11][21][22] As of August 2019, Alexander had over 100,000 Twitter followers.[22] In 2018, Jack Dorsey spoke with Alexander regarding whether it was advisable to ban Alex Jones from Twitter, stating that Alexander had "interesting points" to make. Alexander rejected the idea of banning Jones. Twitter initially declined to ban Jones, but later banned him in September 2018 after multiple social networks took such an action. Alexander himself was briefly banned from Twitter in January 2017, which he said was because he had tweeted at Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, "I would *literally* put you down if you came near me, Marxist. I would call 911 to come retrieve your body. Have a Good Friday!" He was unbanned later that day.[20] In January 2021, following the storming of the U.S. Capitol building, Alexander was banned from Twitter, as was the Twitter account for the Stop the Steal campaign.[13]

Alexander also used the alt-tech service Parler, on which he had 41,000 followers before Parler went offline on January 11, 2021.[5][23]

After the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, Twitter banned Alexander's personal account and a Stop the Steal account on January 10. Alexander was also banned from PayPal, Venmo, and Patreon following the riot, and permanently banned from Facebook and Instagram.[24][25]

KXAS-TV reported that after Alexander had been banned by PayPal, he continued to earn money through the Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo. In a campaign titled "Protection and Team for Ali Alexander", he raised more than $30,000 over the days following the Capitol riot. KXAS-TV reported that the site had also been used by extremists including members of the Proud Boys to raise money to travel to Washington, D.C. on January 6. GiveSendGo later temporarily suspended Alexander's account after a payment processor used by GiveSendGo refused to process payments for Alexander. Although GiveSendGo restored Alexander's account, they said that the processor's refusal to provide services might result in Alexander being permanently banned from their platform.[12]

In February 2019, Alexander arranged for himself and two fellow conspiracy theorists, Jacob Wohl and Laura Loomer, to travel to Minneapolis, Minnesota. The trio filmed an online documentary about their trip, called Importing Ilhan, in which they investigated the debunked conspiracy theory that Ilhan Omar, U.S. Representative for Minnesota's 5th congressional district and a Somali-American, had married her brother to grant him U.S. citizenship.[32] During the trip, Alexander accompanied Wohl to a police station, where Wohl filed a police report in which he claimed he and his companions had been receiving "terroristic threats" on Twitter. Later reports indicated the threats appeared to have been falsified by Wohl himself, and Alexander publicly distanced himself from Wohl.[31]

In August 2019, Alexander gained media attention for what The Washington Post said had been described as a "birther-like" campaign against then-Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. That month, he tweeted Harris was "not an American Black", further claiming that "I'm so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself) of our history. It's disgusting".[30] The New York Times wrote that in the tweet, Alexander had "falsely claimed Senator Kamala Harris was not black enough to be discussing the plight of black Americans". Donald Trump Jr. retweeted the claim, then deleted it.[22][33]

In 2020, Alexander founded Stop the Steal, a campaign promoting the conspiracy theory that falsely posits that widespread electoral fraud occurred during the 2020 presidential election to deny Donald Trump victory over Joe Biden.[26] Among the conspiracy theories that Alexander promoted as part of Stop the Steal was a claim, dubbed "#Maidengate", that people had voted twice by using their married name in one state and their maiden name in another.[34]

Alexander was one of the people who encouraged Trump supporters to rally outside the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, the day of the Electoral College vote count.[11] Alexander named his rally the "Wild Protest" after Trump tweeted that protests during vote counting "will be wild". The rally was one of at least four pro-Trump rallies planned for that date and location.[11] He worked to plan the rally with Caroline Wren, a former Trump campaign fundraiser, who had been hired by Publix supermarkets heiress Julie Jenkins Fancelli to manage Fancelli's donation of $300,000 of the approximate total of $500,000 spent on the event.[8] Alexander announced in several livestreams in December 2020 that he had also organized his rally with Representative Andy Biggs, as well as Representatives Paul Gosar and Mo Brooks.[35] In one livestream on Periscope, Alexander stated, "We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting."[36][37] Before the events of January 6, Alexander self-identified as an "official originator" of the rally;[13] he was later identified as a "founder" of Wild Protest[38] and the probable creator of a since-deactivated website devoted to the event.[39] He reportedly encouraged attendees of the Wild Protest, which occurred amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington, D.C., not to wear face masks.[38] Following the event and the subsequent violent storming of the Capitol building, a Biggs spokesperson said Biggs had had no connection with Alexander, and Biggs later said that Alexander had exaggerated Biggs's and other congresspeople's involvement.[13][37] A Brooks spokesperson said Brooks had "no recollection of ever communicating in any way with whoever Ali Alexander is".[40]

The Daily Beast reported that "Alexander led a host of activists in ratcheting up the rhetoric" before January 6, and that Alexander's posts "grew more menacing" as the date approached.[13] Alexander tweeted on December 7, 2020 that he would "give [his] life for this fight", a tweet that was retweeted by the Arizona Republican Party with the addition, "He is. Are you?"[13][41][37] ProPublica identified a December 23, 2020 Parler post of Alexander's, in which he wrote "If D.C. escalates... so do we", as "one of scores of social media posts welcoming violence" before the attack.[29]

On January 6, the morning rallies outside the Capitol building preceded the storming of the Capitol building.[17] The Guardian named Alexander as among the people active in inciting the crowd outside the Capitol that day, leading chants of "Victory or death".[42] At 4:30 p.m. on January 6, approximately two hours after rioters entered the Capitol building, Alexander posted a video of himself looking out on a crowd outside the Capitol, in which he said, "I don't disavow this. I do not denounce this."[11][13][43] He also said in the video that most of the people at the Capitol had been peaceful, and applauded those who didn't enter the building.[11]

After the attack on the Capitol, Alexander said he did not support what had happened,[44] and that he wished people had not entered, or even approached, the Capitol building.[11] The Daily Beast reported that Alexander had gone into hiding after the attack, and taken down a website promoting his rally.[13] Twitter banned Alexander's personal account and a Stop the Steal account on January 10. Alexander was also banned from PayPal, Venmo, and Patreon following the riot, and permanently banned from Facebook and Instagram.[24][25] According to Reuters, Alexander continued to post "violent rhetoric" online following the attack.[45]