Filmmaker Who Unearthed Critical Jan. 6 Footage Has A Warning About November

A prolific documentary filmmaker is out with a new account of the Jan. 6 insurrection and he has a stark warning about this November.

Nick Quested embedded with the Proud Boys in the run-up to Jan. 6, 2021, and portions of what he captured on film have come out in recent years. That includes footage of a critical meeting between members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers in an underground garage just before the insurrection. Thanks to his proximity, Quested was later called to testify before the congressional committee investigating what happened that day, and he served as a witness in the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial.

With the 2024 presidential election now less than six weeks away, Quested is concerned.

We are going to see poll watchers creating pretext and false allegations against poll workers and the vilification of officials, he warned. Were going to see pressure on elected officials and armed protests outside tabulation centers in swing states. Were going to see a flurry of lawsuits and state legislatures refusing to certify electors that should have been duly presented according to the popular vote of the state.

This is not going away, he said. This is going to happen again. Its in action right now. You can see it. And exactly what they said they were going to do last time they did it. They are telling you they are going to do it and they will do it again.

The Emmy-winning filmmakers efforts have now culminated in a complete documentary about the Capitol riot coming out on Oct. 4, called 64 Days: The Road to Insurrection . It features never-before-seen footage of Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio as the insurrection attempt unfolded.

It serves as a meticulous, almost encyclopedic account of how close Donald Trump came to stealing the election. It examines the period between November 2020 and January 2021, and incorporates various emails and records as well as interviews of extremists, key Trump White House figures, investigative counsel to the Jan. 6 committee, election officials, state officials and others to illuminate how the Trump White House, far-right extremists and a coterie of Kraken lawyers navigated the days and weeks leading to Jan. 6.

History can sometimes be a guide to the future.

Trump has already spent weeks on the campaign trail declaring he will not accept election results he deems dishonest. He claims his opponents will cheat like dogs , and he frequently says  that any election officials who refuse to blindly follow him are corrupt. He has described convicted Jan. 6 rioters, including those who assaulted Capitol police, as hostages and warriors .

Questeds film has been years in the making, ever since Tarrio first invited him into his world, his Miami home and, ultimately, the Maryland hotel room where Tarrio holed up on the eve of the insurrection and then watched the violence unfold on television as he sent texts to fellow Proud Boys taking credit for the chaos.

Make no mistake, Tarrio wrote. We did this.

This hotel room footage is what people have not seen before, Quested said. 

Two days before the violence at the Capitol, the Metropolitan Police Department arrested Tarrio for the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner ripped from a Black church in Washington, D.C. When police stopped Tarrio at a tunnel entryway headed toward the Capitol on Jan. 4, he had two empty magazines meant for an assault rifle or similar type of weapon. He claimed they were meant for a purchaser who backed out at the last minute. He had already admitted to burning the sign on social media before his arrest, and had said he was turning himself in against the wishes of my attorney.

When Tarrio went before a judge who ordered him to leave the city, Quested got wind that he needed a ride and agreed to pick him up from police headquarters.

I wanted to interview him and Im thinking, I just gotta get time with him, I just gotta get time with him, Quested said.

64 Days shows Quested picking up Tarrio and heading to the Phoenix Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., about five minutes away. 

Oath Keeper leader Stewart Rhodes was there, Quested recalled. 

He understands Tarrio is getting kicked out, so he provides a bit of a cover story for him, and then suddenly we are in the garage and filming. Until someone tells me to go away, Im not going, Quested said. 

Rhodes, during his own testimony at his seditious conspiracy trial, claimed he only met with Tarrio to give him legal advice in light of his arrest. With Rhodes at the hotel was Kellye SoRelle, then the Oath Keepers lawyer and Rhodes girlfriend. (Seven months later, SoRelle would plead guilty to felony obstruction of justice, and admit to destroying texts shared among Oath Keepers after the violence at the Capitol.) Also present were Bianca Gracia, president of Latinos for Trump; Joshua Macias, the founder of Vets for Trump; and a small assortment of bodyguards.

That meeting between Rhodes and Tarrio in the garage beneath the Phoenix is still one of the enduring mysteries of Jan. 6. Exactly what was said between the men remains unknown.

Even at their respective seditious conspiracy trials, the garage footage was never shown to jurors, though its admission was fiercely fought over due to the presence of an unidentified voice in the film speaking the words: We have to do it strong and fast.

The clip was never admitted as evidence in the trials on the grounds that it could be viewed as hearsay. 

Quested, so often invited to film the Proud Boys, was shooed away in those moments underground, but when he left the Phoenix with Tarrio and headed to another hotel room in Baltimore, he was allowed to film again. 

In the film, Tarrio appears for the first time to be exhausted as he sits on the edge of a bed after searching for a toothbrush. 

Bad blood had existed between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys for months before that moment in Tarrios hotel room. Prior to the meeting in the garage earlier that night, the groups outwardly disliked one another. But then, on Jan. 5, Tarrio was there in the hotel room, commending Rhodes.

A delicate truce apparently struck between the extremist leaders was a testament to the supposed challenge they were preparing to face with an incoming Biden administration, Tarrio reflected. 

I believe in this shit and I think if they come down on [us], Im going to stand my ground, Tarrio said in the hotel room. For me, its not about money or fame, or anything like that. I truly believe what I am doing is right. Theres not anybody in the world thats going to go ahead and tell me otherwise.

Members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers would later be found on text-message chains together, some of which included Republican political operative Roger Stone and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. 

More than a year later, when Tarrio spoke at his sentencing for seditious conspiracy and other charges he received 22 years he painted himself as a man subject to the whims of those he rallied around him. The man in the hotel room, who cheered on the violence in texts and reveled in it with friends, now stood in court and begged a judge to believe: I am not a political zealot. 

But in 64 Days, Quested captures Tarrio saying that to resist is for pussies, resist puts you on the beat down, and that the truth is, we need to revolt. 

Theres a way that you can enact change. You can get armed and go to the Capitol. As crazy as that sounds, yeah, I think thats the way you make the biggest noise, Tarrio says in the film.

The film includes accounts of events like key Stop the Steal rallies in November and December 2020, while that movements founders and champions namely Stone , right-wing organaizer Ali Alexander and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones   whipped up Trumps supporters by spreading his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. 

The temporary occupation of the Georgia state Capitol led by Jones and Alexander on Nov. 18, 2020 and attended by white supremacist Nick Fuentes and hundreds of Trumps supporters strikes a particularly haunting chord in the film.

Someone in the crowd is heard urging Alexander and Jones not to leave. Jones quickly and quietly suggests they remain peaceful. But it becomes clear how tenuous the dynamic is, as a disagreement ensues and Alexander, eyes flashing and jaw tightly set, seethes: As the hillbillies make up all the ideas, were gonna lose the country. Were not the left, were not going to democratize ideas. Listen to me, listen to me. Listen to me.

The disjointed but still successful occupation of the Georgia Capitol occurred just four days after Quested had filmed a different Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C. Federal prosecutors highlighted this rally and another on Dec. 12, 2020, as coalition-building events for extremists in the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy case.

When Trump tweeted out his infamous wild invitation on Dec. 19, just a week later, it was gasoline on a fire. 

I believe that the Proud Boys intention was to enter the Capitol and potentially occupy it in the way that Stop the Steal occupied the Georgia state Capitol on Nov. 18. I think these Oath Keepers were going to be there to protect the occupiers of the Capitol. Thats what the plan was, I think, Quested said.

He added: The Proud Boys are not exactly great tacticians.

A few days after Jan. 6, Quested said he thought this was some crazy shit. 

But I kind of tried to just keep my head down, he said. When the Jan. 6 committee called me, I thought, Oh, Ill answer a few questions and then they will go away. Im sure theyve got somebody else who can tell them the story better than me. But they kept on calling me and asking me questions.

Quested was interviewed by the committee and the FBI , and spent four grueling days testifying in the Proud Boys sedition case an experience he called frightening, as defense lawyers tried to impeach him from every angle. 

To tell the story in three parts the Set Up, the Conspiracy and the Insurrection the film features interviews with key Trump allies like former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne , who funded efforts to undermine the 2020 election; Cleta Mitchell , the lawyer on the phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where Trump asked Raffensperger to find him 11,000 votes; and others including Raffensperger himself and Russell Bowers, the former speaker of the Arizona House who, along with his family and ailing daughter, came under intense pressure by Trump and allies like Rudy Giuliani to alter that states election results.

The film premieres Oct. 4 at Cinema Village in New York, and is set to be screened nationwide. A screening is expected to be held near the U.S. Capitol in November.