Page:CTRL0000034607 - Deposition of Ali Alexander, (Dec. 9, 2021).pdf/197

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197

A Well, it wasn't supposed to be—it's not—it's tough, man. I don't think it's called that.

Q Okay.

A Okay. My understanding is that it's called the Stop the Steal rally.

Q Okay.

A Now what happened is—and my text messages reflect this—is they lobbied me to say let's take Stop the Steal to Washington, D.C. I was very skeptical that we could pull off something like that. We have no funding, no nothing, no nothing. And I'm telling people to go to D.C. in it was either a week's notice or two weeks' notice. Maybe it was two weeks' notice.

And Amy said, Ali, we've been through the permit process. Have you?

And I said, Never.

And they said, Okay. Well, we'll handle it for you. It will be you event. You can pick the run of show and all of that."

What happened is that they, I think, I think amended an existing permit that they had for January. I guess they were going to, like, protest—participate in the inauguration that they had preelection day. And they amended it for whatever. There was—I don't know what was going on and the event slowly got hijacked to the point where their logo is sitting in front of it.

And we were basically blackmailed or threatened that if we got up on stage and plugged the broader coalition, which had a retweet agreement and an agreement that we not put our own independent logos on things, that we would be kicked off an event that was ours. And so, the crowd's understanding was that it was a Stop the Steal event. It's advertised, and its permit probably says Trump March or something silly.

Q So the speakers that spoke at that event were Stop the Steal speakers?