How a documentary film-maker became the January 6 panel's star witness

[milestogo]

When the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack on Thursday got to the witness testimony at its inaugural hearing, it heard from an individual with first-hand knowledge about how the far-right Proud Boys group came to storm the Capitol.

The panel’s star witness, Nick Quested, is an Emmy award-winning British documentary film-maker who founded the indie film company Goldcrest and embedded with the Proud Boys in the weeks after Donald Trump lost the 2020 election as part of a project about division in America. “We chose the Proud Boys because they’ve been so vociferous in rallies and protests around America, and they’ve emerged as a political voice and force, particularly in the summer of 2020,” Quested told the Guardian. “We felt they were a group worth following.”

Quested spent much of the post-2020 election period following around the Proud Boys and is considered by the select committee as an accidental witness to the group’s activities and likely conversations about planning to storm the Capitol on January 6.

The documentary film-maker shot footage of some of the most crucial moments connected to the attack, starting with rallies in November and December 2020 which the Proud Boys attended alongside other militia groups including the Oath Keepers and the 1st Amendment Praetorian.Quested then managed to capture on camera a late-night rendezvous between Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys and Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, in an underground parking garage near the Capitol the day before January 6. The US justice department has referenced that encounter in indictments for seditious conspiracy against Rhodes and other militia group members, though Quested has told the select committee he does not believe that was a meeting to coordinate storming the Capitol.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/09/proud-boys-capitol-attack-nick-quested

Its really amazing that an actual film-maker was at the scene of this horrible crime.

[spooky3]

1. I may be the only one who thinks this, but I saw him as the least effective.

Maybe they felt they had to question him because his footage was valuable.

[milestogo]

2. Well the source of the footage had to be explained.

As a witness, his value is to explain what he was filming. I really had no idea that one group approached the Capitol hours ahead of the rest to make the initial breach. He was with them, so he can confirm it.

[avebury]

3. I thought it was effective to

use him to point out that the Proud Boys did not attend the rally. Instead they went to the Capitol and scoped out the security to determine the best access point to pull the crowds in with them when Trump sent them their way. That shows intent and premeditation. It nukes any excuse that the Rethugs try to come up with.

[Tree Lady]

4. He was on CNN and basically said he heard nothing

And knew nothing about what they were going to do was just filming them.

I am not sure I believe him. He was right there admitted he walked with them to capital but heard nothing? Those guys were yelling and I am sure they must have talked about storming capital.

[Ferryboat]

5. Either Quested or another film maker was filming Roger Stone

There was a video clip posted here on DU showing Roger flipping out over the events at the capital.

[Model35mech]

6. The committee wanted/needed to establish in it's presentation what was really already known.

As such, Quested's video was undeniably central to formally establishing in the public presentation of the committee that the Jan 6 assault on congress was undeniably violent and intended to interfere with government functioning.

But the general public who have been exposed to similar video already knew that. What needed to be pointed out, and maybe it will be, is that video counters the many pro-Trump voices have challenged Jan 6 hearings with obfuscations including that the assault was more like a peaceful vacation tour of a middle-class family to the capital.

I would have liked to have seen Thompson crisply, in as few words as possible, reiterate for American viewers that the value of the video of Jan 6 is that it clearly establishes violent interference with the functions of Congress in the fulfillment of its Constitutional duty. But that's just me, and what I would prefer.

Moreover, the term 'Star witness' used by the newspaper isn't really a neutral term. 'Star' is a descriptor of featured celebrity in sports, and theater. The criticism I would have with that choice among several descriptors that might have been used, is that it plays into the talking-points of those who think the committees reporting of its findings is really -just- political theater and not a summary of what establishes the basis for criminal charges.