"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
January 6 Rally Funded by Top Trump Donor, Helped by Alex Jones, Organizers Say
by Shalini Ramachandran, Alexandra Berzon and Rebecca Ballhaus
Updated Jan. 30, 2021 1:28 pm ET
The rally in Washington’s Ellipse that preceded the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol was arranged and funded by a small group including a top Trump campaign fundraiser and donor facilitated by far-right show host Alex Jones.
Mr. Jones personally pledged more than $50,000 in seed money for a planned Jan. 6 event in exchange for a guaranteed “top speaking slot of his choice,” according to a funding document outlining a deal between his company and an early organizer for the event.
Mr. Jones also helped arrange for Julie Jenkins Fancelli, a prominent donor to the Trump campaign and heiress to the Publix Super Markets Inc. chain, to commit about $300,000 through a top fundraising official for former President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, according to organizers. Her money paid for the lion’s share of the roughly $500,000 rally at the Ellipse where Mr. Trump spoke.
Another far-right activist and leader of the “Stop the Steal” movement, Ali Alexander, helped coordinate planning with Caroline Wren, a fundraising official who was paid by the Trump campaign for much of 2020 and who was tapped by Ms. Fancelli to organize and fund an event on her behalf, organizers said. On social media, Mr. Alexander had targeted Jan. 6 as a key date for supporters to gather in Washington to contest the 2020-election certification results. The week of the rally, he tweeted a flyer for the event saying: “DC becomes FORT TRUMP starting tomorrow on my orders!”
Alex Jones addressed protesters on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6.
Photo: Jon Cherry/Getty Images
The Ellipse rally, at which President Trump urged supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, was lawful and nonviolent. But it served as a jumping-off point for many supporters to head to the Capitol. Mr. Trump has been impeached by the Democrat-led House of Representatives, accused of inciting a mob to storm the Capitol with remarks urging supporters to “fight like hell.”
Few details about the funding and organization of the Ellipse event have previously been revealed. Mr. Jones claimed in a video that he paid for a portion of the event but didn’t offer details.
Messrs. Jones and Alexander had been active in the weeks before the event, calling on supporters to oppose the election results and go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Mr. Alexander, for instance, tweeted on Dec. 30 about the scheduled Jan. 6 count for lawmakers to certify the Electoral College vote at the Capitol, writing: “If they do this, everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building.”
Julie Jenkins Fancelli, shown in 2019, donated more than $980,000 in the 2020 election cycle to a joint account for the Trump campaign and Republican Party, records show.
Photo: Barry Friedman/LKLNDNOW
A hodgepodge of different pro-Trump groups were planning various events on Jan. 6. Several of them, led by the pro-Trump Women for America First, helped coordinate the Ellipse event; another group splintered off to lead a rally the night before, at which Mr. Jones ended up speaking, and the group organized by Mr. Alexander planned a protest outside the Capitol building.
Mr. Jones declined to respond to requests for comment. In a statement, Mr. Alexander said Stop the Steal’s motto is “peaceful but rowdy,” that the violence at the Capitol wasn’t planned by his group and said none of his rhetoric incited violence. Messrs. Alexander and Jones said on Mr. Jones’s show that they tried to prevent protesters from entering the Capitol and sought to de-escalate the riot. Neither has been accused of wrongdoing.
A spokesman for the Trump campaign said it had no role in financing or organizing the Ellipse event and didn’t direct former staffers to do so. A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump declined to comment. At least five former Trump campaign staffers besides Ms. Wren assisted on the logistics of the Jan. 6 rally, according to the permit and Federal Election Commission records.
Ali Alexander, activist and leader of the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, helped coordinate planning of the Ellipse rally.
Photo: carlos barria/Reuters
Starting in mid-December, Mr. Alexander began publicizing plans “to march and peacefully occupy DC with #StopTheSteal,” according to organizers and a message saved by Devin Burghart, who directs an organization that tracks extremist groups. Mr. Trump on Dec. 19 urged supporters through Twitter to come for Jan. 6 protests that he said would be “wild.”
Mr. Alexander created a website called WildProtest.com, writing: “We the People must take to the US Capitol lawn and steps and tell Congress #DoNotCertify on #JAN6!” He planned and publicized a rally to take place on the Capitol grounds that day. The website was taken offline after the riot.
A representative of Women for America First had applied for a permit to host a separate rally just after the inauguration in January, but the group rescheduled for Jan. 6 after the Dec. 19 Trump tweet, organizers said.
Women for America First’s permit for the Ellipse rally listed several names and positions, including Ms. Wren as “VIP coordinator.” In the 2020 election cycle, the Trump campaign and a joint GOP committee paid Ms. Wren and her fundraising consulting firm $730,000, according to FEC records.
The Ellipse rally, during which Donald Trump spoke, was lawful and nonviolent, but it served as a jumping-off point for his supporters to head to the Capitol.
Photo: Shawn Thew/Bloomberg News
Ms. Wren had been tapped to handle funding by Ms. Fancelli, the major donor to the Ellipse event, according to organizers. Ms. Fancelli, who didn’t respond to several requests for comment, donated more than $980,000 in the 2020 election cycle to a joint account for the Trump campaign and Republican Party, records show.
Ms. Fancelli, daughter of the Publix Super Markets founder, contacted Mr. Jones and offered to contribute to a Jan. 6 event, organizers said. Mr. Jones connected her to an organizer through Ms. Wren, who handled the funding as she helped coordinate the logistics of a rally with Women for America First. A Publix spokeswoman said Ms. Fancelli isn’t involved in the company’s business operations and doesn’t “represent the company in any way.”
The Ellipse setup cost roughly $500,000, with a concert stage, a $100,000 grass covering and thousands of feet of security structures.
Ms. Wren played a central role in bringing together the disparate group of activists planning events on Jan. 6. She suggested to Mr. Alexander that he reschedule his Capitol rally to 1 p.m. and put into place a list of about 30 potential speakers, including Messrs. Alexander and Jones, who had been listed on websites as associated with the day’s events, according to organizers.
In a statement, Ms. Wren said her role for the event “was to assist many others in providing and arranging for a professionally produced event at the Ellipse.”
The involvement of Messrs. Jones and Alexander triggered debate among the organizers. Amy Kremer, chairwoman of Women for America First, said in a statement: “We were concerned because there was an aggressive push to have fringe participation in our event.”
In text messages Ms. Wren sent to another organizer and reviewed by the Journal, Ms. Wren defended Mr. Jones. “I promise he’s actually WAY nicer than he comes off…I’m hoping you’ll [sic] can become besties,” Ms. Wren wrote.
Ms. Wren’s spokesman said the message is “evidence of Ms. Wren assisting in executing an event while also having to diplomatically get people with different agendas on the same page.”
None of the groups obtained a march permit, though Women for America First called the event “March to Save America Rally” and Mr. Alexander’s Stop the Steal promoted a march to the Capitol online.
The Women for America First Ellipse permit said the group wouldn’t conduct a march but noted: “Some participants may leave to attend rallies at the United States Capitol to hear the results of Congressional certification of the Electoral College count.”
Kylie Kremer, co-founder of Women for America First, said the group didn’t file for a march permit because it went against Covid-19 guidelines and a march wasn’t in its plans.
When Mr. Trump met on Jan. 4 with former campaign adviser Katrina Pierson, who had begun working with rally organizers, he said he wanted to be joined primarily by lawmakers assisting his efforts to block electoral votes from being counted and members of his own family, aides said.
Messrs. Alexander and Jones spoke instead at a Jan. 5 rally organized by the Eighty Percent Coalition, a group founded by Cindy Chafian, an early organizer of the Jan. 6 event who struck the initial deal with Mr. Jones.
She said she was willing to work with Mr. Jones because “it’s unreasonable to expect to agree with everything a group or person does.”
Mr. Jones’s seed money in the end was used for that Jan. 5 rally, for which he ultimately paid about $96,000, an organizer said. In his speech at that event, Mr. Jones said: “I don’t know how all this is going to end but if they want to fight, they better believe they’ve got one.”
The next day, Ms. Wren personally escorted Mr. Jones and Mr. Alexander off the Ellipse grounds before the two men marched to the U.S. Capitol, according to organizers. She had provided them and many others VIP passes that morning for Mr. Trump’s speech.
Messrs. Alexander and Jones were at the Capitol grounds together on Jan. 6, and Mr. Jones supported protesters with a bullhorn, video footage shows. He urged them to be peaceful and proceed to the area on the Capitol grounds where Mr. Alexander had secured a demonstration permit, according to Mr. Alexander and the footage.
Julia Jenkins Fancelli, daughter of Publix founder George W. Jenkins, contributed $300,000 to the Jan. 6 rally, just the latest conservative cause financed by Publix heirs or the chain itself.
Publix heiress Julia Jenkins Fancelli provided the “lion’s share” of funding for the Washington Ellipse rally preceding the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, the Wall Street Journalreported Saturday.
It’s only the latest in a series of major contributions to conservative causes made by Publix heirs or the popular supermarket chain itself.
Fancelli, a part-time Lakeland resident, reached out to far-right talk show host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones about helping fund a Jan. 6 event and ultimately contributed $300,000 to the rally through a former fundraising representative for the Trump 2020 campaign. The money helped pay for the majority of the $500,000 rally where former president Donald Trump spoke and incited attendees to march to the Capitol, preceding the riots, the Journal found. Fancelli did not respond to the newspaper’s multiple requests for comment.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that Fancelli picked Trump campaign fundraiser Caroline Wren to coordinate funding for the Jan. 6 rally. Wren was listed as “VIP Coordinator” in the event’s permit and played a major role in organizing it.
Fancelli, 71, is the daughter of Publix founder George W. Jenkins, who died in 1996.
According to the Miami New Times, Fancelli and her two children contributed to federal maximum amount of money to Trump’s reelection campaign in 2019, contributing around $171,000 to Trump Victory. The Wall Street Journal reported she gave more than $980,000 to an account for both the Republican Party and Trump’s campaign in the 2020 election cycle.
According to The Ledger, FEC records show she has written checks for $10,000 to Republican committees in about 20 states, including Kentucky, Nevada and New Mexico, as well as Florida.
Fancelli isn’t the only Publix heir to be active in GOP fundraising. Carol Barnett Jenkins, George Jenkins’ daughter and Fancelli’s older sister, made a $10,000 donation to former Georgia Sen. David Perdue’s 2020 campaign, and then another $100,000 to a PAC that financed the runoff campaigns for Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, also of Georgia, according to CLTampa. Both lost on Jan. 5 to Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, causing Republicans to lose control of the U.S. Senate. In 2016, she also contributed $800,000 to a conservative campaign pushing to prevent medical marijuana from becoming legal.
Campaign contributions from Publix itself, not just its heirs, became a polarizing issue during Florida’s 2018 elections. The grocery superstore and its heirs contributed more money to Adam Putnam’s gubernatorial bid than any other candidate since at least 1995 and likely for the entirety of the company’s history.
Publix, the heirs to the company’s founder and its current and former leaders gave Putnam $670,000 in a three-year-span. The employee-owned company also helped bankroll a handful of well-connected business groups who contributed millions of dollars to the Republican candidate. Putnam, like Publix, is a product of Polk County — which company officials said was a factor in their support.
But gun violence survivors and activists were outraged that Publix had thrown its support behind Putnam in the wake of the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Putnam declared himself a “proud NRA sellout” in 2017. Parkland students led by David Hogg encouraged a boycott of Publix and activists staged die-ins at its stores. In its damage control, Publix responded by halting all contributions indefinitely and internally told employees it was reviewing its political giving policies.
When asked about the contribution to the Jan. 6 rally, a Publix spokesperson, Maria Brous, said Fancelli is not an employee of Publix Super Markets, “and is neither involved in our business operations, nor does she represent the company in any way. We cannot comment on Mrs. Fancelli’s actions. The violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was a national tragedy. The deplorable actions that occurred that day do not represent the values, work or opinions of Publix Super Markets.”
Although Fancelli doesn’t hold a formal role with Publix, it’s still a company with strong ties to her family. For instance, she’s an aunt of its current chairman, William E. Crenshaw. She has also regularly done business with the chain. According to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, her company, Alma Food Imports, sold more than $5.8 million of “food products” to Publix between 2013 and 2017. Publix ceased doing business with the vendor in 2017 after Fancelli and her husband left the company.
Fancelli is a graduate of Mount Vernon Seminary in Washington and the University of Florida. In 1972, she married Mauro Adolfo Dino Fancelli, whom she met while studying abroad while at UF. He was the head of his family’s fruit and vegetable wholesale business in Florence.
According to The Ledger, the couple spend most of their time in Florence and visit Lakeland during holidays and winter months.
Report: Publix Heiress Funded Trump Rally Immediately Before Capitol Insurrection
by Jessica Lipscomb, January 30, 2021, 10:54AM ET
With the help of far-right shock jock Alex Jones, a Trump-supporting heiress to the Publix fortune helped fund a January 6 rally in Washington, D.C., at which the president encouraged his supporters to walk to the Capitol and “fight like hell” in support of his made-up claims of election fraud, according to new reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
Sources told the newspaper that Julie Jenkins Fancelli, whose father founded Publix, contacted Jones and offered to help bankroll a pro-Trump event in D.C. on January 6. According to the Journal, Fancelli contributed about $300,000 of the total $500,000 cost of the rally on the Ellipse in President’s Park behind the White House.
The Ellipse rally served as the basis for the House’s second impeachment of Trump, who stands accused of inciting the violence at the Capitol, where five people died as a result of the day’s riots.
New Times has previously written about how Fancelli and her relatives have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump. All told, Fancelli herself donated more than $980,000 to the Republican Party and Trump for his 2020 re-election bid, according to campaign-finance records.
A Publix spokeswoman previously told New Times that the Fancelli family is not directly involved in day-to-day operations at the grocery chain.
Publix did not immediately respond to a request from New Times for comment on the Journal’s story. But Politico reporter Marc Caputo posted a statement from Publix in which the company distanced itself from Fancelli.
“Mrs. Fancelli is not an employee of Publix Super Markets, and is neither involved in our business operations, nor does she represent the company in any way. We cannot comment on Mrs. Fancelli’s actions,” Publix said.
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Jessica Lipscomb is news editor of Miami New Times and an enthusiastic Florida Woman. Born and raised in Orlando, she has been a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists.
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