By FOIA Research on

Dustin Stockton is a gun nut MAGA grifter in his late 30s who in the recent years has taken on a variety of murky henchmen jobs in Trump's orbit. Following the electoral victory of Joe Biden, Stockton appeared as a devious rabble-rouser swearing MAGA loyalists to the Big Lie that the election was stolen, and was liaising with militia groups in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, insurrection.1 Stockton appeared as one of the lead organizers of the January 6 rally in Washington D.C., immediately preceding the storm on the Capitol.2 According to ABC News, Stockton "used some of the most incendiary language in the run-up to Jan. 6."3 For example, in a Facebook stream he incited people to prepare for an armed conflict: "Clean your guns and prepare. Things are going to get worse before they get better."3

Following Trump's election loss, Stockton was touring the U.S. with a March for Trump / Women for America First caravan, together with a small team including his partner, the fellow former Breitbarter and We Build The Wall poster girl, Jennifer Lynn Lawrence. The trip was intended to perpetuate the Big Lie across the country, and to hook up with various local MAGA troopers on the way, i.a. to get them on track with the battle order for the January 6 insurrection. They had ample support by certain local evangelical churches, which hosted some of their events, or dispatched pastors to the caravan rallies. Stockton likes to give himself the veneer of a preacher who urges his godfellows to join the fight for Trump.4

Women for America First (WAF) was founded in June 2016 by Roger Stone’s ex-wife Ann Stone, together with former chief executive of the Tea Party Express, Amy Kremer, whom Stockton presumably knows back from his Tea Party times. WAF was the entity which had applied for the permit that allowed for the January 6, 2021, insurrection mob to gather. (After the January 6 insurrection the TrumpMarch.com website redirected to WAF’s website, however it has become defunct in the meantime.)

One stop on the March for Trump / Women for America First caravan tour included a "patriot rally" with Greg Locke of the "Global Vision Bible Church" and Brian Gibson of "Peacably Gather." Facebook post by Dustin Stockton on December 5, 2020.

Image Source
https://www.facebook.com/dustin.stockton/photos/3…

It is unclear when Lawrence and Stockton became a couple, but they are together at least since around 2014, when they both appear on Facebook pictures.5 Lawrence, also a former Breitbart reporter, is an alumni of the New York Military Academy, the same school Donald Trump once attended.6 Lawrence has been serving as social media influencer for the Trump campaign, mostly posting pinup-style pictures of herself in MAGA garb on social media.

According to a New York Times article1 :

[Jennifer] Lawrence had personal ties to Trump. Her father was a real estate broker in the Hudson Valley, where Trump has a golf club and his sons have a hunting ranch. “He’s done business with Trump for over a decade, so I’ve had the opportunity of meeting the president and interacting with him on a lot of occasions”, she said in an interview. She also knew [Michael] Flynn through their mutual association with a conservative think tank.

Besides Flynn and Trump, pictures on her Facebook page show her with Trumpian sycophants such as Benjamin Netanyahu, Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani.

If one is to believe Stockton's own autobiographical sketch, he made some startling career leaps: from high school dropout, stoned drifter, forklift driver, poker player, to becoming the founder of a far-right PAC, then chief strategist of a Tea Party group, before moving on to Breitbart, Gun Owners of America, We Build The Wall, and March for Trump / Women for America First.7

Stockton has been involved in several shady revenue schemes, such as a Marijuana business insurance company (EastCann) which in the meantime has changed course to sourcing the ineffective COVID-19 med Hydroxychloroquine from India and other countries,8 while at the same time making money from COVID-19 medical supplies, whose provenance seems shady and which potentially may not be conform with medical standards.9

According to Stockton's "autobiography," he was born in the early 1980s and already in his youth “dealing with the wrath of his professors when arguing a Conservative position.”10 He dropped out of school after he turned 18 and got lost “in a haze of drugs, alcohol and various other self-destructive distractions.”7 Finding his then partner Michelle he called “blessings of divine intervention.” They got married at 21, and Stockton tried his luck in the “unpredictable world of competitive poker,” when Michelle got pregnant. Going from one low-paying job to another, he finally lost his position as a salesman in the course of the 2008 financial crisis.

2009 - Western Representation PAC (WRP)

Stockton states that was when he came up with the plan to create a Political Action Committee (PAC) in order to “oust Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) from Congress,”11 which resulted in the foundation of the Western Representation PAC (WRP) together with his father Roger Stockton.12 Roger Stockton, dubbed an internet specialist by his son, is "a firefighter at Lake Tahoe," according to Politico.13 They created a website and Facebook page,14 from the start setting an extremely belligerent tone. A Facebook entry from December 23, 2009, reads7 :

Tempers are high and if the government continues to steal our wealth and trample our civil liberties, civil unrest is the consequence (don't try to disarm us)!

In the "About" section of Dustin Stockton's now defunct website one can read15 :

As a father of three young daughters, Dustin knew he could not sit idle and watch while their future was destroyed by elected officials controlled by special interest groups. Believing that the most effective way to make a difference was to support candidates that would fight for “We the People,” he formed the Western Representation PAC with his dad. What began as a conversation during Thanksgiving dinner in 2009 has emerged as one of the largest and fastest growing political groups in the nation.

“The Western Representation PAC was formed in March 2009 in Northern Nevada specifically to take on corruption in politics,” according to WRP’s old website.16 However, one of WRP's sub-projects, Stop Union Corruption, openly states that it was not rallying against politicians but against labor unions17 :

The Western Representation PAC continues to battle corrupt labor unions … Currently we are working with conservative legislators and grassroots leaders in New Hampshire to help them pass comprehensive right-to-work legislation that ends mandatory union membership as a condition of employment. To help fight union corruption and to learn more please visit www.stopunioncorruption.org.

A closer look at another WRP sub-project, the so-called Allen West Defense Fund,18 shows that Stockton used the name of a conservative big wig to fill the coffers of his own project, instead of forwarding the donations to Allen West's campaign. According to a 2012 article in Politico19 :

West’s campaign filed complaints to the FEC about this group and four others in recent months, but that and the cease-and-desist letters seem to have had only minor effect. … Among aspiring GOP players, the word has gotten out that the West name is a smart investment. Andrew Hemingway, a young New Hampshire operative who ran Newt Gingrich’s primary campaign in the state, earlier this year created a group called “4RG.” In an interview, Hemingway said that, as the name would suggest, he launched the outfit to elect a Republican governor in New Hampshire. ... When it was noted that his group had just that week sent an email out soliciting funds for West, Hemingway chuckled and said ... he had only done so as part of an arrangement to give the funds to another conservative third-party group named Western Representation PAC. “They have an Allen West defense fund and stuff like that,” explained Hemingway, mentioning his relationship with the group’s strategist, Dustin Stockton.

But Stockton said there was no such agreement. “We don’t have a deal,” Stockton said, adding that 4RG’s willingness to send their proceeds his way “sounds very generous of Andrew.” Stockton said Western Representation PAC had previously used 4RG’s list for a West solicitation, but that email had their header. West officials have not sent a cease-and-desist to Stockton’s group, but, noting that the radio ads urge listeners to “sign up” at the group’s “Allen West defense fund” website, they argue that the spots are aimed at fundraising and list-building for Western Representation PAC. “Support of West and the growth of our organization are not mutually exclusive,” Stockton fired back, pointing out that the plug was only at the end of a 60-second spot.

2010 - "Chief strategist" of The Tea Party

Merely two months after the allegedly disenfranchised Stockton had registered the Western Representation PAC, Stockton became “chief strategist” of TheTeaParty.net,20 a position that he held from January 2010 until August 2014. According to Stockton’s “autobiography,” while trying to win over people for the WRP on local Republican rallies, he had come in touch with the Tea Party, and jumped on the bandwagon.

In 2012, Stockton's now defunct website, dustinstockton.com, went online,15 whose "About" section stated:

Seeing that there was something different about this 27 year old activist, the Tea Party Express invited Dustin to become a speaker on their national bus tour. Beginning in Searchlight Nevada, the home of Harry Reid, Dustin traveled over 9000 miles speaking at nearly 60 rallies. This experience allowed him to connect with Patriots across America proving that not all young people have been taken over by the Progressives. ...
Dustin’s ability as a political strategist was proved during the 2010 campaign as he developed new methods of using a combination of traditional and social media to make a difference in several key races across the nation.

Presumably by way of his work with the Tea Party Express Stockton got to know Amy Kremer, with whom he would later collaborate in the context of the March for Trump / Women for America First campaigns.

After three years working for the Tea Party, in January 2013, Stockton published a book about his experience called Community Organizer - A Tea Party Story, which also contains some biographical details about Stockton’s earlier life.7 In 2013, Stockton also contributed articles to the website “Liberty Pulse.”21 On that site appears one "Jay Batman," who is described as being "employed with Dustin Stockton Political Strategies, LLC, and presently resides in West Texas with his dog and co-author, Buddy Love."22

Already back then Stockton can be considered a grifter, since in Community Organizer he presents himself as the small man single-handedly taking on the establishment, not as a fraudulent collector of donations and labor union wrecker23 :

Fed up with the corruption and incompetence that collapsed the value of my home and depressed the economy of my community, I went in search of answers. In my quest for justice I picked a fight with the most powerful and corrupt interests in America and in many cases won. I don't fight Democrats or Republicans, I fight the establishment on behalf of people just like me. The establishment in both parties and the media have carefully crafted a false narrative about what is the Tea Party. Don't buy their propaganda, take it from someone who is living it. This is my Tea Party story and I'm proud to share it with you!

That Stockton held White supremacist beliefs already back then transpires from the pictures he posted on social media. For example, in December 2013, he posted a picture of the Ku Klux Klan on Facebook.24

2015 - Breitbart community liaison

In summer 2015 Stockton started to work for Steve Bannon’s far-right platform and future MAGA echo chamber Breitbart News, although his CV on LinkedIn shows slightly different dates: Mar 2014 - Dec 2016). However, the Breitbart website indicates that he published his first article on August 21, 2015.25 And also a related Facebook entry by Stockton point to summer 2015 as the starting date of his stint at Breitbart26 :

It is a dream come true, I've got a new gig as a "community liaison" for Breitbart! I'm going to get to meet a lot of awesome people over the next few years!

His time at Breitbart partly overlapped with his post as community liaison for the gun nut firearms lobby organization Gun Owners of America (May 2014 - Nov 2016).13

It is not quite clear when Bannon and Stockton first got to know each other, but their acquaintance may precede Stockton’s employment at Breitbart. Stockton and Bannon had both participated in the February 2012 CPAC conference, although there is no indication that they knew each other back then. Another platform they could have run into each other was the Tea Party movement, for which both shared a common enthusiasm. Before Andrew Breitbart’s death in 2012, and Bannon’s subsequent takeover of the platform, Bannon had supported the right-wing Tea Party candidate Sarah Palin, when producing her hagiographic portrait, “The Undefeated,” in 2011. Bannon had called himself a “Tea Party Populist Guy,” and Breitbart “the blog kind of for the Tea Party.”27

Stockton’s and Jennifer Lawrence's names appear in connection with Bannon in October 2017, when they suddenly dropped out of leading MAGA candidate Kelli Ward’s campaign after Ward had met Bannon. According to a Vox article28 :

This past April, two Breitbart alumni joined the campaign of Kelli Ward, an insurgent conservative preparing to challenge Republican Sen. Jeff Flake on a familiar Trumpstyle platform to “drain the swamp” and “Make America Great Again.”
Ward officially kicked off her campaign last week at an event attended by Fox News’s Laura Ingraham and Breitbart executive chair and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. Later that same day, the two Breitbart writers, Jennifer Lawrence and Dustin Stockton, quit. After working on her campaign for more than six months, they had come to believe that Ward was not the true believer she claimed to be.

2017 - America First Projects

When Steve Bannon left Breitbart in 2016, Stockton and several other Breitbart reporters quit as well. Stockton, Jennifer Lawrence, Patrick Howley and other former Breitbarters went on founding America First Projects (AFP),29 a Trumpian PAC, in early 2017,30 "committed to maintaining the United States of America as the greatest nation in the history of man."31 AFP was allegedly building on the organizational framework of Stockton’s Western Representation PAC. Also a media arm,32 Big League Politics,33 was established, spreading lies and conspiracy theories haunting the Trumpian echo chamber.

Stockton told The Atlantic that the group would be run out of an existing organization, the Western Representation PAC,30 founded by him and his father Roger Stockton in 2009.13 Stockton said at the time that, to start out with, they had a 200,000 person email list at their disposal.

Besides collecting donations, AFP runs a website, which is more of a fake news portal, disseminating Trumpian hoaxes. Stockton, who is the author of many posts,34 uses the AFP website also for his personal business interests, such as advertising the use of hydroxychloroquine as an effective COVID-19 cure (“President Trump Is Taking Hydroxychloroquine”),8 a medicine he sources from India.

According to Matt Shuham35 :

The strategy [of AFP] Stockton described to The Atlantic echoes the Tea Party playbook, complete with organized town hall confrontations and a team of reporters that would “ambush” unfriendly lawmakers. The group also had brainstormed giving out “Trump Enforcement Posse” or “Trump Enforcement Team” badges as donor rewards, according to the report.

One of the people involved was Bruce Carter, founder of the “Black Men for Bernie” campaign.

According to MediaMatters36 :

A May 29 Bloomberg story revealed that during the 2016 election, a Breitbart reporter [Dustin Stockton] worked as an “off-the-books political operative” for the Trump campaign, encouraging a former Bernie Sanders backer [Bruce Carter] to help convince black voters to vote for Donald Trump or sit out the election entirely.

To win over disgruntled influencers from the Left seems part of a strategy, according to the Atlantic article30 :

Like Trump himself, they [Stockton, Howley & Co.] show a certain ideological flexibility when it comes to the split between the left and right. Stockton said they are “looking to add several high-profile people on the left,” and Carter’s presence on the team represents an overture to recalcitrant Sanders supporters. But their primary goal is ideological enforcement on the right.”

2018 - We Build the Wall

In January 2018 Stockton and Lawrence, who serves as AFP’s vice-president, were caught with Marijuana during a highway patrol.37 When the scandal-ridden We Build the Wall campaign started out in December 2018, the organization behind soliciting donations to build private sections of the wall along the Mexico–U.S. border, Stockton and Lawrence joined its efforts.38 We Build the Wall has likely been defrauded by Steve Bannon, co-founder Brian Kolfage, and others. According to the New York Times1 :

Two organizers helping the effort, Jennifer Lawrence and Dustin Stockton, were close to Bannon, having worked at Breitbart and then at his nonprofit seeking private financing to help complete Trump’s border wall. In August [2020], federal prosecutors accused Bannon of defrauding the nonprofit’s donors, after an investigation that included a raid of Lawrence and Stockton’s motor home; they were not implicated, and Bannon, who pleaded not guilty, was later pardoned by the president.

In the context of his work for We Build The Wall, Stockton has been in touch with vigilante-style militias, according to a Centpapiers dossier39 :

Stockton is also closely linked to militias. ... At the end of May 2019, Stockton had interviewed and promoted Jim Benvie, the spokesperson for the “Guardian Patriots,” formerly “United Constitutional Patriots,” those armed militiamen who patrolled the Mexican border. Claiming to “arrest” migrants by themselves, and include people such as Larry Mitchell Hopkins aka “Johnny Horton Jr.” as well as "Striker," who ended up being arrested by the FBI. Hopkins had previously been arrested and convicted in 1986 for fraud and in 2006 for impersonating a police officer and possessing a firearm as a felon, according to court records obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center. A disturbing video shot by a journalist disguised as a militiaman had shown what these crackpots were capable of.

2018 - EastCann chairman

According to his LinkedIn profile, since March 2018 Stockton is chairing an extremely murky business called EastCann.13 According to a Marijuana business directory, “EastCann Insurance,” now defunct, was founded in 2015, providing “Commercial insurance packages for retail and medical marijuana businesses and related industries,”40 before switching to sourcing COVID-19 medical supplies as well as the ineffective COVID-19 remedy hydroxychloroquine, following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The website of EastCann Insurance was available (at least) under two URLs:

  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20180803171811fw_/http://www.masscanninsurance.com/
  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20180807202649/http://eastcanninsurance.com/

The address of EastCann Insurance used to be 259 Humphrey Street in Marblehead, Massachusetts, a home address in an upper-crust suburban neighborhood. If one looks up what is going on at that Massachusetts address nowadays: it houses another insurance business run by several members of the McDonough family, called Arts & Entertainment Insurance Brokerage LLC, which exists since 1983,41 and provides insurance services, i.a. in the adult film business (videoinsurance.com).

2019 - Stockton Strategies LLC

On March 7, 2019, Dustin and Roger Stockton registered Stockton Strategies LLC, a limited-liability company, at an address in Reno, Nevada, with both of them acting as managers.42

2020 - Hydroxychloroquine grift & cashing in on COVID-19 supplies

EastCann Singapore

As the current EastCann website (registered in June 2019) indicates, EastCann, now located in Singapore, shifted from the insurance business to COVID-19 medical supply sourcing, as is freely admitted on the new website (https://eastcann.com/):

Thank you for visiting our website! This website was previously created to showcase our initiatives and projects in the rapidly growing Cannabis industry in multiple countries, including the USA. As the COVID-19 pandemic hits the USA hard in the past few weeks, our team is putting 100% time, effort and energy in sourcing a few essential products worldwide and importing it into the USA to ease the spread of COVID-19 in our beloved homeland.

OUR INVENTORY: We currently have items such as 3-ply disposable surgical masks, N-95 masks, hand-sanitizers, COV-19 Rapid Test Kits and other hospital gears essentials available to purchase (in high volume only).

The EastCann website, although stating that the company is now located in Singapore, does not specify an address, just an American phone number and email address:

East Cann Pte. Ltd.
Established in Singapore
Ph & WA: +1 604 362 8224
Email: PRESS@EASTCANN.COM

East Cann Pte. Ltd. does appear in Singapore business registries, where it is specified that the company was founded on 24 July 2019, with the following address43 :

1 PANDAN VALLEY
#02-106
CAMELIA TERRACE
SINGAPORE (597625)

There is one more business located at that apartment number (#02-106), a “cosmetic wholesaler” called ARTHASPA ORGANIK PTE. LTD.,44 45 but there are no indications who runs the business.

A few months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, in April 2020, Stockton, still chairman of EastCann, also became Vice President of Global Business Development of America First Medical,13 a "company, started by [Brian] Kolfage ... which was criticized for selling masks that were in short supply at the onset of COVID-19," according to an exposé by Centpapiers.39 As of June 2021, Kolfage still stands accused of defrauding donors to the We Build The Wall campaign,46 which Stockton and Lawrence have been actively promoting.

Subsequently Stockton helped peddle Trump's hydroxychloroquine hoax, as well as to source the drug in India via the company EastCann. Hydroxychloroquine is a malaria medication that has been hailed by Trump and Trumpians as an effective remedy against COVID-19 in the early months of the pandemic.

Beginning in March 2020, citing some anecdotal reports, Trump began promoting the use of hydroxychloroquine both as a prophylactical measure as well as an effective cure against acute COVID-19 infections, and pushing for the drug's approval by the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), which was eventually granted on March 20, 2020.47 48 However, after first issuing an emergency use authorization for physicians to use the drug to treat hospitalized people with a severe COVID-19 infection, the FDA withdrew the authorization on June 15, 2020, finding that "in light of ongoing serious cardiac adverse events and other potential serious side effects, the known and potential benefits of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine no longer outweigh the known and potential risks for the authorized use."49

The hydroxychloroquine hoax served a threefold purpose: 1) in absence of any effective remedy against COVID-19 the existence of such was simply invented, in order to save Trump's image in the face of the US being among those countries with the highest Coronavirus death toll; 2) a calculated run on hydroxychloroquine could fill the coffers of those able to source the drug, including Dustin Stockton's; and 3) to create a conspiracist side story that the establishment would intentionally prevent people to easily get their hands on such an effective drug against COVID-19 since it would be profiting from the pandemic, further spurring the run on the drug.

That the hydroxychloroquine grift may have cost people's lives, a) by treating deadly sick people with an ineffective drug; b) by causing shortages for its intended purpose against malaria; c) by potentially causing serious, even deadly, side effects in some patients, was apparently the least of their concerns.

On May 18, 2020, Trump stated that he was taking the drug preemptively, stimulating an unprecedented worldwide demand and causing shortages of hydroxychloroquine for its prescribed purpose of preventing malaria.50 That same day an article appeared on the Trump-affiliated America First Projects website, entitled “President Trump Is Taking Hydroxychloroquine.”8 It alleged, the author, "Dustin," had sent an hydroxychloroquine "offer sheet" to the White House, indicating that his company, EastCann, would be able to source the medication.

The article stated8 :

America First Projects has been working on two massive stories regarding hydroxychloroquine. One about how an emerging markets cannabis fund in Singapore, EastCann, has been trying to connect Americans with a cheap supply of the drug from established manufacturers in India. It’s a story I know intimately as I am not only the Chairman of America First Projects, I am also the Chairman of EastCann and the Vice President of Global Business Development for America First Medical.

2020 - Sourcing of questionable COVID-19 test kits

Zandcell

EastCann has also been dealing with “COVID-19 Dual Antibody Serology Tests” by Zandcell, a Swedish company, a fact that is not at all apparent at first. Visiting the website there is no address given, only a map which points to Jackson, Wyoming.51 But visiting https://easycoronatest.org, it says in the footer: "zandcell.com. A Swedish Company.”

The company Zandcell belongs to the entrepreneur Michael Zand, who ominously described himself as follows on his now defunct Parler profile, a far-right Twitter copy, where he was sharing MAGA-related content52 :

Zandcell.com, Animal Lover, cryptocurrency, energy, entrepreneur, finance, forex, gaming, hacking, martial arts, medicine, MMA, P2P, politics, Space. RTs≠endorsements.

An American Zandcell LLC was registered on March 23, 2020, in Jackson, Wyoming, at an address which houses the “Majors Law Firm”53 :

Zandcell LLC
125 South King Street # 2a
Jackson, WY 83001

According to the now defunct website of SMARTCHEK, one of the "exclusive authorized distributors" of Zandcell test kits, it was stated that the kits had54

... been assigned with an FDA Emergency Use Authorization number on April 5, 2020. The FDA does not object to the use of this test.
On March 16, 2020, the FDA issued guidelines stating they do not intend to object to COVID-19 Dual Antibody Serology tests, as long as the FDA guidelines are followed.
Our tests are manufactured following all FDA guidelines in FDA compliant facilities. These tests are for professional diagnostic use to be administered under the supervision of a health care professional.

However, if one looks at the FDA document attached it just says that the submission by Shepard G. Bentley of Bentley Medical Consulting LLC was received on April 4, 2020, and is pending. Thus, the evidence suggests that instead of an “Emergency Use Authorization number” a mere "submission number" [sic] was issued. Nonetheless, the company pretends that its test is FDA compliant, and that “the FDA does not object the use of this test.”

Meanwhile, in Sweden a court had ruled on May 4, 2020, that Zandcell cannot sell its test kits because of failing to meet “the legal requirements for medical devices under Swedish and European Union law.”55 The test was nevertheless CE-certified on September 11, 2020, according to Zandcell.56

Yet another interesting detail: On the SMARTCHEK website one could download a purchase order pdf, which had in its header the logo of SMART 8 ENERGY. Apparently that company had offered Zandcell rapid tests on its website, which is now defunct.57

However, although apparently having sold test kits in the past, Smart 8 Energy was not among the list of "exclusive authorized distributors" mentioned on the now defunct SMARTCHEK website: “EASTCANN PTE. LTD., SMARTCHEK and COVID AP are exclusive authorized distributors for ZandCell COVID-19 Rapid Test in North America.”54 A company called “COVID AP” seems not (yet) to exist, only the defunct SMARTCHEK and EastCann. And having a closer look at the respective websites, one finds that SMARTCHEK was sharing EastCann content on its site, indicating that the two companies may not have been competitors, but in the game together.58

Smart 8 Energy

Smart 8 Energy is a subsidiary of Mullen Technologies Inc., owned by David Michery, an upstart electrical car manufacturer, which has also been sourcing COVID-19 antibody and virus test kits and personal protective equipment. According to an article published on June 15, 2020, on the website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission59 :

… in May 2020, Mullen signed an agreement with Academy Medical, Inc. to sell its products to the U.S. Federal Government, including without limitation the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, Indian Health Services, and Department of Health and Human Services and their respective sub-agencies and facilities.

Mullen Technologies has just recently scored a $40 million tax incentive from the state of Tennessee for leasing a facility there.60

***

FOIA Research has only investigated the distribution of Zandcell COVID-19 rapid test kits, not any other protective gear that EastCann claims to source. As of November 28, 2020, there were several websites where one could apparently make bulk orders of these tests, including https://easycoronatest.org/, https://smartchek.org/, and https://eastcann.com/. At that time the Smart 8 Energy web page selling test kits was already defunct,57 and as of June 2021, the SMARTCHEK website has become defunct as well.

Whether these test kits were indeed effective in diagnosing a COVID-19 infection could not be established. However, the fact that these test kits were apparently available for sale while an FDA approval process was still pending, followed by the decision of Swedish authorities to not approve the test, certainly raises some doubts. So does the apparent removal of traces to sales of the Zandcell test kit from the Smart 8 Energy and the SMARTCHEK websites.

Above examples may show Trump and his network, and for that matter Dustin Stockton, were not only ruthless enough to massively downplay the severity of the virus for business to run as usual, while taking into account a record number of deaths. They also cashed into the pandemic by peddling snake oil (hydroxychloroquine) as well as necessary medical equipment, while fully taking into account the latter may not comply with medical standards, and thus risking even more deaths. At the head of at least two of the key businesses involved, Zandcell and EastCann, are obviously murky far-right figures, in the case of Stockton a person closely affiliated with Steve Bannon. As a key figure in the new anti-Chinese front that has built up during Trump’s time in office, Bannon was instrumental in turning the virus into a political weapon by accusing China for its deliberate creation.

2020 - Tyrant's Curse

In October 2020, Stockton started a blog called "Tyrant's Curse" on Substack,61 which turned out to be the name of an eponymous militia that Stockton has been in the process of assembling. Its yellow and black logo shows a snake curled around a skull and bones, a symbol which Stockton also has tattooed on his underarm, which is slightly reminiscent of the Gadsden flag, popular among far-right hardliners. A website (tyrantscurse.com) seems to have existed, where one could buy signature hoodies, however, as of June 2021, the website is defunct.62 According to a YouTube video which was recorded following a tactical training course Stockton and his March for Trump team had completed with James Yaeger's "Tactical Response" school, Stockton revealed63 :

So basically it boils down to: a well-armed and self-reliant populist who takes personal responsibility, can never be oppressed and will never be ruled. It is the Tyrant's Curse. … So the Tyrant's Curse is what I'm working on all over the country. And what we're trying to do is train leaders who can then train their community. … I feel like we're in a dangerous place as a country and I imagine you feel the same way. … So what can people do? … How can we come together as communities to be teaching people to independently, like rise up, you know, almost like Sam Adams. Meeting in your bar, meeting in your church ... I don't think it's a coincidence those are the places that they're trying to shut down with this COVID stuff right?

2020 - March for Trump / Women for America First caravan tours

Following the electoral victory of Joe Biden in November 2020, Stockton joined forces with Women for America First (WAF) in organizing pro-Trump rallies across the U.S. On November 14, 2020, Stockton and WAF joined the first mass rally contesting the election results, which went by several names, including the Million MAGA March, the March for Trump and Stop the Steal DC.64

Subsequently, Stockton, together with a small team including his partner Jennifer Lawrence, went on a road trip across the U.S. with a caravan sporting the logos of March for Trump and WAF, in order to hook up with various local troopers, and to get them on track with the MAGA battle order for the January 6 insurrection. At the makeshift rallies at each stopover Stockton appeared as a devious rabble-rouser, swearing MAGA loyalists to the Big Lie that the election was stolen.

According to Centpapiers, quoting from different sources39 :

Already at the time of the November 14 demonstration a bus tour had been laid out, destined to travel "across the states lost" by Trump in the November 3 election: the idea to revolt was definitely up in the air, and Stockton was one of the pillars of its implementation. The flyer was sporting ads from Lindell Recovery Network and My Pillow, Steve Bannon's War Room, and the Right Side Broadcasting Network, which signed off on the package of those who are now unsurprisingly in charge in Washington. Stockton, in the vein of a true Bannon follower, had been relentless in urging Trump to take action, indeed, in increasingly vivid terms. “Stockton used some of the most incendiary language in the run-up to Jan. 6, at one point telling followers on a Facebook Live appearance to ‘clean your guns and prepare. Things are going to get worse before they get better.’ On a Facebook Live stream Wednesday night after the Capitol attack, Stockton appeared unrepentant, saying lawmakers were ‘trying to certify a fraudulent election.’‘I want to stand up against that,’ he said. ‘It's the whole reason I've been on this bus tour. That's the whole reason I've been organizing these events in D.C.’” [Quote from ABC News3 ] …

“As BuzzFeed News reported, Trump promoted Women for Trump’s bus tour in the weeks leading up to the Capitol attack, and the tour featured the type of violent rhetoric that would later bear fruit. One prominent organizer and speaker on the tour was Dustin Stockton, a former Breitbart writer. Before his 2020 election-related work, Stockton worked for We Build The Wall, the GoFundMe-powered border wall effort, where he was chummy with an armed militia group that patrolled the border and detained undocumented people. In city after city, Stockton worked up crowds with talk about firearms and instructions to “study tactics.” ‘I’m so angry, I’m in like pitchforks mode today, I really am,’ he told an Ohio rally in December.’ Let’s grab the pitchforks, let’s go to D.C., and let’s stay there until this crap is changed and we’re Americans again.’” [Quote from TPM65 ]

The first caravan trip started on November 29, 2020, in Florida, and was scheduled to end on December 12, 2020, in Washington, D.C.66

His collaboration with WAF brings Stockton into the orbit of Roger Stone. The latter's ex-wife, Ann Stone, had co-founded WAF in 2016 together with the former chief executive of the Tea Party Express, Amy Kremer, whom Stockton presumably knows from Tea Party times, as well as Kathryn Serkes, who has been running with Kremer the Doctor Patient Medical Association: a fraudulent pseudo-medical group, downplaying the coronavirus and propping false claims about the efficiency of the malaria prevention drug (hydroxy)chloroquine against COVID-19. Kylie Jane Kremer, the daughter of Amy Kremer, is Executive Director of WAF. On December 11, 2020, one day before the grand finale of the first caravan tour, Stockton appeared with the latter on a picture in Harrisburg, PA.67

On December 12, 2021, a over 4-hour-long and certainly costly event took place in D.C., kicked off by the black evangelical pastor Mark Burns delivering a speech bordering to the psychotic, while stirring up emotions with joint chants such as "we won't back down" and frantic exclamations, such as "this is Donald Trump's country."68 Also ousted National Security advisor Michael Flynn gave a speech.69 Stockton posted a picture on Facebook that is showing him together with Flynn in front of the steps of the Supreme Court.70

Also present on the December 12, 2020, event was Amy Kremer who appears arm in arm with Stockton on pictures. Another picture shows him together with fellow far-right grifter Jack Posobiec.

On December 24, 2021, Stockton and Lawrence started a second caravan tour that led them from the West coast to Washington, D.C., with a scheduled arrival on January 6, 2021.

2021 - January 6 insurrection

On January 3, Stockton posted a video on Facebook in which he gave a belligerent, preacher-like speech, fulminating against the separation of church and state, and portraying Trump as a man chosen by god to do his will.4

A picture posted on the Women for America First Facebook page on January 3, shows the grifter caravan parked just besides a group of armed militias.71

On January 4, 2021,72 Women for America First received a public gathering permit by the National Park Service for a “First Amendment Rally” at the Ellipse park between the White House and the National Mall on January 6, 2021, the rally that allowed for the insurrection mob to gather.73 Amy and Kylie Kremer as well as Justin Caporale were mentioned as the contact persons for the January 6, 2020, event.74

However, besides Women for America First (Ann Stone, Amy Kremer, Kylie Kremer etc.) and March for Trump (Dustin Stockton, Jennifer Lawrence etc.), there were other groups involved in the onsite organization of the January 6 pre-insurrection rally which were all interconnected, notably Stop The Steal (Roger Stone, Ali Alexander etc.),

Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence, arrived in Washington, D.C. on January 4, 2021, according to Stockton's Facebook page.75 Photographic and videographic evidence suggests that they were staying at the Willard Hotel while in D.C., showing them in and around the hotel the following days. As demonstrated by a Centpapiers exposé,39 Stockton, while staying at the Willard Hotel, can be seen with i.a the far-right conspiracy pundit and rabble-rouser Alex Jones as well as with Pete Navarro, former Assistant to Trump, who held the posts of Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, and national Defense Production Act policy coordinator in the Trump administration.76

According to the journalist Seth Abramson, Stockton and Lawrence were among those present at a makeshift "war room" at the Willard Hotel on the eve of the January 6 insurrection2 :

The group that gathered at the Willard Hotel on January 5 appears to have been nearly as large, if not larger, than the group at Trump International Hotel. Possible attendees include, of those not also reported to have been involved in the January 5 meeting at Trump International, the following: Roger Stone, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, John Eastman, Robert Hyde, Russell Ramsland Jr., Jim Penrose, Sal Greco, Jennifer Lynn Lawrence, and Dustin Stockton. Moreover, among the Willard war room attendees concurrently said to have been involved in a meeting at Trump International Hotel we find Rudy Giuliani, Ali Alexander, Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, Phil Waldron, and Peter Navarro. In all, the suspected roster of Willard war room attendees numbers 16, though that number may swell after additional investigations at Proof and elsewhere. ...

But now an amazing five-part exposé by a French independent journalist publishing via Montréal-based website Centpapiers further reveals ...

pictures that seem to indicate top Trump adviser Peter Navarro was with Dustin Stockton at the Willard at some point during the lead-up to the insurrection, as well as providing pictures of Stockton and his wife Jennifer Lynn Lawrence in the VIP area of Trump’s Ellipse speech alongside top Trump congressional ally Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, one of Ali Alexander’s self-confessed co-conspirators in plotting the dire events of January 6. ...

The aforementioned couple, Lawrence and Stockton, have at various points been Steve Bannon acolytes, employees, and business associates, and were known to have been at the Willard Hotel pre-insurrection. According to this report by the New York Times,

... By [approximately 2PM ET on January 6], with “all hell breaking loose”, as Stockton put it, he and Lawrence decided to take golf carts back to their room at the Willard Hotel and “await instructions about whether to go back to the Ellipse.”

While Lawrence and Stockton’s presence at the Willard Hotel doesn’t ensure Bannon’s, the two Bannon associates’ unusual use of golf carts in downtown Washington during the insurrection—mirroring the use of such vehicles by Stop the Steal, Roger Stone, and the Oath Keepers—as well as the notion that they went to the Willard to “await instructions” from an unnamed superior, group of superiors, or group of compatriots, suggests the possibility that Bannon and/or the Three Percenter leadership were at the Willard at some point during the run-up to the insurrection or on Insurrection Day.

Videos posted by Dustin Stockton on January 7 in the aftermath of the failed insurrection clearly show him in and around the Willard Hotel:

Video 177 :

Video 278 :

After the January 6 insurrection the TrumpMarch.com site redirected to WAF’s website before becoming defunct.

On November 22, 2021, the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol subpoenaed Stockton, together with his partner Jennifer Lawrence as well as Roger Stone, Alex Jones and Taylor Budowich.79 Stockton is scheduled to testify on December 21, 2021, followed by Lawrence on December 22.80

Subpoena delivered to Dustin Stockton by the January 6 Committee on November 22, 2021. Source: https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/Stockton%20Letter.pdf

In a long piece by the Rolling Stone ahead of their depositions, entitled "Two Jan. 6 Organizers Are Coming Forward and Naming Names: ‘We’re Turning It All Over,’" Stockton and Lawrence announced to provide the January 6 Committee with full documentation and testimony regarding the January 6 insurrection.

Apparently they were left in the cold by Trump big wigs, and see their only pathway to fight an uphill legal battle by coming forward and denouncing others, while pretending to have warned, instead of having called for, violence.80

Links

More from author

Marcello De Angelis 
FOIA Research
Jean-Eudes Gannat
FOIA Research
John O'Sullivan
FOIA Research
Caspar von Schrenck-Notzing
FOIA Research