Cellphone records tie Proud Boys member to someone in Trump White House, NYT reports

• A Proud Boy was in contact with someone in Trump’s White House before the Capitol riot, The New York Times reported. 
• The revelation was found from cell phone data obtained by the FBI following the January 6 attack. 
• Neither one of their identities has been revealed. 
• Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

A member of the Proud Boys was in contact with someone in former President Donald Trump’s White House in the days before the Capitol Attack on January 6, The New York Times reported. 

An anonymous source who is familiar with a cellphone data report from the Federal Bureau of Investigations told the Times that it’s not clear what they discussed and did not disclose the names of either individual. 

The information was found partly as a result of data the FBI got from technology and telecommunications companies immediately after the riot, when Trump supporters breached the US Capitol and clashed with law enforcement. 

The riot resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer.   

This comes after Federico Klein, a former State Department aide, was arrested on Thursday in connection to the riots. 

The FBI has charged Klein with assault on police officers, interfering with police during civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding, both felonies, Politico reported. 

Klein was appointed by Trump and worked on his 2016 presidential campaign before becoming a special assistant in the Bureau Of Western Hemisphere Affairs in the State Department in 2017. 

The news comes after the leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, told the Times that he spoke on the phone with Roger Stone, a close associate of Trump, at a rally in front of Senator Marco Rubio’s home a few days before the Capitol attack. 

Videos from before the riot show Stone being guarded by six people who were members of The Oath Keepers, a militant anti-government extremist group. 

Stone told ABC News he had “no advance knowledge” of the riot.

“I could not even tell you the names of those who volunteered to provide security for me, required because of the many threats against me and my family,” Stone told the outlet.

So far, over 310 people have been charged in the Capitol insurrection. More than a dozen have been tied to extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. 

The FBI did not respond to Insider’s request for comment at the time of publication.