• Roger Stone will use his Fifth Amendment right to self-incrimination before the January 6 panel.
• Oath Keepers provided protection to the long-serving GOP operative the day before the riot.
• Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman were also subpoenaed.

Roger Stone will invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination during his Friday deposition before the House Select Committee, according to his lawyer.

CNN reported that Stone would plead Fifth.

Stone was present in Washington, D.C., where he received protection from Oath Keepers, right-wing paramilitary groups, on January 5, the day prior to the Capitol riot. The New York Times discovered that six of those who provided protection for Stone participated in the attack on the Capitol.

Multiple members of the militia were charged by federal prosecutors in connection to the riot at Capitol. The January 6 committee, which is investigating the role of right-wing extremist movements in the insurrection, also arrested them.

Two other major figures who pushed baseless claims of election fraud and participated in the ultimately-unsuccessful efforts to overturn Trump's Electoral College loss have also pleaded the Fifth in response to subpoenas from January 6 committee.

John Eastman, a legal scholar, wrote memos arguing former Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally reject whole states' electoral votes lists. Jeffrey Clark, an ex-official at the Department of Justice, who was a leading cheerleader for conspiracy theories of election fraud, also invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination before the Committee.

Stone, a long-time Republican operative and "dirty trickster", served as an informal adviser to Trump for 40 years. He also briefly played a role in Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Stone was later in the crosshairs federal and congressional investigations regarding that campaign.

Stone was convicted by a federal jury in 2019 on seven counts including making false statements under oath and obstruction of justice. He also faces witness tampering charges for his obstruction of multiple congressional investigations into Russian interference in 2016 elections and Trump campaign's contact with Russia.

Stone was sentenced to 40 months imprisonment by a federal judge. However, former President Donald Trump commuted Stone's sentence in July 2020. Stone received a full presidential pardon shortly before Trump left office in December 2020.