That 'secret' back channel with Trumpworld the January 6 committee keeps teasing has actually long been the Oath Keepers' defense

• January 6 House committee members keep teasing they've uncovered a secret MAGA-extremism back channel.
• But the Oath Keepers have long said the "Stop the Steal" organizers invited them to the 2021 rallies.

Rep. Jamie Raskin on Thursday became the latest January 6 committee member to tease that upcoming testimony will reveal secret coordination between Trumpworld and extremist groups — but the Oath Keepers have long boasted of such a back channel.

In fact, leader and founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes and other members of the pro-Trump militia are staking their seditious-conspiracy defense case on these yet-described communications with rally organizers.

Rhodes' lawyers have been arguing for months that his group's presence in DC was requested by organizers of the "Stop the Steal" rallies of January 5 and 6, the gatherings that galvanized a pro-Trump crowd to storm the Capitol.

It was actually a multi-rally gig, the court papers say.

"In late December, Mr. Rhodes was notified by organizers that Oath Keepers were needed to provide protection in Washington, DC, for multiple rallies on January 5 and 6, 2021," a February filing says.

The filing was Rhodes' unsuccessful attempt to win his pre-trial release from jail — by portraying his group's presence at the Capitol as a benign response to rally organizers' security concerns.

The Oath Keepers were also convinced that then-President Donald Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act before Congress could certify the election results, allowing them to respond as a "legal" armed militia, the papers say — though again, just how they came to be convinced of this is left unstated.

"Previous conservative rallies across the United States in the months running up to the Presidential election had been attacked by members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter," the February filing says.

"The Oath Keepers had been present for the vast majority of those rallies for the purpose of providing defensive assistance to attendees, some of whom were injured and even hospitalized," it says.

Rhodes' defense arguments also openly reference that the Oath Keepers provided a personal security detail for former Trump advisor Roger Stone on the day before the riot. Again, this detail is brought up in an attempt to legitimize the group's presence at the Capitol.

Raskin told CNN on Thursday that a future hearing will describe a back channel between extremist groups and the Trump orbit.

"All of that is to come soon," Raskin teased.

"The hearing I'm working on is about the relationship between this whole effort and the domestic violent extremist groups and how the mob was actually mobilized and put into action," he said.

Moments after the first public hearing, on June 9, CNN's Jake Tapper spoke with House Select Committee Chair Bennie Thompson about the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

When Tapper asked if there will be future witnesses "that describe actual conversations between those extremist groups and anyone in Trump's orbit?" Thompson answered, "Yes," without elaborating.

"Obviously, you have to go through the hearings," Thompson said.

He continued: "But we have a number of witnesses who come forward that people have not talked to before, that will document a lot of what was going on in the Trump orbit while all of this was occurring."