# Amy Kremer Tea Party activist and founder of Women for America First (WFAF), the nonprofit organization that held the official permit for the January 6, 2021 Ellipse rally where Trump spoke before the Capitol breach. Kremer's role places her at the intersection of the [[Stop the Steal]] movement's organizational infrastructure and its most consequential public event. ## Background Kremer was a co-founder of the Tea Party Express, one of the most prominent organizations in the Tea Party movement of 2009-2012. She organized cross-country bus tours, rallies, and grassroots mobilization campaigns that helped elect conservative candidates in the 2010 midterms. Her experience running large-scale conservative events and navigating the nonprofit infrastructure that supports them made her a natural organizer for the Stop the Steal rally circuit. Her trajectory from Tea Party to MAGA illustrates the direct organizational lineage between those movements: the same people who built the grassroots infrastructure of the Tea Party repurposed it for Trump-era mobilization, carrying over donor networks, mailing lists, event logistics expertise, and nonprofit structures. ## Women for America First WFAF was the 501(c)(4) nonprofit that served as the organizational vehicle for multiple Stop the Steal rallies, including the January 6 Ellipse event. The organization held the National Park Service permit for the rally, making it the entity legally responsible for the event. **The Permit Function**: Holding the rally permit is analytically important because it provides a layer of organizational deniability. The rally where Trump spoke and from which the march to the Capitol originated was officially a Women for America First event, not a Trump campaign event or a White House event. This structure insulated the principal organizers behind a nonprofit entity. WFAF organized a series of rallies across multiple states in November and December 2020, building the Stop the Steal movement's grassroots energy through repeated events that drew increasingly agitated crowds. The January 6 rally was the culmination of this tour, not a one-off event. ## January 6 Rally Organization The Ellipse rally on January 6 was the event where Trump told supporters to "fight like hell" and to march to the Capitol. Kremer's WFAF held the permit, but the event's speaker list, logistics, and funding involved a much broader network: **Funding**: [[Julie Jenkins Fancelli]], the Publix supermarket heiress, provided significant funding for the rally through [[Taylor Budowich]]'s advertising operation. The money flowed through multiple entities before reaching the event. **Speakers**: The rally featured Trump, Giuliani, and others. The speaker selection and staging were coordinated with the White House, blurring the line between a "grassroots" event and an official presidential function. **March Route**: The decision to direct rally attendees toward the Capitol — the step that transformed a legal rally into the January 6 breach — involved coordination between multiple organizers. The extent to which the march was pre-planned versus spontaneous remains a subject of investigation. ## [[January 6 Committee]] Kremer and her daughter Kylie Kremer (also involved in WFAF) were subpoenaed by the January 6 Select Committee. The committee investigated the rally's organization, funding, coordination with the White House, and the decision to direct attendees toward the Capitol. ## Analytical Framework Kremer represents the **logistical infrastructure layer** of Stop the Steal. Every movement needs someone who can get permits, book venues, arrange sound systems, manage crowds, and handle the nonprofit compliance that allows money to flow. These operational roles are less dramatic than the lawyers scheming about fake electors or the media figures amplifying fraud claims, but they are essential — without them, the movement has no physical presence. Her Tea Party background also illustrates the **organizational continuity** of the American right. The Tea Party's infrastructure didn't disappear after 2012; it was absorbed into the MAGA movement. The same nonprofit structures, donor networks, and event logistics expertise that organized rallies against Obamacare were repurposed to organize rallies against election certification. The personnel pipeline runs directly from one movement to the next.