Back in November 2021, Rolling Stone published a story by Hunter Walker titled “Jan. 6 Organizers Used Anonymous Burner Phones to Communicate with White House and Trump Family, Sources Say.” The story conveyed a claim made by three unnamed sources:

SOME OF THE organizers who planned the rally that took place on the White House Ellipse on Jan. 6 allegedly used difficult-to-trace burner phones for their most “high level” communications with former President Trump’s team.

Kylie Kremer, a top official in the March for Trump group that helped plan the Ellipse rally, directed an aide to pick up three burner phones days before Jan. 6, according to three sources who were involved in the event. One of the sources, a member of the March for Trump team, says Kremer insisted the phones be purchased using cash and described this as being “of the utmost importance.”

The three sources say Kylie Kremer took one of the phones and used it to communicate with top White House and Trump campaign officials, including Eric Trump, the president’s second-oldest son, who leads the family’s real-estate business; Lara Trump, Eric’s wife and a former senior Trump campaign consultant; Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff; and Katrina Pierson, a Trump surrogate and campaign consultant…

The three sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, say Kylie asked the aide to buy the three burner phones as the group passed through Palm Springs, California, about a week before the Ellipse event.

That story made a big splash at the time as Erik Wemple of the Washington Post pointed out yesterday:

Such scandalous possibilities were picked up by other outlets, including the Daily Beast, HuffPost, Vice, the Hill, Insider, DailyMail.com and the Independent. A Daily Kos write-up claimed that “this new evidence adds to a significant pile suggesting that Trump’s staff played an active role in planning the event so it would provide a crowd of bodies at the precise hour and place needed to threaten lawmakers directly.”

In March 2022, Rolling Stone published a follow-up story in which Scott Johnston, one of the three original sources for the story, went on the record:

Johnston said Kremer used a “burner phone” that was one of three he claims she directed him to purchase for her and her mother, Amy. Burner phones are cheap, prepaid cells that can be harder to trace. Johnston said Kremer told him she needed them to “communicate with high-level people.”

It turns out the Jan 6 committee dug into this pretty hard. But as Wemple points out, they don’t seem to have found anything to corroborate it. On the contrary, evidence to back it up seemed to be missing:

The committee released transcripts of its interviews and depositions. In their interviews, both Kremers denied having possessed or used burner phones. “This story is total bull—-,” Amy Kremer told the committee.

The panel’s interactions with Johnston, by contrast, produced a dramatic twist. He had purchased the three phones at a CVS in Cathedral City, Calif., he told the committee. The purchase, totaling around $260, took place in the early afternoon of Dec. 28, 2020, Johnston told a committee investigator.

The committee homed in on CVS Store 1520 and plumbed the location’s records. “What CVS told us is there is no record of any transaction for a prepaid phone, whether with cash or credit card, no transactions at all at CVS 1520 for the purchase of prepaid phones on December 28, 2020,” the investigator told Johnston. Was there any reason “why, according to CVS’ records, the purchase that you’ve told us about never happened,” the investigator asked.

Johnston said he had “no information” why that would be.(The committee spoke with another alleged source for the story, who said that Johnston had mentioned the burner purchase.)…

The committee’s final report didn’t mention the burner story, though its attempt to run down the Rolling Stone claims reflect how seriously it took the allegations.

Absence of evidence isn’t proof the story is false, as Wemple points out, but it does call into question the reliability of Johnston as a source.

But Rolling Stone and author Hunter Walker are sticking with their reports. Walker posted a thread on Twitter attacking Wemple’s piece:

First off, let's start with the headline. His headline is fundamentally inaccurate. Rolling Stone never "said" burner phones were used by J6 organizers. From the beginning we characterized this as a claim from sources. Check out this original headline. https://t.co/x4GqOabbUy

— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) February 1, 2023

It’s true they characterized this as a claim from sources, but given that the sources were anonymous we’re sort of taking the author’s word for the reliability of these sources. And if it turns out the sources (or the main one) was unreliable, that matters.

As @RepRiggleman and I wrote in "The Breach" committee investigators did find evidence of what looked like burner phone usage among top Trump associates. @ErikWemple was made aware of this. Not only did he not mention it, he actively mischaracterized the situation in the headline pic.twitter.com/eOVfHMTiad

— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) February 1, 2023

None of which proves this particular claim about burner phone use was true as Walker admits:

Wemple notes committee investigators say they were unable to verify records of this specific cash purchase at CVS. There are some issues with that, but let's just take it at face value. It certainly makes Johnston's claim questionable! It is a questionable claim!

— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) February 1, 2023

Yes, that’s the point of Wemple’s article! The main source, the guy who claims he was told to buy these burner phones, looks shaky. I’m skipping over some more tweets but you can click on any one of these to see his whole thread.

This was accurately framed as a witness claim. I am sure readers got value in learning what the investigators were hearing. Also, unlike @ErikWemple, we included evidence that bolstered the claim and some that called it into question. We reported the critical context.

— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) February 1, 2023

That last tweet is absurd. If you go back to his original report, this was not a story about rumors investigators were hearing. It was a direct claim that sources made about specific individuals using burner phones to contact the White House and the Trump family. Wemple sums it up, “Rolling Stone published a juicy story, bursting with clandestine implications, and then basked in the digital reverberations.” But looking back, it doesn’t look so reliable.