January 6 Rioters - Part VI - "Blood Running Out of that Building" (161-202)

 

“BLOOD RUNNING OUT OF THAT BUILDING.”

PART VI

 (Rioters #161-202.)

__________ 

Forge thy tongue on an anvil of truth

And what flies up, though it be but a spark,

Shall have weight. 

Pindar

__________

The president knew there might be violence. He hoped there would.

  

THE SECOND-MOST AMAZING ASPECT of life in Trumpistan in the last eight years has been the credulity of the president’s supporters. Their god-hero was and remains a brazen liar. Yet they continue to vest unquestioning faith in the Orange Savior to somehow make America great again. 

 

It was his most unpatriotic act. 

What, then, was the most amazing aspect? That such a horrid human being was ever voted into office to begin. His followers turned out in greater numbers, in 2020, and tried to win him a second term. 

(Our side turned out in even more massive numbers, in 2018 and 2020. So, too bad, Don.)

 

How was it possible so many followed and still follow Donald J. Trump. For some, the explanation is simple racism. Racist love Trump and loved him more when they witnessed his work in the Oval Office. Other Americans, prone to be duped, fell for the Mar-a-Lago charlatan’s tricks. Good religious people came to imagine that Trump was god-chosen to lead the nation out of transgender-people-using-the-bathroom-of-choice Satanic times. This blogger also knows good people who voted for Trump, for reasons that made sense to them, a belief that he could save factory jobs, for example, a hope that he would challenge China on trade. 

Unfortunately, fear and hate were always driving forces with much of the MAGA crowd. And their leader proved a master at fueling the fear of, and hate for, certain groups by certain other groups. More adeptly than any other politician, he has turned American against American. That is his most unpatriotic act. 

For example, Rioters #161, #164 and #165:

* 

“Execute these fascists.” 

161. ROBERT GIESWEIN: Mr. Gieswein was quickly arrested, in the wake of the attack on  Capitol Hill. We learned that he was not: 

a.      A tourist-y-kind of guy (as the rioters supposedly were, according to GOP Congressman Andrew Clyde. 

b.     An Antifa type, leading the rioters on. (See Laura Ingraham, of Fox News, and others. 

c.      An F.B.I. plant, leading the rioters on. 

d.     A peaceful protester who was “let in” to the Capitol (and probably handed a bouquet of flowers by police).

 

According to court records, here’s what he was, a 24-year-old from Woodland Park, Colorado. 

Charging documents and videos indicate he may have links to the three extremist groups that have drawn the most attention from the FBI: the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. Some of the videos appear to include members who discussed storming the Capitol about an hour ahead of the riot.

 

In court papers, FBI agents say Gieswein – charged with assaulting police, civil disorder and obstruction of police and government – runs a private paramilitary training group and is affiliated with the Three Percenters. The FBI said in court filings that Gieswein was apparently recorded multiple times inside and outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, decked out in military garb with two distinctive markings that made it easier for investigators to trace his actions that day – a patch for his paramilitary group, the Woodland Wild Dogs, and a black pouch on his chest that said, “MY MOM THINKS I’M SPECIAL,” evocative of the Proud Boys anthem, “Proud of Your Boy.

 

Someone who appears to match the description of Gieswein laid out in FBI arrest affidavits shows up on a live-streamed Proud Boys video from about 11:14 a.m. to 12:55 p.m. that day. About 30 minutes into the video, viewed by The Washington Post, one member in the group with people in blaze-orange hats, camouflage backpacks and military-style vests yells, “Let’s take the f---ing Capitol!” Someone else then admonishes, “Let’s not ­f---ing yell that.”

 

… Then, about 2:13 p.m., according to FBI affidavits, Gieswein appears in a different video with a helmeted group breaking a window on the Senate side of the Capitol using a riot shield and a piece of lumber, one of the earliest breaches of the building.

 

According to a report on American University radio: 

In photos and videos, Gieswein is also seen wearing a helmet, goggles, and a black camouflage backpack.

 

Gieswein told reporters that “corrupt” politicians, of which he includes President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, have sold the country out to the “Rothschilds and Rockefellers.” 

 

We learn later that Gieswein proclaimed his intent that day. The Colorado man said he planned to storm the Capitol to “execute these fascists.” At one point, he could be seen wielding a baseball bat. 

His legal demise begins on March 6, 2023, when he pleads guilty to a pair of felonies, including one for assaulting police. The end comes in June, when Gieswein gets a sentence equal in length to the time Trump spent f**king around in the White House. That is: four years behind bars. 

At his sentencing, Judge Trevor N. McFadden, a Trump appointee, expresses sympathy for the defendant, because of his youth, but says, “you were a foot soldier in the most disturbing riot we’ve seen in years.” 

Trump supporter, right-wing, violent.

 

*

__________ 

“Her actions fly in the face of common decency and fly in the face of democracy and the rule of law.” 

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols

__________

 

162. MARK KULAS JR.: Mark came to D.C. with his brother, Christian Kulas (#331 on the list). He has already pleaded guilty in his case. Mark and Christian walked around inside the Capitol for 25 minutes. 

According to their indictment, “Christian Kulas shouted and cheered in support of the rioters, including a group of rioters using force in an effort to breach a police line and to open a doorway. There is no evidence that Mark Kulas, Jr. and Christian Kulas otherwise assisted the rioters using force against the police line in an effort to open the doorway.” 

In one clip from his brother’s Instagram account, the brothers are part of a crowd walking toward the Capitol, shouting, “Block the steal!” 

Numerous photos placed his brother, Christian, inside the building; and he too has plead guilty. 

(Mark is sentenced to 60 days of home detention, with six months on probation, and ordered to pay $500 in restitution.)

Trump supporter.

*

“We need weapons.” 

163. Gina Bisignano: CBS noted the arrest of yet another rioter. “Come on guys. We need patriots. You guys, it’s the way in,” Bisignano can be seen calling out in several videos circulating on social media. In one she’s seen pushing against officers in an attempt to get inside the Capitol building. Oddly enough, the Beverly Hills cosmetologist is wearing a Louis Vuitton sweater – and carrying a bullhorn. 

In another she’s standing near a window into the building exhorting others to pour into the building. “Gina’s Beverly Hills…Everybody, we need gas masks…we need weapons...we need strong, angry patriots to help our boys,” she calls out. “They don’t want to leave. We need protection.”  

She admitted she was there – says she came to stop the election from being stolen – and ended up being charged with civil disorder, destruction of government property, aiding and abetting, obstruction of an official proceeding, knowingly entering a restricted building or grounds and violent entry or disorderly conduct. 

Upon her return to Beverly Hills, California, where she lives, the magnitude of what had happened apparently hit her. She told a local newspaper, “My life is over. I’m going to jail. I’m going to lose my son.” 

In court later, her lawyer explained his client’s actions this way, saying, “she drank the Trump kool aid.” 

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols – a Trump appointee – responded, “She was an active person in a riot that aimed to prevent by violent means a normally quiet but critical step in the peaceful transition of power. Her actions fly in the face of common decency and fly in the face of democracy and the rule of law.” 

A grand jury report, released in November, added a charge of conspiracy to Bisignano’s legal peril. She stood freshly accused, along with Daniel Joseph Rodriguez (#553 on the list) and Edward Badalian (#554) of encouraging others to come to D.C. to stop the vote certification, bringing weapons, including a taser, a baseball bat, pepper spray, and gas masks and walkie talkies.

 

New York Magazine includes this description of her time in jail: 

Gina was initially granted bail, but prosecutors appealed. Her sincere belief in conspiracy theories, a prosecutor argued, and the absence of rational, evidence-based decision-making show that she is extraordinarily unlikely to accept the legitimacy of this court’s orders. Gina believes Donald Trump was elected president in 2020, and she believes children are being trafficked and drained of adrenochrome, and she believes vaccines contain aborted baby parts. The magistrate who revoked bail ordered she be taken to D.C. forthwith, but she was not taken forthwith; owing to an administrative error, she was left in the L.A. jail for over two weeks, during which she saw no sunlight, because COVID protocols did not allow for time outside, and during which she was not given her prescription Zoloft, the sudden withdrawal of which made her so itchy she scratched until she bled. Has she been detained that whole time? Asked the judge when the prosecutor admitted the error.

 

Awoken by guards in the middle of the night, Gina thought, Maybe I’m going home. My siblings have gotten me a high-powered attorney. She was then placed in shackles on a bus, which sat unmoving for six hours. A man with a single wild eye sat next to her, muttering, You’re so pretty.

 

Stop talking to her! Yelled a guard.

 

In San Diego, Gina was walked onto an airplane and placed, again, in shackles. When it touched down, Gina asked, Are we in D.C.? But they were in Oklahoma at an overflow facility called Grady County Detention Center.

 

In Grady County, Gina was placed, alone, in a room the size of a basketball court. In the corners lurked something foul and brown, and she didn’t know if it was human filth or the brown towels inmates had and were shedding. She was very cold. She was desperate for a Diet Coke. She had only one pair of underwear, which she washed in the sink, shivering as her hands touched the cold water. The blue mat she was given to sleep on, split in several places with stuffing coming out of it, was so rancid she could not bring herself to use it, so she slept on a hard plastic cot, huddled into a ball to try to keep warm. When she asked for a blanket, a guard said he would have to ask the captain. In a lawsuit filed in 2009, a Grady County inmate said he was so cold he used the Saran Wrap in which his lunch came to wrap up his feet, at which point the guards started dropping sandwiches in his cell unwrapped.

 

When Gina’s siblings found out she had accrued various charges that could theoretically amount to 20 years in prison, they said she was an idiot, a moron, you’re so stupid. Gina had always been a lot, always loud and brave and drawn to what her father calls upsetting, dark things. Sometimes her father hit her. Whenever Gina brings this up, which is often, she says he was young and Italian and I forgive him.

 

On August 4, 2021, she agreed to plead guilty to multiple charges, with a sentencing recommendation between 41 and 51 months in prison. Bisignano is now trying to withdraw her plea agreement. 

UPDATE: In June 2024, Bisignano decided on a fresh strategy, to keep her out of acute legal jeopardy. Where she had once spoken of Trump, during the riot, as “our Trumpy Bear,” she was now ready to blame him for what she did. She plans to say she was acting under his authority that day. 

Trump “sent us,” believe “stolen election” myth, QAnon.

 

* 

164. COUY GRIFFIN: CBS also reported on the arrest of Couy Griffin, a Republican county commissioner (now former) from New Mexico, and the founder of the group “Cowboys for Trump.” 

Before leaving for D.C., Griffin noted:

 

My vehicle is an extension of my home in regards to the constitutional law, and I’ve got a right to keep those firearms in my car. I’ve got a .357 Henry, big boy rifle lever action I’ve got in the truck of the car and I’ve got a .357 single action revolver Colt Reuger that I’ll have on the front seat on the right side. And I will embrace my Second Amendment and keep my right to bear arms. My vehicle is an extension of my home in regards to the constitutional law and I’ve got a right to keep those firearms in my car. I’m going to be in D.C. by God’s grace, God willing.”

 

He did go. By the grace of God, he did riot. Judges and juries willing, he’ll get convicted and sent to prison. 

In a video the county commissioner later posted to the Facebook page for his group, Griffin spoke of organizing another Capitol rally on January 20 – one that could result in “blood running out of that building.” 

He was convicted in June 2022. His “reward” for believing the president, when he said the election was stolen: 14 days in the slammer, and a bill for $3,500 in fines and restitution. And a lump of coal in his “stolen election” stocking – which remains otherwise empty to this day. 

He was also removed from office, under Sec. 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, having participated in an insurrection. He appealed his removal; but it was upheld on February 17, 2023, by the New Mexico Supreme Court. 

Trump supporter, violent.

 

* 

“Lone wolf killer.”

165. BRYAN BETANCUR BATTISTI: Also arrested, the Marylander Betancur expressed a desire to be a “lone wolf killer” prior to the riot. He was wearing a GPS monitoring device as a condition of probation, related to a fourth degree burglary, when he joined in the riotous attack on Capitol Hill. 

The affidavit described Betancur as having, 

made statements to law enforcement officers that he is a member of several white supremacy organizations. Betancur has voiced homicidal ideations, made comments about conducting a school shooting, and has researched mass shootings. Betancur voiced support for James Fields, the individual convicted for killing an individual with his car during protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. Betancur has stated he wanted to run people over with a vehicle and kill people in a church.

 

Investigators found photos on his social media platforms showing him in a Proud Boys shirt and holding up a Confederate battle flag at the Capitol. 

In May 2022, he pled guilty and in August he was sentenced to four months’ incarceration, a year of supervised release, and fined $500. 

Betancur is a “self-professed white supremacist” – or, exactly the kind of person you might find in a pro-Trump mob.

 

UPDATE: In March 2024, Betancur was hauled into court again, and charged with violating an anti-stalking order. He has, since he served his time in prison, legally added “Battisti” to his name. 

Trump supporter, right-wing type, violent, 

he believed the election was stolen.

 

* 

“Can you look George Washington in the face?”

Keith Lee: Originally, I had Mr. Lee listed as Rioter #166. I described in a description that still mostly fits: 

On social media sites, Mr. Lee is just another Texan, an Air Force veteran, husband and father of two small children (based on pictures posted in social media) and a former police detective. In weeks leading up to the November election, he helped organize a number of pro-Trump car and truck caravans. Afterwards, he helped raise money online to pay expenses for “patriots” to make the trip to D.C. to protest, and claimed to have passed out tens of thousands of dollars. 

The day after Trump called on supporters to come to D.C. on January 6, because it “will be wild,” a new website appeared, Wild Protest. Trump supporters donated at least $181,700, with calls for people to rally and halt certification of the vote. Four thousand joined an online ride-sharing forum, “Patriot Caravans for 45,” coordinating travel from as far away as California and South Dakota. Mike Lindell, the founder of the MyPillow bedding company, donated heavily, so that others less well-to-do might make the journey – and in December 2020, called on President Trump to impose martial law. 

For his part, Lee was warning online supporters, “We are at this precipice” of “good versus evil.” He would be heading for D.C. himself. “I am going to fight for my president. I am going to fight for what is right,” he promised. 

The New York Times outlined some of his work in organizing buses to take like-minded Trump fans to D.C. 

Mr. Lee’s MAGA Drag the Interstate site, for its part, said it had organized car caravans of more than 600 people bound for the rally. It used military-style shorthand to designate routes in different regions across the country, from Alpha to Zulu, and a logo on the site combined Mr. Trump’s distinctive hairstyle with Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the alt-right that has been used by white supremacists.

 

So: a little racism to leaven the toxic, pro-Trump mix. 

In similar fashion, other right-wing groups, like the Oath Keepers, solicited online donations to cover “gas, airfare, hotels, food and equipment.” 

(Now: bail money and legal expenses?)

 

On the morning of January 6, in online videos, Lee, 41, can be seen casing the Capitol grounds. He points out the flimsiness of the fencing. At 10:45 a.m., before Trump has even started to speak, Lee is asking in a podcast: “If you died today and you went to heaven, can you look George Washington in the face and say that you’ve fought for this country?” 

When the larger crowd finally arrives, Lee calls out with a bullhorn, urging the mob to rush the police and break in, until he and hundreds of others jam the Capitol Rotunda. Lee is live-streaming events and even finds a moment to do a little fund-raising. 

“If you couldn’t make the trip, give five to 10 bucks,” he told his viewers, seeking donations for the legal costs of two jailed “patriots,” a leader of the far-right Proud Boys and an ally who had clashed with police during an armed incursion at Oregon’s statehouse.

 

Lee did not respond to requests for comment [from reporters]. He has often likened supporters of overturning the election to the signers of the Declaration of Independence and has said he is willing to give his life for the cause.

 

By 3:00 p.m. Lee was allegedly inside the Rotunda, using his bullhorn to call for others to join him in the battle to save America. 

Of course, if Lee was willing to die for the cause, he had to be willing to kill others for the cause too. 

As late as November 16, 2023, I am still unable to find mention of Mr. Lee on lists of those arrested. I have therefore eliminated his numbering, and will add a new #166. Lee is, however, perfectly representative of those who jointed in the march and then the attack on Capitol Hill. 

Trump supporter, QAnon, right-wing.

 

* 

166. Lee Stutts: Sadly, the United States Marine Corps is well-represented, regarding all the alleged rioters who showed up on January 6. (Stutz is a replacement here, for Mr. Lee, above, who has not been charged.) 

According to the Department of Justice, Stutts (wearing a black helmet for the occasion) was quite the busy attacker: 

Between approximately 1:10 p.m. and 1:40 p.m., Stutts is accused of physically assaulting at least seven different U.S. Capitol Police and Metropolitan Police Department officers. He is also accused of throwing an item towards a line of officers, pushing a metal bike rack fencing into officers, and joining with other rioters in using an enormous sign as a battering ram against police.

 

At 2:28 p.m. that day, Stutts was in the forefront as “swarms of rioters” overwhelmed the last police line and broke into the Capitol. He can allegedly be seen, pumping his fist and celebrating the success. 

(POLITICAL AFFILIATION NOT YET KNOWN.) 

* 

794 days, and counting – no real election fraud proven. 

167. WILLIAM WRIGHT WATSON: The 23-year-old from Auburn, Alabama, was hit with a number of charges for his participation in the Capitol Hill attack. That included one for “violent entry.” (His legal problems did not improve in July 2021, when he was arrested for trafficking LSD and marijuana.) 

Watson told federal agents he went to D.C. on Jan. 5. He said he and a friend left Auburn about 7 p.m. and arrived in D.C. about 6:30 a.m. He said he went to “support the patriots, support Trump, support freedom.”

 

“I guess the overriding thing for why we were there that day is because they were certifying the fraudulent election that day, and so we, to protest that,” Watson said.

 

He said he had been directed by radio show host Alex Jones, who operates the website InfoWars, to meet at the Capitol at 1 p.m. Watson told the agent he had a taser but had left it in the car.

 

Watson was definitely carrying a can of pepper spray, inside the building, when stopped by a police officer. That officer did say Watson tried to quiet and calm the crowd. 

On November 18, 2022, Watson was found guilty on felony charges and  had to twiddle his thumbs for almost four months, before learning his punishment. Prosecutors noted that he brought a stun gun and a knife to D.C., and carried the knife to the riot. He could also be seen in court documents, entering the Capitol Building through a smashed window. In March, he learns that his belief in the lies of President Donald J. Trump has seriously damaged his future. 

He will spend three years of that future in prison, another three on supervised release. 

Not long after the riot, young Watson, posted a picture of himself on Snapshot, and predicted, “The fake news won’t win against the thousands of patriots recorded today.”

As of March 11, 2023 – and this isn’t “fake news,” 794 days since the riot exploded, zero significant voter fraud has been proven in either state or federal court. 

Seven hundred, ninety-four days, and counting. Whereas poor Watson won’t even be out of prison in time to vote in the next presidential election. 

Photo from court document.

His punishment: 36 months in prison, same on probation, $12,000. 

UPDATE: We now know that Watson traveled to D.C. with a friend, Larry Freligh (#1349 on our list. Freligh has also been charged and has pleaded guilty) 

Trump supporter, believed in a “stolen election.” 

  

* 

God had chosen him to serve two terms, not one.

WHAT kind of men and women answered the president’s call to storm the halls of Congress and stop the certification? Mike Lindell, of MyPillow fame, didn’t join the mob, but he had done his best to stir up a riot. 

Lindell was willing to invest millions in the battle to save a second term for Trump, arguing that God had chosen him to serve two terms, not one. 

(If that was true, Trump shouldn’t have needed other help.)

 

* 

MICHAEL MCKINNEY: McKinney didn’t make the Big Show on Jan. 6, but if he hadn’t been in jail, you know he would have loved to go. A month before the attack on Capitol Hill, McKinney, 25, showed up at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, in support of the president. 

There, he had the pleasure of listening to Lindell and other speakers as they fired up the crowd. The election, they insisted, had been stolen. The godless Democrats were going to ruin the country. Donald Trump deserved four more years in the White House. It was time to fight. 

As the Associated Press reports, “Investigators say McKinney was wearing body armor and heavily armed when he participated in a car parade for Trump that went from the south side of Des Moines to the state Capitol.” 

At some point words and racial taunts were exchanged between a crowd of Trump supporters and four black teens in an automobile. 

An investigator has alleged that a video broadcast on social media and shared with police shows McKinney approaching the girls’ car, pulling a handgun from his waistband, and firing one shot into the vehicle from 15 feet (4.5 meters) away.

 

The bullet struck the leg of a 15-year-old girl in the passenger seat who was arguing with Trump supporters through the sunroof. She was sped to a hospital and survived her injuries.

 

McKinney has expressed support for the Proud Boys on Facebook, and antagonism for Black Lives Matter people. 

He probably hates them because he believes they all like to burn down cities and break the law and… 

Enough. 

Enough on McKinney. The U.S. Army veteran was charged with attempted murder, five felony weapons and assault counts, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, reckless use of a firearm and going armed with intent. As the AP noted at the time, “He could face decades in prison if convicted.” 

In court, later, McKinney told the judge he fired on the girls because he “feared for [his] life.” 

The judge gave him ten years in prison. 

Trump supporter, right-wing, believed in “stolen election,

violent.

* 

FOR MOST Americans the effort to pin the blame for the rioting on Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Hollywood stars, or Joe and Hunter Biden, crashed and burned when the F.B.I. began issuing fresh warnings for the weekend of January 16-17, and the hours leading up to Inauguration Day. Right-wing extremist groups, including the usual leavening of white supremacists, were threatening renewed violence in the capital, on or about January 20, 2021.

ABC cited the background of one such man, in an effort to make clear the kind of danger that might still exist. Stewart Rhodes had come to Washington on January 6, ready and even anxious for war. 

…an Army veteran who founded the Oath Keepers in 2009, [he] had been saying for weeks around the election that his group was preparing for a civil war and was ready to take orders from Trump. The group recruits current and former law enforcement officers and military personnel.

 

During a Nov. 10 appearance on far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars show, Rhodes said he had “good men on the ground already” in the Washington area who were “armed, prepared to go in if the president calls us up [emphasis added].”

 

“In case they attempt to remove the president illegally, we will step in and stop it,” he said.

 

As we know, the attempt to stop the counting of the electoral votes failed. President Trump disappeared almost entirely from view on January 6, except to post a number of videos that made him look like a hostage being forced to talk about what his captors told him to say. Or else, they’d cut off his penis. 

The New York Times explained the growing worry that violence in Washington D.C. might erupt again in the coming days. 

Pentagon officials say they are deeply worried about protests that are planned for the inauguration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. next week. About 16 groups — some of them saying they will be armed and most of them made up of hard-line supporters of Mr. Trump — have registered to stage protests in Washington, officials said.

 

One Defense Department official said law enforcement agencies are planning for a range of outcomes, including a worse-case scenario in which people with firearms try to attack dignitaries, “suicide-type aircraft” try to fly into the capital’s restricted airspace and even remote-controlled drones that could be used to attack the crowd.

 

While those scenarios are among the more extreme, the officials said they were particularly worried about the possibility of multiple, violent confrontations, including with firearms [emphasis added], simultaneously flaring up around the inaugural dignitaries.

 

And so ended the four-year rule of Donald J. Trump. Crazy from the start. Crazier than ever at the end.

 

* 

THE HUNT for the Antifa-type, liberal-leaning rioter continued. Finally, I got what seemed like a solid “hit.” 

Namely: 

“You’re going to get me killed.” 

168. JOHN EARLE SULLIVAN: Sullivan was arrested early in the sprawling investigation. When I checked his records, I wasn’t sure where he fit on the political spectrum. In some respects, he sounded like a libertarian. Still, the  26-year-old was identified as founder of a protest group called Insurgence USA. According to Politico, “His group claims to oppose police abuse and right-wing violence, while some of his writings echo language used by the anti-fascist movement.” 

As for the events of January 6, Sullivan told authorities he went into the building as a journalist, intent on capturing the history of the day. 

When interviewed by F.B.I. agents, 

SULLIVAN stated that he was in Washington, D.C. to attend and film the “Stop the Steal” March on January 6, 2021. SULLIVAN claimed to be an activist and journalist that filmed protests and riots, but admitted that he did not have any press credentials.

 

SULLIVAN also stated that he was at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when scores of individuals entered it. SULLIVAN stated he was wearing a ballistic vest and gas mask while there. He showed the interviewing agent the ballistic vest. He further stated that he entered the U.S. Capitol with others through a window that had been broken out. SULLIVAN stated he followed the crowd as the crowd pushed past U.S. Capitol Police and followed the crowd into the U.S. Capitol. 

 

Video evidence, however, proved that Sullivan was carrying figurative matches for fun. At one point he declared, “We accomplished this shit. We did this together. Fuck yeah! We are all a part of this history,” and “Let’s burn this shit down.” 

Was he, then, hoping to halt the certification of the electoral votes – play ball with all the Trump fans? 

In November 2021, I did a little more checking and found that Sullivan had been arrested for rioting in Provo, Utah in June 2020. During a Black Lives Matter protest, a motorist who drove into crowd was shot. This time, it seemed clear where Sullivan stood. According to the Deseret News, 

“The protest traveled on the roadways blocking motorists who have the right of way. John Sullivan blocked vehicles from freely moving lawfully. During the course of the protest, two handguns were brandished and two shots fired toward a motorist traveling to Home Depot. Vehicles were damaged by protestors as well as by John Sullivan,” the affidavit states.

 

“As a protest organizer John Sullivan is heard and seen as he is promoting protesters to block roadways, keeping motorists from traveling lawfully and freely.”

 

Sullivan was also captured on video threatening to beat a woman in an SUV, according to the affidavit, and then kicking her door, leaving a dent.

 

Sullivan was seen with Jesse Taggart – the man charged with shooting the motorist –  throughout the protest, the affidavit states.

 

“As a protest organizer, John Sullivan is heard talking about seeing the shooting, looking at the gun and seeing smoke coming from it. John did not condemn the attempted murder nor attempt to stop it nor aide in its investigation by police.”

 

At last, I had a leftist-type to add to this list. You might argue that his example supports the idea that Trump supporters were “led on” by Sullivan and people like him. In days leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, he announced on Twitter that he was going to D.C. with the “MAGA_CAVALRY.” 

Probably his idea of a joke. 

Not long after his arrest for his part in the Capitol Hill attack, Sullivan got in trouble for violating the terms of his pre-trial release, after showing up for an interview on Infowars, that cesspool of far-right “thought.” 

(Briefly, I had to wonder if he was a right-wing type again.)

 

He had captured the shooting of Ashli Babbitt during the Capitol Hill attack, and within a short time sold rights to his footage to news outlets, netting $90,000. The Department of Justice said he was there on Jan. 6 as a provocateur and noted that he could be seen on video breaking a window into the Capitol Building. He also followed the mob as it charged into various rooms, and celebrated with other rioters, even offering a knife he carried to another rioter, as the mob worked to break down House Chamber doors. 

Federal authorities seized Sullivan’s $90,000, insisting that he had profited from his criminal activities. 

Ironically, John was turned in by his brother, James, a “right-wing activist,” with ties to the Proud Boys. 

 

UPDATE: Sullivan faced an array of charges and opted for a jury trial – offering up a First Amendment, “freedom of the press” defense. At one point, he told jurors that his shouts were nothing more than a way of fitting in with the rest of the mob. “Part of blending in is being a neutral observer,” he told them. “What is being a neutral observer but being one of them?” 

Prosecutors countered Sullivan’s defense, noting that he had “been run out of the Utah and Portland [Oregon] activists communities.” In November 2020, Seattle protest groups sent out a message, warning that Sullivan was “grifting” off community activism. His actions were all about “profiteering,” and “self-promotion,” and he was more than willing to “sabotage” community protest if he could capture better video shots. In one brief clip from the film he shot on January 6, Sullivan can be heard saying, he’s “basically anti-government.” Later, he captures a Capitol Hill Police officer, backing up, but talking to rioters out of the frame, telling them, “You’re not helping, you’re not helping. You’re going to get me killed.” 

“I’m telling you, I brought my megaphone to instigate s***,” he tells another rioter, at one point. 

(Sullivan was also due in court in Utah in February 2024, on charges related to the Provo protest.) 

In D.C., it took the jury only four hours to decide that the defendant should go to prison. He was convicted on seven charges, including multiple felonies. 

Sullivan is a former Olympic hopeful in speed skating, and started filming extensively in 2020, when Black Lives Matter protests spread across the nation.

 

UPDATE: On April 26, Sullivan gets hammered. A judge sentenced him to six years in jail. He will spend three additional years on supervised release, and he must pay $2,000 in restitution. 

For more on Sullivan, you can check this story from the Washington Post. (Sullivan’s proceeds from sale of his film, were seized, in May 2021.) Wikipedia also has a good entry, outlining the rioter’s background.

 

 

 Finally: a left-leaning member of the mob! 

 

* 

I CONSIDER MYSELF lucky to be Facebook friends – electronic bosom buddies – with over a thousand former students. I do admit, however, that I’ve lost a good number by arguing that President Trump is the worst president of my lifetime, and likely to go down in history as the worst ever, and by a wide mile.

Recently, one former student disagreed with my analysis: That none of the rioters on Capitol Hill so far have been shown to have Antifa or left-wing sympathies, possibly excepting one. 

When Keith sent me a link to a story from Gateway Pundit, a website I wouldn’t trust any more than I’d trust Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene talking about space lasers, I checked it out. The link claimed to offer evidence that at least 20 people involved in the January 6 debacle were Antifa types – and in some mysterious fashion that excused all the thousands of others who stormed the building and the hundreds who got inside.

I don’t really know what the logic was. 

Vehement mask-denier voted for Trump in 2020.

I do know, as soon as I checked the “evidence,” I found that one man they listed, a man in a Trump hat, who handed a helmet to another rioter to break a window, was in reality a Trump fan. His name is Christopher Ray Grider (#142 on our list). And Mr. Grider was clear when he explained his participation in the riot on January 6. “The president asked people to come and show their support,” he told a reporter on the scene. “I feel like it’s the least that we can do.”

A second “Antifa” type included on their list, a female seen in pictures and videos from that riot wearing a distinctive pink stocking cap, I also knew was a Trump supporter. (Because I try to check facts.) Rachel Marie Powell (#186, below) told a writer for The New  Yorker that she was the lady. She added that she was a vehement mask-denier and voted for Donald J. Trump in 2020.

Finally, I looked at some of the pictures Gateway Pundit was using as evidence. And all I can say, is, “Holy shit.” 

This marked at least the twelfth time right-wing types had tried to pin the riot tail on the Antifa donkey. 

It wouldn’t stick. 

* 

169. JONATHAN DANIEL CARLTON: Mr. Carlton was interviewed by federal investigators after evidence uncovered in the case of Bradley Wayne Weeks (#29) led them to Carlton’s door. 

In the criminal complaint against him, Carlton, from Jacksonville, Florida explained why he and Weeks headed for the nation’s capital: 

During the interview, CARLTON acknowledged traveling to Washington, D.C with WEEKS on January 5, 2021 to attend former President Trump’s speech, participate in a peaceful demonstration against the certification of the vote, and support former President Trump. CARLTON stated that he and WEEKS marched to the Capitol after former President Trump’s speech and were caught up in the mob on the Capitol steps.

 

Carlton’s problems only grew when he told the F.B.I. he never went inside the Capitol Building. Evidence, including text messages recovered from Weeks’ phone, clearly indicated Carlton had. (Weeks had told agents that Carlton and his wife were close friends, and Carlton had walked the future Mrs.Weeks down the aisle at their wedding.) 

Agents went back to interview Carlton again. This time he admitted he entered the building, but said he was pushed in by the crowd. 

That claim was also rebutted by evidence. 

Finally, 

CARLTON admitted to calling WEEKS after he was interviewed on January 20^th. He told WEEKS about the interview and informed him that the FBI would most likely be contacting him. When asked about his lie that he had not entered the Capitol, CARLTON indicated that he was embarrassed to have participated in the demonstration, appalled by the riot, and just wanted to distance himself from it. CARLTON admitted that he may have deleted some texts but he was not sure and didn’t really remember.

 

Carlton eventually pleads guilty, gets 40 hours of community service, and is ordered to pay $500 in restitution. 

As a bonus, he gets to report to a probation officer for the next three years.

Trump supporter

 

* 

According to the feds, at least sixty Proud Boys were present. 

170. ETHAN NORDEAN (a.k.a. “Rufio Panman”): Nordean billed himself as the “sergeant at arms” of the Seattle branch of the Proud Boys, an organization described by NPR as “a white nationalist, chauvinist group.” 

The very opposite of the “Antifa” type, Nordean was filmed in 2018, knocking an anti-fascist protester out. In fact, Nordean was the type of burly brawler who could knock most people out with ease. Even his father expressed dismay, as Oregon Live  reported soon after the riot: “We have tried for a long while to get our son off the path which led to his arrest today – to no avail,” Mike Nordean, said in an email. “Ethan will be held accountable for his actions.” 

As NPR explains, the evidence against Nordean was damning: 

…on Jan. 4, Nordean, who also goes by Rufio Panman, posted a video on social media with the caption: “Let them remember the day they decided to make war with us.”

 

Also in a video shared around the same time, Nordean interviewed an unnamed person who planned to travel to D.C. For more than an hour, Nordean spoke of “blatant, rampant voter fraud” in the presidential election, repeating false claims made by President Donald Trump. He said in the video, “Democracy is dead? Well, then no peace for you. No democracy, no peace.”

 

Nordean’s arrests came on the same day the Canadian government listed the Proud Boys as a terrorist organization. 

In court, authorities provided audio and transcripts of conversations among members of the Boys, shortly after the riot, as arrests began. 

As Insider reports: 

“We are f---ed ... they are coming for us,” one person said in one of the audio files. 

 

There was also a discussion speculating about how solid of a case federal prosecutors were building. One individual commented that “feds don’t charge until they have a lot of evidence,” and if they “have enough evidence they are not going to offer much of a plea” deal. 

 

“They’re going to throw the f---ing book at us,” one individual said in one of the audio files.

 

One individual said the “Warboys” went to DC and it “completely f---ing crashed and burns on us ... good job with the comms [communications], good job with the security, good job with legal ... I mean f---ing ‘Tifa looks like professionals compared to us,” in an apparent reference to the antifa movement.

 

Nordean himself chimed in during the discussion: 

“I understand where we’re at in the frat. I understand that we’ve taken some risks that we shouldn’t have taken. We’ve done some things we shouldn’t have done. Ok but they’ve been done and we need to learn from ‘em,” Nordean said, according to the transcript. 

 

Nordean also said, according to the transcript, that he was no longer a Trump supporter and expressed regret for going to his rallies. He said he thought he was fighting for some secret plan that didn’t come to fruition, and didn’t disagree that things went bad. 

 

In other words, the Proud Boys knew who was at the riot – and even who had a major role. And it was them. 

 

The president “egged on” Nordean. 

According to federal authorities, at least 60 Proud Boys were on hand for the January 6 attack. Most participated in an encrypted messaging channel called “Boots on the Ground.”

Judge Timothy Kelly later denied Nordean’s request for bail, noting rightly that on the day of the attack, he and other likeminded “patriots” in his group were  “seeking to steal one of the crown jewels of our country, in a sense, by interfering with the peaceful transfer of power.” 

Attorneys for several rioters have specifically claimed their clients were led on by Mr. Trump, with all his claims of a “stolen election.” Nordean’s lawyer says the president “egged on” his client. 

June 6, 2022: Nordean is hit with an additional charge of seditious conspiracy, attempting, by violence, to thwart certification of a fairly-decided election. 

He and his comrades go to trial in the spring of 2023. It doesn’t go well – for them – but does for democracy. 

On May 4, all are convicted on various felony counts. On September 1, 2023, Nordean gets hammered in court. He will spend the next eighteen years behind bars, and an added three on supervised release. 

When I edit my posts on Labor Day 2023, I note that 1,035 days have passed since the 2020 election. No case in court has ever shown significant voter fraud changed the outcome in Biden’s favor. Trump continues to lie about why he lost. Even worse, the ill-informed continue to believe him.

You can even see Nordean, in a drunken state, talking about a “bitch” he met in a bar, a nurse who was worried about COVID, and how he bragged to her that he helped storm the Capitol. 

You can also read his bitter reaction, in May 2021, after Trump left the White House without pardoning Nordean and his friends: 

Alright I’m gunna say it. FUCK TRUMP! Fuck him more than Biden. I’ve followed this guy for 4 years and given everything and lost it all. Yes he woke us up, but he led us to believe some great justice was upon us … and it never happened, now I’ve got some of my good friends and myself facing jail time cuz we followed this guys lead and never questioned it. We are now and always have been on our own. So glad he was able to pardon a bunch of degenerates as his last move and shit on us on the way out. Fuck you trump you left us on [t]he battle field bloody and alone.

 

Four years wasted following Trump – and now eighteen more in prison to think it all over. 

Right-wing, Trump “sent us,” violent,

believed election was stolen.

 

* 

Promoting racist, anti-Semitic and conspiratorial theories online.

171. STEPHEN MAURY BAKER: It’s not a good sign for Mr. Baker, a musician, that he livestreamed himself inside the Capitol Building, under the pseudonym, “Stephen Ignoramus.” 

One witness who had known him for a decade said he had become increasingly concerned with Baker’s comments on social media. Those included, “advancement of conspiracy theories and mockery of minority groups.” At one point during his foray into rioting, Baker can be heard saying, “I’m Stephen. I’m a live streamer and a musician. We’re having fun, huh? Repent and believe in Jesus.” 

He has a YouTube channel; but most of his content has been banned. All that remains are four videos of him preaching and playing an acoustic guitar. According to the Charlotte News & Observer: 

Several years ago he attended a survivalist camp in the Virginia mountains, then started his YouTube channel and began promoting racist, anti-Semitic and conspiratorial theories online, a co-worker said, according to the Daily Beast.

 

It also reported that one of his now-deleted YouTube videos from before the Capitol attack features Baker telling the audience: “Even if you were a Martian coming down you can see that there is anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-straight (expletive) going on, regardless of who you are.”

 

According to the FBI’s criminal complaint against Baker, he seemed to be familiar with far-right militias, including groups called the Oath Keepers and the Red Elephants.

 

In the end, he gets nine days in jail, had to pay restitution, and will enjoy two years on probation.

Right-wing type.

 

* 

172. JAMES BONET: Bonet earned an interesting footnote in coverage of the riot after he appeared in one video, smoking a joint in the halls of Congress. According to at least one local newspaper account, Bonet worked as a shift manager in Saratoga Springs, New York. 

One witness, a co-worker, told investigators that Bonet “openly talks about government conspiracy theories at work and tries to regularly convince” co-workers those theories are valid. 

One of those theories: The 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump. 

Newsweek  labeled Bonet a “pro-Trump rioter” and noted that his belief in a stolen election was “a claim that has been dismissed for lack of evidence in nearly 86 court cases filed by Republicans and the Trump campaign.” 

Prior to sentencing, Mr. Bonet’s lawyer offered up a defense in mitigation, that “James was misguided by this political propaganda spewed by the Trump administration and the alt-right movement.” He also changed his diet and lost 150 pounds during his legal battles, and went back to college to study political science. On March 9, 2022, he was ordered to serve 90 days in jail. So he should be able to bring insights, regarding the justice system, to any future political science classes. 

Trump supporter, he believed in a “stolen election.”

* 

Can someone teach this man to shoot! 

173. NATHANIEL J. DEGRAVE: DeGrave entered the Capitol Building on January 6, “dressed for success,” as they say in rioting circles. That is: He was decked out in full tactical gear. In what must have felt like a low blow in court, a former business partner described him as “unhinged.” According to investigators, DeGrave and two other men, Josiah Colt (#126 on our list Ronald Sandlin (#174), may have traveled to D.C. for the same purpose. To overturn election results. 

Six days before the rally, DeGrave asked for help in a social media post. He wanted a quick primer in gunfire. Who “can shoot and has excellent aim and can teach me today or tomorrow,” he asked on Facebook. “I want somebody special forces or ex fbi to teach me … this is for a very patriotic cause.” 

He, Sandlin, and Colt documented their drive to D.C. for posterity. At one point, Colt captioned a picture: “Nate’s bear mace was going off in his pocket and it started filling the van (with) bear spray.” 

In another video, several people planning to attend the January 6 rally are heard debating carrying guns the next day. “For the camera’s sake,” DeGrave said, “we’re not going to carry.” 

He has now plead guilty to multiple charges and faces a lengthy stint behind the bars of a prison. 

In March 2023, the Department of Justice files a motion to recover funds DeGrave has raised through social media posts, from three separate accounts: FreeNate, Beijing Biden’s Political Prisoners, and DC POW – or “prisoner of war.” Free Nate, for example, had raised at least $7,900, with DeGrave pledging to use the money to fight for free and fair elections. 

Which is kind of fun. 

In May 2023, DeGrave pays big time for believing in Trump’s lies. He’ll miss the voting in 2024, spending 37 months in prison.

Trump supporter, right-wing, believed in stolen election, violent. 

 

* 

174. RONALD R. SANDLIN: According to the Las Vegas Sun, prior to the riot, Sandlin posted on social media asking help raising funds for his and two friends’ trips to Washington for the January 6 rally.  

Sandlin wrote:  

Josiah Colt, Nate DeGrave, and myself have already booked and paid for our trip to Washington D.C. but we could use your help and support! Every dollar you contribute to us is a smack in the face to Antifa. Every penny is a boot in the ass against tyranny. Every Buffalo nickel is a body slam against China. If you can’t be there in person this is the next best thing.

 

“If you are a patriot[,]” he also posted, “I believe it’s your duty to be there. I see it as my civic responsibility.”  

The Sun notes that “extremist Trump supporters” like Colt, Sandlin and DeGrave believed in storming statehouses to overturn election results. According to an affidavit of arrest, in one video Sandlin warns,  

What is happening to this country is absolutely horrific, absolutely horrific…we are ready to occupy the state capitol if needed to…I urge other patriots watching this too, to be willing to take the capitol…if you are watching this and you are a patriot and are here, I think it is time to take the capitol and I don’t say that lightly. 

 

Indeed.  

Storming capitols because an election didn’t go your way – that is nothing to say lightly. (See: Colt, Josiah and DeGrave, Nathaniel J.)  

Sandlin, who dressed for the attack in a gas/face mask, helmet, shin guards, and carried a knife, is found guilty in December 2022. He’ll be eating his meals off a tin tray in prison for the next 63 months. 

He also gets hit with $22,000 in fines and restitution, and three additional years on probation. 

Trump supporter, right-wing, believed in stolen election, violent. 

  

* 

175. BLAS SANTILLAN: USA Today notes: 

The FBI was tipped as early as Jan. 8 that Santillan was posting on Snapchat that he was involved in the Capitol riot. Court records state he’s shown in one video shouting at rioters, encouraging them to enter the Capitol:

 

It seems like you’re that weak, because I’m the only one that was willing to do something! I’m the only one that was willing to kick that door! [Material added from indictment here.] Who else is willing to storm in there? No one!... Who are you! Who are you! You are not America! You are not America! … Americans do not sit by while people take your rights! You are lazy Americans! That is what you are! You are used to sitting on your couch, and watching your Netflix, and listening to your shows, and watching YouTube! You do not know what freedom is…. Freedom is doing what you want! Freedom! Let’s go! … Is this your house?

 

Building security video shows Santillan entering the Capitol walking past two police officers trying to stop people from entering the building, pushing his way around one of the officers, according to the court documents.

 

According to the affidavit for his arrest, Santillan could be seen in one Snapchat video (since deleted), bragging about bagging a few souvenirs: That account on January 6, 2021, “showed SANTILLAN walking down the street with a chair and a pole strapped to his back, and SANTILLAN can be heard saying, ‘I got a chair, a pole, and a book.’” 

Also several federal charges. 

(In his pictures from January 6, Santillan appears to have the Proud Boys symbol on his shirt; but the blogger is not sure.) 

He pled guilty in May 2022. The judge in his case delayed his incarceration, after Santillan asked to complete a scheduled MMA fight, which was scheduled for November 5. This was allowed, and he reported to jail soon after, to serve 45 days. Santillan will also remain on probation for three years. 

(You could even say Santillan got off easy. He had piled up prior convictions for statutory rape, DUI and obstruction of police. Not to mention multiple probation violations!)  

(LIKELY TRUMP SUPPORTER; NOT DEFINITIVE.)

 

* 

A beefy, balding, white gentleman.

176. DENNIS SIDORSKI: The Virginia man, 46, showed up for a riot wearing a sweatshirt labeled “American Supremacist.” Sidorski was turned in by both a former coworker and a former employee at Adessa, the vehicle auction company in Washington D.C., where he worked.  

The hard-working blogger is unable to find much information on Sidorski, save for the fact he was born in 1974, and he’s a beefy, balding, white gentleman, who lives in Northern Virginia.  

He was initially fingered by three different witnesses, including two who had previously worked with him. 

He pled guilty in January 2022. In a court filing in June 2022, there was some discussion of what wording should be used in a plea agreement. Sidorski’s lawyer wanted the word “trespass” to be used. 

Federal authorities refused, noting that at one point during the riot, Sidorski briefly put a hand on “an officer’s left shoulder and arm, amidst a jostling shoving crowd inside the Capitol Building.” 

Mr. Sidorski clearly had a good lawyer working on his defense. That lawyer compared her client’s behavior favorably with other rioters who did greater violence to police, including Aaron Mostofsky (#107) and Felipe Marquez (#2), and fought for a sentence of probation for her client. She noted, for example, that he expressed regret for having been involved, on the very first day he was approached by federal authorities. 

We also learn that, like many Trump fans, the D.C. businessman had a Facebook account, and another on Parler. 

In any case, the judge doesn’t buy the claim that Sidorski was harmless – and he sentences the defendant to 100 days in jail. 

He will spend an additional year on supervised release. 

(At one point, Sidorski was listed on the right-wing website, American Gulag, as a “political prisoner.”) 

Right-winger. 

 

*  

177. CHRISTINA GERDING: ABC News in Chicago says it all with the headline: “Trump-supporting Illinois couple charged in Capitol riot.” Christina, 46, and husband Jason, 50, had both been arrested. 

The affidavit against them indicated that they were and may still be supporters of QAnon, a “loosely affiliated network and community of people who believe in a number of conspiracy theories.” (See: Gerding, Jason.) 

Trump supporter, QAnon.

 

* 

178. JASON GERDING: In social media posts leading up to the Capitol Hill disaster, Mr. Gerding asks other “Anons,” people who believe President Trump is fighting a worldwide conspiracy of cannibalistic liberal pedophiles, if they know of any good place he and his wife might stay once they reach D.C. 

On December 18, he made his purpose and his wife’s clear on Twitter, posting a picture of Abraham Lincoln. He captioned it: “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” 

Someone should have informed Mr. Gerding that Mr. Lincoln fought to stop men who wanted both to pervert and overthrow the U.S. Constitution. 

That would be a more apt comparison. He could add a picture of President Jefferson Davis, instead. 

In January 2023, both Mr. and Mrs. Gerding plead guilty – you might say, mostly for being dumb asses. In May, they are both put on probation for two years. Both lost their jobs on the way back from the riot, but Jason told the F.B.I. during one interview that he was not sure he’d do anything different if he could. 

Trump supporter, QAnon, believed the election was stolen.

 

 * 

Marching on orders from Trump. 

179. EDWARD HEMENWAY: Hemenway stormed into the Capitol along with his cousin, Robert Bauer (#137 on the list). Hemenway has excused his participation in the riot, in part, by noting that one police officer shook their hands as they entered. “It’s your house now, man,” he told them. 

Bauer later told F.B.I. agents he “believed that the policeman was acting out of fear.” He also told agents that he was marching on orders from President Trump. 

According to the affidavit filed in their case, when the two cousins talked to federal agents: 

BAUER explained that people in the crowd were angry about pedophiles, the news cycle, and losing their businesses during the lockdown.

 

HEMENWAY explained that he entered the Capitol out of “curiosity” and “stupidity.” He said that he did not know Congress was in session on January 6, 2021, but he did know they were certifying the Electoral College vote. He also knew that Vice President Pence was going to announce the Electoral College vote.

 

Hemenway eventually pleads guilty, ends up serving 45 days in jail, and has to complete 60 hours of community service, and pay $500 in restitution 

Trump supporter

 

* 

“The clarion call of a charlatan.”

180. JEROD WADE HUGHES: Jerod and brother Joshua, two Montana men, were part of a group of rioters that chased Capitol Hill Police Officer Eugene Goodman up several flights of steps after breaking into the building. 

Jerod stood accused of kicking a door until a lock broke so more rioters could enter. (See: Hughes, Joshua Calvin.) 

He plead guilty to a single felony in August 2021. 

In a plea for leniency, during his sentencing hearing, his lawyer explained Hughes’ decision to join the attack this way: 

He was responding to the entreaties of the Commander in Chief to save the country. It is only in retrospect he has learned that he was responding to the clarion call of a charlatan. Defendant’s intentions were noble in that he was responding to a call to sacrifice and civic duty as a citizen.

 

In fact, the day before the riot, Jerod had texted a friend: “Stay tuned buddy. Trump is gonna drop the hammer or we are.” 

Now he’s absolutely going to be heading for prison – and the charlatan is still living it up and lying at Mar-a-Lago. 

 

UPDATE: This blogger’s prediction, above, proves correct. Two years, to the day, after the riot, the judge drops the sledgehammer, not the former president. Mr. Hughes is ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution, and sentenced to spend three years and ten months looking out from inside a cell. 

His lawyer says Mr. Hughes now feels he was duped and taken advantage of by then-President Trump. He notes that the entire Hughes family was paying a high price for having been “misled and manipulated.” 

Trump “sent us.”

 

* 

181. JOSHUA CALVIN HUGHES: Joshua and his brother both made it inside the Capitol building and entered the Senate chamber, where they sat at desks and rifled the contents. 

Both were initially charged with nine separate crimes. According to their lawyer, the pair was “called to go to Washington due to Trump’s tweets and to be part of a peaceful march on the Capitol.” (See: Jerod Wade Hughes, above.) 

Joshua pleads guilty to a single felony, the same as his brother. In the end, he gets off with a slightly better punishment: Three years, two months in prison. He will also be required to pay a fine of $2,000, and will be required to complete an additional three years of supervised release. 

Trump “sent us.” 

 

* 

182. BRENNEN MACHACEK: Machacek was the fifth Arkansan to be charged with participating in the riot. He was turned in by someone who had served with him in the military and said they recognized his picture from the January 6 attack. 

The Marine Corps veteran initially faced four misdemeanor charges. In the end, he pled guilty to one. 

His punishment: a year on probation and $500. 

Unlike many of those caught up in the attack, Machacek, who lives in Hindsville, and has a traumatic brain injury from his time in combat, has expressed remorse and shame for taking part in the riot. His wife, Kimberly, told the judge he has had many sleepless nights since that day, and feels “extreme guilt.” 

“What our Country witnessed that day was not expected, condoned, or celebrated in any way by our family,” she adds.

Trump supporter.

* 

“It’s like these people have been programmed.” 

 183. ZACHARY MARTIN: The Springfield, Missouri man was arrested for his part in the riot, and held at the Green County Jail.

 His mother-in-law explained how she thought Martin got mixed up in the melee on January 6: 

Rebecca Olson, 59, of Springfield, said she watched him become progressively more consumed with the QAnon conspiracy theory after Bernie Sanders, whom he supported, lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton in 2016.

 

“He truly felt this was stolen from him and that’s when he started falling down the rabbit hole and saying, ’The government is ruining our lives,’” she said.

 

She said Martin, who lives in Rogersville, shifted his allegiance to Trump and spent more time on the internet, leading to fights with his wife. She said the couple has been estranged for a couple years; they have three children.

 

She later told reporters, “It’s like these people have been programmed and they really have to be deprogrammed.” 

(He pleads guilty and is sentenced to three years on probation. He must also complete 60 hours of community service and pay a $1,000 fine. He must also complete a mental health assessment and get treatment, if necessary.) 

Trump supporter, QAnon.

 

* 

“Democrats are evil.”

184. JUSTIN MCAULIFFE: McAuliffe deleted his Facebook account soon after the riot on Capitol Hill. Too late! Several individuals provided tips to the F.B.I., including posts that place the 39-year-old at the scene. One witness explained that she had unfriended Justin on Facebook after he claimed the coronavirus was “a hoax,” but she still sometimes checked his page to see what he said. 

One picture he posted from inside the building showed a sticker slapped above an entry way, presumably by some rioter, that reads, “Democrats are evil.” In a picture the F.B.I. acquired from another source, McAuliffe is seated in the office of a member of Congress. He holds his phone in his left hand, flashes “V” for victory with his right, and sports a “Trump” stocking cap stuck on his noggin’. 

When not trying to overturn the U.S. government, McAuliffe is a CPA, living in Bellmore, on Long Island. 

(Plead guilty, sentenced to three years’ probation, 60 days of home confinement, banned from use of social media, and ordered to pay $500 in restitution.)

Right-wing individual. 

 

* 

185. HECTOR EMANUEL VARGAS SANTOS (a.k.a. “Hector Vargas”): The headline from the Hudson County View labels Vargas the “Jersey City Trump supporter.” Reporters for the View note that he was also arrested in July for making “terroristic threats.” 

The Jersey City Times originally referred to Vargas as an “unsung hero” for community work during the summer to help battle COVID-19. Sadly, “he was later accused of stealing donations to charitable causes.” 

On December 12, 2022, he is found guilty of all four charges related to his role in the Capitol Hill attack. 

The cost for believing Trump: four months in prison, probation, and $3,000 in fines and restitution.

Trump supporter

 

* 

Masks made her mad.

186. RACHEL MARIE POWELL: Ms. Powell, photographed in a distinctive pink hat during the January 6 riot, is both a fervent mask-denier and mother of eight. 

She admitted to law enforcement officials that she was indeed the woman in the pink hat seen in many pictures and videos from that day. She had, however, denied she ever entered the Capitol. 

(Evidence has since proved she did.)

 

According to CBS News, 

She’s become known as “the bullhorn lady” who seemed to have knowledge of the Capitol building’s floor plan. She was seen on video instructing insurrectionists on where to go.

 

Powell is of special concern to federal investigators because if she had that knowledge, it could indicate the assault was pre-planned.

 

Powell explained during a lengthy interview with a writer from The New Yorker, that she did not vote for Trump in 2016. He gained her support during his first term and she voted for him in 2020. 

The writer explained: 

Last summer and fall, Powell said, she attended various protests, including anti-mask rallies. “If there was a protest in Harrisburg, I was there for almost all of them,” she told me. On July 4^th, she drove for four hours to join members of several far-right groups, some of them armed, who gathered at the Gettysburg National Military Park, purportedly to protect Civil War monuments from desecration. At the rally, a man wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt was surrounded and aggressively questioned by about fifty demonstrators. 

 

Powell was in that group. 

By September, she had made up her mind. She would be voting for Trump. “I appreciate his business mind. Economy-wise, he has it going on. He loves America,” she said. She added that she “couldn’t vote for the other person. I really don’t think Biden or Harris will be good for the country.” 

On November 5, 2021, she commented to a friend, on social media, “I hear what you’re saying about the whole world being in on the conspiracy as far as the corona virus goes.” 

Powell claimed she began to realize that just as people were complacent about being forced to wear masks, they were complacent about an election being stolen. She watched Rudy Giuliani’s remarks during a fact-finding hearing at Gettysburg on November 25, and said, “I learned a lot from Giuliani and people’s testimonies.” She admitted that she drove to D.C. with a friend, and said they wanted to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally, but would not confirm any details of her role in the riot. 

A Trump supporter-come-lately? Yes. 

Antifa? 

No. 

And were the Trump supporters peaceful? Powell blistered someone on social media who said it wasn’t Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol. She fumed: “we weren’t fucking welcomed in you fucking idiot... there were lots of security. They had to retreat into the building and fight back because patriots were relentless... they didn’t open the gates. The people trampled them. It was war.”

 

* 

As part of the condition for her release on bail, Ms. Powell was ordered to wear a mask at work, per COVID requirements. She thought it would be fun, she claimed, to honor the singer Lana Del Rey, by wearing a mask like hers. A report of “non-compliance” was then filed in her case. 

 

Her lawyer had to assure the judge in her case that his client was in no way mocking the court, and his client got to spend even more money on her defense, in the process. 

In July 2023, Ms. Powell was convicted on all nine charges she faced. On the day the judge in her bench trial (no jury) rendered verdict,  “Powell was accompanied to court by her children, one of whom was wearing a red ‘MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN’ hat in the courtroom. Powell had posted on social media that Trump had gifted a MAGA hat to her child.” 

Now her child can wear that hat proudly, while mom spends the next lengthy chapter of life in prison. 

During the sentencing phase of her trial, Powell’s lawyer focused on her harsh upbringing which left her “susceptible to manipulation.”

 

UPDATE: WE learn during her sentencing that Powell had developed “an obsession with keeping President Trump in power.” 

Also, like any peaceful protester she showed up with a special tool for smashing windows, namely, an ice axe. She did get a signed hat from Trump recently however, saying, “Rachel, we love you.” And she’s thinking about wearing it to sentencing.

 

UPDATE #2: The sentence is in. Ms. Powell won’t be voting for Trump in 2024. She’s sentenced to spend the next 57 months in prison, instead. She’ll then spend another 36 months on supervised release, and she’s fine and ordered to pay restitution in the total of $7,753. 

The judge did, at least, agree that she could report to jail after the holidays, and spend a little more time with her family. 

The cops didn't let these people in and they weren't peaceful, either.

Trump supporter, believed in a “stolen election.”

 

* 

187. JORDAN T. REVLETT: The 22-year-old Kentuckian from McLean County was arrested on January 25. Interviewed a few days earlier by F.B.I. agents, he admitted he was inside the Capitol Building, but said he did not break in or do damage. He said he and his parents went to Washington to hear now Rejected-President Trump speak and decided to join the march to Capitol Hill. 

The New York Post, going for irrelevant but interesting detail, notes that two years earlier, Mr. Revlett finished fourth in a “sexy farmer” contest. His Twitter account features pictures of both President Trump and the rapper Lil Wayne, for what that bit of information might be worth. 

(He pleads guilty in the end, and gets to spend two weeks behind bars, and deal with a stint on probation.)

Trump supporter.

 

* 

A history of assault. 

188. Ryan Samsel: Samsel is charged with knocking down a female police officer during the Capitol Hill attack, causing her to suffer a concussion, when her head hit a step as she fell. 

Ever the “gentleman,” however, the affidavit for his arrest asserts that Samsel then lifted up the fallen policewoman and told her, “We don’t have to hurt you. Why are you standing in our way?” 

And “all” she suffered was a concussion. 

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, 

Later, as rioters pushed closer to the building, Samsel was filmed fighting a group of officers in riot gear. At one point during the melee, he tried to wrestle a shield away from one of the officers, the indictment said.

 

Federal investigators identified Samsel through a law enforcement database: He is currently on parole for a 2016 assault conviction in Bucks County, and there is a warrant out for his arrest in connection with a separate assault in Burlington County [New Jersey], court records show.

 

If you think a handful of liberal types “instigated” the riot on January 6, you should watch the video where Samsel and others get involved. Samsel is wearing a red Trump hat, as are many in the crowd. At one point, preparatory to helping knock down a police barricade, he turns his cap backwards before going to work. 

Just watch a few punches thrown by others in the mob, to get a sense of what happened that day. 

Prosecutors asked a judge to deny Samsel bail, citing his record of battering not only Capitol Hill police but various women: 

Ryan Samsel, of Bucks County, has a history of “choking and beating women to the point of loss of consciousness, of many hospital visits for many victims, of chipped and missing teeth and of Samsel even breaking into one victim’s home multiple times to assault her,” according to a filing to keep Samsel in detention. 

 

All of this is detailed in a 15-page document that seeks to keep him behind bars until trial. “Samsel’s release would pose a danger to the community,” according to law enforcement officials. 

USA Today further notes: 

In 2006, he was convicted of multiple charges for running a woman’s car off the road then threatening to kill her because she owed him $60. In 2009, he held a woman against her will for five hours, choking her until she was unconscious; a conviction followed. Two years later, he was convicted of choking and beating his pregnant girlfriend. A simple assault conviction followed in 2015, again on a woman…In 2019, a woman alleged that he broke into her house, raped, and assaulted her; he faces an outstanding warrant in New Jersey for those allegations, according to the court filing.

 

In Ryan J. Reilly’s book, Sedition Hunters, provides another story about the defendant and his treatment of women. “Once, he’d allegedly smashed a hot pizza into a woman’s face before beating her, pouring a beer over her head, and throwing her into a canal, where he held her head underwater. ‘I was afraid he was going to kill me,’ his victim said.” At one point, one the day of the riot, Samsel was carrying a large flag, picturing Trump as Rambo. (See: Sedition Hunters, p. 173.) 

 

UPDATE: The case of Mr. Samsel, and four others, James Tate Grant  (#509 on our list), Paul Russell Johnson (#405), Stephen Chase Randolph (#404) and Jason Blythe (#900), none of whom knew each other before January 6, goes to trial on October 23, 2023. Samsel – for obvious reasons – has been held in custody since the riot. 

On February 2, 2024, the five men learn their fates: Guilty, some on different charges than others, but all now convicted felons. 

Officer Caroline Edwards, who testified against them, had previously given more detailed testimony before Congress. What she witnessed on January 6, she said, was like a “war scene.” 

“It was something like I had seen out of the movies. I could not believe my eyes. There were officers on the ground. They were bleeding. They were throwing up. I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell,” she told lawmakers. “It was carnage. It was chaos.”  

(You can read more about Officer Edwards’ experiences that day and how her life was “torn apart” in an article by Ryan J. Reilly.) 

Violent.

 

* 

He broke the window to the lobby of the Speaker of the House. 

189. ZACHARY JORDAN ALAM: Alam plays a noteworthy part in the riot on Jan. 6. He is handed a police helmet, apparently lost in the melee, and uses it to hammer at a window in a door to the Speaker of the House’s lobby. 

Once the window is shattered, Ashli Babbitt tries to climb through, and is shot and killed by Capitol police. 

Previously, Alam had run up an extensive arrest record related to unauthorized use of a vehicle, and had spent time in jail. 

Alam’s indictment read in part: 

 The Subject Male was observed repeatedly punching the glass panels of the doors immediately behind the officers [three of whom were blocking the path of the mob], causing the glass to splinter. While throwing two of the punches, the Subject Male pushed his body up against one of the Capitol Police officers guarding the door. Members of the crowd were shouting and gesticulating at the officers. The Subject Male is in video footage shouting “Fuck the blue” multiple times in the faces of the U.S. Capitol Police officers who were standing post outside the Speaker’s lobby door.

 

Seconds after the officers stepped away from the doorway, the Subject Male began kicking the glass panels of the Speaker’s Lobby door. Shortly thereafter, he took a black-colored helmet from an individual with a yellow “Don’t tread on me” flag, took off his fur-lined hat and red baseball hat, and violently struck the middle glass panel repeatedly with the helmet, further shattering the window. The Subject Male then smashed the window panel on the right with the helmet. Chants could be heard of “Break it down!” and “Let’s fucking go!” Babbitt was shot while attempting to climb through one of the shattered windows. After the shot, the Subject Male backed away toward the stairwell…The Subject Male put the helmet on and wore it as he stood on the steps of the stairwell.

 

Alam was turned in by at least one relative, who noted, that he had called that relative to say “he was not going to turn himself into authorities because he did not want to go to jail again.” 

At one point, Mr. Alam decided to represent himself in court, but ended up yelling that all charges against him should be dropped. 

Eventually, he went with a lawyer, and asked for a jury trial. To say it did not go well for Mr. Alam would be an understatement. He was convicted on eleven charges, including eight felony counts. 

He’s only 32 years old at the time of his conviction. There’s a chance he’ll be in his forties before he gets out.

 

UPDATE: Sadly, Zachary was turned in to the F.B.I. by his mother, because she feared he might do something rash, after he was first identified and went on the run to relatives. She told the court that her son had had drug and alcohol problems before. And how did he come to be so deeply involved in the attack on the Capitol? “Zachary,” she said, “told me he ‘got wrapped up in it,’ inspired by President Trump. 

In July 2024, we learned that Alam had already spent two-and-a-half years waiting for trial. So he’s already serving a good part of whatever sentence he’ll receive. On November 7, two days after Donald Trump gained a second term, Alam was sentenced to 96 months in prison, 36 on probation, and billed $5,114 for his crimes. 

Trump supporter, violent. 

 

* 

190. Benjamin Scott Burlew: Burlew decided to “defend freedom” on Jan. 6, by attacking a member of the free press. The second time Burlew struck, he knocked the photographer backward over a wall, with the victim landing on his back. 

According to the F.B.I., Burlew announced his intention, two days before the riot, to go to D.C. and “storm the Capitol.” (See: Alan William Byerly, #379 on this list.) 

A second indictment filed in March 2022 added charges, including “assaulting, resisting, or impeding” police. 

The following September, Burlew’s attorney filed a motion to have his client declared insane, and unable to stand trial.

 

UPDATE (August 7, 2024): He eventually pleaded guilty, but has since asked to void that plea. He now claims he was misled, and in a new motion before the court, Burlew is described as “a disabled veteran with severe physical and mental disabilities.” 

In other words: Perfect material in the hands of an unprincipled manipulator like former president Trump. 

Right-winger, violent.

 

* 

191. KATHERINE STAVELEY SCHWAB: According to F.B.I. sources, Schwab flew on a private plane to D.C. along with four others. That includes Jason Hyland, who organized the flight. She seems to have documented her movements well, including once she joined the attack on the Capitol. At one point, while inside, she messaged a friend, “After the girl [Ashli Babbitt] was shot and killed that’s when we raised hell.” 

Schwab told federal agents that she and others aboard the plane were “patriots,” and wanted to attend the rally where Trump was scheduled to speak. Another member of the group was Jennifer Leigh Ryan, also arrested for rioting. Schwab told agents that Ryan’s posts made her and others look “bad.” 

Because of her “small stature,” she claimed she had been pushed into the building by the crowd, and said she asked a police officer to help her find a way back out. (See: Hyland, Jason, #201 and Ryan, Jennifer Leigh, #83.) 

Schwab lost her job as a real estate agent with Century 21, in the wake of her arrest. A spokesperson for the company said her conduct did “not comport with the policies or values” of Century 21.” 

In February 2022, Ms. Schwab agreed to plead guilty to one felony charge, with prosecutors likely to recommend a lenient sentence. Indeed, the ends up spending only 45 days in jail, with other assorted penalties related to her crimes. 

Trump supporter.

 

* 

Anne Pallas and Ted Palles: Every story about Trump-loving rioters can turn up another name or two, or an entire group or family, who went to D.C. on January 6, to protest against the results of what we now know for a certainty, was a fair election. 

Again, we keep looking for evidence that the rioters inside and the people in the larger crowd outside the Capitol that day were anything but what they appeared to be to anyone with 20/20 vision (or corrective lenses). Mr. and Mrs. Palles are but two more examples.

The two Texans made the long journey north to protest the stolen election – which was never stolen. In the aftermath of the riot, in a post on January 8, Anne made it clear she did not support violence. In defense of her and her husband’s decision to march on Congress, however, she said they were fighting for “free speech,” “the right to worship,” for the lives “of the unborn,” and in the name of “a legitimate presidential election.” She described the riot as the “nation’s largest and most historical protest” and claimed more than a million Americans attended the “Stop the Steal” rally. 

Trump supporter, believed in a “stolen election” (Anne). 

Trump supporter (Ted).

 

* 

“We are now at war. It would be wise to be ready!” 

192. PETER SCHWARTZ: Schwartz was charged with assaulting officers of the D.C. Metropolitan police. (See also #613, Shelly Stallings, his wife.) 

According to an affidavit for his arrest, 

A large group of rioters [including Schwartz] is gathered near to the group of officers on the west terrace, which is on the exterior of the building. Individuals in the group of rioters engage in a wide range of violent and non-violent conduct including chanting, throwing things, striking officers, and spraying substances such as bear spray and mace at the group of officers.

 

In a video reviewed by federal agents, Schwartz can be seen extending his arm “out from the crowd toward the group of officers and spraying an orange substance from a black canister directly at the group of officers. The orange substance lands near the face of an unidentified officer, causing him to turn his face away and step backwards.” 

In a footnote, a belief is expressed that the substance was “pepper spray.” Whatever it was, “The officer appears to try to avoid inhaling the orange substance.” 

According to one witness (W-1) who spoke with the F.B.I., Schwartz’s legal problems may prove extensive. 

W-1 stated SCHWARTZ is a felon and was released from prison due to COVID-19. W-1 also stated that SCHWARTZ is employed as a traveling welder. According to W-1, SCHWARTZ was supposed to be at a rehabilitation facility in Owensboro, Kentucky on January 6, 2021.

 

On Facebook, the day after the riot, Schwartz posted warning: “All the violence from the left was terrorism. What happened yesterday was the opening of a war. I was there and whether people will acknowledge it or not we are now at war. It would be wise to be ready!” 

He also expressed the belief that Biden did not win the popular vote. 

In December 2022, Schwartz is convicted on four felony counts. And it doesn’t help his situation when the judge realizes that Schwartz is already a convicted felon. 

The defendant later claimed he shouldn’t be in trouble, because even if he tried to spray police with mace or bear spray, he missed. He also claimed that he was in prison because “someone wanted to steal an election.” 

Turns out he’s been in prison numerous times before. Prosecutors at his sentencing note that Schwartz has a “jaw dropping criminal history of 38 prior convictions, going back to 1991.” A sampling of charges includes larceny, assault and battery, terroristic threatening, and domestic abuse. 

Prosecutors are asking the judge to sentence Schwartz to 24 years in prison, and slap him with a $71,000 fine. 

The judge did slap him, on May 5, 2023, sentencing Schwartz to spend the next fourteen years, two months, locked away for the good of society. 

As Scott MacFarlane, the court reporter for NBC noted, Schwartz sat in an orange jumpsuit at the defense table and listened as retired Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who was badly beaten during the riot, asked for the defendant to be handed the maximum sentence. “Neither Mr. Trump or Mr. Schwartz have been held accountable & if they’re not,” Gonell said, “the only lesson they’d learn is they can get away with anything without repercussions.”

Trump  supporter, he believed the election was stolen,

right-wing individual, ready for violence.

 

* 

193. MARK SIMON: The F.B.I. located a blog post at www.orangejuiceblog.com titled “From HB to DC: [Individual 1] and tanned BF help Storm the Capitol for Trump!” The post included images and video of a female and male, who the blog claimed were at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. 

HB stood for “Huntington Beach,” and a video from Individual 1 helped agents identify Simon as one of the rioters. Both Simon and Individual 1 were there to “Stop the Steal.” At one point, Individual 1 films Simon, then turns the camera to himself and says, “2021 Donald Trump!” 

According to the Los Angeles Times, Simon is “known for his far-right views.” 

He was eventually sentenced to 35 days in jail and ordered to pay $500 in restitution. 

Right-wing, Trump supporter,

believed “stolen election” myth, violent.

 

* 

“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” 

194. JEFFREY ALEXANDER SMITH: In a number of social media posts, Mr. Smith admitted his bit role in the riot. According to his affidavit, in one post he reports, “I stormed the capital.” He also stated that his purpose was, “To send a message that Americans are[n’] t going to take a fraudulent election.” Smith also wrote to a friend, “There is no way in hell I was going to drive 38 hours from San Diego and not walk right through the front of the capital [sic] building.” 

Smith did have the sense (or so he said during questioning by the F.B.I.) to tell his girlfriend, who traveled by air to D.C., to remain at the hotel where they were staying, rather than risk chaos on Capitol Hill. He has been described as a 33-year-old, decorated war veteran, who served in the U.S. Army. 

In the words of his lawyer, “Mr. Smith went there to attend what he anticipated to be a very peaceful rally with other supporters of President Trump, and had absolutely no intention of anything happening, of entering any buildings.” 

Yes. He drove 38 hours for a what he expected would be “a very peaceful rally.” Not just a “peaceful rally.” 

A very peaceful rally. 

CBS Channel 8, in San Diego, also reports, “According to court records, in 2018 Smith’s now ex-wife filed a restraining order against him. She now lives in Colorado with their two children.”  

(In March 2022, Mr. Smith is sentenced to spend 90 days in jail. He must also perform 200 hours of community service.) 

Trump supporter, believed in a “stolen election.”

 

* 

195. MICHAEL STEPAKOFF: An affidavit for his arrest placed the suspect firmly inside the Capitol Building. To be fair, by the time he entered, the mob had filled the rotunda and Stepakoff simply walked in. 

On social media, he posted a set of pictures of himself outside the building, captioned, “Epic and historical moment.” 

Another post to a Facebook account in the name of “T*** S********” states: “Update on Michael y’all…please continue to prayers [sic] for his protection and to be safe. He texted me privately and said he is okay but it’s very dangerous where he is- He was inside the Capital Building…” According to federal agents T.S. is Stepakoff’s spouse. Stepakoff is described as a “messianic rabbi” from Palm Harbor, Florida. 

The Tampa Bay Times notes that Stepakoff is a former lawyer and was initially released on bail. As for his beliefs: “Messianic Judaism is a syncretic religion that combines Jewish traditions with Christianity, including the belief in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Most Jews consider it rooted in Christianity and not representative of their faith, according to the Pinellas County Board of Rabbis.” 

His lawyer described him as a family man, a “strong Republican,” and firm in his political convictions. 

In a Facebook post the day before the riot, Rabbi Stepakoff posted to now Rejected-President Trump’s now Rejected-Twitter account: “I am proud to be an American, and I made the trip up from Florida to support the effort to save America. DC swarming with MAGA people. We’re not gonna take it! Thank you President Trump!” 

He has plead guilty and been sentenced to two months of home confinement, fined $1,242, and placed on probation for a year.

Trump supporter.

 

* 

196. DALTON RAY CRASE: The Kentucky man traveled to Washington with two like-minded men, including Troy Dylan Williams (#197). The third, unnamed individual became sick and spent Jan. 6 in a hospital. Crase and Williams admit they entered the Capitol Building, but say they took no part in the violence or damaging of property. Crase did tell federal agents that if he ever went back to the Capitol he’d only enter after getting “a pass.” 

Both Williams and Crase plead guilty in October 2021. “Even though we didn’t participate in violence, I think it was dumb that we went in,” Williams admits. In January 2022, Crase gets fifteen days in jail, and plenty of time to ponder his blunders during three years on probation. 

During their sentencing hearing, reporters noted, 

Some of the videos of the mob chanting and clashing with officers at the Capitol last year were played during Thursday’s hearing, with the two men appearing virtually.

 

The events were “exceptionally serious, and frankly, watching the videos that we watched today is a stark reminder of how horrible a day and the events of that day were,” said [Judge Carl J.] Nichols, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2019. 

Trump supporter

 

* 

197. TROY DYLAN WILLIAMS: Williams is the seventh individual from Kentucky arrested in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot. He and two other men traveled to D.C. together. One fell ill and did not go to the Trump rally on January 6, nor take part in the riot. Williams says he joined the rush inside under the influence of a kind of “herd mentality.” (See: #196.) 

Still, he also believed he and his friend were making a political statement of sorts. In one video, he can be heard telling Crase that what they were doing was “just to let them know that when push comes to shove, we will fight. We will just walk into this b****... this is a taste, and if things don’t change, we’ll make a change.” 

His reward for joining the stampede: 15 days in jail, 60 hours of community service, a bill for $500, and three years on probation. 

Trump supporter

 

* 

“War tomorrow” against “vipers.” 

198. ALAN HOSTETTER: We know the F.B.I. raided Hostetter’s home in the wake of the riot. 

He and Russell Taylor (below) ran the American Phoenix Project, which co-sponsored a pro-Donald Trump rally near the Supreme Court, the day before the attack. At that time, as CNN reports, Hostetter told a crowd to prepare for “war tomorrow” against “vipers” in Congress who refused to nullify President Joe Biden’s win. 

Taylor added: “We will not return to our peaceful way of life until this election is made right.” 

“We are at war in this country,” Hostetter told the audience gathered for the rally. “We are at war tomorrow.” 

He continued, “Our voices tomorrow are going to put the fear of God in the cowards and the traitors, the (Republicans in name only), the communists of the Democrat Party, they need to know we as a people, a hundred million strong, are coming for them if they do the wrong thing.”

 

“I will see you all tomorrow at the frontlines,” Hostetter said as he ended the speech. “We are taking our country back.”

 

So, he rioted, and he was proud of himself, and he imagined himself as a great patriot, and Trump was his George Washington-like hero. Only fatter, and orange, and unwilling to fight himself. And after the riot, Hostetter posted on social media again: “This was the shot heard round the world! ... the 2021 version of 1776. That war lasted 8 years. We are just getting started.” 

(A revolution – in the name of Donald J. Trump.)

 

According to CBS, as the first anniversary of the riot approached, Mr. Hostetter was taking a novel approach in court. The defendant had “opted to act as his own defense attorney in the case and is asking a judge to dismiss the indictment against him due to what he describes as ‘outrageous government conduct in contravention of state and federal constitutional rights.’” 

 

UPDATE: “Novel” might not do justice to Hostetter’s legal defense. In one motion, in May 2023, he included these questions: 

“Do we now know our own government assassinated JFK?” 

“Does the word Babbitt appear in the..dictionary?” 

“What are some of the reasons Tucker Carlson was canceled?” 

 

UPDATE #2: On June 5, 2023, Hostetter was filed yet another motion with the courts, claiming, that his response delt with “every jot and tittle” of the government’s case against him. 

That is, “President Trump won the 2020 election in one of the biggest landslide victories in U.S. history. Our constitutional republic was overthrown. An imposter president was installed.” 

 

UPDATE #3: To add a bit of context, The New York Times follows up on Hostetter’s pending trial on July 5. The American Phoenix Project was founded on a call to patriots (I guess) to stand up to the “fear-based tyranny” of coronavirus restrictions – such as the tyranny of having to wear masks and not spread the germs that killed more than a million Americans. In the wake of Trump’s thumping in the 2020 election, Hostetter (and Taylor) began to call for violence. 

Prosecutors allege that Hostetter called for “able bodied individuals” who were going to D.C. on January 6, to be “ready and willing to fight.” 

As for those officials who refused to acknowledge Trump’s win – simply because the vote count showed he didn’t – Hostetter had made his plans for those people clear. In a group chat, in weeks leading up to the riot, he warned that drastic action would be required to save the country:

 

Some people at the highest levels need to be made an example of with an execution or two or three. Because when you commit treason against this country and you disenfranchise the voters of this country and you take away their ability to make decisions for themselves, you strip them of their Constitutional rights. That’s not hyperbole when we call it tyranny, that’s fucking tyranny. And tyrants and traitors need to be executed as an example. (Sedition Hunters, pp. 111-112)

 

UPDATE #4 (7/13/23): The smoke clears in the courtroom today. The judge finds Hostetter guilty on four counts. When Scott MacFarlane, a reporter for CBS, asks the defendant for his reaction (he’s allowed to return home to California until sentencing), he replies, “The truth will come out.”

We are 982 days out from the 2020 election. No evidence that victory was stolen from Trump has ever been found. 

 

UPDATE #5 (December 7, 2023): Sentence is handed down, but not until after the defendant outlines all the conspiracy theories you can think of in court. That includes the idea that Ashli Babbitt is not really dead. (Just part of the government plot to make the rioters look bad.)

Babbitt’s mother, in court as an observer, stops Hostetter on the way out, tells him her daughter is assuredly dead, and calls him an “arrogant s***.”

As for his sentence, Hostetter gets 135 months behind bars, in part because he incited the crowd to violence and brought a number of weapons to the riot. He also gets nailed for $32,400 in fines, restitution and other assessments.

Right-wing individual, Trump supporter, Q Anon, violent,

he believed the election was stolen

* 

“We will bleed before we allow our freedom to be taken.”

199. RUSSELL TAYLOR: Taylor and his friend – now former friend – Alan Hostetter, did their best to fire up a pro-Trump crowd on the evening of January 5. “We are at war,” Taylor told listeners. 

CNN also reports that Taylor expressed support for QAnon in his speech and issued a call-to-arms, saying, “In these streets we will fight, and we will bleed before we allow our freedom to be taken from us.” 

His lawyer soon insisted that Taylor was speaking metaphorically, and would never want any literal blood to flow in the streets. Why, his client absolutely abhorred violence, don’t you know! 

CNN continued: “Taylor and Hostetter are well-documented promoters of conspiracy theories ranging from QAnon and the ‘deep state’ to those related to the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.” 

On June 10, 2021, Taylor and Hostetter were charged with conspiracy in a 20-page document, along with four other members of the right-wing Three Percenters group. 

In more recent court developments, prosecutors note that in one message to their group, Taylor wrote to all those who were coming to D.C., “I am assuming that you have some type of weaponry that you are bringing with you and plates [body armor] as well.” 

You know. Like regular tourists. 

We also learn that Taylor fell for President Trump’s lies, specifically. In one early communication he quoted his Orange Hero. “Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election,” he insisted, and Taylor parroted. “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild.” 

Taylor soon realized he was looking at serious jail time. He had been carrying a hatchet and knife during the assault – with Hostetter allegedly carrying a hatchet of his own. In April 2023, after at least four meetings with federal prosecutors, Mr. Taylor agreed to cooperate in the trial of the Three Percenters group he helped organize and lead to Washington. He gets off easy as a result – six months of home confinement, three years on probation, and a $2,000 fine. Some of his other pals are going to jail for a long time, and there’s still not one fragment of evidence proven in court to indicate that it was “statistically impossible” to lose the election by seven million votes. 

Which Trump did. 

To Joe Biden. 

Trump supporter, QAnon, violent.

 

* 

200. JASON LEE HYLAND: The 37-year-old from Colleyville, Texas gathered a group of like-minded “patriots,” as his friend Katherine Staveley Schwab described them, and flew his private plane to D.C. There he and four others listened to Trump speak on Jan. 6. Then Hyland and two additional members of the group joined in the riot. 

Hyland told F.B.I. agents he asked a Capitol Hill police officer if he could enter the building, and that officer replied, “everyone else is.” (See: Jenna Ryan, #83 on our list, Katherine Staveley Schwab, #191.) 

According to People magazine, Hyland and Staveley are both real estate agents and Trump supporters. Staveley is said to have posted on Facebook in the days leading up to the riot, to see if any other Trump-loving patriots wanted to join them on what Hyland himself  labeled the “Patriot flight.” 

They would embark on an adventure to “stand up for America,” he promised those who wanted to go. 

(Mr. Hyland gets nailed in the end. He is ordered to pay a $4,000 fine, and cough up an additional $500 in restitution. He also earns seven days in the cooler.) 

Trump supporter.

 

* 

201. JEFFREY GRACE: Grace, 64, from Battle Ground, Washington, was facing up to a year in prison after being arrested for his part in the insurrection. The defendant told federal agents that he and his son son Jeremy (#299 on our lists) visited Washington to hear Trump speak at the “Save America March” on January 6. Together, they left the rally, headed for Congress, but were separated on the way. He claimed that while he was inside the Capitol, he picked up items other rioters had knocked over and left when violence ensued. He said he saw one man with a metal pipe, took it from him, and hid it. 

According to Clark County Today, Mr. Grace’s story was likely to hold up, at least in part: 

According to the court documents, FBI agents obtained closed circuit camera footage from inside the rotunda which confirmed that Grace was present, wearing a shirt with a Betsy Ross-style American flag on it.

 

The video reportedly also showed Grace picking up items, hiding something behind a statue, and reattaching velvet ropes knocked over by other protesters. After speaking with someone else briefly, Grace can be seen leaving the building.

 

According to the documents, Grace claimed he was not a member of any group, and did not advocate violence, though he admitted to knowing people belonging to groups such as the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and the 1 Percent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang.

 

At any rate, a Biden kind of guy, or a liberal, Mr. Grace is not. On April 3, 2023, he agreed to plead guilty to one charge, and could face up to six months in prison. 

Four months later, he learns his sentence: 75 days in jail, and a year on probation for fun. The long-haul trucker, and at the time of the riot a probationary Proud Boy won’t be hauling anything for a while. Prosecutors do note that Mr. Grace has been hawking “Our House” clothing on a website he created. I think he should now add a line of “Big House Prison Stripes.” 

Trump supporter, right-winger, he believed the election was stolen. 

 

* 

202. CHRISTOPHER ORTIZ: When I first checked the indictment for Ortiz, 27, I missed a couple of details and thought he might be the elusive “liberal type” who joined the attack, just so he could stir up the law-and-order-loving Trump fans. 

I noted that he bragged to a friend on Instagram that he would “storm the Capitol for you any day.” (I thought he might have a girlfriend he wanted to impress.) 

I noticed that his Instagram handle was “@crisp0ats.” 

When I first decided to look into this topic, I wrote, “we may have an actual non-Trump fan at last! Prior to his first court appearance, Ortiz told the Daily Mail that he was only trying to ‘understand’ the pro-Trump mob.” 

I wrote all of this, too: 

“I’m not somebody who walks around wearing a MAGA hat, I’m not that kind of person,” he said. “I wanted to understand what’s going on with the people I don’t really align with.” He told friends he did nothing but walk in the door of the Capitol Building, look around, and walk back out soon after.

 

Then again, Ortiz sounded sympathetic to the rioters. “I think the sensationalism around the violence at the riot isn’t right. I don’t think it was violent, I didn’t vandalize, I didn’t steal, I didn’t break anything, I didn’t burn anything,” he told a reporter for News 12. “There on D.C. that day, I saw a group that represents about half of our entire country. And I feel like the division across this nation is reaching a high.”

 

Now it’s almost the fall of 2022, and I continue to check the news. I missed an exchange in the original Ortiz court filings. Or fresh evidence has now been included. So here we are. 

In a series of direct messages, “Witness-2” questioned Mr. Ortiz (page five of the indictment) about what he was doing in D.C. that day: 

Witness-2: CHRIS WHAT ARE YOU DOING

 

Chris: Participating in government

 

W-2: WHY

 

W-2: GO TO A TOWN HALL MEETING MAN

 

W-2: This is BEYOND the worst idea you’ve ever had I am going ON RECORD saying that

 

W-2: Please explain this to me

 

Chris: I am vehemently against CCP influence in our government so that’s why I showed up

 

W-2: WHAT

 

Chris: And my story is better than anything Netflix is putting out so enjoy the show!

 

W-2: You think you agree with these people you are with

 

W-2: You think that China stole this election

 

Then the rest of the conversation is nearly impossible to read; the F.B.I. agent has included two pictures of the exchange from a phone, and the rest of what was said is hard to read, but I realize I have enough to drop Ortiz from my “list” of potential liberal types who joined the riot. He believed the right-wing crap – the idea that China had interfered in the election. 

In the end, young Ortiz gets nailed in court. He agrees to plead guilty, gets two months of home confinement, a hundred hours of community service, two years on probation, and has to pay five hundred dollars in restitution. 

Believed in a “stolen election.”