Cipollone defended Trump during his first impeachment.
The seventh hearing of the January 6 Committee is in the books. If Ex-President Blubber was watching, you know he has another name to add to his growing “Enemies of the People” list.
That would be: former White House Chief Counsel Pat Cipollone.
If he watched (and based on his rants after every hearing so far) he either does, or aides provide him with the Cliff Notes version, he had to have started boiling from the start. Rep. Liz Cheney, his nemesis in the Republican Party, announced to those in the hearing room or watching on TV that Mr. Cipollone’s testimony “met our expectations.”
(This blogger cans say he also met mine.)
Already, she explained, the hearings have forced Trump defenders to draw new lines. Now they try to claim that he wasn’t to blame for fomenting insurrection. Incompetent advisors were at fault. Mr. Trump was “badly served.” Rep. Cheney was having nothing of it. “The president,” she said, is “a 76-year-old man, not an impressionable child.” Although, if you’ve seen him in action, you might think he was. No. Trump knew his lies about a stolen election were lies. He tells those lies still. Millions put their “faith and their trust in Donald Trump,” she said. In many cases, he led them to personal ruin, including one of the witnesses for the day, and nearly ruined democracy itself.
*
Once again, the Committee wove a powerful narrative, with major players fleshing out details, and Cipollone, who finally agreed last Friday to testify, as the hero of the tale. Eugene Scalia, former Labor Secretary in the Trump administration, had a cameo role. He testified, on tape, that by mid-December 2020, it was clear. “It was time,” he said of Trump, “for him to acknowledge that Biden had won.”
He still hasn’t.
“Everybody is obligated to abide by the rulings of the courts.”
Cipollone’s testimony had been taped. As White House Chief Counsel (I noticed on Fox News later that he was described only as a “White House lawyer”) was sometimes careful in what he said. He could not, for example, repeat anything he said directly to the president, or that the president said to him. Client-attorney privilege, after all, does prevail; and executive privilege for a President of the United States is real. So investigators asked him to comment on testimony from previous witnesses, like former Attorney General Bill Barr. Did Cipollone agree with Barr, who said that in November-December 2020, he had three times told Trump there was no significant evidence of voter fraud. Was Barr correct? “Yes,” Cipollone replied. “I agreed with that.”
In a brief conversation as early as November 23, 2020, Cipollone said he talked with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Meadows told him that he believed Trump should concede and “exit gracefully” from the White House.
Cipollone consistently bolstered the testimony of witnesses and the previous hearings. He, too, believed Trump should have conceded by that point. Which previous witnesses were being bolstered? Pretty much all of the 27 main witnesses who had come before. Cipollone was asked about Trump’s legal team – and their near-perfect record of defeats in 62 court cases challenging election results. Was Trump obligated to abide by the rulings of the courts? The former White House chief counsel seemed all too happy to respond. “Everybody,” he said. “Everybody is obligated to abide by the rulings of the courts.”
We already know that Barr had told Trump, three times, by December 13, that the Justice Department had found no evidence of serious voter fraud. He called such claims, made by Trump, pushed by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, “crazy stuff.” Yet these claims had been “made in such a sensational way” that millions of Americans believed them. Such repeated lies, Barr said (although he did not use the word “lies”) were, he told the president, “doing great, great disservice to the country.”
Again, Cipollone could not say what he told the president. Again, he made his position clear in other ways. “It is fair to say that I agreed with Attorney General Barr,” he explained.
Trump had suggested in a December 13 meeting with Barr, that he order the Justice Department to seize “suspect” voting machines.
The attorney general declined.
Yet, on December 16, Trump’s top enablers drafted a letter. This time, the idea was to have the Department of Defense seize the machines. Trump also suggested making Sidney Powell a “Special Counsel,” sort of his own Robert Mueller, except not interested in the truth. When asked what he thought of that harebrained idea, Cipollone did not hold back. “I was vehemently opposed,” he told investigators. “I did not think she should be appointed to anything.”
He was asked to elaborate on why he called Powell’s appointment a “terrible idea.” “I don’t even understand why we have to tell you that’s a bad idea for the country, it’s a terrible idea,” he said again.
Jason Miller (still a loyal sycophant employed by Trump World) appeared on screen next. Did Rudy and Sidney and other Trump outside lawyers really have evidence at that point to prove massive voter fraud? No, he admitted, they did not, and “to say that it was thin is probably an understatement.”
Cassidy Hutchinson, the star of the sixth hearing, was shown in pieces, adding detail to the story. By mid-December, commenting on Mark Meadows and his role, she said, “I perceived that his goal in all this was to keep Trump in office.”
She did not indicate that she believed that was a legitimate goal.
Screaming, profanity, and threats of violence.
A large portion of the hearing was devoted to dissecting an explosive meeting at the White House on the evening of December 18, 2020. The meeting was not on the official schedule, and Powell, Giuliani, General Michael T. Flynn, and Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock.com. simply showed up and gained entrance to the White House with the help of a junior staffer. What followed would be six hours of heated argument, punctuated by screaming, profanity, and threats of violence. None of the regular White House legal staff had been notified about the meeting. When asked about that, Powell grumbled that Cipollone “probably set a land speed record” getting down to the Oval Office to intervene.
Cipollone was backed up by two other members of the White House Counsel’s Office, Eric Herschmann and Derek Lyons. None of those three could testify as to what Mr. Trump said. They could say what they thought of the group of outsiders. Flynn, we know, has made no bones about where he stood. He was urging the President of the United States to declare martial law. Cipollone’s disdain was clear. “I don’t think any of these people were providing the president with good advice,” he testified. He scoffed at evidence Flynn said he had, proving voter fraud. He waved around a diagram that showed all kinds of links to foreign nations – and somehow proved that voting machines could be controlled by hacking thermostats. Participants in the meeting changed locations several times, and the meeting dragged on past midnight. At times the shouting was so loud, the entire West Wing was soon alerted. Hutchinson sent out a text at one point, stating simply, “The West Wing is UNHINGED.”
Powell finally left in a huff, but testified later that she would have fired Cipollone, Herschmann and Lyons on the spot. Then, had she been in charge, she would have had them escorted out of the White House – and probably thrown their personal belongings out after them.
A second message from Hutchinson was shown, up on the big screen the January 6 Committee employs. It was a photo of Mark Meadows leading Rudy Giuliani down a covered portico next to the Rose Garden and ushering him out into the night. The caption read: “I take one photo for Mark of each of his days. Tonight, it was him escorting Rudy off-campus to make sure he didn't wander back to the Mansion.”
It was that kind of meeting and that kind of day.
What about Powell – and her “evidence” of massive voter fraud – and was she someone a sane person would trust? We know U.S. District Judge Linda Parker ordered Powell and other Team Trump lawyers involved to pay seven-figure legal fees to the State of Michigan for filing what Parker referred to as a “frivolous” legal brief in a voter fraud case that she described as “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.” We know Powell’s being sued for defaming the Dominion Voting Systems company – and sued for $1.3 billion. And we know, since she has no real evidence, even now, to prove that the machines were fixed, that she has adopted an interesting line of defense. “No reasonable person,” her lawyers insist, “would conclude that [Powell’s] statements were truly statements of fact.”
Trump?
Yeah. He believed her.
Or he said he did because it served his selfish interest to keep spreading the “stolen election” lies.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, had testified in a previous hearing. As he put it on March 23, 2021, in response to another failed voter fraud claim filed by Team Trump in Georgia: “In the face of legal action, Sidney Powell admitted that her effort to make millions lying to the American people had no facts to begin with.” Raffensperger, of course, had explained to the Committee, in detail, how claims of voter fraud in Georgia, pushed by Powell and others, were repeatedly debunked.
In any case, by late December 2020, President Trump’s plans to gain a second term that most of his close advisors have testified they knew he did not deserve, had been thwarted in several ways.
PLAN A: This plan involved filing dozens of legal challenges in state and federal courts. That plan failed when, in 61 of 62 cases, judges ruled against Team Trump.
PLAN B: The second plan involved having the Department of Defense seize the voting machines. Then Trump could claim the election was rigged – and probably throw all the machines into the ocean.
DOD declined to be involved.
PLAN C: Okay, then – this plan hinged on having the Justice Department seize the machines, instead. Then Trump and his allies would demand some sort of “redo” of the election in several key states. Attorney General Barr refused to have any role and, effective December 14, 2020, resigned his post.
PLAN D: With the president growing ever more desperate, as laid out in a previous hearing, under this plan Trump would fire Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, after he also said there was no evidence of significant voter fraud. Rosen would be replaced by a sycophant at DOJ, who would do exactly as the president demanded. That plan was foiled when almost everyone at the top levels of Justice threatened to resign.
PLAN E: Trump would call on his supporters to descend on Washington D.C. on January 6. They would stir up so much chaos that either Congress would be cowed, or Trump would have cover to declare martial law.
Plan D was still percolating when Plan E, was set in motion in the early hours of December 19, soon after Mark Meadows led Rudy out into the chill Washington night. At 1:42 a.m., on the morning of December 19, a restless, angry president issued this fiery tweet:
*
“‘Will be wild’ means we need volunteers for the firing squad.”
In the wake of that tweet, members of the January 6 panel explained, and evidence they had gathered showed, the president’s focus changed. The danger became more acute. Radical right-wing groups began to align. It was agreed that they would flood the capital on that day. “What are you wearing?” they began to ask each other. “What should we bring?” “Where do we meet up?” on that day.
Word quickly spread. At 10:22 a.m. that morning, Kelly Meggs, a leader of the Oath Keepers, announced on Facebook that he had cobbled together “an alliance between the Oath Keepers, Florida 3%ers, and Proud Boys. We have decided to work together and shut this shit down.” Kelly O’Brien, who would later show up and help storm the halls of Congress, put out this tweet the same day. “CALLING ALL PATRIOTS!” she wrote. “Be in Washington D.C. January 6. This wasn’t organized by any group. DJT has invited us and it’s going to be ‘wild.’” Alex Jones broadcast the same appeal, the same day to his Infowars fans. The president was calling them to be in D.C. on that day. Other right wing leaders picked up and put out the same call.
Violent rhetoric in chat rooms, and on social media platforms now ramped up. “Bring handcuffs and wait near the tunnels,” which led inside the Capitol Building, one person tweeted. “Body armor, knuckles, shields, bats, pepper spray, whatever it takes,” suggested another. “JOIN YOUR LOCAL PROUD BOYS ORGANIZATION AS WELL.” “Cops don’t have ‘standing’ if they are laying on the ground in a pool of their own blood,” howled another Trump fan. “Is this the 6th D-Day?” inquired another. “Is that why Trump wants everyone there?” “Trump just told us all to come armed. Fucking A, this is happening,” replied another. “It ‘will be wild’ means we need volunteers for the firing squad,” another supporter of the president explained.
Finally, we had Trump fans offering up their own versions of the “Final Solution” to be implemented on January 6. “Why don't we just kill them? Every last democrat, down to the last man, woman, and child? The average democrat is a traitor. They do not care about election fraud. The punishment for treason is death,” said one crazed right-winger. A second Trump supporter was equally anxious to clear the political field of Trump’s foes. “It’s time for the DAY OF THE ROPE! WHITE REVOLUTION IS THE ONLY SOLUTION!”
So the people who would be coming to Washington D.C. were primed. Revolution for some. Racism for others. Many of them had simply been fooled by all the stolen election lies. As Rep. Jamie Raskin explained, the Oath Keepers were clear. In a series of private messages, he said, they prepared to use “lethal force against anyone who tried to remove Trump from office, including the National Guard.”
On December 21, there was another planning meeting in the White House. This time eleven GOP congressmen and women met with President Trump, led by Rep. Mo Brooks. The others included: Rep. Andy Biggs, Rep. Paul Gosar, Rep. Brian Babin, Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Louis Gohmert, Rep. Andy Harris, Rep. Jody Hice, Rep. Jim Jordan, Rep. Scott Perry, and Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene.
PLAN F was now discussed – that plan being for Vice President Mike Pence to agree not to count all the electoral votes on January 6. Pence and Meadows sat through the meeting, as did President Trump. What exactly was said, we still don’t know. We do know this. Pence later determined (or probably understood at that very moment) that the U.S. Constitution would have granted no one person unilateral power to overturn the certification of the state’s electoral votes.
We know now. On several occasions before January 6, on the morning of that day again, he made it clear to President Trump. He would open and count the electoral votes as they had been submitted by the 50 states and the District of Columbia. And he would not set any aside, in an effort to delay the final results, and help Trump out. Members of the panel had questioned Cipollone in regard to Mr. Pence. The vice president he had replied, “did what was legal.”
Then he asked to say more. “I think the vice president did the right thing. I think he did the courageous thing. I have great respect for the vice president…I think he did a great service for the country. I think I suggested to somebody that he should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his actions,” he added.
In the days leading up to the riot, concern was growing on many fronts. Katrina Pierson, who was helping organize the “Stop the Steal” events for that day, warned others that “very, very vicious” crazies were talking about showing up. She emailed Meadows to tell him plans were getting out of hand. Some “very suspect” groups, she said, were mobilizing and planning to show up in force. On January 2, she and Meadows talked on the phone. By that time, she had been told the President of the United States planned to march to the Capitol, after his big speech at the Ellipse. This question – of when Trump planned to march, and how much damage he was prepared to accept – will likely be a focus of the eight hearing, probably next week. Meadows, as we have said, claimed Trump never really planned to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6. But the Committee put up on the big screen for all to see, an official document, because the president had been shown it, which made it clear. The plan to march on January 6 was already afoot.
On January 4, another organizer of the “Stop the Steal” events sent a message to Mike Lindell, another one of the craziest supporters of President Trump. The plan to march to the Capitol was in the works – but had to remain secret.
“This stays only between us, we are having a second stage at the Supreme Court again after the ellipse. POTUS is going to have us march there/the Capitol,” Kylie Kremer explained. “It cannot get out about the second stage because people will try and set up another and Sabotage it,” she added. “It can also not get out about the march because I will be in trouble with the national park service and all the agencies but POTUS is going to just call for it “unexpectedly[.]”
And so the march was planned.
People close to the president, both inside and outside the White House, his own supporters, Trump himself knew. January 6 was going to be wild.
How “wild” was the only question.
The wilder the better, it seemed to President Trump. On the morning of January 5, White House call logs show that Steve Bannon talked with him for eleven minutes (8:57-9:08 a.m.) Later, Bannon announced almost gleefully on his podcast, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow…Strap in.” That evening, angry Trump supporters, whipped up by people like General Flynn and Roger Stone, gathered not far from the White House. Stone warned the audience that they must prevail the following day. They had to stop Congress from certifying the vote, or “the United States will step off into a thousand years of darkness.” Alex Jones howled, “1776, 1776, 1776, 1776, 1776,” until the crowd began to chant back, “1776, 1776, 1776.” If anyone stopped to consider how much bloodshed was required in 1776, before the Thirteen Colonies could break away from British control, no one at the rally seemed to care.
Multiple White House aides testified to having been called into a meeting by President Trump at the same time. They could hear the shouts of the crowd and patriotic and rock music being blasted in the distance. According to one aide, Trump “was in a very, very good mood,” “a fantastic mood,” she said. He asked the aides to offer up any ideas they might have on how he could “make the RINOs do the right thing” on January 6. Even many of those aides knew the story of the stolen, rigged election was a lie.
Meanwhile, multiple drafts of the president’s speech for January 6 were being prepared. On the morning of the riot, we know Trump spoke with White House advisor Stephen Miller from 9:52 to 10:18.
Not long after, new language was inserted into the speech. Now it read:
Cooler heads soon prevailed. Those sentences were excised. Then, at 11:20 a.m. Pence made a last call to Trump for the day. He was firm. He would not set aside any state’s electoral votes.
The president was furious. He called Pence a “wimp” and a “pussy.”
A tweet from Robert Gabriel, who began his career in the Trump administration as an aide to Stephen Miller, went out to everyone working to finalize the speech. “REINSERT THE MIKE PENCE LINES. Confirm receipt,” it read.
In the end, Trump ad-libbed repeatedly during what became an incendiary January 6 speech. He attacked Pence or questioned his courage multiple times. He talked about “fighting like hell” – words not in the prepared speech. He ad-libbed again, shouting that if his people wouldn’t fight, they “might not have a country anymore.”
Then he called on everyone to march to Capitol Hill – which had been secretly planned. He shouted that he would march along. At that point, you could say, Trump’s allies had poured out all the gasoline they could find.
Now the 45th President of the United States – and possibly the last, had Trump had his way – lit the match.
*
“I feel like I had horse blinders on.”
As with all the hearings, live witnesses also appeared, but this time testified only at the end, and only about their links to the riot. The first witness was Steven Ayres, an Ohio man who came to D.C. on January 6, joined the march, entered the Capitol Building, and was subsequently identified and arrested. He had come forward voluntarily to tell his story. Ayres described himself as a “family man,” “a working man, really.” He said he liked to go camping, and enjoyed “playing games” with his son.
How did he come to be in D.C. on January 6, 2021? “I was pretty hardcore” into social media, he said. He believed the stolen election lies, and “felt like I needed to be down there.”
“I was very upset,” he added.
Prior to the attack, Ayres had been clear about why he was going to Washington on that fateful day. On Facebook, on Jan. 4, he wrote:
“History is being made right in front of your eyes! When your grandchildren ask ‘Where were you when...........happened?’ What’s your answer going to be?” The post attaches an image of a poster stating, “January 6th Washington, DC, the president is calling on us to come back to Washington on January 6th for a big protest – ‘Be there, will be wild.’”
He was asked why he joined the march to Capitol Hill. Was he planning to march, to enter the building?
“Well, basically,” he replied, “the president, you know, got everybody riled up, told everybody to head on down. So we basically…just following what he said.” His decision, of course, has done grave damage to his family and overturned his life. He was fired from his job of twenty years. He had to sell his home. (I felt bad watching him testify, because his wife sat behind him – and for her it had to be incredibly hard.) Ayres sounded contrite. He sounded sincere. His cadences and accent made him sound like some of the people I know here in Ohio, some of whom still believe Trump’s lies.
A questioner on the panel asked Ayres what he would say to others who believed as he once did?
“I was hanging on every word [Trump] said,” he admitted. “I consider myself a family man, and I love my country…I feel like I had horse blinders on.” He thought a moment and added, “I would tell them to take the blinders off.”
Mr. Ayres plead guilty to one count of “disruptive or disorderly conduct in a restricted building,” on June 8. He awaits sentencing in his case. He could end up in jail for a year, and could be fined $100,000.
It’s more likely that he will get something in the range of 30 days’ home confinement, a year of probation, and a fine of $1,000, in line with similar cases, where no violence or property damage occurred.
After the hearing ended, Ayres went over to a group of police officers that had been badly injured in the attack, including Sgt. Aquilino Gonell. Officer Gonell had just learned that the injuries he sustained during the assault will never completely heal, and he will no longer be able to perform his duties. The panel pointed him out and highlighted his story (Iraq combat veteran, U.S. Army, sixteen years, now permanently disabled). The TV cameras focused on Gonell, wiping away a tear. Ayres shook his hand and apologized for his part in the disasters of that day.
Trump?
He still sits, unscathed, at Mar-a-Lago, goes golfing whenever the mood strikes, still lies about the stolen election. He’s still plotting his next move.
Trump at Mar-a-Lago this past Easter.
*
“Language is the soil of thought.”
The final witness was Jason Van Tatenhove, former spokesman for the radical right-wing group, the Oath Keepers.
As noted in Part I of this massive series of posts, I have always liked a quote by James Russell Lowell, an abolitionist poet. “Language is the soil of thought,” he once wrote, and in the 1850s, abolitionists used language to stir the hearts of many Americans to join the fight against slavery.
From the moment he rode down the escalator in 2015, Donald Trump polluted the soil of American political discourse. He sprayed toxic pesticides of hate and fear on all our democratic crops.
Van Tatenhove explained the effects he felt. He was a journalist who went out to cover a standoff involving a rancher named Cliven Bundy and the federal government over land use in Nevada. He met a number of members of the Oath Keepers around that time, and admits he was “swept up” by the rhetoric of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the group, who supported Bundy’s cause. Van Tatenhove was soon hired to do graphic design work for the Oath Keepers, to write about their cause – freedom from tyrannical federal control. He had a family to support; and now he had a steady income.
The more he delved into the message Rhodes was selling, the greater became his doubts. Fighting a tyrannical government? Yes. That would be a positive goal. One day, he stumbled into a conversation with four other members of the group. They were talking about the Holocaust being a hoax. He testified that he went home that day, told his wife he couldn’t continue, and resigned from his post.
Today, he warns, the Oath Keepers – who had such a large presence during the January 6 riot, and who had close connections with people like Roger Stone – has become a “violent militia.” Over time, he watched them become “radicalized,” “straight-up racist.” They had become a “white nationalist” organization. Their vision for this country, he warned, “doesn’t necessarily include the rule of law.”
Van Tatenhove was asked, specifically, about Stewart Rhodes’ interest in seeing President Trump invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 – an idea being floated by some of Trump’s most unhinged advisors. For one of the few times, since I’ve been watching hearings, I thought a witness was laying out his own theories and not hard evidence. Yet, what Van Tatenhove had to say still resonated. He said he believed Rhodes and his group would have seen that Act as validating their efforts, as cover for violence, opening a path toward their goals.
Had Trump invoked the Insurrection Act, he believed, it would have been “the spark of a civil war.”
“We got lucky,” he said, for on January 6, the bloodshed might have been far worse. Trump and a wide array of his enablers, from Alex Jones to Sidney Powell to Rep. Andy Biggs, had been dealing in “lies, deceit, and snake oil.” He said he feared a world in which Trump gained a second term.
He feared for the future of his three daughters and his granddaughter, and the nation, if the snake oil salesman ever saw the inside of the Oval Office again.
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.
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 reporton
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!”
(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.
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 sentencedto
four months’ incarceration, a year of supervised release, and fined $500.
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.
In
that case, he got 60 days in jail. But did he learn his
lesson? He did not. Bryan is a slow learner.
UPDATE
#2 (March 5, 2026): Mr. Battisti has now been
arrested and charged with – again: stalking, this time women on D.C. Metro
busses. The self-proclaimed white supremacist decided to have fun filming
himself touching women’s hair during his rides, without their permission. He
has, in fact, been banned from the Metro system, whether before of after he
posted his videos, I am unsure.
As
Washington CityPaper explains, “His public social media accounts, where he had posted videos
earlier this year of himself walking around Metro stations, brandishing a
knife, yelling racial slurs, and performing the Sieg heil! salute, were
switched to private by Monday evening.”
Trump supporter, right-wing type, violent,
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 peoplebound 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.”
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 ofmultiple, 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.
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.
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.
“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 20th. 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.
“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.
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.
UPDATE (January 20, 2025): Hemenway got the standard “Trump Pardon,” and
one he didn’t deserve. He had a previous criminal conviction for “sexual battery and
criminal confinement,” that sent him to prison for five years.
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.)
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.
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.
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 4th, 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.”
(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.
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.
UPDATE
#2: In the wake of President Trump’s blanket
pardons, Alam proves unable to stay out of trouble for long. In May 2025, he is
arrested once more, for “felony
residential burglary.”
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.
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.
defense lawyers representing Peter Schwartz, of
Pennsylvania, wrote in a sentencing memo that he was “motivated by a
misunderstanding as to the facts surrounding the 2020 election,” adding: “There
remain many grifters out there who remain free to continue propagating the
‘great lie’ that Trump won the election, Donald Trump being among the most
prominent.”
Prosecutors were 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 fourteen
years, two months, locked away for the good of society.
As for fines, the defendant
owes the government $2,920.
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.”
UPDATE: In October 2023 the Justice Department files
a motion to seize funds in Mr.
Schwartz’s prison account, because he still hasn’t paid all his fines. (He has
been getting wire transfers, and has a balance of $1,753.43.
UPDATE #2 (January 20, 2025): A man with a lengthy criminal record like Schwartz would be about the last
person a president should pardon. At the time of the January 6 riot, he was
fresh off a conviction for assaulting his wife, involving biting her in the
forehead and punching her repeatedly.
Trump supporter, he believed the election
was stolen,
right-wing individual,violent.
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!”
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.
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.
“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.”
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.”
“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.
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