All the president’s men: Four Trump supporters charged in U.S. Capitol riots, including thief of Nancy Pelosi’s lectern and face-painted man who sat in VP Pence’s seat
This Trump-crazy gang of four doesn’t rank among Washington’s best or brightest.
Four of the president’s riotous supporters, including a newly elected West Virginia politician, faced federal charges Saturday for their high-profile appearances in the U.S. Capitol riots that left five people dead.
Each of the president’s men was photographed or caught on video during Wednesday’s violent insurrection after Trump delivered a two-hour harangue insisting his loss to President-elect Joe Biden came in a rigged election.
Two became literal poster boys for the despicable event: One for walking off with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s official lectern, the other for posing shirtless while seated in Vice President Mike Pence’s chair on the Senate floor.
A third, politician Derrick Evans, was busted in part when investigators compared his voice on a live-streamed video from the Capitol with his voice-over from a campaign ad, according to court documents.
“Our house! Our house!” Evans shouts in the video.
Hours after his arrest became public, Evans submitted his resignation effective immediately from the West Virginia House of Delegates — barely five weeks after taking the oath of office.
The feds’ case against Proud Boy and accused rioter Nick Ochs was made easier when Ochs bragged to CNN about how easy it was to get into the Capitol. “We didn’t have to break in. I just walked in and filmed,” Ochs said. “There were thousands of people in there — they had no control of the situation. I didn’t get stopped or questioned.”
Until he got back home to Hawaii, where the feds picked him up at the airport in Honolulu.
Adam Johnson, the giddy Florida man snapped while lugging the lectern with the speaker’s seal during the wild Wednesday rampage, wasn’t laughing Saturday.
Johnson, 36, of Bradenton, Fla., was taken into custody shortly after 9 p.m. Friday and held without bail on a warrant issued by federal marshals, authorities said.
Johnson, a father of five, was photographed while gleefully toting the lectern through the Capitol in the midst of the rioting — with the photo instantly going viral.
He also posed while wearing a “TRUMP” ski cap for a second photo alongside a sign reading “Closed to all tours” inside the building, authorities said.
Fellow rioter Jacob Anthony Chansley — better known as “QAnon Shaman” Jake Angeli — was arrested Saturday for wandering shirtless through the Capitol with his face painted red, white and blue while wearing a horned headdress. Investigators noted his “unique attire and extensive tattoos” in identifying the 32-year-old suspect.
But there’s more: According to court documents, Chansley actually called the FBI’s Washington Field Office to confirm he was the bizarrely-clad man seen sitting in Pence’s seat.
Authorities also noted he was carrying a 6-foot spear festooned with an American flag tied just below the blade.
The self-proclaimed shaman said he was under the sway of Trump when he traveled from Arizona to the nation’s capital, answering the president’s request for all “patriots” to attend the rally-turned-riot, court papers alleged.
Last but hardly least was Evans, 35, spotted in a live Facebook stream as he joined rioters in unlawfully entering the Capitol, court documents said.
“We’re in, we’re in!” shouted the law-breaking lawmaker two days before his Friday arrest. “Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!”
Evans, who issued a post-riot statement Wednesday claiming went to the Capitol “as an independent member of the media to film history,” had previously revealed his true motivation on social media, officials said.
“This is why we’re are going to DC #StopTheSteal,” he wrote hours before the rioting, in a retweet of a Trump tweet claiming 4,000 bogus ballots were found in Fulton County, Ga.
One rioter was shot dead by Capitol Police, one police officer was killed by rioters, and three other demonstrators died during the violence fomented by Trump in the first assault on the Capitol since a British attack in 1814.
