Congresswoman Mary Miller’s husband, R-Illinois, tried to distance himself from what the FBI says is a “radical militia group” linked to last month’s Capitol siege after his truck was seen on Capitol Hill that day with a big decal promoting the group.
When news of the decal promoting the “Three percent” militia group surfaced this week, Miller’s husband, Illinois state deputy Chris Miller, told the Daily Beast that “he knew nothing about [the group] until fake news “started asking questions about the sticker seen on his vehicle.
In a statement to ABC News, Chris Miller said his son received the sticker “from a family friend who said he represented patriotism and love for the country”.
Miller insisted that he was never a member of the group.
But this is not the first time that he has helped promote Three Percent. In videos posted online, including a video posted on his own Facebook page, he stood in front of a Three Percenters banner – and a QAnon sign – last year while protesting the Democrats.
“We can be grateful [that] nor ‘Crooked Hillary’ or ‘Creepy, Sleepy Joe’ will ever be the president of the United States, “he said in the video, which was filmed at a May 2020 rally in Springfield, Illinois, where he and many others protested the measures. to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. “We can be grateful … for having a great American patriot in the White House who is determined to make America great again.”
An Illinois-based group that helped organize the rally uses a logo with “Three percent” images. The group promised followers before the demonstration that “some great speakers” would be participating.
In another video of his comments posted online, Chris Miller stated, “We identified our domestic enemies as Nancy Pelosi.”
On January 6, on the same day that a violent mob stormed the Capitol based on false claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from then President Donald Trump, his pickup truck was seen outside the Capitol building with the Three decal Percenters your rear window.
The link between the truck and Congresswoman from Illinois was first reported on Thursday by the Twitter account @capitolhunters, which is helping to research those who participated in the January 6 attack, according to the Daily Beast.
The day before the January 6 riot, Mrs Miller faced resignations after she quoted Hitler at a rally outside the Capitol building.
“Hitler was right about one thing: he said, ‘Whoever has youth has a future,'” she told her supporters at the January 5 event. She has since apologized, but said critics have “distorted” her words.
A spokesman for Rep. Miller told ABC News that the congresswoman joins her colleagues in condemning the January 6 violence and that “she and her family were in no way involved in the violent attacks”. The spokesman did not respond to ABC News questions about Miller’s husband.
The Justice Department has publicly accused several of those involved in the Capitol siege of having ties to the Three Percent.
“To put it in context, the three percent … is a domestic militia that defends resistance to the US federal government’s policy that it considers violating personal, local and gun ownership rights,” wrote an FBI agent in a set of indictment documents.
The group’s name derives from the view that only three percent of the population can successfully overcome a corrupt government.
According to Chris Miller’s statement provided to ABC News through a spokesman, all Capitol protesters linked to the Three Percenters only “copied their name” since the “original” Three Percenters were “a non-violent group anti-government “that has since been” dissolved “.
Members of the movement’s most recent iteration “were not involved in the January 6 riots,” Miller said in his statement. But officials contested that claim, as the photos showed three Percenter banners in the riot, and the FBI – according to an ABC News count – arrested at least five followers of the group on charges stemming from its role in the attack.
However, Chris Miller has already removed the Three Percent sticker from his truck, the statement said.
Ben Siegel of ABC News contributed to this report.