According to federal accusations, Kelly and Connie Meggs are members of the Oath Keepers militia who used the chaos around the US Capitol riot to enter the building in an organized “pile”. Camouflage dress, the couple husband and wife from Florida can be seen in security footage illegally entering the Capitol and walking around the building with other Oath Keepers.
Kelly Meggs, according to prosecutors, is an Oath Keepers leader with the alias “OK Gator”. Both Meggs are facing charges of conspiracy for their alleged role in the riot.
For sympathetic readers of the right-wing blog The Gateway Pundit, however, the Meggs are humble farmers kidnapped unjustly by the federal government and forced to deal with some loose donkeys. In a Tuesday post on Gateway Pundit, blogger Jim Hoft said the Meggs are about to lose their farm after an FBI operation in which, they say, the FBI accidentally released their donkeys.
“During the arrest, the FBI let all its donkeys lose (sic) in the neighborhood,” writes Hoft.
The donkeys were later returned to the farm. The solution to this injustice for Hoft’s far-right audience, according to his blog: donate tens of thousands of dollars to the Meggs.
The hooligans’ stories have made a lot of money on GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site that has become an option for right-wing figures who would likely be banned from more important sites like GoFundMe. The Meggs family raised more than $ 80,000 on Tuesday, while Oath Keeper’s family Kenneth Harrelson raised more than $ 160,000.
Members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers accused after the Jan. 6 rebellion were in a public relations blitz in the right-wing media, trying to reshape themselves as victims of government overkill and a violent FBI. They are also raising a lot of money along the way.
That public relations boost extended to Ashli Babbitt, the Air Force veteran who was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer while trying to break into the speaker’s lobby during the riot. Terrell Roberts, a lawyer for Babbitt’s family, appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program on March 12 and said the police should have arrested Babbitt.
“We should have some statement explaining why they needed to shoot this lady,” said Roberts.
Roberts declined to comment.
Much of the brilliant coverage of the riot suspects came from The Gateway Pundit, a popular far-right blog that often promotes hoaxes. Gateway Pundit founder Hoft, who holds a prominent place in the right-wing media to be invited to the Trump White House in 2019, has published several stories promoting fundraising for the mutiny suspects.
Proud Boy Christopher Worrell reportedly threw pepper spray at police officers at the start of the riot, according to a federal indictment, after traveling to Washington from Florida in a van with a team of other Proud Boys. Worrell wore a tactical vest and a headset for the riot, according to prosecutors. When police raided his home in East Naples, Florida, they found it full of Proud Boys equipment, including challenge coins representing different chapters of the group of far-right men.
The Gateway Pundit article on Worrell’s arrest, on the other hand, makes no mention of the Proud Boys. The blog post states that Worrell was “arrested by feds heavily armed with tank trucks”, an unusual way of describing armored trucks.
While Kelly and Connie Meggs were embraced by right-wing blog readers, Harrelson, another Florida Oath Keeper who reportedly entered the Capitol alongside them, may have had the best reception.
Harrelson, who faces a conspiracy count and three other charges, allegedly planned ahead of the riot with other Oath Keepers in meetings with pseudonyms like “Gator 6” or, sometimes, just using his own name. Harrelson was caught on video entering the Capitol illegally alongside the Meggses, according to his accusation.
Like other supporters of suspected riot suspects, Harrelson’s wife, Angel Harrelson, appeared on The Gateway Pundit to claim that her husband was being treated unfairly and that FBI agents destroyed her home while carrying out a search warrant.
“They started escorting me out of my house,” she said. “I was upset that my stuff was going to be thrown everywhere and that it would make a big mess. “
In a message posted on The Gateway Pundit, Angel Harrelson stated that the Oath Keepers are “made up of a diverse group of people”
“One of the worst lies being spread about them is that, in some way, they are ‘white supremacists’,” wrote Harrelson’s wife. “This is insulting and ridiculous. I am Cajun and therefore my ancestors and family members are black and also American Indians. “