Brandon Straka, a gay supporter of Trump who launched the #WalkAway social media campaign encouraging voters to leave the Democratic Party, was arrested in connection with the attack on the United States Capitol this month.
Straka was arrested on Monday in Nebraska, where he grew up, and accused of preventing police officers during civil unrest, intentionally entering restricted areas and engaging in disorderly conduct with the intention of disrupting an audience before Congress, New York’s NBC reported. .
Straka, 44, who describes himself as an “ex-liberal”, was a scheduled speaker at a “Stop the Steal” rally on January 5 at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC The FBI received several tips about his presence in the siege mortal following day, according to a federal statement, including a complaint from a woman who claimed to be Straka’s relative.
Special Agent Jeremy Desor detailed a series of tweets and videos that Straka did during and after the attack. They have already been deleted.
In a tweet, he summoned “patriots on the Capitol” to “keep the line!” according to the statement.
The deposition says that a video posted on YouTube by a witness shows Straka at the doors of the Capitol saying, “We are entering. They are saying that we are entering. We are entering.”
At one point, the crowd was challenged by a Capitol cop with a shield. Straka told them, “Get it out of him,” according to the statement.
The clip ends with Straka at the top of the stairs, the document says.
“I was very close to entering when the police started tearing us up,” says the screenshot of a tweet the FBI said it received. “I inhaled tear gas and put it in my eyes. The patriots started to leave shortly after saying that Congress had been released.”
Straka reportedly tweeted after the attack that he was “confused” with conservatives who repudiated the protesters.
“For 6 to 8 weeks, everyone on the right said ‘1776!’ and that if the congress advances, it will mean a revolution! Therefore, the congress advances “, he wrote, according to the complaint. “Patriots invade the Capitol – now everyone is virtually signaling their embarrassment that this has happened.
“Maybe I missed the part where it was agreed that this would be a revolution of ice cream cones and braid parties to get our government out of lying, deceiving globally interested swamp parasites,” he added. “My bad.”
Straka also rejected conspiracy theories that the protesters were antifa, or anti-fascists, disguised activists, according to the complaint.
“Be ashamed and hide if you need to – but I was there. It was not Antifa on the Capitol. They were freedom-loving Patriots who were DESPERATE to fight for the ultimate hope of our Republic because literally no one cares about them. Everyone can report them. I’m not going, ”he wrote on Twitter, according to the complaint.
At least 150 people were indicted for the attack.
Straka, who made his Twitter account private, did not respond to a request for comment.
Straka, a former hairdresser and aspiring actor, became a right-wing social media star in 2018 when he released a video on YouTube explaining why he decided to “step aside” from the Democratic Party, using #WalkAway as a slogan for his fledgling movement .
“Once upon a time, I was a liberal,” says Straka in the six-minute clip. “For years, I watched as the left became intolerant, inflexible, illogical, hateful, misguided, ill-informed, non-American, hypocritical, threatening, insensitive, ignorant, narrow-minded and, at times, blatantly fascist behavior and rhetoric.”
The video, which has been watched millions of times, earned Straka followers of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter, as well as a $ 10,000 donation from Alex Jones of Infowars and an invitation to appear on Fox’s “Ingraham Angle” News. The Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks Russian interference in the US elections, claims that the success of # WalkAway was a result of Russian bots.
Last year, Straka’s campaign held rallies in Dallas, West Hollywood, California and Washington, DC In June, Straka was banned from American Airlines after refusing to wear a mask on a flight from New York to Dallas.
On President Joe Biden’s inauguration day, Straka acknowledged the sadness of his followers in a Facebook Live video, but said he was “excited about our future”.
“I just feel like there’s a lot to be excited about. It’s an era of major reforms that has just begun,” he told viewers, adding that there was now “an opportunity for us to wake people up. [and] connect with people. “
“I don’t believe the rallies will stop,” he said in the clip. “I don’t believe that our families or communities will stop.”
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