WASHINGTON – A casually photographed man sitting with his foot on a table in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the US Capitol while a pro-Trump crowd stirred the halls of Congress was arrested on Friday, police officials said. .
Richard Barnett, 60, of Gravette, Arkansas, was taken into custody in his home state on charges of entering and staying in restricted areas, violent entry and theft of public property, according to a Justice Department official. Additional details were not immediately available.
Images, apparently of Barnett, were spread across social media as deadly chaos unfolded in the nation’s capital on Wednesday, just as Democratic and Republican lawmakers met to count the votes of the Electoral College. Members of Congress condemned the violence and unrest, which were preceded by a demonstration led by President Donald Trump, who told his supporters to invade the Capitol, challenging the election results.
A state legislator from West Virginia, Republican Del. Derrick Evans, was also accused on Friday of connection with the Capitol disturbances, who recorded and deleted a video of him joining the crowd. A petition has been launched for him to resign.
As the chaos continued on Wednesday afternoon, a New York Times reporter tweeted that he spoke to Barnett after his feat at Pelosi’s office. In a video, he boasts that he took a personalized envelope, but insisted that he did not steal it.
“I left a 25 cent coin on her table,” he said.
Barnett also said he politely knocked on the California Democrat’s office door, but was taken inside by other protesters who had violated the Capitol. He said he left a “nasty note” too, using a bad word to refer to Pelosi.
“I will probably tell them that this is what happened until DC’s arrest,” he added.
It was not clear on Friday whether Barnett had a lawyer.
The mayor of Gravette said the photos brought threats and other unwanted attention to his small rural community near the Missouri border.
“It’s a shame that something like this is what puts it in the public eye,” said Mayor Kurt Maddox, according to NBC affiliate KNWA. “This is not the city of Gravette. That person is not who Gravette is and who the people are.”
Pelosi’s aides said his office was vandalized on Wednesday and confirmed that a laptop in a conference room was stolen. The equipment, however, was used only for presentations, an aide said.
Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have called for Trump to be removed from office in his final days at the White House.
The FBI is requesting public help in identifying other Trump supporters who illegally invaded the Capitol for about four hours, with investigators examining surveillance images and social media posts. But the vast majority of the hundreds of people who broke into the building were allowed to leave without being arrested, making the task of tracking them extremely difficult.
So far, dozens of arrests have been made, including 41 people who were on Capitol Hill grounds on Wednesday night and early Thursday, according to the DC Metropolitan Police Department.
Pete Williams reported from Washington and Erik Ortiz from New York.
Alex Moe contributed.