MAGA rioter found with shooting target of Dem lawmaker and roll of 'Q' stickers: Feds
When the FBI searched the home of Capitol rioter Andrew James Williams, they found a photograph of an unnamed Democratic lawmaker with a shooting target superimposed over her body.
In the photograph, the Democratic lawmaker "had a beret with a hammer and sickle symbol on her head," according to a sentencing memo filed Friday by federal prosecutors.
"During his pre-sentencing interview with law enforcement, Williams stated that this target was a 'secret Santa' gift from a co-worker," the memo states.
In addition to the shooting target, FBI agents found "a roll of 'Q' stickers" in Williams' home.
Williams, a firefighter from Sanford, Florida, pleaded guilty in November to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing inside a Capitol building.
Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 30 days in jail.
"As a first responder, the defendant must have known that the rioting mob posed a great threat to the law enforcement officers heroically seeking to discharge their duties, not to mention the civilian occupants of the Capitol," prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo. "But seeing greatly outnumbered police officers and broken windows did not give him pause or cause the defendant to turn away from the riot. Instead, he celebrated his role in the attack on the Capitol while breezing by his fellow first responders."
Williams' attorney, Vincent A. Citro, also cited his client's life-saving work as a first responder in a sentencing memo, according to CBS News' Scott MacFarlane. Citro is arguing for leniency and a sentence of time served.
Williams reportedly is on unpaid leave from the Sanford Fire Department pending his sentencing and the results of an administrative investigation.
'Quick reaction force' waited for orders within sight of the Capitol — but Oath Keepers say they’re from another group
An enduring mystery from the Jan. 6 insurrection remains unclear, and one photojournalist doesn't understand why the FBI isn't doing more to solve it.
The indictments of Oath Keepers co-founder Stewart Rhodes and others on seditious conspiracy charges show that militia members stashed firearms and ammunition at a Virginia hotel so "quick reaction forces" could quickly move the weapons to the U.S. Capitol, but there's no indication they ever left the Comfort Inn Ballston, reported HuffPost.
“We will have several well equipped QRFs outside DC,” Rhodes wrote on Jan. 6 before leaving. “And there are many, many others, from other groups, who will be watching and waiting on the outside in case of worst case scenarios.”
There's very little known about the specific actions those other groups took, or who they are, but photojournalist Jay Westcott believes he saw some of them at the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial about an hour after a military "stack" of Oath Keepers breached the Capitol.
“It is a straight line of sight three miles to the Capitol building,” Westcott said. “The radios that they had were very capable of getting there.”
He saw the suspicious-looking group at about 3:30 p.m. using radio equipment at the memorial, and he shot some photographs from a distance.
“The thing about that location is you have access to every major road into D.C. just from that one spot,” Westcott said. “A quick reaction force with a lead foot, they could’ve been in the Capitol building in less than 10 minutes.”
Westcott reached out to the FBI afterward to share the evidence he'd gathered, and his employer ARLNow published the photos in March with the men's faces blurred out, but he said investigators have contacted him at any point.
“I haven’t heard anything. I’ve heard zero,” he said. “It’s unbelievably frustrating to know that I have hard evidence, tangible physical evidence that shows details, that shows faces, and that the government and FBI have the technology to take advantage of that and haven’t.”
The FBI declined to comment on the QRFs or Westcott's claims, but the current acting president of the Oath Keepers reviewed the photos and insisted she didn't recognize the men.
“I don’t think that’s them,” said Oath Keepers head Kellye Sorelle. “Nobody recognized them.
Westcott said he's willing to share his photos with the FBI, which he realizes complicates his role as a journalist.
“It’s a sticky situation to be in," he said. "On one hand, as a journalist I have a responsibility to protect my notes and raw files as protected under the First Amendment ... [but] if they had succeeded, there wouldn’t be a First Amendment to protect anymore.”
Oath Keepers leader’s wife reveals photos of elaborate tunnel ‘escape’ network in backyard
‘I might have pics of the real thing somewhere, my daughters used them as a playhouse,’ estranged wife says of ‘elaborate’ backyard tunnels https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stewart-rhodes-wife-oath-keepers-tunnels-b2001979.html
