CLEVELAND, Ohio – An Ohio bartender accused last month of storming the U.S. Capitol in military equipment was charged Friday in a comprehensive indictment of nine members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group that authorities say the certification of Joseph Biden as president.
Jessica Watkins and other members of the anti-government faction were charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official process that took place on January 6, the day hundreds of protesters rioted to prevent then-President Donald Trump from losing the election.
“I will not worry about that,” she said in a message to a friend a few days after the attack, according to federal documents filed this week.
She was initially charged last month with conspiracy charges with Donovan Crowl, both of Champaign County in southwestern Ohio, for what authorities called their roles in violating the Capitol. This week, federal authorities filed additional charges.
The new indictment, in the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, offers the broadest charges filed since the riots in which five people were killed, including a Capitol Hill police officer. The allegations again underscore that many people who attacked the Capitol did so based on the belief that Trump wants them there.
Minutes before the tragedy, Trump gave a heated speech on the fight for America.
In addition to Watkins and Crowl, the federal authorities also made other arrests in connection with the case this week. They charged three others from Florida, one from North Carolina, one from Virginia, and Sandra Parker and her husband, Bennie, from Warren County in southwest Ohio.
An FBI statement filed in the case said several of the accused had joined Watkins and Crowl to form a ‘military bar formation’, where they had aggressively marched through the crowd to the Capitol in ‘ a single file, with some of them building.
“We’re tackling the Capitol,” Crowl said in a message to Watkins, according to the affidavit. “We overran the Capitol.”
Watkins, the document reads, retorted, “We are in the Capitol.”
The others charged with Watkins and Crowl include Kelly Meggs, who was named by the authorities as the leader of the Florida Oath Watchers. Like Watkins and Crowl, according to federal authorities, he wanted to hear from Washington after hearing Trump’s insistence on patriots to attend the Stop the Steal rally.
In a release, they quoted a Facebook message from Meggs before January 6: ‘Trump said it was going to be wild !!!!! It’s going to be wild !!!!! He wants us to make it WILD. This is what he says. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild! Sir Yes Sir. Gentlemen, we’re on our way to DC. Pack your s – t !! ”
Chapters of the oath-takers contain many former military and police officers who believe the U.S. government is depriving residents of their rights and freedoms, authorities said.
The FBI affidavit alleges that the Parkers rented rooms at Watkins and Crowl at the same hotel in Arlington, Virginia. According to the FBI statement, they spoke several times before and after the riot.
In a message to Bennie Parker in the days after the attack on the Capitol, Watkins writes: ‘I followed the FBI’s wanted list. They are only interested in people who have destroyed things. I will not worry about them coming after us. ”