WASHINGTON – A man sitting comfortably with his foot on a desk in the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the office of the US Capitol while a pro-Trump mob invades the halls of Congress has been arrested taken, law enforcement officials said.
Richard Barnett, 60, of Gravette, Arkansas, was arrested in his home country on charges of trespassing and staying on restricted grounds, violent access and theft of public property, according to a Justice Department official. Further details were not immediately available.
Images, apparently of Barnett, were circulated on social media as the deadly chaos unfolded in the country’s capital on Wednesday, just as Democratic and Republican lawmakers rallied to count the electoral college’s votes. Congressmen condemned the violence and riot, which was preceded by a protest led by President Donald Trump who told his supporters to swarm the Capitol in defiance of the election results.
Friday charged in connection with the riots at the Capitol, was a state legislator, West Virginia, Republic of Derrick Evans, who recorded a video and then removed himself from the crowd. A petition has begun to retire.
As the chaos continues Wednesday afternoon, a New York Times reporter tweeted that he spoke to Barnett after his stunt in 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 quarter on her desk,” he said.
Barnett also claims he politely knocked on the door to the California Democrat’s office, but was then swept inside by other rioters who violated the Capitol. He said he also left a ‘nasty note’ by using an explicit to refer to Pelosi.
“I’ll probably tell them this is what happened up to the DC jail,” he added.
It was not immediately clear Friday whether Barnett had a lawyer.
The mayor of Gravette said the photos brought threats and other unwelcome attention to his small, rural community near the Missouri border.
“It’s unfortunate that something like this puts you in the public eye,” Mayor Kurt Maddox was quoted as saying by the NBC affiliate KNWA. “This is not the city of Gravette. This one person is not who Gravette is and not who the people are.”
Pelosi staff said her office was vandalized on Wednesday and confirmed that a laptop had been stolen from a conference room. However, the equipment was used only for presentations, an assistant said.
Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have called for Trump to be removed from office amid his last days in the White House.
The FBI is asking for the public’s help in identifying other Trump supporters who illegally invaded the Capitol for about four hours, with investigators overseeing surveillance footage and social media posts. But the vast majority of the hundreds of people who stormed the building were allowed to leave without being arrested, which made the task of locating them extremely difficult.
So far, dozens of arrests have been made, including 41 people who were at the Capitol site on Wednesday and early Thursday, according to the DC Metropolitan Police Department.
Pete Williams reports from Washington, and Erik Ortiz from New York.
Alex Moe contributed.