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- An FBI affidavit filed this week details at length how a Trump supporter who participated in the siege on Capitol Hill turned over evidence of his potential crimes to an FBI agent.
- In an e-mail to the agent, which the accused addressed as “Nice FBI Lady”, he attached several videos which allegedly featured his voice and footage recorded inside and outside. exterior of the Capitol.
- The accused, Kevin Lyons, also described to officers how he entered the office of “big boss” Nancy Pelosi after entering the Capitol.
- Lyons has been charged with “knowingly entering or remaining in any building or restricted land without legal authorization” and “violently entering and driving disorderly on Capitol grounds”.
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
Federal agents have arrested more than 30 people since a violent mob of supporters of President Donald Trump besieged the U.S. Capitol last week to stop the peaceful transfer of power.
In an affidavit against one of the accused this week, the FBI detailed how he turned over evidence of his potential crimes to an agent he referred to as “Nice FBI Lady,” and explained how he got in. in the office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who he described as “big boss”.
According to the affidavit, the accused, Kevin Lyons, posted several photos on social media showing his intention to attend a January 6 rally in Washington, DC, titled by the president. Trump has been widely accused of inciting the Capitol riot during his rally, in which he urged his supporters to march to the Capitol, “fight” the 2020 election results and “take back our country “.
A photo Lyons posted to his Instagram account was a screenshot of a map showing the route from Lyons’ home in the Chicago area to Washington, DC. In the caption, Lyons wrote that he “was heading to DC for STOP THE STEAL!” After the coup attempt, Lyons posted another photo on the social media platform of a wooden sign reading “Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi”. The caption from Lyon accompanying the photo read: “WHAT HOUSE?!?!? OUR HOUSE !!”
The FBI affidavit said that when officers questioned Lyons about the second photo on January 8 – two days after the riot – he said he was surprised investigators found it because it was not on its account only for an hour before being disassembled. Lyons added that he couldn’t “guarantee he posted it,” but then showed officers the same photo, which he had recorded, on his phone, according to the affidavit.
It was also “evasive” to reveal if he had entered the Capitol, the document said, but told officers he had a “dream” in which he saw “a lot of knocking on doors, paper threw in and a crowd of people. ”Lyons went on to say that the people in the dream“ didn’t really have a choice of where they were going because of the crowd ”and that if he was at the inside the Capitol, it was for about 45 minutes.
Lyon also showed officers video footage recorded inside the Capitol. When asked if he would be willing to hand the video over to the FBI, the defendant said the file was too large to send and offered to upload the videos to YouTube and send the links instead.
“Hello Nice FBI Lady, here are the links to the videos,” Lyons said in an email to FBI Land’s special agent, according to the affidavit. “Looks like Podium Guy is in one of them minus the podium. Let me know if you need anything else. Kevin Lyons.”
“Podium Guy” referred to Adam Johnson, another pro-Trump insurgency who was pictured carrying Pelosi’s lectern off Capitol Hill and has since been arrested. The lectern was also recovered.
The FBI affidavit states that the three videos Lyons sent of footage of people inside and outside the Capitol, and his voice could be heard everywhere.
During the interview with FBI agents on Jan. 8, according to the affidavit, Lyons gave a detailed description of his trip to Washington, DC, his march to the Capitol with the pro-Trump mob, and his entry into the Capitol, wandering around the building and entering the “big boss’s office.”
“Lyons was asked if this was a reference to Nancy Pelosi and he said yes,” the affidavit reads. Based on Lyons’ description of the events in which he participated, the FBI felt that there were probable grounds for accusing him of violating a federal law that prohibits people from knowingly entering or staying in any building or restricted land without legal authorization to do so; and violate a federal law prohibiting violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Lyons appeared before a judge after being arrested on federal charges this week and was released on $ 10,000 bail. His court-appointed attorney, Lawrence Wolf Levin, made no remarks at the hearing, the Chicago Tribune reported. Levin did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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