Self-proclaimed white nationalist Richard Barnett will have to face the consequences after he was arrested for storming into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office while posing for a photo with his feet on her desk during Wednesday’s insurrection.
NBC reported that 60-year-old Barnett has been charged with entering and remaining on restricted grounds, violent entry, and theft of public property.
Barnett’s photo went viral after he posed for a photo in Pelosi’s office as a MAGA mob attacked the Capitol building while Congress met to certify the Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden. The attack on the Capitol building forced members of the House and Senate to evacuate as rioters flooded the hallways.
On Wednesday, he told the New York Times, “I left a quarter on her desk,” before showing off a personalized envelope he stole from Pelosi’s desk.
During an interview with the Washington Post, Barnett described himself as a white nationalist.
In one Facebook account name “George Reincarnated Patton” (named after the World War II general), Barnett wrote: “I came into this world kicking and screaming, covered in someone else’s blood” and was “not afraid to go out the same way.” The post included a picture of him wearing a Blue Lives Matter shirt and toting a rifle.
In a separate post, he wrote: “I am white. There is no denying that. I am a nationalist. I put my nation first. So that makes me a white nationalist.”
On Thursday, authorities released the first federal charges against the white terrorist mob. Federal prosecutors say that one man who was later identified as 70-year-old Lonnie Coffman from Alabama came to the riot prepared for battle. He was armed was with a semi-automatic rifle and a dozen Molotov cocktails “ready to go.”
