A Republican running for governor of Michigan who was at the January 6 Capitol riot has been arrested by the FBI.
Ryan Kelley was taken into custody in his home in Allendale on Thursday morning, said special agent with the FBI Mara Schneider.
Kelley is the first person running for office in a big state or federal race to be charged in connection with the January 2021 insurrection.
In a court filing, an FBI agent stated that Kelley appeared to use his phone ‘to film the crowd assault and pushing past US Capitol police officers’. Kelley used ‘his hands to support another rioter’ taking a metal barricade down’, the FBI agent said. He also made gestures to other insurrectionists, ‘consistently indicating’ that they should advance into the Capitol building to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election.
‘Come on, let’s go! This is it! This is, this is war, baby!’ Kelley shouts in video footage from the scene.
When the video of Kelley emerged last June, Michigan Democratic Party spokesperson Rodericka Applewhaite stated that he ‘has no business seeking an elected position in the same government he tried to overthrow’.
Agents identified Kelley partly because what he wore during the riot was similar to the clothing he donned at the May 2020 American Patriot Council ‘Judgement Day’ rally in Michigan, the filing states.
Kelley has been charged with committing violence against a person or property in restricted grounds, disorderly conduct, damaging federal property and entering restricted grounds or buildings without permission.
The four charges are misdemeanors, a spokesman for the US attorney’s office in the District of Columbia told .
Kelley, a real estate broker from a Grand Rapids suburb, is facing four other Republican candidates in the effort to challenge incumbent Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer in the general election in November.
He was scheduled to appear at the US District Court in Grand Rapids later on Thursday.
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