A Texas woman charged in connection to the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol reportedly said she participated because she “bought into a lie” from then-President Trump.
Jenna Ryan, a real estate agent who took a private jet to Washington last month, is charged with two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct and knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted government building.
“I bought into a lie, and the lie is the lie, and it’s embarrassing,” Ryan told The Washington Post for a story published Wednesday. “I regret everything.”
Ryan faulted her co-participants and the former president for what she said was a lack of support.
“Not one patriot is standing up for me,” she told the Post. “I’m a complete villain. I was down there based on what my president said: ‘Stop the steal.’ Now I see that it was all over nothing. He was just having us down there for an ego boost. I was there for him.”
Trump repeatedly claimed without evidence that President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election was the result of widespread voter fraud. House Democrats and individual people charged in connection to the Jan. 6 riot have accused Trump of inciting the mob that stormed the Capitol building, resulting in several deaths.
Ryan directly cited a speech the then-president made shortly before the riot began, saying she had no intention of storming the Capitol but that supporters became caught up in his exhortation to “fight like hell.”
Ryan left a clear social media footprint in connection with the riot, according to prosecutors. They cited a Twitter photo where she posed next to a broken window with the caption “window at The capital. And if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next” as well as another tweet reading “We just stormed the Capital. It was one of the best days of my life.”