Two men who have been charged in the Capitol riot recorded gleeful — and embarrassing — shots of themselves in the Rotunda that day, boasting that they had “crashed the White House.”
Nope.
The goofy foul-up was exposed in an FBI affidavit late last month supporting criminal charges against wannabe big shots Jeffrey Shane Witcher and his friend Richard Franklin Barnard, both of Texas.
“I am in the White House! We crashed this! Our house! We did it! We did it, family, we did it!” Witcher said in a cellphone video, according to the affidavit.
“We did it! We’re in the White House!” Witcher added in case viewers didn’t get the mistake the first time around. “I’m out here with my brother Richard Barnard. ... It’s our house, it’s our house! Our house! Hey family, we did it. We came, and we did it. We’re inside the White House. Our house.”
Witcher eventually got his bearings, and later explained to investigators that he was “so emotional and invested in the moment” that he was confused, recounted FBI agent Mark Winters.
So Witcher then shot a second video selfie. “We’re in the Rotunda,” he said in the new try. “Our house, our house, our house. .... Man, I’m so proud of us.”
Witcher and Barnard have been charged with a variety of offenses in the Capitol insurrection, including trespassing, disorderly conduct, and disruption of the orderly conduct of government business.
Read the entire affidavit here.