A California man accused of taking government documents he said were from Mitch McConnell’s desk and attempting to steal an American flag from the Capitol has been charged in connection with the deadly riot there earlier this month.
Tommy Frederick Allan was arrested on charges of violent entry or disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, entering a restricted building or grounds and damage or theft of federal property, according to a criminal complaint filed Jan. 20 in federal court in Washington, D.C.
An arrest warrant outlines how two people sent tips to the FBI alleging Allan was part of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Authorities have said the riot led to the deaths of five people, including a Capitol police officer.
The first tipster sent photos and videos from Allan’s Facebook page that show the suspect inside and outside the Capitol, according to the arrest warrant.
The second person said they were also aware of such photos and videos but reported Allan deleted his Facebook page. That same tipster said Allan destroyed the documents he took from the Capitol when he returned home to Rocklin, California.
Upon further investigation, the FBI discovered Allan flew from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 5 and returned to California on Jan. 7.
Videos of the Capitol riot taken by both journalists and security camera show Allan, with an American flag in one hand, take a document from a desk in the Senate Chamber and stash it in his back pocket, the arrest warrant said. A law enforcement officer stopped Allan from leaving with the flag, but he got out with the papers, the videos show, according to the arrest warrant.
Another video, posted on someone else’s Facebook page, shows Allan holding the documents outside the Capitol, authorities said in the warrant. One of the documents read “Senate of the United States, One Hundred Seventeenth Congress, Calendar of Business, Wednesday, January 6, 2021.”
Allan tells the person recording the video that one of the papers was “a letter from Trump” and was “signed by Trump,” and a signature resembling Trump’s is visible on the paper, according to the FBI. He also can be heard saying he removed documents from the desk of then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
When someone off-camera asks him why he took the documents, he says he is a “taxpayer,” according to the warrant.
A public defender assigned to Allan said she and her client had no comment.
Allan appeared in court following his Jan. 22 arrest and was released, according to federal court documents. He is due back in court Friday.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
