WASHINGTON — The head of the Wyoming Republican Party, who was on restricted Capitol grounds during the U.S. Capitol riot, delivered a speech at the former president’s rally on Saturday.
“I would run through barbed wire for that guy, how about you?” Frank Eathorne asked the crowd.
The rally was held in support of Harriet Hageman, a GOP activist who is running against Rep. Liz Cheney in the party primary in August. Eathorne had pushed for Cheney to be censured after she voted to impeach Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
Eathorne, according to images and videos reviewed by NBC News, was on the restricted grounds on the west side of the Capitol on the day of the riot after members of the mob bypassed several police barricades.
Evidence unearthed by members of the “Sedition Hunters,” a community investigating the Jan. 6 attack, shows Eathorne in a mob in front of the inauguration platform Joe Biden would be sworn in two weeks after the attack. The location was the scene of brutal battles between law enforcement and pro-Trump rioters, although the exact time of Eathrone’s arrival is unclear.
In videos, members of the mob chanted “Stop the Steal” as others straddled the inauguration platform with a giant “TRUMP” banner held a few feet above Eathorne’s head. One image posted to Instagram shows Eathorne at the front of the crowd.
Eathorne has admitted that he was near the Capitol on Jan. 6, saying in a statement after the attack that his trip to D.C. included “a brief stop in the vicinity of the Capitol building property.” He claimed he observed no violence or property damage.
NBC News has reached out to the Wyoming Republican Party for comment.
May 7, 202208:43
Thousands of Trump supporters, like Eathorne, entered the restricted grounds of the Capitol on Jan. 6, but only a handful of defendants have been charged with misdemeanor offenses for their presence.
The Justice Department has mostly focused on rioters who entered the Capitol building and those who assaulted law enforcement officers outside the building.
Eathrone had a “short, questionable career as a Worland police officer” and “served as a parole officer in south Texas” before becoming the head of the Wyoming Republican party, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.
Citing a whistleblower document, the outlet noted that Eathorne was also affiliated with the Oath Keepers, an organization that was headed by a man now facing seditious conspiracy charges in connection with the Capitol attack.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
