Jenna Ryan says it all began with an invitation from a “pretty adorable dude” on Fb: Would she join him on a personal aircraft to the Jan. 6 Trump rally in Washington, D.C.?
The decision was quick. Ryan, a Dallas-region real estate agent, is single, enjoys President Donald Trump and thinks the discredited assert that the election was riddled with fraud.
But the excursion did not have a satisfied ending.
Within 48 hours of her return to Texas, social media posts built by Ryan, who livestreamed herself entering the U.S. Capitol with a mob of Trump supporters, have been getting shared with the FBI, and she would shortly develop into the target of a federal investigation.
She failed to get the dude, either. He strike it off with a unique girl, she claims.
“He was lovable,” Ryan explained in an interview. “And there was an additional lovable woman there, far too, and they finished up finding with each other, darn it.”
Ryan, 50, was arrested Friday on fees of disorderly perform and knowingly coming into a limited place.
But in the freewheeling and at periods combative interview, she expressed no regrets about collaborating in the Capitol incursion and claimed she thinks she fully commited no crimes.
“I have no guilt in my heart,” mentioned Ryan, who is also a lifetime mentor and radio host. “My intention was not to have a riot. I did not want to have a riot. I was documenting what was likely on in the ecosystem I was in.”
“I’m happy I was there,” she stated later in the job interview. “Simply because I witnessed heritage. And I am going to never get the prospect to do that yet again. … No one particular will possibly ever be capable to go around [the Capitol] once more.”
Ryan also downplayed the inflammatory language she applied in her social media posts on the day of the Capitol breach. In a video clip shot in advance of she headed to the building, Ryan reported, “We are going to go down and storm the Capitol.”
In the interview, she mentioned she was not suggesting an act of aggression.
“If you appear up the term ‘storm,’ you can storm in the kitchen. You can storm in and say, ‘No a lot more,'” she claimed. “I’m not storming in to eliminate persons. What I intended, life or dying, is if someone kills me, I will stand for my truth, even if another person kills me.”
The sick-fated excursion to Washington arrived alongside one another at the previous moment.
Ryan said the handsome stranger achieved out to her on Fb two days before the rally.
She experienced normally needed to go to a Make America Terrific Again function, and the idea of taking a personal jet to get to just one suited her just fine. But initially, she created certain her ideal good friend, Brian, who was also her “bodyguard,” would be ready to join.
“I often see all these MAGA rallies, so I reported, ‘Heck yeah, let’s go,'” she reported. “I mean, who wouldn’t go and get on a non-public jet?”
The excursion to Washington was fantastic, she said. The handful of individuals on the flight had been consuming and receiving to know a person one more. Ryan took a minute to snap a photograph within the cabin and put up it on her Fb page.
“We had been heading in solidarity with President Trump,” she stated. “President Trump requested that we be in D.C. on the 6th. So this was our way of going and halting the steal.”
Soon after paying the evening in a Washington lodge, they awoke about 6 a.m., set on their “Trump stuff” and headed out to mingle with other “like-minded Patriots.”
The team finished up remaining far too far again in the group to hear the speeches by Trump, Rudy Giuliani and other folks. But Ryan experienced a extra pressing trouble.
“There had been no port-a-potties,” she said. “We could not get to a port-a-potty.
“That was, like, my largest problem, in fact,” she additional. “Where’s the port-a-potty? Because I like to always know I have a toilet nearby.”
They ultimately returned to their hotel to heat up. They were horrified by what they saw on Tv as Vice President Mike Pence presided around a joint session of Congress to affirm the November election final results.
“We watched as Pence acknowledged the fraudulent election — what we feel to be fraudulent,” she stated.
“We were being devastated,” she explained. “It was like my father — somebody I like, anyone I regard — just betrayed an individual else I enjoy and I respect, like the place. … I could not believe it.”
Ryan said that she didn’t want to leave the hotel again — “I think we walked 20,000 methods that working day” — but that she determined to go along with her pals to the Capitol.
“I did not want to be at the resort by myself,” she said.
At some place before she stepped out of the hotel, she posted a video clip to her Facebook webpage showing her speaking to the camera in front of a toilet mirror. The movie has been deleted.
“We’re gonna go down and storm the capitol,” she mentioned, in accordance to federal prosecutors. “They’re down there appropriate now and that is why we arrived and so which is what we are heading to do. So desire me luck.”
Ryan said they pushed their way to the Capitol methods. In a single of the several clips she shot in the group and posted on the net, Ryan called out Mitch “turtleface” McConnell, complained that she experienced to go to the rest room and then mentioned: “We are armed and perilous. This is just the commencing.”
In courtroom papers, prosecutors stated a Fb Dwell online video taken by Ryan — which was captured before it was deleted and reposted to YouTube — reveals her getting into the Capitol by means of the Rotunda entrance.
“We’re going to f—ing go in here. Daily life or death,” she says at the commence of the online video, according to prosecutors. “It would not subject. Right here we go.”
When she achieved the prime of the stairs, Ryan turned on her rear-struggling with digicam and claimed: “Y’all know who to seek the services of for your real estate agent. Jenna Ryan for your realtor,” in accordance to prosecutors.
At a single position, Ryan posed for a photograph in front of a damaged window and posted it on Twitter. “Window at The capital,” she wrote, in accordance to federal prosecutors. “And if the news would not quit lying about us we’re heading to arrive following their studios following …”
In the job interview with NBC News, Ryan acknowledged that she entered the setting up immediately after photographs showing her within surfaced, but she reported she remained within for only two minutes and still left for the reason that she felt uncomfortable.
When further pressed about the violent language she applied in her videos, Ryan lashed out.
“If you want to skewer me in the media and make me out to be a violent man or woman because it suits your storyline, then, you know, that is a little something that you’re going to have to reside with in your lifetime,” she stated. “Mainly because I know my heart was to go there and permit my voice be read, no make a difference what. And I stood on the steps of the Capitol, and I did what I arrived to do. And I did pray.”
5 individuals died as a end result of the riot, which include a police officer and a lady who was shot by police.
Ryan stated she felt terrible for the loss of existence but insisted that she thinks she broke no rules.
“I, personally, sense innocent in every little thing that I have finished,” she claimed. “I sense like I was perfectly within my rights. I come to feel like the law enforcement officers were ushering men and women into the Capitol. There were hundreds of persons there. I have no guilt in my heart.”
Ryan borrowed one of Trump’s signature phrases to explain how she now feels becoming a concentrate on of the FBI.
“The FBI’s coming out and raiding my property for a misdemeanor,” she explained. “Using my MAGA hat. Ok? They took my MAGA hat.”
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Ryan also claimed she has “provided up on America” and would not vote once more since she believes the election technique is corrupt.
She reported she continues to be certain that the results have been fraudulent even while elections officials in all 50 states licensed them and dozens of judges, together with Republicans and some appointed by Trump, dismissed the promises.
“That failed to faze me,” she stated. She added, “No just one heard the proof.”
She now fears that all Trump supporters are heading to be branded as terrorists and silenced underneath President Joe Biden.
And she designed a plea for Trump to pardon her and the other nonviolent protesters. But if he isn’t going to, Ryan stated, she wouldn’t maintain it from him.
“I’m heading to assistance him no matter what he does,” she stated.