A Trump supporter who participated in the January riot at the Capitol has now been arrested by federal authorities after a fellow patient at a dentist’s office in New York heard him bragging about his actions and alerted investigators. That Trump supporter, Daniel Warmus, “talked of smoking marijuana inside the Capitol and refusing a police officer’s order to leave the building, and even proudly played a video from Jan. 6,” as The Washington Post summarizes a federal filing against him.
The fellow dentist’s office patient had submitted Warmus’s phone number and home address to authorities, and he was arrested on Tuesday in Buffalo. Now, Warmus has been charged with crimes including “knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority” and “violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds,” the Justice Department says. As summarized by the Post, “Security footage shows that Warmus entered the Capitol at 2:17 p.m. on Jan. 6, authorities say, just minutes after rioters overwhelmed police officers trying to prevent them from entering the building.” He exited the building some 16 minutes later, footage reveals.
Investigators confirmed through phone records obtained via a search warrant that Warmus’s phone was in use around the Capitol on the day of the rioting. He is one of over 400 Trump supporters who are facing federal criminal charges after participating in the Capitol violence in January, where followers of the then-president attempted to forcibly stop the formal Congressional certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
The rioters proceeded under the explicit pretense of Trump’s lies about the security of the 2020 presidential election, which he has consistently falsely claimed was somehow rigged in favor of Joe Biden. Even after the violence, Trump has refused to stop pushing this lie, and many Republican leaders have not pushed back, allowing space for the delusion.
