Protester with feet on Nancy Pelosi's desk is a Trump supporter from Arkansas

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Protester with feet on Nancy Pelosi's desk is a Trump supporter from Arkansas
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[size=1.385em]Colin FreemanThu, January 7, 2021, 7:37 AM EST








Richard Barnett sits on the desk of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - Shutterstock

[size=1.385em]A Capitol protester pictured with his feet up in the offices of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been identified as Richard Barnett, a self-described 'white nationalist' Trump supporter from Arkansas.

[size=1.385em]Mr Barnett, 60, who was one of several protesters who stormed into Ms Pelosi's office, wrote her a "nasty note" and took a letter from her office addressed to a Republican Congressman.

[size=1.385em]After then fleeing outside, he waved the letter around and gave a foul-mouthed interview to a waiting reporters, where he complained of having been squirted with mace spray by police trying to protect the building.

[size=1.385em]He mockingly denied stealing the envelope, saying he had left some loose change on Ms Pelosi's desk by way of payment.

[size=1.385em]“I didn’t steal it. I bled on it because they were macing me and I couldn’t f—ing see,” Mr Barnett said, according to video posted on Twitter by a New York Times reporter.

[size=1.385em]“So I figure ‘well, I’m in her office, I got blood in her office, I’ll put a quarter on her desk even though she ain’t f—ing worth it."  

[size=1.385em]He added: "When the police came in with pepper spray, “I said, ‘I paid for this, it’s mine,’ and I left."

Richard Barnett with the letter he took from Nancy Pelosi's office - Shutterstock

[size=1.385em]Mr Barnett, who goes by the nickname of "Bigo", was accompanied into Ms Pelosi's office by several other President Trump supporters, all of them wearing  “Make America Great Again” hats.

[size=1.385em]The letter he took from Ms Pelosi's office was addressed to Billy Long, a Republican Congressman in Missouri.

[size=1.385em]According to reports, Mr Barnett had previously been interviewed by media at a pro-Trump rally in November where he backed President Donald Trump's claims of voter fraud.

[size=1.385em]He claimed that he had tried to knock on Ms Pelosi's door first, and had simply been swept into her office by the crowds pushing behind him, but appeared to acknowledge that many people would not believe him.

[size=1.385em]“I’ll probably be telling them this is what happened all the way to the DC jail,” he said.

[size=1.385em]In a Facebook post he maintained under a pseudonym Mr Barnett earlier wrote “I am white. There is no denying that. I put my nation first. So that makes me a white nationalist.”

[size=1.385em]In another post from December, the Washington Post reported Mr Barnett wrote that he “came into this world kicking and screaming, covered in someone's else's blood,” before adding “I'm not afraid to go out the same way”.