A California man faces federal charges in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, including for allegedly stealing documents from then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) desk.
The FBI began probing Allan after a tipster submitted information that included several posts Allan allegedly shared on social media showing rioters breaking windows at the Capitol, as well as “a disturbing post that said the next step of the Insurrection was to get rid of [Chief] Justice [John] Roberts,” the affidavit states.
FBI special agent Jeremy Linton, the affiant, wrote in the document that footage from within the Senate Chamber showed Allan taking a document from a desk, “folding it in half lengthwise, and placing it in his back left pocket.”
In a separate video posted on Facebook, Allan was seen standing outside the Capitol building holding multiple documents in his hand, the affidavit alleges. While displaying the documents, Allan said it was “a letter from Trump” and was “signed by Trump,” Linton wrote in the affidavit.
“I observed what appeared to be President Trump’s signature at the bottom of the document,” he wrote, adding that Allen said in the video that he had taken the documents he was holding from McConnell’s desk.
Asked by someone why he took the documents, Allan said in the video it was “because he was a ‘taxpayer,’” Linton wrote.
Allen was captured on video carrying a United States flag out of the Senate chamber, the affidavit notes.
“The flag in ALLAN’s possession appeared to have a gold fringe around the outer edges of the flag, a gold colored eagle affixed to the top of the pole, and a distinctive gold cord tied to the flag pole,” Linton wrote, adding the flag resembled one that had been standing near the main desk in the Senate chamber.
Sometime after Allen allegedly left the chamber with the flag, uniformed law enforcement officers entered the chamber through the same doorway Allen exited through, and in their “possession was a United States flag closely resembling the flag” Allan was seen carrying earlier, Linton noted.
In one of the videos cited in the affidavit, Allen said, “they took my flag,“ and ”they took it from me right before I left.”
More than a hundred people have already been arrested in connection with the unrest on Jan. 6, when protesters stormed the Capitol to interrupt the joint session of Congress while lawmakers were certifying electoral votes for President Joe Biden.
The storming has been widely condemned by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
