A Maryland man who turned himself in with authorities earlier this week after allegedly assaulting law enforcement officers at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 said he was not there in support of former President Donald Trump.
“I had a bat. They were pepper spraying people. Then, they got me in the eye,” he told an unidentified reporter in the clip.
Jackson continued to explain he joined the protests to fight for America because the nation has been “taken over by globalists,” adding that he is “not here for Trump.”
“Fighting for America,” the man is heard saying after he was asked what he is doing in Washington. “We’ve been taken over by globalists, by the Chinese. Fighting for America. I’m not here for Trump. I’m here for America,” he continued.
Jackson also said he decided not to vote in the 2020 election because he thought his vote wouldn’t count, adding that he “learned a lesson” and will vote in the future.
“I thought my vote didn’t count, but I learned a lesson, and I will vote next in the midterms and in other elections,” he said.
Jackson was seen in surveillance video from outside the Capitol “repeatedly striking a group of both U.S. Capitol and Metropolitan Police Department uniformed officers with a metal baseball bat,” FBI agent Riley Palmertree wrote in a court filing obtained by The Epoch Times.
Photographs and video footage appeared to show the man holding and swinging the bat while wearing a blue surgical mask that partially covered his mouth but left his nose visible.
Jackson was charged with assaulting an officer, assaulting an officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon, obstruction, unlawful entry and physical violence on restricted building or grounds, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
He faces decades in prison if convicted.
