Lawyer is arrested in Capitol assault after Facebook bragging
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Updated: A Georgia lawyer who was arrested Friday for alleged participation in the U.S. Capitol riot Jan. 6 had bragged on Facebook about taking control of the Capitol “in a hand to hand hostile takeover," prosecutors say.
Lawyer William McCall Calhoun Jr., identified as McCall Calhoun in previous coverage, said he was among the first couple hundred people to rush inside the Capitol, according to an affidavit posted by WUSA 9.
“Now we’re all going back armed for war and the Deep State is about to get run out of DC,” he allegedly wrote on Facebook.
Calhoun said the mob was looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Get this,” he allegedly wrote. “The first of us who got upstairs kicked in Nancy Pelosi’s office door and pushed down the hall towards her inner sanctum, the mob howling with rage—Crazy Nancy probably would have been torn into little pieces, but she was nowhere to be seen—then a swat team showed, and we retreated to the rotunda and continued our hostile takeover of the Capitol Building.”
Calhoun was arrested Friday and charged with entering a restricted building or grounds, violent entry or disorderly conduct, and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant, according to Law360.
Calhoun had previously told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he was among the first people inside the Capitol, and the mob was “patriotic” and “heroic.”
He previously told Law.com that he entered the Capitol, but he did nothing wrong.
“We just walked in, and the police watched us,” he said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Weigle denied bail for McCall at a telephone hearing Thursday, report Law & Crime, Law.com and the Associated Press.
Weigle said language in McCall’s online posts is “extremely violent,” and he is a risk to the community.
According to Law & Crime, Weigle said McCall “has been corrupted by, or seduced, by a dangerous and violent ideology that considers the United States to be in a state of civil war, that considers everyone who voted for a Democrat to be worthy of execution, that considers every government official and agent to be part of a ‘deep state’ who need to be opposed by so-called patriots.”
McCall’s public defender said social media posts cited by the government were “partisan, loud, rhetorical comments,” but there is no evidence linking McCall to violent acts. The lawyer also said McCall’s legal clients were relying on him.
Updated Jan. 21 at 4:30 p.m. to include information from the bail hearing.
