Video Seems to Expose Christian Nationalist Republican Lawmaker’s Participation in January 6 Rebellion

Doug Mastriano, Pennsylvania Senator and proponent of former President Donald Trump’s false electoral claims, faces a new wave of criticism after evidence emerges of Mastriano’s allegations of his participation in the January 6 uprising in the U.S. Capitol to question. Mastriano, who describes his entry into politics as a religious mission and presents resistance to pandemic-related mask mandates as a Christian duty, positions himself as governor.

Mastriano used his Senate campaign funds to charter buses to take Trump supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6. Mastriano has since condemned the violence in the Capitol, claiming he “never” crossed the police lines and entered the Capitol. or walked on the steps of the Capitol.

On Saturday, the Sedition Hunters, described by HuffPost as “an online community working to identify those involved in the riot,” reported footage of Mastriano on the Capitol grounds, a video that has since been reviewed by other journalists has been. The video and the pictures “contradict each other [Mastriano’s] claims he never broke police lines and left the area before violence broke out, “HuffPost’s Josephine Harvey reported Tuesday.

The Philadelphia Inquirer published a similar analysis of the evidence, noting that it appears to show that Mastriano “stayed and got closer to the Capitol building longer than he had previously acknowledged.” The footage shows Mastriano and his wife walking through police barricades and being thrown aside by rioters. Other images “show the couple moving from the west side of the building – after the police lines had been broken there – across the Capitol lawn towards the northeast corner with a mob who would eventually break down the barriers there too,” reported the investigator on Tuesday.

Pennsylvania Spotlight, an organization investigating right-wing extremism in the state, investigated Mastriano’s claims about the schedule of its activities on Jan. 6. Earlier this month it was reported that “Senator Mastriano was at the forefront of the deadly uprising, seeing the first and second attempts to breach the Capitol only came after the first signs of violence, but after taking a few selfies with people, which he supposedly does not know. “

One of the people Mastriano posed with on January 6th was former State Representative Rick Saccone, who posted on Facebook on January 6th, “We’re storming the capital” and “Our avant-garde has broken the barricades.” In addition to Saccone, HuffPost reported that Mastriano posed for a photo this month with Samuel Lazar, “a Trump militant whose photo is on the FBI’s wanted list for the Capitol Riot”.

Mastriano responded to the video evidence by smearing investigators as “angry partisans who are so blinded by Donald Trump’s hatred of everything that they falsify facts in order to manipulate public opinion”.

Last week, Mastriano claimed he recently met with Trump at Trump Tower for more than an hour and said Trump asked him “a few months ago” to run for governor with promises to promote him. But the next day, Trump adviser Jason Miller tweeted that Trump “has not yet made any approvals or commitments in this race.”

Mastriano has declined previous calls by some of his colleagues to resign on January 6 for his participation. On Wednesday, Democratic MP Brian Sims, who is running for lieutenant governor, called for Mastriano’s arrest and prosecution:

ARREST MASTRIANO: This is an important thread and makes it clear that as a Nation of Laws we MUST arrest and prosecute people like @SenMastriano, especially if they use the skills acquired from our own @USArmy to turn on the nation and lead an attack against us. https://t.co/l9NCT8A8Nr

– Brian Sims (@BrianSimsPA) May 26, 2021

After the November election for President Joe Biden was scheduled, Mastriano used his platform as a Senator to promote the Trump campaign’s false claims of election fraud and to rail against his Republican lawmakers for failing to act to discard the results . He hosted a one-day “field hearing” in Gettysburg during which Trump campaign lawyers reeled out their conspiracy theories about the election. He appeared on right-wing radio programs and online prayer calls calling on God to intervene and reject the election results. Mastriano repeatedly called for “decisive action” and an end to the “tremors,” a language repeated by one of his bus drivers who tweeted: “The truth is known, we are storming the capital … we were fed up with DITHERING be !!!”

In a profile recently published in the New Yorker, Mastriano was portrayed as the embodiment of aggressive Christian nationalism in the Republican Party, an analysis in line with Right Wing Watch’s coverage of the Senator.

PICTURED: Senator Doug Mastriano (left) from the US state PA poses with former MP Rick Saccone in the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Photo shared by Saccone on Facebook.)

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here with permission.