Traveling companion of Capitol riot defendant details talk of dragging Pelosi from building

A former Texas militia member who drove to Washington to join the pro-Trump protests on Jan. 6, 2021 testified Friday that he and his traveling companion – the first person to face trial over the storming of the Capitol – talked about violently pulling Speaker Nancy Pelosi from the building.

“We said she needs to be dragged out by her ankles and her feet,” said Rocky Hardie, a member of the Texas Three Percenters, testified as he detailed his interactions with defendant Guy Reffitt, a fellow member of the militia. “I made a joke that I imagined her head going down the stairs, going boom-boom-boom-boom.”

But Hardie told jurors that banter was in jest and that he didn’t think Reffitt — or anyone else — would get near lawmakers that day given the prospect of intense security.

“I didn’t think he or anybody was going to get close to the Capitol. I thought that was impossible,” said Hardie. “I just never took it seriously.”

“I didn’t think it was something that anybody was going to act on,” continued Hardie, who testified under a grant of immunity that precludes his testimony from being used to charge him. “I had no concept before I went to D.C. that there would be anything other than people standing around listening to the president and going and standing around the Capitol building. It seems like we were joking around. I considered it hyperbole.”

Whether Reffitt regarded the talk of targeting “corrupt” politicians merely as idle chatter is less clear. He became one of the earliest members of the pro-Trump crowd to cross police lines and approach the foot of the Capitol, where he confronted police seeking to stop his advance.

Police repeatedly pelted Reffitt with pepper balls and other projectiles, eventually dousing him with bear spray. He never entered the Capitol, but can be seen on video appearing to egg on the horde of President Donald Trump’s supporters to storm the Capitol doors.

Reffitt is charged with five felonies, including attempting to obstruct Congress’ Jan. 6 meeting to finalize the 2020 presidential election, a charge that carries a 20-year maximum sentence. He’s also charged with transporting a firearm into D.C. and bringing it onto Capitol grounds. Jurors were shown video this week of Reffitt squaring off with Capitol Police officers on the steps of the Capitol alongside the stage that was set up for Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Hardie said the pair agreed to take their handguns and semi-automatic rifles into Washington, even though they knew they were breaking the law because they didn’t have permits for them.

“We agreed on that one concept,” he said. “We said, ‘OK, we’re willing to take that risk.’ We felt like nobody would ever know, nobody would get hurt. We’d be in. We’d be out, and everybody would go on with their lives.”

Hardie said he and Reffitt decided to bring the weapons to D.C. to defend themselves or others from Antifa or other left-wing activists — the specter of the threat from counterprotesters has been a ubiquitous defense for many of the Jan. 6 defendants who wielded weapons or other gear meant for physical confrontation. Hardie said those kinds of worries drew him to the Three Percenters militia and led him to meet Reffitt, who was in charge of vetting new members.

“During the summer, they had a lot of riots and the news media that I would watch on YouTube showed a lot of Antifa burning this down, destroying things, breaking windows,” Hardie said. “I started looking around for some group of people that was like-minded that if I got in trouble I could pick up the phone and say, ‘I need some help.’”

Hardie claimed he did his own vetting of the group. “I asked if they were racist. They said no. I said are you like a white supremacist group. They said no. I said: Do you hate the government? They said no,” he said.

While Hardie is cooperating with the government, he also made clear he continues to maintain many of the beliefs he contends animated him and Reffitt on Jan. 6. He said he believed then that the presidential election was stolen and continues to believe that today.

“My perception that the election was stolen is very, very significant as kind of a catastrophic event for our country,” he said.

Hardie’s testimony was the exclamation point for prosecutors on their third day of testimony against Reffitt, a day after Reffitt’s son Jackson testified about his own concerns about his father’s radicalization. Jackson Reffitt told jurors about his decision to report his dad to the FBI two weeks before Jan. 6 and to surreptitiously record him after his return.

Upon his return home, according to the recordings made by Jackson Reffitt, his father bragged about his encounter with police, calling one of them — Capitol Police officer Shauni Kerkhoff “cute” for attempting to stop his advance and saying he was “proud of her.” Kerkhoff testified Wednesday about her fear as Reffitt led a large crowd to the foot of the Capitol. Video and testimony from Kerkhoff indicated Reffitt refused multiple commands to leave the area and pressed forward even amid a barrage of pepper balls, stopping only after he was pepper sprayed in the face.

Prosecutors are nearing the end of their case, an important and crucial test as they prepare for dozens of subsequent trials against many of the nearly 800 people charged with breaching the Capitol. Those charged are facing crimes ranging from seditious conspiracy, obstruction and police assault to misdemeanor trespassing and picketing in a restricted area, and the Justice Department has called the investigation the most complex in U.S. history.

Prosecutors are likely to rest their case on Monday after they call one more FBI agent, two Capitol Police officers and another member of Reffitt’s family, his daughter Peyton. Then, Reffitt will have a chance to present a defense beyond the relatively perfunctory cross-examination his attorney has conducted so far. But his attorney, William Welch, indicated Friday that he may not call any witnesses at all, sending the case immediately to closing arguments and jury deliberations.

Judge Dabney Friedrich, who at times expressed exasperation with the pace of the prosecution’s presentation of evidence, said it’s possible the trial could go to the jury by Monday or Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, jurors were given a crash course on the significance of the Jan. 6 session, a constitutionally and legally required meeting of Congress to count electoral votes — the final step in the presidential election process. Daniel Schwager, a top aide in the Senate on Jan. 6, 2021, explained the intricacies of the session to the jury, part of prosecutors’ effort to show that Reffitt’s actions contributed to the disruption of a solemn — and constitutionally mandatory — event.

But the more salient and searing part of Schwager’s testimony was the description of the alarm that swept through the Senate as Capitol Police and Secret Service began evacuating senators and Vice President Mike Pence from the chamber.

“From the moment I was told that protesters had breached the Capitol, I was in a state of alarm. We were in a grave situation at that point,” Schwager said, adding that he observed a police officer with “an orange sash and a long gun” positioned in the middle of the Senate chamber.

Schwager was followed by Secret Service special agent Paul Wade, who was part of Pence’s protective detail on Jan. 6, 2021, specifically detailed to his wife Karen and his daughter Charlotte.

Wade walked jurors through a detailed timeline of Pence’s departure from the Senate chamber, accompanied by surveillance video of agents escorting Pence to a secure location amid the breach of the building.

“The information received led us to believe there was imminent threat as people were breaching the building at that time. So, the decision was made that the vice president should be relocated,” Wade said.

Wade also noted that the agency decided to move Pence’s motorcade away from the East Front of the Capitol, a decision he said was driven by the swelling crowd approaching the Capitol.

“People were breaching the bike racks and getting into the plaza,” he said. “Our first thought was to relocate the motorcade.”

Jurors were then shown surveillance footage of Pence’s motorcade relocating.