EX-SOLDIER ARRESTED IN CAPITOL RIOT INVESTIGATION

Congress was days away from certifying the 2020 election results when Jeremy Brown, a retired Special Forces soldier and onetime congressional candidate, offered others a ride to the U.S. Capitol in an RV he dubbed “GROUND FORCE ONE.”

“Plenty of Gun Ports left to fill,” he wrote on encrypted chat app Signal, according to federal court documents. “We can pick you up.”

Brown, who showed up to the Capitol on Jan. 6 decked out in military gear, was arrested this past week in Tampa, Fla., in connection with the riot that sought to stop lawmakers from formally tallying President Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors charged Brown with knowingly entering restricted grounds and engaging in “disorderly or disruptive conduct.”

Brown couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Saturday. It was not clear if he had hired an attorney.

Roughly 600 people have been charged in the attack, some of them highly-trained former military or law enforcement officers. Brown, who is in his 40s, had deployed twice each to Iraq and Afghanistan, Army officials told The Washington Post in January. In 2020, he filed paperwork to run as a Republican in the Florida congressional district that encompasses Tampa but dropped out before the general election.

According to a statement of facts from the FBI, law enforcement agents spoke with Brown by phone on Jan. 6 and 7. He told them he was in Washington to provide security “for VIPS at the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.” He made similar statements to The Post in January.

Later in the month, a witness who claimed to have known Brown for “multiple years” gave investigators photos of him in military garb outside the Capitol, according to court documents. Investigators compared the photos with other images and body-camera footage from the riot, saying they showed Brown outside the building’s east doors.

At the time, Brown was equipped with a helmet, radio and a tactical vest. He also carried zip ties and had “large surgical trauma shears” tucked into a vest pack, documents state.