Government

TX Realtor Goes To Riot Seeking Boyfriend, Finds FBI Instead

Has she never heard of Bumble?

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(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Who among us hasn’t gone insurrectioning after a Facebook message from a random “very cute guy” and wound up facing federal charges? Youthful indiscretion, right?

“I always see all these MAGA rallies, so I said, ‘Heck yeah, let’s go,'” recently arrested rioter Jenna Ryan, 50, told NBC’s Cynthia McFadden. “I mean, who wouldn’t go and get on a private jet?”

And so it was that Texas realtor/life coach/MAGA talkshow host boarded a plane at Denton Municipal Airport headed for D.C. on January 5 and surged into the Capitol with thousands of rioters on January 6 in an attempt to overturn the election results.

In a strategy guaranteed to delight her future counsel, Ryan documented the day extensively on social media, and then went on to give interviews to multiple media outlets describing the conduct for which she was charged.

No doubt the FBI is also pleased that Ryan skipped the face mask in favor of a distinctive hat and scarf.

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“We’re gonna go down and storm the capitol. They’re down there right now and that’s why we came and so that’s what we are going to do. So wish me luck,” she said to her hotel bathroom mirror and all of Facebook. But Ryan was quick to disabuse McFadden of the wrongheaded notion that this was an expression of premeditated intent to break the law. “If you look up the term ‘storm,’ you can storm in the kitchen. You can storm in and say, ‘No more,'” she said. “I’m not storming in to kill people. What I meant, life or death, is if someone kills me, I will stand for my truth, even if someone kills me,” she said.

Before entering the Capitol building, she tweeted a photo of herself next to a broken window, saying “Window at The capital [sic]. And if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next…” And by “come after” she probably meant ” come after is like succeed, you know, like, the news studios will go first, and we’ll come and say stuff on social media after, lol obvs.”

Later she livestreamed the mob entering the building, saying “we are going to fucking go in here. Life or death, it doesn’t matter. Here we go,” before turning the camera on herself to remind the audience “y’all know who to hire for your realtor. Jenna Ryan for your realtor.” Always be closing!

Despite the federal charges, Ryan insists she did nothing wrong, telling McFadden “I, personally, feel innocent in everything that I have done. I feel like I was perfectly within my rights. I feel like the police officers were ushering people into the Capitol. There were thousands of people there. I have no guilt in my heart.”

And while she feels bad about the five people who were killed that day, she knows that the real victim is … Jenna Ryan.

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“I do not feel that I did anything wrong. In fact I feel that I did something noble and I’m proud of being there. I have no shame to be there. I feel very persecuted and I feel very misjudged,” she told another interviewer.

“I think we all deserve a pardon. I’m facing a prison sentence. I think I do not deserve that and from what I understand, every person is going to be arrested that was there, so I think everyone deserves a pardon, so I would ask the President of the United States to give me a pardon,” she told yet another news outlet. (Pity her poor lawyer.)

The Justice Department, however, does not appear to be anticipating presidential intervention. It charged her with one count of disorderly conduct and one count of unlawfully entering a restricted building. And, while Ryan complained about the FBI “raiding my house for a misdemeanor,” acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin promises that supplemental charges will be forthcoming for many of the indicted rioters.

And she didn’t even get the guy!

“He was adorable,” Ryan told McFadden. “And there was another adorable girl there, too, and they ended up getting together, darn it.”

Ah, well. Time to take some advice from Jenna Ryan, life coach.

On the bright side, looks like Ryan will be getting another trip to DC real soon! Don’t forget your past … Transmute it.

Charging Documents
Texas real estate agent on Capitol riot: ‘I’m glad I was there’ [NBC]

Elizabeth Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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