Trump backers from Polk reflect on D.C. attack
Locals promote unproven claim that invaders were left-wing imposters
Gary White
Glynnda White rode on a bus from Haines City to Washington, D.C., in hopes that she would witness history – a congressional challenge resulting in a second term for President Donald Trump.
Instead, the Winter Haven resident was present for a different sort of history. She joined others from Polk County standing outside the United States Capitol as rioters stormed its sacred halls and disrupted the congressional debate.
White said Thursday that she didn’t get close enough to see the incursion into the Capitol that shocked the nation and prompted calls for Trump’s removal from office.
“I personally did not see anyone go in,” said White, 58. “I saw them at the top of the stairs on the front and the back side. There were some people that broke into a scaffolding. They were covered up by plastic, and they broke through and climbed up to the top and planted some flags and stuff on top.”
As law enforcement officials continue to investigate the violent invasion of the Capitol, White said she didn’t think anyone from Polk County was involved. She traveled to Washington with other members of the Winter Haven 9-12 Project, most of whom are her age or older, she said.
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White, who directed the Polk County Republican Party headquarters in the 2020 campaign, said three buses of Trump supporters traveled from Florida to Washington to attend a rally at which Trump spoke Wednesday morning. She estimated that 80% of the roughly 150 travelers hailed from Polk County, with others picked up at stops elsewhere in Florida.
The rally revolved around a conspiracy theory promoted by Trump — that he won the 2020 election if not for fraudulent actions that made Democrat Joe Biden the victor. A day after the rally, White and other Republicans from Polk County embraced a new conspiracy theory: Those who invaded the Capitol had not been Trump supporters but were infiltrators from Black Lives and Matter and “Antifa,” a name given to a loose collective of left-wing activists.
White described seeing protesters with megaphones near the rally and along the march to the Capitol.
“Before we got there, we had intelligence that the people who were wearing camouflage hats turned backward were actually Antifas trying to infiltrate, and guess what all these people were wearing?” she said. “All of them had camouflage hats turned backwards. What they were trying to do, I believe, was incite.”
Photos and video from inside and outside the Capitol showed invaders — most of them white men — wearing shirts or hats or carrying flags bearing Trump’s name or likeness. By Thursday afternoon, many had been identified as Trump backers, including at least one from Florida.
But White and others from Polk County insisted that those who attacked the Capitol had been imposters.
'Carefully orchestrated'
Amilee Stuckey, state committeewoman for the Republican Party of Florida, traveled from Lake Wales to Washington with her 12-year-old son and two others to attend the rally. Like White, she joined the march to the Capitol early Wednesday afternoon.
Stuckey said Thursday that barriers had been knocked down by the time her group approached the Capitol, and while she might have seen people entering the building, she was too far away to be certain. She said she joined a group that sang the national anthem, recited the Lord’s Prayer and chanted “Stop the Steal,” a reference to the election.
“It is my firm belief that the police let certain people in before we got there because when we got there, the whole outside was filled with D.C. Metro Police, and that’s as far as we were able to go,” Stuckey said. “And they shot tear gas at us several times. I had my young son with me, and they shot tear gas at us and we were outside.”
There have reports that rioters fired tear gas at police during their push toward the Capitol. The situation was chaotic, and many details of what happened have not been confirmed.
More:Capitol stormed: Polk reps flee chamber as protesters take over
Stuckey, like White, dismissed reports that those who stormed the Capitol were Trump backers.
“I will tell you distinctly that Trump supporters did not breach the Capitol building,” she said. “We weren’t there yet. They had already been let in because those Capitol police did not let us get any further.”
Told about the many images of invaders in the Capitol wearing Trump gear, Stuckey remained adamant.
“Anybody can buy that stuff,” she said. “There’s vendors all over the place out here yesterday. They could have bought it right then, for all I know. We had been warned in advance that they were going to do that, that there were going to be Antifa amongst us dressed like Trump supporters to cause mayhem.”
Asked for evidence to support her claims, Stuckey said she had seen tweets and Facebook posts reporting that those who attacked the building were left-wing imposters. She described the raid on the building as “a carefully orchestrated attempt” to make it seem that Trump followers were to blame.
Royal Brown III, White’s husband, did not go to Washington. Brown, president of the Winter Haven 9-12 Project, a conservative group, said many of his members did make the trip. Based on what he heard them his wife and the others, Brown also promoted the claim that the Capitol attack was carried out by leftists in disguise.
“If you you want to know what they said, they think people that stormed inside the Capitol were not Trump supporters,” he said. “They were Antifa and BLM people disguised as Trump supporters, trying to imitate them.”
Brown said the apparent lack of security to block the entrance to the building seemed suspicious.
“You normally have a huge amount of security — Capitol police, Secret Service — and they seemed to be woefully inadequate, so that kind of lends itself to the very real possibility that they were purposely let inside so they could create the myth that this was all Trump’s fault and this was his supporters’ fault,” Brown said.
'More common sense than that'
While many Americans of all political allegiances have questioned the failure of law enforcement to stop the siege, video showed protesters overpowering police and forcing their way toward the building.
Brown said that he has attended rallies since joining the Tea Party movement a decade ago and has never seen any violence.
“I’m just saying a normal, average Trump supporter has more common sense than that,” he said. “They would not have done that. All you have to do is do an internet search. It’s all over the internet about this being planned ahead of time.”
White also cited online postings to support her claim that imposters had carried out Wednesday’s incursion. She said she doesn’t read “mainstream” news sources.
Asked for the source of her information, she mentioned American Media Periscope, a site that promotes “QAnon” conspiracy theories, and far-right blogger Mike Adams.
Since the election, Trump has called on followers to reject the results and to pressure members of Congress — and even Vice President Mike Pence — to nullify the results. Asked if Trump bears any responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, Stuckey said, “That’s ridiculous.”
Trump released a brief video Wednesday afternoon, as the siege continued, calling on those inside the Capitol to leave. He did not condemn their actions and said “We love you” and “You’re very special.”
Stuckey said the video didn’t mean Trump was condoning the assault on the Capitol.
“He’s talking to Trump supporters who were there to support him,” she said. “He’s not talking to the Antifa who breached the building.”
Kat Gates-Skipper, president of the Lakeland Republican Club, said she helped plan the bus trips for Polk County residents. She also asserted that those responsible for the invasion of the Capitol were not actually Trump loyalists.
“All we were doing was a peaceful protest,” she said. “The unfortunate part is we knew ahead of time that we were going to have members of Black Lives Matter and Antifa who were going to be infiltrating our Trump group, which they did. Those are the ones you see doing things they shouldn’t have been doing.”
'Very disappointed'
Former congressman Dennis Ross, a Republican who spoke at a Trump rally in Lakeland during the 2016 campaign, had a different reaction to Wednesday’s events, which he called “tragic.”
“I think that his comments were inciteful,” Ross said of Trump. “There are those that followed their passion to be there, and I think they have been misled that violence is the way to effectuate change in government. I’m very disappointed to see the president do that. Very disappointed.”
Ross, now director of the American Center for Political Leadership at Southeastern University, said he has “no regrets whatsoever” about supporting Trump’s run for president. But he said Wednesday’s event will cast a shadow over Trump’s legacy.
“Unfortunately, what happened yesterday — and he did so much good for the economy, he did so much good for American-Israeli relations and bringing peace to the Middle East like it’s never been done before, he stood up for America in foreign trade,” Ross said. “All those elements that I think would otherwise be plums of a legacy will be tarnished because of what happened yesterday.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.