They could go out and feel like they were protectors of America.
MARCY WHEELER She was, I think, given an identity in the Oath Keepers that probably replaced what she had in the military. MICAH LOEWINGER Marcy Wheeler, an independent journalist who publishes on her site, has been poring over all of the reporting and court records related to the 6th. MARCY WHEELER This is a woman who had served honorably in Afghanistan and was from a place in Ohio where there really wasn't much going on. MICAH LOEWINGER Following our report on these communications, in January, the Department of Justice began quoting these Zello chats in indictments, along with quite a bit of information about Watkins' alleged plans and motivations. They're throwing grenades, they are freakin shooting people with paintballs. According to other footage discovered by Internet sleuths, she helped lead the crowd in pushing the east entrance door open before fighting her way into the Capitol Rotunda.
We see Jessica Watkins dressed in full battle rattle.
Ford zooms in on one of the people involved and a patch that he has on his back that says, "I don't believe in anything, I'm just here for the violence." They march up to the east entrance of the Capitol building just a few minutes before the doors are breached.
There is a column of Oath Keepers who are very clearly part of a unit. HAMPTON STALL In the footage shared by Ford Fischer of News2Share. MICAH LOEWINGER Jessica Watkins can be seen in livestream footage taken around this time showing a line of militia members very deliberately parting the crowd as they approached the doors. We have probable cause, acts of treason, election fraud. ONE PERCENT WATCHDOG You are executing citizen's arrest, arrest this assembly. MICAH LOEWINGER And encouraging her to kidnap politicians. This is a can of whoop*ss made in America. ONE PERCENT WATCHDOG US military news is reporting that the national Capitol has been breached. While she's working her way through the mob outside the building, she has One Percent Watchdog and others in her ear, sharing intel from home, cheering her on in real time. MICAH LOEWINGER The wild thing about listening to an active insurrection on Zello is the group dynamic. They're not even trying to stop us at this point. JESSICA WATKINS And we're about two blocks away from it now, and police are doing nothing. But first, let's follow her to the Capitol. MICAH LOEWINGER More on that in a moment. We've got about 30-40 of us who are sticking together and sticking to the plan. MICAH LOEWINGER This next part is what federal investigators seem most focused on. And everybody is marching on the Capitol. ONE PERCENT WATCHDOG What percentage of the crowd is going to the Capitol? One Percent Watchdog later told me over text that he didn't know Jessica, or that she was in the channel, though the two can be heard in conversation. The Oath Keeper now indicted for breaking into the Capitol. MICAH LOEWINGER And that, of course, is Jessica Watkins.
I'll give you a boots on the ground update here in a few. JESSICA WATKINS Oh hey brother, we're boots on the ground here. ONE PERCENT WATCHDOG OK, guys, we're on open channel here now. The next day I had it running in the background while I watched the violence unfold on TV. MICAH LOEWINGER On January 5th, Hampton and I noticed that One Percent Watchdog, the guy I introduced you to at the beginning of the show, had created a channel called Stop The Steal J6 with about a hundred people in it. ZELLO 3 Once we go operational, this channel will just be for intel gathering and organizing on the back side. How about if all of us stand the f*ck up and take this sh*t back? I got a problem with f*cking patriots not growing a f*cking set of god damn nuts. ZELLO 2 That's what the f*ck I got a problem with. After Zello refused to take action against militia organizing on its platform last year, this is what the app sounded like in the lead up to the insurrection. With the events of January 6th, you can see how those pieces began to coalesce. It felt like the writing was on the wall, but we didn't know for what. And I've laid out how the app allowed me to document the potential relationships between far-right groups and the police all across the country. So far in this hour, I've explained how I first came across Zello back in 2019 as I was watching these militia groups organize around hurricane relief. MICAH LOEWINGER This is On the Media, I'm Micah Loewinger.