Prosecutors to jury on woman who stormed Pelosi's office: 'Looks can be deceiving'

Prosecutors opened the trial of Riley Williams — a diminutive 23-year-old Pennsylvania woman who stormed into the Capitol and entered Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office on Jan. 6, 2021 — with a plea to jurors: don’t be fooled by her appearance.

“She doesn’t look like someone who would fight through tear gas and … physically attack police standing in her way,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon said. “Looks can be deceiving.”

Rather, Gordon said, Williams was at the vanguard of rioters who forced their way into the building, filming them as they shattered a Senate-wing window that led to the broader breach. She surged inside and directed other rioters toward Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office where she encouraged those present to take a laptop — one that the speaker used for conference calls.

Later, Gordon said, Williams clashed directly with police, using larger men in body armor as a buffer to push against police lines and bragging to friends about the tactics she used to frustrate police’s efforts to clear the building. Despite repeatedly posting on social media about the events of the day, she later deleted her social media accounts and messages and considered fleeing before turning herself in to police. She used industrial-grade software to wipe her computer as well.

Williams’ decision to enter the Capitol followed weeks of obsession over the election results, prosecutors said, fueled by her consumption of podcasts that fueled false claims that the election had been stolen from then-President Donald Trump.

“She hated former Vice President Mike Pence,” Gordon said. “She hated Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi even more.”

The case is one of the most unusual to emerge among the 900 people being prosecuted so far for their role in the mob attack on the Capitol. Williams was charged quickly after Jan. 6, and video emerged showing her on Capitol grounds carrying a distinctive zebra-print bag that helped law enforcement track her movements in the voluminous video taken of the riot.

Prosecutors have charged Williams with eight counts, including participating in a “civil disorder” and obstruction of Congress’ Jan. 6 proceeding — a felony charge that carries a 20-year maximum sentence — and aiding and abetting the theft of Pelosi’s laptop.

Her trial began on the date of the first national election since the one prosecutors say she attempted to prevent, and it came amid a furor over the mounting threats against members of Congress — and Pelosi herself. A top aide to Pelosi, Jamie Fleet, is expected to testify about the events of the day and the effect of the riot on congressional operations.

Williams’ attorney Lori Ulrich said there’s little doubt that Williams acted improperly and that the video the government has of her actions includes disturbing elements of the riot. But she encouraged jurors to take a different view of her client: “A girl wanting to be a somebody.”

Williams, she said, was little more than “a girl” in “fuzzy boots and a green T-shirt” who overstated her actions in social media boasts. Williams had traveled to Washington with her father and two other people to attend Trump’s Jan. 6 rally and got separated from them before joining the march to the Capitol, her attorney said.

“She wasn’t out to hurt Nancy Pelosi,” Ulrich said. “She wasn’t out to hurt anybody.”

Ulrich emphasized that prosecutors have not charged Williams with taking Pelosi’s laptop — only with “aiding and abetting” others, a charge she said exaggerated what Williams actually did inside Pelosi’s office. She never went into the House or Senate chambers, and when she entered the building itself, she posted on social media that she had stormed the “White House.”

The case against Williams, Ulrich said, amounted to “Let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.”

Among the issues that will come up in trial is Williams’ intense interest in the Groypers, the name given to followers of white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes, a prominent purveyor of claims that the 2020 election had been stolen. Williams shared memes about her actions on Jan. 6 that indicated she was motivated by those messages, and her green T-shirt that she wore during the riot read “I’m with Groyper.”