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Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged 61-year-old Jeffrey Grace of Clark County, Wash., with entering the U.S. Capitol Building during the failed insurrection Jan. 6.
According to an affidavit filed in federal court, an FBI agent interviewed Grace outside of his Battle Ground, Wash., home on Jan. 21. Two days prior, the bureau had received a tip that Grace flew to Washington, D.C., with his son and attended the Jan. 6 siege. The Seattle Times first reported Grace's arrest Feb. 4.
The FBI agent said in the affidavit that the bureau identified Grace in closed-circuit television footage in the Capitol rotunda, wearing a dark shirt with a decal of a "'Betsy Ross-style American flag that has a circle of white stars arranged in a blue field," dark pants and a black baseball cap. The affidavit says he also appeared in the background of the widely circulated photo depicting a Florida man carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's lectern.
In the Jan. 21 interview with the FBI agent, the affidavit says, Grace reportedly said he is the man in the background of the photo, and that he had traveled to the nation's capital with his son to sightsee and to attend the rally of then-President Donald Trump.
After the rally, Grace reportedly told the agent, he got separated from his son and entered the Capitol through an open door, walking past two police officers who didn't say anything to him, and who appeared to be "overwhelmed by the number of protesters and looked scared."
Grace reportedly told the FBI agent that, once inside, he walked to the rotunda and nowhere else in the building. Grace picked up items that others knocked over, the affidavit says, and decided to leave after witnessing multiple people causing damage to the building. The doors through which he had entered were reportedly blocked off, so Grace exited through a broken window, the affidavit says.
Grace reportedly told the FBI agent that he is not a member of "any group that advocated violence," the affidavit says, but that he knows people who are members of the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys and the 1% Outlaw Motorcycle Club.
Grace appeared in federal court in Portland on Thursday afternoon. He is charged with one count of "knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted buildings or grounds without lawful authority," court records show. His next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 9, court records say.
Earlier this week, on Feb. 3, the U.S. Department of Justice announced charges against Ethan Nordean, 30, a self-proclaimed "Sergeant of Arms" of the Proud Boys in Seattle, according to court records. Nordean, also a Washington resident, reportedly entered the U.S. Capitol building after marching at the front of a group of Proud Boys.
Nordean was a regular participant in Proud Boy street brawls against Portland anti-fascists, where he fought under the nickname "Rufio Panman." He achieved national fame among the far right in 2018 after a video shot in downtown Portland showed him knocking an anti-fascist out cold with a single punch.