A Texas real estate agent who has been charged for taking part in the Capitol riot says she went to Washington D.C. because a “very cute guy” invited her to join him on a private plane to support President Donald Trump.
Jenna Ryan was arrested Friday and charged with disorderly conduct and knowingly entering a restricted area or remaining in any restricting building or grounds without lawful authority after an FBI investigation placed her inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6. In an interview with NBC News, Ryan explained that she traveled to D.C. after a good-looking stranger extended an invitation on Facebook on January 4.
“He was adorable,” Ryan said. “And there was another adorable girl there, too, and they ended up getting together, darn it.”
The decision was easy for Ryan, who supported Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and is single. “I always see all these MAGA rallies, so I said, ‘Heck yeah, let’s go,'” she said. “I mean, who wouldn’t go and get on a private jet?”
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Ryan shared photos to social media on the eve of the riots showing her traveling to D.C. on a private jet to attend planned pro-Trump protests. During the riot, she livestreamed herself among a mob entering the Capitol building. When she returned to Texas, Ryan shared further images of the incident and videos where she could be heard saying, “We’re gonna go down and storm the Capitol.”
The FBI used the social media posts as evidence of her involvement in the riots and subsequently arrested her.
“Of particular note is an image Ryan posted of herself to her Twitter account, which depicts Ryan in front of a broken window at the US Capitol building, with the caption ‘Window at The capital [sic]. And if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next,'”officials said in a criminal complaint.
Ryan asked Trump for a pardon in an interview with CBS11 this week, saying “I think we all deserve a pardon.”
“I’m facing a prison sentence,” she said. “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.”
Ryan was the second person, after Jacob Chansley, the rioter who wore horns and fur, to plead for a pardon from Trump.
Despite her arrest, Ryan told NBC News that she’s “glad” she was there “because I witnessed history and I’ll never get a chance to do that again.”
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.
