On Jan. 6, 2021, Pennsylvania resident Rachel Powell used an ice axe to smash a window at the Capitol building. When the ice axe didn't entirely remove the window from its frame, Powell and an unidentified male used a battering ram "that just happens to be lying near the Capitol windows and slam it into the windows of the Capitol as several bystanders watch or look away," a report noted.
Powell's actions were caught on video. She turned herself in to the FBI in early February 2021. She was charged with obstruction, depredation of government property, entering a restricted building, entering a restricted building with a dangerous weapon, and violent entry.
"There are several red flags surrounding Rachel’s case, beginning with her arrest, short-lived imprisonment in PA, her release from prison, and subsequent 475-day house arrest in the comfort of her home, while so many men who committed lesser crimes are still serving pre-trial time in solitary confinement and living in deplorable conditions," The Gateway Pundit's Patty McMurray noted in a June 25 analysis.
"Leftists on social media begged and pleaded with the January 6th Witch Hunt Committee to call Rachel Powell in to testify in front of the committee, but like Ray Epps, the committee and the dishonest media that were all over the story of Rachel Powell initially, have lost interest into one of the most high-profile 'insurrectionists' of January 6th," McMurray added.
On Jan. 6, 2021, after Powell helped to smash windows at the Capitol, she is seen on video "giving the people inside directions about how to navigate around the specific room where she just bashed out the windows. How does Rachel, who lives in Pennsylvania, know every detail of the room that she 'randomly' chose to breach with an ice pick and battering ram?" McMurray wrote.
Using a bullhorn outside the room where the windows had been smashed, Powell says: “Hey guys, I’ve been in the other room — Listen to me — in the other room on the other side of this door, right here, where these feet are standing, there is a glass, that if somebody — and if it’s broken, you can drop down into a room underneath it.”
As McMurray noted: "Those sure sound like details that only a person with specific knowledge of the Capitol would have. Powell continued to give precise details about the room that should raise several red flags, 'There’s also two doors in the other room. One in the rear and one on the right.' How would Rachel know about doors in the other room from her position outside the Capitol?"
According to a Feb. 21, 2021 article in the New Yorker by Ronan Farrow, Powell did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. “I was not part of a plot—organized, whatever,” she told Farrow. “I have no military background […], I’m a mom with eight kids. That’s it. I work. And I garden. And raise chickens. And sell cheese at a farmers market.”
Several leftist news outlets, including the New Yorker, Vice, and CNN, ran hit pieces on Powell in the aftermath of Jan 6, but now "have completely dropped her story," Mcurray noted. "The only update to Powell’s case appeared on local KDH2 and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette on June 7, 2022, where they claim Powell is asking to have her ankle monitor removed as she awaits trial, arguing that home detention is 'burdensome' and is 'affecting her work and home obligations.' "
It has also been reported that Powell doesn’t have full custody of her children and their primary residence is with their father.
McMurray concluded: "Why was the woman, with no history of violence and up until 2020, had no interest in supporting Donald Trump, at the Capitol with an ice axe and battering ram? How was she able to share such intricate details about the layout of the Capitol with people inside?"
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