Ryan Kelley, a Republican running for governor in Michigan who was on the Capitol throughout the Jan. 6 attack, was arrested at his home in Allendale, Mich., on Thursday morning, in response to Mara R. Schneider, a special agent with the F.B.I.
Mr. Kelley is the primary person running for election in a serious state or federal race to be charged in reference to the attack.
In line with a criminal grievance, Mr. Kelley was charged with committing violence against an individual or property on restricted grounds, damaging federal property, disorderly conduct and entering a restricted constructing or grounds without permission. All 4 charges are misdemeanors, in response to a spokesman for the USA attorney’s office within the District of Columbia.
An F.B.I. agent described Mr. Kelley’s actions in a filing to the court, saying at one point that Mr. Kelley appeared to make use of his phone “to film the gang assault and pushing past U.S. Capitol cops.” The filing also said that Mr. Kelley used “his hands to support one other rioter” who was flattening a metal barricade, and that he gestured “to the gang, consistently indicating” that it should proceed moving toward the doorway to the Capitol.
Mr. Kelley was in a position to be identified, partly, because what he wore on Jan. 6 was much like the outfit he wore on the American Patriot Council “Judgement Day” rally in Lansing, Mich., in May 2020, in response to the filing.
Efforts to succeed in Mr. Kelley and his campaign were unsuccessful. The mailbox for the phone number listed for the campaign was full and will not accept messages.
A person who answered the phone listed for the campaign treasurer said, “No comment, thanks” when reached by a reporter.
The arrest comes ahead of the Republican primary on Aug. 2, wherein Mr. Kelley is competing with 4 other candidates for the prospect to face Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in the final election this fall.
Mr. Kelley, an actual estate broker in a suburb of Grand Rapids, was the lead organizer of an armed protest against pandemic lockdown measures on the Michigan Statehouse in April 2020. In June that 12 months, he called together about 50 militiamen to square off against a number of dozen Black Lives Matter protesters over a statue of a Confederate soldier in his town.
And after the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Kelley and militia members showed up for a rowdy protest outside a ballot-counting center within the state.
“Becoming too closely aligned with militias — is that a nasty thing?” he said in an earlier interview.
Alan Feuer, David D. Kirkpatrick and Mike McIntire contributed reporting.
