A North Carolina man was arrested in Winston-Salem for his involvement in connection to the deadly U.S. Capitol attack by far-right Donald Trump supporters—consisting of White supremacists and believers of QAnon—who tried to halt the certification of Joe Biden's victory on January 6.
Matthew Wood, 23, claimed he was pushed by the violent mob outside and entered the Capitol to avoid getting trampled.
However, the FBI had proof contradicting his statement.
According to federal investigators, the Reidsville man contacted the FBI on January 25 and identified himself as one of the unidentified suspects on the bureau's website.
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The next day, Wood was interviewed at his home and admitted to investigators he walked into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's conference room after entering the building through a broken window.
Wood said he was in Pelosi's conference room for "2 minutes" and inside the Capitol for "45 minutes."
He deleted posts about his participation in the riot after posting about it on Facebook and deactivated his account prior to the interview with the FBI.
But the FBI recovered a video showing Wood, who had a scarf draped around his neck, willingly climbing through a window of the Capitol carrying a Trump flag.
They added he was among the first group that entered the Senate Wing door.
@StolpWSOC9/Twitter
@StolpWSOC9/Twitter
Wood claimed the police guarding the building were never the targets of the MAGA mob.
Yet, the FBI said a recovered video showed him waving and encouraging other Trump supporters to "engage and confront law enforcement as they attempted to push rioters back and clear the Rotunda."
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He also told investigators he never intended to march on the Capitol and interfere with Biden's certification, but his deleted Facebook posts which the FBI recovered indicated otherwise.
In his deleted posts, Wood regurgitated Trump's baseless claim he won and the election was stolen.
Wood wrote:
"The system is against us. I stood up to a tyrannical government. You can keep sitting or you can do something about it like we did today."
The FBI recovered his deleted photos of him inside the Capitol in which he said:
"This is the PEOPLES house. We sent those politicians running. We sent a resounding message to Washington. We the PEOPLE will fight for our country."
"Make no mistake, the Capitol Police were not our target, they stood between us and the ones we wanted. America has fallen into ruins of division. When diplomacy doesn't work and your message has gone undelivered, it shouldn't surprise you when we revolt."
Wood became at least the seventh North Carolinian—including a police officer—arrested in connection to the violent insurrection at the Capitol that resulted in the deaths of five people including a Capitol police officer, two deaths by suicide of two additional Capitol police officers and roughly 140 injured officers.
Wood is charged with "knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority," "Violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds," and "Obstruction of Justice/Congress."
Wood joins the roughly 300 suspects who have been charged in connection with the Capitol riot, while hundreds of others remain under investigation.
The FBI estimated there were at least 800 rioters who broke into the Capitol on the day of the insurrection.
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