Darrell Youngers, Christopher Warnagiris, and Jason Dolan: Marines at the East Door

Among the many January 6 insurrectionists whose arrests became public yesterday were George Tenney, from Anderson, SC, and Darrell Youngers, who lives in Cleveland, TX. Tenney is involved with a right wing website, The PowerHouse Patriot. It’s not clear what Youngers does for a living, but according to a witness who IDed him, he has been involved with leadership courses. Ostensibly, they were charged via the same epic 30-page arrest affidavit because they traveled through the Capitol together on the day of the insurrection. They appear to have met that day.

In the weeks leading up to the insurrection, Tenney tried to figure out how to join an armed militia group.

Even prior to the January 6 riot, TENNEY discussed “armed militia patriots” and stated that “we” may siege the U.S. Capitol Building. On December 14, 2020, TENNEY wrote to Person1, “Where and how do I get involved or a part of one of these patriot revolution groups? Like proud boys, or any of the other American Patriot militias??” Person-1 responded that Person-1 would “ask around.”

By December 28, Tenney appeared to know that there was a plan to siege the Capitol.

On December 27, 2020, TENNEY wrote, “I heard over 500k armed militia patriots will be in DC by the 4th. And will start early waiting for the rest of us on the 6th. They already predict over [a] million people will be in DC the 6th.” The next day, he wrote, “We need to talk about the trip to D.C…It’s starting to look like we may siege the capital building and congress if the electoral votes don’t go right….we are forming plans for every scenario.” On December 29, TENNEY wrote a message that included the following: “I’ve been watching these pod cast things from this guy. He says Pence is a traitor and will betray the US on the 6th.”

Even before they entered the Capitol, Tenney and Youngers were moving together.

They entered the Senate Wing door at 2:19PM — the door first breached by former Marine Dominic Pezzola. The camera catches Youngers’ Marines jacket shortly after the two enter.

They went from there through the Rotunda into the East Foyer, with Tenney in the lead. Which means he was the first to get to the East Door to open it, letting the assembled rioters outside in as Youngers looks on.

Youngers, who’s involved in leadership training, lets Tenney do the hard work of wrestling with a cop and getting charged with civil disorder. They retreat for a bit, but then return to pushing cops again just as Marine Major Christopher Warnargiris is among the first to enter, as if he was just waiting for the door to open (I believe Youngers is standing to the right of the door).

Here’s Youngers and Warnargiris at that East door, standing within a few feet of each other, as both help to ensure rioters will succeed in keeping this door open.

Just outside that door, of course, is former Marine and Oath Keeper Jason Dolan, also standing at the top of the stairs as if he knew the door was going to open, waiting for a Stack of militia members to help force the door open.

This is believed to be a picture Kenneth Harrelson took of Dolan filming just after the doors opened.

At a time Dolan probably suspected he might be arrested, the government suspects, he went on Gateway Pundit to claim that he and everyone else couldn’t have been trespassing, because the magnetic doors couldn’t have opened unless someone unlocked it.

As part of this story, the anonymous source believed to be Dolan claimed that the Marine who opened the doors first went inside and then opened the doors from the inside.

Retired Marine: We’re on the top level now – about 15 feet from the doors just before they opened up. People are yelling and screaming. Everyone’s cheering, all kind of stuff. It’s chaotic. But we’re just kind of there. And then all of the sudden the doors open up from the inside. I have a picture taken about two seconds before the doors opened. And then I have a picture taken about six seconds later and the doors were open.

Jim Hoft: And they were not opened from the outside?

Retired Marine: They were opened from the inside. Now one of the stories I read recently was that some Marine, some Marine Major, went inside and managed to run around and open up the doors. And I think that was on your website, as well. But here’s what I can tell you about magnetic locks. If a door is locked by a mag lock it cannot be opened from the outside or the inside unless the person controlling that door opens that door by turning off the magnetic lock which those doors according to the photos I took are equipped with. [my emphasis]

The story doesn’t make sense if Dolan was talking about Warnargiris. But the government accuses Youngers, also a former Marine, of being one of the people who entered the West side only to go within minutes to the East side to open a second front.

That’s a lot of Marines who seemed to know that door was going to open.

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20 replies
  1. Drew says:

    “If a door is locked by a mag lock it cannot be opened from the outside or the inside unless the person controlling that door opens that door by turning off the magnetic lock which those doors”

    I don’t know the specifics of the Capitol doors, but I’ve worked in a place with magnetic doors. It’s correct that they can’t be opened from the outside, but typically from the inside it’s pretty easy-ours had motion sensors that unlocked them. Even if it requires something more affirmative, it’s probably pretty obvious because of the need for emergency egress. So sending one person inside to open the doors would be a pretty obvious thing to do, and wouldn’t require any special skills beyond getting inside and to the door.

    • P J Evans says:

      I don’t know if the magic doors where I worked were magnetic, but you needed a card key from the outside, and inside they were simple push-to-open. (They were between the work areas and the elevator lobbies.) They also had cameras – a very obvious one was next to one door.

      • Paulumba says:

        While I don’t do so anymore (I teach high school), but I used to help install site access security systems. For the most part security doors need to support emergency egress. This usually entails some sort of a crash bar that can be pressed easily to facilitate hasty exits when needed. I have also seen such bars forced depressed through something to keep the lock in an open position. Security doors typically need to fail open in case of power loss in emergencies.

        This is my first time commenting here and appreciate everyone else’s expertise.

      • BC says:

        Retired Marine may be confusing the normal electromagnetic lock operation, which Drew described accurately, with “Fail condition” operation such as when there is a power failure or other disturbance preventing the electromagnetic locks from functioning. In the case of Fail Condition there are two configurations: 1 – Fail Safe: in which the doors remain unlocked during failure condition or 2 – Fail Secure: in which the doors remain locked during failure condition. In the Fail Secure case someone would indeed need to manually override the secured lock by physical means which is typically from the inside unless there is no other egress from the area inside the door.

  2. klynn says:

    What an amazing PLANNED narrative and “cover” he had ready to post at Gateway.

    The, “We were not trespassing – a gov employee graciously let us in to visit the Capital,” defense.

    Thank you EW. A great catch.

    • Troutwaxer says:

      And of course they saw no cops trying to keep civilians at bay, and THEY didn’t see anyone beating the crap out of a police officer. “We don’ know nothin’, honest!”

  3. JVO says:

    Makes me wonder what the Marine leadership has done/is doing with these active duty military personnel involved in a planned insurrection? [crickets]

    • Rayne says:

      That’s exactly why I felt Lloyd Austin should get the nod for SecDef. Somebody with heightened sensitivity to white supremacists needs to sniff out the failures in leadership which allowed this crap to brew.

    • Rugger9 says:

      The lack of any NJP much less a court martial is puzzling. NJP doesn’t take nearly as long procedurally to set in motion, but also remember it is doubtful that the Marines are publishing their NJP results either for the press. There is also the question about when the respective units were informed about these two. I’ve noted before that the military will typically let the civilians have at the bad apples first as well.

      However, as Rayne noted, this is one reason why Austin is SecDef, to purge the ranks of fifth column types.

      • BobCon says:

        There’s a lot at the contractor level too, which ought to be easy to purge in general, although there can be a lot of institutional resistance to pushing too hard, sometimes for ideological reasons, and sometimes because there’s no quick replacement.

        Moving fast and hard on contractors, though, would reverberate through the uniformed ranks too — knowing that paydays after leaving the service could be seriously crimped by involvement in the radical right would cause a lot of dropouts and hurt recruitment of new fodder.

        • The Dark Avenger says:

          A logical explaination is that there are two different tracks, the civilian investigation and a military, internal one that cooperates with said civilian counterparts.

          “I refer you to the curious incident of the dog in the moonlight.”

          “But the dog did nothing in the moonlight.”

          “That was the curious incident.”

          Silver Blaze

          Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  4. JVO says:

    I also intended to inquire about whether they are still working their job and/or with their unit!? If I was a commanding officer, they would be confined to quarters until further notice. Of course, if I was a more sympathetic commanding officer, I would claim that I’m waiting for the civilian legal first ’cause that just screams I’m in charge. Of course it doesn’t clarify “of what.”
    ;-)

    • @pwrchip says:

      I would suspect that JAD, (Marine Corps’ Judge Advocate Division) would be looking into this, and have Marine MP’s at the hearing to arrest Marines after they testify about their involvement on J6Attack. I suspect they will be stripped of rank & be sent to the Brig to await a Court Marshall. It would be a much more severe sentence, instead of Select Committee outcome, if they are the final arbiter of such hearings. IANAL

      • Rugger9 says:

        Loss of liberty (i.e. restriction) or pay requires a formal proceeding. At the very least it’s NJP (i.e. “Captain’s mast” in the USN) and before that happens an Article 32 hearing before at least one officer is held to determine where the case goes (dismiss, NJP, CM). I’ve done more than a few of these. The case here is likely to go to a court martial given what went on, and might be a general one. Allowed penalties rise from non-judicial punishment (NJP) through summary, special and then general CMs and the proceedings are more formalized the higher one goes for panel members, etc.

        It’s much easier to proceed with the civilian case docket and hearing transcripts in hand, and until it hits a court martial (sometimes even then) the military considers it an internal matter not subject to FOIA.

        • @pwrchip says:

          Rugger9, thanks for the explanation, that pretty well clears those questions I had & sorry for my misspelling of ‘court-martial.’ I know it takes time to go through the process of conviction, but my patience is running thin, I have to temper my frustration as this drags on.
          Those of you that share your expertise, it’s much appreciated, which is why I come here for answers. A BIG THANKS TO ALL.

  5. d4v1d says:

    I think we need to add a new constitutional amendment to expand the definition of treason: having at any time sworn an oath to defend the constitution, then participating in any attempt to interfere with – never mind destroy – the government established by that constitution shall constitute treason.

    • Rayne says:

      We don’t need a constitutional amendment for that; cripes, we can’t even get 2/3rds of U.S. states to agree women have equal rights. Imagine trying to get 2/3rds of states to agree on a new definition of treason.

      More importantly, we already have laws on the books for sedition, incitement, insurrection, and rebellion under the same chapter in U.S. code as treason. It’s time to use them.

    • Rugger9 says:

      In addition to what Rayne notes (there are plenty of other things to charge that will yield lots of prison time) there is a specific reason why treason is defined in the US Constitution as it is. The short answer is that the Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention were well aware of how English Common Law had its definition of treason (which started as an attack on the monarch’s person in the early Middle Ages) watered down to where mere criticism of the monarch was enough, and there was plenty of case law on that in the UK.

      So, they defined treason in the Constitution to avoid what would be done by the states if left to them, and they did so quite narrowly. It therefore also takes an amendment to change it, which I consider rather brilliant given how much the t-word has been bandied about especially by the RWNM.

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