Tag Archive for: Savannah McDonald

Two MAGA tourists from Georgia, Savanah McDonald and Nolan Kidd, were arrested last Friday on charges of trespassing into the Capitol on January 6. They were two of the last remaining people captured in a photo of Jacob Chansley to be arrested.

There’s a detail of interest that may have some bearing on other cases.

People called in tips to the FBI on the two just days after the assault. On January 11, someone sent a screen cap of Kidd’s Facebook account full of pictures from inside the Capitol. Three days later someone sent a picture of McDonald in.

The FBI interviewed both shortly after receiving the tips. They told a story that many other insurrectionists have told since: they were let in.

On January 14, 2021, FBI agents interviewed MCDONALD in Elberton, Georgia. MCDONALD agreed to speak to the agents. When MCDONALD was shown the below picture, MCDONALD confirmed that the person circled was her.

MCDONALD stated that she and KIDD marched to the U.S. Capitol, and when they reached the U.S. Capitol, there were uniformed police officers near the doors telling them to come inside and showing them where to go.

On January 15, 2021, FBI agents separately interviewed KIDD in Athens, Georgia. KIDD agreed to speak to the agents. KIDD told the agents that the doors to the U.S. Capitol were wide open.

Nothing apparently happened for a while, until, on March 8, the FBI Agent on the case viewed video from the Northwest stairs leading to the door through which the two entered showing cops first attempting to rebuff an assault with tear gas, followed by the breach of the perimeter. She found that four minutes after that breach, in the wake of the tear gas, McDonald and Kidd rushed up the stairs.

The FBI agent explained that McDonald and Kidd entered via a door slightly to the side of the one that Dominic Pezzola first broke through, just 14 seconds after it was opened, “by unauthorized individuals” she doesn’t name.

MCDONALD and KIDD entered the U.S. Capitol through a Senate Fire Door approximately 14 seconds after it was breached from the inside by unauthorized individuals. The Senate Fire Door is marked in the above photo by an arrow.

That same day, she got search warrants for Kidd’s Facebook account and McDonald’s SnapChat, the former of which — in addition to admitting that he had removed his pictures to avoid arrest — showed McDonald and Kidd posing in front of a line of cops at the site of the Chansley confrontation, the latter of which depicted McDonald bragging about making it to the Senate.

The claim that that Northwest door was not strongly defended is true. It’s a claim that many defendants have made. But what seems to have happened here is that the FBI held off on applying for a probable cause warrant until they could show that before they walked in an unattended door, McDonald and Kidd were right in the middle of a crowd where cops were taking explicit measures to hold back the crowd.

This is not the first time we’ve seen something like this. When Brady Knowlton was arrested after they discovered him entering the building with Patrick Montgomery, his lawyers immediate demanded exculpatory evidence showing them walking right in this door. [Note,  this is believed to be a different door–the West central door; thanks to “Sansa Stark” for clarifying.]

Then the government indicted him along with Montgomery, charging the latter with assault along the way. Last DOJ reported, Knowlton was entertaining a plea offer.

Something happened at these doors that is both making it hard to hold people accountable for entering it, but also seems to be of investigative interest. Perhaps that’s why McDonald and Kidd got arrested — to obtain the video that Kidd, especially, shot.

But until then, prosecutors may be relying on confrontations outside the building to make it clear that defendants knew they shouldn’t have stormed the building.