Report: Of Course Ron DeSantis Hired Woman Who Stormed the Capitol on January 6

When it comes to January 6, 2021, and the 2020 election, Ron DeSantis is in a tough spot. On the one hand, Donald Trump, the guy who incited the insurrection over false claims he’d actually won, is DeSantis’s presumptive rival for the White House, and calling Trump out would, in a normal world, be a good thing. (The Florida governor reportedly plans to formally jump into the race on Wednesday.) On the other, DeSantis needs to win the support of Trump’s followers, many of whom believe the lie that he beat Joe Biden three years ago and that the violent riot that left multiple people dead was merely a peaceful protest and/or justified. That‘s obviously why DeSantis refuses to publicly admit that the 2020 election was not, in fact, rigged and has downplayed the attack on the Capitol. It may also be why he apparently had no problem giving a state job to a woman who reportedly took part in said attack (or at the very least didn’t bother vetting for the possibility).

USA Today reports that two months after the events of January 6, DeSantis appointed Sandra Atkinson, a woman who not only appears to have taken part in the insurrection but boasted about having entered then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, to a Florida regulatory board. (His office even put out a press release about her getting the job on the Florida Board of Massage Therapy which, per USA Today, involved “vetting licensed providers who will work, hands-on, with vulnerable, often disrobed clients behind closed doors” and presiding over “repeated discussions about whether to grant or revoke state licenses to massage therapists, often because of their criminal histories.”) Unsurprisingly, DeSantis did not mention Atkinson’s part in the attack, and for her part, she initially denied she entered the Capitol and then told USA Today she was declining to comment. But according to the evidence, she was very much there on that terrible day.

Sherri Edwards Cox, who has long served with Atkinson on the Okaloosa County GOP committee, also marched in Washington, though she says she went back to her hotel rather than into the Capitol. Cox told USA TODAY Atkinson later bragged about going into the building, and claimed to have entered the office of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After reviewing an online copy of video footage that appears to show Atkinson entering the Capitol, Cox said by text: “Oh, wow! Yup. That’s her alright!” She added: “Ooph.” 

USA TODAY analyzed social media photographs and video and other footage from Jan. 6 first identified by a member of the Sedition Hunters community, a mostly anonymous volunteer collective of researchers that has identified hundreds of Capitol rioters and sent dossiers on many to the FBI. The evidence starts with the videos posted by Cox, Atkinson’s local Republican colleague, which were public on social media. Atkinson can be seen in videos Cox posted on Facebook showing the two women marching through the streets of Washington, D.C. Footage shot by others also captures the two women as they make their way with the throng of protesters.

Walking toward the Capitol, Atkinson is seen wearing a “Trump 2020” T-shirt in gray on top of a long-sleeved black top, and a backward blue baseball hat with “TRUMP” in silver sequins and “2020” in red ones, according to USA Today. She holds a white phone. Later, footage from insider the Capitol shows what appears to be the same woman from Cox’s videos and, per USA Today, “security footage released as part of a prosecution unrelated to Atkinson shows the woman in the same Trump shirt but minus her sequined hat, pushing into the Capitol with a mob of people. She’s still holding her phone.” (According to Cox, Atkinson livestreamed her movements throughout the day.)

According to Cox, Atkinson approached DeSantis at an event where he spoke and asked him to appoint her to the massage board. “I know, for a fact—I saw it—that she approached him about this…he knows who she is,” Cox told USA Today. Now, of course, his office refuses to engage on the matter, repeatedly declining to answer questions about what the governor knew about Atkinson, why he chose to appoint her, and why she left the board last year. And it seems unlikely they ever will.