FBI: Columbia SC area man linked to Jan. 6 Capitol riot and Proud Boys

FBI agents say a Columbia area man has been found with a U.S. Capitol Police riot shield and other evidence linking him to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the nation’s Capitol, according to federal court records.

A warrant in the case says that evidence now in possession of the FBI shows “probable cause” that James Giannakos, who is being held in jail in the Midlands, “participated in the capital riots of Jan. 6, 2021.” Federal agents arrested Giannakos last week on a charge unrelated to the riots.

Giannakos is now being investigated for assaulting a federal agent, conspiracy to assault federal agents, theft of government property and interstate travel to participate in a riot, federal court records say. However, no charges are yet known to have filed in connection with those allegations.

Giannakos’ attorney, Allen Burnside, a federal public defender, said he had no comment at this time. Giannakos lives in Gilbert, a small Lexington County rural community.

The U.S. Attorney’s office for South Carolina in Columbia also declined comment.

Evidence in Giannakos’ case includes items such as the Capitol police riot shield, guns, pepper spray, a Washington subway map and military combat gear including a tactical vest, knee pads and eye protection — items found during last week’s search of the Lexington County house where Giannakos was living, according to a search warrant on file in U.S. District Court.

Also seized at the Lexington County house by the FBI agents were a Proud Boys “Save America” leaflet and a Proud Boys “riptide” card. The Proud Boys are “an extremist right-wing group that has gained a reputation for leading protests that have often turned violent in cities such as Washington DC and Portland, Ore.,” court records in this case say.

At least eight members linked to the Proud Boys, widely described as a white nationalist, male chauvinist group, have been arrested in connection with the Capitol riots, according to news accounts.

On Jan. 6, rioters — many motivated by falsehoods that President Trump had an election victory stolen from him — shut down Congress, halting a largely ceremonial but legally required count of states’ Electoral College votes that would certify President Biden’s victory.

During the riot, five people died including a U.S. Capitol Police officer. Some 140 police officers were injured, some seriously.

“Multiple officers were dragged down a flight of stairs and beaten with metal pipes and an American flag pole; another was bludgeoned with a hockey stick; another was crushed as he attempted to guard a door to the Capitol,” according to a House prosecution trial brief on the riot.

Under assault, senators and representatives fled the House and Senate chambers for more than six hours. The count resumed and Biden’s victory was certified in the early morning hours of Jan. 7.

On Tuesday, former President Trump will go on trial in the U.S. Senate for “incitement of insurrection” by allegedly spreading lies and misinformation that caused a mob to storm Congress in an attempt to stop then-Vice President Mike Pence from presiding over the congressional session to certify Electoral College votes, according to the House-passed bill of impeachment.

Giannakos was arrested by the FBI last week at the Lexington County house where he lives on a charge unrelated to the Capitol riot. During a search of the house, the FBI found the items, including a U.S. Capitol Police riot shield, that agents say now links him to the riot.

The Proud Boys are mentioned 14 times in a trial brief by House of Representatives impeachment managers. The brief gives an outline of the evidence and timelines that House prosecutors intend to present to senators when the trial begins Tuesday.

Among the trial brief’s references to the Proud Boys:

▪ During a Sept. 29 debate watched by a national television audience with then-candidate Biden, Trump mentioned the Proud Boys and told them to “stand back and stand by.”

▪ On January 2, Fox News reported on a social media “declaration by Proud Boys Leader Enrique Tarrio that the Proud Boys would come to the Jan. 6 rally prepared for violence.”

The guns seized at the house where Giannakos was living were a .38 caliber handgun, a 12 gauge shotgun, a .22 caliber rifle and a .22 caliber handgun. Ammunition for the weapons was also seized, records said.

Last week’s arrest of Giannakos was in connection with multiple threats he allegedly made over long-distance telephone to the law offices of a former federal prosecutor who publicly confirmed that Proud Boys leader Tarrio had once been a confidential police informant whose information had been used to prosecute more than a dozen individuals.

Documents in the case also charged that Giannakos threatened the former prosecutor’s family and associates. Evidence in that case includes voicemail messages left on the former prosecutor’s office telephones. The FBI was able to retrieve the phone number used to make the threatening calls and link it to a cell phone owned by a woman in his Lexington County household, records said.

Giannakos is the second South Carolinian known to be arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot.

In mid-January, court records filed in U.S. District Court charged Andrew Hatley with attending the election protests.

A complaint in Hatley’s case said the FBI has photos of Hatley inside the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, provided by a witness tipster who knows Hatley.

The complaint said the photo taken of Hatley shows a statue of John C. Calhoun in the background. Calhoun, a South Carolinian who died before the Civil War, was one of the nation’s fiercest advocates of enslaving people at a time when South Carolina had nearly 400,000 enslaved men, women and children.

Originally some of President Trump’s most loyal supporters, many Proud Boys have since Jan. 6 turned against Trump, calling him weak for turning the presidency over to Biden and deriding him for not helping Proud Boys who now face criminal charges in connection with the Capitol riot, according to The New York Times.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jim May and Elliott Daniels are the federal prosecutors in the case.

This story was originally published February 8, 2021 at 3:36 PM.