WASHINGTON — An Oxon Hill, Maryland, convenience store clerk who doubles as a pro-Trump YouTuber under the name "Semore Views" was arrested Monday on four misdemeanor counts for allegedly entering the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6.
Kit made his initial appearance in court Monday and was released on a personal recognizance bond. He was ordered to stay away from the U.S. Capitol Building and not to possess firearms. He'll also have to obtain approval for any travel outside a 50-mile radius of his home. Although Kit worked in Maryland, according to an affidavit, public records show he moved to Southeast D.C. in 2019.
In a statement of facts unsealed this week, investigators say Kit was initially interviews by a D.C. Police officer at his job in Oxon Hill on Jan. 8, 2021, and confirmed he was the person who could be seen in videos of the Capitol riot posted to his YouTube page. In the videos, which show Kit among a large crowd just outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, Kit can be heard saying he wasn't politically active before former President Donald Trump ran for office.
"I'm a Trump-publican," Kit says in one video.
In other videos from the day, according to the affidavit, Kit can be heard yelling at officers, "Are you willing to f***ing die for this shit?" and "We are here to die for this s*** today."
Although a DC Police officer spoke to Kit just two days after the riot, it appears no further action was taken until Dec. 13, when the FBI received a tip about the videos on Kit's "Semore Views" YouTube page. Investigators then discovered the videos and were able to identify Kit, who was wearing a red shirt that said "I am Semore Views" along with an American flag bandana around his neck, in CCTV footage appearing to show him climbing through a broken window in the Capitol.
A criminal complaint unsealed this week shows Kit was charged in July with four misdemeanor counts of entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
The charges come a week after another D.C. man, Mark Ponder, was sentenced in his unrelated Capitol riot case. Ponder pleaded guilty in April to one felony count of assaulting police with a deadly weapon and was sentenced last week to 63 months in prison — at the time, tying him for the longest sentence in a Capitol riot case. That sentence was surpassed Monday, when Texas Three Percenter Guy Reffitt was sentenced to 87 months in prison for his conviction on five felony counts for what prosecutors described as an effort to "literally remove members of Congress from power."
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