Herschel Walker names Capitol rioter as campaign ‘captain’
The grassroots campaign activist faces four misdemenours after entering the Capitol on January 6
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The campaign for the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, Herschel Walker, has registered a woman arrested earlier this year on charges in connection to the January 6 insurrection as a “county captain”.
Mandy Robinson-Hand was included in a press release last month, which also listed dozens of other supporters of Mr Walker on the local level, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Ms Robinson-Hand is the chair of the GOP in Taylor County and was listed as the “captain” for the county in the middle of rural Georgia.
She was arrested alongside her husband Charles Hand III just over a year after the siege on the Capitol. They are set to appear at a status conference in federal court in Washington, DC in October.
Mr Walker is running against Reverend Raphael Warnock, who won a special election in 2020 to serve the rest of the term of late GOP Senator Johnny Isakson.
Per The Journal-Constitution, the webpage listing the grassroots supporters had been removed late on Monday and instead linked to a fundraising page.
Kay Godwin was also listed as a “captain”. She was one of the fake electors working to overturn the 2020 election in the state, the paper reported.
Alongside others on the fake slates, Ms Goodwin may face criminal charges in connection to a probe in Fulton County.
Mr Walker has boosted false conspiracy theories concerning election fraud following Mr Trump’s loss. At 4.31pm on January 6, Mr Walker tweeted images of the rioters in the Capitol that same day.
“Trojan Horses,” he wrote. “I call on @realDonaldTrump to find out who these people are as they do not look like MAGA! You have the power right now to see who they really are and to get to the bottom of who stole this election! Prosecute these bad players.”
While campaigning in May, he refused to say that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Mr Walker said that there were “problems” with the vote in the state, The Journal-Constitution added.
The Hands were arrested after the FBI was tipped off concerning their attendance, which was then confirmed after they appeared in surveillance footage and footage from documentary films. Location data from their phones also proved that they were there.
They face four charges, all misdemeanours. They are not accused of violence or property damage.
A Christian fundraising site states that they’re “targets of the left,” according to the paper.
“They did, and still do, believe that the 2020 presidential election was tampered with and the results are fraudulent,” the site stated in a pitch seemingly written by the father of Mr Hand, reports The Journal-Constitution.
Legal documents show that they’re involved in plea deal discussions with the Department of Justice.
Ms Robinson-Hand served four months in prison in 2009 after she was sentenced to five years on an opiate drug charge in Taylor County, according to state records.
The Independent has reached out to the Walker campaign for comment.
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