Garret Miller didn’t provide a statement to police when he was arrested at his Dallas home on Jan. 16. His shirt did most of the talking.
At the time of Miller’s arrest, prosecutors said in a court filing Monday, he was wearing a t-shirt with a photograph of then-President Donald Trump and the text “Take America Back” and “I Was There, Washington D.C., January 6, 2021.”
Searching Miller’s home, authorities allegedly found two ropes and a grappling hook, body armor, night vision goggles, several firearms and ammunition, and a crossbow with a scope and arrows.
All of this to say: The feds think Miller should stay in jail pending his trial on charges of obstructing an official proceeding, interstate threats to injure or kidnap, assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer, and civil disorder, among other counts.
Miller was indicted by a federal grand jury in February. That followed a criminal complaint in January that included alleged security camera stills of Miller inside the Capitol, as well as records of his social media commentary before and afterward.
“I am about to drive across the country for this trump shit,” Miller allegedly wrote on Facebook on Jan. 2, four days before the Capitol attack. “On Monday . . . Some crazy shit going to happen this week. Dollar might collapse. . . . civil war could start . . . not sure what to do in DC.”
Later, on the day of the attack itself, Miller allegedly wrote on Twitter: “They are right next time we bring the guns” and “Assassinate AOC.”
The following week, asked on Facebook if police knew his name, Miller allegedly responded, “[I]t might be time for me to …. Be hard to locate.”
On March 19, two months after this arrest, Miller motioned for the revocation of his detention order, arguing that he should be released from detention for the time being. Miller’s attorneys noted, among other things, that an FBI agent admitted in court that he’d seen no indication Miller was armed during the attack. And despite Miller’s comment about making himself “hard to locate,” they said, he didn’t actually take any steps to make that the case.
Federal prosecutors noted Miller’s arrest attire in their response filing on Monday, arguing that Miller forcibly entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, pushing past officers trying to keep people out and later admitting online, “I charged the back gates myself with an anti masker.”
After posting a photo of himself inside the Capitol on Facebook, prosecutors alleged, Miller responded to a comment by saying, “[J]ust wanted to incriminate myself a little lol.”
Immediately following his arrest, during a phone call to his mother that was recorded and quoted in Monday’s filing, Miller allegedly told her, “I don’t feel that I’ve done anything wrong and now I’m being locked up.”
