Alfie Oakes and friends at the Jan. 5, 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, DC. (Image: Alfie Oakes)
Feb. 10, 2022 by David Silverberg
A YouTube video purporting to show local farmer and grocer Alfie Oakes inciting rioters to storm the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 is not, in fact, him, he said.
“That is absolutely not me,” Oakes said in an in-person interview with The Paradise Progressive.
In the Feb. 8 interview, Oakes clarified his role in the “Stop the Steal” rally and subsequent attack on the Capitol.
During that day, he said “I was all over” the area but he did not violate the Capitol grounds, police barriers or enter the Capitol building. He said he subsequently cooperated with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigating the day’s events.
A photo he supplied of himself at the rally shows him wearing a different hat than the person in the video. He also claims that the person in the video is speaking with a Boston accent, which he does not use.
When it came to the police barriers around the building, Oakes said “I watched the police let people in.”
He also stated, “I also watched these characters who looked totally different than everyone else and they let them in first.” In the immediate wake of the insurrection, Oakes stated in a Jan. 10 Facebook post that: “Leading the group was the obvious six or eight paid actors (used in other events such as BLM riots, hard to believe they would be that blatant and sloppy) … followed by a small group of aggressive Trump supporters caught up in the moment, these paid actors led the charge.”
Oakes also said he took the time to peacefully text his wife from the rally at 2:26 pm, which was the height of the assault on the Capitol.
Oakes took issue with characterizations of the gathering as a protest or a demonstration. Rather, its purpose was to support the president.
“99.9 percent of the people there weren’t protesters; they were supporters of President Trump. I didn’t go up there to protest,” he said. “I went up to support Donald Trump.”
(To come: A full account of the interview with Alfie Oakes)
Liberty lives in light
© 2022 by David Silverberg