The FBI Has Been Looking For This Armed Man Since Jan. 6. We Found Him.

ONE The man seen carrying a handgun on the steps of the Capitol during the January 6 uprising is an Arizona far-right activist involved in spreading disinformation about COVID-19 .

An investigation by The Daily Beast based on research provided by counter-insurgency activists identified Luke Philip Robinson as the individual in the FBI poster number 343 solicited advice on a man seen at the Capitol on January 6.

Most of the people in the Capitol during the uprising did not carry any visible weapons. In contrast, Robinson was one of the few people on the Capitol on January 6 that could be seen armed with a gun strapped to his left hip in footage from the riot.

Robinson was not charged.

When asked if the FBI had interviewed Robinson in connection with the poster, a spokesperson said it was office policy to prohibit them from commenting on ongoing investigations and to refer questions to the Law Office. United States professor in Washington, DC.

“We generally do not comment on cases or investigations beyond what has been publicly stated or submitted to the Court,” a spokesperson for the United States Attorney’s Office said in a statement. We have no comment for your report. ”

When contacted by phone, Robinson initially asserted The Daily Beast had dialed the wrong number and that he was not Luke Robinson. He called back shortly after from the same number and identified him as Luke Robinson but declined to answer questions about January 6 and his presence at the Capitol.

The activists who initially identified Robinson – and asked to remain anonymous – spent weeks scouring public records and open sources for the name of the man seen in the posters. wanted by the FBI.

Robinson could have remained unidentified had it not been for showing up at a September 24 rally in Arizona against state COVID-19 restrictions and in support of the state’s GOP conspiracy election. “audit”. In one video of the protest posted to YouTube, Robinson wore the same Farm Boy “Freedom” branded leather cap as the armed suspect on January 6.

Robinson wore the same hat in a profile photo for a Telegram account linked to his phone number.

At the Capitol, Robinson was also seen wearing a black and white scarf with the word “Salida” written on it. Activists were able to trace the piece of cloth to July 2020 promotional bandana from Colorado’s Chaffee County, where the towns of Salida and Buena Vista are located. Robinson was tagged by a friend in an Instagram photo of Salida, Colorado, which chronicled the two men’s “summer adventures” there.

Robinson’s footage on January 6 shows the distinctive grip and magazine of a bronze-brown SIG Sauer P230 pistol protruding above his pants beneath a denim jacket. Robinson’s appearance in footage of the riot with a gun clearly places him among a select group of people to join the uprising, only a handful of whom are known to have carried guns at the time. that point.

Robinson only appeared in one a few seconds of footage near the scaffolding inaugurated as rioters stormed the Capitol building. The only other clear footage of Robinson in Washington, DC, at the time was recorded the day after the riot, where Robinson briefly appeared in the background a video depicting another suspect on January 6. Filmed at the Lincoln Memorial.

In a video of the crowd outside the inaugural scaffolding, a shotgun is obvious poked out above Robinson’s pants before he pulled his shirt and denim jacket over the weapon.

Two gun experts told The Daily Beast they were able to immediately identify the weapon as a Sig Sauer P320 semi-automatic pistol.

Ryan Busse, a former gun industry executive, who recently wrote: “It’s the P320. It has to be.” a book that tells it all summon Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry That Radicalized America.

The FBI first offered advice on Robinson as the man in its 343 poster in May 2021 but removed the poster with his identification number and picture in September without explanation.

Prior to the riots, Robinson also showed a preference for handguns and preferred the left-handed “spare carrier” position as seen in his scene at the Capitol on January 6. a protest May 10 “To Fight COVID-19 Medical Censorship and Cancellation of Culture” in Phoenix, Arizona by Frontline Doctors of the United States, a pro-Trump COVID-19 conspiracy activist group, Robinson appeared in a video wearing a “Fauci & Gates Arrest“With a shotgun strapped to his right hip.

The video stems from Robinson’s pre-January 6 association with an anti-vaccination and anti-mask militia group, the Antimaskers Club, run by its founder. Ethan Schmidt. Throughout the pandemic Schmidt has documented himself harassing local businesses and patrons for complying with public health measures such as wearing a mask. In one particularly notorious incident, Schmidt filmed himself happy staff and customers at an Arizona store that sells wigs to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Robinson appears in anti-mask video post on social media, sometimes with Schmidt. In an Antimaskers Club video from May, Robinson recorded himself trying interrupt the school board meeting. In another video posted to the YouTube channel of Micajah Jackson — a former Marine and far-right activist in Arizona charge to join during the Capitol uprising — Robinson and Schmidt were harassing patrons visible in downtown Tempe, Arizona to wear a mask.