After his arrest last month for joining the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, Ryan Kelley boasted that the bust had only enhanced his chance of winning the Republican primary for governor of Michigan.
“If they didn’t know me before, they know me now,” he said repeatedly.
But on Tuesday, Kelley received personal proof that not everybody is ready to shrug off an assault on our democracy. It began when he logged onto the Airbnb app on his phone.
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“Hi Ryan,
My name’s Cedar, and I’m with Airbnb’s Trust Team.
After a routine review, we’ve determined that your account should be removed from the Airbnb platform. Removal means that your account will no longer be accessible, and you won’t be able to create a new one.”
The message told him to check his email for further details.
“I went to my email to look, and there was an email from Airbnb stating my account was permanently deactivated due to attending the January 6th DC rally,” he told The Daily Beast in a subsequent email of his own.
On learning of the ban, he sought to play the victim and turn it to his political advantage, just as he had the arrest. And he needed the added boost, having risen to first in a field of six candidates right after the bust, but recently sliding back into second or third.
“If you want to know who is going to fight for us the hardest, look at who they are trying to silence the most,” he said in a Facebook post. “Woke corporations and woke government are coming to cancel anyone who goes against their extremist agenda. I will not be intimidated by the leftist commies! “
He tried to bolster his case for his supposed unfair treatment by posting an Airbnb review from a property owner named Brandy.
“Ryan was an ideal guest! Great communication, respected rules and left the space in good condition. Would definitely host him again.”
That is not what the Capitol Police would say about the mob on Jan. 6. And Airbnb responded to that outrage as if the people’s house had been its biggest listing. The result was a “Capitol Safety Plan” that the company announced back on Jan. 11. One section of it is titled “Banning Individuals Identified as Involved in Criminal Activity at the Capitol.”
“When we learn through media or law enforcement sources the names of individuals confirmed to have been responsible for the violent criminal activity at the United States Capitol on January 6, we investigate whether the named individuals have an account on Airbnb,” it says. “This includes cross-referencing the January 6 arrest logs of D.C. Metro Police. If the individuals have an Airbnb account, we take action, which includes banning them from using Airbnb.”
An Airbnb spokesman noted this week, “We have been very public about our approach to individuals physically involved in the Capitol insurrection. Specifically, we have shared that as we learn of individuals charged with federal crimes related to the riots, we remove them from Airbnb if we find that they have an account. We have consistently and transparently applied this approach.”
Kelley escaped being banned earlier because he had not been among those arrested in the immediate aftermath of the attack. But the Airbnb policy remained in effect over the months that followed, as the FBI slowly built a case that began with a tip 10 days after the attack.
“On January 16th, 2021, an anonymous tipster from Michigan submitted an online tip to the FBI National Threat Operations Center (NTOC) via tips.fbi.gov, which identified that Ryan Kelley was at the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021,” the subsequent criminal complaint reads. “The tipster provided photos of who they believed was Ryan D. Kelley (KELLEY) at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The information provided by the tipster showed KELLEY at the U.S. Capitol wearing a black coat, a backwards black baseball cap with a rectangular U.S. flag emblem above the bill, and aviator sunglasses.”
FBI agents confirmed to their satisfaction that the man was indeed Kelley. The complaint said the video shows the same figure “in a crowd of people who are assaulting and pushing past law enforcement officers.” The figure at one point pauses and bends over, raising his cell phone.
“At approximately 2:25 p.m., the individual in the black hat uses his cell phone to take a picture of blood on an architectural feature at the U.S. Capitol,” the complaint alleges.
Various photos and videos released by federal prosecutors show the figure gesturing—at times with one hand, at others with both—for the mob to follow him up into the Capitol.
“Come on, let’s go! This is it! This is war baby!” he was recorded shouting.
But he does not seem to actually enter.
“I did not go inside the Capitol or any building,” Kelley later told a Michigan radio station.
If that is so, Kelley demonstrated a no less craven form of cowardice than was displayed that day by Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who roused the mob by raising a clenched fist while safely behind police barricades and was later caught on video inside the Capitol fleeing these very same people. Kelley gestured for the insurrectionists to follow him and then apparently hung back as they continued on inside.
Ryan Kelley, Michigan gubernatorial candidate, speaks to supporters of former President Donald Trump demanding a forensic audit of the 2020 presidential election in front of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, U.S., February 8, 2022.
Emily Elconin/ReutersHad Kelley joined them, some of his own blood might have been spilled. He also might have faced felony charges rather than just four misdemeanors when he was finally arrested.
When he appeared before a judge this month, Kelley pleaded not guilty. He faces a maximum of a year behind bars if convicted, but there is a chance he could parlay the political boost into four years as governor. He did seem unhappy when the judge denied his lawyer’s request that he “be permitted to carry his firearm for his own self-defense during the campaign.”
Kelley surrendered any guns he had, but tried to be a Second Amendment hotshot by posting on Facebook a photo of himself with a pistol on his hip back in October, speaking as a co-founder of the American Patriot Council at a Stop the Steal rally. Another photo shows him flanked by military types armed with AR-15 type rifles. Another picture is of an assault weapon decorated with a small American flag, lying on a shooting range counter along with two magazines bearing Ryan Kelley for Governor stickers.
Had Kelley actually stormed inside the Capitol rather than just urging others to do so while he took a picture of blood on the white marble, he risked facing felony charges. And a felony conviction would have meant he could no longer legally own a gun.
As it is, Kelley can expect to be able to tote a pistol on his hip again, however the case goes. The primary may well be determined by who, if anybody, Trump endorses. Trump is not yet backing Kelley even though the 40-year-old real estate agent is so deluded he speaks of Jan. 6 as a day when America was at its best, not at its very worst.
“President Trump had a rally that day and he called for Americans to come there and support him, to shine a light on fraud that happened in our election. And there was a lot of American flags there that day and there was a lot of people singing the national anthem. So that day we were there celebrating America. It’s going to be remembered for a very long time, I’ll say that much.”
He will get proof of that whenever he tries to open a new Airbnb account, whether he be governor, or convicted criminal, or both or neither.
