Three US Marines have been charged with participating in the January 6 riots after one of them posted photos from inside the US Capitol to their Instagram account.
Micah Coomer, Dodge Dale Hellonen, and Joshua Abate were slapped with federal misdemeanor charges after allegedly joining hundreds of Trump supporters in storming the Capitol to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday.
The FBI began an investigation after obtaining photos from Mr Coomer’s Instagram account posted after January 6 that were captioned “Glad to be apart [sic] of history”, according to the complaint, which was first reported by The Daily Beast.
Investigators then matched the social media images to the active duty soldiers’ military ID photos.
While inside the Rotunda, the active duty Marines placed a red Maga cap on a statue and posed for pictures, the Justice Department says.
The FBI obtained a search warrant for Mr Coomer’s private messages which allegedly showed he sympathised with the far-right Boogaloo Bois militia group.
Mr Coomer, who was most recently stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, wrote “that everything in this country is corrupt”, according to the complaint.
“We honestly need a fresh restart. I’m waiting for the boogaloo.”
In March 2018, Mr Hellonen was named “student of the month” at Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas.
As of the second anniversary of the riots, nearly 1,000 people have been criminally charged by the Department of Justice.
