A Texas man has been charged with threatening a second attack on the US Capitol by enough armed rioters to overpower any “standing army or police agency,” according to federal authorities.
Troy Anthony Smocks, 58, of Dallas, allegedly made the dire declaration on Jan. 6 — the same day the Capitol was breached during a joint session of Congress, leading to five deaths, including the slaying of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
“Many of us will return on January 19th, 2021, carrying our weapons in support of Our nation’s resolve, to which the world will never forget,” Smocks wrote, according to court papers filed in Washington, DC, federal court.
“We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match.”
On Jan. 7, Smocks also specifically vowed to target “RINOS, Dems, and Tech Execs,” an affidavit says.
“Prepare our weapons, and then go get’em. Lets hunt these cowards down like the Traitors that each of them are,” he allegedly wrote.
“It wasn’t the building that We wanted…it was them!”
Smocks allegedly used a Parler account “identified as ‘ColonelTPerez’, or @Colonel007” even though an affidavit says he’s “not a Colonel in any military or law enforcement organization.”
His posts were viewed by other Parler users at least 54,000 times, according to the affidavit.
Parler’s website was shut down on Jan. 11 when Amazon Web Services stopped hosting it for allegedly ignoring requests to remove death threats and other violent content.
Parler has since found another company to host its platform and expects to be back in business “by the end of the month,” CEO John Matze said Sunday.
Travel records show Smocks flew from Texas to Washington, DC, on Jan. 5 and returned on Jan. 7, the affidavit says.
He also made a reservation to fly out of the US on Friday, although he was busted in Texas that day, authorities said.
Smocks was charged with threats in interstate commerce, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Online court records in his case are sealed, but the Bureau of Prisons website shows he was released from custody on Sunday.
