A current Justice Department official and former FBI special agent was caught on video telling fellow January 6, 2021 protest attendees to “kill” police officers, bodycam footage obtained by NPR revealed.
Jared Wise, a senior adviser in the Trump administration’s DOJ, acknowledged he yelled “kill ’em” multiple times while he witnessed officers getting attacked on the Capitol grounds that day, court transcripts showed.
Wise had already entered the Capitol building through a door that had been forced open by rioters before heading back outside about 10 minutes later, where he remained on the grounds for several hours as the protest continued.
Police bodycam footage shared by NPR reporter Tom Dreisbach shows Wise berating cops as other members of the crowd pushed into them and knocked at least one over, calling them “Nazi” and “Gestapo” before escalating to “Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Get ’em! Get ’em!”
The video was introduced by federal prosecutors during Wise’s trial after he pleaded not guilty to charges of civil disorder, disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, as well as aiding and abetting an assault on law enforcement officers.
Wise admitted that he should not have said those things, explaining that he was reacting out of anger to what he perceived as “police brutality.”
“Those are terrible things to say. Of course. I shouldn’t say those things,” he testified, according to court transcripts obtained by NPR. “I think I was careless and used, like, terrible words when I was angry.”