A Washington Post investigation has found nearly 60 percent of those arrested in the January 6th Capitol siege had a history of financial problems including “bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades.”
The Post surveyed the public records of 125 defendants charged in the takeover.
The group’s bankruptcy rate, according to the Post, is 18 percent, nearly twice the national average. One in five faced losing their home and a quarter of them had been sued for money owed by a creditor.
The financial problems are revealing because they offer potential clues for understanding why so many Trump supporters — many with professional careers and few with violent criminal histories — were willing to participate in an attack egged on by the president’s rhetoric painting him and his supporters as undeserving victims.
The Post profiled Jenna Ryan, the Dallas real estate agent who flew to Washington on a private plane, dressed, as the Post writes, “in clothes better suited for a winter tailgate than a war.”
The Post found public records that reveal Ryan had struggled financially for years. She had previously filed for bankruptcy, faced two IRS tax liens and nearly lost her home to foreclosure.
The Post notes while no single factor can explain why someone joined the protest, “experts say, Donald Trump and his brand of grievance politics tapped into something that resonated with the hundreds of people who descended on the Capitol in a historic burst of violence.”