Texas real estate agent on Capitol riot: ‘I’m glad I was there’

TX – Jenna Ryan says it all began with an invitation from a “very cute guy” on Facebook: Would she join him on a private plane to the Jan. 6 Trump rally in Washington, D.C.?

The decision was easy. Ryan, a Dallas-area real estate agent, is single, loves President Donald Trump and believes the discredited claim that the election was riddled with fraud.

But the trip didn’t have a happy ending.

Within 48 hours of her return to Texas, social media posts made by Ryan, who livestreamed herself entering the U.S. Capitol with a mob of Trump supporters, were being shared with the FBI, and she would soon become the target of a federal investigation.

She didn’t get the guy, either. He hit it off with a different woman, she says.

“He was adorable,” Ryan said in an interview. “And there was another adorable girl there, too, and they ended up getting together, darn it.”

Ryan, 50, was arrested Friday on charges of disorderly conduct and knowingly entering a restricted area.

But in the freewheeling and at times combative interview, she expressed no regrets about participating in the Capitol incursion and said she believes she committed no crimes.

“I have no guilt in my heart,” said Ryan, who is also a life coach and radio host. “My intention was not to have a riot. I did not want to have a riot. I was documenting what was going on in the environment I was in.”

“I’m glad I was there,” she said later in the interview. “Because I witnessed history. And I’ll never get the chance to do that again. … No one will probably ever be able to go near [the Capitol] again.”

Ryan also downplayed the inflammatory language she used in her social media posts on the day of the Capitol breach. In a video shot before she headed to the building, Ryan said, “We’re going to go down and storm the Capitol.”

In the interview, she said she wasn’t suggesting an act of aggression.

“If you look up the term ‘storm,’ you can storm in the kitchen. You can storm in and say, ‘No more,'” she said. “I’m not storming in to kill people. What I meant, life or death, is if someone kills me, I will stand for my truth, even if someone kills me.”

The ill-fated trip to Washington came together at the last minute.

Ryan said the handsome stranger reached out to her on Facebook two days before the rally.

She had always wanted to attend a Make America Great Again event, and the idea of taking a private jet to get to one suited her just fine. But first, she made sure her best friend, Brian, who was also her “bodyguard,” would be able to join.

“I always see all these MAGA rallies, so I said, ‘Heck yeah, let’s go,'” she said. “I mean, who wouldn’t go and get on a private jet?”

The trip to Washington was great, she said. The handful of people on the flight were drinking and getting to know one another. Ryan took a moment to snap a photo inside the cabin and post it on her Facebook page.

“We were going in solidarity with President Trump,” she said. “President Trump requested that we be in D.C. on the 6th. So this was our way of going and stopping the steal.”

After spending the night in a Washington hotel, they awoke about 6 a.m., put on their “Trump stuff” and headed out to mingle with other “like-minded Patriots.”