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FILE – Insurrections loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Whatever decision the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reaches on whether Congress should receive former President Donald Trump’s call logs, drafts of speeches and other documents related to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the battle over executive privilege will likely end up with the Supreme Court.
FILE – Insurrections loyal to President Donald Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Whatever decision the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reaches on whether Congress should receive former President Donald Trump’s call logs, drafts of speeches and other documents related to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the battle over executive privilege will likely end up with the Supreme Court.
As the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was playing out on TV news shows, computer screens, smartphones and social media, LNP | LancasterOnline began scrambling to find locals who were there.
We knew many people from Lancaster County traveled to Washington, D.C., to hear President Donald Trump speak. Thanks to social media, we knew some of their names.
They were witnesses to a momentous historical event. We wanted to know what their experience was. Did they listen to Trump’s speech at the “Stop the Steal” rally? Did they heed his words when he asked them to “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” to the Capitol?
As the live video from Washington filled with scenes of the violent confrontations at the Capitol, we wanted to know if any county residents battled with police, or if any entered the building? If so, what did they see? What did they think about what took place? Why did they go?
But getting answers for the stories we were writing that day — and for many stories since — wasn’t easy.
We knew that many people traveled to D.C. by bus from Elizabethtown. Partnership for Revival, a Christian nonprofit group based there, chartered four buses. Others left from Spooky Nook Sports in East Hempfield Township.
An LNP | LancasterOnline reporter was at Spooky Nook when five buses returned. He tried to talk with passengers who were disembarking, but most hurried to their vehicles, as it was a blustery night. The few he was able to talk with would not give their names.
“People were peaceful, just mad as hell with the way the government is run, and the way the media is run – and that includes you,” said one man.
A woman accompanying the man said they went because “no one will listen to us,” continuing: “All we were doing down there was saying it is time for someone to listen to us.” At the end of the brief encounter, she told the reporter, “No names, because I don’t trust you.”
Danielle Lindemuth, then-secretary of Partnership for Revival, talked to the reporter by phone that night.
“We went down there because we truly believe this election has been fraudulent, and we do believe the truth needs to be brought out,” she said. “If you’re not going to hear us, you’re going to see us.”
LNP produced a quick story based on those conversations for the Jan. 7 edition. But the riot’s aftermath demanded we continue reporting on who went and what they saw.
Reaching people from the county who were there, let alone getting them to talk, became even more challenging in the aftermath of the riot. Trump was kicked off Twitter and Facebook. False narratives, sympathetic to the rioters, emerged: Antifa had infiltrated the crowd and was responsible for any violence; the protest was largely peaceful, with police inviting the public into the Capitol.
Some Lancaster County residents had been quite vocal on social media, especially in the hours after the attack ended and Congress certified Joe Biden’s win. We wanted to listen to their stories. But they either didn’t respond to messages or declined to comment. Some accused LNP of being biased and not telling the truth, such as Becky Parfitt, who was involved in organizing some of the buses.
She refused to talk then, and again just a couple weeks ago. It was nothing personal, she told me by phone; she just didn’t like LNP’s slant.
For this story — almost 52 weeks since the events of Jan. 6 — I tried again to contact the nearly two dozen people we knew were in Washington that day. They include four people who went on to run for local office in 2021 — three of whom won.
A few people could not be located. But of the dozen who could be reached, most either didn’t respond to repeated requests to share their views, or they refused to comment.
Take Danielle Lindemuth. She and her husband, Stephen Lindemuth, were elected in November to the Elizabethtown Area school board; Stephen Lindemuth also was elected a judge of elections for Mount Joy Township.
They’ve let LNP | LancasterOnline know before that they won’t talk with us.
Even so, I tried. On Dec. 21, Danielle Lindemuth asked who I was when I called her by phone. I told her and she replied, “I will not be speaking to any of the reporters at LNP” — without even knowing why I was calling.
I asked if I could explain why I was calling, and she let me: To talk with people who were in Washington Jan. 6.
She then repeated that she would not be talking with LNP and said she had to go.
Mary Jo Huyard is another local who traveled to Washington. I wanted to talk with her, especially, because she won a seat on the Manheim Township Board of Commissioners in the November election.
Was she inspired to run for office because of Jan. 6? Does she believe the same process that put her — and many other Republicans across the country — into office was still somehow faulty enough to deprive Trump of a win?
I left three messages. I know I reached her because her message said I’ve reached “Mary Jo of Savannah House” – it’s a downtown Lancaster interior design business. I left a card and note there Dec. 22. Still, no response.
Andy Walker is another county resident who went to D.C. He ran for New Holland borough council in the May primary but lost, garnering the fewest votes of the six candidates.
He was involved in many pro-Trump rallies and election protests, including outside Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler’s home in southern Lancaster County last December.
Walker had plenty to say immediately ahead of Jan. 6. On his Facebook page, he posted videos as he drove around in an SUV flying a Trump flag. He implored like-minded people to go to Washington on Jan. 6.
“You know why Antifa wins? You know why Black Lives Matter takes over frickin’ cities? Because we don’t do anything about it,” he said in one video. “They come in numbers, and they instill fear in everybody … This is our time to instill fear… If we lose this, we lose our country, we lose our Constitution. We lose our freedom and our rights.”
Walker didn’t respond to efforts seeking comment for an article I wrote last January. And his public Facebook disappeared.
On Jan. 13, three days after my article ran, Walker emailed me about news that protests were being organized at state capitals across the country (there were reports at the time about a rally that would be held Jan. 17 in Harrisburg).
“It is a ploy to get us actual Patriots there and set us up again. I want to make sure if you write anything about it, you get it right. I repeat, whatever may occur at any Capitol in the U.S., especially in Harrisburg, it is not real Trump supporters or American Patriots … We want to be seen and heard, like our First Amendment protects us to do, but we do not do what occurred on the 6th, or whatever may occur at these Capitols.”
When I emailed Walker asking to interview him for this article, he replied, “I think we both know the answer to that.”
He did not respond to two follow-up emails.
One Republican and Trump supporter who was willing to talk – then and now – is Dustin Heisey, 42, a truck driver who recently moved from East Donegal Township to York County.
On Jan. 5, a friend asked him if he wanted to go to Washington and told him there were seats available on buses leaving Elizabethtown. “For me, it was last minute. I didn’t even know what was going on. …I didn’t even know there was a Trump rally,” Heisey said in December.
Heisey still thinks there was voter fraud and that an investigation ought to be done. He also started a podcast after Jan. 6 that dealt with political issues and other topics, called “Off the Cuff with Dustin Heisey.” But he’s gotten away from talking politics over the past several months and has moved to shows that are “more enlightened and empowering,” he said, including interviewing self-help authors.
“I think people have made up their mind. I feel like the divide between left and right is just growing further and growing wider,” he said. “I really just wish people would let it go. I’m sick and tired of the hate and the anger.”
Stewart Williammee, 43, of Elizabethtown, who also happens to be a trucker, said he went down with a couple friends both to listen to Trump and spread the Gospel.
He carried a rucksack filled with spiritual CDs, made by a friend, to hand out. They did not go to the Capitol, he said.
Williammee said he still believes the election was fraudulent, even a year later, though he was “never a big Trump fan.”
“Our elections are important, and what they did on Election Day was fraudulent,” he said in a Dec. 28 phone interview.
As for the attack on the Capitol, Williammee said he doesn’t agree with violence, but that he spoke to people who were there when he and his friends headed back to their car to head home.
“An overwhelming amount of people said they saw provocateurs attacking police and trying to get people to attack the crowd,” he said, clarifying they were Antifa or similar. (There’s been no evidence to support that claim.)
Williammee also criticized the mainstream media and said the country is in an information war and that the pandemic was being used “to take our rights away.” He’s spoken against masks at Elizabethtown Area school board meetings and was once removed for not wearing a mask.
Two people from Lancaster County were arrested on the day of the attack on the Capitol, charged with the relatively minor crime of violating the curfew imposed by D.C.’s mayor as the attack unfolded. The two never responded to my calls last January and could not be reached for this article. Their cases have been resolved.
My interactions with the other three, who face more serious charges, have been very different.
Michael Lopatic was the first county resident charged with a significant crime. The Manheim Township man is accused of repeatedly punching a police officer and pulling the body camera from another. He was 57 when arrested.
Lopatic spent nearly three months in jail before a judge released him on home detention in late April pending trial. When he was arrested, I tried to talk with his family but was rebuffed. I left a letter at the house after his release, but he never responded.
In mid-December, knowing I had this article to write, I got in touch to see if Lopatic would talk. He said he’d love to tell his side, but it would not be prudent with charges still pending.
On Dec. 18, by coincidence, I ran into Lopatic at the AAA office in East Hempfield. I introduced myself. We shook hands and chatted. He wanted to know if I worked for the New Era or the Intelligencer and whether the Steinman family still owned them.
I told him those newspapers merged years ago and are now known as LNP | LancasterOnline. He also wanted to know if the paper was conservative or liberal. I told him that I’ve worked at a lot of places, and the news staffs at all of them sought to report the facts and come down the middle.
We said our farewells, and I hope he’ll agree to talk once his legal case is resolved.
Edward McAlanis, 41, of East Cocalico Township, posted photos of himself in the Capitol on social media. He pleaded guilty Nov. 22 to parading in the Capitol, a relatively minor charge. Three more serious charges will be dismissed at sentencing Feb. 15.
I couldn’t find a phone number for him, so I drove to his house on Dec. 17.
As I was walking up the sidewalk of his Christmas-decorated subdivision home — lights, presents and candy canes — he came outside and told me to get off his property. I identified myself and said why I had come, as I began leaving.
When I was in my car, I could tell he was saying something. I rolled down my window.
“You know, you work for a communist newspaper?” he said.
I told him I did not.
He said we hadn’t told the truth from the beginning. I noted that he pleaded guilty to being in the Capitol and that there were pictures of it. And I told him again, I wanted to hear his side.
He again refused to tell his story.
The third man is the best-known, owing to the makeup he wore on Jan. 6, which earned him the hashtag “#FacepaintBlowhard” by internet sleuths trying to identify insurrectionists. The FBI had his image on its “most wanted” page as #FBI275.
He is Samuel Lazar, 36, of Ephrata. He’s accused of spraying a chemical irritant at police.
Lazar was mentioned in my Jan. 10 story, based on his Facebook posts.
One showed him wearing striped camouflage face paint, a camo flak helmet and camo vest. A patch read, “Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle.”
In April, I wrote a story that identified him as one of the men sought by the FBI. He didn’t respond to my several attempts to talk with him. Months later, on July 26, Lazar was arrested at his apartment. He’s been in detention since.
Eventually, I talked to Lazar’s older brother, and it’s become one of the stranger relationships I’ve developed in my three decades as a reporter.
Adorian Lazar, 45, lives in Elizabeth Township. He’s a wounded combat veteran. He rose from an enlisted soldier to retire as a U.S. Army officer, a captain.
After I messaged him by Facebook on Aug. 5 with a description of what I intended to write based on court documents, he responded the next day: “If you print this libel, I will sue you and the newspaper into bankruptcy!”
He also told me to stay off his property and not to contact his family. One of his sisters was also in Washington.
“I am a man, and as such don’t scare easily,” he wrote.
I wasn’t scared, but told him I would not contact his family or go onto his property again. I’ve kept my word.
Eventually, we established a dialogue. I interviewed him for an August story about Afghanistan veterans’ reactions to the fall to the Taliban and the chaotic withdrawal of American and NATO forces.
Adorian Lazar was also in Washington on Jan. 6
“The primary reason I went down was to provide protection for Sen. Mastriano and his wife, Rebbie. It was myself and three other comrades,” he said during a December phone interview. He was referring to military veterans, including some from the America First Riding Club, which he founded.
State Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin County, is one of Trump’s strongest supporters in Pennsylvania, an all-but-declared 2022 gubernatorial candidate who helped lead the effort to overturn the results of the presidential race in Pennsylvania.
Adorian Lazar said he had previously provided protection for the senator at rallies.
On Jan. 6, he said he left for Washington in the morning but was unable to meet up with Mastriano. Had he not been asked by Mastriano to go to Washington, he said he wouldn’t have gone.
Although his brother and sister were also in D.C. – they had taken one of the charter buses from Elizabethtown – Adorian Lazar said he did not see them there. He said he and his friends listened to Trump’s speech and were able to see the Capitol from where they were located, but they didn’t enter.
Adorian Lazar said he was “much more pragmatic” than to think protesting could stop the certification of Joe Biden.
“Do I think the election was stolen? Yes. Did I think the election was over and Biden would be president? Yes,” he said.
The media is not supposed to be part of the story.
The media reports stories by observing and, most importantly, listening.
But in covering the events of Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C. — then, since and now — it was inescapable that “the media” was part of the story.
In the eyes of many people who went to Washington, we — the mainstream media — were fake news. We had an agenda. We were not reporting the truth.
In other words: We don’t trust the media, so we won’t talk to the media.
That attitude makes it challenging — bordering on impossible — to understand the motivations of our neighbors who went to Washington, D.C., a year ago. It’s a shame, because if there is one agenda I and my reporter colleagues have, it’s to listen so we can help our readers make sense of our world.
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