A young woman is seen in the video giving the Nazi salute, saying “Hammer was right all along. There is no political solution. All that is left is acceleration. Heil Hitler.”
February 25, 2021

A video obtained by Robert Evans (Bellingcat) is believed to be Riley June Williams, the young woman arrested by the FBI in connection with the Capitol riot. She's alleged to have stolen Nancy Pelosi's laptop, included in the affidavit by the FBI.

You can go through the painstaking evidence as Evans goes through her social media presence in some detail. It's too long to quote, but a partial list includes:

  • Wears symbols related to Nazism and other far-right groups.
  • Wears merchandise aquired from Nazi and far-right websites
  • Wears same clothing as mass murderers Brendon Tarrant (New Zealand) and Anders Behring (Norway)
  • Multiple social media photos with an AR-15.
  • Owns Nazi books.
  • Multiple posts on far-right websites such as Stormfront and the like.
  • Conversant with the styles and music favored by Nazi and far-right groups.
  • Conversant with white nationalist "accelerationism"

Rachel Maddow did a segment last night with Richard Engel detailing the case against Riley Williams.

Confirmation that it is Riley June Williams in the video was later made by NBC News, her lawyer calling it a video made as a "joke." Probably not one a jury would find that funny I imagine.

NBC News spoke to Williams’ lawyer, A.J. Kramer, who would neither confirm, nor deny it was his client in the video before stating the video was meant as a “joke,” although he initially wouldn’t elaborate on who made it or who it was meant for.

Kramer later followed up in an email to NBC News stating that the video was an “ironic internet joke about and against people called Wignats, who are like national socialists and who are like Nazis.” The video, he added, was meant to mock such people and is opposed to their beliefs.

The term Wignat was popularized by Andrew Anglin, editor of Nazi website ‘The Daily Stormer’, and Nick Fuentes. It is a term used mainly by Nazis and white nationalists to denigrate other Nazis and white nationalists. It is worth noting that, in order to film the “Heil Hitler” video, Riley Williams appears to have purchased sunglasses from ‘The Hammer’, supporting a fairly obscure Nazi accelerationist with her money.

Source: Bellingcat

Several days after Williams was charged in mid-January, an antifascist activist reached out to Bellingcat with a video they believed showed her pledging allegiance to Adolf Hitler. Bellingcat has since shared the footage and findings of its investigation with NBC News.

The 36-second video opens with a young woman dancing in a dress while wearing a hat, glasses and a mask decorated with a skull. These skullmasks were adopted as a symbol by Atomwaffen and similar accelerationist Nazi terrorist groups back in 2017.

Her hat features a Sonnenrad, or Black Sun, an occult Nazi symbol also popular with Atomwaffen. Christchurch shooter Brenton Tarrant wore a Sonnenrad patch on his body armor while massacring 51 people on New Zealand’s South Island in 2019.

The video also features a book on the Waffen SS at the woman’s feet.

She dances to techno music for several seconds, while a voice narrates the video: “Hammer was right all along. There is no political solution. All that is left is acceleration. Heil Hitler.”

At this point in the video the bass in the music drops and the woman extends her arm in a Sieg Heil salute. A negative color filter washes over the scene and the woman’s eyes glow.

This effect is a clear example of the ‘fashwave’ aesthetic, which gained prominence due to Atomwaffen’s distinctive propaganda. Fashwave is extremely popular among Nazis and other white supremacists on Telegram.

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