NEW YORK — A Manhattan man who was once the chief editor of the Jewish Press was arrested Thursday and hit with felony charges for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill, federal prosecutors announced.
Elliot Resnick, 39, was one of many pro-Trump rioters who allegedly overtook police at the East Plaza of the U.S. Capitol and rushed the doors, intent on entering and overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The man moved with the mob toward the East Rotunda Doors, where he encountered a Capitol Police officer who was spraying the irate crowd with a “chemical irritant” in an attempt to keep the rioters at bay.
Resnick grabbed hold of the officer’s arm and was one of the first to make his way inside the Capitol around 2:26 p.m., prosecutors allege.
Once inside, he allegedly tried to open another door but was unsuccessful, and instead grabbed rioters and pulled them into the Capitol. He remained inside for nearly 50 minutes, feds said.
Prosecutors claim he was caught on Metropolitan Police Department body camera walking around restricted Capitol grounds an hour after he left the building.
The FBI arrested Resnick in Manhattan and charged him with civil disorder, assaulting officers and obstruction of justice, among other counts. He was expected to appear before a judge later Thursday.
In March 2021, the former editor of the Brooklyn-based weekly wrote in internet publication American Thinker that “something extremely fishy occurred on Election Day.”
“Trump supporters were simmering with anger when they got to Washington on January 6,” Resnick wrote. “And some of them snapped when they arrived at the Capitol that afternoon. It’s become a pious ritual to condemn these people as dangerous terrorists, but if Republicans really care about the country, they must focus on the mass election fraud that made these people snap in the first place.”
Claims of election fraud in the 2020 race have been repeatedly debunked and proved to be baseless.
The Jewish Press professes on its website to be the “largest independent weekly Jewish newspaper in the United States.”
