Neo-Nazi conspiracist ‘Baked Alaska’ arrested after live-streaming from Capitol insurrection

Far-right personality and neo-Nazi conspiracist Tim Gionet, known as Baked Alaska, has been arrested by federal authorities after filming himself and a mob mounting an insurrection inside the US Capitol on 6 January.

Gionet live-streamed himself on the platform DLive for more than 20 minutes from inside the Capitol, including using a phone inside a US Senate office. 

He has been banned from several social media platforms after posting antisemitic and white nationalist memes, and he has marched among hate groups in Charlottesville, Virginia and New Orleans, though he has dismissed neo-Nazi characterisations; the Southern Poverty Law Centre identifies him as a white nationalist.

A judge in Scottsdale, Arizona issued a warrant for Gionet’s arrest on Thursday for violating conditions of his parole by leaving the state to join the riot in Washington DC. He was facing misdemeanor charges of assault, disorderly conduct and criminal trespass in Scottsdale City Court after he allegedly pepper-sprayed an employee after he refused to leave a bar.

Federal law enforcement arrested Gionet in Houston, Texas on Saturday on charges related to the intent to impede, disrupt or disturb a session of Congress.

Prosecutors allege that Anthime Joseph Gionet “conducted an approximately 27-minute long” stream from inside the Capitol, where Gionet and others can be heard chanting “patriots are in control”, “whose house? our house” and "traitors, traitors, traitors".

Gionet – who has filmed a video for the song “We Love Our Cops” – also calls a police officer inside the Capitol “a f****** oathbreaker” who “broke [his] oath to the Constitution” during the stream, according to the US Department of Justice.

Federal law enforcement has opened nearly 300 investigations into Capitol violence, according to US Attorney for DC Michael Sherwin. As of Friday the Justice Department has opened 98 criminal cases, most of which involve felonies.

Officials are pursuing “significant felony cases tied to sedition and conspiracy” after a mob – compelled by Donald Trump’s repeat lie that the election was “stolen” from them – breached the Capitol and threatened lawmakers and police during a joint session of Congress convened to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.