Capitol riot suspect says he only called Pelosi a ‘biatch’ in desk note which shows he’s less offensive

A man who gained notoriety for being pictured with his feet up on house speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s desk during the US Capitol riots told the court he did not leave a note calling her a “b***h,” but instead called her a “biatch”, which he claimed is a “less offensive” term.

Richard Barnett, 60, made the submission in US District Court District Columbia on Friday through his counsels Joseph D McBride and Steven A Metcalf as they attempted to secure his bail before the trial.

The defendant claims that while prosecutors insist the note read “Hey Nancy Bigo was here b***h,” he actually wrote “biatd.”

“On information and belief, the ‘d’ was meant to be two letters, ‘c’ and ‘h’ with the ‘c’ connected to an ‘h’ to spell the word ‘biatch’ which is a slang and less offensive word for ‘b***h,’” said the motion.

The defence attorney further attached a link to the definition of the word “biatch” as described on idioms.thefreedictionary.com. According to the website, “biatch” refers to “rude slang, a variant of ‘b***h,’ used as a term of endearment or disparagement for another person. Primarily heard in the US.”

“As such, Richard now asks this Court to look past and ultimately disregard the government’s distorted representations, which do not rise to the level of showing ‘dangerousness’ and grant Richard pretrial release as required by law and recent court decisions,” the motion added.

After storming into Ms Pelosi’s office during the violent siege of the Capitol building, Mr Barnett later bragged on camera about leaving the note. “...And I left a note on her desk saying Nancy, Bigo was here you b***h.”

In January, Mr Barnett was charged for aiding and abetting, disorderly conduct in a capitol building, parading or demonstrating in a capitol building, and theft of government property for his alleged actions on 6 January.

His lawyers further sought his pretrial release on the ground that he is not at flight risk.

“The government’s argument in favour of pretrial detention is unsupported by facts demonstrative of risk of flight or danger to the community. The government has also utterly failed in demonstrating a specific articulated future threat of dangerousness, but has instead advanced speculation and conjecture in its absence.”