Jan. 6 participant speaks to Macon Republican Women’s Club
Nathan Baer is seen here near Officer Fanone in the now infamous photo. From FBI affidavit
On Jan. 6, 2021, Nathan Baer stormed the Capitol in Washington, D.C. On April 26, 2023, he was arrested in Asheville and hit with numerous charges. On April 5, 2024, he pleaded guilty to one felony and was sentenced to four months in federal prison. On Jan. 21 of this year, he was pardoned by President Donald Trump and released from incarceration. On March 19, he spoke to the Macon County Republican Women’s Club in Franklin.
While Baer, 45, was only supposed to talk for about an hour to allow time for regular business, he shared his story and his viewpoints over the course of almost two hours. Baer, a classically trained vocalist who for about two decades lived in New York City as he sought a breakthrough in his stage career, also sang for the group, his bass-baritone voice seeming to fill the room as if coming from a surround-sound stereo system. Baer opened with “America the Beautiful” and closed with a verse from the hymn “How Great Thou Art,” both of which brought emotional reactions from those in the crowd, some of whom sang along quietly and some of whom shed some tears.
Baer focused on his role in Jan. 6, how he perceived the system had targeted him unfairly and what he learned about himself and his fellow man during his three months in incarceration. Throughout, Baer hinted at intense libertarian leanings that bordered on anti-government sentiment. While he talked about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and others he considered corrupt, his ultimate target wasn’t any individual; it was the “military industrial complex,” to which he believes they’re all beholden.
Baer went into detail explaining his reasons for being at the Capitol on Jan. 6, saying that while he wanted to support Trump, it was also something bigger — it was a sort of calling to take a stand against the cabal he perceives has corrupted the whole political system. His talk, which seemed at some times like an academic lecture and others like a sermon, verged into moral philosophy and religion.
Some topics, like how Mike Pence was a “turncoat” for certifying what Baer, like Trump, considers a stolen election, elicited widespread verbal agreement; some topics, like how Wikileaks leader Julian Assange should be pardoned seemed to receive mixed results; some more obscure topics, like how a corrupt economic system based off the model used for the Bank of London has undermined the United States’ Hamiltonian economic system, seemed off people’s radars entirely.
While Baer made it clear that he didn’t consider Trump to be any kind of savior and that he didn’t agree with everything his president has said or done, he did mention one man by name — the great hero of American libertarians — whom he exalted.
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“It was Ron Paul … who showed me what godly courage means,” Baer said.
IN THE TUNNEL
Baer’s retelling of the events of Jan. 6 almost directly refuted claims laid out by federal prosecutors in press releases and in the FBI’s probable cause affidavit. Baer recalled that the day was cold and overcast. While he thought the dreary weather would keep some people at home, he was shocked by the size of the crowd at the Stop the Steal rally that preceded the Capitol riot.
“I said, God, help me; help me do your will. I don’t know what I am supposed to, but help me,” Baer said. “And I felt attracted to go toward the west side of the Capitol, where there was a standoff between police and all the protesters. I climbed the scaffolding and got a huge American flag and held it as high as I could, high as I could.”
Shortly after that, about 20 minutes after rioters broke through police barricades and overwhelmed the officers on the front line, Baer walked over to the tunnel entrance on the lower west terrace of the Capitol, the infamous location where rioters broke glass and pushed against a phalanx of Capitol Police officers in an attempt to enter the building.
“Here, at the Tunnel, some of the most violent attacks against law enforcement on January 6th occurred,” an FBI press release reads.
Around the time Baer got to the tunnel, officers used pepper spray on the riotous crowd, dispersing many.
But Baer stayed, despite having the “capability to leave the premises,” according to the probable cause affidavit. The rioters in the tunnel began a “heave-ho” motion to apply more pressure to the line of officers blocking the entrance to the building.
“Baer participated in this effort, pushing his body against the rioters in front of him with so much force that he had to brace himself by putting his hand on the tunnel wall,” the affidavit reads.
Baer said that while he felt a “pull” to leave the tunnel, everyone was packed so tight, like “sardines,” that he couldn’t make his way out. He claimed that he wasn’t part of the heave-ho motion, but that he just moved as the crowd did.
“I turned to leave, and as I turned to leave, I got a couple of steps, and suddenly we were all being pushed hard from behind,” Baer said. “When you’re in a crowd like that, you don’t have much agency on where you’re going. You’re just trying desperately not to fall.”
Another round of pepper spray was deployed; however, Baer stayed inside the tunnel and, according to the affidavit, participated in another heave-ho effort. The affidavit also claims Baer passed multiple riot shields up to the front line and includes one photograph of him holding a shield over his head. Baer said his intention with the shields wasn’t to cause more violence but to prevent violence, even though rioters were using the shields both offensively and defensively against law enforcement.
“I had the opportunity to touch police shields that were going over my head, and from a very meditative prayer kind of action in my body, I almost got like a cartoon character when I looked at some of the videos of what I was doing,” Baer said. “Suddenly I move, and I touch [a shield]. And in that moment, I remember thinking, God helped me, and God helped those people. I said, whether or not this shield goes back to the police … or keeps someone else’s skull from getting crushed, I’m fine with it. I want less violence. I want more peace. And twice I touched police shields.”
Baer eventually made it to the front of the line.
“Now, to say that I was in my own mind as clearly as I’m now, would not be true. I’ve never been in a place that seems so electric, and yet I wanted to be a peaceful energy there, regardless of what happened. And so towards that, I wanted to get as close to the police line as I could,” Baer said.
Baer passes a riot shield to the front of the line. From FBI affidavit
Baer and the other rioters were eventually pushed back as police finally gained the advantage. Once he left the tunnel, Baer lingered in the area for a bit, and according to the affidavit, continued to “obstruct” officers. Baer said that in the tunnel, the rioters were actually less violent than the photos, videos and testimonies show.
“There’s a police officer who fell at that gate was getting crushed just because we were all like sardines in that little space,” Baer said. “He fell, and a door was pinching him, and he screamed for his life. Immediately the whole crowd backed up. It was very clear that these people were saying, ‘we have a right to stand here and be heard, but we’re not trying to hurt you. We’re not here to tear anything down.’”
INDIVIDUAL AFO-112
Just a few days after the riot at the Capitol, Baer received news he didn’t quite expect. He was on the front page of newspapers across the country.
In the photo, Baer is charging forward as, almost face-to-face with Michael Fanone, the officer who suffered a heart attack and traumatic brain injury during the attack. Since then, Fanone has been a vocal opponent of Trump and those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Baer claimed that in the photo, which has been largely interpreted as a depiction of a vicious assault, he was trying to help Fanone. In a 2023 interview with the Asheville Citizen-Times , Fanone agreed — at least partially — saying that although Baer was close to him, he didn’t think Baer assaulted him.
But either way, the horse was out of the barndoor, and it was just a matter of time before the authorities could put a name to the face. According to the FBI’s affidavit, agents saw the widely circulated photograph and assigned the man, then unknown, the identifier “AFO-112” and began searching.
Between Jan. 17, 2021, and April 12, 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received 15 tips identifying the man in the photo with Fanone as possibly being 14 different individuals.
One such tip, submitted electronically three weeks after the riot, read “Photo 112-AFO looks like [different individual]. I have not seen him since high school some 40 years ago but he was a big tea party supporter and very pro Trump.” Another electronic tip submitted a couple of weeks after that read, “The guy in photo Photograph #112-AFO looks suspiciously like my ex-husband. Maybe it’s not him but it is very uncanny.”
The FBI investigated 13 of the individuals in these tips and determined that they either were not present at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, or their physical appearance didn’t match the man in the photo. Then, on Feb. 8, 2021, a tipster provided a photograph of a performer from a Brooklyn theatre’s webpage. Further interviews and investigation determined the man was Baer. A complaint was filed on June 23, 2023, and three days later, he was arrested.
Initially, Baer tried to retain the services of an attorney he said was “well known for defending delinquents and roustabouts,” but before long, he was saddled with a public defender in Washington, D.C. Baer said he thought the attorney was annoyed to have him as a client and that he provided a maliciously inadequate defense.
Around that time, Baer was subject to FBI interrogation.
“They were hoping that I would be a ‘pal’ and just expose people and things,” Baer told members of Macon County Republican Women’s Club and the few male auxiliary members in attendance. “I said, ‘I’m here to be honest about whatever you need me to be honest about, but I’m not going to pretend something and then throw someone under the bus.’ I was [at the Capitol] of my own volition as an individual. I wasn’t there because I was brainwashed, or because I was a supporter of someone or because I was with this group or that group. I’m me, and they didn’t like that … then they threw a whole bunch of charges at me.”
Baer was initially charged with obstructing a law enforcement officer during civil disorder, trespassing, disorderly conduct, engaging in physical violence in the Capitol grounds and more. He lamented much about his due process. First, he was upset that, like most, his case wasn’t transferred out of Washington, D.C., to a friendlier jurisdiction. At the time, he lived with his sister in Asheville, so he was hoping to have his case heard in the Western District of North Carolina. He was also angry about the number and severity of charges, which could have theoretically led to a de facto life sentence and/or over a million dollars in fines.
Mostly, he was frustrated with the convoluted road to resolution in a serious criminal case — the delays, the seemingly arbitrary hearings, the whole process.
The federal government offered a plea agreement.
“They said, ‘If you decide you’re guilty of sneezing in the wrong direction because you were present, it means that you are violating all kinds of things … And if you agree that you were there purposely to hurt the police, then I’ll tell you what, we’ll take away all these fines and all this prison time, and we’ll say you were a good boy,’” Baer said.
Baer’s biggest problem with the plea arrangement is the sort of allocution the prosecutors wanted to see — an admission that the defendant was at the Capitol that fateful day in support of Donald’s Trump’s quest to challenge what he and his supporters thought was a stolen election. His attorney at the time wanted to go along to get along, and Baer spent what he said was a lot of money (although didn’t say where it came from) on a high-powered law firm. His attorney’s initial advice was to take the plea.
Baer refused, and eventually another plea arrangement came along. He pleaded guilty to one felony and received a four-month sentence.
THE ROAD TO HERE
Toward the end of October 2024, mere weeks before Donald Trump won a second term in office, Baer reported to the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in Granville County, North Carolina, about four and a half hours east of Franklin. Prison.
“My mom was afraid for me; my friends were afraid for me,” Baer said.
He told the crowd, now rapt, that he spent more time in prayer but was also able to find comfort in one of his truest loves: singing. While incarcerated, he even gave some inmates voice lesson including a man convicted of a child sex offense, something he said some inmates took issue with. There was one heated argument that Baer feared was nearing violence but never reached that point. Baer’s point to the angry inmate and to the crowd last month was that even someone who had done something so heinous may be able to find redemption.
“They might need to be there their whole life … ‘I hate what you’ve done, but I love you, but God loves you even more,’” Baer said.
In many ways, prison was what Baer expected. There were cliques and gangs. Men would dominate others they perceived as weak. Some correctional officers were crooked and some were territorial. The thing Baer seemed to dislike most about prison was the lack of human connection; even looking someone in the eye is a faux pas worthy of immediate conflict. Callousness is a virtue and loneliness is the byproduct.
Baer also hated living by the penal system’s rules. Nothing was his own. His cell was subject to search; his phone calls were screened. Since parcels can contain papers with liquid narcotics spread thinly across them, Baer received only photocopies of his letters. During his time with the Macon County Republican Women’s Club, he frequently called for prison and justice system reform.
“I’d read several books on the need for justice reform prior to that, but now I was living it,” Baer said. “But again, this isn’t just for those of us that you think are on your side. This means we need to support those who we think we are not on our side. They’re being held in federal prison unjustly because of the fraud, again, where they should have only been charged state and not federal. There are a whole lot of people in federal prison that don’t belong in federal prisons.”
On Jan. 21, following President Trump’s inauguration, Baer was pardoned. He’d lived with his sister between the January 6 riot and his incarceration, but once he was released, he moved to Macon County and started a business doing heavy duty landscaping.
Baer holds a note while singing America The Beautiful. Kyle Perrotti photo
Following his event where he spoke before Republicans in his new home county, in an interview with The Smoky Mountain News, Baer said he wasn’t sure exactly what he hoped to do in Western North Carolina with his freedom and his platform. When asked where he falls on the political spectrum, Baer didn’t offer a concrete response.
“I don’t know exactly,” he said. “I mean, I’m happy to be called Republican. I’m happy to be called Libertarian. I’m happy to be called nothing, really. I’m happy to be called someone who’s trying to follow Christ. That’s the compass.”
