National

Before violent Oregon Capitol breach, GOP lawmaker coached people on how to slip in, video shows

By Hannah Knowles
June 5, 2021 at 10:35 p.m. EDT

The presentation begins as an innocuous primer on keeping up with state politics. Speaking in front of a projected computer screen, Oregon state Rep. Mike Nearman encourages his audience to get engaged and says you can “take as big a bite or as small a bite as you want.”

The Oregon Capitol is closed amid the coronavirus pandemic, “so you can’t come in,” the Republican legislator from rural Polk County acknowledges in a newly publicized video of a meeting that apparently took place mid-December. But then he drops hints about something called “Operation Hall Pass.” ... “Which I don’t know anything about, and if you accuse me of knowing something about it, I’ll deny it,” he says in the video. ... He gives a phone number — “just random numbers that I spewed out” — and says that if people were to text it with their location, somebody might exit through the right door at the right moment. On Dec. 21, according to previously released surveillance video, Nearman did just that.

Nearman was charged in that incident with “knowingly” letting far-right rioters breach the Oregon Capitol as lawmakers met to consider coronavirus legislation — weeks before Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and after armed protests outside statehouses across the country had raised concerns about lawmaker safety. Some capitols became sites of violent conflict and targets for extremists as alarm grew over threats and highly personal attacks on public officials because of coronavirus restrictions and the results of the November presidential election.

The meeting video, which Oregon Public Broadcasting surfaced this week and that apparently was recorded the week before the Dec. 21 breach, sheds new light on Nearman’s earlier discussions before he walked out of a special session and opened the door for maskless demonstrators who rushed inside and clashed with police. Dozens eventually entered the building that day, some attacking officers and damaging property, video shows. Police arrested at least five people on charges including trespassing and assault. ... Nearman, 57, is charged with misdemeanor counts of first-degree official misconduct and second-degree criminal trespass. Online court records do not show a plea, and he and his lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.

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Katie Shepherd and Lateshia Beachum contributed to this report.

By Hannah Knowles
Hannah Knowles is a reporter on the General Assignment team who joined The Washington Post in June 2019. Twitter https://twitter.com/KnowlesHannah