A truck seen January 6 on Capitol grounds sporting a far right militia’s symbol belongs to the husband of Rep. Mary Miller (R-Illinois), Chris Miller, the Daily Beast has confirmed.
Twitter users were the first to find the truck, which displayed a decal from the Three Percenter militia in footage taken during the breach of the U.S. Capitol. The truck was also identified in earlier photos carrying campaign posters for Mary Miller, and with Chris and Mary Miller posing in front of it.
On Thursday, Chris Miller, a Republican state representative in Illinois, confirmed in an email to the Daily Beast that it was his truck, but claimed that he wasn’t aware of the group associated with the sticker, which a friend had given to him. Miller also said that the story about the truck was a “fake story” by the “fake news,” while confirming that the story was true.
The #Sedition3PTruck with government plates parked in a restricted zone from 1:02. #SeditionHunters #Sedition3P
Source: https://t.co/DubmxJhjSZ pic.twitter.com/INCs6geEYg
— Phoenix on Wheels (@phoenixonwheels) February 25, 2021
In the footage from January 6 the truck also appeared to have an Illinois license plate that can only be used by politicians like Chris Miller, the Daily Beast reported. The Three Percenters sticker appears to have been a new addition, applied sometime between when the truck was out campaigning and January 6.
The Three Percenters were one of several right-wing militias that helped break past police lines into the Capitol on January 6. Several people affiliated with the group have been charged with crimes relating to the attack, including trespassing and assaulting police officers.
The militia group is named after the debunked idea that only 3 percent of American colonists fought against the British during the American Revolution, and the group has been associated with white supremacist hate crimes. It also has a presence in Illinois.
Though Chris Miller has feigned ignorance about the militia group, both Millers have expressed views that align with right-wing extremist rhetoric.
In another video from January 6, Chris Miller is seen at the “Save America” rally at which former President Donald Trump incited the crowd to march on the Capitol. “We’re engaged in a great cultural war to see which worldview will survive,” Miller says in the video, saying that it was Republicans like him fighting against “Democrat terrorists” and “socialism.”
Mary Miller expressed sympathy toward Adolf Hitler in a speech at a rally the day before. “You know, if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing, unless we win the hearts and minds of our children,” she said. “This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized.”
Mary Miller’s office defended the speech until backlash grew online, after which she apologized for the remark and said that people were trying to “intentionally twist my words.”
Though no official reports have identified ties between the January 6 attack and members of Congress, some Democrats suspect that Trump militants received assistance from Republicans that day. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) has said that she feared her fellow colleagues that day. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-New Jersey) saw her Republican colleagues giving what appeared to be “reconnaissance” tours of the building on January 5. A U.S. attorney in D.C. is looking into the latter allegation.
