A Texas real-estate agent who flew on a private jet to join the Capitol riot has asked Trump for a pardon, saying she was only following his orders

• Texas real-estate agent Jenna Ryan is among more than 100 Trump supporters who have been arrested for taking part in the Capitol riot.
• Speaking to a local outlet after being detained by the FBI, Ryan said she’s facing jail time and hopes President Donald Trump issues her a pardon. 
• “I feel like I was basically following my president. I was following what we were called to do. He asked us to fly there. He asked us to be there. So I was doing what he asked us to do,” Ryan told CBS 11.
• Multiple people who stormed the Capitol have claimed that they did so on Trump’s instructions. Legal experts say this could leave Trump liable.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

A Texas real-estate agent who flew in a private jet to take part in the Capitol riot says she’s facing jail time and hopes President Donald Trump grants her a pardon. 

On January 5, Jenna Ryan posted on social media photos showing her and friends taking a private jet to Washington, DC, to take part in the Trump march a day later. She then proceeded to post multiple pictures and videos as the rally turned into a riot.

The FBI subsequently arrested her on charges of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. 

Ryan spoke to CBS 11 after returning to Texas on Friday, saying she didn’t take part in any violence and was just acting on the orders of the president.

—dotJenna – Jenna Ryan Realty (@dotjenna) January 5, 2021

“I just want people to know I’m a normal person. That I listen to my president who told me to go to the Capitol. That I was displaying my patriotism while I was there and I was just protesting and I wasn’t trying to do anything violent and I didn’t realize there was actually violence,” Ryan said. 

However, according to the FBI’s criminal complaint against Ryan, she was recorded egging on the riot in several videos and social media posts from the riot.

“Of particular note is an image Ryan posted of herself to her Twitter account, which depicts Ryan in front of a broken window at the US Capitol building, with the caption ‘Window at The capital [sic]. And if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next…'” the criminal complaint said.

Ryan later deleted that Twitter post.

According to the complaint, the FBI also viewed a Facebook Live video recorded by Ryan, which was later deleted, in which she is seen trying to walk into the Capitol and says, “We are going to f—ing go in here. Life or death, it doesn’t matter. Here we go.” 

At another point in the video, she’s heard joining in on a chant of “Fight for freedom! Fight for freedom!” 

The FBI also captured Ryan on surveillance video entering the Capitol building.

‘I think we all deserve a pardon’

Facing possible prison time, Ryan said she felt she deserved a presidential pardon. 

“I think we all deserve a pardon. I’m facing a prison sentence. I think I do not deserve that and from what I understand, every person is going to be arrested that was there,” she told CBS 11.

“So I think everyone deserves a pardon, so I would ask the President of the United States to give me a pardon.”

—dotJenna – Jenna Ryan Realty (@dotjenna) January 7, 2021

—dotJenna – Jenna Ryan Realty (@dotjenna) January 7, 2021

“I don’t feel a sense of shame or guilty from my heart,” Ryan added. “I feel like I was basically following my president. I was following what we were called to do. He asked us to fly there. He asked us to be there. So I was doing what he asked us to do.”

“I do feel a little wronged in this situation because I’m a real-estate agent and this has taken my company. This has taken my business.”

“I am being slandered all over the internet, all over the world and all over the news and I’m just like a normal person,” she added.

The House impeached Trump for a historic second time last week for inciting the violence at the Capitol.

It now falls to the Senate to decide whether or not to convict the president, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is telling GOP senators that their decision will be a “vote of conscience.”

Read more: Trump is becoming an ‘untouchable client.’ Here’s how law firms are turning on the president, from calling for his removal to dumping his business.

Ryan is one of a handful of rioters who have told law-enforcement agencies that they were merely following the president’s orders, even as Trump’s Republican allies seek to blame other people for it.

Legal experts have said that these admissions by the president’s supporters open him up to possible criminal charges.

Meanwhile, CNN and The Washington Post have reported that Trump plans to issue as many as 100 pardons on his final day in office. While the list of names has not been released, Trump allies believe the pardons will go to people the president thinks may help him in the future.

Read the full criminal complaint against Ryan below: