In today’s print edition of the Portland Press Herald I broke the story that former U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher — a Trump ally who earned the moniker “Putin’s favorite Congressman” for his support of the Russian president and other autocrats — took part in the march on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Rohrabacher, who represented Orange County, California until his reelection defeat in 2018 and now lives in Maine, confirmed his involvement in a telephone interview with me Monday afternoon.
As you can read in the story, video shows Rohrabacher in the West Lawn crowd some 500 feet inside the overrun police perimeter, but he isn’t shown to try to ascend the West Plaza steps or enter the building itself. He told me he believed the election was stolen, supported the protests, but disagreed with their entering (and sacking) the building.
The former Congressman apparently has not been taking other reporters’ calls. The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, AP, Orange County Register, and other major media outlets have all relied on the Press Herald story for their coverage today.
I last wrote about Rohrabacher in January 2020, when I was able to confirm he had moved to Maine. Previously he showed up in my coverage of Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He is the author of six books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2016. He is a contributing editor at POLITICO and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.