Before violent Oregon Capitol breach, GOP lawmaker coached people on how to slip in, video shows
By Hannah Knowles
June 5, 2021
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.
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The GOP legislator’s role in the December security breach led to the loss of his committee assignments and to restrictions on his access to the Capitol building. After Nearman’s filmed explanation of “Operation Hall Pass” drew attention this week, Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek (D) renewed her calls for Nearman to resign.
“Today’s revelation that Rep. Nearman’s actions last December were premeditated is incredibly disturbing,” she tweeted Friday evening, adding that Nearman should “face expulsion from the Legislature” if he does not immediately step down. Kotek has said Nearman “put every person in the Capitol in serious danger.”
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/06/05/mike-nearman-oregon-capitol-video/
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