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Jabin Botsford

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Former president Donald Trump on Thursday praised and embraced a woman convicted of defying police orders on the U.S. Capitol grounds on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/january-6-capitol-riot/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Jan. 6</a>, 2021.

“Listen, you just hang in there,” Trump told the woman, Micki Larson-Olson, who was found guilty on a misdemeanor charge of resisting police efforts to clear the grounds after the insurrection by a pro-Trump mob. “You guys are gonna be okay.”

Trump, who was campaigning here in New Hampshire, then agreed to sign the backpack she said she carried to the Capitol complex on the day of the interruption of the congressional proceedings to formally certify Trump’s loss in the 2020 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">election</a>.

“I can’t tell you how much that meant to me,” Larson-Olson said when Trump returned the backpack.

Trump, the polling leader in the GOP presidential race, finished by taking a picture with her, hugging her, and giving her the personalized marker he used for his autograph.

“You just take care of yourself,” Trump told her. “You’ve been through too much. You’re going to wind up being happy.”

Isaac Arnsdorf

Trump has steadily escalated his advocacy for people charged in the Capitol riot, including by pledging to pardon them if he returns to the White House, praising them as patriots, participating in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/03/trump-jan-6-rioters-song/" target=_blank>a recording</a> with Jan. 6 prisoners singing the national anthem, and playing it at his first rally of the 2024 campaign last month.

“I think it’s so terrible,” Trump said Thursday about the prosecution of Jan. 6 defendants.

Larson-Olson, 54, said she drove 30 hours from her home in Abilene, Tex., to see Trump speak on Thursday in Manchester. She identified herself as a member of a spinoff of the QAnon extremist movement known as Negative 48 that has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/26/trump-qanon-rallies-negative48/" target=_blank>frequented Trump rallies</a> and campaign stops since last year.

Larson-Olson provided her name and phone number to The Washington Post. Her appearance matches publicly available images of her. <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/texas-woman-sentenced-180-days-jail-after-jury-verdict-related-capitol-breach" target=_blank>According to the Justice Department</a>, Larson-Olson repeatedly refused to leave the scaffolding on the west side of the Capitol and had to be physically removed by six officers.

Trump’s embrace of Larson-Olson was criticized Friday by the New Hampshire Democratic Party and by former congresswoman Liz Cheney (Wyo.), who was the ranking Republican on the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. “To <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/27/trump-gop-endorsements-2024/" target=_blank>elected Republicans who have endorsed him</a>: You are endorsing his conduct on Jan 6th and every day since,” Cheney <a href="https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1651998887291367437" target=_blank>wrote on Twitter</a>.

On Thursday, Larson-Olson wore her usual costume of a skintight red, white and blue jumpsuit and bedazzled cap, but she replaced her usual QAnon badge with a button displaying the Pledge of Allegiance, since QAnon paraphernalia is not allowed inside Trump events.

Madeline Gray

But she didn’t manage to make it into Thursday’s event, which was limited to about 1,200 people. In the overflow crowd on the street, Larson-Olson met another Trump supporter named Jerry Foley from Wrentham, Mass., who was also disappointed not to make it into the audience.

They both got another chance to see Trump, however, when a member of the former president’s event team (Foley identified him as Secret Service, but the campaign said he was a local volunteer wearing an earpiece) took note of Foley’s jacket, featuring a stylized image of Trump as a matador. Foley said the person told him that Trump would stop by a famous nearby diner, the Red Arrow, after the speech. So Foley and Larson-Olson headed over.

When Trump entered the restaurant, Foley and others began calling out to Trump that a “J6er” was present.

“President Trump, will you please sign my Trump backpack that I carried up to Jan. 6?” Larson-Olson shouted. “I went to jail for 161 days for Jan. 6. I’m an Iraq War veteran.”

Trump responded: “Patriots, I hear the woman.”

“It’s terrible,” he added. “What they’re saying is so sad, what they’ve done to Jan. 6.”

Larson-Olson choked up after Trump left. “It’s so surreal, I can’t believe that,” she said. “The fact that the president knows my story … this most amazing man knows what I went through in the jail. … It’s just crazy. And he gave me the pen.”

In recounting her experience of Jan. 6, Larson-Olson indicated that she remained proud of her actions.

“It was the most patriotic day of my life,” she said. “I refused to walk down from the stairs … because I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and those politicians are domestic enemies to our republic.”

Foley also got Trump to sign his matador jacket. “You’re the matador,” Foley shouted to the former president. “Kill the deep state!”

As he left, he told Larson-Olson, “All you’ve been through, and you got to hug him, and sign. … If there’s anybody that deserves, Micki, it’s you. … I’m so happy for you and he appreciates you.”

Sidney Award, Sidney Hillman Foundation, 2018

Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism, National Press Club, 2019

Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, honorable mention, 2019

 Toner Prize for Excellence in National Political Reporting, finalist, 2022

Finish What We Started

Isaac Arnsdorf is a national political reporter for The Washington Post who covers former president Donald Trump, the “Make America Great Again” political movement and the Republican Party. 

In N.H. stop, Trump embraces woman convicted in Jan. 6 case

The former president has steadily escalated his advocacy for people charged in the Capitol riot.