On-Line Sleuths Catch Idiot of the Week: Identify Insurrectionist Who was In Air Force Basic Training

 There are a lot of downsides to the Internet, but people who do on-line sleuthing to help the police and the FBI show us a great upside. Such is the case with a sleuth who found one of the Jan 6, 2021 insurrectionists... and the guy had enrolled in the Air Force and was in basic training when he was arrested. Bravo, On-line Sleuths!  Here's the story>  

                            (Image Credit:  U.S. Attorneys Office) 

He Attacked Cops At The Capitol Riot. Then He Went To Air Force Basic Training.

Aiden Bilyard, who was known to online sleuths as #HarvardSweats, smashed out a window at the Capitol and attacked law enforcement. 

Ryan J. Reilly, Huff Post \11/23/2021 02:07pm EST

Aiden Bilyard was known to online sleuths as #HarvardSweats.U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

The FBI has arrested a supporter of former President Donald Trump who sprayed cops with pepper spray, smashed out a window and broke into the U.S. Capitol before he went to basic training for the U.S. Air Force.

Aiden Bilyard was arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina, according to court records. He faces a host of charges, including felony civil disorder, assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon, destruction of government property, entering and remaining in a restricted building with a deadly or dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and several other misdemeanors.

After being identified by online sleuths operating under the “Sedition Hunters” banner who had nicknamed him #HarvardSweats, Bilyard was interviewed by the FBI at Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas, back in August.

“At the time, BILYARD was attending basic training for the United States Air Force but has since separated from the Air Force and moved back home to Cary, North Carolina,” an FBI special agent wrote in an affidavit unsealed Tueday.

The FBI relied on public Facebook posts by Bilyard’s mother that showed him wearing the same Harvard sweatshirt he wore to the Capitol to help seal the case against their Bilyard. So did online sleuths, who noted her posts about Bilyard enlisting in the U.S. Air Force.

Bilyard isn’t the first person with military ties charged in connection with the Capitol riot, nor the first to enlist in the U.S. military after participating in the Jan. 6 attack. James Mault reenlisted in the U.S. Army after participating in the Jan. 6 attack, even after he was interviewed by the FBI. In Bilyard’s case, he separated from the Air Force after his FBI interview in August.

The FBI has made more than 650 arrests in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, roughly one-fourth of the total number of individuals who engaged in chargeable criminal conduct that day. The FBI is still looking for more than 350 individuals who engaged in violence, including more than 250 members of the pro-Trump mob who assaulted cops.