Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio grilled FBI Director Christopher Wray about why, during a raid of a Homer, Alaska home belonging to a pair of Trump supporters, the agency took the couple’s pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution.
Jordan’s questions about the FBI raid took place during a House Judiciary Oversight Committee meeting concerning events of Jan. 6, when election protesters surged into the U.S. Capitol.
Paul and Marilyn Hueper were held at gunpoint and handcuffed for four hours on April 28, 2021, while the FBI and other law enforcement agencies searched their home, looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop computer, as well as any evidence, such as clothing, that would show Marilyn Hueper was actually inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
It was a case of mistaken identity gone quite wrong.
According to Rep. Jordan, the Hueper’s door has now been repaired, after having been broken down by the agency raiders. The Huepers say the door has a plywood patch on it, but has not been repaired and still has a visible hole.
Wray had no answers about that raid. He said he would not discuss any investigation, he said.
The FBI has returned the couple’s cell phone and laptop, but Rep. Jordan wanted to know if the FBI had retained the data from their electronic equipment. Wray would not answer that either, nor discuss why the Constitution was taken into evidence.
Read: FBI breaks into Homer couple’s home, looking for Nancy Pelosi laptop
Marilyn Hueper said the pocket Constitution was the kind a person could find for a dollar. It hadn’t been read and the binding had not been broken, but was something she had pulled out of a box in a closet with the thought that she should read it and refresh her constitutional knowledge. There were no markings in it, “but they confiscated it and put it in as part of the evidence against us.”
The copy has been returned to the Huepers, unblemished.
The computers that were returned to them, however, are now damaged with “screwed up security settings,” Paul Hueper said, so the Huepers have not been able to actually use them.
“This has hurt our spa business,” he said, because the computers are an integral part of their business at the inn they keep in Homer, which has a lot of seasonal trade.
The Huepers have now filed a written rebuttal to the application for a warrant made to the U.S. District Court. They say the assertions made in the warrant application show no probable cause, and the warrant was granted based on flimsy information.
Twelve agents, FBI, Capitol Police, and other agents, broke down the door to their home and told Marilyn and Paul Hueper to put their hands up on April 28, 2021. Paul counted seven guns trained on him when he came out of the bedroom. The agents cuffed the couple and their guests and held them, interrogated them, and searched the home.
Finally, they showed Marilyn a photo of someone they said was her.
“They showed me a different view, where it could have been me,” Marilyn said. The photo was a side shot where only the hair and coat were visible. “They purposely withheld the picture where I could have easily seen it was not me.” Eventually they showed her the photo above on the right — at the end of their search — where the person-of-interest’s face was clearly shown.
“I said oh no, that is not me, I would have never worn that sweater,” she said. “She is wearing this hideous sweater that I would never be caught in. She has detached earlobes, and mine are attached. She has arched eyebrows, and I don’t.”
Marilyn Hueper said the agents told her she had been positively ID’d. Marilyn said that Wendy Terry, special agent in Anchorage, went to Matthew Scobel, the federal magistrate judge in Anchorage, for a warrant based on the positive ID.
“At this point, they said it was a trespassing misdemeanor but if we did not cooperate, they said they would charge me with obstructing justice,” she said.
When Marilyn said, “That’s not me,” she said the agent told her “so you want to go there,” as if she was lying and obstructing justice.
The couple is inviting others who have been harassed by law enforcement over their innocent activities on Jan. 6 to consider joining a lawsuit with them to challenge the FBI over the constitutional violations committed by the agency. People can get more information and contact the Huepers through WethePeopleStand.org.
