Olympic swimmer Klete Keller pleaded not guilty to all seven charges he’s facing in federal court for his role in the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.
On January 6th, supporters of President Donald Trump, who lost the 2020 presidential election, broke into the United States Capitol Building and clashed with police. The riot happened as Congress was tallying electoral votes in last November’s election, in which President-elect Joe Biden defeated Trump. Five people died or were killed amid the mob, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick.
Multiple people within the swimming community identified Keller in video footage of the mob of people who had broken into the Capitol Rotunda. The 6’6″ Keller stood out in videos due to his height, and because he appears to be wearing his U.S. Olympic gear in the video. Keller represented Team USA in three Olympic Games: 2000, 2004, and 2008.
Keller’s charges include:
- Civil disorder
- Obstruction of an official proceeding, and aiding and abetting
- Entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds
- Disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds
- Impeding passage through the Capitol Grounds or buildings
- Parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building
After he was first charged, Keller turned himself in to federal authorities on January 14th, 2021. He was released without bail, agreeing to not return to Washington D.C. prior to the presidential inauguration of President Biden on January 21. He was also required to not possess firearms and retained the ability to travel from Colorado to visit his children in North Carolina.
Nobody does comebacks like Keller. Will win gold in Tokyo, prove haters and losers wrong
What a coward.
Not man enough to take responsibility and consequences.
If these people would have just stormed the place where they do the robocalls about car warranties instead, they would have received a Medal of Honor…
That’s funny, the robocalls are getting way out of hand.
Sneaky Klete
His white privilege will probably bail him out of these charges. But USA swimming can make a statement by STRIPPING HIM OF HIS MEDALS.
USA Swimming doesn’t have the authority to strip him of his medals.
Neither does wada or fina or Sun Yang lol
This is essentially correct. It seems as though if anybody stripped him of his medals, he could appeal it to the CAS, and the CAS would rule “your own rules don’t allow you to do this.”
Then it would be up to the relevant organization to change their rules, which would be a logistical nightmare and could be a gigantic can of worms.
I think that stripping Olympic medals for conduct that happened well after an athlete’s career would be a really bad precedent. If an organization wants to strip other more ‘honorary’ or ‘subjective’ awards, like Hall of Fame inductions or Golden Goggle Awards or USA Swimming Awards, I wouldn’t blame them. But stripping awards objectively won from athletes… Read more »
Damn. It.
Pardon Keller!
The paragraph on what happened January 6th is horribly written. I’m not sure any sentence contains a ‘fact’
Let me explain it to you in simple sports terms Jimmer. The football team with the most points wins. The basketball team with the most points wins, The baseball team with the most points wins. Pretty simple stuff. Hope this helps!
I agree. Misleading.
The above article says, Five people were killed amid the mob, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. This is clearly false, right? Only one person was killed. An unarmed female was shot by a police officer. Brian Sicknick died of an unknown cause. Thus far, no criminal charges have been filed.
According to some news outlets, i forget which one specifically, reached out to his mother and she mentioned Sicknick died of a stroke unrelated to the capital events.
Nice unsubstantiated deflection.
Here is a link to the story. Sicknick’s mother said, “He wasn’t hit on the head, no. We think he had a stroke. But we don’t know anything for sure. We’d love to know what happened.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/capitol-police-officer-brian-sicknick-mother
A woman carrying a “Dont Tread on Me” flag was trampled to death.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/us/rosanne-boyland-capitol-riot-death.html
I love the NYT article showing her posing with that “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, then showing her sequentially getting trampled. The irony seems to have escaped the NYT, but not our Swimswam crew!!!
I don’t think John Sullivan and his CNN date were Trump supporters.