Federal officials at the Tennessee Valley Authority denied Beals access to all TVA facilities on June 30, 2021, according to a letter he received from the public utility’s police force, which Raw Story obtained the letter through a Freedom of Information Act request.
“Specifically, TVA Police learned of your Unauthorized Access to the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” the letter reads. “Your actions are not aligned with TVA security policies and procedures, therefore your restriction from TVA facilities remains.”
The letter further states that TVA Police, as a federal law enforcement agency, “remains committed to providing a safe and secure working environment to all TVA employees and contractors.”
Beals has previously told Raw Story that he was working as a union carpenter at nuclear power plants around the time of the Jan. 6 attack. The TVA operates two nuclear power plants in the state, including Sequoyah in Soddy-Daisy, near where Beals lives in the Chattanooga area, and Watts Bar, about 60 miles from Chattanooga.
Beals has emphatically denied going inside the Capitol.
“When I did go for the rally on 01/06/2021, I DID NOT enter the capital building,” Beals wrote to the TVA, which Raw Story also obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. “I stayed outside and was providing medical for police and citizens.”
During his meeting with the FBI, Beals said the agents “were asking if I knew who entered and if I would help them. I advised them that what they wanted me to help with was against my belief and I did not want to be in any riots.”
The FBI has spoken to Beals about his whereabouts on Jan. 6, by his own account. Following the TVA Police’s revocation of Beals’ security clearance, he met with the FBI at a coffee shop at the agency’s request, Beals wrote in a letter to the TVA.
'I need to work'
Contradicting Beals’ claim that he did not go inside the Capitol is a trove of media collected by online sleuths who use open-source media to identify Jan. 6 rioters.
The evidence of Beals’ presence inside the Capitol comes from multiple videos, including one licensed to Getty Images, that shows him wearing distinctive clothing, including a black helmet with yellow stickers on the front and back and a black tactical vest, with his face fully exposed. Video also shows Beals carrying a police riot shield away from the Capitol after police quelled the riot.
Of the more than 1,000 defendants charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, about 909 defendants have been charged with entering or remaining in a restricted federal building or grounds, according to the most recent statistics compiled by the Department of Justice. About 49 defendants have been charged with theft of government property, for stealing items such as police shields — as Beals apparently did — American flags, hand-held metal detectors, correspondence from then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a police body-worn camera and a police baton.
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But almost 30 months after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Beals has yet to be arrested or face any charges for his involvement in the events of Jan. 6.
Reached by phone by Raw Story earlier this week, Beals said, “Any human being can be wrongfully accused of things. F--- the LGBTQ community. Do not ever contact me again.”
Beals was significantly more conciliatory in his letter to the TVA in October 2021.
“I need to get this cleared up, please,” he wrote. “I need to work. I have never caused any issues at work or any violence. I have had violence and harassment done to me by other employees. I am willing to do anything needed to clear my security clearance. I will take a polly, show you pictures from the same time, please tell me what I need to do to get this cleared. It is a large error. I need to work for my family and have a roof over their head and food. I am about to lose my vehicles because I have been denied access to work at TVA and I could have been working this whole time.”
Beals at the U.S. Capitol
In addition to Beals’ apparent violations of laws against trespassing in the Capitol and theft of government property, online sleuths have noted a pattern of apparent coordination between Beals and other self-described Three Percenters.
Three Percenters are an authoritarian and reactionary movement whose adherents see themselves as the spiritual successors of the American revolutionaries while viewing modern governing institutions as tyrannical interlopers.
Beals, who carried a baseball bat on the night of Jan. 5, 2021, as he and other far-right militants poured into the streets of downtown D.C. seeking confrontations with left-wing counter-protesters, interacted with at least two other rioters who carried baseball bats on Jan. 6. The men dressed in tactical gear while in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6 and the night before.
Online sleuths have observed that Beals’ movements on Jan. 6 seemed deliberate, and video shows him huddling inside the Capitol building with two other rioters. Video and photos also show Beals making an aborted attempt to climb a media tower, leading the online sleuths to dub him #TowerPup, and then climbing on the scaffolding for the inaugural risers on the west side of the Capitol.
At one point, video shows Beals speaking with U.S. Capitol police officers on a line at the west plaza and then turning to face the crowd, raising his hands and gesturing for them to move forward to the barricades.
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Beals boasted in an interview with a right-wing podcaster earlier this year that he was “one of those Three Percenters that was whupping the s--- out of BLM and antifa down on BLM Plaza road,” but there’s no evidence that Beals was involved in any altercations on Jan. 5.
The fact that Beals has avoided arrest and continues to engage in intimidation highlights both the overwhelming number of people involved in the attack on the Capitol and a blind spot in federal law enforcement’s handling of security threats from right-wing extremists, said Michael German, a former FBI special agent who is now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program.
“It appears very arbitrary,” German said, adding that Beals’ status might be explained by the fact that only a little more than 1,000 people have been arrested so far, compared to the estimated 2,500 who are believed to have stormed the Capitol.
More concerning, German faults the FBI for apparently failing to recognize that Jan. 6 is part of a broader pattern of ongoing public violence by far-right actors.
“Many of the individuals and groups that were violent on January 6th were violent at previous protests and have continued to be violent,” German said. “Law enforcement seems to have fallen into the same passive stance that it took to public far-right violence prior to January 6th that allowed groups like the Proud Boys to become violent and influential enough to lead an attack on the U.S. Capitol. There are more Proud Boys out there today than on Jan. 6 because law enforcement is not addressing the violence that occurs in public.”
Responding to a Raw Story inquiry about Beals, Darrell DeBusk, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Knoxville office, said: “The FBI does not confirm or deny the existence of a potential investigation.”
Textbook provocation
Since the attack on the U.S. Capital two-and-a-half years ago, Beals has routinely acted out in a provocative and threatening fashion.
Notably, he linked up with a neo-Nazi network that has waged a recent campaign of intimidation against drag shows across Tennessee.
During a phone call in late May to Josh Brandon, a bisexual man who has often found himself on the opposite side of the street from neo-Nazis during protests against drag shows in Tennessee, Beals alluded to a past incident in Kitsap County, in western Washington state, where he used to live.
“You can run your f---ing mouth all you want; I will jump the f--- up out of my chair and beat your f---ing face in the middle of the courthouse,” he said. “I’ve done it before, motherf---er.”
An anonymous source provided a recording of the phone call to Raw Story, and Brandon granted permission to quote it.
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Beals also told Brandon that he’s been convicted of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon, a claim that Raw Story could not independently verify.
In January, Beals approached police during a traffic stop in Cookeville, Tenn., to question them on why they had pulled over his friends, one of whom admitted to throwing a projectile at counter-protesters from the vehicle while armed with a pistol. During the protest that preceded the traffic stop, Beals had walked into the middle of the street and challenged counter-protesters to a fight.
During a public exchange last month on neo-Nazi channel on the social media app Telegram that was used to coordinate plans to protest an upcoming Pride celebration in Pulaski, Tenn., Beals outlined his approach to instigating violence with left-wing counter-protesters.
“Most groups won’t walk across the street and confront antifa,” he wrote. “I do, and I do my best to get those retards going to cross the street on me because it’s entertainment to me to knock a libtard out.”
Then, apparently mindful of past admonishments by the administrator to avoid violent rhetoric on the channel, Beals added, “I don’t promote any type of harm on here. I’m just saying if pushed I will respond.”
William Beals outlines his approach to instigating violence with counter-protesters in an exchange on Telegram last month. Screengrab
In a phone call to Brandon last month, Beals appeared to threaten his life, while challenging him to meet him at a protest against a Pride celebration that took place in Franklin, Tenn. on June 3, the same day as Pulaski Pride.
“You’re a dead son of a bitch,” Beals told Brandon. “If you come across me again, I will put my f---ing foot in your face. Meet me in Franklin, motherf---er. June 3rd. Meet me in Franklin.”
Brandon did not accept the invitation. Beals announced on the morning of June 3 that he also wouldn’t be there.
“Good luck, brothers and sisters,” Beals wrote on his Facebook page. “I have to sit this one out. I’ll explain it to the ones that really matter.”
