MAGA rioter: I only made incriminating videos at Capitol to 'increase engagement' on Facebook

An Arizona man who was charged with obstructing an official proceeding after he made incriminating videos of himself charging toward the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021 told a court on Monday that he was only doing it to boost his Facebook engagement.

Politico's Kyle Cheney reports that alleged Capitol rioter Ryan Zink, during his testimony, claimed that he was never a very political person and was merely using the event to boost his own social media profile.

As Cheney notes, this might be hard to square with footage of Zink yelling, "We're storming the Capitol" and, "They can't stop us!" in videos he posted on his own Facebook page.

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However, according to Cheney, Zink told the court that he needed to act more crazed than he really was because he was competing with other Capitol rioters' live streams, and he even at one point claimed that he was entering the Capitol, even though he never actually ever set foot inside.

"I'm embellishing my activity here to try to retain viewership," he testified.

Zink repeatedly came back to using the videos to "increase engagement" on Facebook.

Zink's father, Jeff Zink, was also in attendance on the Capitol grounds on January 6th, 2021. Last year, he ran a massively unsuccessful campaign against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), going down in defeat by a whopping 54 percentage points.