SC man who shouted ‘Civil War 2’ during Jan. 6 Capitol riot pleads guilty

A 21-year-old York County man who encouraged the mob to breach the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 has pleaded guilty.

At the time of the riot, Elliot Bishai — who pleaded guilty Monday to entering a restricted Capitol area — was urging the mob on and taking cell phone videos of people scaling the Capitol walls to enter the supposedly secure building.

Court evidence showed Bishai encouraged the mob by yelling, “Let’s go! Let’s go! You got it,” and shouting, “Civil War 2!”

With a friend, Citadel student Elias Irizarry, Bishai then followed the mob through a broken window next to the U.S. Senate wing and entered a conference room, where he sat in a chair, according to a partial statement of his offense read by the judge during Monday’s hearing.

After, Bishai and Irizarry went to the Capitol crypt — a quiet vaulted space containing statues representing the 13 original colonies — where he took photos of Irizarry, the judge read.

They then entered the Capitol Rotunda, where Bishai and Irizarry climbed on top of statues and took selfies.

Bishai admitted that the narrative of the events read in court by Judge Tanya Chutkin Monday were true.

Bishai,who has no criminal record, faces a maximum of one year in prison and a $100,000 fine for his offense of remaining or entering in a restricted area within the U.S. Capitol.

In return for his guilty plea, other charges were dropped against Bishai.

He will be sentenced on July 29 by Chutkan. He will be out on bond until then.

Friend tipped off SC man to FBI

Bishai appeared virtually before the judge Monday from Lexington, Virginia, where he works as a firefighter for a company that does work for the U.S. Forest Service. At the time of his arrest, he had been planning to join the U.S. Army and become a helicopter pilot.

Bishai’s alleged accomplice, Irizarry, has not yet decided whether to plead guilty or seek trial. Irizarry has until June 1 to make up his mind.

Evidence against the two men includes not only electronic data from their cell phones but also numerous surveillance videos shot from inside the Capitol, court testimony showed.

Bishai and Irizarry are graduates of Nation Ford High School in Fort Mill, where each was a member of the Marine Corps JROTC.

On the day of the attack, Congress was supposed to be conducting a count of Electoral College votes that gave Joe Biden his formal victory. The attack by Bishai, Irizarry and thousands of others forced members of Congress to flee and halted, temporarily, the nation’s more than 200 years of peaceful transfer of power in presidential elections.

In the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, then-President Donald Trump and associates had made numerous false claims that widespread election fraud had stolen the election. Those claims, although proven false in some 60 courts across the country, spurred the mob into action.

A friend of Bishai and Irizarry tipped the FBI to their participation in the riot.

The friend said he and others in a Civil Air Patrol Unit, that Irizarry and Bishai belonged to, recognized the two men in photographs being circulated by the FBI in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, the complaint said.

Of the 11 South Carolinians so far arrested in connection with the Capitol riot, seven have pleaded guilty.

Four have been given more time to choose to plead guilty or go to trial.

This story will be updated.