Claypool Unaware of Violent Comments, Not Ashamed of Marching for Trump
On Jan. 8, Ed Gallek, a reporter with Cleveland’s FOX 8 News, challenged Mario Innocenzi’s claims he was focused on a peaceful march by playing comments Innocenzi made in a since-deleted live video posted on Facebook.
On Jan. 8, Ed Gallek, a reporter with Cleveland’s FOX 8 News, challenged Mario Innocenzi’s claims he was focused on a peaceful march by playing comments Innocenzi made in a since-deleted live video posted on Facebook.
“We’re going to Capitol Hill right now. Descend on our senators and Congress, to make them change the vote. I say we just rush the Capitol,” Innocenzi is heard saying in the video.
Someone near Innocenzi is then heard saying three words – “start assassinating people.”
Innocenzi replies, “Right.”
When asked about his comments by Gallek, who played only the last section of his Capitol Hill comment in his news segment, Innocenzi repeated his claim he did not condone the violence that took place. He told Gallek he didn’t hear the assassination comment, either.
In a phone call Jan. 11 with the Geauga County Maple Leaf, Innocenzi said at 60, he was the youngest in the group he accompanied to the rally.
His slow-moving group included ladies using canes who could barely walk, he said.
“It was a joke because — if you’d have seen us — we couldn’t rush to the toilet, we’re so slow,” Innocenzi said. “And again, if I would have even thought about that — who knew what was going to happen several hours later? I’m ex-military, I love my country. I’m a God-fearing, country-loving patriot. I went there only to show support for a free and fair election, not to cause problems, not to be a jerk. None of that.”
Innocenzi said he has received numerous death threats, and threats to shut down his business, since the airing of the FOX 8 segment. He reiterated he would not approve of anyone talking about assassination and he didn’t hear the comment — which he thought came from someone in the background of his video — until Gallek played it.
Chester Township Trustee Skip Claypool had another theory about Innocenzi’s video.
“I listened to the audio and if you listen to it carefully, the voice that says something about an assassination or whatever, sounded like it was added to me. It didn’t sound like, sort of, natural audio. And so — I’m very suspect of all of that,” Claypool said during a Jan. 11 phone call.
Claypool did not explain when he believed the audio was added.
During the full 17-minute video, Innocenzi also tells those watching he plans to “start taking care of business” when he returns to Geauga County, starting with the Geauga County Republican Party, chaired by Nancy McArthur, who sits on Chardon City Council.
Innocenzi calls out those his group refers to as “Republicans in Name Only.”
“Your party chair’s gotta go, gotta clean house and start over,” Innocenzi says. “Too many RINOs and never-Trumpers in it.”
He encourages everyone, Republican or Democrat, to work in their local parties to make change starting at home.
In a Jan. 11 email sent to members of the Chesterland Rotary Club that the Maple Leaf obtained, Claypool said news coverage of Innocenzi’s comments is sensationalizing the moment.
“I stress I was not close to him or part of the conversation. I was not aware of the film or his comments until called by Fox 8,” Claypool said.
In the email, he said he is not ashamed for having exercised his fundamental rights and participated in the march last week.
“I served in the military to defend those rights,” he said. “I am very disturbed by what I am seeing by media, large corporations and some in our government. Many of the actions I am seeing I saw in Communist China years ago when I traveled there on business. I literally saw a person shot for no cause. … You should be very concerned regardless of your political leanings.”
Both Claypool and Innocenzi said Jan. 11 they had not been contacted by law enforcement since the event, with Claypool adding such contact would be “silly and ridiculous.”
“Trust me, the FBI’s got way more on their plate than worrying about a 70-year-old trustee who is going down to walk down Constitution Avenue … and carry a flag,” he said. “I don’t think they’re worried about me.”
IMAGE: Screenshot from FOX 8 video
