Grand Rapids-based news coverage of Ryan Kelley’s sentencing was a missed opportunity to speak to the former candidate’s larger political history on the Far Right

On Tuesday, there was coverage of former’s GOP Gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley’s sentencing, for his role in the January 6th riot/insurrection in Washington, DC.

MLive and all three Grand Rapids TV stations ran stories on Ryan’s sentencing. However, the three TV stations all used the same Associated Press (AP) article that appeared on their websites. Here is a link to the WOODTV8 story, so you can read what the AP article had to say.

The MLive article was actually written by an MLive reporter, with the headline, Ex-Michigan gov. candidate Ryan Kelley gets 60 days in prison for Capitol riot role.

The MLive article talks about the sentencing, some comments from the judge, Kelley’s Gubernatorial candidacy in 2022 and the day that the FBI arrested him. MLive also promoted some previous posts they had done about Kelley, but only after the January 6, 2021 riot/insurrection and his candidacy in 2022.

What is unfortunate about this coverage, it that it omits Kelley’s role with the American Patriot Council that came into existence in 2020 at the same time that the COVID pandemic was happening. I understand that Ryan Kelley was just sentenced for his role on the January 6, 2021 riot/insurrection in Washington, DC, but his involvement in Far Right Politics beginning just 10 months before then laid the groundwork for him to participate in the January 6, 2021 riot/insurrection. 

In April of 2020, Ryan Kelley and the American Patriot Council were involved in the protest at Gov. Whitmer’s home and they were the lead organizer for the large protest at the Lansing State Capitol a week later.

In May of 2020, Ryan Kelley and the American Patriot Council announced protests in Lansing and in Grand Rapids that same month. The American Patriot Council referred to the May 14th rally as Judgement Day at the Lansing State Capitol. In the GRIID May 12 post, we acknowledged that Ryan Kelley was in communication with State Senator Mike Shirkey during the April 30th protest in Lansing, while the protest was happening. However, you will notice that in our GRIID article some of the hyperlinks no longer work, because the American Patriot Council had removed some of their posts at the same time that several people were charged in a plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer.

On May 18, I attended and wrote about the American Patriot Council rally in Grand Rapids, where Ryan Kelley spoke and advocated again for the arrest of Gov. Whitmer, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State. Another important thing about that rally was the fact that there were several armed men who were on stage with Kelley for the rally, men who were initially charged in the plot to kidnap the Governor.

Later that summer, Ryan Kelley was involved in efforts to keep the Civil War Statue in Allendale, and used that issue as a rallying point for the American Patriot Council, which also organized a rally in Allendale in October of 2020, claiming that there would be freedom protests happening all over the country.

A few weeks later, the American Patriot Council urged people to go to Detroit to the site of a one of the election polling centers to contest the validity of the vote count process, primarily through intimidation.  

All of this backstory to Ryan Kelley’s participation in the riot/insurrection on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC, not only is relevant information regarding Kelley’s political evolution, but it is information that should have been included as part of the legal case against him for his participation on January 6, 2021. Ryan Kelley, like so many others who participated in the January 6, 2021, riot/insurrection, did not do so in a vacuum, the January 6th action was merely the culmination of what they had been hoping for several years prior.