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FBI accuses US Marine Nathan Thornsberry of assaulting officers during Jan. 6 atttack

North Branch resident Nathan Thornsberry is shown outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (U.S. Attorney's Office/TNS) (U.S. Attorney's Office/TNS/TNS)
By Robert Snell Detroit News
North Branch resident Nathan Thornsberry is shown outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (U.S. Attorney's Office/TNS) (U.S. Attorney's Office/TNS/TNS)

DETROIT — A Lapeer County man who the FBI says wrote a first-person account under a pen name about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was charged Wednesday with violently obstructing officers during the siege.

Nathan Thornsberry, 42, of North Branch is accused in an unsealed criminal case of joining a group of people fighting police officers during the attack.

Dressed in a black U.S. Marines jacket, a Trump 2020 shirt and wearing black gloves that appear to have reinforced knuckles, Thornsberry, a metal processing company production manager, repeatedly yelled “Bring it!” as he tried pushing a bike rack into the row of law enforcement personnel during a confrontation on the lower west terrace, according to the criminal filing.

Thornsberry, who served with the Marines, is at least the 30th person from Michigan — and among more than 1,400 nationwide — charged with Jan. 6 crimes. That group includes former Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley and an amateur porn “personality” from Macomb County.

The criminal filing included a screengrab from an interview Thornsberry gave on Jan. 6 in which he “appeared to be under the effects of chemical spray,” the filing reads.

“I’m Nate, yeah Nathan Thornsberry, I’m from Michigan,” he says before narrating his involvement.

“I got right up in the front in the middle here. They came on it pretty hard push back so we linked arms and just started pushing,” he said. “I stayed up there for about four different pushes, got blasted over and over and over.”

Thornsberry was charged with six crimes: entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds; disorderly or disruptive conduct; physical violence; obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to 10 years or longer in federal prison. A lawyer for Thornsberry is not listed in the federal court filings.

The criminal case clashes with what the FBI portrayed as Thornsberry’s self-published account: “January 6th Redux: A Patriot’s Story.” Published in March 2023 under the pseudonym “Nathaniel Matthews,” Thornsberry said he traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend the Stop the Steal protest involving alleged voter fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

In the book, Thornsberry writes that he participated in the Jan. 6 events because he sensed “an internal threat, a threat that played a significant role in the deterioration of the war on terror, perverting it and turning it inward towards our own citizens. It is a threat to our way of life, to our freedoms, and to our constitution.”

During the siege, Thornsberry wrote that moved to the police line to protect an old man and young woman, according to the FBI. He was involuntarily forced against the police line, struck with metal batons and sprayed with pepper spray, according to the book.

Video evidence, however, shows Thornsberry pushing against metal bike racks held by Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Capitol Police officers, according to the criminal filing.

“Officers then proceed to push the bicycle racks back, meeting resistance from Thornsberry and others,” the filing reads.