Who Is Bullhorn Lady? FBI Raids Pennsylvania Home Of Capitol Rioter

The FBI on Thursday executed a raid at the Pennsylvania home of Rachel Powell, the alleged "bullhorn lady" captured in several photos taken at the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The raid at the home in Sandy Lakes, Pennsylvania, roughly 70 miles north of Pittsburgh, was confirmed to KDKA, a CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh.

The FBI had released several photos of Powell, who is seen holding a bullhorn and wearing a pink hat, in an effort to gain her identity and whereabouts.

The question about the woman's identity was answered by Powell herself, in an interview she gave Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker. Powell did not disclose her location and the FBI did not indicate Thursday whether she was taken into custody.

The article paints a portrait of an unusual insurrectionist. Powell, however, insists she wasn't part of a broader plan.

Farrow's article includes many interesting quotes from Powell. "I was not part of a plot – organized, whatever. I have no military background. … I'm a mom with eight kids. That's it. I work. And I garden. And raise chickens. And sell cheese at a farmers' market," Powell said, who was born in Anaheim, California.

Those activities are a long way removed from a woman captured on video smashing windows with a battering ram and shouting orders through a bullhorn to other rioters. While she acknowledged many of the photos shown to her during the interview were of her, she did not comment on many of the specifics of her activities at the Capitol.

"Listen, if somebody doesn't help and direct people, then do more people die?" she asked. "That's all I'm going to say about that. I can't say anymore. I need to talk to an attorney."

She became known as "Bullhorn Lady" and "Pink Hat Lady" after appearing on an FBI wanted poster, being shown on television news segments and becoming a focus of obsessive investigations led by both experts and ordinary people. A man associated with a Twitter group known as the Deep State Dogs identified Powell to federal authorities.

The 40-year-old's interests expanded radically over the last year, from Facebook discussions about her kids' sports events and interests in holistic foods and exercise to conspiracy theories.

Those theories centered first around COVID-19 and later expanded to the results of the presidential election in November, citing election-deniers such as Alex Jones, Rudy Giuliani and former President Donald Trump.

In one Facebook page last spring, Powell railed about COVID-related restrictions in her area. "One good thing about this whole … crisis is that I suddenly feel very patriotic. It isn't too late to wake up, say no and restore freedoms."

Interestingly, Powell's rabid support for Trump's post-election misinformation campaign was a dramatic reversal from how she voted in 2016, according to Farrow's report. She opposed Trump on the grounds of his perceived lack of civility as well as his proposed policies regarding the environment.

The attack on the Capitol, which occurred after a rally protesting the election result, was aimed at stopping the process of certifying the results of the Electoral College, but while some thought she was a ringleader in the violence, Powell claimed to be a lone actor and that she didn't meet up with a large group of people or any of the self-described militia groups which descended on the Capitol.

While Powell said she is worried about reprisals against her kids, she doesn't spend a lot of time contemplating a different outcome from Jan. 6.

"I try not to think about that. There are some things that are just worth blocking out."