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EDITOR’S NOTE: This report has been updated to include response from Heimbach.
Matthew Heimbach, a man whom social media posts suggested took part in Wednesday's storming of the U.S. Capitol, is speaking out.
He told Fox News on Friday that he was not in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, as some social-media posts suggested, but was "all the way in Tennessee."
The controversy began with a social-media post suggesting Heimbach had links to Capitol protesters. Heimbach has been characterized by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Nazi.
However, Heimbach strenuously denied any role in the current white-nationalist movement, saying he left the movement "over a year" ago and adding that the social-media posts were "fake news."
Matthew Heimbach, center, at a speech by Richard Spencer on March 5, 2018, in East Lansing, Mich. (Scott Olson/Getty Images, File)
In May 2020, a federal judge issued thousands of dollars in penalties for people and groups, including Heimbach, who took part in the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va. -- a march that led to violent clashes and a fatal attack on 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
In 2016, he was ordered to serve jail time for violating the terms of his two-year probation after harassing a protester at one of President Trump's rallies in 2016.
In a lawsuit, Heimbach argued that the president had authorized him to remove the individuals in question when he said, "Get 'em out of here."
Heimbach later pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct to avoid incarceration.
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