Inset: Barbara Balmaseda sent this photo of herself to Proud Boy Gabriel Garcia before the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021./ Background: Circled in yellow, Balmaseda is seen climbing the Capitol balustrade on Jan. 6; behind her in red cap is Proud Boy Garcia. Justice Department provided photos.
A Florida woman and former director for the Miami Young Republicans who allegedly spent months exchanging texts and photos with a member of the Proud Boys before joining him at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been formally indicted, court records show.
Barbara “Barby” Balmaseda, 23, once a reported intern for Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and a campaign organizer for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, was arrested last December. She was charged with felony obstruction of justice/threat of physical force for reporting crimes, entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and two disorderly and disruptful conduct charges — one for being in a restricted area, the other for being in the Capitol — and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Her indictment was entered onto the docket on May 22.
Her next court appearance is a status hearing on June 27 before Magistrate Judge Robin Meriweather.
Prosecutors said Balmaseda, a resident of Miami Lakes, exchanged “hundreds of texts and images” with the now-convicted Proud Boy Gabriel Garcia spanning from August 2020 through January 2021, even making travel arrangements to coordinate her flight with his to Washington, D.C., for a day before the certification of the 2020 election.
So close were the two, prosecutors say, that on Jan. 8, Balmaseda told Garcia: “Hey! Good morning! You left a hat and a gas mask in Adolfo’s car, I also have your sunglasses in my purse and you have my taser.”
Investigators were able to identify Balmaseda in part thanks to evidence pulled from her devices, as well as from Garcia’s, according to a statement of facts.
Some of those photos showed the two together on the evening of Jan. 5, attending a pro-Trump rally where the Miami Lakes woman was snapped wearing a pink and black neck gaiter. She wore the same gaiter on Jan. 6 in a photo taken that afternoon after the breach alongside a shirtless Garcia, and another man unidentified in court records.
Left: Selfie photo taken by Barbara Balmaseda, right. Gabriel Garcia, left, unidentified man center. /Right: In a selfie photo seized off Proud Boy Gabriel Garcia’s phone, Balmaseda appears smiling. Justice Department provided photos.
Over text messages with Garcia and other “associates,” the Justice Department alleges Balmaseda was part of a Telegram group chat that she herself set up on Nov. 4, 2020, entitled “Barby’s Security :).” She eventually renamed it to “Barby’s Security Detail.” There were 10 other members in the chat, including Garcia, who were all members of the Miami Proud Boys chapter.
Over roughly 900 messages from November 2020 to January 2021, Balmaseda often spoke about now-President Joe Biden “stealing” the election and shared articles or social media posts in the chat from Trump’s allies in Congress who planned to object including Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida. After Donald Trump’s defeat was declared on Nov. 7, however, she lamented to her group chat: “F— it, going to take pain killers and sleep to Monday call me when people grab there [sic] f—— balls.”
Two days later, when someone sent her a link to an article about Trump’s plans to challenge the election results, prosecutors say messages showed Garcia vowed that he and others were “ready to f— s— up again.
Balmaseda replied with a smiley and popcorn emoji, writing: “I’ll get the popcorn ready to watch y’all f— s— up.”
But prosecutors said Balmaseda did more than watch.
By New Year’s Eve, she told the group she had an offer from Turning Point USA to watch Trump speak but she rejected it because she “wouldn’t really have the autonomy to do what I want,” she said.
On the morning of Jan. 6, she was drinking coffee with Garcia at Black Lives Matter Plaza. By that afternoon, Balmaseda was striding behind him as he marched to the Capitol, prosecutors say.
Rioting was in full swing with people climbing over the scaffolding’s west side as plumes of smoke billowed into the air when she arrived on Capitol grounds. Prosecutors say she took her place “towards the front of the mob of rioters on the west front.”
She and Garcia climbed equipment staged for Biden’s inauguration and eventually made it up to the top of a balustrade on the West Terrace before Balmaseda ultimately entered the Capitol through a Senate Wing door just four minutes after rioters breached it, prosecutors say.
She eventually entered the crypt around 2:19 p.m. as police officers tried to keep rioters from advancing any deeper inside.
In one video retrieved from Garcia’s devices, prosecutors allege Balmaseda is in the background just nearby as he records himself exclaiming “We just went ahead and stormed the Capitol.”
Left: Barbara Balmaseda, circled in yellow, appears in a crowd inside the Capitol rotunda on Jan. 6 as police work to keep rioters at bay./ Top right: Balmaseda, circled in yellow, in surveillance footage, entering the Capitol on Jan. 6. with Garcia behind her, circled in red. Bottom right: Balmaseda on the morning of Jan. 6 having coffee with Garcia in Washington, D.C. Justice Department provided photos.
As other rioters pushed past police lines in the Crypt, the former Miami Young Republicans director moved forward with the crowd, ignoring police who were trying to make them turn back, prosecutors said. She eventually made her way to the second floor of the Capitol near the Rotunda and stayed inside for 11 minutes, snapping photos of Garcia as he posed next to a statue of Ronald Reagan, prosecutors allege.
When she finally left, it was only because officers had corralled her and other rioters and investigators say she appeared to be carrying a “white rectangular object” in her hands while inside. Court documents did not describe what the item was.
She and Garcia, a former U.S. Army captain, snapped more photos together outside. That evening and then into the next morning, she sent him a series of Jan. 6-related memes including one of a door with Cheeto as a door lock and the caption “the Capitol today,” prosecutors said.
As Politico noted following her arrest in December, Balmaseda was a committeewoman for the Florida GOP until photos of her at the Capitol surfaced and she resigned. Her resignation was first reported by the New York Times. Garcia notably also once sat on the Miami-Dade Republican Party’s executive committee.
He was slated for sentencing this March before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson after he was convicted at a bench trial last November. He has not yet faced sentencing. A review of his docket shows he has been granted permission to see his children, undergo a medical procedure and that he was allowed to have his ankle monitor temporarily removed. Many of the related motions and orders are under seal. He requested his sentencing be continued until April 29 and the government was unopposed but a new date is not yet set.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Garcia was put on home detention in March 2023 after it was discovered that he met with Rep. Matt Gaetz during that year’s Conservative Political Action Conference held in Maryland. He was banned from Washington, D.C., since his arrest in January 2021 and the judge only gave him permission to come to the nation’s capital for his court hearings or to meet with his attorney. When he asked to attend a portion of the seditious conspiracy trials involving the leaders of the Proud Boys, she granted it and it was during this time that he attended CPAC.
An attorney for Balmaseda, Nayib Hassan — who also represented the leader of the Proud Boys and convicted seditious conspirator Henry “Enrique” Tarrio — told Law&Crime in an email Tuesday: “We look forward to presenting a vigorous defense on her behalf. Additionally, we are patiently awaiting the ruling from the [Supreme Court] on the 1512 allegations as they may have a direct impact on Mrs Balmaseda’s case.”
That case is Fischer v. United States and involves the obstruction statute that Balmaseda and hundreds of other defendants have been charged with; when the court heard oral arguments earlier this year, justices appeared dubious and divided over the case.
Spokespeople for Sen. Rubio nor Gov. DeSantis immediately responded to a request for comment to Law&Crime on Tuesday.
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