One of six Massachusetts residents charged with crimes connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., says she is now helping to organize Massachusetts participants in a planned nationwide truck convoy to protest COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
In Tuesday posts to a public group on the messaging app Telegram, Suzanne Ianni said she has been asked by national organizers to lend a hand in organizing local truckers.
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The effort started in Canada, where a group of truckers protested having to be vaccinated to cross the U.S.-Canadian border. The protests have snowballed, effectively shutting down Ottawa, the Canadian capital, and closing a major U.S.-Canada trade route.
In the United States, activists who have opposed federal and local vaccine mandates are taking inspiration from the Canadian protest.
Ianni, 60, was charged in July with disorderly conduct on the Capitol grounds, and knowingly entering and remaining in the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt. The mob broke into the Capitol building, and five people — including a U.S. Capitol police officer — died. Her involvement caused a firestorm in Natick, where she is a member of the Town Meeting, its governing body. A petition calling for Ianni to resign or be dismissed garnered 1,700 signatures from residents, but it failed.
On Tuesday, Ianni posted messages to the Telegram group “Freedom Convoy MA,” a public messaging board that has over 400 participants.
Facebook removed a related page called “Convoy to DC 2022” where protesters were organizing. Activists have now turned to messenger services that allow them to create public and private groups to interact with others. The platform trucker supporters are organizing on, Telegram, has around 500 million users. Germany is considering banning its usage due to extremist messaging and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
The so-called Freedom Convoy appears to have organizers scattered around the country, and a map posted on Telegram indicates that the route would pass through Worcester and Andover.
GBH News reached out to Ianni for comment using several publicly listed phone numbers and three email addresses. She did not respond or pick up, and later posted within the group that media was trying to contact her.
“Just a reminder— WE ARE PUBLIC! The press/ media have already infiltrated some or all of these truck convoy channels. My daughter got a call from one of them. I HATE when vultures call my children,” she wrote on Tuesday afternoon.
The numbers called by GBH News were all specifically listed under Ianni in public records, not family members.
