WASHINGTON — Donald Trump may never face a federal trial in connection with the storming of the U.S. Capitol, but hundreds of his supporters are already campaigning for the Jan. 6 presidential election. We are seeing life-altering consequences for our actions that support this lie.
The former president has done everything he can to delay his criminal trial in Washington, D.C., with his lawyers arguing that he will not be prosecuted and that dropping out of the 2024 campaign to defend himself would amount to election interference. There is.
But 950 other people convicted of crimes related to Jan. 6 in the three years since the Capitol attack have been unable to make such arguments to delay their cases. Approximately 500 defendants were sentenced to anything from just a few days in prison to 22 years in federal prison. Hundreds more cases continue to be heard in the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse, not far from the U.S. Capitol, and online “sedition hunters” have identified hundreds more rioters to the FBI who have not been arrested. . The statute of limitations will expire in January 2026, approximately 21 months later.
Trump was originally scheduled to stand trial before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in March on four federal charges related to the January 6 attack. But his strategy of delay has paid off, and the case has been suspended since December. The Supreme Court decided last month to hold oral arguments on President Trump's presidential immunity claim in April, but the future of his federal election interference trial remains in doubt.
Trump could go on trial in New York next month on unrelated charges, but three other criminal cases, including two related to efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, are set to go to trial before the election. It is not clear whether it will be accepted. If Trump is re-elected president, he will almost certainly either try to fire Special Counsel Jack Smith or appoint a Justice Department official to do so.
There would be precedent for dropping the case or at least suspending prosecution. The long-standing position of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has been that the current president cannot be prosecuted. “Criminal prosecution of a sitting president would unconstitutionally impair the executive branch's ability to carry out its constitutionally assigned duties,” the party said in a 2000 opinion.
Meanwhile, many of Washington's January 6 defendants continue to point out the stark contrast between how the Capitol attack changed their lives and the development of the charges against Trump. At the sentencing hearing and criminal trial, attorneys for the Jan. 6 defendants argued that even as their clients are dealing with the trickle-down consequences of the 2020 election's lies, including Trump and his allies, He emphasized that no criminal penalties have been imposed on them.
President Trump's words and election lies leading up to the storming of the Capitol continue to echo in federal court in Washington. At Antonio LaMotta's trial in Washington, D.C., last week, Officer Christopher Owens testified that law enforcement officers were screaming in Trump supporters' faces that day. He said some people claimed to love the officers while others called them traitors while police attacked them with bear spray and two-wheel drive vehicles. He said the unforgettable “USA” and “Stop the Steal” chants — which he said were “huge” — and people chanting for Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged. I explained about it.
“There was a mob trying to attack you from all directions, 360 degrees,” Owens said.
LaMotta, who has pleaded not guilty to five charges, including felony insurrection, previously showed up armed outside a Philadelphia polling place in a Hummer loaded with ammunition and QAnon stickers. He had been convicted of firearms charges. Trump singled out the city for baseless suggestions of voter fraud and corruption. U.S. District Judge Gia Cobb is scheduled to issue a verdict on LaMotta's case on Jan. 6 during a hearing Thursday at 2:30 p.m.
In the past few weeks, several defendants from January 6 have cited President Trump to try to explain their actions that day.
A lawyer for a Vietnamese immigrant who “fled” to the United States at age 19 says her “unsophisticated” client believed he needed to come to Washington to prevent a communist takeover of the country. One of the reasons, he said, was her “limited understanding of English.” ”
“I went to Washington in response to President Trump's call on social media,” defendant Ngoc My Le wrote. “I'm not scared anymore. I have different goals to focus on now. I want to prioritize my family and career over following politics. I believe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States. I know that. I feel shame and remorse. It's embarrassing. I love this country deeply.”
Mr. Chutkan sentenced Mr. Mai Le to 10 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. She allowed Mai Le's sentencing to be delayed on the grounds that she had just had a baby.
Lawyers for Colton McAbee, a former law enforcement officer who was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison on January 6 for assaulting police, said McAbee “complied with the president's request” to go to the Capitol. insisted.
“The sitting president gathered a mob, led them to the Capitol, and told them to 'fight like hell,'” McAbee's lawyer wrote. “The seriousness of the rioters' actions on January 6th cannot be considered without considering that each of them was there because some of our nation's leaders directed them to be there. ”
A lawyer for Jessica Reicher, a “warm and devoted mother of four” who was indicted along with her husband, said that while she didn't even vote for Trump (she voted for a third party), “she and her husband I believed that,” he said. It's a lie propagated by the president and other political leaders that the 2020 election was rigged and unfair. ” They ended up inside the western tunnel, where some of the worst violence occurred.
“Jessica, a high school graduate and mother of four, can hardly be blamed for believing a lie when powerful leaders, including the president himself, and the so-called media outlets are spreading falsehoods,” Layer said. the attorneys wrote before Judge Reggie B. Justin. Walton sentenced her to 90 days in prison.
Arrests continue
New arrests are occurring one after another. Lance Ligocki was arrested in Illinois this month after federal authorities say he held a “Stop the Steal” sign in his other hand and waved it at officers carrying a President Trump flag. Last week, conservative influencer Isabella DeLuca was arrested and the FBI said she helped steal a table through a broken window, which was then used to assault a police officer.
Several other defendants in the January 6 incident appeared in court last week, and six of them pleaded guilty as part of plea deals with the government.
Benjamin Heffelfinger traveled from Ohio to Washington with his father and admitted to scaling the west wall of the Capitol before entering.
Dylan and Marissa Bowling, a couple from Alabama, admitted walking past blaring alarms and broken glass to enter the Capitol, and later when questioned about their participation in the storming of the Capitol. He admitted to lying to law enforcement.
Clive Kincaid admitted that despite being hit by six rubber bullets, he continued toward the officers and eventually spent 25 minutes inside the building. (According to Kincaid's statement of crime, he acknowledged that he “attempted to calm other rioters” but knew he remained on Capitol grounds and did not have permission to enter the building.)
Tony Gill admitted that he entered the Capitol through a broken window near the same Lower West Tunnel where the Reiers ended up.
Spencer Offman, who was arrested in Washington state in December, pleaded guilty to entering a restricted building or grounds and admitted entering the Capitol through a broken window. The FBI initially investigated Offman in 2021, but Offman denied going beyond the Capitol parking lot and the investigation was closed, according to charging documents. But a tipster contacted the FBI with a photo of Offman manipulating the barricade, and the government reopened the investigation.
Adam Kofsky, who was arrested in Michigan in December, appeared virtually in court with only one reporter in the audience and admitted to taking pieces of wood from broken furniture inside the Capitol.
Trump appeared in court on the same day.
President Trump has reached an agreement with the Office of Special Counsel to appear in court in August rather than be arrested at his home or place of work for the January 6 incident. Hours before he made his first court appearance and entered a not guilty plea, the FBI arrested riot suspect Mario Meles in Texas.
Unlike Mr. Trump, Mr. Meles was held in pretrial detention for several months after a federal judge in Texas ordered his detention. Prosecutors cited Meles' alarming message on social media: “We will find you. The merciless ones will hang or execute you!!!” — and so do the underlying allegations on which the charges against him were based: that the bulge on his right hip at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was a black semiautomatic handgun.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly – falsely – claimed that his supporters are unarmed. In addition to dozens of rioters using other objects to assault officers at the Capitol, several defendants were convicted of gun possession charges. A Trump supporter, one of several of the January 6 defendants currently being held pretrial, was recently charged with firing two shots from the scaffolding of the inauguration podium.
Mares was eventually granted a conditional release, but the case took months to resolve.
“The court is troubled by the defendant's social media posts and serious allegations that he brought a handgun to the Capitol, but these nonviolent acts are such that the combination of release conditions does not ensure public safety. “We do not satisfy the court that he poses a risk of harm,” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued the order in November.
The order came after Mares' supporters wrote that he was a devout Christian.
“I don't know how Jesus felt about threatening to kill and execute people, but I think it's different for everyone,” Reyes said at the detention hearing, adding that some of Mares' violent posts were posted on Christmas Day. The eve of 2020 pointed out that it was done.
His trial is currently scheduled for September 16th. Mares is likely to be sentenced at least by Election Day.
