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For The Washington Post 
5h ago
WASHINGTON – For many accused of trying to obstruct the certification of the US presidential election on January 6, the arrest was a reality check. Now they are getting another.
As the defendants indicted in the Capitol siege have gone through the courts, some have blamed former President Donald Trump, downplaying his actions or expressing remorse. But federal judges, particularly those who work a few blocks from the Capitol, aren’t buying it.
A judge called a defendant’s complaint of civil disobedience “separate from reality.” Another verbally beat up a lawyer who tried to use QAnon’s conspiracy theory to explain that his client was yelling “kill them all.” Other judges have been giving the defendants civic lessons on how democracy works.
United States District Judge Beryl Howell, the chief federal attorney for the District of Columbia, responded in disbelief to a defense attorney who said her client believed Trump had solicited his unlawful conduct. He said that if a president could sanction the revocation of an election, it would be no different from “a king or a dictator” and “that is not how we operate here.”
When the attorney added that the man, the accused leader of a Proud Boys group, had been “repressed rather than emboldened” by the federal charges and his “anti-government fever had died down,” Howell responded with a slap.
“Essentially, that’s his argument, saying, ‘Whoops’, now?” Howell asked. “Have you expressed any remorse or rejection for your membership in the Proud Boys, a gang of nationalist individuals? Do you reject the fantasy that your elections were stolen? Do you regret the positions that animated the mob on January 6? something in the registry about any of those things? “
“Oops” is essentially what many of the defendants are saying now.
Through attorneys, at least six of the relatively small number of defendants advocating for release from jail pending trial have stated that their disillusionment with Trump should be considered a factor. Some, like the horned “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley, have presented themselves as victims and perpetrators.
“Please bear with me and other peaceful people who, like me, are having a hard time rebuilding everything that happened to us, around us and for us,” he said in a public statement. “We are good people who care deeply about our country.”
Chansley, after failing to secure clemency from the president, offered to testify against him at impeachment.
Some link their delusions to involvement with right-wing militant groups and the consumption of far-right news, both of which amplified unsubstantiated claims that the elections were illegitimate and that Trump would regain power by force.
Jessica Watkins, a 38-year-old member of the extremist group Oath Keepers from Woodstock, Ohio, intended “not … to overthrow the government, but to support what she believed to be legal government,” said public defender Michelle Peterson. of DC argued in court documents. “He fell prey to the false and inflammatory claims of the former president, his supporters and the right-wing media.”
Friends and family of Watkins echoed that claim in court documents. One described it as “brainwashed by those deeply ingrained in conspiracy beliefs.” Watkins’ fiancé, with whom he co-owns a bar, wrote that his girlfriend “does not wish to resume military activities” and “wishes to ignore politics and concentrate on serving cocktails and cooking food.”
Watkins is accused of being involved in a conspiracy between Oath Keepers and his associates to raid the Capitol building; Prosecutors point to the comments he made about fighting and dying as evidence that they planned to capture and possibly harm lawmakers.
Dominic Pezzola, a New Yorker, says he became involved with the Proud Boys last fall and had “honorable intentions” when he used a police riot shield to smash a window on Capitol Hill, his attorney wrote last week; he believed he was “protecting his country.” Pezzola “now realizes that he was deceived with these erroneous beliefs” and “is consumed with guilt.”
Prosecutors say Pezzola was one of the first people to charge through the barricades onto the Capitol grounds, reaching the building’s walls and flooding its west plaza. Once there, he acknowledges that he confronted the police and grabbed a riot shield, becoming the first to break a window through which rioters could enter.
The judges have yet to rule on Pezzola and Watkins’ release proposals. But Howell rejected an argument by attorneys for the Kansas City defendant Proud Boy, William Chrestman, that his conduct on Capitol Hill was authorized by the president.
“President Trump … for four years boasted that if he assassinated someone on Fifth Avenue, his followers would still follow him,” he said, adding, “So if President Trump instructs members of the Proud gang Boys to murder someone, and they did, would that be a legal excuse and immunize them from any responsibility for a criminal act? “
Prosecutors have not asked to arrest most of the 250 or so federally charged protesters, many of whom are charged solely with burglary, have no criminal records and have demonstrated employment, family and community ties or service. public or military. The judges have also rejected the incarceration of people whose crimes do not involve violence. Many have been released from jail unless alleged to be “one of the individuals who slammed doors, sprayed pepper spray or bear spray at law enforcement officers, injured law enforcement officers, gouged out police eyes. in the building, “as one recited the judge when releasing a New Mexico county commissioner pending trial.
But by detaining some 54 people on the grounds that they pose a flight risk, a danger to the community, or are charged with certain violent crimes, and weighing requests to modify their release conditions, the courts have taught urgent lessons in civics, educating the accused and the public about the real-life workings of American democracy, as opposed to the feverish dreams of partisan manipulators.
“American democracy did not always exist. It began with a Declaration of Independence and a Revolutionary War, followed by the Articles of Confederation. That original founding document contained a branch of government: a Congress. It proved insufficient,” said US Justice Philip R Lammens initiated an arrest warrant for alleged Florida state leader Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs.
After a rebellion, the founders agreed to a stronger government with three branches, an electoral college, and the certification of winners by both houses of Congress and the vice president, Lammens wrote.
What happened on January 6 “was not just one in an entire branch of our government (including a member of the executive branch), but was an attack on the very foundations of our democracy.”
Meggs’s attorney, David Wilson, declined to comment.
Charles Peruto argued that his client, Gina Bisignano, was engaging in “freedom of speech” when he shouted encouragement at rioters through a megaphone on January 6.
“She certainly drank the Trump Kool-Aid and voluntarily participated in this protest and other protests,” he said. But “she was actually horrified by the violence, she didn’t think there would be actual violence; she got carried away with the moment and obviously made a bad decision here.”
That argument did not move US District Judge Carl Nichols.
“She was an active person in a riot that aimed to prevent by violent means a normally calm but critical step in the peaceful transition of power,” he said.
The seven charges against him, added the judge, do not fully capture the seriousness of his conduct: “His actions go against common decency and against democracy and the rule of law.”
However, the judge said he was not convinced that jail was necessary to prevent her from engaging in such conduct in the future; ordered his release under “very strict conditions”, without use of social media and with limited ability to leave his home.
Howell, as chief judge, has reviewed a particularly large number of cases on Capitol Hill, including appeals of arrest rulings from lower courts across the country, as well as his own assigned defendants.
Howell, a former Senate Judiciary Committee staff member whose court office watches friends and former colleagues on Capitol Hill three blocks away, has noted how on January 6 he has turned parts of the capital city into a militarized fortress. surrounded by razor-topped fences and roadblocks, off-limits to city residents and visitors alike.
In the QAnon case, Howell rejected a lawyer’s explanation that when his client yelled “kill them all” on Capitol Hill, referring to legislators, he did not mean that he would do it personally, but rather believed that the legislators would be executed by the lawmakers. appropriate authorities. in a Judgment Day apocalypse.
“QAnon believers will confront facts and reality in court,” he said. “What happened on January 6 is not a fantasy for the people inside the Capitol or for the people of the country. The defendant has a right to his beliefs. He may believe QAnon’s theory. He may believe that the earth is flat. He may believe what you want, but you have no right to break the law. “
One of Howell’s predecessors as chief judge, US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, similarly told attorneys for a pair of defendants that characterizing their behavior “as mere invasion or civil disobedience is unconvincing and it has nothing to do with reality. “
Lamberth, a former army captain and federally appointed prosecutor in 1987, ordered the arrest of Lisa Eisenhart and Eric Munchel, a mother and son who prosecutors say allegedly entered the Capitol in tactical gear and armed with a stun gun. looking for “traitors”. “
Defense attorneys for Munchel and Eisenhart argued that the president “invited” all Americans to the Capitol. Lamberth rejected that argument.
“By word and deed, [Eisenhart and Munchel] he supported the violent overthrow of the United States government “and represents” a clear danger to our republic, “wrote Lamberth.” In fact, few offenses are more threatening to our way of life. “
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