Trump ‘authorized’ to attack Capitol, Jan. 6 defendant argues at trial

WASHINGTON – Attorneys for a man who took a coat rack and a bottle of wine in Attack on the US Capitol argued with a grand jury on Tuesday that former President Donald Trump “authorised” the January 6 attack on the building by persuading “vulnerable” people such as his clients. him that the election was stolen.

Dustin Thompson, 38, from Ohio, is the third defendant on January 6 to face a grand jury trial after conviction Guy Refitt and former policeman Thomas Robertson. Thompson faces six counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding and theft of government property. His Codefendant, Robert Lyon, pleaded guilty last month, admit that he and Thompson traveled together to DC and that Thompson stole a coat rack and then fled the police when they confronted each other on the grounds of the Capitol.

Samuel Shamansky, an attorney for Thompson, told jurors on Tuesday that his client had “foolishly grabbed a coat hanger” and that there was “no doubt” that his client had participated in the “terrible” event on January 6 that interrupted a “sacred and solemn process.”

But, Shamansky argued, the “origin” of the attack began a few months before January 6 and the responsibility lies with Trump, who “authorised this attack” on the Capitol.

“It’s a conspiracy, it’s a conspiracy, it’s a conspiracy… starting at the highest levels of our government,” Shamansky argued.

Thompson and other “vulnerable” Trump supporters like him “believed the lies fed them” in the months leading up to January 6, Shamansky argued. Thompson was “inclined” to “this madness”, Shamansky said, but losing his job at the start of the Covid pandemic forced him to sit at home digesting the “junk” that Trump and his supporters were spreading. .

“This is the crap that Dustin Thompson is listening to,” Shamansky argued. “Donald Trump encourages people like Dustin Thompson to storm the Capitol.”

Shamansky argued that the question for the jurors to answer was not whether Thompson stormed the US Capitol – “certainly so”, Shamansky admitted – but “why.”

Shamansky, who argued Tuesday that Trump engaged in a “sinister, heinous” plot to overturn the election results, attempted to subpoena the former president at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, according to an earlier court. submitbut was turned away by someone believed to be from the US Secret Service.

Trump has said he is not responsible for the actions of the rioters that day, and sought to blame others present at the US Capitol.

Nearly 800 people have been charged in connection with the attack on the US Capitol, and nearly 250 have pleaded guilty. Have hundreds of additional cases in the works.

at Blogtuan.info – Source: nbcnews.com – Read the original article here