Dustin Thompson, a January 6th defendant who tried to blame his participation in the ransacking of the Capitol on “presidential orders” from Donald Trump, was found guilty by a Washington, D.C. jury on Thursday of all six charges he faced, including felony obstruction of Congress.
After reading the verdict, U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, said “I think our democracy is in trouble because, unfortunately, we have charlatans like our former president who doesn’t, in my view, really care about democracy but only about power.”
Regardless of Trump’s role in instigating the riot, Walton said Thompson was “weak-minded” and “gullible.” Walton ordered the 38-year old from Ohio to be immediately detained, a departure from the typical practice of allowing a convicted felon to be free until sentencing.
POLITICO reports:
“The inevitable reality is that whether he does time now or does time later, he’s got to do time,” Walton said just before ordering him held.
He added that he considered Thompson a flight risk because he tried to flee the police on Jan. 6 after they began to question him about his theft of a coat tree from a Capitol office. Walton also said he didn’t think Thompson was candid during his testimony, when he took the stand to try to explain his actions.
The New York Times provides more details on Thompson’s unsuccessful defense:
When Mr. Thompson testified in his own defense on Wednesday, he tried to paint a sympathetic portrait of himself, telling the jury how he had fallen down a “rabbit hole” of election misinformation starting after he lost his job during the pandemic in March 2020 and culminating in his presence in Washington for Mr. Trump’s speech near the White House on Jan. 6.
He testified that he believed that he had been answering the president’s call to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” when he joined the throng that swarmed into the building.
“If the president’s giving you almost an order to do something,” he told the jury, “I felt obligated to do that.”
POLITICO continues:
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Dreher called Thompson’s argument a “sideshow” meant to whip up the jury’s anger at Trump rather than focus on the obvious violations of law that Thompson committed.
“Defense counsel wants you to focus so much on what President Trump said on the morning of Jan. 6. He wants you to forget what his client did on the afternoon of Jan. 6,” Dreher said.
“He wants you to think you have to choose between President Trump and his client, Mr. Thompson, right? That you can only find that one of them committed a crime that day or that one of them is worse than the other,” Dreher continued. “Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t have to choose.”
Business Insider provides more details:
Thompson entered the Capitol and reached the Senate parliamentarian’s office, where he stole a coat tree and a bottle of liquor, prosecutors said. While en route to the Capitol, Thompson said he found a tactical vest by a garbage can and put it on.
Prosecutors pointed to the vest as evidence that Thompson walked to the Capitol expecting violence. And, in the cross-examination of Thompson and closing arguments, prosecutors pushed back against Thompson’s attempt to shift blame onto Trump.
“President Trump did not hold his hand as he went to the Capitol to loot and defile the Senate parliamentarian’s office,” prosecutor William Dreher said.
The jury took just three hours to return guilty verdicts on all six counts Thompson faced: obstruction of an official proceeding, theft of government property, entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in the Capitol, and parading in the Capitol. The most serious charge – obstruction – carries a potential 20 year sentence.
CNN provides context:
The guilty verdict could have major implications for the numerous other defendants who have attempted to shift blame onto the former President. Judges have been largely skeptical of Trump-made-me-do-it arguments from defendants, but this is the first time a jury has formally rejected it as well.
It could also reverberate into Trump’s own legal challenges. Trump is facing numerous civil lawsuits for allegedly inciting the mob. A federal judge in California said last month that it was “more likely than not” that Trump had committed a crime by trying to influence then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject Electoral College votes.
