An Ohio man who claimed Donald J. Trump was legally responsible for his decision to break into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and make off with a bottle of bourbon and a wardrobe was convicted Thursday in the first trial of the riot to show a defense that accused the former president.
Defendant Dustin Thompson, an unemployed exterminator from Columbus, based his entire trial defense on the argument that he was merely following orders from Mr. Trump last year when he went to the Capitol after the former president’s speech and broke into the building with him a pro-Trump mob and stole the items from the Senate representative’s office.
Testifying in his own defense on Wednesday, Mr Thompson attempted to paint a compassionate portrait of himself and told the jury how he fell down a “rabbit hole” of electoral misinformation after leaving his job during the March 2020 pandemic culminating in his presence in Washington at Mr. Trump’s speech near the White House on Jan. 6.
He testified that he believed he followed the president’s call to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell” as he joined the crowd pouring into the building.
“When the president almost gives you an order to do something,” he told the jury, “I felt compelled to do it.”
But it took a federal district jury in Washington less than three hours to dismiss that allegation and find Mr. Thompson, 38, guilty on all six charges he faced. The most serious charge in the indictment charged Mr. Thompson with obstructing Congress’s duty to certify the final results of the election, a count that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Within minutes of reading the verdict, Judge Reggie B. Walton, who was overseeing the trial, ordered Mr. Thompson – who had been out on bail for months – to remain in prison pending the delivery of his verdict.
The judge said he was offended by Mr. Thompson’s attempts to blame Mr. Trump for his own actions, called the defense “dishonest” and said he felt the defendant was neither “truthful” nor “sincere.” may be.
Although the jury appeared unperturbed by the allegation that Mr. Trump was responsible for Mr. Thompson’s actions, after the jury’s release, Judge Walton suggested that he believes the relentless barrage of conspiracy theories and lies poured out by the former president fomented contributed to the riot and continued to pose a threat.
“I think our democracy is in trouble,” he said, “because unfortunately we have charlatans like our former president, who I don’t think is about democracy, just about power.”
From the start, Mr. Thompson’s “Trump made me do it” defense was a bit lengthy. Similar arguments hadn’t garnered much favor from judges at a series of bail hearings and sentencing hearings. Mr. Thompson’s attorney, Samuel H. Shamansky, tried the gambit primarily because he didn’t have many other options.
After all, Mr. Thompson had been caught on video illegally entering the Capitol and later posed for a selfie in front of the building next to the antique wooden cloakroom. The government also had a copy of a video he made of himself hooting and yelling in the looted MP’s office.
Mr. Shamansky’s strategy boiled down to asking about Mr. Thompson’s state of mind on January 6th. He laid out in advance nearly every element of the charges his client faced and tried to argue to the jury that Mr. Thompson had not knowingly or corruptly broken the law, but had been told by Mr. Trump “so.” influenced – so used and abused” that he could not be held accountable for his behavior.
The Aftermath of Capitol Riot: Key Developments
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Debate on a criminal referral. The Jan. 6 House of Representatives committee is divided on whether to proceed with a criminal referral of former President Donald J. Trump to the Justice Department, despite concluding that it has sufficient evidence to do so. The debate revolves around whether a referral would backfire by politically soiling the expanding federal investigation.
contempt charges. The House of Representatives voted to recommend Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino Jr., two of Mr. Trump’s close allies, for criminal contempt of congressional charges after the two resisted subpoenas from the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack .
But under cross-examination, Mr. Thompson was brought down by a prosecutor, William Dreher, who got him to admit that he had known it was unlawful for him to be in the Capitol. Mr. Dreher also got Mr. Thompson to acknowledge that although Mr. Trump may have encouraged him – and thousands of others – to go to the Capitol, the former President had not been by his side giving directions as he broke into the Capitol Capitol and stole government property.
During his closing arguments on Thursday, Mr. Dreher described attempts to shift the focus away from Mr. Thompson and onto Mr. Trump as a “sideshow.” Mr. Dreher told the jury that they could reject Mr. Shamansky’s arguments and find Mr. Thompson guilty even if they didn’t like Mr. Trump — and even if they believed he encouraged the crowd to riot.
“He wants you to think you have to choose between President Trump and his client,” Dreher said. “You don’t have to choose because this is not President Trump’s criminal case.”
The Justice Department has so far won all three jury trials related to the attack on the Capitol. In early March, Texas militia member Guy Wesley Reffitt was convicted of leading a decisive charge against police outside the building with a gun on his hip.
On Monday, a jury found former Virginia police officer Thomas Robertson guilty of six counts, including obstructing the official election count by Congress.