Not my fault

Got swept up in crowd on Jan. 6, Barnett says

Every person charged with a criminal act is entitled to a zealous defense in a court of law. Richard “Bigo” Barnett of Gravette will, undoubtedly get his, and he deserves it.

The nation will remember Barnett from the Jan. 6 ri- ot in Washington, D.C.

A photo published around the world showed Barnett with his feet propped up on a desk in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, not long after hundreds of Donald Trump loyalists invaded the U.S. Capitol.” Having listened earlier to the now-former president rail against Congress’ count of the states’ certified Electoral College votes, this group assaulted law enforcement officers and broke into the Capitol to disrupt any outcome that would block a second Trump term.

It was violence against democracy that shocked not just Americans but people around the world.

And, unfortunately for Arkansas, “Bigo” Barnett became one of the most recognizable faces of an insurrection.

Recently, in federal court in Washington, D.C., Barnett’s New York City attorneys offered an explanation of how their client ended up in Pelosi’s office.

Bigo was just looking for a restroom and went in the wrong door, they suggested.

And he only sat at the desk because a reporter — no doubt an enemy of the people, as President Trump liked to refer to them — encouraged him to.

And that 950,000-volt stun gun walking stick he carried with him, leading to charge of entering a restricted building with a dangerous weapon? Oh, that was no big deal, they say, because he didn’t put the batteries in it.

Indeed, Barnett’s attorneys told the federal court, he didn’t even intend to go inside the Capitol that day. He just got swept up in a crowd and “it was impossible to go against the tidal wave of people, all moving all in the same direction,” his attorneys wrote to the judge.

In the aftermath of the Capitol riot, old videos of Barnett showed him at events in Northwest Arkansas, carrying guns, declaring himself a patriot and asserting he was friends with law enforcement leaders. Videos from Jan. 6 showed him outside the Capitol, holding a Pelosi envelope he took from her office. None of these videos suggest Barnett is some malleable and helpless soul who isn’t in charge of his own destiny.

But everyone deserves a zealous defense. And Bigo Barnett is getting his.