Ohioan guilty in Capitol riot case

Jury rejects defense that he only followed Trump’s orders

WASHINGTON — An Ohio man who claimed he was only “following presidential orders” from Donald Trump when he stormed the U.S. Capitol was convicted Thursday by a jury that took less than three hours to reject his defense for obstructing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

The federal jury also found Dustin Byron Thompson, 38, guilty of all five of the other charges in his indictment, including stealing a coat rack from an office inside the Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021. The maximum sentence for the obstruction count, the lone felony, would be 20 years imprisonment.

One juror, a 40-year-old man, said as he left the courthouse, “Everyone agrees that Donald Trump is culpable as an overall narrative. Lots of people were there and then went home. Dustin Thompson did not.”

Thompson himself, testifying a day earlier, admitted he joined the mob’s attack and stole the coat rack and a bottle of bourbon. He said he regretted his “disgraceful” behavior.

“I can’t believe the things that I did,” he said. “Mob mentality and group think is very real and very dangerous.”

Still, he said he believed Trump’s claim that the election was stolen and was trying to stand up for him.

“If the president is giving you almost an order to do something, I felt obligated to do that,” he said.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, who is scheduled to sentence Thompson on July 20, described the defendant’s testimony as “totally disingenuous” and his conduct on Jan. 6 as “reprehensible.” The judge also cast blame in Trump’s direction after the verdict was announced.

“I think our democracy is in trouble,” he said, adding that “charlatans” like Trump don’t care about democracy, only about power.

“And as a result of that, it’s tearing our country apart,” the judge said.

Prosecutors did not ask for Thompson to be detained immediately, but Walton ordered him held and he was led away handcuffed. The judge said he believed Thompson was a flight risk and posed a danger to the public.

Thompson’s trial was the third to go before a jury among hundreds of Capitol riot cases prosecuted by the Justice Department. In the first two cases, jurors also convicted the defendants of all charges.

Assistant U. S. Attorney William Dreher said that Thompson, a college-educated exterminator who lost his job during the covid-19 pandemic, knew he was breaking the law when he joined the mob that attacked the Capitol and, in his case, looted the Senate parliamentarian’s office. The prosecutor told jurors that Thompson’s lawyer “wants you to think you have to choose between President Trump and his client.”

“You don’t have to choose because this is not President Trump’s trial. This is the trial for Dustin Thompson because of what he did at the Capitol on the afternoon on Jan. 6,” Dreher told jurors during his closing arguments.

Defense attorney Samuel Shamansky said Thompson hasn’t avoided taking responsibility for his conduct that day.

He said Thompson, unemployed and consumed by a steady diet of conspiracy theories, was vulnerable to Trump’s lies about a stolen election.

He described Thompson as a “pawn” and Trump as a “gangster” who abused his power to manipulate supporters.

“The vulnerable are seduced by the strong, and that’s what happened here,” Shamansky said.

More than 770 people have been charged with federal crimes arising from the riot. Over 250 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. Thompson is the fifth person to be tried on riot-related charges.

MILLER QUESTIONED

Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, who served as a top aide to President Donald Trump, was being questioned Thursday by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Miller was a senior adviser for policy during the Trump administration and a central figure in many of the Republican’s decisions. He had resisted previous efforts by the committee, filing a lawsuit last month seeking to quash a subpoena for his phone records.

A spokesperson for the committee said the panel had no comment, and Miller did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Miller’s is the latest in a series of sit-downs the committee has scored with those in Trump’s inner circle as lawmakers move closer to the former president by questioning people who were with him on the day of the attack or were his confidants in the weeks leading up to it.

The nine- member panel subpoenaed the former Trump adviser in November along with Steve Bannon and former press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the panel’s chairman, said at the time that Miller was aware of and had participated in “efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud” and had encouraged state legislatures to alter the outcome of the 2020 election by appointing alternate electors.

Thompson has also said that Miller helped prepare Trump’s remarks for a rally on the Ellipse that preceded the insurrection and was with Trump when he spoke.