Yet another defendant from the January 6th failed coup appeared in court. Judge Reggie Walton noted that his mailboxes have been full of emails and letters about whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) is failing the American people, ABC News reported. The judge said that as a result, he would give the “insurgency” the sentence it deserved.
Dustin Thompson was the third defendant in a jury trial associated with the insurrection against Congress. Thompson faced six charges in total.
Judge Walton pointed out that these individuals participated with the massive Trump mob that stormed the Capitol Building. At that time, Thompson stole a coat rack and a bottle of bourbon from the Senate parliamentarian’s office. The judge insisted that instead, the man should have been responsible “for his actions” after the ex-president spoke to his followers on the Elipse.
So far, the DOJ reported that 800 have been arrested and charged. About one in fifteen of them used the Trump-made-me defense. They said that they were “tricked” into believing the conspiracy theorists’ case of a “stolen election.”
The judge asked the jurists to be wary of the defense attorney because he would try to have the jury find for or against Donald Trump. But the judge said “This is not Trump’s criminal trial:”
‘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 January 6. Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t have to choose. This is not President Trump’s criminal trial.
‘[Y]ou can be mad about what happened that day, you can think what President Trump did was wrong, you can think that what he said that day led them to go do what they did.’
The judge said that the defendant was “not a child:”
‘That doesn’t matter. As long as you find — if you find, that Mr. Thompson knew that what he was doing was unlawful. He was 36 years old on Jan. 6 … an adult, not a child. President Trump didn’t hold his hand as he walked down to the Capitol to loot and defile the Senate Parliamentarian’s office.’
After the jury finished, Judge Walton expressed concern that Trump did not “really care about democracy,” The Forbes Magazine reported:
‘You know, 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. And as a result of that, it’s tearing this country apart.’
Assistant US Attorney Bill Dreher panned the defendant, arguing that this was not a trial about Trump. He called that “irrelevant but misleading:”
‘It’s a story that is not true and that does not hold up.’
Given that Judge Walton was wary of Thompson following his orders, the judge commanded him to stay in custody until he is sentenced in July. More interesting, the judge “slammed him for his testimony, calling it “totally disingenuous…not truthful:”
‘I just don’t think you can do what he did and what the other folks did if you’re convicted and expect to be free. It’s a consequence — as my mother once told me, “you make your bed you gotta lie in it.”
‘I have a concern that we have, unfortunately, American citizens who were so gullible that they were willing to accept what was being said without any proof that the allegations about the election had any merit whatsoever. People are just outraged at how they feel our system is not taking seriously what happened on that day because of their fear of the future of this country.’
President George W. Bush appointed Judge Walton to the Washington D.C. federal court.
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
Three White Lions is Gloria Christie’s new serialized book available in episodes on Amazon. Go to Kindle Vella and insert her name. She also writes for the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Gloria Christie Report her newsletter for people on the go. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor in a briefer version of Bipartisan Report. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery. Find her here on Facebook.
