Five members of the same Texas family were sentenced in federal court this week for their participation in last year’s Trump-incited mob attack on the Capitol. The Munns weren’t accused of any violence, but like other rioters upon whom the Justice Department has focused, they went inside the Capitol building itself during the unfolding chaos.
Federal Judge Beryl Howell, who sentenced the Munns, imposed two-week stints in prison on Dawn and Thomas Munn, the parents. They apparently don’t have to serve those prison sentences all at once. (They’ll be in seven-day increments, per reporter Ryan Reilly.) All five adult members of the family who were charged in connection to the riot previously pleaded guilty to criminal offenses of illegally parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol building. The charge, a misdemeanor, comes with up to six months in prison, although significant variations are possible. Kristi, Joshua, and Kayli Munn each evaded incarceration, instead receiving combinations of home confinement and probation. All three were hit with three years of probation, while Kristi — identified in news reports as a mother and the oldest of the three — also received 90 days of home confinement.
At the Capitol, where a minor in the family was also present, the Munns entered through a broken window — obviously a clear sign that what they were doing wasn’t permitted. Around their sentencings, the parents both pointed to what amounts to misinformation about the election, and asked what news programs he watched, Thomas even specifically cited Fox News. The network, of course, is currently facing wide-ranging defamation litigation from election technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic for lies perpetrated through the channel about imaginary widespread fraud. Smartmatic wasn’t even widely used in the U.S. in the 2020 elections, although it was for some reason picked up by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists. “I was looking for somebody to show me proof that our election was going to be secure,” Dawn said in court this week. “If we don’t have a secure election, we don’t have a country. This is a country by the voice of the people.”
Plenty of individuals concerned about secure elections have never climbed through a broken window at the U.S. Capitol, where members of the Munn family evidently eventually made their way to a Senate conference room. “I just kept watching what was happening on the news, and I felt we should speak out,” Thomas told the judge. Kristi Munn also spoke in court this week, saying she wished she “had slowed down… I very much want to give a better example for my siblings.” One of the adult children who was charged, Joshua, is apparently physically disabled, and an attorney for him claimed he didn’t want to go to D.C. Another one of the children, Kayli, was 18 during the riot. In delivering their sentences, Howell focused on the parents’ roles, as did prosecutors. “It really was the parents who were the driving force in this case,” a member of the prosecution said. Federal prosecutors wanted jail-time for all five members of the family, with 30 days each for the parents and three weeks for the three adult children.
