WASHINGTON — With just days to go until the 2024 election, Donald Trump supporters who fell for his lies about fraud in the last election are still facing legal consequences for the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, even as Trump managed to avoid his own criminal case and become the Republican presidential candidate again.
On Friday afternoon, a young Trump supporter who stormed the Capitol was sentenced at a federal courthouse in Washington, just a few hundred yards from the crime scene. Caleb Berry, a now 23-year-old who stormed the Capitol with members of the far-right Oath Keepers group, stood before the judge in a black shirt and apologized to everyone in the courtroom and to the country.
Berry had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding and cooperated with the government by testifying at two trials before fellow oath-keepers. During a trial, Berry testified that Oath Keeper Kelly Meggs — who was convicted of seditious conspiracy — told a group of fellow members on the east side of the Capitol that they would “stop the counting of the votes” before forming a military pile. walked into the building “like a battering ram.”
While it may seem strange to say, Berry told the judge Friday, he is grateful to federal prosecutors for bringing the case against him. They say they gave him a “severe wake-up call” that pulled him off the “path of radicalization.” was on. Berry called his behavior “foolish” and said he let his emotions get the best of him because he thought he was doing something “for the greater good”, but he had now come to realize this was “completely untrue”. Berry said he will regret his decisions “for the rest of my life.”
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who oversaw the trial of numerous Oath Keeper defendants — including founder Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted along with other members of seditious conspiracy — said it is important for Americans to consider the seriousness of the evidence against the group to understand. that he had read some comments online discrediting the case. He spoke of the enormous amount of weapons that the Oath Keepers had stockpiled across the river in Virginia in preparation for January 6, weapons that Rhodes expressed regret for not bringing to the Capitol that day.
“What this group did and planned was violence,” Mehta said. “The words don’t lie.”
The Oath Keepers, he added, were in the Capitol to “forcibly prevent the laws of this country from being enforced.”
While Berry’s behavior was not honorable, Mehta said, what he did next was. The judge said the American people owe Berry a debt of gratitude for standing firm and telling the truth even when it was difficult and could lead to personal repercussions.
“It took a 20-year-old, 19 at the time, to figure it out,” Mehta said. “He did what was right. He did what was fair. He did the right thing.”
Berry came to understand, Mehta said, that the “case was not just, but not just. It was wrong.”
Mehta sentenced Berry to three years’ probation, the sentence sought by federal prosecutors because of his extensive cooperation.
Trump’s role
Mehta expressed frustration at the lack of knowledge many Americans have about the January 6 attack in general and reflected on the number of political leaders who were so willing to set aside reality and the law and ignore the results of free and fair elections to be pushed aside.
“We have one country,” Mehta said, adding that unless people are willing to follow the law and accept the election results, they might as well tear up the Constitution, the document that officials take an oath to protect and uphold.
“We do this on the theory that truth should prevail, and in this case it did,” Mehta said.
But he added: “None of us know exactly what will happen in the coming weeks.”
It has long been clear that Trump would order the dismissal of the case against him if elected to the White House, but this week Trump made it even more explicit, saying he would fire special counsel Jack Smith “in two seconds” if he was chosen.
He has also pledged to pardon an unspecified number of January 6 rioters, even as new arrests continue to be made.
Trump has been personally indicted on four federal charges related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempted obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. He has pleaded not guilty to all four. The indictment filed against Trump in August alleges that Trump used an avalanche of “unsupported, objectively unreasonable and ever-evolving” voter fraud claims, which he knew to be false, in a criminal conspiracy to overturn his election loss .
More arrests this week
The Justice Department last week arrested several more rioters on Jan. 6, including Jeffrey Newcomb, who federal authorities say built a giant “Trump 2020 Keep America Great” sign that was used as a battering ram against a line of police officers.
Robert Bixby, a California resident who wore a “Trump” hat when he stormed the Capitol, told federal investigators he went because he believed the election was stolen, the FBI said.
He was at the doors of the east rotunda when the crowd broke through, the FBI said, then joined a group that pushed past police officers into the House chamber. Bixby only turned around when a chemical spray hit the air, using the collar of his shirt to cover his nose and mouth, the FBI alleged.
Zachary Pearlman, the FBI says, stormed the Capitol and then confronted a line of police officers in the Capitol rotunda, “who walked past other rioters to get closer to the line of officers.”
Pearlman then “began berating the officers and repeatedly pointing at them with both hands,” the FBI said, before “pushing a police officer’s riot shield.” Jeremy Michael Miller, the FBI said, fought with police officers on the west side. from the Capitol on January 6.
He “grabbed a bike rack and attempted to pull it away from police” and then “linked arms with other rioters and pushed their backs against the barricades” while wearing a “Trump 45” hat, according to the station. Miller “then attempted to pull a riot shield away from another police officer, grabbing it with both hands,” the FBI said.
Two other Jan. 6 suspects arrested this week — Roger Voisine and his brother Reynold Voisine — were listed on the FBI’s Capitol Violence webpage, where the bureau is seeking public help to identify the main Jan. 6 rioters who died that day committed violence. The Voisine brothers were known to online sleuths who helped identify hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants under the nicknames #TableLegWhacker and #BlueJavelin.
Roger Voisine, the FBI said in an affidavit that relied on the work of online “incitement hunters,” was seen in a video of the attack on the Capitol “in which police were repeatedly struck with a broken table leg containing nails and other fasteners that still in the end of the object.”
Roger Viosine wore a hat with the phrase “choose that mother again” and also threw a rod at police officers before throwing several shoes and another unidentified object, the FBI said.
Roger Voisine ‘hurled a pipe at police officers, violently pushed into the shields of police officers, grabbed a police officer and tried to drag him into the crowd, threw a black rod at a police officer and hit him, threw three shoes at police officers, threw an unidentified object at police officers, waved a table leg with protruding nails at police officers, threw the same table leg at police officers and shone a flashlight into the eyes of police officers,” the FBI alleges.
His brother Reynold Voisine, meanwhile, was nearby when rioters forcibly dragged Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone out of a tunnel into the Capitol, where police confronted rioters and pulled him into the crowd, the FBI said. Reynold Voisine then returned a police riot shield and threw a crutch at police officers before ramming the police line with a shield, the station said.
“Roger Voisine twice threw a crutch at police officers, violently threw a blue pole at and stabbed police officers, and used a shield to ram police officers,” the FBI said.
Both brothers told the FBI in interviews before their arrests that they had deleted photos they had taken that day.
More than 1,500 people have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack, and federal prosecutors have secured convictions against more than 1,100 suspects. More than 600 people have been sentenced to prison.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
