Justice Department urges jury to reject Jan. 6 defendant’s claim that Trump caused him to breach and loot Capitol
Federal prosecutors urged a jury Thursday to reject a Jan. 6 defendant’s claim that Donald Trump caused him to breach the Capitol and help ransack the Senate parliamentarian’s office.
In closing arguments in the case of defendant Dustin Thompson, the Justice Department attorneys called Thompson’s argument a “sideshow” meant to whip up the jury’s anger at Trump rather than focus on the obvious violations of law that Thompson committed.
“Defense counsel wants you to focus so much on what President Trump said on the morning January 6. He wants you to forget what his client did on the afternoon of Jan. 6,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney William Dreher.
“He wants you to think you have to choose between President Trump and his client, Mr. Thompson, right? That you can only find that one of them committed a crime that day or that one of them is worse than the other,” Dreher continued. “Ladies and gentlemen, you don’t have to choose.”
Dreher’s closing argument underscored a tightrope for the Justice Department as it continues to investigate figures in Trump’s orbit for their roles in motivating and stoking the conditions that led to the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol. A slew of defendants have argued in court filings that they took their cues from Trump that day, interpreting his call to “fight like hell” against the results of the 2020 election as a command to storm the Capitol.
The Jan. 6 select committee in Congress has pointed to those arguments — as well as Trump’s lengthy silence during the riot — as evidence that Trump bears singular, perhaps criminal, responsibility for the violence that broke out that day
Dreher didn’t contradict that narrative but urged jurors to set it aside. The jury is slated to begin deliberating Thursday afternoon.
“This is not president Trump’s criminal trial,” he said. “It is not up to you to decide whether anyone other than the defendant should be prosecuted for any of the crimes charged. The fact that another person may also be guilty is no defense of a criminal charge. The question of the possible guilt of others should not enter your thinking.”
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Federal prosecutors urged a jury to reject a Jan. 6 defendant’s claim that Trump caused him to breach and loot the Capitol.
“This is not President Trump’s criminal trial…The fact that another person may also be guilty is no defense." https://t.co/lXK5NEw9Q4
— POLITICO (@politico) April 14, 2022
Jan. 6 defendant Dustin Thompson GUILTY on all charges. including felony obstruction of Congress.
More on the case:https://t.co/uolGhCGILU
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) April 14, 2022
Walton now lighting into the defendant, suggesting he's a potential flight risk.
"If somebody is weak-minded enough to buy in on what was being said and then come all the way from Ohio … and even doing it gleefully, I just have my real concerns about him."
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) April 14, 2022
Prosecutors are now three for three in Jan. 6 jury trials, winning convictions on every charge.
They've had less success in two bench trials before Judge McFadden, who has been an outlier in these cases. https://t.co/uolGhCGILU
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) April 14, 2022
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