“Unfortunately, I think our democracy is in trouble because there are Charatan who don’t really care about democracy, just power, like our former president,” Walton said. Told.
But he left Thompson with the toughest comments. Thompson said he was “weak” as part of a “deceived” flock of Trump supporters who couldn’t separate his claim from reality. Walton ordered Thompson to be detained immediately and refrained from the typical release of the defendant until the decision.
“The inevitable reality is that he has to take time, whether he takes time now or later,” Walton said shortly before ordering him to hold it. ..
He thought Thompson was in danger of flying as he tried to escape from police on January 6 after Thompson began asking him about the theft of a coat tree from the Capitol office. Added. Walton also said he didn’t think Thompson was candid during his testimony when he stood up to explain his actions.
The case offered a tightrope walk to the prosecutor as the Justice Department continued to investigate Trump’s orbital figures for their role in motivating and stalking the conditions that led to the mob attack on the Capitol. .. Numerous defendants interpreted his call to “fight like hell” for the outcome of the 2020 elections as an order to attack the Capitol, alleging that they had clues from Trump that day in court allegations. Thompson made it the centerpiece of his defense.
In closing arguments, U.S. Federal Prosecutor’s Assistant William Drayer said of Thompson’s “side show” intended to arouse jury trials’ anger at Trump, rather than focusing on the apparent violations of law Thompson committed. It was controversial.
“The lawyer wants you to focus on what President Trump said on the morning of January 6. He wants you to forget what the client did on the afternoon of January 6. “Dreher said.
“He wants you to think that you have to choose between President Trump and his client, Mr. Thompson, right? One of them committed a crime that day, or one You can only find something worse than others, “Dreher continued. “Everyone in attendance, you don’t have to choose.”
The ability of Trump to influence his supporters to advance to the Capitol and defeat the Capitol has been the focus of Parliament’s January 6 Election Commission. It points to claims from defendants like Thompson, and Trump’s long silence during the riots, as evidence that the former president is the only, perhaps criminal, responsible for the violence that took place that day. ..
Dreher was consistent with the story, but urged the jury to set it aside.
“This is not President Trump’s criminal trial,” he said. “It’s not up to you to decide whether anyone other than the defendant should be prosecuted for any of the crimes indicted. The fact that others may also be guilty is not a defense of criminal accusations. The issue of possible guilt of others should not be in your mind. “
Thompson was convicted of six charges: obstruction of public affairs (with up to 20 years’ imprisonment), theft of government property, access to restricted buildings, and disorder in restricted buildings. Destructive acts, the Houses of Parliament, and a parade at the Houses of Parliament. The jury deliberated for about three hours.
In Thompson’s closing argument, lawyer Samuel Shamanski urged the jury to consider “human nature.” He reminded them that Thompson had been absent from work for almost a year by January 6.
Shamansky did not challenge most of the factual cases presented by the prosecutor. Thompson entered the Capitol after Trump’s speech, joined a mob looting the Senator’s office, and stole a coat rack and a bottle of liquor during the turmoil. He fled the police when a riot struck police in a tunnel in the Capitol that night when a policeman approached him to ask about a coat rack.
However, Shamansky urged the jury to consider the “mental” effects of Trump’s words over time.
“He consumed these lies and this false information,” Shamansky said, calling Trump “an evil and ominous man who stops without doing anything to give way on January 6th.” Shamanski explained that Thompson would remain in power as a “pawn” in Trump’s “game of illness.”
“In your heart, in your head,” Shamansky told the jury, “Do the right thing.”
The debate concludes a trial in which there was an unusually broad agreement between the prosecutor and the defense lawyer about the defendant’s actions. Thompson took the position of claiming that he was a slave to Trump when he committed the actions he took, but knew they were wrong at the time.
Thompson’s wife also witnessed her husband becoming more and more radical during President Trump’s term and testified that it became particularly serious when he lost his job in March 2020.
