A defense attorney for a former Proud Boys leader convicted of a rare seditious conspiracy charge questioned Thursday during a hearing why former President Donald Trump was not also facing that charge.
“I wonder why that man isn’t charged with seditious conspiracy,” attorney Norm Pattis said in front of a D.C. courtroom ahead of his client, Zachary Rehl, receiving a 15-year prison sentence.
TRUMP’S GOP SUPPORT HAS ONLY CLIMBED SINCE THE INDICTMENTS BEGAN
Rehl, a former U.S. Marine, was one of four Proud Boys leaders convicted of the Civil War-era seditious conspiracy charge, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and other related charges for his role in organizing and leading a group of about 200 to breach the Capitol in 2021.
He received one of the longest prison sentences of the roughly 600 handed out so far in connection with the riot. Ahead of U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly announcing Rehl’s penalties, his attorney laid into Trump.
Pattis called the anticipated sentencing “breathtaking” for “basically taking your history too seriously, taking your president seriously.”
“What they did is they listened to the president of the United States who for months said … the election was stolen,” Pattis continued.
“What reason did they have to know otherwise?” he asked.
He argued that his client, whose crimes involved leading a crowd to the Capitol, breaking down a fence barrier, and shooting an officer with a chemical spray, was participating in what he thought was a valiant act on behalf of his president.
“This wasn’t a crowd that decided to engage in mayhem,” Pattis noted.
Trump was indicted on August 1, more than two and a half years after the riot, on four federal charges related to the 2020 election. His trial is scheduled to begin in March.
While his charges do not include seditious conspiracy, they do include conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, the same as the Proud Boys now facing some of the harshest penalties of any defendant.
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Trump’s indictment also, however, focused far less on the riot or its incitement and more on schemes to overturn the 2020 election results.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in the case and continues to maintain that the 2020 election, which he narrowly lost, was “rigged” and “stolen.”
