I do not know how any of this will pan out, but a Jan 6th insurrectionists wants to subpoena Trump and his ilk to testify at his trial. The man’s name is Dustin Thompson of Ohio, and his defense is going to be that he was “brainwashed” into attacking Congress and the Capitol Building by Trump. Seeing as Trump has been more than “evasive” when it comes to subpoenaed of a process surver.
Naturally, I’m rooting for Thompson’s request to be OK’d by the court. But I will not hold my breath on this one. His Orange Litiginous is very good at tying things up in the courts.
And while Thompson appears to have a lawyer who is going for the dramatic, Dustin is not exactly the sharpest insurrectionist knife in the drawer. Dustin got caught stealing a coat rack from of the offices in the Capitol Building. And the stupid here burns:
Dustin Byron Thompson and Robert Anthony Lyon were sitting on the sidewalk on a street near the U.S. Capitol grounds hours after the Jan. 6 rioting when they were approached by two Capitol Police special agents.
Thompson, 36, of Columbus' University District, was wearing a Trump 2020 winter hat and a bulletproof vest, and Lyon, 27, whom records indicate has resided in Columbus and Reynoldsburg, had a Trump 2020 flag. The pair told the agents they were waiting for an Uber to take them back to their Maryland hotel, according to court records obtained by The Dispatch.
The agents told the men that they were in a secure zone and directed them to a location where they could be picked up. As the two began to leave, Thompson picked up a wooden coat rack with brass holders that was behind him.
Columbus-area men charged with disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds
On Friday, Thompson and Lyon each were charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted federal building or grounds without lawful authority, violent entry, and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Neither man could be reached for comment Friday.
When Thompson grabbed the coat rack to leave, agents immediately suspected from its appearance — and later confirmed with a bar code on the item — was stolen from inside the Capitol building. Records indicate it was taken from S132, an office of the U.S. Secretary of the Senate located on the ground (first) floor of the U.S. Capitol.
Agents told Thompson to put down the coat rack. He complied, but then immediately ran away. Lyon did not attempt to run, cooperated with the agents and gave them consent to search his bag for stolen property. Inside, they found marijuana, two pipes and an open bottle of bourbon that were confiscated, records show.
Emphasis is mine.
Yep. Took a “souvenir” from the office of the U.S. Secretrary of the Senate. It even had the bar code on the coat rack. And both Thompson and Lyon were ready to partey! Weed and bourbon to boot!
And in case Thompson tried to plead that the coat rack was planted on him by the cops, here is a picture of him witht he coat rack:
Nothing like take a pic of you with the stolen merchandise. But hey! This is “Merica!” according to Thompson, and when you are a white person, shit is free to take.
Lyon told the FBI he did not ask where the stand came from.
He agreed to allow the FBI agents to view messages on his phone, specifically with Thompson, and gave them consent to download his Samsung Note 4. Records indicate the device contained a picture of Thompson holding the stolen coat rack and an American flag outside the Capitol and a video sent from Thompson to Lyon on the day of the riots.
The video shows a ransacked Capitol office and Thompson passing in front of a mirror with his cellphone, recording himself and yelling: "Wooooo! ‘Merica Hey! This is our house!”
Nothing like being a Visigoth standing with your booty from raiding the city of Rome.
So Thompson is your typical dumb mofo insurrectionist. And because being stupid is a defining trait of insurrectionists, his lawyer is going for the tried but not true “I’m too stupid to be a real criminal” defense. And to prove that Thompson is just a gullible fool, his lawyer wants to subpeona Trump and his cronies.
It’s the basic defense of most of the insurrectionists:
Shamansky said that it is important to subpoena those high-profile witnesses because they are "central" to Thompson's defense.
"Trump and his allies made an intentional effort to brainwash citizens and use them as pawns, as puppets, as tools to meet their goals, and that's why this 'Save America' rally was hatched and created, and that's why Trump lied to people. In an effort to whip them up into a frenzy and get them to do his bidding, and unfortunately, people were duped into following his request," he said.
This really doesn’t work well as a defense, even if you have loads of money to pay expensive lawyers to obfuscate. But I can see why Shamanksy is going for this Hail Mary Pass. Logically (a tough word to use with Trump insurrectionists), Trump did rile up that crowd of his supporters and told them, “Sick ‘em!” when it came to Congress and Mike Pence. Trump shares in the responsibility for the deaths and carnage of that day. So if I was a defense attorney for any of these sorry excuses of protoplasm, I would want to shift the blame to Trump.
However, I fully expect Trump to go to court with bullshit covered legal briefs as to why he should never ever be subpoenaed by anyone for anything. And for some reason, the courts will consider this legal stalling tactic, at least when it comes to plebeians who do Trumps dirty work and violence. But it would be fun to watch Trump squirm on a witness stand as he throws one of his supporters under a bus.
A boy can dream.