Jan. 6 defendant wants jurors to blame Trump, not him, for decision to breach Capitol

A man charged with breaching the Capitol on Jan. 6 all but admits he broke multiple laws in service of overturning the 2020 election — but he wants jurors to acquit him because he says he believed he was acting at the behest of then-President Donald Trump.

Dustin Thompson — who is facing charges for attempting to obstruct Congress’ Electoral Vote-counting session as well as for stealing a coat tree from a Capitol office — argues that Trump’s apocalyptic rhetoric on Jan. 6, capping a months-long campaign to convince supporters the election was stolen, drove him to storm into the Capitol.

His attorney, Samuel Shamansky, began laying the groundwork for that argument in his cross-examination of Capitol Police witnesses called by prosecutors. Shamansky asked Officer Ronald Lucarino — who pushed back on the mob after it breached Capitol hallways — whether the phrase “fight like hell” would characterize the rioters he encountered, a reference to Trump’s remarks that morning.

“Absolutely,” Lucarino replied.

Thompson’s strategy is the first time jurors are being squarely presented with a claim that Trump inspired and caused rioters to take violent action in support of his effort to overturn the election. Though dozens of defendants have argued in court filings that they believed Trump had authorized the assault on the Capitol, judges have largely rejected that contention and said rioters should be held to account for their own actions. But whether a jury sees that argument differently will be an important test that could reverberate across hundreds of other cases.

Already, the question of whether Trump conspired to obstruct Congress’ Jan. 6 session — the last step in the transfer of power from Trump to President Joe Biden — has been the subject of legal scrutiny. Trump is facing multiple lawsuits alleging he bears responsibility for the violence that sent Congress fleeing for safety and resulted in more than 140 police officers being injured. And a federal judge in California recently ruled that evidence gathered by congressional investigators supports the likelihood that Trump conspired to commit felony obstruction of Congress.

But whether a jury believes that Trump’s role effectively removes the criminal liability of members of the mob is another story. Shamansky is expected to make that the centerpiece of Thompson’s defense when it’s his turn to present a case. In the meantime, prosecutors have walked jurors through a painstaking array of video evidence of the Capitol breach and the officers who struggled to contain the chaos.

Lucarino described pushing against members of the crowd as they entered the building through shattered windows and doors. And he said he distinctly remembered feeling “the butts of guns” in some of their waistbands.

Shamansky asked the officers who testified, some of whom served in the department throughout multiple presidencies, whether any previous president had organized a rally and march intended to interrupt the transfer of power. All uniformly said they had not. Shamansky characterized the mob as acting with “one concreted purpose,” which he said was to “defile and disrupt” the transition of power.