Jury begins deliberations in first trial stemming from Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol

Jurors have begun deliberations in the first trial stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, testing the Justice Department’s case against Guy Reffitt, a Texas militia member who was at the head of an early wave of rioters who stormed the building as the country of electoral votes got underway.

The jury began huddling Tuesday morning, following a week-long trial that featured graphic video and testimony of the pro-Trump mob that Reffitt joined, confronting police officers at the Capitol’s west front. There, prosecutors say, his prolonged standoff with several officers wielding non-lethal weapons helped divert focus while the larger mob tore through scaffolding assembled for the inauguration of Joe Biden.

Once the mob — including several prominent figures who were among the first to breach the building — got inside the scaffolding, overwhelmed police officers were forced to retreat and make a desperate effort to prevent the mob from reaching lawmakers as they counted Electoral Votes, a constitutionally required process to finalize the election results.

The Reffitt trial is the first of dozens expected later this year. More than 800 people have been charged for conduct connected to the Capitol breach, and more than 200 of them have pleaded guilty to crimes ranging from seditious conspiracy and obstruction to simple trespassing and parading in a restricted area.

Most defendants choose not to go to trial, and Reffitt’s decision to go before a jury in the face of overwhelming video and testimonial evidence of his actions is particularly unusual. His defense lawyer, William Welch, asked few questions of prosecution witnesses and opted against calling any defense witnesses. In the end, he asked the jury to convict Reffitt on a single lesser charge embedded in the broader case — remaining in a restricted area of the Capitol — and sought to raise doubts about whether the prosecution had proven its more serious claims.

Prosecutors were aided in making their case by two star witnesses. One was Reffitt’s son Jackson, who reported his father to the FBI before Jan. 6 and later recorded conversations that he provided to the FBI. Jackson told jurors that his father became increasingly radicalized in 2020 and later threatened him and his sister Peyton if they thought about going to authorities with their concerns.

The other key witness was Rocky Hardie, a member of the Texas Three Percenters militia who traveled with Reffitt to Washington in order to attend Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally. Hardie, who was given immunity for his testimony, described their conversations — including Reffitt’s call to drag members of Congress out of the Capitol — and their decision to bring multiple firearms to Washington.

Jurors also heard compelling and sometimes emotional testimony from a series of Capitol Police officers who described Reffitt as a leader of the mob. They said the crowd seemed to take cues from him as he stood above them on a railing adjacent to the inaugural scaffolding. Despite being pelted with numerous pepper balls fired by two officers, Reffitt continued advancing on the Capitol. He was subdued only after a third officer deployed a canister of pepper spray at his face.

As he nursed his stinging eyes on a Capitol banister, Reffitt repeatedly gestured to the rest of the crowd to charge up the steps, videos played at the trial showed. And in a Zoom video of Reffitt speaking with Hardie and another Texas Three Percenter, Reffitt told them he was urging the crowd to push forward even after he was incapacitated.

Reffitt’s defense stressed that he never threw anything at officers, touched any officers or actually entered the Capitol building. Indeed, he faces no such charge related to the standoff with police. Instead, he faces two “civil disorder” counts which relate to impeding or interfering with police during civil unrest.

But while the police pushed back, the mob swelled and grew angier, throwing debris and using wooden boards to shield themselves from non-lethal projectiles and chemical irritants. Prosecutors say Reffitt’s confrontation helped the mob “adapt” their tactics once they realized the police’s strategy to keep them at bay. Officers testified that they were wary of using their firearms because of the size of the crowd and concerns that many of the members of the mob — some clad in military-style gear — were carrying weapons.

In fact, Reffitt is one of the few members of the Jan. 6 mob charged with carrying a gun on Capitol grounds. To convince jurors of that charge, prosecutors showed a screenshot of a video in which a holster-like object can be seen on Reffitt’s belt, along with a silver glint that they say reflected a handgun. In addition, Reffitt himself was seen on video and in recordings provided by his son describing his “loaded” weapon and suggesting many others in the crowd were also armed.