Texas January 6th Capitol rioter Guy Reffitt, a member of the III%ers MAGA White Nationalist militia–the first January 6th Republican terrorist to be convicted by a jury who found him guilty in March of multiple felony counts including entering a restricted area with a firearm–was sentenced to 87 months–a little more than 7 years–in prison Monday, CBS News’s Rob Legare reports. Federal prosecutors sought 15 years under enhanced sentencing guidelines for domestic terrorists, a first in Justice Department history, but were denied by the Trump-appointed Judge Dabney L Friedrich.
The deck was completely stacked against Reffitt from the start, with voluminous evidence of his intent shown to jurors, including video of him saying he planned to drag Nancy Pelosi down the Capitol steps by her hair. His son Jackson and a Capitol Police officer testified for the prosecution’s case, leaving Reffitt’s attorney to work with such flimsy arguments as “People say outrageous things,” and “This case has been a rush to judgment – most of it based on a lot of bragging and a lot of hype,” and telling the prosecutors to “Be the grown-ups in the courtroom.”