[ad_1]
On Tuesday, Chansley became one of the first three people indicted by federal prosecutors in connection with the violence on Capitol Hill. He has been charged with an offense under federal riot law, as well as obstruction of Congress and other offenses.
Watkins, Chansley’s attorney, said on Thursday that his client, “like many other disenfranchised people in our country, felt very, very, very firmly in sync” with the President – suggesting Chansley had an incentive to storm the Capitol on behalf of Trump.
“He felt like his voice was, for the first time, heard,” Watkins said. “And what ended up happening, in the run-up to the election, in the period from the election to January 6 – was a driving force by a man he had hung his hat on,” he hitched his wagon to. He adored Trump. Every word he listens to.
Ahead of the Capitol siege, the president, his family members, and political allies pissed off his supporters during a rally on the White House Ellipse. When it was his turn to speak, Trump urged those in attendance to march on Capitol Hill amid congressional certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College.
“If you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore,” Trump said. He also said that “you will never take back our country with weakness. You have to be strong and you have to be strong.
On Thursday, Trump became the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice – this time in a bipartisan vote on a single “incitement to insurgency” count.
“We all need to understand that the President’s words meant something, not just to my client. They meant something to a lot of people, ”Watkins said in his interview.
“They listened to those words. And those words meant something to them. And they had the right to rely on the words of their president spread around the world, ”he said. “And they did. And now they turn around [and] they are arrested, as many should be.
Nonetheless, Trump “must stand up and make these people his own,” Watkins argued. “He has an obligation to them. He has an obligation to our nation. It will not arrive.”
Pressed by host Chris Cuomo on exactly what he would like Trump to do, Watkins replied, “Oh, sorry.”
As Chansley’s lawyer, “my role is not to judge someone. My role is to be an advocate, ”Watkins said. “If there’s one iota of luck that the guy who’s the president of our country – who invited everyone to Pennsylvania [Avenue] – will give my client a pardon, you know what? I will do it.”
Watkins admitted, however, that his plea was unlikely to succeed. “Do I hold my breath thinking Donald Trump is going to sit down and say, ‘You know what? … What is the name of this horned guy? Yeah… let’s give him a pardon. ”
But “with Trump,” Watkins said, “you never know. He can say, “I want the horned guy.” Next thing you know, maybe he’s represented by the shaman instead of Rudy Guiliani.
Watkins went on to compare the president’s supporters who stormed the Capitol to members of the Jonestown sect who committed mass suicide in their colony in Guyana.
Watkins then compared the President’s supporters who stormed the Capitol to members of the Jonestown sect who committed mass suicide in their colony in Guyana in 1978: “You know the only thing different here? There is no Kool-Aid.
[ad_2]
Source link