A federal choose has denied a Jan. 6 felony defendant’s request for permission to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration, regardless of a private invitation from members of the Utah congressional delegation.
U.S. District Decide Royce Lamberth stated Russell Taylor’s “unusually grave” conduct on the Capitol — which included recruiting “fighters” to descend on the Capitol, sporting armor, carrying weapons and serving to others push previous a police line — didn’t warrant the “immense privilege” of attending an inauguration.
“It will not be acceptable for the Courtroom to grant permission to attend such a hallowed occasion to somebody who carried weapons and threatened cops in an try to thwart the final Inauguration, and who brazenly glorified ‘[i]nsurrection’ in opposition to the USA,” Lamberth wrote in a five-page resolution.
Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, is the second federal choose to disclaim a Jan. 6 defendant’s request to attend Trump’s inauguration. U.S. District Decide Tim Kelly, a Trump appointee, turned down a request Thursday from a felony defendant charged with unleashing chemical spray at a police officer.
U.S. District Decide Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, accredited a misdemeanor defendant’s request to attend the inauguration, and a number of other different requests are pending. The Justice Division has largely opposed such requests, saying it could be improper to topic Capitol police to dealing with the very individuals who stood in opposition to them 4 years in the past.
Taylor’s is the one request that was publicly endorsed by members of Congress.
Former Utah consultant Chris Stewart, who wrote to Lamberth on behalf of three present members of Utah’s congressional delegation, requested the choose’s permission for Taylor to attend as their visitor.
“He’s [a] caring father and reveres his household, his religion, and his love of our Nation as his highest precedence in life,” Stewart wrote final month. “I’m honored to increase this invitation for him to attend the Inauguration as my visitor.”
Regardless of the fees in opposition to him, Taylor’s case was complicated. He rapidly pleaded responsible for his crimes, acknowledged his wrongdoing and have become an early cooperator with prosecutors, even testifying on the trial of an alleged co-conspirator. Lamberth sentenced Taylor to a time period of probation and praised him as a mannequin defendant. Below the phrases of Taylor’s three-year probation, he should obtain permission to journey to Washington.
Lamberth acknowledged Stewart’s reward for Taylor, however stated he had already thought-about these components when he gave Taylor a lenient sentence.
“Mr. Taylor’s movement presents solely the slender query of whether or not an individual who conspired and acted to thwart the peaceable switch of energy 4 years in the past with incitement, threats, and weapons ought to now be granted particular permission to attend the celebration of the peaceable switch of energy,” Lamberth wrote. “The reply to that query is ‘no.’”
