it’s been two and a half years since Donald Trump’s Chosen Creeples tried to end democracy, and the Feds are still shaking treason bedbugs out of the national couch cushions and bringing them to justice.
Just two days ago in Kentucky (Motto: “No Dok, Not Tennessee”), Luke Hoffman, the fellow in the hoodie and the tacticool vest up top, was arrested by the FBI and charged for his role in the attack on the US Capitol, thanks to his wife’s social media posts bragging about what a great patriot he was. The Lexington Herald Leader has the deets:
According to the affidavit, Hoffman obstructed a law enforcement officer during official duties, assaulted or resisted an employee of the United States, entered and remained in a restricted building, and used abusive language to be disruptive at the Capitol building.
[FBI Agent William] Samad testified in his affidavit that Luke Hoffman was present on the Capitol grounds in a “coyote tan tactical vest” which he was wearing in a post shared by his wife on the social media service Parler that read: “I am so proud of my husband! He stood up for America today!! Were you part of today too?”
Multiple individuals interviewed positively identified Hoffman as the person in the social media post, which matched surveillance footage, according to court documents.
The affidavit also identified Hoffman in surveillance footage of the Running of the Louts, showing him grabbing a section of bike-rack fencing away from a cop, attempting to get at another officer’s baton, and “spraying a substance consistent with a chemical irritant at multiple officers.” What a busy little shitheel he was! And he made his loving spouse so proud that she shared with the world some evidence that led to his arrest. What a wacky sitcom that would make!
The paper notes that Hoffman’s arrest “comes just days after similar charges were filed against an Elizabethtown man, William Stover,” who’s accused of taking part in the mob’s attack on Capitol Police in the “tunnel” that led to a Capitol entrance; Stover allegedly tried to climb up the side of the tunnel so he could grab at a cop’s helmet. Shortly after that, Stover allegedly
“received a U.S. Capitol Police riot shield which he then handed to another rioter who climbed up behind him. That rioter took the shield from Stover and used it to attack police.”
No word on what Stover’s loved ones thought of his America-loving, because we didn’t look.
And at the other end of the judicial process, the Washington Post (gift linky) brings us this charming story of Alan Hostetter, a former police chief in Orange County, California, who was convicted yesterday on four felonies for his part in the Capitol attack: “conspiring to obstruct and obstructing an official proceeding, and trespassing and engaging in disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon.” Hostetter had organized a “brigade” of wannabe revolutionaries to go and make Congress unelect Joe Biden, and he was absolutely certain he was fighting to save what he thought America was, because he had Trump brain worms all though his head.
The brain worms also told him to defend himself in federal court, so when one of his former J6 allies testified against him, Hostetter insisted that his former comrade in arms was part of a vast conspiracy by the federal government, perpetrated by shadowy bad people who secretly staged the very riot that he had participated in:
“Our country has been overthrown,” Hostetter said in his opening statement. “This whole thing is corrupt.” He said he surmised the Capitol was thinly guarded because those in power wanted police to be overrun, giving Republican lawmakers an excuse to certify the election results. “It hasn’t been proven in the past two years, but I believe that day is coming,” he added in closing.
US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth didn’t have any respect at all for Hostetter’s very lucid conspiracy theory, telling the great patriot,
“No reasonable citizen of this country, much less one with two decades of experience in law enforcement, could have believed it was lawful to use mob violence to impede a joint session of Congress. […] Belief that your actions are for a greater good doesn’t negate consciousness of wrongdoing.”
But, but, Donald Trump asked him to be there! The Post reports that during the trial, Hostetter had asked law enforcement witnesses why the Capitol was so poorly guarded; apparently none of them made the mistake of saying out loud that it’s not like they expected Black Lives Matter protesters, just nice white people like Hostetter. You leave stuff like that to elected senators from Wisconsin to say.
Assistant US Attorney Anthony Mariano made short work of Hostetter’s defense, explaining in his closing argument that “There is no ‘the police didn’t stop me in time’ defense,” and that “If Alan Hostetter wants to know what could have been done to prevent Jan. 6, he could start by looking in the mirror.”
Hostetter’s conspiracy claims probably weren’t helped a lot by the fact that, following the failed insurrection, he was all over social media taking credit for what he claimed in court he’d been entrapped to do.
“Patriots broke into Capitol Hill. I was one of them,” he said in one message. “Thousands stormed that cesspool of corruption.”
And now, no one seems to realize what a hero/victim he was, except for all the MAGA idiots who’d like to do it all over again.
[ Lexington Herald Leader via Yahoo / WKYU / Washington Post (gift link)]
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