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(112,204 posts) Mon Jan 23, 2023, 04:59 PM Jan 2023

Infamous Capitol Rioter Begs Jury To See Him As An Idiot, Not A Criminal - Ring of Fire

The accused Capitol Rioter that gained infamy for putting his feet up on Nancy Pelosi's desk during the insurrection was in court late last week, begging jurors to view him as "a f***ing idiot," and not as a criminal. But being an idiot, as he himself declares, is not an excuse for not understand the consequences of his actions, and the photographic evidence shows that he appeared to be having a blast while the insurrection took place. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

When somebody mentions the Capitol rioters, right? I'm sure there's a couple of images that immediately pop into your head. There is the guy with the big horned helmet, you know, at the speaker's lectern. There's the guy walking out of the capitol holding the speaker's, speaker's, lecter, waving at the camera. There's of course, zip tie guy. And then another image that I'm sure comes to a lot of people's minds is the accused capitol Rioter with his feet up on Pelosi's desk, looking like he's loving life, right? Well, that man, man, by the name of Richard Barnett was actually in court late last week. And Mr. Barnett, um, is probably gonna be sentenced really any day now, or, or convicted or not convicted any, any moment now by the jury. But he implored the jury. Jury, excuse me, I'm having a tough time with this. He implored the jury on Friday to please view me not as a criminal, but in his words and the profanity warning here, don't view me as a criminal, view, me as a idiot.

Says he didn't do anything illegal. He just did some stupid stuff that day. But as an effing idiot, like those were his words in court to the jury. And the entire trial, I guess you want call it that, um, he tried to say like, listen, I didn't do anything wrong, so let me read this. This is from Politico. This is what he had told the court actually happened that day with him. And, you know, eventually ending up with the picture that he took Barnett contended that he climbed the center steps of the capitol to gain a vantage point to find two friends who he lost in the chaos. He then claimed that he was pushed into the capitol after getting stuck in a densely packed crowd near the rotunda doors. He said he roamed around the building, merely looking for a bathroom and found himself in Pelosi suite.

Then he claimed he got caught up in the moment and acted foolishly by posing for a photo at the desk of Pelosi. And Emily Barrett, he claimed he took an envelope off Barrett's desk, meant for then representative Billy Long, a Republican from Missouri, uh, and left a quarter his compensation. He didn't consider it theft, he said, because he paid for the envelope and removed it because he had bled all over it and wanted to remove the biohazard. So the guys there basically just being a good Samaritan, just buying stuff like, oh no, I've bled on your envelope. Let me leave you a quarter and I'll just, I'll just take this confidential letter, another person's piece of mail, which that's a felony. You're lucky you didn't get charged with that. Let me take another human being's piece of mail because I, I bled on it, you know, biohazard like, okay. Um, but of course, prosecutors picked apart all of this. Like, I didn't mean to go into the Capitol. I kind of got shoved in there, and then when I was there, I was like, Hey, I gotta pee happens to the best of us,

Right? So he is just looking for a bathroom and oh, I wound up in Pelosi's office, but again, prosecutors were able to tear this apart, uh, because he also said this on the day of the riot, um, he told one police officer, we we're in a war, pick a side, don't be on the wrong side, or you're going to get hurt. And when he was asked about that in court, he said, ah, I was just quote blustering, I'm just blustering with everybody, you know?