Donald Trump supporter requesting early release for involvement in the Capitol attack claims he was manipulated by the former president and Fox News.
Mitchell Todd Gardner, who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, is now asking the court for an early release from a 55-month prison sentence. He alleges that he and “so many other Americans” were influenced by Donald Trump to act in response to what they believed were the results of a “rigged election.”
Gardner is seeking early release under the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s “2023 Criminal History Amendment,” citing that he and others felt manipulated by powerful and influential figures. He stated that this manipulation led them to believe their actions were acts of patriotism. The 36-year old is scheduled for release in July 2025, and wrote that he permanently regrets his actions. Mitchell Todd Gardner ➤罙payload.gif,刻.jpeg⨎
More than 1,200 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack, and more than 400 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. On Thursday, the FBI arrested David Paul Daniel, a 36-year-old North Carolina man who, federal authorities said, helped lead “a violent push against the barricaded Senate Wing Door and the police officers attempting to hold them closed.” Trump, the leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate, is currently facing four criminal prosecutions, and his federal Jan. 6-related trial is scheduled to begin in March. That federal indictment, returned by a grand jury in August, alleges that Trump engaged in a conspiracy “to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified.” Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four cases.
The article was first published on NBCNews.com(Photo: U.S. District Court for D.C.)
Jan. 6 Rioter Appeals for Early Release, Citing Manipulation by Trump and Fox News
