OH Rioter In Court

An Ohio man, charged with storming the U.S. Capitol and stealing a coat rack…testified Wednesday that he joined thousands of protesters in ransacking the building last year on what he thought were orders from the president, Donald Trump. Dustin Thompson, 38, of Columbus, says he took to websites after being laid off from his exterminator job in March 2020…and in his pandemic doldrums fell under Trump’s sway as he bought into conspiracy theories. On trial in U.S. District Court in Washington, Thompson testified that the claim that the election was stolen seemed credible to him because it was coming from the president. His defense team is the first to argue that Trump and those connected to him were responsible for the actions of the mob that day. Thompson’s jury trial is the third among hundreds of Capitol riot prosecutions. The first two ended with jurors convicting both defendants on all counts.