For someone with the fragile ego of former President Donald Trump, comments made yesterday by a federal judge are likely to sting.
Senior District Judge Reggie Walton was presiding over the plea hearing of January 6 defendant Adam Johnson, 36.
According to CNN, Judge Walton took aim at Trump’s continued refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and to insist the result was stolen.
“Al Gore had a better case to argue than Mr. Trump, but he was a man about what happened to him,” said Judge Walton. “He accepted it and walked away.”
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Al Gore famously narrowly lost the 2000 election to George W. Bush. A close result in Florida led to weeks of legal tussles until Gore made the decision to accept defeat. Unlike Trump.
Related: Don Trump Jr. has come up with a new meaning for “LGBTQ”
Johnson, the defendant at yesterday’s plea hearing, was photographed carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s lectern through the Capitol building on January 6. He was quickly identified and arrested a couple of days later.
Johnson pleaded guilty yesterday to knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or groups without lawful authority.
Federal prosecutors have said they’re not seeking prison time for Johnson, who says he became “caught up in the moment”. He told the judge he’d had a “hard couple of years” and had gotten sucked into “listening to a lot of information and reading things” online.
Judge Walton said that as Trump continued to push his ‘Big Lie’ narrative, he was concerned Johnson could be tempted to repeat his “clownish behavior.” Walton said he was still considering handing down jail time.
“What concerns me, is that you were gullible enough to come all the way up here from Florida based upon a lie and then associate yourself because of that lie with people and try to undermine the will of the American public about who should be the president of the United States,” said Walton, according to the Bradenton Herald.
“I have concerns about whether you will be gullible when something like this arises again … That concerns me, it really does because we are in a troubled situation as a country. Al Gore had a better case to argue than Mr. Trump, but he was a man about what happened to him.”
Walton will issue sentencing on Johnson on Thursday.
Related: Oh man, Donald Trump is going to be SO pissed when he hears this…
Walton, who was appointed in 2004 by President George W. Bush, is not the first judge to suggest Trump had a role to play in the January 6 rioting.
On Friday, at the sentencing of another January 6 defendant, Judge Amit Mehta said many of those who rioted were, “called to Washington, DC, by an elected official, prompted to walk to the Capitol by an elected official.”
Mehta went on to say those who stormed the capitol were “a pawn in the game played by people who know better.”
Besides the judges openly blaming Trump for his role on January 6, the former President is likely to be more concerned about the increasing pressure to release his records from the day.
Yesterday, the select House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack told a federal appeals court that it urgently needs the White House correspondence from around the time of the attack. Trump has said that he has executive privilege and believes he does not need to release of the files.
The select committee’s attorneys wrote to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying that delaying seeing the records, “Would inflict a serious constitutional injury on the Select Committee by interfering with its legislative duty. The Select Committee needs the documents now because they will shape the direction of the investigation.
“For example, the documents could inform which witnesses to depose and what questions to ask them, as well as whether further subpoenas should be issued to others.”
Mister P
Of course, Gore had class. Trump has no class
Kangol2
Al Gore, who won the popular vote in the 2000 election and should have been our President starting in 2001, had quite a bit of class, and was a climate change visionary. 9/11 might never have happened had Gore been in charge, and we’d be much further along addressing our burning, drowning planet.
Don the Con, who lost two popular vote elections, in 2016 and 2020 but was installed after the first one with the help of a hostile foreign country and tried to stage a coup to steal the second one, left the US in a complete social, political and economic shambles, and proved himself to be a total jack@ss!
Jaquelope
Since Mr. Gore was not installed as President, whether legally or not, we can never know how things would have worked out if he had been elected.
As for your 9/11 statement, global warming didn’t have anything to do with the events of that day. That was an entirely different issue.
Den
Jaquelope definitely needs a remedial course in reading comprehension! Nothing at all in Kangol’s post conflated 9/11 and climate change. He simply stated that Gore would have been better equipped to deal with both issues. And that is undoubtedly true.
Bush ignored intelligence regarding terrorist plans prior to 9/11. Gore would not have been likely to, as he was considerably more intelligent and experienced than Bush.
Bush was in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry, so was required to deny/ignore climate change which had been well researched for the previous 30+ years. Gore had been following the research.
So while we may not know how things would have gone with a better man in office, we can make some assumptions based on verifiable differences between the two men.
Mister P
Well said Kangol.
handy6924868
I have never been convinced that Al Gore actually lost. Let’s face it, the Bozo from Texas was not, is not, and never will be trustworthy. Money can buy almost anything, but never honesty.
MISTERJETT
we need to get rid of the electoral college and just go by the popular vote.
Den
Unfortunately that is unlikely to ever happen. But it would be a great day indeed if it did. The Republican party relies on the Electoral College as it seems the only way they can get presidents into the white house. That is why disenfranchising parts of our population is so important to them. ALL of those who won the presidency via electoral college without winning the popular vote have been republicans. They will fight tooth and nail to keep the advantage of a system designed to give greater advantage to right wing leaning sparsely populated states.