WASHINGTON \u2014 A Donald Trump supporter who bashed in a Capitol window, assaulted police officers with pepper spray and urged the mob to \u201cpull the cops out\u201d during the brutal battle at the lower west tunnel on Jan. 6, 2021, is asking a judge to grant him early release, saying he was \u201cmanipulated\u201d by the former president and Fox News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mitchell Todd Gardner, who was wearing a Trump hat and a \u201cReagan Bush \u201984\u201d sweatshirt during the Capitol attack, yelled \u201cpull the police out,\u201d \u201cpull the cops out,\u201d and \u201cgrab their hands and pull them out\u201d during the battle, and then unloaded a fire extinguisher-sized canister of OC spray on officers in the tunnel, according to evidence shown at trial. He then bashed a Capitol window and entered into a suite of Senate \u201chideaway\u201d offices that were assigned to Republican senators, including one belonging to Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho.
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Gardner wrote a memo, styled as a \u201cMotion for Compassionate Release and\/or Reduction of Sentence,\u201d that was filed on the docket in his criminal case this week. In it, Gardner states that he and \u201cso many other Americans\u201d were \u201cpersuaded by then President Donald J. Trump that he had irrefutable evidence that he had been cheated by a \u2018rigged election.\u2019\u201d
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In his memo, Gardner writes that \u201ca large group of hard working red blooded Americans\u201d were influenced by Trump and \u201cfelt obligated to act on his behalf\u201d to save the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gardner\u2019s memo cites the U.S. Sentencing Commission\u2019s \u201c2023 Criminal History Amendment,\u201d which went into effect on Nov. 1, in arguing for a sentence reduction, though it is unclear if Gardner would actually be eligible under that amendment. Gardner, representing himself pro se, wrote the memo from the low-security federal prison at Fort Dix in New Jersey, where he\u2019s being held.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Judge Amit P. Mehta, in March 2023, sentenced Gardner to 55 months, or about 4.5 years, in federal prison. With good time and credit for time served, the 36-year-old is currently scheduled for release on July 15, 2025, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump, Gardner wrote, was \u201cthe most powerful man in the world\u201d and used his influence \u201cto manipulate others in carrying out his missions while staying above the \u2018fray.\u2019\u201d Gardner wrote that he and others felt \u201cit was an obligation or patriotic duty to ensure the saving of the republic.\u201d Jan. 6 rioters thought they were patriots, he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, Gardner says, he realizes \u201cthe nature of his crimes against the United States despite having been mislead [sic] to believe that they were acts of patriotism at the time.\u201d Gardner wrote that he will live forever with \u201ca cloud of shame over\u201d his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Referring to himself in the third person, as is common in court filings, Gardner said his mind was \u201cskewed by misinformation\u201d and that he went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 \u201cwith the mind set of saving the republic from what he considered was some imaginary force that was set to destroy it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gardner said it was \u201ceasy for many\u201d to ask how he could have \u201clistened to one man and been so naive,\u201d but said there \u201cwas a collective of individuals that were highly prominent that promoted this idea that the government was under attack.\u201d Gardner said he saw those people as \u201cpatriotic,\u201d and that he \u201ctrusted the information that they were giving was solid.\u201d He said he\u2019s since learned better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gardner wrote that had it not been for the disinformation \u201cpeddled by powerfully influential people and news outlets such as \u2018FOX NEWS\u2019 that encouraged such actions on January 6,\u201d he would be an employed American citizen paying his taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf these influential individuals had not peddled such fraudulent claims he would have been there for his grandparents that both passed away on this year,\u201d Gardner wrote. \u201cIn addition to this he would have been in the lives of his children both physically and financially to support them from home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fox News and the voting machine company Dominion reached a $787.5 million settlement earlier this year, just moments before the case was set to go to a jury. Discovery in that case revealed that several Fox News hosts knew that the claims being spread by Trump and by the network were bogus, and Fox\u2019s Rupert Murdoch acknowledged that some of his hosts had \u201cendorsed\u201d what he called \u201cbulls— and damaging\u201d conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe petitioner can assure the court that he would never allow himself to ever again be manipulated in such a manner and intends to spend the rest of his life making a full faith effort to right this wrong and be acknowledged once again as a law abiding citizen,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u201ca violent push against the barricaded Senate Wing Door and the police officers attempting to hold them closed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u201cto 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.\u201d Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n