Politics

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Texas on Thursday temporarily blocked the state’s law limiting public drag performances, in another win for LGBTQ groups challenging similar laws across the country.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner in Houston said the law, which was set to take effect on Friday, likely violates performers’ constitutional right to free speech.

Hittner blocked the law pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed earlier this month by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU’s Texas chapter, in a posting on X, formerly Twitter, said “drag performers and LGBTQIA+ allied businesses belong in our state — and Texas politicians have no right to censor our free expression.”

Paige Willey, a spokeswoman for the Texas Attorney General’s office, said the state would “pursue all legal remedies” in defense of the law.

“The people of Texas were appalled to learn of an increasing trend of obscene, sexually explicit so-called ‘drag’ performances being marketed to families with children,” Willey said.

The Texas law prohibits lewd or sexualized performances utilizing “accessories or prosthetics that exaggerate male or female sexual characteristics” in public or in the presence of minors.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, a Republican and staunch supporter of the law, said when it was passed in April that it would prevent children from being “scarred for life” by being exposed to sexually-charged drag shows.

Federal judges in Tennessee and Florida earlier this year temporarily blocked similar laws in those states, also citing free-speech violations. Those decisions are being appealed.

Montana, Arkansas and North Dakota have also enacted restrictions on drag performances.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge on Thursday sentenced former far-right Proud Boys leaders Joseph Biggs to 17 years in prison and his co-defendant Zachary Rehl to 15 years, after a jury convicted them of seditious conspiracy for storming the U.S. Capitol in a failed bid to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat.

The prison terms handed down by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly for Biggs and Rehl, the first Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy to be sentenced for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, were below U.S. sentencing guidelines and far lower than the 33-year and 30-year terms sought by federal prosecutors.

Kelly said on Thursday he was not “trying to minimize the violence” that occurred on Jan. 6, but he noted that the event was still not on par with a mass casualty event and imposing a stricter sentence could create disparities.

Ahead of his sentencing, Biggs apologized for his actions as he faced Kelly, choking up as he spoke about his daughter whom he said was a sexual assault victim who needs him while he has been locked up.

“I was seduced by the crowd, and I just moved forward. My curiosity got the better of me,” said Biggs. “I’m not a terrorist. I don’t have hate in my heart.”

Rehl, meanwhile, broke down crying as he read a statement, as his lawyer stood next to him with his hand on Rehl’s back.

“I regret involving myself with any of it,” he said. He added that he let politics consume his life and he “lost track of who and what matters.”

He also apologized for letting his family down and asked if Kelly could send him to a federal prison close to his home.

Prosecutors calculated their sentencing recommendation for Rehl, in part, based on evidence he committed perjury when he took the stand in his own defense during the trial and lied about assaulting police with a chemical spray.

“You did spray that officer and you lied about it,” Kelly told him, adding these were “bad facts.”

The Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol was meant to stop Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s election, which Trump falsely claims was the result of widespread fraud.

“These are very serious crimes,” federal prosecutor Jason McCullough said on Thursday. “There is a reason why we will hold our collective breaths as we approach future elections. … They pushed this to the edge of a constitutional crisis.”

Trump has a wide lead in the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in 2024.

In one of the debates during his 2020 presidential campaign, Trump famously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” when he was asked by the moderator to denounce white supremacists.

Two other Proud Boys – Ethan Nordean and Dominic Pezzola – will face sentencing before Kelly on Friday, while the group’s former chairman Enrique Tarrio will be sentenced on Sept. 5.

Prosecutors are seeking a 33-year prison term for Tarrio and a 27-year term for Nordean, both of whom were also convicted of seditious conspiracy.

They are requesting a 20-year term for Pezzola, who was acquitted of seditious conspiracy, but convicted of other serious felonies.

TERRORISM ENHANCEMENT

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly to agree to apply a terrorism enhancement for all five Proud Boys defendants – a move that has the potential to add roughly 15 years to a prison term.

Kelly on Thursday agreed that Biggs and Rehls’ conduct amounted to an act of terrorism, but he did not apply the enhancement because he said it “overstates the conduct” at issue.

The sentences he imposed, while far lower than what the government requested, still represent among the most stringent to date in connection with the Capitol attack.

To date, former Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes holds the record with an 18-year sentence, after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy earlier this year.

More than 1,100 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault. Of those, more than 630 have pleaded guilty and at least 110 have been convicted at trial.

Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after the riot and more than 140 police officers were injured. The Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damage.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was tapped to investigate broader attempts to overturn the 2020 election, has since charged Trump for trying to keep himself in power.

It is one of four indictments now facing Trump, as the 2024 campaign is about to kick into high gear.

Trump is also charged in Georgia on charges related to the 2020 election results.

In addition, he is charged by Smith’s office in Florida with mishandling classified documents, and New York state charges of falsifying business records in connection with hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone, Mark Porter and Grant McCool)

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By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) – The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday allowed a state law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors, such as puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries, to take effect while it hears a legal challenge to the statute.

The ruling came after a judge last Friday blocked the law in response to a challenge by the families of transgender children and doctors. The law is set to take effect Friday.

“Today’s cruel ruling places Texas’ transgender youth, and the families and medical professionals who love and care for them, directly in harm’s way,” lawyers for the families said in a joint statement.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The state had filed the appeal to the Supreme Court, which automatically put the lower court’s order on hold and allowed the law to take effect as scheduled.

The families’ lawyers asked the state’s highest court for an emergency order again blocking the law while the appeal is heard, but the court rebuffed the request, without giving a reason.

Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed the law in June. Texas is one of at least 20 states that have banned or restricted gender-affirming care for minors.

Supporters of such bans have said the treatments are unproven and risky. Mainstream U.S. medical groups have opposed the bans and maintain that gender-affirming care improves transgender patients’ mental health and reduces the risk of suicide.

In her ruling last Friday, District Judge Maria Cantu Hexsel of Travis County in Austin found the families were likely to succeed in challenging the law, which she wrote “stands directly at odds with parents’ fundamental right to make decisions concerning the care of their children.”

Hexsel, who was elected as a Democrat, also found that the law discriminates against transgender youth based on their transgender status, interfering with doctors’ relationships with patients and their right to practice medicine.

Several other similar state laws have been blocked by judges, though a federal appeals court earlier in August revived Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Jonathan Oatis)

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former U.S. President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a Georgia criminal indictment accusing him of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and asked to be tried separately from some of his 18 co-defendants.

Fulton County indicted Trump in August on 13 felony counts, including racketeering, for pressuring state officials to reverse his 2020 election loss in the state and allegedly setting up a fake slate of electors to undermine the congressional certification of Democratic President Joe Biden’s victory.

“As evidenced by my signature below, I do hereby waive formal arraignment and enter my plea of NOT GUILTY to the Indictment in this case,” Trump said in a court filing in Fulton County Superior Court.

The plea means that Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, will not appear in person in court next week to face the charges.

Trump’s lawyers also asked the judge to sever his case from some of his co-defendants who have sought a speedy trial in the case. This would put Trump’s case on a different schedule from that of his co-defendant, Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer for Trump’s 2020 campaign, who is set to go to trial beginning in October.

Trump’s lawyers argued that they did not have sufficient time to prepare for the October trial date set for Chesebro.

Fulton County prosecutors are seeking an October start to the trial. Some of Trump’s co-defendants in Georgia, including attorney Sidney Powell, Trevian Kutti and Ray Smith, have also waived formal arraignment and entered not guilty pleas.

The 98-page Georgia indictment filed in mid-August charges Trump and 18 other defendants with a total of 41 criminal counts.

The Georgia case is Trump’s fourth indictment. He faces a New York state trial in March involving a hush money payment to a porn star and a federal trial in May in Florida for allegedly mishandling federal classified documents.

Another indictment, in Washington federal court, accuses him of illegally seeking to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump is due to stand trial in March 2024 for that case, one day before Republican voters in more than a dozen U.S. states decide whether to give him a chance to recapture the White House.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all criminal cases and could spend much of next year in court, even as he campaigns to retake the White House.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh, additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal judge sentenced former far-right Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs to 17 years in prison on Thursday, after a jury convicted Biggs of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Mark Porter)

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A federal judge on Thursday sentenced former far-right Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs to 17 years in prison, after a jury convicted him of seditious conspiracy for his role in storming the U.S. Capitol in a failed bid to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat.

The sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly is below both U.S. sentencing guidelines and far less than the prison term sought by federal prosecutors.

Kelly said he was not “trying to minimize the violence” that occurred on Jan. 6, but he noted that the event was still not on par with a mass casualty event and imposing a stricter sentence could create disparities.

Ahead of his sentencing, Biggs apologized for his actions as he faced Kelly, choking up as he spoke about his daughter whom he said was a sexual assault victim who needs him.

“I was seduced by the crowd, and I just moved forward. My curiosity got the better of me,” said Biggs. “I’m not a terrorist. I don’t have hate in my heart.”

Federal prosecutors had hoped for a 33-year sentence for Biggs and a 30-year term for Biggs’ co-defendant Zachary Rehl, who will be sentenced later on Thursday.

Together, Biggs and Rehl will become the first Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy to be sentenced for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

The government’s sentencing recommendations exceeded the longest sentence handed out so far over the assault by the former president’s supporters on the Capitol, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was sentenced in May to serve 18 years.

“These are very serious crimes,” federal prosecutor Jason McCullough said on Thursday. “There is a reason why we will hold our collective breaths as we approach future elections. … They pushed this to the edge of a constitutional crisis.”

Former Proud Boys Chair Enrique Tarrio and another former leader, Ethan Nordean, were scheduled for sentencing on Wednesday but their hearings were postponed after the judge called out sick.

The attack was meant to stop Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s election, which Trump falsely claims was the result of widespread fraud.

Trump currently holds a wide lead in the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in 2024.

TERRORISM ENHANCEMENT

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly to agree to a terrorism enhancement – a move that had the potential to add roughly 15 years to a prison term.

Kelly on Thursday agreed that the enhancement applied to Biggs, based on his criminal conviction for destroying a metal fence that separated the large crowd of Trump’s supporters from the Capitol.

The destruction of the black metal fence “is a federal crime of terrorism,” Kelly said.

More than 1,100 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault. Of those, more than 630 have pleaded guilty and at least 110 have been convicted at trial.

Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after the riot and more than 140 police officers were injured. The Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damage.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was tapped to investigate broader efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has since charged Trump for trying to keep himself in power.

Norm Pattis, an attorney for both Biggs and Rehl, asked Kelly to sentence his clients to a term that is below U.S. sentencing guidelines.

“Since the Jan. 6 prosecutions have taken place, there have been many media reports of people afraid to go to protests for fear that if they become violent, their incendiary speech will be used as evidence against them,” Pattis told the court.

In May, a jury convicted Biggs, Rehl, Tarrio and Nordean of seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era law that makes it a crime to conspire to oppose the government by force, and other felonies.

Prosecutors are seeking a 33-year prison term for Tarrio and a 27-year term for Nordean.

Also facing sentencing, on Friday, is Dominic Pezzola. Pezzola was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other serious felonies including obstructing an official proceeding. Prosecutors are requesting a 20-year sentence for him.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Mark Porter)

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(Reuters) – Top U.S. Senate Republican Mitch McConnell froze up for more than 30 seconds on Wednesday during a public appearance before he was escorted away, the second such incident in a little more than a month, a clip from an NBC News affiliate showed.

McConnell, 81, was responding to questions from reporters after an event with the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in Covington when he froze up, staring into space and not responding to reporters and others nearby.

After being approached by a second person, McConnell resumed speaking but needed reporters’ questions repeated to him and only answered two more questions. The longest-serving Senate party leader in history, McConnell’s voice was shaky and quiet.

He said Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican, was “far and away the best candidate” for governor, and declined to say whether he would support former President Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president before walking away with a staffer.

A McConnell aide said the senator would be consulting with a physician prior to his next public event. The Senate is due to reconvene on Tuesday after a more-than-month-long summer recess.

“Leader McConnell felt momentarily lightheaded and paused during his press conference today,” McConnell’s spokesperson said.

The incident was similar to one that took place in the U.S. Capitol on July 26, when McConnell froze in the middle of a press conference and had to be led away, returning several minutes later to finish taking questions.

After that incident, a McConnell aide said the senator had felt light-headed. Two days later, a spokesperson said that McConnell planned to remain in his leadership post through the 2024 election.

McConnell froze on Wednesday after being asked whether he intended to run again in 2026, when his six-year term is up.

MARCH CONCUSSION

McConnell had been sidelined from the Senate earlier this year after he tripped at a Washington dinner on March 8 and was admitted to a hospital for treatment of a concussion. He also suffered a minor rib fracture and was later moved to a rehabilitation facility. He returned to the Senate in April.

Many top figures in Washington are of advanced age, with President Joe Biden running for reelection at 80 and the average age in the Senate above 64.

Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, was sidelined for months this year after a bout of shingles that caused complications including encephalitis and Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which can cause facial paralysis.

A majority of Americans, some 61%, told a November Reuters/Ipsos poll that they were very or somewhat concerned that members of Congress are too old to represent the American people. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, is 77.

Criticism of aging politicians most often comes from the opposite political party, but Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted the McConnell video on X, formerly Twitter, citing it as an example of “people who are not fit for office.”

Congress is bracing for what is expected to be a bitter fight to secure an agreement on funding the U.S. government past the end of the fiscal year on Sept 30. In previous years McConnell, who has led his party in the Senate since 2007, has played a key role in negotiations.

McConnell has served as Senate majority leader from 2015 to 2021 and as Senate minority leader since then. Democrats, including three independents who vote with them, currently hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, when all senators are present.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Makini Brice and Richard Cowan in Washington; Writing by Moira Warburton; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

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By Moira Warburton

(Reuters) -Top U.S. Senate Republican Mitch McConnell froze up for more than 30 seconds on Wednesday during a public appearance before he was escorted away, the second such incident in a little more than a month, a clip from an NBC News affiliate showed.

McConnell, 81, was responding to questions from reporters after an event with the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in Covington when he froze up, staring into space and not responding to reporters and others nearby.

After being approached by a second person, McConnell resumed speaking but needed reporters’ questions repeated to him and only answered two more questions. The longest-serving Senate party leader in history, McConnell’s voice was shaky and quiet.

He said Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican, was “far and away the best candidate” for governor, and declined to say whether he would support former President Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president before walking away with a staffer.

A McConnell aide said the senator would be consulting with a physician prior to his next public event. The Senate is due to reconvene on Tuesday after a more-than-month-long summer recess.

“Leader McConnell felt momentarily lightheaded and paused during his press conference today,” McConnell’s spokesperson said.

The incident was similar to one that took place in the U.S. Capitol on July 26, when McConnell froze in the middle of a press conference and had to be led away, returning several minutes later to finish taking questions.

After that incident, a McConnell aide said the senator had felt light-headed. Two days later, a spokesperson said that McConnell planned to remain in his leadership post through the 2024 election.

McConnell froze on Wednesday after being asked whether he intended to run again in 2026, when his six-year term is up.

MARCH CONCUSSION

McConnell had been sidelined from the Senate earlier this year after he tripped at a Washington dinner on March 8 and was admitted to a hospital for treatment of a concussion. He also suffered a minor rib fracture and was later moved to a rehabilitation facility. He returned to the Senate in April.

Many top figures in Washington are of advanced age, with President Joe Biden running for reelection at 80 and the average age in the Senate above 64.

Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, 90, was sidelined for months this year after a bout of shingles that caused complications including encephalitis and Ramsay Hunt syndrome, which can cause facial paralysis.

A majority of Americans, some 61%, told a November Reuters/Ipsos poll that they were very or somewhat concerned that members of Congress are too old to represent the American people. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, is 77.

Criticism of aging politicians most often comes from the opposite political party, but Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted the McConnell video on X, formerly Twitter, citing it as an example of “people who are not fit for office.”

Congress is bracing for what is expected to be a bitter fight to secure an agreement on funding the U.S. government past the end of the fiscal year on Sept 30. In previous years McConnell, who has led his party in the Senate since 2007, has played a key role in negotiations.

McConnell has served as Senate majority leader from 2015 to 2021 and as Senate minority leader since then. Democrats, including three independents who vote with them, currently hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate, when all senators are present.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh, Makini Brice and Richard Cowan in Washington; Writing by Moira Warburton; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

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By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York’s attorney general on Wednesday asked a state judge to declare, even before the start of a trial, that Donald Trump committed fraud by submitting false statements to bankers and insurers and overstating his net worth by up to $2.23 billion.

In filings with a state court in Manhattan, Attorney General Letitia James said evidence in her civil case showed “repeated and persistent fraudulent use” by Trump and his family business of false and misleading financial statements from 2011 to 2021.

James said inflating values of more than a dozen assets by hundreds of millions of dollars established the defendants’ liability for fraud under the state’s Executive Law.

“The cumulative effect of these numerous deceptive schemes to inflate Mr. Trump’s assets, and hence his net worth, is staggering,” and is “just the tip of a much larger iceberg of deception (the state) is prepared to expose at trial,” James said.

Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

James filed her lawsuit last September, accusing Trump of lying about property values, including for his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and Trump Tower penthouse in Manhattan, and his own net worth to obtain better terms from lenders and insurers.

She is seeking at least $250 million from Trump, his adult sons Donald Jr. and Eric, the Trump Organization and others, and to stop the Trumps from running businesses in New York.

Trump’s adult daughter Ivanka Trump was dismissed as a defendant in June.

A trial before state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron is scheduled for Oct. 2.

It is separate from four criminal indictments that Trump, 77, faces as he seeks a second White House term, including two for attempting to reverse his 2020 election loss.

Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has denied wrongdoing in all of the cases, calling them part of a Democratic witch hunt against him. James is a Democrat.

In Wednesday’s filing, James said correcting Trump’s suspect valuations would have reduced his net worth by 17% to 39% each year between 2011 and 2021.

The filing said Trump’s reported net worth peaked at $6.1 billion in both 2018 and 2019, when he was U.S. president, but would have been no more than $4.2 billion had he arranged for “full blown professional appraisals” of his properties.

James said Trump should have valued his penthouse triplex in 2016 at $119.9 million instead of $327 million, and valued Mar-a-Lago in 2018 at $25.4 million, based on its restricted use as a social club, instead of $739.5 million.

The New York civil case is New York v Trump et al, New York State Supreme Court, New York County, No. 452564/2022.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday will consider whether to impose the steepest sentence yet on two former leaders of the right-wing Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes for the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters.

Prosecutors are asking U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly to sentence Enrique Tarrio, the group’s former chairman, to 33 years in prison and to sentence his co-defendant Ethan Nordean, another former leader, to 27 years.

Those recommendations exceed the longest sentence handed out so far over the assault by the former president’s supporters on the seat of government, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes who was sentenced in May to serve 18 years.

The attack was meant to stop Congress from certifying Democratic President Joe Biden’s election, which Trump falsely claims was the result of widespread fraud. Trump currently holds a wide lead in the race for the Republican nomination to challenge Biden in 2024.

Prosecutors are asking the judge to agree to a terrorism enhancement for Tarrio and his co-defendants – a move that has the potential to add roughly 15 years to a prison term.

“These defendants and the men in their command saw themselves as the foot soldiers of the right — they were prepared to use, and they did use, force to stop the ‘traitors’ from stealing the election,’” federal prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault, and of those at least 570 have pleaded guilty and 78 have been convicted at trial. Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after the riot and more than 140 police officers were injured. The Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damage.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was tapped to investigate broader efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has since charged Trump for trying to keep himself in power.

Attorneys for Tarrio and Nordean are asking the judge to reject the terrorism enhancement request.

“While the instant offenses are serious in nature, they are nowhere near and should not be grouped in the same category … as the heinous acts committed by individuals such as Timothy James McVeigh,” Tarrio’s attorneys wrote, referring to the man who carried out the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

In May, a jury convicted Tarrio and Nordean along with Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl of seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era law that makes it a crime to conspire to oppose the government by force, and other felonies.

Biggs and Rehl are due to be sentenced on Thursday. Prosecutors are seeking 33 years for Biggs and 30 years for Rehl.

A fifth defendant – Dominic Pezzola – was acquitted of the seditious conspiracy charge, but convicted alongside the others of other felonies including obstructing an official proceeding. Prosecutors are requesting a 20-year sentence for him.

All of the five defendants except Tarrio entered the Capitol during the attack. Prosecutors said they were among the first to charge past protective barricades.

Tarrio was not in Washington that day after being ordered by a judge to stay out of the city following a Jan. 4 arrest for burning a Black Lives Matter banner at a church. But prosecutors said he helped direct the attack from Baltimore.

Capitol Police described at a hearing on Tuesday the toll the attack took on them.

“I will never forget attempting to aid another officer and being violently dragged down by my riot shield,” wrote former Capitol Police Officer Mark Ode, in a letter submitted to the court that a prosecutor read aloud.

Ode, whose riot shield was stolen by Pezzola, said that at one point during the assault he experienced a “vivid vision” of his own funeral as he gasped for air.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)

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