”I strongly believe most people only have a partial picture of what happened,” he said. ”The narrative was, ‘Wild-eyed, pitchforked hillbillies were there because their fascist leader told them to be there.’ That’s ridiculous and needs to change, and I believe it is.”
While Trump and some Jan. 6 defendants say the prosecutions were politically motivated, considerable video evidence shows rioters clashing with police and forcing themselves into the Capitol. More than 100 police officers were injured, some pepper sprayed or hit with a flagpole or fire extinguisher, and federal property was damaged.
Federal prosecutors who prosecuted the case against Mehaffie and other Jan. 6 defendants said Mehaffie helped direct a violent and hostile mob of Trump supporters as they tried to break into the Capitol building in response to Joe Biden’s election victory.
“What he provided was leadership,” said Jocelyn Bond, assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, during the closing arguments in Mehaffie’s criminal trial. “He provided leadership to a chaotic and violent and unruly mob.”
Ashley Akers, a federal prosecutor who helped prosecute Mehaffie and other Jan. 6 defendants, recently told NBC News that Trump’s pardons were “shocking.”
“It really undermines not only the sacrifices that all these officers made (to protect the Capitol), but the experiences that they went through,” said Akers, who left her position earlier this year. “The public record — which is very clear and borne out in hundreds of trials — has shown that these officers are victims.”
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
President Trump called the Jan. 6 defendants “hostages” who he says were treated very unfairly by the Department of Justice.
Vice President JD Vance recently said in defense of the pardons, “There were double standards in how sentences were applied to the J6 protesters versus other groups.”
Criminal case
In early 2023, Mehaffie was convicted of two felony and two misdemeanor criminal charges after a multi-day trial in Washington, D.C.
He was sentenced to 14 months in prison but was released on New Year’s Eve of 2023 after serving nine months behind bars.
Mehaffie was arrested in August 2021 at his home in Kettering. He was one of more than a dozen people from the Miami Valley region who were charged for their actions at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said Mehaffie entered restricted grounds of the U.S. Capitol and was part of a large crowd that tried to breach the Capitol building through a tunnel created by a platform structure on the lower west terrace.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
Mehaffie was convicted of felony charges of aiding and abetting in assaulting, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers and interfering with a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder. He was also convicted of misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct in a Capitol building and aiding and abetting in committing an act of violence in the Capitol building or grounds.
Mehaffie’s story
Mehaffie said he never did and never would lay a finger on law enforcement who were protecting the Capitol. He said he was innocent of the crimes he faced and was convicted because of an unfair justice system.
Mehaffie claims he tried to get the crowd in the tunnel to calm down and sit down because he was worried about their safety and the safety of police officers.
“I tried to bring peace to that setting,” Mehaffie said.
Mehaffie said he was concerned because the tunnel was jampacked. He said the scary scene made him think about the stories of a friend who was at the 1979 The Who rock concert in Cincinnati where 11 people died after being crushed and trampled during a stampede.
Mehaffie said he thinks the vast majority of protestors were peaceful, and protestors were not trying to stage an insurrection.
Mehaffie said there were some violent acts, but he believes most of the violence was committed by police against protestors, and not the other way around.
Federal case
Federal prosecutors said Mehaffie and other Jan. 6 criminal defendants were very determined to get inside the U.S. Capitol building and they viewed police officers as an obstacle to this goal.
During closing statements at Mehaffie’s trial, assistant prosecutor Bond said Mehaffie was an experienced protestor who spent more than 25 minutes perched on a ledge by the tunnel at the lower west terrace waving in rioters and directing them where to go.
Bond said that an angry mob tried to push through a line of shoulder-to-shoulder police officers who were trying to deny access to the building through the tunnel.
She said Mehaffie assisted rioters who were resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating and interfering with law enforcement officers as they tried to clear the tunnel and protect the Capitol.
“Mr. Mehaffie was directing that mass push, flooding people in, not creating space, filling that space with people determined to push through the police line,” she said.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department officer Abdulkadir Abdi testified at trial that he believed that Mehaffie tried to agitate and rile up the crowd.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia has estimated that about 140 police officers were assaulted at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Prosecutors say police officers were beaten, attacked with weapons, and sprayed with chemical agents.
William Shipley, an attorney for Mehaffie, said in closing arguments at trial that his client’s actions were organizational in nature — an attempt to prevent the protest from getting too chaotic.
Shipley said Mehaffie told crowd members not to hurt police and he was trying to create a safer environment.
Before handing down his verdict, U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden said that the evidence showed that Mehaffie knew that rioters were impeding police in the tunnel and yet he directed them inside.
“Upon review of the entire video, I count at least 12 times where he gestured rioters into the tunnel,” the judge said. “Mr. Mehaffie’s repeated efforts to get new people into the melee obviously furthered their interference, impeding and opposing police officers.”
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
Trump pardons
President Trump earlier this month granted “full, complete and unconditional” pardons to roughly 1,500 defendants who were charged and convicted of criminal offenses related to Jan. 6.
Trump pledged while on the campaign trail to free the “J6 hostages.” He said the judicial system’s treatment of the criminal defendants was “outrageous.”
Other Republican lawmakers, including Republican Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno, recently have said that Jan. 6 defendants have been treated “horribly.”
Some Democratic lawmakers have accused President Trump and his supporters of trying to rewrite the history of what they say was a dark day in American history.
They say Jan. 6 was an attack on democracy and the results of a free and fair election.
“Americans are rightly outraged,” U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said earlier this month on X (formerly Twitter). “It is an affront on decency and an attack on the rule of law.”
Mehaffie said he’s grateful for the pardon because it means he regains his rights to vote and own a gun.
Mehaffie said he does not regret being at the Capitol on Jan. 6; he believes he was part of a protest that brought attention to major issues.
Mehaffie said he traveled to Washington with some of his family members to attend the rally at the Ellipse because he was upset and angry about COVID lockdowns, vaccine policies, censorship and government crackdowns on free speech on social media and elsewhere.
“I think Jan. 6 was a flashpoint that was needed that represented millions of people who were saying, ‘We do not want the direction we are going to continue,’” he said.
Mehaffie also said he believes prosecutors and the Department of Justice treated Jan. 6 protestors much more harshly than they would have other Americans involved in protests for liberal leaning causes.
About the Author
