WASHINGTON — Members of the right-wing Oath Keepers militia on trial for seditious conspiracy “didn’t touch or push open a single door, or break any windows” as the U.S. Capitol was overrun by a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters, a defense lawyer told jurors on Monday.
Kenneth Harrelson, a military veteran who helped organize the Oath Keepers’ Florida chapter, only entered the building after rioters jumped through windows they smashed with 2-by-4s and opened the doors from the inside, his attorney Brad Geyer said in a closing argument in federal court in Washington.
Geyer showed jurors CCTV footage of his client both inside and outside the building on Jan. 6, 2021, saying Harrelson was only in the building for 17 minutes, and that it “boggles the mind” that he was part of any violent plan. The lawyer called the rioters “hoodlums” and “goons” and said his client was only in Washington to provide security at a pro-Trump rally that day.
