WASHINGTON – ONE donald trump fanatic who attacked police officers with pepper spray and called for additional violence after the attack on the Capitol by confessing in the third person was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison and fined $200,000 on Thursday.
Ryan Nichols pleaded guilty in November to one count of felony obstruction of an official proceeding and one count of felony assault on police officers in the performance of their duties. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth a Ronald Reagan appointee who spoke out about the Republican Party’s “absurd” false claims about the January 6, 2021 attack, sentenced Nichols to 63 months on Thursday, saying that although Nichols’ apology at his sentencing hearing “appears to be sincere,” Nichols made “very harsh comments” on tape about his desire for future violence.
The $200,000 fine is among the highest ever imposed in a Jan. 6 case. It was imposed because Nichols did not cooperate with a financial assessment and therefore there is no evidence he could not pay, Lamberth said. A crowdfunding account launched in the name of Nichols and his family has raised more than $235,000 since 2021. Nichols’ attorney indicated he planned to appeal the fine.
In a video recorded before participating in the attack on the Capitol, Nichols said the mob would lynch elected officials who voted to certify Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
“This is the second revolution!” Nichols said as he marched to the Capitol. “Ryan Nichols said this, if you voted for fucking treason, we’re going to drag you through the streets.”
After being seen on video spraying a giant canister of chemical weapons at police officers inside the lower west terrace tunnel, Nichols took to Facebook to boast about his conduct and call for additional violence.
“So if you want to know where Ryan Nichols stands, Ryan Nichols represents violence,” Nichols said in a video cited by prosecutors.
Alluding to Nichols’ work in hurricane recovery, which has seen him appear on daytime television, Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Brasher said Nichols was “a one-man hurricane” on January 6, going on tirades and triggering violence at the Capitol. While the storm walls of democracy may have remained that day, Brasher argued, January 6 is a festering wound and the next presidential election is approaching. Brasher, arguing for an 83-month sentence, that the court needed to send a strong message that political violence is unacceptable. He noted that Nichols repeatedly said he was ready to die for his sake.
“I’m going to die for this,” Nichols said in a video after the attack. “But before I do that, I intend to make other people die first, for their country if that’s the case.”
José McBride, a Trump supporter who served as Nichols’ lawyer, called Nichols “a good man who did a bad thing.” McBride called what came out of Nichols’ mouth on January 6 “crazy” and compared Nichols to a “tropical storm” rather than a hurricane.
McBride, a former guest of Tucker Carlson who repeatedly fed on conspiracy theories about the January 6 riotalso stated that he now believes that some of the rhetoric about “hostages” It is “political prisoners“The right has gone too far, although it has said that the rhetoric the government used about the January 6th defendants was also inappropriate.
“Everything is wrong. None of this should be happening,” McBride said, saying he had recently “softened his tone.”
Neither Nichols nor McBride — who said they want “Trump to win in 2024 and live another 100 years” — spoke about the role they believed Trump played in Nichols’ radicalization. But Nichols is one of many Jan. 6 defendants who later indicated they felt deceived by Trump’s lies. Nichols, in his 2021 FBI interview, “stated that he no longer trusted the president or other prominent legal leaders because he felt they had led him in the wrong direction,” citing “statements made by President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Sydney PowellGeneral Michael Flynn and Lin Wood who helped him form his opinion.”
Nichols, a military veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, told Judge Lamberth on Thursday that he apologized for inflicting pain and trauma on law enforcement officers at the Capitol. A tearful Nichols said he wanted to help other people who were incarcerated and that he had learned from his mistakes, calling his words disgusting and saying he was deeply ashamed of his rhetoric.
“I went absolutely crazy,” Nichols said, adding that he felt his “debt to society was paid in full.”
“I don’t advocate violence,” said Nichols, who has repeatedly said otherwise for three years.
More than 1,387 defendants have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack, with prosecutors approaching 1,000 convictions. Hundreds of low-level protesters received probation sentences, but more than 520 defendants received prison sentences ranging from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison. Just about 15 defendants remain in pre-trial detentionwhile the remainder of the defendants incarcerated on January 6 were convicted of felonies.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
