On Monday, the eve of this year’s presidential election, a New Jersey man was convicted of assaulting a law enforcement officer as part of the mob of Donald J. Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
A jury in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., found the man, Brian Glenn Bingham, of Pennsville, N.J., guilty of the felony offenses of assaulting, resisting or impeding a police officer and civil disorder, and several misdemeanors, prosecutors said.
As part of his defense, court records show, Mr. Bingham argued that his actions were colored by the fact that he had been nearby around the time that a Capitol Police lieutenant fatally shot a woman named Ashli Babbitt as she tried to vault through a window near the House Chamber at the Capitol.
Mr. Bingham, a 36-year-old Army veteran, is scheduled to be sentenced in February. Kevin A. Tate, a federal public defender representing him, said Mr. Bingham was “disappointed by the verdict and intends to appeal.”
Mr. Bingham is among more than 1,532 people who have been criminally charged in connection with the riot, and among more than 571 who have been charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers, according to the Justice Department. He and other supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol in a bid to prevent the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. The investigation into the day’s events is continuing.
Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee in this year’s presidential election, was charged with three conspiracy counts arising from the riot. He has pleaded not guilty, and a federal judge will ultimately determine which parts of the indictment should survive under a landmark Supreme Court ruling from July that gives presidents immunity from prosecution for certain official acts while in office.
The federal authorities began to investigate Mr. Bingham’s role in the Capitol riot shortly after it occurred, based on tips from several people who knew him from the Army, according to a criminal complaint. Two of the people said he had posted photos and videos from the riot on his Facebook account.
Investigators subsequently identified Mr. Bingham in the mob on surveillance video from inside the Capitol, the complaint says. The footage showed him entering the building at 2:42 p.m., the complaint says; within 25 minutes, he was engaged in a physical altercation with officers who were trying to clear rioters from the premises.
As he moved toward an exit at one point, the complaint says, he resisted their shouted orders of “Move.”
“You won’t hurt Antifa, but you’ll murder innocent girls,” Mr. Bingham yelled at the officers, according to the complaint.
“Where do you want me to move?” he said to one officer before taunting him, the complaint and a Justice Department news release say. “Push me again!”
The officer continued to push Mr. Bingham toward the exit with his baton, the complaint says. Mr. Bingham, according to the complaint, responded by lunging at the officer and striking him in the face with his right hand. He continued to scuffle with the officer as other officers tried to pull him away. Eventually, the officer pushed him toward a doorway, and he left the building.
A short time later, the complaint says, Mr. Bingham exchanged text messages with other people. “I just man handled 5 cops,” he wrote in one message. “Just scuffed cops, still free,” he wrote in another.
In a separate message, the complaint says, a person made an apparent reference to the shooting of Ms. Babbitt.
“Hey did someone legit get murdered in front of you??” the person wrote.
“I was in doorway of foyer,” Mr. Bingham replied, according to the complaint.
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