Judge worries Trump will spark another Jan. 6-style attack: 'It doesn't take much'
A federal judge who has presided over numerous Jan. 6 cases says he's worried that Donald Trump will inspire another attack similar to the riot at the U.S. Capitol before or after the 2024 election.
U.S. District Judge Rudy Contreras made the comments during the sentencing for Jan. 6 defendant Jeffrey Sabol to over five years in prison, saying that Trump and his allies had “spurred” the riot, and adding that he was worried that Sabol would answer again if Trump made a similar call.
"It doesn't take much imagination to imagine a similar call coming out in the coming months," Contreras said Thursday according to NBC News.
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Sabol was arrested just five days after the riot and was accused of repeatedly assaulting police officers who were trying to hold back the mob of Trump supporters. In addition to his prison sentence, Contreras ordered him to pay $32,165.65 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release.
Sabol, a Colorado geophysicist, told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen and that Dominion voting machines had been rigged. He also said he was filled with “patriotic rage” on Jan. 6, that a “call to battle was announced” and that he “answered the call because he was a patriot warrior.”
According to prosecutors, Sabol destroyed evidence by placing his laptop in a microwave oven, dropping his cellphone in water, and trying to flee the country.
From the NBC News report: "In the lead-up to the Capitol attack, many Trump supporters saw the former president's Dec. 19, 2020 'will be wild' tweet encouraging people to come to Washington on Jan. 6 as a 'call to arms.' As criminal cases against hundreds of Trump supporters have made their way through federal court, Jan. 6 defendants have said time and time again that they took the actions they did because they believed the former president's baseless lies about the 2020 election."