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Attorney Norm Pattis at WNHH FM: "You couldn’t hang your dog" on the Jan. 6 gallows.
Norm Pattis convinced a judge to cut in half the prison terms the federal government wanted two Proud Boys leaders to serve on seditious conspiracy charges for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol. The New Haven criminal defense attorney has now filed an appeal to have them cleared of the charges altogether. Too much is at stake for our democracy, Pattis argued — for the ability of Americans to freely express their views challenging the government.
Pattis expanded on that argument in a conversation Thursday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.” He appeared two weeks after his two Proud Boy clients, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl, received 17- and 15-year prison sentences, respectively.
The government had sought 33 years, seeking a longer-than-typical sentence based on the argument the Proud Boys’ actions included an extra level of planning above the norm in these offenses. Pattis prevailed in rebutting that argument. Still, his clients received among the longest Jan. 6‑related sentences handed down to date.
“This was quintessential political behavior — assembly, petition, speech — and then something went wrong, and now their speech acts are being used to prove that it was planned,” Pattis told U.S. District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly at the sentencing. He called the Proud Boys “misguided patriots,” not terrorists, whose long sentences further divide the country rather than address the underlying reasons millions of people distrust established American institutions.
In the WNHH interview, Pattis argued that the same concerns raised about Justice Department overreach in monitoring and disrupting left-wing dissidents in the 1960s-1970s COINTELPRO era should apply to today’s investigation of activists on the right.
Pattis also argued that the mainstream view of the Jan. 6 “riot” as an “insurrection” that threatened America’s democracy is dangerously overblown. A partial transcript of that conversation follows:
WNHH: You don’t think Jan. 6 was a significant threat to our country? When people tried to assassinate the vice-president and stop the counting of votes?
Pattis: Nobody tried to assassinate the vice president.
They said ‘Hang Mike Pence.’
Some people did chant that.
‘Hang Mike Pence.’ They were looking for him .. running after him while he’s trying to carry out his duty, the most fundamental part of our democracy.
You go to a ballgame and the crowd’s chanting ‘Kill!’ …
Context, Norm. They broke into the Capitol. There was violence. And they said, “We want to hang Mike Pence,” and they were looking for him. His job was to certify an election. How could that not be a threat to our country?
Please. Are you serious?
I’m serious!
I brought you a bottle of bourbon. Have a drink; you need it! Look. Here’s what the evidence showed at trial: There was expected to be a fight over certification of the election results. Trump and his advisers believed Pence had the authority not to certify or at most to delay. Pence didn’t. And so there was a constitutional conflict about the role of the vice-president at that event. Pence took the view that it was a ministerial event; Trump took another view. He inspired his people to go to the Capitol. There was a fake gallows out there. I thought you were going to say they were going to try to hang him on that. You couldn’t hang your dog on that; it wouldn’t bear the weight. Some people did utter dumb, despicable chants. People did enter the building. Nobody entered with a weapon. Nobody had a plan to find Mike Pence.
They had the knuckles and the chains …
A few people did.
You could kill people with that.
You could kill people with car keys.
It’s the intention of what you use the car keys for …
… It was no coup. Nobody took over the airwaves. Nobody tried to take over. They didn’t have a plan.
They did try to take over. They stormed the Capitol and stopped the proceedings. They went into the offices and took over the offices. The lawmakers were hiding in the basement.
For six to eight hours.
So all you’re saying is they didn’t succeed as much as if they had gotten all the way, because it was stopped by law enforcement …
I think the riot took place. People were angry. There may have been some individuals in there who might have done violence. But to attribute the hotheaded remarks of a couple of individuals and make this into a threat to American institutions is to demean the strength and power of our institutions. Throughout this entire drama, the courts remained open. The Capitol was shut down for several hours. When Puerto Rican nationalists shot up the Capitol, were people saying, ‘Oh my God. The Republic is about to collapse’? When the Weather Underground blew up a bomb …
The Weather Underground was serious terrorism.
But nobody said, ‘The Republic is at risk.’
Because they didn’t do it at the moment they were trying to certify an election, the most fundamental underpinning of what makes a democracy.
The peaceful transition of power. And our institutions held. We had a riot. We had angry people. … I think there are things more fundamental to the integrity of American life than delaying the counting of ballots for a while. One might be a stolen election. Are people to be penalized and criminalized because they believe the man they voted for, the man who was still president of the United States?
The man who was deliberately feeding them wacko lies to try to undermine …
How were they supposed to know that? And he hasn’t been charged with seditious conspiracy.
Click on the video above in this story to watch the full conversation with Norm Pattis on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven,” including discussion about his defense of Infowars founder Alex Jones, the merits of an inquisitorial vs. adversarial justice system, and why he’d vote for Donald Trump if the next presidential election were held today. Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of Dateline New Haven.