Judge Sentencing Rioter Who Said He Was Following ‘Orders’ Blasts Trump: He Only Cares About Power

Photo credit: Tasos Katopodis, Getty Images

A federal judge slammed Donald Trump on Thursday, saying that the former president doesn’t “really care about democracy.”

Reggie Walton, a senior judge on the U.S. District Court for DC, said following a guilty verdict by a jury against a defendant, Dustin Thompson, who claimed that Trump instructed him to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, did not hold back when talking about the former president.

“If the president’s giving you almost an order to do something, I felt obligated to do that,” Thompson said of his actions on January 6.

Judge Walton rebuked Trump for his role.

“I think our democracy is in trouble because unfortunately we have charlatans like our former president, who doesn’t in my view really care about democracy but only about power,” said Walton, according to Politico’s Kyle Cheney.

“If somebody is weak-minded enough to buy in on what was being said and then come all the way from Ohio … and even doing it gleefully, I just have my real concerns about him,” added Walton, according to Cheney.

! Walton detains Thompson without bond pending sentencing.

“The inevitable reality is that whether he does time now or does time later, he’s got to do time,” Walton said just before ordering him held.

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) April 14, 2022

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