A federal judge has found a second Fort Gibson man guilty of charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on Tuesday found Anthony Alfred Griffith Sr., 58, guilty on all four counts on which he was tried in March, according to court records.
Anthony Alfred Griffth Sr.’s charging document includes this photograph showing him at the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt, Anthony Griffith knew on January 6, 2021, that his actions at the Capitol were unlawful,” Kollar-Kotelly concluded in her findings of fact and conclusions of law.
Griffith is one of more than 1,000 people arrested in the days and weeks after the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Griffith was found guilty following a five-day bench trial in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia of entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
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The misdemeanors carry jail sentences ranging from six months to one year in jail, plus possible fines.
Griffith was arrested March 4, 2021, after he and his employee Jerry Ryals, 28, were charged with violations at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The pair and a third person traveled from Oklahoma to the District of Columbia to attend former President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally prior to the riot.
Griffith testified during his trial that he marched from the rally to the Capitol, occasionally yelling “Freedom,” among crowd chants of “Stop the Steal,” according to Kollar-Kotelly’s findings.
After arriving at the Capitol, Griffith entered the building about 2:45 p.m., stepping over broken glass only to leave the building and enter it again five minutes later through another door, according to the judge’s findings.
Griffith left the building for the last time at 3:33 p.m.
“In general, defendant maintained in his testimony that he thought it was lawful to enter and remain in the Capitol and its grounds until instructed otherwise,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her findings of fact and conclusions of law.
“The Court does not find this testimony credible,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote, noting that Griffith encountered chemical spay, an ear-splitting alarm upon entering the Capitol, a ransacked office and glass broken by rioters while breaching the building.
The judge also commented on Griffith’s claim of being guided by his religion.
“Although Griffith testified that he was guided by firm religious convictions, particularly in regards to his views on abortion, those religious convictions do not negate the clear video and photographic evidence speaking to his intent to engage in political demonstrations in concert with the mob around him,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote.
Griffith will be sentenced at a later date.
Video evidence presented during the prosecution of defendants linked to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol has given the public a clearer understanding of what specific violent acts led prosecutors to pursue criminal charges in hundreds of cases.
5 takeaways from the Jan. 6 report
1. Eight chapters
From the “Big Lie” of Trump’s November 2020 election night claims of a stolen election to the bloody Jan. 6, 2021, siege, the report spells out the start and finish of the mob attack that played out for the world to see.
It details how Trump and his allies engaged in a “multi-part” scheme to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential election victory — first through court challenges, then, when those failed, by compiling slates of electors to challenge Joe Biden’s victory.
As Congress prepared to convene Jan. 6 to certify the election, Trump summoned a mob to Washington for his “Stop the Steal” rally at the White House.
“When Donald Trump pointed them toward the Capitol and told them to ‘fight like hell,’ that’s exactly what they did,” Thompson wrote. “Donald Trump lit that fire. But in the weeks beforehand, the kindling he ultimately ignited was amassed in plain sight.”
2. New details, pressures
After blockbuster public hearings, the report and its accompanying materials are providing more detailed accounts of key aspects of the Trump team’s plan to overturn the election, join the mob at the Capitol and, once the committee began investigating, pressure those who would testify against him.
Among dozens of new witness transcripts was Thursday’s release of a previously unseen account from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson (pictured) detailing a stunning campaign by Trump’s allies encouraging her to stay “loyal” as she testified before the panel.
The report said the committee estimates that in the two months between the November election and the Jan. 6 attack, “Trump or his inner circle engaged in at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach, pressure, or condemnation, targeting either State legislators or State or local election administrators, to overturn State election results.”
3. Behind the scenes
The report also details Trump’s inaction as his loyalists were violently storming the building.
One Secret Service employee testified to the committee that Trump’s determination to go to the Capitol put agents on high alert.
“(We) all knew … that this was going to move to something else if he physically walked to the Capitol,” a unidentified employee said. “I don’t know if you want to use the word ‘insurrection,’ ‘coup,’ whatever. We all knew that this would move from a normal democratic … public event into something else.”
Once the president arrived back at the White House after delivering a speech to his supporters, he asked an employee if they had seen his remarks on television.
“Sir, they cut it off because they’re rioting down at the Capitol,” the staffer said, according to the report.
Trump asked what that meant, and was given the same answer. “Oh really?” Trump then asked. “All right, let’s go see.”
4. Safeguarding democracy
The report makes 11 recommendations for Congress and others to safeguard American democracy and its tradition of the peaceful transfer of presidential power from one leader to the next.
The first, an overhaul of the Electoral Count Act, is on its way to becoming law in the year-end spending bill heading toward final passage this week in Congress.
The committee also made recommendations to the Justice Department to prosecute Trump and others for conspiracy to commit fraud on the public, and other potential charges. It also referred the former president for prosecution for “assisting and providing aid and comfort to an insurrection.”
Other changes may be within reach or prove more elusive. Among them, the report recommends beefing up security around key congressional events, overhauling oversight of the Capitol Police and enhancing federal penalties for certain types of threats against election workers.
One recommendation is for Congress to create a formal mechanism to consider barring individuals from public office if they engage in insurrection or rebellion under the Fourteenth Amendment. It holds that those who have taken an oath to support the Constitution can be disqualified from holding future federal or state office if they back an insurrection.
5. Record for history
The Jan. 6 committee was created after Congress rebuked an effort to form an independent 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack. Republicans blocked the idea.
Instead, Speaker Nancy Pelosi led the House to form the committee. In her foreword to the report, she said it “must be a clarion call to all Americans: to vigilantly guard our Democracy.”
Led by Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the panel’s work is intended to stand as a record for history of what happened during the most serious attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812.
Five people died in the riot and its aftermath, including Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed by police, and Brian Sicknick, a police officer who died the day after battling the mob.
Cheney noted the committee decided most of its witnesses needed to be Republicans — the president’s own team and allies. In the report’s foreword, she wrote that history will remember the “bravery of a handful of Americans” and those who withstood Trump’s “corrupt pressure.”
For all of them, the committee and report held personal weight.
Thompson, a Black leader in Congress, noted that the iconic U.S. Capitol, built with enslaved labor, “itself is a fixture in our country’s history, of both good and bad … a symbol of our journey toward a more perfect union.”