On Jan. 6, 2021, a young man named Caleb Berry joined with members of the far-right Oath Keepers group and stormed the Capitol. Like so many of his confederates, Berry was identified, charged and prosecuted.
Unlike many of his confederates, however, he apologized for his actions and cooperated with prosecutors in cases against other Jan. 6 rioters. As NBC News’ Ryan Reilly reported, Berry went so far as to express gratitude for having been arrested.
While it might seem strange to say, Berry told the judge Friday, he is thankful to federal prosecutors for bringing the case against him, saying they gave him a ‘stern wake-up call’ that took him off the ‘path of radicalization’ he was on. Berry called his conduct ‘foolish’ and said he let his emotions get the best of him because he thought he was doing something ‘for the greater good,’ but he had now come to realize that was ‘entirely false.’ Berry said he’ll regret his decisions ‘for the rest of my life.’
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who oversaw Berry’s case, said the young man — 19 at the time of the assault on the Capitol — came to understand that the “cause wasn’t just, it wasn’t righteous. It was wrong.”
Thanks to his extensive cooperation with the Justice Department, the defendant was sentenced to three years’ probation.
That said, as Reilly’s report added, “With just days left until the 2024 election, Donald Trump supporters who fell for his lies about fraud in the last election continue to face legal consequences for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, even as Trump managed to stave off his own criminal trial and again become the Republican presidential nominee.”
As we recently discussed, this has happened quite often of late, with more than a few Jan. 6 rioters coming to terms with the fact that they were conned — “duped,” as one criminal defendant recently put it — by a man who filled them with lies and manipulated them for his own purposes.
When I last wrote about this, I heard from some readers who thought my piece was overly sympathetic to Jan. 6 criminals. These readers argued that the rioters — even those who’ve since come to realize the error of their ways — were adults; they had agency; and they were held accountable for participating in an illegal assault on our democracy. Yes, they were lied to, but that doesn’t make them victims. These folks should’ve known better than to believe ridiculous conspiracy theories without a shred of evidence.
It’s certainly a fair point, which I agree with. My broader observation, however, wasn’t about whether to feel sympathy for those who fell for Trump’s deception, but rather to emphasize a larger concern about that accountability.
The Republican Party’s nominee for the nation’s highest office wasn’t just responsible for deploying an armed mob to attack his own country’s seat of government, he’s continuing to make matters worse as Election Day 2024 draws closer.
As recently as two weeks ago, for example, he compared Jan. 6 criminals to victims of Japanese internment camps. The same day, the GOP nominee also amplified a conspiracy theory that “the government staged a riot to cover up the fact that they certified a fraudulent election.”
A day earlier, Trump told a Univision town hall audience that there was “nothing done wrong” during the assault on the Capitol, while using the word “we” in reference to the insurrectionist rioters who attacked at his behest.
It’s against this backdrop that the former president is moving closer to a possible return to the White House, even as some of his former followers — some regretful, some not — find themselves in court, charged with crimes they committed at his direction.
The man who lied gets rewarded, while those who were lied to get punished. Trump expects to get power, while those who trusted him get criminal records.
As the American electorate wonders whether to put their trust in an erratic criminal running on an authoritarian platform, these stories have some allegorical value.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
