Reagan-Appointed Judge Blasts The ‘Normalization’ Of The Jan. 6 Capitol Attack While Sentencing Rioter To 7 Years In Prison

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who was appointed to the bench by former President Ronald Reagan, lashed out at the “normalizing” of the January 6 Capitol attack while he was sentencing one of the rioters, Taylor James Johnatakis.

Judge Lamberth reprimanded Johnatakis during his sentencing after the man underplayed the severity of the riots as well as his violent conduct.

“This cannot become normal,” the judge stated during the sentencing. “We cannot condone the normalization of the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot.”

Johnatakis had been found guilty of assaulting a police officer and other felony and misdemeanor charges related to the January 6 riot, and he had been sentenced to 87 months in prison. 

Judge Lamberth ordered him to pay $2,000 in restitution.

On November 21, 2023, a federal jury in Washington, D.C., found him guilty of seven charges, including three felonies. He was convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, which are all felony offenses. 

The rioter had also been convicted of four misdemeanor charges, including entering and remaining, disorderly and disruptive conduct, and engaging in physical violence, all in a restricted building or grounds. 

Additionally, he was convicted of engaging in an act of physical violence on the grounds of the Capitol building.

According to court documents, before the riot, Johnatakis posted many messages to social media revealing his goal to obstruct the 2020 election certification. 

“…and that’s why I am going to D.C., to CHANGE the course of HISTORY #stopthesteal,” Johnatakis said in a post on January 5, 2021.

“Burn the city down,” he stated in another post on the same day. “What the British did to D.C. will be nothing…”

He traveled from Washington state to Washington, D.C., and attended the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021. 

After the rally, the rioter marched to the U.S. Capitol and posted a video on social media.

“Anyways, we’re walking over to the Capitol right now, and I don’t know, maybe we’ll break down the doors,” he stated.

He then went onto the Capitol grounds, carrying a megaphone. 

By nearly 2:30 p.m., he had made his way through the crowd on the west front of the Capitol, where the Inaugural stage was still being constructed. By then, rioters had crowded the area and overwhelmed the police line.

Johnatakis made his way to the front of the crowd of rioters while yelling into his megaphone. 

As the crowd grew and tension rose, the police officers on the line were overwhelmed by the rioters and eventually forced to retreat up the southwest stairs underneath the scaffolding of the Inaugural stage. 

Court documents state that the rioter was leading the charge under the scaffolding, up the stairs toward the retreating police officers and the Capitol building.

Police officers retreated and formed another police line to protect the Capitol building and the Congress members inside at the top of the stairs. Johnatakis was one of the first rioters who marched up the southwest stairs to oppose them.

He had then organized and coordinated other rioters to assault the police line at the top of the staircase. He used his megaphone to tell rioters to move up toward the police line and also ask them to “pack it in! Pack it in!” 

Through the megaphone, Johnatakis instructed the crowd to push the bike racks “one foot” at a time and counted, “One, two, three, go!” 

Johnatakis and his fellow rioters – who included co-defendants Isaac Steve Sturgeon and Craig Michael Bingert – grabbed the bike racks in front of them and pushed them vigorously into the line of police officers. 

Many police officers ran to strengthen the line as the rioters pushed the metal bike racks into them. This attack caused at least one police officer to be injured.

On February 24, 2021, Johnatakis was arrested by the FBI in Washington state.

Following his conviction last year, Johnatakis frequently belittled the riots during interviews, labeling the riot as “overblown” and his prison accommodations as a “gulag.”

Judge Lamberth had warned that political violence may increase in the future if the U.S. does not learn lessons from the Capitol riot, calling it a “vicious cycle … that could imperil” the country’s “institutions” resulting in “vigilantism, lawlessness and anarchy.”

“The January 6 riot was not civil disobedience,” the judge stated.

He called the riot “corrosive” and a “selfish, not patriotic” action where rioters had been “battling [their] own representative government.”

“There can be no room in our country for this sort of political violence,” he stated.

According to the Justice Department over 1,350 people have been charged in the Capitol riot. Over 800 of them have been sentenced, with nearly two-thirds receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from several days to 22 years.

On January 26, Judge Lamberth stated that he was “shocked” that some Republican politicians attempted to rewrite history by calling the Capitol rioters “hostages.”

Former President Donald Trump called the rioters “hostages” during the introduction of his Dayton, Ohio, campaign rally on March 16. 

On March 17, Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, condemned him on CBS’ Face The Nation for saluting prisoners who participated in the Capitol riot and for using the word “hostage” to describe the defendants.