Guy Refitt, a recruiter for a right-wing militia known as the Three Percenters, was sentenced to serve more than seven years in prison, the longest rebellion-related sentence to date.
He was convicted by a D.C. jury in March of five felonies — seeking to obstruct congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election, transporting weapons into D.C., carrying a weapon on Capitol Hill, interfering with Capitol Police protecting the Upper West Terrace and obstructing justice by threatening his daughter and son, who had turned him in to the FBI.
“I mean, realistically, this is not about politics. What my father did is far from political. This is completely spontaneous violence. Whether he was politically motivated at this point doesn’t matter. It’s more about what he does and who did it for,” Jackson Refitt told Keilar.
His father, Refit argued, was “used as a puppet” for Donald Trump, adding of the then-President: “It’s disgusting to see that someone with … money and social power can just get away with manipulating thousands of people. for whatever reason and to no avail.” During the trial, Capitol Police officers testified about the fight with Guy Refitt outside the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and prosecutors called him the leader of the mob. He also recorded a video on January 6 in which he made threatening comments about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.
