That answer didn’t satisfy Howell, who pushed him to explain further - he wasn’t just a “tourist” looking around, right? Gruppo agreed. He replied that he was there to support former president Donald Trump. Howell asked Gruppo what exactly he was demonstrating about when he walked into the Capitol - was he there to protest Congress certifying the results of the election? Leonard Gruppo of New Mexico appeared before US District Chief Judge Beryl Howell on Wednesday to plead guilty to one misdemeanor count for parading, demonstrating, and picketing inside the Capitol. 6 case took a swipe at the “tourist” reference this week too. 13 brief “he was an active participant in criminal behavior against a sitting branch of government.”Ī judge and prosecutor in an entirely separate Jan. “The Defendant was not an innocent and unlucky tourist,” Assistant US Attorney Joshua Rothstein wrote in an Aug. 18, but the sentencing was postponed after new videos surfaced hours before the hearing that appeared to show Reeder assaulting a US Capitol police officer. The government accused Reeder of trying to falsely cast himself as a tourist and downplay his participation in the attack on the Capitol in hopes of securing a lighter sentence. In court filings and hearings, they’ve made clear just how much it bothers them. The “tourist” comparison has struck a nerve not only with the prosecutors bringing these cases but also with the presiding judges. In the months since a Republican member of Congress went viral in May for comparing footage of rioters inside the Capitol to a “normal tourist visit,” the word has become a symbol of GOP efforts to downplay the violence on Jan. It made the case that he should serve jail time as a “dose of reality.” When Reeder’s lawyer objected to calling his client a rioter, the prosecutor struck back, attacking Reeder’s efforts to portray himself as a “lost tourist,” a “hapless tourist,” and an “innocent and unlucky tourist.” Reeder “was a rioter violating the law not a journalist not a tourist,” the prosecutor countered this month in a brief that slammed Reeder’s apparent lack of remorse despite pleading guilty. 6 riots at the Capitol, he described himself as an “accidental tourist with a phone trying to document everything.” WASHINGTON - When Robert Reeder sat down with two FBI agents in April to talk about his involvement in the Jan.
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