On Jan. 6, 2021, Alan Hostetter and Russell Taylor were shoulder to shoulder in the battle they had predicted would come if the 2020 presidential election results unseating President Donald Trump were not discarded.
Under a photograph of the men taken during the riot and posted on Instagram, Hostetter wrote: “We are just getting started.” Hostetter had driven to D.C. while Taylor flew, so they could carry weapons with them to the Capitol, including bear spray, hatchets, knives and stun batons.
But last week, the two squared off in a federal courtroom, with Taylor admitting from the witness box that what they had cast as a patriotic cause was a criminal conspiracy to keep Congress from doing its work. Hostetter, acting as his own attorney, was accusing his former friend of taking part in a much broader conspiracy orchestrated by the federal government.
A police chief turned yoga instructor who helped organize a “brigade” of Californians on Jan. 6, Hostetter was convicted Thursday of four felonies — conspiring to obstruct and obstructing an official proceeding, and trespassing and engaging in disorderly conduct with a dangerous weapon.
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“No reasonable citizen of this country, much less one with two decades of experience in law enforcement, could have believed it was lawful to use mob violence to impede a joint session of Congress,” U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said in court. “Belief that your actions are for a greater good doesn’t negate consciousness...
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