March 15, 2024 11:44 AM UTC

Rep. Scott Bottoms Headlines J6 Insurrectionist Sympathy Event

• 9 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

If you’re in the vicinity next Tuesday evening of Colorado Springs’ Fervent Church, which we’re told amply lives up to their name, GOP Rep. Scott “There Is No” Bottoms is headlining an event hosted by the (again, they pick these names) Spunky Patriots, featuring a man by the name of Tom Hamner–there to tell his “Story of a J6 Patriot”:

A search for Tom Hamner’s contributions to society other than battling police officers during the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol doesn’t turn up much, so we’re left to the official record. Here’s what the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. said about Hamner’s actions on that day, and his subsequent felony guilty plea:

According to court documents, on Jan. 6, 2021, Hamner illegally entered the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol, which was barricaded with fencing. Upon seeing rioters break through the police line, Hamner hopped over the barricades and began pulling them down. At approximately 1 p.m., a crowd of violent rioters assembled on the West Plaza of the Capitol. U.S. Capitol Police formed a line of bike racks to act as a barrier against the crowd. Officers fended off repeated attempts by those in the mob to pull on the bike racks, either with their hands or with ropes and straps. At approximately 1:14 p.m., Hamner engaged with a tug-of-war with a Capitol Police officer and an officer from the Metropolitan Police Department over a bike rack that was being used as a barricade.

Additionally, at approximately 1:40 p.m., Hamner joined others in the mob in pushing a large metal sign into the defensive line formed by law enforcement officers.

Hamner was arrested on Nov. 9, 2021, in Colorado Springs. He later was indicted on a total of six charges, including five felonies. He pleaded guilty on May 17, 2022, to one of the felony charges, interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder.

There’s lots of video of Mr. Hamner mixing it up with U.S. Capitol Police during the hours-long melee on the steps outside the building:

And here’s Hamner fighting with D.C. cops over a barricade that obviously wasn’t going to dissuade him:

In September of 2022, Tom Hamner was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for his “patriotic” acts of violence to delay the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory by Congress. It’s a relatively harsh sentence in comparison to many others who received sentences of days to weeks for less violent participation in the January 6th insurrection. KRDO-TV explained why:

“He did go to the rally, he was by himself. He did not enter the Capitol, he did not cause any damage. He did not steal anything. He did not have any altercations with anybody,” Steffany [Hamner] said.

But photos picked up by the FBI seem to show a different story. A criminal complaint accuses Hamner of pushing a barrier into capitol police and fighting with officers.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has previously said there are longer prison terms for insurrectionists who engaged in violence. [Pols emphasis]

So what we have here is not just a participant in the January 6th, 2021, but one of the more violent individual offenders who fought with police on the steps outside the building while hundreds more stormed inside through broken windows and doors. There are plenty of arguably more sympathetic cases that Rep. Bottoms could have trotted out, but instead he wants us to hear from one of the least sympathetic. Not to mention that since Hamner was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in November of 2022, if he’s on the outside telling his sob story of persecution after fighting with cops on January 6th today, that means he didn’t serve anywhere close to his full sentence of 30 months in prison. Incarcerated since his arrest in November of 2021, it appears that Hamner had about six months shaved off his sentence.

With all of this in mind, nobody should be under any delusions that there will be any kind of contrition from this convicted felon next Tuesday. Most if not all present will likely believe along with a majority of Republicans that Donald Trump should still be President despite no determinative evidence of election fraud in 2020 having ever emerged. At this event, Tom Hamner’s violent acts on January 6th, 2021 will be celebrated, not condemned, with a sitting Republican state lawmaker cheering it on.

In the days immediately following January 6th, 2021, when Republicans and Democrats stood together to condemn the violence, this would have seemed unthinkable. But within weeks as Republicans came crawling back to Trump, it became inevitable. Today, with Trump unthinkably once again the Republican nominee for President, the normalization of even the most violent offenders of the January 6th insurrection is the next necessary step.