(Source: MIRS.news, Published 12/15/2022) Attorney General Dana Nessel said Thursday she has “every expectation” that the incoming Democratic lawmakers will “at long last” allow a prohibition on weapons at the state Capitol.
Nessel’s comment came in a virtual media press conference following the sentencing hearing for three Michigan men convicted of providing material support to the terrorist conspiracy plot to kidnap and kill Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in summer 2020.
“It’s not just an effort to kidnap the Governor,” Nessel said, calling the April 30, 2020, protest at the state Capitol a “dry run” for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“We see through the course of this case, just how incredibly close we came to a massacre of epic proportions at our state Capitol in Lansing and how lucky we are, quite honestly, that no lives were lost on that day,” she said.
“And I want to go one step further and say this: I want to say shame on (former House Speaker Lee) Chatfield, shame on Speaker (Jason) Wentworth and shame on Senate Majority Leader (Mike) Shirkey who knew what had happened on that day and made so little in the way of an effort to protect the public at the Capitol, even though they had every means to do so if they wanted to.”
Nessel said she’s begged incoming Democrats, who are about to take over in January, to do something about weapons at the Capitol.
On that April day, an estimated 1,000 protesters describing themselves as “pro-liberty patriots” rallied outside the Capitol to lament the Governor’s then-pandemic related orders that required residents to stay home to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Several protesters brought guns to the Capitol, including into the Senate gallery.
The defendants sentenced Thursday – Paul Bellar, Pete Musico and Joseph Morrison – were each photographed at the Capitol, holding rifles, outside Whitmer’s office during a protest.
Nessel opined in May 2020 that the Capitol Commission has the authority to ban guns from the Capitol.
However, the Commission arguably punted the matter by first voting to form a special committee to study the issue and at a June meeting that year concluded it lacked the authority to institute a ban on guns.
In September 2020, the Capitol Commission eventually rejected a weapons ban, opting to meet with Chatfield and Shirkey first.
Five days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, the Michigan Capitol Commission voted unanimously to ban open carry of firearms in the Capitol, effective immediately. The commission’s vice-chair at the time said he preferred the Legislature act on a total weapons-ban.
Assistant Attorney General Sunita Doddamani told the court during Thursday’s sentencing hearing that the defendants’ participation at the 2020 protest was a “dress rehearsal for the violence” that occurred at the nation’s Capitol in 2021.
“Their behavior on April 30, (2020), was normalized by commentators and even some politicians,” she said. “… It’s not a merry band of patriots coming to see their government at work. It’s not political speech. It’s intimidation of politicians, and it’s threats of violence by armed individuals to prove a political point.
“Jan. 6 couldn’t have happened, Judge, but for the normalization of what these defendants did at the Michigan Capitol on that day, but I do think that America is better than this, Judge,” Doddamani said.
