WASHINGTON — When former President Donald Trump called on supporters who believed his lies about the 2020 election to go to Washington, D.C. on January 6, a Michigan bodybuilder-turned-construction worker responded with enthusiasm.
Logan Barnhart wrote in response to a realDonaldTrump tweet.
When he arrived at the U.S. Capitol, he now admits that he fought cops and helped drag an officer down the stairs on the western front, where some of the most barbaric violence took place. Barnhart pleaded guilty on Wednesday to assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers with a dangerous weapon before U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.
Barnhart, 41, admitted he grabbed an officer by the vest on the back of his neck and helped drag the officer in a prone position down the stairs and into the crowd, and later pushed officers and struck at them with a flagpole.
Sullivan asked during the virtual hearing.
Barnhart, who took a plea from his car at work, responded. He said everything in the agreement-upon statement of offense was 100 percent true. Barnhart was indicted along with eight other men in a superseding indictment. Barnhart, the indictment alleged, attacked a Metropolitan Police Department officer identified by the initials B.M. He committed four misdemeanor offenses, as well as engaged in felony civil disorder.
He could spend around three to five years in federal prison if his sentencing guidelines fall and what a judge decides on his sentencing guidelines.
In a prior court filing, prosecutors said B.M. He remembers having his baton grabbed and he was pulled into the crowd and struck in the helmet multiple times with objects. Among Barnhart's co-defendants are Jack Wade Whitton and Justin Jersey, both of whom have recently pleaded guilty, as well as Michael Lopatic Sr., who died over the summer. Whitton, who was wearing a Trump hat as he assaulted law enforcement, bragged that he fed an officer to the mob and later told officers that they were going to die tonight. Internet sleuths looking at the Jan. 6 Capitol attack identified Barnhart as having the help of facial recognition technology. They had given him the nickname Catsweat because he was wearing a Caterpillar brand sweatshirt on January 6. Barnhart kept his sunglasses on for most of the time he was at the Capitol. However, earlier in the day, a YouTuber panned past his face, which gave sleuths a good image to run, while he was at the Trump Stop the Steal event near the White House.
A facial recognition search turned up photos of Barnhart from his modeling career. To confirm the match, the sleuths said they were able to find Instagram posts showing Barnhart wearing the same sweatshirt and hat he wore on January 6.
Barnhart appeared on the cover of romance novels like Stepbrother UnSEALed: A Bad Boy Military Romance and Lighter, a book with the slogan wrong never felt so right. An assistant U.S. attorney said during Barnhart's plea hearing on Wednesday that the case included evidence from both Barnhart's Google account and his Instagram account.
Barnhart isn't the only person arrested in connection with the Capitol attack. On Tuesday, a jury convicted John Strand, an underwear model, of several counts, including felony obstruction of an official proceeding.
Another Jan. 6 defendant who participated in the assault on the western front of the Capitol was sentenced on Tuesday to more than seven years in federal prison. Kyle Young brought his 16-year-old son along as he joined the mob in the lower west tunnel on January 6, who was charged with handing another rioter a stun gun and grabbing former officer Mike Fanone as he was dragged into the mob on January 6. Fanone told Young he hopes he suffers behind bars and that Young's actions had deprived him of his career in law enforcement.