J6 “Bullhorn lady” convicted

Well, the Justice Department has racked up its latest of the thousands of convictions they are seeking against anyone who was remotely close to the Capitol Building on January 6, 2020. Rachel Marie Powell of Pennsylvania was convicted on nine federal counts in Washington by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee. Powell had gained notoriety online as variously “the bullhorn lady” (because she carried a bullhorn during the riot) and “the pink hat lady” for obvious reasons. But as with so many of these J6 trials that we’ve covered here, the choice of charges brought against her and the actual actions she took that day seem to be wildly mismatched. Sentencing is set for October 17. Prosecutors had asked the judge to order her jailed until sentencing, but in a rare act of restraint, Lamberth allowed her to remain free until then. (NBC News)

A Pennsylvania mother who was known as “Bullhorn Lady” because she used the sound amplifier to instruct rioters at the Capitol was convicted Tuesday of nine federal counts.

Rachel Powell was found guilty on a variety of charges, including felony charges of interfering with officers performing their duties and obstruction of an official proceeding. Powell’s bench trial was held in May, and U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth delivered the verdict on Tuesday. Powell was accompanied to court by her children, one of whom was wearing a red “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” hat in the courtroom. Powell had posted on social media that Trump had gifted a MAGA hat to her child.

Powell’s identity was discovered by online “Sedition Hunters” who have since identified hundreds of additional Capitol rioters, and her identity was publicly revealed in a Feb. 2021 story in The New Yorker. Powell, who was also known as “Pink Hat Lady,” was arrested days later.

You can read the Department of Justice’s case file against Powell here. You can also find a few more details of Powell’s alleged actions on January 6 at WTAE News in Pennsylvania.

So what was it that Rachel Powell actually did that day to merit this sort of attention and convictions on nine charges in federal court? (This is a practice that some legal analysts refer to as “count stacking.”) There is no question that she definitely attended the rally and joined in with the crowd that later rushed the Capitol Building, nor does she deny it. She was “accused” of “shouting instructions” to other rioters using the bullhorn she brought to the rally. (For those keeping score at home, that’s also known as “speech” even if it’s louder than that of others.)

At some point along the way she picked up a flag pole and an “ice axe.” She must have been near the front of the first group to reach the building because she used one of those objects to help break one window. That fact shows up in one of the most serious-sounding charges she faced. She was hit with “Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon.” The “deadly weapons” in question were the pole and the axe, which makes it sound scarier, but an ice axe is actually a mountaineering tool and can also be used to clear ice from walkways, etc. such as you might find in Washington in January. It could certainly also be employed as a weapon, but there isn’t even a suggestion that she hit anyone with it, be they the Capitol Hill Police or anyone else. We’ve already seen people charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer for bumping their riot shield with a flag pole. If Rachel Powell had made any physical contact at all with the police they would have hung her out to dry for it.

Beyond that, the rest of the charges were all of the usual ones we’ve seen in these J6 trials. They included obstructing an official proceeding, damage to property of the United States (i.e. the window), entering a restricted area, disorderly conduct, and, of course, parading. (They charge everyone with parading.) In other words, Rachel Powell is a woman who went to a Trump rally with a bullhorn, got caught up in the heat of the moment as the crowd rushed the building, helped to break one window, and then committed what was basically an act of trespassing in a restricted governmental area. And for that, you can rest assured that prosecutors will ask for a vastly stiffer sentence than those two lawyers in Manhattan received for literally firebombing a police cruiser and handing out explosive devices during the BLM riots.

Judge Royce Lamberth seems like he’s capable of showing at least some restraint. Let’s hope that in October he takes into consideration the actual magnitude of what Rachel Powell did and didn’t do on January 6 and settles on a reasonable sentence, rather than “making an example of her” as the prosecutors clearly want to see happen.