Today's court hearing for Brandon Fellows, a violent Trumpist insurrectionist, was derailed today when he asked permission to represent himself, and for a change in his detention status. Fellows is being held on five criminal counts, including felony obstruction of an official proceeding. Fellows has been in the D.C. Jail since June after violating his pre-trial release agreement (missing a mental health evaluation, harassing his probation officer's family, and more). He's quite the dangerous jackass:
"In charging documents, federal prosecutors say Fellows, wearing a fake orange beard, can be seen on the live stream of Tim 'Baked Alaska' Gionet with his feet up on a table in the private office of Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley. Fellows was identified in part due to screenshots of his Facebook account, including an image of his profile photo that included the words 'We took the Capitol and it was glorious.'
Fellows was also quoted in a Bloomberg article about the Capitol riot in which he claimed to have entered the building through a broken window after watching other Trump supporters breaking in a door."
Fellows asked to represent himself because he says he believes there's "a mountain of evidence" that would exonerate him, contrary to the significant evidence against him. In a Facebook posting, Fellows exulted in the violent insurrection:
Federal District Judge Thomas McFadden, responding to Fellows' request for release from jail, declined and told him he had to be back in court in two weeks after consulting with his public defender about representing himself. Just on the obstruction count, he faces up to 20 years in prison, and has demonstrated that he deserves a large part of that by his contempt for the law and the court.
(photos: Fellows' mug shot and in Sen. Merkley's office wearing a false beard. Twitter)
