Brandon Straka, the New York City hairdresser, and former liberal turned Trump supporter, has been sentenced to three months of home confinement and three years probation for his role in the January 6th riot.
Straka became a media sensation following the 2016 election when he posted a video to social media explaining his political conversion. He turned it into a national movement called the #WalkAway campaign.
Straka encouraged people to walk away from the Democratic party and encouraged people to make videos explaining why they left the left.
I assumed the left would gloat about his sentence but this HuffPo report by Ryan J. Reilly is fairly straightforward:
Trump Influencer Brandon Straka Walks Away From Jan. 6 Case With Home DetentionBrandon Straka, a 45-year-old former hairstylist who morphed into a pro-Trump social media influencer and encouraged rioters to steal an officer’s shield and storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, was sentenced to probation and home detention on Monday.Judge Dabney L. Friedrich sentenced Straka to three years of probation, three months of which would be served on home detention. She also imposed a $5,000 fine.Friedrich said Straka’s actions on Jan. 6 served to undermine democracy and the rule of law. Friedrich said Straka was not being sentenced for his First Amendment protected speech, but rather for his conduct. Straka not only participated in Jan. 6 but “celebrated” it in a way, Friedrich said.Straka, who later described Jan. 6 as “one of the stupidest and tragic decisions of his life,” had struggled to find a footing in the entertainment industry in New York City before he filmed a 2018 YouTube video explaining why he was no longer a Democrat. “I’m a GAY REPUBLICAN,” he tweeted in 2018. “I NEED FOLLOWERS!!! SHOW ME SOME LOVE, PLEASE!!!” Straka’s political conversion began, he claimed, when he was accosted by a homeless person in New York in 2016.
Marisa Sarnoff of Law and Crime has more:
Prosecutors say that Straka was a powerful and influential voice outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, as hundreds of Trump supporters overran police in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential election.According to prosecutors, Straka used his “significant public profile” to promote his activity on Jan. 6, and went to join the riots after having learned the Capitol building had been breached, encouraging others to do the same. He also recorded video of rioters entering the Capitol and encouraged them to take a police officer’s shield…U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, said that Straka’s comments and posts “are not specifically advocating violence in the same way” as other Jan. 6 defendants…When Straka spoke on his own behalf, he said that he didn’t recognize the person described in the government’s filings. After briefly mentioning his upbringing in Nebraska, his experience as an actor and performer, and journey to sobriety, he insisted that his public efforts aren’t about politics, but an attempt to bring people together.
Conservative writer and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza provides some analysis and defense of Straka in the video below, noting that Straka never actually entered the Capitol Building. You may recall that D’Souza was subjected to prosecution during the Obama presidency for reimbursing others for political donations to a candidate, an offense that most people believed would result in nothing more than a fine under normal circumstances.
Featured image via YouTube.
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