“This was not a peaceful protest. Hundreds of people came to Washington, DC, to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the DC District Court
said last January. Howell added in October: “The rioters attacking the US Capitol on January 6th, as part of a large mob, were not mere trespassers engaging in protected First Amendment protests; they were certainly not
tourists. And I say that again and again because there still seems, in some areas, to be a debate about that issue.”