Update: A federal judge on Wednesday convicted a Confederate flag-toting man and his son of charges that they stormed the US Capitol together on Jan. 6, 2021, to obstruct Congress from certifying President Biden's electoral victory. US District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Donald Trump appointee, delivered the verdict after two days of testimony without a jury, the AP reports. Kevin Seefried and his adult son, Hunter, were both found guilty of a felony: obstruction of an official proceeding. The judge also convicted the two of misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and illegally demonstrating inside the building. Hunter Seefried was acquitted of other misdemeanor charges. Sentence hearings are scheduled for September. Our original story from Jan. 14, 2021, follows:
Kevin Seefried succeeded last week where Confederate troops had failed in at attack on the US Capitol in 1864. Facing less resistance than the rebel soldiers faced in the Battle of Fort Stevens, Seefried marched into the Capitol with a Confederate battle flag. "The Confederate flag made it deeper into Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, than it did during the Civil War," a Penn State history professor told the New York Times last week. On Thursday, Seefried and his son, Hunter, surrendered to the FBI to face charges of entering a restricted building, disrupting government business, and disrupting congressional proceedings. They'd come to the FBI's attention when a co-worker of the younger Seefried told the FBI he'd boasted about being in the Capitol during the riot with his father, per CNBC.
The charging document says both men volunteered to be interviewed by the FBI, and both said they'd been in the Capitol. Kevin Seefried told investigators he'd brought the flag from his home in Delaware, the filing says, "where it is usually displayed outside." He said they marched from the White House to the Capitol with the crowd. The filing says Hunter Seefried can be seen in video posted on Twitter clearing out broken glass from a Capitol window, enabling him, his father, and other members of the mob to climb into the building. The sight of that flag in the Capitol deeply upset some people, including another history professor, who said she "wanted to scream," per the Times. "To see it flaunted right in front of your face, in the United States Capitol, the heart of the government, was simply outrageous," she said. (More Confederate flag stories.)
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