Who is McCall Callhoun and will he be prosecuted? Georgia attorney was among first to storm Capitol during riot
Even as the United States reels from the horror of Wednesday's (January 6) Capitol riots, there have been steady developments trickling in. While President Donald Trump's Twitter saga managed to garner headlines across the world, there was also some information coming in about the rioters who stormed their way to the Capitol. One of them was a Georgia attorney named McCall Calhoun who was among the first through the doors.
Who is McCall Calhoun?
According to AJC, Calhoun described himself as an “Anti-Communist Counter-Revolutionary”. The site added that he was a practicing attorney in Americus, Georgia, for 30 years and admitted to being one of those forcing their way into the Capitol. In an exclusive with the site, he termed the act to be "civil disobedience". Calhoun also added: "Anyone who claims it was anything other than civil disobedience was not there, and they did not see it and they do not know."
“I’m not saying it was the ideal thing to do. I am saying at that time and place those people felt like that was their only hope. They don’t want to lose their democratic republic.” He went on to claim that the uprising that saw lives being claimed was a peaceful event. "The Deep State cannot stop us,” he wrote on Parler, a social media network popular with Trump supporters, which has now been suspended by Google. “They learned that today when we stormed the Capitol and took it. The word is we’re all coming back armed for war.”
Will Calhoun be punished?
At the moment, there is no official confirmation or any update about the charges against Calhoun. Although the New York Post does mention that sedition is punishable by 20 years in prison, neither the site nor AJC, which broke the news, has any information about Calhoun's future. MEAWW spoke to a few former prosecutors who had shed light on the legal action that would be taken against the rioters if they're prosecuted.
Trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani explained: "The government can and should identify and prosecute everyone who unlawfully entered the Capitol building. The District of Columbia is not a state and exclusively the jurisdiction of the federal government, so all cases will be prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office."
The aftermath of the riots saw rioters leaving feces, urine, trash and shattered windows along vandalized offices. It saw five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer. Calhoun defended his act saying the attackers acted “heroically" and were actually like “tourists”.