Barnett, 60 at the time, was a sales employee of a construction business who had driven to D.C. from rural Arkansas to help save the country from “the liberals,” he later told FBI agents. In the House speaker’s outer sanctum, he reclined at the desk with an air of nonchalance, like the company boss, grinning and holding forth as a photojournalist snapped one of the most
widely viewed images from that day’s riotous attack on a joint session of Congress.
-now at trial, he's a bit more contrite-
“Because of all the controversies,” he testified. “I probably shouldn’t have put my feet on the desk. And my language.” Although he still suspects that former president Donald Trump was fraudulently denied reelection and that “nefarious characters” on the political left are intent on destroying the Constitution, he told the jury he would apologize to Pelosi in person if he could.
“I’m a Christian,” he said. “It just wasn’t good. It wasn’t who I am.”
[HIs lawyer] said the evidence in the case is insufficient to prove the legal elements of each charge beyond a reasonable doubt. More broadly, though, he cast Barnett as a harmless windbag — “that nutty uncle” who has “no sense of boundaries” or “societal norms,” who “doesn’t necessarily fit in today’s world” and “routinely offends others” with political incorrectness.
Before leaving for Washington, Barnett stopped in a Bass Pro Shops outlet to gear up, purchasing six walkie-talkies, some canisters of pepper spray and a retractable walking stick called a ZAP Hike ’n Strike, equipped on one end with a 950,000-volt stun device.
“I bought it for protection,” he testified. In D.C., “I knew at night antifa might be wandering around killing and stabbing people. I wanted to be prepared.”
see also
Barnett told FBI investigators that they wouldn't find anything if they searched his house.
"I assure you, I'm a smart man, there is nothing there," an FBI man recalled Barnett saying.