A militia member was sentenced to five years in prison on Wednesday for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, during which former President Trump's supporters tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power to President Biden.
Federal prosecutors say Dan Edwin Wilson, a 48-year-old Kentucky resident, planned for weeks to travel to Washington, D.C. and attack the Capitol on Jan. 6 — the day Congress counted and certified the electoral votes cementing Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 election.
As the riot unfolded at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Wilson was communicating with members of the far-right extremist Oath Keepers group, as well as with members of the Three Percenters, to provide them updates on the status of the breach and to call for “all hands on deck,” according to court documents. Prosecutors say Wilson has identified as a member of the Oath Keepers and as a member of the Gray Ghost Partisan Rangers, which is a Three Percenter militia.
He entered the Capitol shortly after 2:30 p.m., wearing a gas mask. He was not charged with committing any acts of violence at the Capitol.
Wilson pleaded guilty in May 2024 to a felony charge of conspiring to impede or injure police officers. He also pleaded guilty to charges related to illegal possession of firearms, which officials discovered in June 2022 when executing a search warrant at his home.
Wilson told U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich that he regrets entering the Capitol on Jan. 6 but that he “got involved with good intentions,” The Associated Press reported.
“Our country was in turmoil,” Wilson said. “I believe it still is.”
Friedrich said there is “no question” that Wilson was intending to interfere with the congressional certification of the electoral votes.
“He’s not being punished for what he said that day. His comments are reflexive of his intent,” the judge said, the AP reported.
Prosecutors said Wilson began planning for the Jan. 6 events in the 2020 winter and pointed to messages he sent from mid-December on encrypted social media platforms.
He discussed on Dec. 24, 2020, the possibility of bringing guns to the Capitol riot but ultimately said, “In my opinion I don't think it's time to gun up for the sixth we have to play this out.”
“[B]ut if they seat biden on the 20th,” Wilson continued, “all bets are off it's gonna happen even if Trump wins we have to get this government under control it's been crossing my mind if we go to a Civil War do we try to take Washington DC first or do we try to take state capitals first."
"I am ready to lay my life on the line. It is time for good men to do bad things,” Wilson wrote on Dec. 27, 2020, according to prosecutors.
Wilson’s defense attorney, Norm Pattis, argued Wilson truly believed that the presidential election was stolen from Trump and that the defendant “did not plan an insurrection.”
“He appeared at a protest and was swept up in events that turned violent,” Pattis added.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Mariano noted that while Wilson did not carry out violence that day, “his role in preparing for violence and helping to organize a conspiracy makes him particularly dangerous.”
Wilson “sought out violence and endeavored to organize others to join him in his violent aims,” Mariano said.
“Wilson’s crime was an attack on not just the Capitol, but the United States and its system of government,” Mariano added. “He joined a mob and struck a blow to a central feature of the American system: the peaceful transfer of power.”
The Associated Press contributed
