AN attorney for a Capitol rioter charged with threatening to assassinate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) says he has to "deprogram his vulnerable client after cult leader Trump preyed on him".
Garret Miller, of Texas, was arrested on Friday accused of taking part in the deadly US Capitol siege and posting online death threats against the New York Congresswoman and a cop, according to the FBI.
In an interview with Cuomo Prime Time on CNN on Tuesday night,attorney Clint Broden argued that Miller only became interested in politics because he was "vulnerable" and former President Trump manipulated him.
"I have referred to him as a cult leader," Broden told Cuomo of Trump.
"Donald Trump was a cult leader. You have somebody like Garrett Miller, who is not very politically involved, hadn't even voted much earlier in life, loses his job and gets focused on the internet and you have, as I said, a cult leader telling him to do X, Y and Z to protect the country."
Miller faces five criminal charges stemming from the insurrection, including trespassing offenses and making online death threats.
Miller allegedly tweeted, "assassinate AOC," on the day of the siege, according to court documents,CNN reports.
He also allegedly said the police officer who fatally shot a Trump supporter during the attack "deserves to die" and won't "survive long" because it's "huntin[g] season."
Following his arrest, Miller apologized to AOC, for writing “Assassinate AOC” in a Twitter post. He said he would be willing to testify to Congress or in a trial about the riot.
His apology came as a federal judge in Dallas ordered him detained without bail pending trial, after finding he was both a danger to the community and a flight risk, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
In a statement released by defense attorney, Miller said he had been motivated by Trump’s false claims about having been cheated out of reelection by ballot fraud and said, “I am ashamed of my comments.”
“I was in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, because I believed I was following the instructions of former President Trump and he was my president and the commander-in-chief. His statements also had me believing the election was stolen from him,” Miller said.
“Nevertheless, I fully recognize Joe Biden is now the President of the United States and that the election is over. Donald Trump is no longer president and I would not have any reason to continue to follow his lead.
“While I never intended to harm Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez nor harm any members of the Capitol police force, I recognize that my social media posts were completely inappropriate. They were made at a time when Donald Trump had me believing that an American election was stolen."
Soon after the attack, AOC opened up about how she didn't know if she would survive the siege, on Instagram live.
"I had a pretty traumatizing event happen to me and I don’t even know if I can disclose the full details of that event due to security concerns, but I can tell you I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die," she said.
"You have all of those thoughts where, at the end of your life, these thoughts come rushing to you," she says. "That’s what happened to a lot of us on Wednesday. I did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive. And not just in a general sense, but in a very specific sense."
Prosecutors said in court documents that Miller posted extensively on social media before and during the attack, saying a "civil war could start" and "next time we bring the guns."
MIller is one of dozens of people charged with taking part in the riot, which began shortly after Trump held a rally outside the White House, where he urged supporters to head to Congress and "fight", just days before Joe Biden was inaugurated as president.
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