Political | Process

His deciding factor was the fact that one defendant was a law school student whose diploma was withheld and who has been prohibited from taking the bar exam because he has five counts hanging over his head from entering the Capitol.

“I said I disagreed with him fundamentally [about Jan. 6], and he said, ‘I could care less,’” Dershowitz told the Washington Examiner. “He made a persuasive point to me: He graduated from law school, was denied admission to the bar, and I generally take First Amendment cases like this.”

The new client is Brady Knowlton, 41, who was a fisherman a decade ago and starred in several episodes of Catfishin’ Kings on Animal Planet. He was also a financial consultant in the Texas energy sector but now lives in Utah.

Dershowitz, a Harvard Law School professor emeritus, has a soft spot for law students and didn’t want Knowlton’s life ruined over the incident. So he took the case but would not say if he had been approached by others in the past.

Dershowitz wasted no time in producing a narrated video of that infamous day, which resulted in 816 people being charged. Some of the footage is new, added to Justice Department clips released previously. It highlights what the officers were doing, stopping at key points to explain what is happening.

The video states that 250 protesters entered through a side door in the upper terrace and that Capitol police officers can be seen welcoming some of them. One of the visitors was Knowlton, who held up his cellphone to film the event. He went into the lobby, Rotunda, and Senate chamber before leaving.

The footage itself is silent, but the body language of the officers clearly tells the story, Dershowitz argued. He is demanding the release of audio under a federal law that requires prosecutors to turn over all exculpatory evidence to the defense.

“There is no crime. The police invited these people to come in and not do any damage and leave when they are told to leave,” Dershowitz said. “It seems clear from the pictures on the video that this is the message being sent. The audio will confirm what we see on the tapes.”