After being found guilty on 11 counts related to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol that briefly delayed the certification of President Joe Biden's victory in 2020, 44-year-old Brian Mock allowed the The New York Times' Eli Saslow to sit in as he tried to justify his actions to his son.
Mock is currently awaiting sentencing in January and, as the Times is reporting, has been making efforts every few weeks to work out his differences with his 21-year-old son A.J. by detailing what he experienced at the U.S. Capitol that led to his arrest and trial.
As Saslow wrote, "A.J. had been making the trip between his father’s house in rural Wisconsin and his own apartment in downtown Minneapolis every few weeks, and the 40-mile drive felt like a journey between worlds," adding, "They’d spent almost three years relitigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, trying to make sense of what that day meant for their relationship, for the country and for the future of American democracy. Now another divisive presidential election involving Donald Trump was less than a year away, and they were still staring at the same screen and interpreting different realities, each of them coming away with more questions than answers."
In one exchange documented by the Times, the senior Mock noted he had lost the attention of his son.
That led to an exchange after the father told his son, "I had a concussion grenade go off and explode right on me."
"He looked at his son for affirmation, but A.J. was staring back down at his phone, disengaged, not giving anything away," Saslow wrote, which led Mock to to confront his son, "Earth to A.J. I’m not some lunatic frothing at the mouth. I got in a bad situation for about five minutes. Do you see where I’m coming from?”
As the report notes, Mock and his son were texting each other on Jan 6. which led to the following back and forth:
“What you guys did today was treason and a homeland security threat,” A.J. wrote. “In all reality, everyone there should be locked up for the rest of their lives. Including you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. We showed up and it was peaceful and then they gassed and attacked people.”
“You STORMED THE [EXPLETIVE] CAPITOL!”
“They started the violence, and now they understand the measure of our resolve.”
“You have 4 kids at home. What the hell made you think this was a good idea? If that was a BLM protest, everyone would have been killed with no questions asked.”
As the report notes, A.J. was instrumental in his father's arrest.
"A.J. testified about how he had contacted the F.B.I. and told law enforcement that his father had entered the Capitol building, which turned out not to be true. He described Brian as a good father who was politically moderate — 'to the right but not like far-extreme-conspiracy-nut right' — and he said his father’s persona online was to exaggerate and instigate, which wasn’t how he behaved in real life," the report states.
In another recent exchange observed by Saslow, Brian asked, "What do you think about our relationship might be complicated?” to which his son replied, "We don’t always see eye to eye on things. We’re both quite stubborn.”
You can read more details about Mock's Jan. 6 actions and aftermath here.
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