Capitol rioter's Hail Mary defense invokes soldiers who fought during World War I

A man charged in the January 6th riots at the United States Capitol building is throwing the legal equivalent of a Hail Mary pass in his defense.

As flagged by CBS News' Scott MacFarlane, the attorney representing January 6th defendant Kenneth Joseph Owen Thomas this week filed a motion arguing that his client is being selectively prosecuted for allegedly attacking police officers at the Capitol.

As justification for this claim, the attorney goes all the way back to 1932, when several World War I veterans were protesting at the Capitol in the middle of the Great Depression demanding extra payments for their service.

"In 1932, tens of thousands of veterans occupied and encamped on the Capitol grounds for weeks, demanding a bonus," the filing states. "Although the U.S. Army forcibly cleared the protestors from Capitol grounds and 135 people were arrested, those arrested generally faced only misdemeanor charges; despite 'angry packs h[olding] their ground, defiantly wielding clubs and iron bars, yelling profanities.'"

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The filing also cites disruptive activity by Code Pink activists in the Capitol, although those activists did not break into the Capitol by force and prompt lawmakers to flee for their lives.

The January 6th riots were the first time that there had been an attack on the Capitol whose explicit purpose was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power that has been a cornerstone of the American republic since its founding more than two centuries ago.