Among the people who spoke at Donald Trump's rally on Saturday was a woman named Cynthia, who spoke out on the plight of her nephew who attended the Jan. 6 attack on Congress. It turns out, however, her nephew is a Nazi sympathizer. The larger question, however, is how he became Trump's poster-boy at the rally.
Speaking about Cynthia Hughes, CNN's Zachary Cohen told Jim Acosta that she was leaving out a lot of details in her speech to Pennsylvania. At the same time, there were plenty of Jan. 6 attackers who could have been highlighted at the event that were everyday people who were caught up in the crowd and who got light sentences. That isn't who this was.
"He went to the nation's capitol to hear his president speak," Hughs told the crowd. "He dressed in a suit and tie and his favorite hat. Tim wanted to take part in what he thought was going to be a historical event. Instead, he witnessed a horror show."
Tim Cusanelli is the nephew she was talking about. He once explained that "Hitler should've finished the job." CNN reported over the weekend that Cusanelli faced an internal Navy probe, which found 34 of his colleagues believed he held "extremist or radical views pertaining to the Jewish people, minorities and women." His phone had racist memes using the N-word. He also told an FBI informant that he was hoping for a "civil war."
"Cynthia Hughes used her time at this high profile Trump rally to talk about her nephew who, as she says, has been in jail for nearly two years now but holds him up as sort of a poster child for Jan. 6th related injustice. But in reality, the Justice Department has argued that he is a Nazi sympathizer and somebody who the judge, in this case, a Trump appointee was so concerned that his violent neo-Nazi rhetoric would turn from words into violence, that's why the judge decided to keep him in jail while his court process played out," explained Cohen.
He went on to explain that Cusanelli's defense "was that he didn't know Congress met at the Capitol. Clearly, the jury did not buy that. But I think the bigger picture here you got to look at the fact that there is a ton of Jan. 6th defendants that the former president could have chosen from in terms of featuring them to defend or at least try to draw sympathy for people who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6th and this was the case that ultimately took center stage during this rally."
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Why did Trump highlight this Jan. 6 person www.youtube.com
