Navy Reservist & Proud Boy who hoped Jan. 6 would 'spark a larger uprising' should serve 3 years in prison, DOJ says

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department says a former Navy Reservist and self-described Proud Boy convicted of obstructing the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 should serve four years in prison in addition to three he’s already received in a separate firearms case.

A federal judge in Virginia sentenced Speed to three years in prison last month on the silencer charges. On Tuesday, prosecutors asked U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden to order Speed to spend an additional four years in prison for his role in the Capitol riot. In their sentencing memo, they said Speed had a “precise” understanding of what Congress was doing on Jan. 6 and nevertheless chose to join the mob that overran police.

“He hoped the mob’s resistance would spark a larger uprising that would so intimidate Congress that then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi would ‘resign out of fear for her life,’” they wrote.

After Jan. 6, Speed, who had a TS/SCI clearance (top secret/sensitive compartmented information), told the undercover FBI employee he began “panic buying” tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of firearms and equipment. Prosecutors said that was part of a larger goal of “violent revolution” intertwined with intense antisemitism and effusive praise for Adolf Hitler. At one point, they said, Speed told the undercover employee the approach of jihadists would be an “effective way to ‘wipe out’ the opposition, referring to Jewish people.”

Speed also described himself to the undercover employee as a Proud Boy and said he'd marched to the Capitol with other members of the group before entering the building.

Speed was represented at trial by the D.C. Federal Public Defender’s Office. In the defense’s sentencing memo, his attorney, Courtney Dixon, asked for six months in prison to run concurrent with his firearms sentence in Virginia. Her memo included multiple character letters from friends and fellow service members discussing Speed’s multiple deployments and his Mormon faith.

“Hatchet Speed, as a 41-year-old military veteran, has spent his life in service – to his church, to his community, to the underserved, and to his country,” Dixon wrote. “For those who know him and describe him as thoughtful, caring, and considerate, his recent involvement with the criminal justice system and attendant publicity is shocking.”

Dixon also pushed back on the DOJ’s characterization of Speed’s goals on Jan. 6. He was not at the Capitol to obstruct the electoral process, she said, but “rather to see it through.”

“Most importantly, he told his brother why he was there,” Dixon wrote. “Mr. Speed went ‘…there to await the results of the joint session, not to interrupt the proceedings.’ And while the mood changed for Mr. Speed when he learned that former Vice President Pence had not chosen the Republican elector slates, his hope was to view the remaining proceedings from the public gallery.”

Dixon’s memo did not address Speed’s purported fascination with Hitler or comments he made to an undercover FBI employee about studying the writings of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Olympic Park Bomber Eric Rudolph.

Speed was scheduled to be sentenced Monday in D.C. District Court at 10 a.m.

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