The Capitol riot was a family affair for the Trump-loving Munns — and now so are the punishments

Family claimed they were in Washington on January 6 to fight a ‘monster,’ Graig Graziosi writes

The Munn family at the Capitol riot (US Justice Department)

In early January 2021, the Munn family hitched their camper to the back of a pickup truck, loaded it, and set out from their hometown of Borger, Texas, for a trip back east. The family outing was to be less vacation and more of a field trip, focusing on civics. Former President Donald Trump had called his supporters to Washington DC to protest the results of what he deemed a stolen election, and the Munns counted themselves among his loyal followers.

With dreams of an alternate reality guiding them — one in which Mr Trump retained power and the Democrats were ousted from the White House — the Munns began their journey. Signs taped to the back of their camper proclaimed with pride — "We Are Q."

The Munns would go on to make history, though not as successful patriots taking back their country after an allegedy rigged election, but instead as what may be the first family to be sentenced for participating in the Capitol riot.

The members were handed their sentences on Wednesday by DC District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell.

Prosecutors sought a month of prison time for the parents, Dawn and Thomas Munn, and 21 days of jail for their three adult children. A fourth Munn child — a minor — also entered the Capitol with the rest of the family, but Ms Howell declined to sentence the child according to CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane.

Ultimately, Ms Howell sentenced Kristi Munn, the oldest of the adult children, to three years of probation with home detention. The other two adult children, Josh Munn and Kayli Munn, were also sentenced to three years probation but were spared home detention.

The Munn parents were both sentenced to 14 days in jail, three years of probation and 90 days of home confinement.

All of the sentenced Munns pleaded guilty to a single charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.

If the Munns felt remorse for taking part in the Capitol riot, they were not making a show of it during their sentencing hearing. While pleading for leniency, Dawn Munn continued to parrot claims that the US election system is not secure, and lamented that the "country has been divided between conservative and non-conservative values."

"I do not understand why our election is not secure," she said. "We have an election coming. I hope and pray people can feel safe in it."

Ms Howell — who called the Capitol riot a "catastrophic security breach of the Capitol building — scolded the mother for trying to undermine the security of an election process she claimed to want to protect.

"You do not enter the Capitol through a broken window in a mob that stopped the democratic process," she said.

Dawn's husband, Thomas, an Army veteran, explained that he and his family had been riled up by what they were seeing on "the news."

The Munn family camper adorned with the proclamation ‘DC Bound We Are Q' (Justice Department)

"I got myself overwhelmed," he told Ms Howell. "I've never been political before. I just kept watching what was happening on the news."

When asked what news programming he watched, he replied "Fox News," and admitted the rest of his information came from internet research.

Ms Howell chastised Mr Munn, saying he "should've known better before leading the family into a chaotic situation."

The family's adult daughters, Kristi and Kayli, insisted to Ms Howell that their parents raised them "to do right."

Kayli, 20, went on to explain that she and her family were fully convinced that their actions were just when they entered the Capitol on 6 January, 2021.

"We had an idea in our heads that we were fighting a monster," she said.

Kristi Munn, 30, inside the Capitol building on 6 January, 2021 (Justice Department)

When asked to clarify who or what the "monster" was, she avoided a clear answer. However, she did present a morsel of regret, saying she wished that everyone "would have stopped" during Mr Trump's Stop the Steal rally and refrained from entering the Capitol.

That being said, it was also Kayli, the youngest of the family's adult children, who, according to Ms Howell, told FBI agents that she saw members of "antifa" infiltrating the crowd on the day of the riot.

The demeanours of the family were notably more sombre on the day of their sentencing than in the days before and after the riot. The aforementioned QAnon trailer was shared with pride to Thomas's Facebook page, and upon returning to Texas he sent social media messages to a friend describing how he and his family crawled into the Capitol through a broken window.

He described it as "super cool." His friend replied "oh so u broke in?"

Dawn Munn was anything but shy about her involvement. In at least two messages to different friends Ms Munn bragged about participating in the failed insurrection.

The Munn family appears on surveillance footage walking around the interior of the Capitol building (Justice Department)

"We went in and stormed capital [sic]," she wrote to her friend. To the other, she revealed that "we were in capital [sic] ... I do mean IN the building!!"

In the weeks and months — and now more than a year — since the Capitol riot, federal agents have been sweeping across the country to arrest and charge participants with a variety of crimes ranging from parading to seditious conspiracy. According to The New York Times, a tipster turned the FBI onto the Munns, and agents were able to quickly ascertain that the family had breached the Capitol on 6 Jaunary.

Members of the family appear in surveillance video taken from the Capitol interior on the day of the attack. In one photo, Kristi Munn can be seen inside the building wearing a green hoodie, camouflage pants, and a Trump banner wrapped around her neck like a cape.

Another snippet of surveillance footage captured the entire family walking through a mostly empty hallway in the Capitol building. The family was not accused of participating in any violence while inside the Capitol and reportedly did not break anything, though Thomas can be seen smoking a cigarette inside the building.