WASHINGTON — A federal judge convicted a Navy Reservist on all counts Tuesday for joining the mob that occupied the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Hatchet Speed, of McLean, Virginia, was found guilty of one felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding and four misdemeanor counts by U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden. McFadden delivered his ruling Tuesday following a brief bench trial last week.
Speed, a petty officer first class in the U.S. Naval Reserves, was arrested in June last year on four misdemeanor counts and later indicted on a fifth felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding. He was released after his arrest on home detention and GPS monitoring and ordered not to possess any firearms, destructive devices or other weapons. At the time of his arrest, Speed had been assigned to the Naval Warfare Space Field Activity at the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Virginia.
In charging documents, prosecutors said Speed told an undercover FBI employee he’d traveled to the Capitol with friends who were members of the Proud Boys and that going to the Capitol as “always the plan.” He said he’d entered the building in part because he’d heard former Vice President Mike Pence had “validated” certain ballots he considered “invalid.”
According to the affidavit, “SPEED described Pence’s act as a betrayal. SPEED stated that, at that point, he was like, ‘I’m going in there. Like I have no respect for people in this building. They have no respect for me. I have no respect for them.’”
On Tuesday, McFadden said the government had provided more than sufficient evidence to convict Speed on the felony count of obstruction, saying it was "crystal clear that Mr. Speed intended to obstruct and occupy the Capitol building" and had only left because he believed that goal had been achieved.
McFadden set a sentencing hearing for Speed for May 8. Prior to that hearing, Speed will be sentenced in a separate case in the Eastern District of Virginia where a jury convicted him in January of illegally possessing unregistered firearms disguised to look like cleaning supplies.
The silencers were discovered during a search of Speed’s residence following his arrest in his Jan. 6 case. Prosecutors allege the silencers were part of a more than $40,000 “panic buying” spree by Speed following the riot. According to court documents, Speed told an undercover FBI employee the silencers could be useful when he "carried out a plot to hold ‘mock trials’ for and kidnap his enemies, starting with local targets, such as members of the Anti-Defamation League."
Speed also allegedly made numerous statements praising the writings of the “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski and Eric Rudolph, the man known as the “Olympic Park Bomber” who was convicted of a series of bombings that killed two people and injured more than 100 others between 1996 and 1998. Rudolph’s targets, in addition to location of the 1996 Summer Olympics, included two abortion clinics in Georgia and Alabama and a lesbian bar in Atlanta.
Speed allegedly said he was reading Rudolph and Kaczynski’s writings, telling the undercover FBI employee, “So, it’s useful to get into these people’s heads and you know, try and come up with a better game plan than they had.”
The undercover employee said Speed also repeatedly expressed anti-Semitic beliefs and praised Adolf Hitler, describing him as “one of the best people that’s ever been on this Earth.”
More than 1,000 people have now been charged in connection with the Capitol riot, including more than 550 who have either pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial. The Justice Department has said it anticipates at least another 1,000 cases to be filed in connection with the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
We're tracking all of the arrests, charges and investigations into the January 6 assault on the Capitol. Sign up for our Capitol Breach Newsletter here so that you never miss an update.