WASHINGTON — On Friday, a federal judge sentenced a father and son from Butler County to 12 months probation for illegally demonstrating in the United States Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

The charge is a misdemeanor.

Paul Seymour Jr. held a Trump flag as he and his father, Paul Seymour Sr., walked inside the breached Capitol with rioters, and posed for a photo next to a statue of Confederate hero Robert E. Lee, according to documents filed by the U.S. Attorney's office in the District of Columbia.

United States Attorney for the District of Columbia

"I apologize," Seymour Jr. told U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta. "My ignorance is inexcusable."

The Seymours didn't damage property or physically hurt anyone that day, according to court records.

According to the Department of Justice, the Seymours are among about 900 people charged in the massive federal investigation.

"A riot cannot occur without rioters, and each rioter’s actions — from the most mundane to the most violent — contributed, directly and indirectly, to the violence and destruction of that day," Asst. U.S. Attorney Anita Eve wrote in the government's sentencing memo.

Like thousands of protesters that day, the Seymours traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend the "Stop the Steal" rally near the White House to show support for then-President Donald Trump, who claimed without proof that the election was stolen from him.

According to federal prosecutors, the Seymours entered the Capitol building "through broken Senate Wing Doors," after some rioters assaulted officers, and officers had used pepper spray to disperse the crowd and ordered them to leave.

The Seymours were inside the Capitol for "almost 30 minutes parading through the building at will," according to the prosecution's sentencing memo. "After it had grown dark in Washington, D.C. on January 6, the Seymours finally left the restricted grounds of the Capitol. Seymour Jr. posed for a photograph taken of himself in front of a line of police officers who had formed a perimeter outside the Capitol."

Lot Tan

Former U.S. Attorney David DeVillers — a partner with Barnes & Thornburg in Columbus — said this case is another example of the consistent approach prosecutors are using in the massive investigation.

"We don't want anyone to do this again," DeVillers said. "And we're going to send the message that we're going to prosecute everyone for every misdemeanor, for every felony that we can if we can establish that there's probable cause to do so."

The U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. asked the judge to sentence the Seymours to 90 days home confinement and three years probation.

But Judge Mehta said the Seymours hadn't made threats, damaged property, entered anyone's office or physically hurt people. So, that combined with additional factors convinced the judge to hand down a much lighter sentence.

Like his son, Paul Seymour Sr. also apologized during his sentencing hearing.

“I shouldn’t have been there, period," he told the judge.

Seymour Sr. said after he and his son posed for a photo in the Capitol, he told his son, "it's time to walk out of here."

In addition to their probation, the Seymours are also required to perform 60 hours of community service.

WASHINGTON —

Further expanding its probe, the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to six additional associates of former President Donald Trump who were closely involved in his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

The committee's chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said in a statement Monday that the panel is demanding testimony and documents from former Trump campaign officials and others who participated in a “war room” ahead of the siege and strategized about how to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

Video above: House Jan. 6 panel subpoenas Trump associates back in September

Thompson said the committee had issued new subpoenas to Bill Stepien, manager of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the campaign; John Eastman, a lawyer who advised the former president; Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who talked with Trump ahead of the insurrection; and Bernard Kerik, who the committee says paid for hotel rooms that served as command centers ahead of Jan. 6.

“In the days before the January 6th attack, the former president’s closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes," Thompson said. "The Select Committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all."

The subpoenas come after the panel has already demanded documents and testimony from several other Trump advisers — some who have cooperated and some who have not. The House voted last month to hold longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt after he refused to comply with his subpoena. Trump himself is fighting the probe in court.

The rioters who violently pushed back police to break into the Capitol and interrupt the electoral count repeated Trump's false claims of widespread fraud, and the committee says the six newly subpoenaed witnesses helped amplify the misinformation in the days ahead of the attack. Trump's false claims came as election officials and courts across the country verified Biden's win, and as his own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant fraud.

Thompson says in the letters to the Trump associates that the panel has uncovered “credible evidence” of their participation in the former president's efforts to overturn the election and cites ways that they individually tried to further his cause.

In Stepien's subpoena, Thompson cites the testimony of an unnamed witness in saying he oversaw the “conversion” of Trump's presidential campaign to a “Stop the Steal” effort. In letters to Miller and McCallum, Thompson cites specific efforts to spread the false claims, including a phone call from McCallum to an unidentified Michigan state legislator asking if the Trump campaign could “count on” them and urging the person to push for the appointment of new state electors.

Thompson detailed several efforts by Eastman, a lawyer and professor, to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to try to overturn the election as he presided over the congressional certification — a power Pence did not legally have. Thompson also cites Eastman's outreach to states, including a briefing to state legislators, and his participation in the so-called “war room” at the Willard Hotel where he, Bannon, Kerik and others strategized ahead of the siege about how to overturn Trump's defeat.

In the letter to Flynn — the former national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was later pardoned by Trump — Thompson cited a December Oval Office meeting with the then-president. Citing media reports, Thompson said Flynn and other participants “discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the message that the Nov. 2020 election had been tainted by widespread fraud.”

None of those subpoenaed who were contacted by Monday by The Associated Press responded to requests for comment.

The panel is working with other close Trump advisers to gain testimony, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and administration aides Kashyap Patel and Dan Scavino. Members of the committee said they have been “engaging” with those witnesses but may move to hold them in contempt, as well, if they don't comply soon.

Trump's own opposition has prompted some of his advisors, including Bannon, to say they can't speak publicly about their roles. The former president's lawsuit argues that he can assert executive privilege, or a presidential claim to keep some information private, in an effort to block the government from releasing a tranche of internal White House documents to the panel. The committee has argued that privilege doesn't apply.

President Biden has so far waived executive privilege on nearly all the documents that the committee has asked for, citing the panel’s need to investigate the violent attack.

In his subpoena to Eastman, Thompson sought to preemptively attack any attorney-client privilege that he may attempt to cite to avoid testifying. The letter noted that Eastman has already “made extensive public comments" regarding his legal advice and direct discussions with Trump.

Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who aligned himself with Trump’s efforts to overturn the election as other department leaders pushed back, appeared for a deposition on Friday but declined to cooperate, presenting the committee with a letter saying he would not answer questions based on Trump’s assertions of privilege, including in the ongoing court case.

Thompson said afterward that he had rejected the claims of privilege and said Clark “has a very short time” to reconsider and cooperate.

The committee has already interviewed more than 150 people across government, social media and law enforcement, including some former Trump aides who have been cooperative. The panel has subpoenaed more than 20 witnesses total, and most of them, including several associates who helped plan the massive “Stop the Steal” rally the morning of the 6th, have signaled they will cooperate.

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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON —

In a city still on edge after the Jan. 6 insurrection, law enforcement bore down in large numbers on the Capitol on Saturday over concerns that a rally in support of the jailed rioters would turn violent. It didn’t.

The crowd was sparse and incidents were few. The only clear parallels to the riots more than eight months ago by supporters of Donald Trump were the false claims put forth by the rally organizers about the violence that January day when Congress met to certify the election of Joe Biden.

Video above: Heavy security at Capitol riot supporters' rally

The low turnout also called into question whether such rallies will have any staying power as the organizers attempt to tap into the rage of Jan. 6 without the presence of the former president.

Law enforcement had prepared for a confrontation by erecting temporary fencing around the Capitol and deploying heavy dump trucks to ring the rally site. Local police departments and the U.S. National Guard were on standby.

The security might have been unnecessary in the end, but the volatility around the lie that the 2020 election was stolen and the presence of extremists and white nationalist groups on Jan. 6 have made it impossible to predict how such events will go.

U.S. Capitol Police said they received intelligence information leading up to the weekend that was similar to what was missed in January when law enforcement was only expecting a free speech protest and Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol.

Republican lawmakers, including those who had voted that day to challenge Biden’s election, avoided Saturday’s rally. Rally organizer Matt Braynard took elected officials to task for not backing up those now in jail and introduced candidates who are running for elected office.

Counterprotesters stood by and jeered. Some held anti-Trump signs and one man who had confronted some of the pro-Trump protesters was quickly removed by police, who used bicycles to shield him from the crowd as they escorted him down the street.

One person was arrested in the crowd for carrying a knife and a second man was arrested after someone reported to officers that they saw him carrying what appeared to be a handgun, police said. Two other people who police say were wanted in Texas – for a firearms charge and probation violation – were also arrested after being pulled over near the Capitol Saturday morning.

Braynard, a former Trump campaign staffer, opened in calm and deliberate tones. He said the event was for the defendants held behind bars.

On Jan.6, dozens of law enforcement officers were left bloodied and beaten as the crowd of pro-Trump rioters, some armed with pipes, bats and bear spray, charged into the Capitol, quickly overrunning the overwhelmed police force. One officer was beaten and shocked with a stun gun repeatedly until he had a heart attack; another was foaming at the mouth and screaming for help as rioters crushed him between two doors and bashed him in the head with his own weapon.

The Associated Press reviewed hundreds of court and jail records for the Capitol riot defendants to uncover how many were being detained and found roughly 63 held in federal custody awaiting trial or sentencing hearings.

At least 30 are jailed in Washington. The rest are locked up in facilities across the country. They have said they are being treated unfairly, and one defendant said he was beaten.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has set standards for judges to apply in deciding whether to jail a Capitol riot defendant. A three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled in March that rioters accused of assaulting officers, breaking through windows, doors and barricades, or playing leadership roles in the attack were in “a different category of dangerousness” than those who merely cheered on the violence or entered the building after it was breached.

Among the rally speakers was the girlfriend of Jonathan Mellis, who was seen on camera on Jan. 6 using a stick to attack officers who were outside the Capitol trying to hold back the mob, authorities said.

Mellis was heard saying “knock their masks off,” and video shows him repeatedly striking and stabbing at officers with the stick, according to court documents. Authorities said in court documents that he appeared to be trying to hit the officers’ necks between their helmets and body armor, where they had no protection.

Other defendants ordered locked up while they await trial include a man accused of dragging a police officer down steps to be beaten by an American flag and another man accused of leading a group of rioters up the Capitol steps to confront officers.

But judges have released the vast majority of the defendants, including more than a dozen members and associates of the Oath Keepers, a far-right group, who are charged in perhaps the most serious case brought so far in the attack. Only three people charged in the Oath Keepers conspiracy case remain locked up after judges said they appeared to play a leadership role in the alleged conspiracy.

Authorities have said the Oath Keepers prepared in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 as if they were heading to war, came to Washington ready for violence and dressed that day in battle gear, wearing helmets and tactical vests.

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Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press writers Michael Kunzelman, Mary Clare Jalonick, Jacques Billeaud, Lisa Mascaro, Amanda Seitz, Ashraf Khalil and Robert Burns contributed to this report.