WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors are seeking more than 11 years in federal prison for convicted Jan. 6 defendant Brent Bozell IV, the son and grandson of two men who shaped the American conservative movement in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Bozell, also known as "Zeeker," smashed windows at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and was convicted of a host of charges in September, including five felonies. He is scheduled to be sentenced May 17. Federal prosecutors, in a sentencing memo filed late Friday, sought a terrorism sentencing enhancement for Bozell, saying that his actions were intended to affect the conduct of the government and that he made preparations for Jan. 6 because he "believed that the presidential election had been 'stolen' and thus planned to respond through violence."
Bozell's father, Brent Bozell III, founded the Media Research Center, NewsBusters, CNSNews and the Parents Television and Media Council. Bozell III once wrote that former President Donald Trump "might be the greatest charlatan of them all" but pivoted to defending Trump after his 2016 election victory. Brent Bozell Jr., the convicted rioter's grandfather, was a speechwriter for Joe McCarthy, ghostwrote Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative" and was a friend of National Review founder William F. Buckley. Bozell Jr. was such a "fan boy" of fascist dictator Francisco Franco that he moved to Spain during his reign, according to Politico, which also credited him with organizing the "first violent anti-abortion protest" in Washington in 1970, for which he was "convicted of assaulting a police officer with a five-foot wooden cross," according to his 1997 obituary.
Few Jan. 6 rioters, federal prosecutors said, "were involved in as many pivotal breaches" as Brent Bozell IV during the Jan. 6 attack. Bozell IV, they said, "is not similarly situated to any other defendant given his relentless and sustained attacks on law enforcement in multiple locations inside and outside the Capitol" on Jan. 6.
"Leo Brent Bozell IV led the charge in a violent attack on the United States Capitol. ... Bozell participated in—and often led—a series of critical breaches on January 6: the police line under the scaffolding (2:00 p.m.); the police line on the landing of the Northwest Stairs (2:09 p.m.); the final police line at the top of the Northwest Stairs (2:11 p.m.); the initial breach of the Capitol building at the Senate Wing Doors (2:12 p.m.); the police line near the Carriage Door (2:21 p.m.); the East Rotunda Doors (2:38 p.m.); the Senate Gallery (2:42 p.m.), and the Senate Floor (2:49 p.m.)," the government wrote.
Bozell, court evidence showed, was among the first rioters to enter the Capitol, and he joined the mob as it chased U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up the stairs near the Senate floor. Bozell soon entered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office and "left carrying an unidentified object in his hand," prosecutors said, before he joined other rioters as they breached the East Rotunda doors from the inside, allowing more rioters to flow inside.
"After January 6, Bozell expressed disappointment that the election results were eventually certified despite the mob’s efforts, calling Mike Pence a 'traitor' for his part in certifying the election results. Bozell also sought to minimize and justify his conduct," federal prosecutors wrote. "For example, he made fantastical claims about how he accessed the building, and he told his friends and family that the 'Capitol siege was morally justified.'"
Like many conservatives, Bozell also tried to blame "antifa," writing in a text that "Antifa lead" even though he himself had smashed windows to let the mob into the building. He then made the implausible claim that "Antifa coordinated with Congress, DC mayor and police to gain unfettered access." He also texted his brother to get him to persuade their father, Bozell III, to retract his public condemnation of violence.
In their own memo, Bozell's defense attorneys wrote that he "regrets his decisions" that day and that he didn't have any "thought-out plan." They wrote that Bozell believed at the time that the election was "rigged" but today accepts that Joe Biden is president.
Bozell is part of a family "that has long been 'intune' with politics in Washington D.C. and was too personally and emotionally 'invested' in the final outcome of the 2020 election," his attorneys wrote.
They added that Bozell is "ashamed that he smashed windows at the U.S. Capitol Building and entered through them."
Brent Bozell III the president of the Media Research Center, wrote a letter in support of his son that he is "a man of peace" and suggesting that politics may be at play in the case. (The Justice Department is seeking a similar sentence for Zach Alam, another rioter who smashed windows at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and took his case to trial.)
"I have remained silent for the past 3 1/2 years because I didn't want to tip the apple cart of justice. But given what I saw in the trial, and more importantly learning about this terrorism enhancement, I no longer can. I believe there is more at play here," Bozell III wrote in the letter. "I am not pleading my son's innocence, only that his punishment match the crime. I am asking the Court to consider my son's character that is sterling and is being defended by absolutely everyone around him."
Bozell III wrote that he believed that everyone in the Bozell household voted for Trump but that they were "not unanimous in our analysis of the election results."
"We are a political family, and have been for generations," Bozell III wrote. "As such there was great discussion over the subject, be it by phone, by email, text or dinner conversation. Passionate? Of course, if you felt your greatest gift as an American — the right to vote — had been stolen. But never, ever was there a discussion of violent behavior — planned, proposed, considered, raised or even mentioned."
In the 40 months since the attack on the Capitol, prosecutors have charged more than 1,424 defendants, and 1,019 have been convicted in court. Of the 884 defendants who have been sentenced, 541 have received periods of incarceration from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison.
