Jan. 6 rioter who assaulted police says she was ‘duped’ by Trump’s election lies

WASHINGTON — A Donald Trump supporter who stormed the Capitol and assaulted law enforcement officers now says she was “duped” by the former president’s lies about the 2020 election.

Dana Jean Bell was sentenced to 17 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly on Thursday. Federal prosecutors had sought 27 months in federal prison, saying Bell “belligerently pushed, grabbed, and verbally attacked countless U.S. Capitol Police (‘USCP’) and Metropolitan Police Department (‘MPD’) officers who were attempting to clear rioters from inside the United States Capitol Building.”

Bell pleaded guilty in July to one count of assaulting officers. Her behavior included giving “officers the middle finger while scowling at them and repeatedly yelling ‘F— YOU’ towards them,” prosecutors said.  

One of the officers who Bell, a 62-year-old Trump supporter, encountered was the late Jeffrey Smith.

“Get a real job, get a real job!” Bell yelled at Smith, in video captured on his body camera. “We don’t support y’all anymore. Now NO ONE supports you! Nobody!”

After his encounter with Bell, Smith was subsequently assaulted on at least two separate occasions, including being struck by a flying metal object thrown by another member of the mob on the west front of the U.S. Capitol after nightfall. Smith then reported for treatment, but the facility was so overwhelmed with other officers who had been assaulted by other Trump supporters that, his family says, he did not get proper treatment.

Smith died by suicide nine days later, and a police board and the Justice Department ruled his death was in the line of duty, caused directly by the injuries he sustained at the Capitol. Last month, the Washington Nationals baseball honored Jeffrey Smith, dedicating a seat to him alongside other officers who died in the line of duty.

Erin Smith, Jeffrey Smith’s widow, was in court on Thursday for Bell’s sentencing and gave a victim impact statement. Erin Smith told the court she would not have lost her husband had “this woman and others not chose violence that fateful day,” saying Bell chose to “assault and berate police, who, like my husband, held very real jobs, jobs that got four of them killed and hundreds injured.”

Bell, according to her defense team, believed it was “her civil and patriotic duty to answer…