Ex-top editor of Brooklyn Jewish Newspaper pleads guilty to Jan. 6 charges
A former top editor of an Orthodox Jewish newspaper in Brooklyn pleaded guilty Tuesday to obstructing police officers' efforts to hold back the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The editor, Elliot Resnick, entered a plea before Judge Rudolph Contreras of the Federal District Court in Washington to a misdemeanor charge of obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder. Mr. Resnick, 40, of Manhattan, is expected to be sentenced in June.
Clay Kaminski, a federal public defender representing Mr. Resnick, declined to comment.
At the time of the riot, Mr. Resnick was the editor-in-chief of The Jewish Presswhich began publishing in 1960 and describes itself on its website as “the largest independent Jewish weekly in the United States” and “politically incorrect long before the term was coined.”
After Politico reported in April 2021 that Mr. Resnick, who started working at The Jewish Press in 2006, had been part of the Jan. 6 gang, the newspaper's editorial board published a statement saying he had been in Washington as a journalist covering the events of that day.
“The Jewish press fails to see why Elliot's personal views on former President Trump should make him any different from the dozens of other journalists covering the events, including many at the Capitol during the riots,” the editorial wrote.
Citing court records, Justice Department officials said Tuesday that Mr. Resnick had not been acting as a journalist that day. Shlomo Greenwald, who replaced Mr. Resnick as editor-in-chief of the paper in May 2021, did not respond to email and telephone inquiries on Tuesday.
According to court documents, Mr. Resnick took a bus from New York to Washington on the day of the riot and eventually joined the horde that descended on the Capitol after a speech by Mr. Trump. After climbing a staircase on the east side of the building, he turned and urged others to climb the stairs, court records show.
At that point, according to court documents, Mr. Resnick and others began fighting with police officers who tried to keep the crowd at bay. When an officer tried to extinguish some rioters with pepper spray, Mr. Resnick grabbed the officer's arm to stop the action, court records show.
The group, which included Mr. Resnick, forced open a door and entered the Capitol Rotunda, court documents show. Mr. Resnick then turned around and joined others in trying to force open a second door. An officer who tried to intervene was thrown to the ground, and Mr. Resnick reached through the open door, grabbed other rioters and pulled them into the Capitol past officers who tried to keep them out, according to court documents.
Mr. Resnick spent nearly an hour in the building, walking through several rooms before returning to the Rotunda and repeatedly urging others to come in, patting some of them on the back after they entered, according to court records .
According to the Justice Department, Mr. Resnick is one of more than 1,265 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot. A federal investigation into the day's events continues. Separately, a 40-year-old New Jersey man, Lee Giobbie, was charged Tuesday with several felonies and misdemeanors for what prosecutors said was his role in the riot.
Supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol that day in an attempt to prevent the certification of Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Trump, who is seeking the Republican nomination in this year's presidential election, faces federal conspiracy and other charges stemming from the riot. He has pleaded not guilty.