The daughter of a January 6 rioter who was sentenced to over seven years behind bars has blamed former President Donald Trump for her family falling apart.
On August 1, 49-year-old Guy Reffitt was given the longest jail sentence any Capitol rioter has received so far - seven years and three months.
In an interview with Insider, Reffitt's 18-year-old daughter recalled how the Texas family first began to fall apart when Trump was in power - and claimed that the former president should be incarcerated for inciting the riots.
The teenager described how her then 18-year-old brother, Jackson Reffitt, turned their father into the FBI in December 2020. Jackson, Peyton, and the rest of their siblings were concerned about the radical right-wing ideas their father was voicing.
In January 2021, Guy Reffitt joined a militia group called the Three Percenters and stormed the Capitol, before returning to his family home near Dallas. Earlier this year, he was found guilty on five counts: two counts of civil disorder and one count each of obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining on restricted grounds with a firearm, and obstruction of justice.
With her father in prison and her brother estranged, Peyton believes that her family - and many others - were treated like "disposable pawns" by the former president and that he should be facing jail time.
"The former President Trump is not entirely responsible for my father's actions that day on January 6. However, in my opinion, I believe he used orchestrated language that uses subliminal projection, leading up to and the day of, that in a real way bypasses his supporters' rational thought and appeals to their deeper emotions," she told the outlet.
"I think it would only be just for former President Trump to be convicted and serve the longest sentence about the events that occurred on January 6, 2021," Peyton added.
This isn't the first time Peyton has spoken out against Trump and called for him to be prosecuted. On the steps of the courthouse following her father's sentencing, she told the press: "Trump deserves life in prison if my father is in prison for this long."
The teenager went on to say that she believes more needs to be done to protect American families from the effect of "propaganda and misinformation."
"We are an example of how the modern American family is becoming more fragile as the political climate rises," she said.
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