WASHINGTON — A would-be social media influencer who helped breach the Senate gallery by engaging with a law enforcement officer and then jumped onto the floor of the Senate and sat in the vice president’s seat was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison Wednesday.
Bruno Cua was an 18-year-old high school senior who’d traveled to the nation’s capital with his parents when he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Cua, now 21, had filled his social media account with posts about the need to storm the Capitol and commit violence unless supporters of then-President Donald Trump got their way and overturned the election.
“This is what happens when you piss off patriots! Hey! Where are the swamp rats hiding?!” he said as he walked around the Capitol and checked doors. “Where are the swamp rats hiding at?”
Cua is among the youngest Jan. 6 defendants charged in relation to the Capitol attack. He was found guilty in February of obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.