Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis attorneys who were prosecuted after confronting protesters gathered outside their home, made an appearance at 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse’s trial on Monday.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey are here outside the Kenosha County Courthouse (they’re known for the firearm-bearing photo from the St. Louis protests last summer) #Kenosha pic.twitter.com/JTImrN9pOK
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) November 16, 2021
The McCloskeys were spotted outside the courthouse, but Mark McCloskey clarified that they did not enter the building while the jury was present because they didn’t want to be accused of interference.
“We feel for Mr. Rittenhouse,” Mark McCloskey told Fox News on Monday. “We feel he acted in self-defense. We think he’s been politically prosecuted, as we were, and we’re hoping that the jury finds him not guilty on all counts and that he can go home a free man.”
Like Rittenhouse, the McCloskeys were accused of wielding firearms illegally during the summer of 2020. Mark McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and Patricia McCloskey to misdemeanor harassment in June 2021.
However, Missouri Gov. Mike Parsons pardoned them of all other charges after a judge accused George Soros-funded prosecutor Kim Gardner of initiating a criminal prosecution against the couple “for political purposes.”
Mark McCloskey argued that Rittenhouse was just trying to “help his country and to save businesses” in his community the night he shot two rioters who were pursuing him in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“As his reward, he’s having the rest of his life threatened,” he added.
Mark McCloskey is running for the U.S. Senate to replace Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who plans to retire in 2022.
“I’ve always been a Republican, but I have never been a politician,” he said during his campaign announcement. “But you know, God came knocking on my door last summer disguised as an angry mob, and it really did wake me up.”
