President Donald Trump’s $1.776 billion “weaponization” slush fund has presented a choice between expiation and damnation to a convicted felon who was pronounced by a judge to be one of the worst of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

“Your actions are some of the most egregious crimes that were committed on that dark day,” U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden told Patrick McCaughey on April 14, 2023, sentencing him to 90 months for assaulting a police officer at the Capitol.

McCaughey, then 25, had stood in the District of Columbia courtroom in an orange prison uniform and offered quiet words of seeming contrition.

“I’m sorry that I conducted myself less like a citizen and more like an animal that day,” McCaughey told the court. “My actions on January 6th, 2021, will remain the greatest embarrassment of my life.”

He apologized to all the cops who had defended the Capitol and ensured the certification of the 2020 election could proceed.

“You were there that day to protect the community,” McCaughey said.

Among those in the courtroom was Officer Daniel Hodges, shield 4518 of Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department. The evidence that led to a conviction included Hodges’ body camera footage of McCaughey crushing him with a stolen police shield into a metal door frame. There was accompanying audio of Hodges screaming in pain.

Hodges, now 37, had been allowed to........

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