The lawyer for Rene Boucher, the 59-year-old who attacked Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Friday and broke five of his ribs, has issued a statement saying that the incident was in no way politically motivated. In a statement provided to Fox News, Boucher's lawyer said the "unfortunate occurrence" had "absolutely nothing to do with either's politics or political agendas" and was "trivial."
Bizarrely, it closed by wishing Paul well and saying that Boucher hopes the two "can get back to being neighbors as quickly as possible."
The full statement:
NEW: statement from lawyer of alleged @RandPaul attacker, Rene Boucher: #RandPaulAttack pic.twitter.com/AsYIE9kc1j
— Brooke Singman (@brookefoxnews) November 6, 2017
As a reminder: this man broke five of Sen. Paul's ribs, including three displacement fractures. This is hardly what any sane human would call "trivial," and I'm not sure I'd be too keen to be neighborly with someone who tackled me from behind.
It looks as though the lawyer is attempting to prevent his client from being charged with a federal crime for attacking a member of Congress. Popehat over on Twitter explained the difference:
/2 The answer is probably not unless the assault was in the course of his Senatorial duties or because of his status as a Senator.
— Popehat (@Popehat) November 6, 2017
/4 The parallel is 18 USC 1114, which has the same in the course of/because of language https://t.co/jYckNNEZ6v
— Popehat (@Popehat) November 6, 2017
/6 On the other hand, if Sen. Paul's crazy neighbor went after him because of his votes or official stances, that would be a federal crime.
— Popehat (@Popehat) November 6, 2017
For what it's worth, Guy wrote earlier today about how Boucher is apparently a socialist, so he's probably not a Paul voter.
Gonna be interesting to see how this ends up.