“Although prosecutors have loaded up their charging documents with language about the existential threat of the insurrection to the republic, the actions of many of the individual rioters often boiled down to trespassing.”
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Democrats were eager to seize upon the events at the Capitol on January 6th as their Reichstag moment in order to clamp down on “domestic terrorism,” to militarize DC by keeping the National Guard in DC despite there being absolutely no reason for them to be there, and to use as a political weapon against duly-elected Congressional Republicans.
In that, they were successful. The media was eager to help them with their goals and are still claiming that the Capitol Hill “insurrection” claimed five lives. They fail to mention that the only life that was lost as a direct result of the actions of another person was that of Ashli Babbitt who was shot and killed by some as yet unnamed law enforcement officer associated with the Capitol. The other four deaths were due to natural causes (strokes, heart attacks).
That didn’t stop Democrats and their rancid media activist arm from playing it up as though there were ever an actual threat to any member of Congress much less to our entire system of government. The Biden administration parroted Congressional Democrats’ nonsense about the event being some kind of existential threat to the nation, to democracy, to the entire free world. It was and is ludicrous, and the hyperbolic screeching about insurrection and treason and sedition (oh my!) are–at long last—being challenged by facts in a court of law.
This has Politico fretting about how the Biden administration will be “embarrassed” when all those Americans they eagerly and publicly condemned as traitors and seditionists and insurrectionists walk on misdemeanor trespassing charges and the like. Won’t it be just awful that the legal system actually works and these people are not jailed because the majority of them did nothing more than wander into the Capitol building, mill around taking pics, and then leave? That will leave egg on the face of the Biden administration and make them look bad. So sad.
In their piece entitled, “Many Capitol rioters unlikely to serve jail time: The cases could embarrass the Biden administration, which has portrayed the Jan. 6 siege as a dire threat to democracy,” Politico reports:
Although prosecutors have loaded up their charging documents with language about the existential threat of the insurrection to the republic, the actions of many of the individual rioters often boiled down to trespassing. And judges have wrestled with how aggressively to lump those cases in with those of the more sinister suspects.
“My bet is a lot of these cases will get resolved and probably without prison time or jail time,” said Erica Hashimoto, a former federal public defender who is now a law professor at Georgetown. “One of the core values of this country is that we can protest if we disagree with our government. Of course, some protests involve criminal acts, but as long as the people who are trying to express their view do not engage in violence, misdemeanors may be more appropriate than felonies.”
The prospect of dozens of Jan. 6 rioters cutting deals for minor sentences could be hard to explain for the Biden administration, which has characterized the Capitol Hill mob as a uniquely dangerous threat. Before assuming office, Biden said the rioters’ attempt to overturn the election results by force “borders on sedition”; Attorney General Merrick Garland has called the prosecutions his top early priority, describing the storming of Congress as “a heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government.”
Justice Department prosecutors sent expectations sky-high in early statements and court filings, describing elaborate plots to murder lawmakers — descriptions prosecutors have tempered as new details emerged.
. . . . And prosecutors are facing pressure from judges to either back up their tough talk about sedition or put a lid on it. Michael Sherwin, the former lead Jan. 6 prosecutor, found himself rebuked by other senior prosecutors and Judge Amit Mehta last week for publicly flirting with the possibility of sedition charges when none had actually been leveled.
As it turns out Sherwin, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney for DC, is facing an internal DOJ investigation for his reckless sedition charges comments on 60 Minutes.
Here’s a thought, instead of launching into the most dramatic, charged accusations and damning declarations against American citizens, wait to hear the facts.
I know, I know, facts don’t really exist for most on the left, just feelz and “lived experience,” but apparently, and as of this writing, courts of law are still beholden to the facts submitted into evidence, to that which can be proven.
Aside: is Parler now vindicated (yet again) since their platform was not only the least used by a mile “organizing” or “publicizing” social media platform of the Jan. 6 attendees but that the offense organized wasn’t violence but coordinated trespassing—and even that has not been proven, most just got waved in by Capitol security or wandered in when they saw an open door, they had no idea there was anything coordinated anywhere. But even if they had been aware of or even a party to some coordinated trespassing episode, “Ooooh, Parler lets trespassers organize!” is a bit of a yawn. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?
Politico also worries that President Trump is out there . . . speaking words. The horror! He is undermining the Biden administration’s overwrought reaction, and Politico thinks that’s politically awkward given that what Trump is saying is (wait for it) true.
Adding to the political awkwardness: The expected wave of plea offers comes as former President Donald Trump seems intent on falsely rewriting the history of the Jan. 6 assault. In an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News Thursday night, Trump suggested that prosecutors and the FBI are making too much of the Capitol takeover, which left five people dead and dozens of police officers injured.
“It was zero threat. Right from the start, it was zero threat,” Trump declared. “Look, they went in — they shouldn’t have done it — some of them went in, and they’re hugging and kissing the police and the guards, you know? They had great relationships. A lot of the people were waved in, and then they walked in, and they walked out.”
If the vast majority of those charged do indeed end up with pleas deals on minor trespassing charges, then, yeah, they did just kind of wander in and then walk back out again, just as Trump says, and as the evidence is now showing to the court.
One of the more revealing aspects of Politico‘s piece was their understanding that January 6th was not the first time a “mob” broke into the Capitol to protest. We all remember this happening frequently over the decades, as lefties crashed into Senate and House hearings, etc. to protest whatever the issue of the day. They were always hailed as brave, as speaking ‘truth to power,’ and held up as icons on the leftist radical scene.
Politico continues:
There are also sensitive issues about precedent for the future, given the frequency of politically inspired demonstrations on Capitol Hill that run afoul of the law.
While violent assaults in the Capitol are rare, protests and acts of civil disobedience — such as disrupting congressional hearings or even House and Senate floor sessions, are more common. That means prosecutors and judges will have to weigh how much more punishment a Trump supporter who invaded the Capitol during the Electoral College count deserves than, say, an anti-war protester chanting at a CIA confirmation hearing or a gun-control advocate shouting in the middle of the State of the Union address.
Funny how crazed lefties breaking into hearings and State of the Union addresses “run afoul of the law,” while Trump supporters are ‘armed’ insurrectionist and terrorist threats to the Union.
While Democrats and their media propagandist arm are happy to make these exceptions for ‘righteous’ causes versus those rooted in what they deem wrongthink, courts of law (as yet) do not. For that, we can all be thankful.
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