Justice Department asks for 30-year sentences for Proud Boys leaders convicted of sedition | CNN Politics
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Justice Department is seeking three-decade prison sentences for the leaders of the Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy for plotting and leading the crowd at the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, positioning the men as failed, thuggish political revolutionaries.
In a new court filing, prosecutors say Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola "intentionally positioned themselves at the vanguard of political violence in this country" for years and on January 6 sought to "change the course of American history."
Prosecutors seek 33 years in prison for Tarrio and Biggs; 30 years for Rehl; 27 years for Nordean; and 20 years for Pezzola. The Proud Boys leaders are set to be sentenced August 29 by Judge Timothy Kelly of the US District Court in Washington.
A jury in Washington convicted four of the men in May of seditious conspiracy.
Tarrio was not on the grounds of the Capitol on January 6but had stayed in touch with the others expressing his support. The other men were at the front of the crowd, breaking past barriers and the police line and smashing windows to let rioters inside the historic building in the first breaches that eventually led to Congress evacuating and temporarily halting their certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
The jury found Pezzola not guilty of seditious conspiracy, and he was not alleged to have a leadership position in the organization.
"The defendants understood the stakes, and they embraced their role in bringing about a 'revolution.' They unleashed a force on the Capitol that was calculated to exert their political will on elected officials by force and to undo the results of a democratic election. The foot soldiers of the right aimed to keep their leader in power. They failed. They are not heroes; they are criminals," prosecutors wrote in the new filing.
The court filing, in many ways, is the summation of the yearslong effort by theUS Attorney's Office in the District of Columbiato prosecute hundreds of rioters who inflicted violence at the US Capitol on January 6. The Proud Boys leaders, the prosecutors argue, are even more responsible for the attack than the leadership of another militia group, the Oath Keepers, who stashed weapons just outside Washington as backup and suited up in military gear to march into the riot.
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, received a sentence of 18 years in prison for his role on January 6 following his conviction of seditious conspiracy, the longest sentence so far among any defendant from that day.
The Justice Department had asked for Rhodes to receive 25 years.
"The conduct of these defendants is more egregious than that of the Oath Keeper defendants and warrants greater sentences," the prosecutors wrote about the Proud Boys leaders.
"It is critical that this court impose significant sentences of incarceration on all the defendants in this case to convey to those who would mobilize such political violence in the future that their actions will have consequences."
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It is all there if people want to compare:
The vast majority of citations and charges against George Floyd protesters were ultimately dropped, dismissed or otherwise not filed, according to a Guardian analysis of law enforcement records and media reports in a dozen jurisdictions around the nation.
But some prosecutors and law enforcement observers charge that departments carried out mass arrests as a crowd control tactic, as a means to silence peaceful protesters, and as a public relations strategy designed to turn the public against demonstrators by making them appear more violent than they were. And what’s more – some of the citing officers never witnessed the protests in the first place.
“It sends a message that you might get arrested if you express your views and first amendment rights,” said Vera Eidelman, staff attorney with the ACLU’s speech, privacy and technology project. “Police absolutely should not be relying on mass arrests to control a crowd or silence people who they disagree with.”
In most of a dozen jurisdictions examined, at least 90% of cases were dropped or dismissed. In some cities, like Dallas and Philadelphia, as many as 95% of citations were dropped or not prosecuted.
Most charges against George Floyd protesters dropped, analysis shows | US policing | The Guardian
Sen. Kamala Harris once promoted the Minnesota Freedom Fund (MFF), a George Soros-affiliated charity designed to post bail for arrested criminals and rioters.
Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden recently selected Harris, a former prosecutor, to be his running mate in the 2020 election.
Biden has remained relatively silent regarding the riots that ensued after George Floyd died in the custody of Minneapolis police. However, Harris broadcast her support for the MFF on Twitter June 1, urging her followers to donate to the fund.
“Chip in now,” she said, “to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.”
Kamala Harris promoted fund that bailed out rioters, convicted rapist (alphanews.org)
firing squad for the traitorous proud boys convicted and dox their entire membership nationally.
I think you are making my point.
I thought death-wishing was against the CoC
Now it's only against a member.
Comparing breaking and entering the US capital to disrupt the normal operations of Congress in the final act of certifying the US election against their candidate and in response to the completely false claims of their candidate to pretty much any other riot is a category error.
I'm comparing entering the US Capitol to this:
"Approximately 75-100 peaceful individuals protested near the Hatfield Federal Courthouse Monday evening. Those individuals departed the area around 11 p.m. without incident.
Shortly thereafter, over 1,000 people surrounded the Hatfield Federal Courthouse and began removing plywood coverings on the windows meant to protect the building and the federal officers inside, and then attempted to throw objects – some of them incendiary – through the windows at the officers.
Rioters in the crowd were kicking the doors of the federal courthouse, vandalizing the building with spray paint and blocking adjacent intersections.
Federal officers responded to this assault by deploying pepper balls and tear gas. Rioters continued their assault, throwing canned food rocks, and other projectiles at the officers.
At approximately 12:20 local time, more rioters attempted to break into the courthouse, tearing down plywood and breaking a window in the process.
FPS and DHS officers put out several fires that had been lit in the vicinity, including one at the building.
When officers responded to put out these fires, glass bottles were thrown and lasers – which can cause permanent blindness – were shined in their eyes. Pepper balls were again deployed in response to the assault.
One individual was also seen taking pictures of a water intake system to the Edith Green Federal Building, which is also under FPS protection. Earlier in the evening, a Twitter user tweeted “So we can shut off the water to the buildings the feds are staying in to make it a nightmare for them.”
Seven arrests were made total, two were for assaults on federal officers and five for noncompliance with lawful directions. One of the federal officers assaulted is a member of the Federal Protective Service, the other is a member of the U.S Marshals Service. Another federal officer was injured when he was struck by a glass bottle thrown by rioters."
Portland Riots Read-Out: July 21 | Homeland Security (dhs.gov)
Did any of them get 30 years?
false equivalency.
Nope.
Big time false. But if that's all you got.....
My response is the same:
Comparing breaking and entering the US capital to disrupt the normal operations of Congress in the final act of certifying the US election against their candidate and in response to the completely false claims of their candidate to pretty much any other riot is a category error.
Not a bit. Elaborate you're flawed reasoning.
J6 was barely a riot, let alone an insurrection.
It's only effect was to delay the proceedings for a few hours,
The cops let them in. If this was supposedly a planned conspiracy, why wasn't Capitol security beefed up?
See, Greg, this is an example of defending Trump. You are dramatically whitewashing the Jan 6th events and attempting to reduce them to "barely a riot" and merely "delay the proceedings for a few hours".
On one hand you claim that you do not want Trump as the nominee and here you go engaging in defense by dramatically softening the facts.
If you do not want Trump as the nominee, defending him is counter-productive.
Seditious conspiracy is strictly a political crime. And what we are seeing is that the Biden administration is far, far more concerned about political crimes than they are about violent crimes or property crimes. The Biden administration seeks the maximum punishment for political crimes while often not even prosecuting violent and property crimes.
Biden is actually doing what Trump has been accused of attempting. Biden is using the authority and power of government to punish political opposition.
Are you seriously trying to claim that the indictments on Trump are without merit and are simply a gratuitous 'punishment' directed by Joe Biden?
I'm telling you that the indictments do not have any political relevance. What is the standing of elites in today's politics? Donald Trump is being prosecuted by the elite for crimes against the elite.
The elite don't give a wet crap about violent crimes and property crimes committed against the civil population. The elite stain their fillies when elite institutions are attacked. Burning and looting city blocks won't raise an eyebrow among the elite; the elite may actually applaud that crime. But disrupting the pomp and ceremony of a pointless political exercise while frightening politicians is a capital offense.
The purpose of the Constitution ain't to defend the goddammed government. The elite have gotten it completely backwards. And now the elite are trying to gaslight the country for their own self-serving benefit.
Then your statement "Biden is using the authority and power of government to punish political opposition." makes no sense.
I am not interested in discussing the elites at this point.
That's because you don't have a relevant or valid argument.
State the claim that you think I am supposed to argue.
Do not just make vague allegations.
Biden hasn't been indicted, has he? In fact, Biden has been applauded by the elite. Biden only lends support for distrusting elite experts.
Don't you realize that 'lock her up' or 'lock him up' is a parody of elitist attitudes? That's the first thing the elites do when they're challenged. The elites run to the courts, use the threat of unaffordable litigation to get what they want, and 'lock 'em up' for crimes against the elite.
Isn't ignoring the issue how we got here? Ignoring distrust in faux bourgeois elite institutions resulted in a shocking outcome for 2016 election. Isn't that how Trump became President? Isn't that why Clinton wandered in the woods?
Write an article. Don’t expect people to follow your wild tangents.
You have used the word 'elite' 18 times in 2 comments ... so often that it has verged on becoming meaningless at best, propaganda at worst and stylistically really bad writing.
Something Trump has done 5,000 give or take times and yet you keep trumpeting him.
Substitute 'privileged class' for the word 'elite' and maybe it will be more socialistically appealing. Does describing it as gentrification of institutions make the issue more understandable? The faux bourgeois elite red-lining ordinary people is okay as long as liberals can use it to achieve authoritarian totalitarianism.
So I'm 73+ and have yet to meet one of those dastardly types, where the Hell are they other than in some paranoid partisan phantasy?
Newstalkers is where they are, they are conspiring to have a festival soon so all the RWers can grab their pearls and faint.
Here is a Proud Boy that jumped house arrest before his sentencing today....If the dumbass thinks that is going to help him he is beyond stupid.