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A federal judge just told the DOJ what we’re all thinking on Jan. 6 prosecutions (1571 hits)

A federal judge just told the DOJ what we’re all thinking on Jan. 6 prosecutions

Judge Beryl Howell interrogated the department over its weak sentencing requests for Capitol rioters.

A federal judge slammed the Justice Department on Thursday for seeking weak sentences for rioters involved in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of the District of Columbia tore into the DOJ for allowing rioter Jack Jesse Griffith to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of parading in the Capitol. Howell was beside herself, according to The Washington Post:

“No wonder parts of the public in the U.S. are confused about whether what happened on January 6 at the Capitol was simply a petty offense of trespassing with some disorderliness, or shocking criminal conduct that represented a grave threat to our democratic norms,” Judge Beryl A. Howell said in court Thursday. “Let me make my view clear: The rioters were not mere protesters.”

It sounds like Howell has been reading my group chat with friends.

Howell, nominated to the court by then-President Barack Obama in 2010, asked Thursday why the DOJ would seek such minimal charges for participants in what the prosecutors called an “attack on democracy ... unparalleled in American history.”

What’s more, she said, prosecutors haven’t even asked for defendants who haven’t paid their court-ordered fines to be under court supervision. She suggested prosecutors were giving some of the rioters preferential treatment.

READ MORE: A federal judge just told the DOJ what we’re all thinking on Jan. 6 prosecutions https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-...