BY MATT MARGOLIS P J MEDIA
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
A federal judge blasted U.S. prosecutors seeking
excessive sentences for some nonviolent participants in the Capitol riot,
pointing to the treatment of BLM rioters as an example of a clear double
standard.
“I know that the government believes that the January 6th
cases are sui generis [one of a kind] and therefore can’t be
compared to other cases. But I don’t agree,” said U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden.
“It does feel like the government has had two standards
here, and I can’t abide by that,” he added, noting that before January 6, he
couldn’t remember an instance where a nonviolent, first-time offender was
“sentenced to serious jail time … regardless of their race, gender or political
affiliation.”
McFadden expressed his views during the sentencing of a
defendant who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing. The Biden
administration called for her to be sentenced to 75 days in jail and one year
of probation, which McFadden believed to be excessive. “The government’s
sentencing recommendation here is just so disproportionate to other sentences
for people who have engaged in similar conduct,” he said.
Instead, McFadden sentenced her to two months probation
and a $5,000 fine. McFadden noted the same U.S. prosecutor’s office that
recommended jail time for the J6 defendant sought a much lighter sentence for a
Code Pink activist with a lengthy criminal record who infiltrated
Brett Kavanaugh’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings in September 2018.
McFadden also noted that last fall, government
prosecutors treated pro-Trump rioters more harshly than violent BLM rioters in
Washington, D.C. back in 2020, after the death of George Floyd.
The Biden administration’s excessive targeting of J6 defendants has had dire consequences. One defendant, Matthew Perna — who merely walked through the Capitol building for a few minutes yet was facing more than four years of jail time from Biden administration prosecutors — ultimately committed suicide before being sentenced.
J6 defendants have also been detained by the government without indictment,
which is a violation of their constitutional rights.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Airborne: How The Liberal
Media Weaponized The Coronavirus Against Donald Trump, and
the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama,
and The Scandalous Presidency of
Barack Obama.
