DOJ Will Now Target Nonviolent J6 Protesters Who Did Not Enter Capitol
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced that prosecutors are now planning to target “thousands” of individuals who participated in the January 6 Capitol protests but did not enter the Capitol building, regardless of whether they took part in the small amount of violence that took place that day.
In a DOJ press conference late last week, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves pointed out that the DOJ has mostly focused on criminal prosecution of individuals who entered the Capitol building or fought with law enforcement officers on January 6, 2021.
“An important note about those who remained outside the [Capitol] building,” Mr. Graves said. “We have used our prosecutorial discretion and to primarily focus on those who entered the building, on those who engaged in violent or rough conduct on Capitol grounds.”
He then went on to announce that the DOJ will soon begin prosecuting thousands of protesters who simply gathered near the Capitol that day, but never entered the building or committed “violent or rough acts” — claiming that they had gathered in “restricted” areas and thus deserved to be imprisoned.
“If a person knowingly entered a restricted area without authorization, they had already committed a federal crime,” Graves claimed. “Make no mistake, thousands of people [were] occupying the area that they were not authorized to be present in in the first place.”
More than 1,230 individuals have been charged in connection with the January 6 Capitol protests. Thus far, the DOJ has handed down nearly 850 years of prison time to roughly 450 defendants.
President Joe Biden celebrated these heavy-handed sentences for his rival’s supporters during a speech on Saturday that was focused on the January 6 Capitol protests.
“Collectively to date, they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison,” he bragged, adding: “And what has Trump done? Instead of calling them ‘criminals,’ he’s called these insurrectionists ‘patriots.’ … And he promised to pardon them if he returns to office.”
Meanwhile, Trump slammed Biden over the divisive speech — calling on the president to “release the J6 hostages” during a fiery speech in Iowa on the third anniversary of the protests.
“The J6 hostages, I call them. Nobody has been treated ever in history so badly as those people nobody’s ever been treated in our country,” Trump said, explaining that he would grant clemency to a “large portion” of these defendants if he wins re-election.
As part of their continuing efforts to arrest January 6 protesters, the FBI’s Tampa Field Office announced on Saturday that agents had apprehended three so-called “fugitives” in a pre-dawn raid. The defendants — Jonathan Daniel Pollock, Olivia Michele Pollock and Joseph Daniel Hutchinson III — are set to appear in federal court on Monday in Ocala, Florida.
