Julie Kelley, writing for American Greatness, stated that the insurrection probe into the January 6, 2021 Capitol breach was “falling apart.” Two suspects from Washington state who were charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ), were recently released from federal prison in Tennessee and allowed to return to “house arrest” in their home state, as originally ordered.
Kelly argues that DOJ significantly overreached when they first said they would charge those who breached the Capitol building with “sedition charges.” Now, it appears that almost all of the charges will amount to “trespassing” charges and that judges reviewing the cases have noted – specifically in the case against the two Washington state defendants – the defendants were non-violent, destroyed nothing, and turned themselves in – to law enforcement.
Munchel and Eisenhart, once they realized they were under investigation, turned themselves in to law enforcement a few days after the Capitol protest. Government prosecutors successfully fought to keep both behind bars pending their trial although they committed no violent crime and had remained in the building for less than 15 minutes; on January 24, the D.C. federal judge presiding over the Capitol investigation ordered both defendants transported from Tennessee to a Washington jail to await their day in court.
Prosecutors darkly warned in late January the two Americans could be the first Capitol defendants to be charged with sedition, a crime almost never applied to U.S. citizens.
Politico reporters just dropped the bad news that most protestors won’t face jail time.
“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,” Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney admitted in an article published Tuesday, an observation American Greatness has been pointing out for weeks. “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.”
