"You’ve got to arrest people, you have to track people, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll never see this stuff again."
This remark today from Trump should be terrifying for anyone planning to take to the streets in DC, given that Trump’s Justice Department tried to throw scores of people in prison for being near some broken windows in 2017.
From the Guardian:
“On the morning of President Trump’s inauguration, police trapped and arrested more than 230 people. Some were anti-Trump demonstrators; some were not. The next day, federal prosecutors charged them all with “felony rioting”, a nonexistent crime in Washington DC. The prosecution then launched a sweeping investigation into the defendants’ lives, demanding vast amounts of online information through secret warrants.
Prosecutors eventually dropped a few defendants, like journalists and legal observers, but simultaneously increased the charges against everyone else. The most recent indictment collectively charged more than 200 people with felony rioting, felony incitement to riot, conspiracy to riot, and five property-damage crimes – all from broken windows.
Each defendant is facing over 60 years in prison.”
And the ultimate fallout?
From NBC News, July 2018:
“Federal prosecutors on Friday moved to drop charges against the last 39 people accused of participating in a violent protest on the day of President Donald Trump's inauguration.
The motion to dismiss charges by the U.S. attorney's office seemingly ends an 18-month saga that started with the Justice Department attempting to convict more than 190 people.”
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Again, some of those prosecuted and pressured into taking plea deals weren’t even protesting the inauguration, much less breaking windows, much less involved in a “conspiracy to riot”.
Anyone still willing to take to the streets in DC, I salute you. God(s) help you, given the likely response of the fascist-in-the-bunker to your presence.
