I didn’t see a diary about this, but something notable occurred yesterday.
One of the Proud Boys pled guilty and agreed to cooperate.
Why is this notable?
He didn’t even enter the Capitol, so he wasn’t caught on tape committing crimes other than trespassing, and yet he pled guilty to a charge that carries a probable -3-4 year stint behind bars, and this sentence length is only if he provides significant cooperation.
So he didn’t assault any law enforcement, flipped on everybody, and was not one of the leaders and he is still getting a few years in the federal pen, which means that if he didn’t cooperate, he was looking at close to 10 years in jail.
This is pretty telling, for two reasons:
1. He agreed to flip, and at this late date, he must have had information that couldn’t be obtained elsewhere, because they agreed to a significant downward departure.
2. The 10 years he was looking at is half what the leaders are going to be looking at if they are found guilty at trial.
And two big cooperators had their sentencing dates moved back, so this is still chugging along, and based on the new sentencing dates for cooperators, the big boys will start facing charges in the next 3 months.
UPDATE. The title has been updated. He did not enter the Capitol, just broke the window, and was not charged with Assault on a Federal Officer, and did not disrupt the proceedings which has been the primary charges that have led to long prison sentences.
UPDATE #2. As pointed out in the comments, his cooperation will likely be to identify the source of which Capitol windows to target, as only a handful were not reinforced, and has been a big mystery since the news story about it months ago.
So his case was more like the low level picketing charges that were getting less than a year in jail, but he was in on the big conspiracy, and proving to be a very valuable resource to prosecutors.