The Chief Judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia has had enough of Justice Department plea deals with January 6 insurrectionists that reduce charges to such minor infractions as parading.
Judge Beryl Howell suggested today that such lenient deals might be contributing to the GOP narrative that Jan. 6 was no big deal.
WASHINGTON — Blasting the Republican Party’s reference to the Jan. 6 insurrection and events surrounding it as “legitimate political discourse,” a federal judge questioned whether the Justice Department bore some blame for the “confusion” by letting people charged with storming the US Capitol plead guilty to petty offenses.
US District Chief Judge Beryl Howell has been critical of DOJ's handling of the Jan. 6 prosecution effort in the past. At a sentencing hearing Thursday, she pressed government lawyers to explain the department’s decision to offer plea deals in many cases that featured one of the least serious crimes: parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the US Capitol, a misdemeanor that carries up to six months in jail.
Justice Department lawyers replied that they certainly did not view what happened on Jan. 6 as legitimate political discourse.
Pearce said the government was focused on “ensuring criminal responsibility” and that the way they’d proceeded with Jan. 6 cases wasn’t different from other investigations; they charged the crimes they believed they could prove beyond a reasonable doubt, he said. Howell pushed back, telling Pearce that what “strikes me” is that the government historically used the parading offense as a kind of “ticket” for a person who stood up during a hearing and yelled. She said she was “surprised” to see it in connection with Jan. 6.
Howell then asked Pearce if he was saying that the government did not “acknowledge any responsibility” for the fact that there might be “confusion” about Jan. 6 at least in part because defendants were pleading guilty to parading.