President Donald Trump’s project of rewriting the history of his Jan. 6 insurrection continues to chug along nicely. There were the mass pardons of the rioters and then the mass purges of prosecutors who worked on those cases.
Now, it appears it isn’t even permissible to mention a criminal defendant’s past participation on Jan. 6. So, two federal prosecutors in the District of Columbia, Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White, are on leave for having referenced Taylor Taranto’s violent participation in Jan. 6 in a sentencing memo for an entirely different case.
Related | GOP grapples with Trump's release of violent criminals amid backlash
The prosecutors were recommending Taranto serve 27 months for a June 2023 incident where he was arrested near former President Barack Obama’s house with two guns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and a machete. Prosecutors alleged Taranto said he livestreamed himself saying he wanted to “get a good angle at a shot.”
Just for good measure, he also livestreamed his hoax threat to blow up the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is kind of a niche government agency to be mad at.
In recommending the 27-month sentence, Valdivia and White briefly referenced Taranto’s history as a violent criminal, saying that he was “accused of participating in the riot in Washington, D.C. by entering the U.S. Capitol Building.”
Doing so wasn’t some rogue progressive anti-Trump move. The United States Sentencing Guidelines require consideration of a defendant’s past criminal history, with a complicated system of points per offense that then informs the sentence for the current case. Even when someone is pardoned, the sentence for the pardoned crime still has to be counted.
“Pardoning the good guys” by Clay Bennett
So, Trump’s pardon may have erased Taranto’s conviction, but it couldn’t magic away, for sentencing purposes, the fact that the past conviction existed. But it seems that following sentencing guidelines is verboten when it comes to the most-favored criminal defendants ever: violent insurrectionists.
In a hilarious aside that really highlights how Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, seems to have very little idea what she is doing, she had signed off on the sentencing memo along with Valdivia and White. Somehow, it doesn’t seem likely that Pirro will be placed on leave, though.
Taranto is far from the only one of Trump’s pet rioters who have been charged with new, unrelated crimes since being pardoned. We’ve got everything from threatening to assassinate federal agents to soliciting a minor, to killing someone while driving drunk, to possessing child sexual abuse material. These folks are some real winners.
It’s impossible not to think of the Frank Wilhoit quote: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
It isn’t just that people like Taranto are being protected. It’s also a message to everyone else that they will not receive the full protection of the law. The DOJ seems to be sending a message that literally threatening to kill a former president does not warrant a stiff sentence if he’s a Democrat, or at the very least, does not allow for consideration of Taranto’s other violent past acts.
Contrast the light touch for Taranto with the DOJ bragging about getting 97 months for the person who threatened Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Sophie Roske was found near Kavanaugh’s house with a pistol, zip ties, pepper spray, and burglary tools. Roske was convicted of attempted assassination, a big step up from the firearms and threat charges Taranto faced, even though she turned herself in before actually getting to Kavanaugh’s house.
So, less firepower than Taranto and a voluntary surrender, but prosecutors asked for 30 years for Roske, yet didn’t propose even one-tenth that for Taranto.
Or see the DOJ’s apparent refusal to follow-up on or prosecute people lobbing death threats against Rep. Eric Swalwell of California.
We know exactly who matters to this administration: violent people who support Trump’s every move. For the rest of us? Good luck.
