It sounds like they’re working their way up to the serious charges. We’ll need more popcorn.
“a necessary consequence of the prosecutorial approach of charging less serious offences first is that courts impose shorter sentences before they impose longer ones.”
– Attorney General Merrick Garland
That photo reminds me why we call these guys the Gravy Seals.
You just captured everything I’ve been thinking for the past year in one beautifully succinct fatality.
They’re going to get a pardon when the republicans get control of the levers of power properly.
the thing that galls me is that it’s 20 years maximum – why isn’t it 20 years MINIMUM?
“If”. Though the way things are going in Congress and the SCOTUS it can understandably be seen as “when”.
Meal Team 6
Read the indictment here
Eleven Seditious consiprators (Elmer Stewart Rhodes, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jesica Watkins, Joshua James, Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moershell, Brian Ulrich, Thomas Caldwell, and Edward Vallejo. IIRC, Thomas Caldwell and Jesica Watkins are people we’ve heard a lot about.
This may be the lynchpin of the real consequences moving forward. If these 11 are convicted (or even a subset) then anyone who supported them, financially or logistically, has 14th Amendment problems. Plan B if the voting rights laws don’t get passed thanks to Manchin/Sinema is to remove sufficient GOP Congresscritters to get the quorum down to a sufficient level to 1. Pass the measures without them, or 2. Boot enough GOP senators in Dem-governed states to reach a supermajority.
States with Dem governors and GOP senators:
Louisiana (2)
Kentucky (2)
Maine
Kansas (2)
North Carolina (2)
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
Check my math, but I think that’s 50+11 = 61. Filibuster proof, if the Dems play hardball.
In case you were wondering about his eye patch:
“ The injury dates back to 1993, according to an Atlantic investigation.
The article states that Rhodes, a former firearms instructor, dropped a loaded handgun and it shot him in the face, blinding him in his left eye.”
He shot himself in the face.
That moron is the “genius” these traitors are choosing to follow. No surprise they’re going to prison.
Governor Edwards is the only democrat elected to a statewide office in Louisiana. The state legislature has already called the first special session just to overide a veto (which thankfully failed). It would take way more than him playing hardball to remove replace the senators with dems
And I’ll also point out that right-wing, white-supremacists have kidnapped the governor of Louisiana before to prevent reforms
eta: changed based on duke’s comment below. I think he’d be removed from office before appointing two democratic senators, if this was tried.
He doesn’t remove them. The Justice Department, with the authority of the 14th Amendment, removes them. He appoints their replacements.
Keep tugging…
March 4, 2021
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/04/politics/capitol-riot-investigation-lawmakers/index.html
So far, investigators haven’t found evidence that members of Congress knowingly aided or were involved in the insurrection, the US official said. The FBI has seized devices belonging to alleged rioters and has found communications that show connections that investigators plan to examine further.
In some cases, there is data showing past contact with lawmakers, and in others there’s communications between alleged rioters discussing their associations with members of Congress. Some alleged rioters have also claimed to have provided security for lawmakers
In one case against an alleged leader of the right-wing paramilitary group the Oath Keepers, a defendant has claimed she was enlisted to provide security to legislators and others in their march to the Capitol.
All the legislators were in Congress. How were they going to protect them, except against the rest of the mob when they breached the building?
Next up: The Proud Boys and the 1st Amendment Praetorian.
I hope this is the first of very many.
Charges are one thing; convictions are another, & won’t happen overnight.
But I like to imagine You Know Who ranting & gibbering & wandering around Mar A Lago, while he thinks he feels the tendrils of the law wrapping around his ankles…
There’s the rub.
I sure hope Garland’s list is long enough that both chambers of Congress are much smaller.
It’s the Kingdom of the Blind.
I’ll save celebrations until they [and others] are actually there.
But thinking about it puts a smile on my face.
It’s the kind of thing that will snowball, once it gets rolling.
I just want to be 50 years from now, and read the history books dismissively say how dumb, misguided, and traitorous all these people were.
This is how it must have felt during every “stupid” period of history, like the Red Scare.
I like the sentiment, but I thought the process was to have the less serious offenders roll on higher ones? That would mean holding out on convicting and sentencing until the big guys are behind bars. Maybe these are all simplifications to how things work in practice?
