Washington – President Trump's order issue blanket amnesty defendants convicted of crimes arising from January 6, 2021, attack The attack on the US Capitol has drawn sharp condemnation from federal judges in Washington, DC, who presided over the cases and are now dismissing charges at the request of federal prosecutors in the new administration.
The judges publicly expressed their dissatisfaction in a trio of separate orders issued on Wednesday, two days after Mr Trump granted pardons to more than 1,500 defendants on January 6 and ordered any pending prosecutions dismissed . took the oath of office For the second term.
Following Mr Trump's order, prosecutors in Washington are seeking to end the ongoing cases. Justice Department Said Nearly 300 cases related to the Capitol attack were pending earlier this month. It said about 60% of those defendants were charged with assault, resisting or obstructing law enforcement or obstructing officers during civil disorder, which are felonies.
Citing years spent reviewing evidence and deciding hundreds of cases involving defendants accused of violent and non-violent criminal offenses, the judges rebuked efforts to downplay the events of January 6.
an order Issued by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversaw the election interference case against Mr Trump which was rejected After his election in November, he said that “No apology can change the tragic truth of what happened on January 6, 2021.”
“In hundreds of such cases over the last four years, the judges of this district have dispensed justice without fear or favour,” Chutkan wrote. “The historical record established by those proceedings, regardless of political winds, should stand as a testament and a warning.”
Dismissing the case, he said, “does not whitewash the blood, feces and terror unleashed by the mob. And it does not repair the broken breach in America's sacred tradition of peaceful regime change.”
The expungement order came in the case against John Bañuelos, an Illinois man who was arrested in March faced five chargesThat includes obstructing law enforcement and entering a restricted building with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
Prosecutors said he was seen on security footage among the crowd of rioters who breached police lines on the Capitol grounds, and court documents reportedly show an image of Bañuelos holding a gun in the waistband of his pants. Looks like a gun. Prosecutors said security footage of the attack later showed him climbing the scaffolding around the inauguration stage, pulling a gun from his waistband and firing two shots into the air. Bañuelos pleaded not guilty to the charges.
one more Order US District Judge Beryl Howell rejected Mr Trump's claim that the January 6 prosecution represented a “grave national injustice” and that the pardon would begin “a process of national reconciliation”.
“There was no ‘national injustice’ committed here, just as there was no outcome-determining election fraud in the 2020 presidential election,” Howell wrote, referring to Mr. Trump’s proclamation. “No process of 'national reconciliation' can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses the election, are glorified for disrupting constitutionally mandated proceedings in Congress and doing so with impunity This only increases the dangerous risk of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law.”
The judge said he had presided over “numerous” cases charging defendants for their conduct outside and inside the Capitol building and said the charges were based on videos, photos, confessions by the defendants themselves during plea hearings and statements to law enforcement. was “fully supported” by the testimony. And congressional staffers who were at the Capitol.
,[T]“His court cannot tolerate the revisionist myth propagated in this presidential proclamation,” Howell wrote.
He said these cases reflect the work of prosecutors, law enforcement officers and defense attorneys to protect our democracy and rights and preserve our long tradition of the peaceful transfer of power – which until January 6, 2021, was a lesson for the world. Worked as a model. – Providing all accused with every protection guaranteed by our Constitution and criminal justice system.”
Howell was granting the government's request to dismiss a nine-count superseding indictment against Nicholas DeCarlo and Nicholas Ochs, who had previously entered plea agreements and admitted in Throwing smoke bombs at police officers and causing property damage and theft.
According to court documents, Ochs founded the Hawaii chapter of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group. The two entered the Capitol and smoked cigarettes in the crypt – which is located just below the Rotunda – the filings show, and DeCarlo yelled “Where's Nancy?” A reference to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she made her way through the building.
A third order U.S. District Judge Colleen Koller-Cotelli granted the government's request to dismiss the indictment charging Dominic Box with seven felony and misdemeanor charges. Last year he was found guilty on six counts including civil disorder and disorderly conduct. Koller-Cotelli wrote that Box was among the first group of rioters who broke into the Capitol building on Jan. 6 and attacked police officers in the crypt.
He was to be sentenced on February 21.
Like her colleagues in the district court, Koller-Cotelli said the events of Jan. 6 have been preserved through video, trial transcripts, jury verdicts and judicial opinions analyzing the evidence.
“Those records are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their associates,” he wrote.
The judge said, dismissing the charges, granting amnesty and reducing the sentence will not change the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021.
Koller-Cotelli also praised the Capitol Police and local law enforcement who responded to the attack on the Capitol to protect lawmakers and staff, the Vice President and his family, and the Capitol building.
“For hours those officers were aggressively confronted and violently attacked. More than 140 officers were injured. Others tragically died as a result of the events of that day,” he wrote. “But law enforcement did not falter. By standing by with bear spray in their faces, those officers did their duty to protect.”
Throughout his campaign, Mr Trump had vowed to pardon the defendants on January 6, whom he called “hostages” and political prisoners. But the scope of the apologies were a surprise to some, as they were “full, complete and unconditional.”
The president also commuted the sentences of 14 defendants, including high-ranking members of the far-right groups Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. something, like Oath Keepers founder Stewart RhodesWas serving a sentence after being convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes.
Howell and Chutkan were nominated to the court by former President Barack Obama in 2010 and 2014, respectively. Kollar-Cotelli was selected by former President Bill Clinton and has served since 1997.