Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Late edit to add: Kudos to Ronald Reagan appointee Judge Royce Lamberth.

"A Republican-appointed judge just smacked down GOP deniers on January 6

[...]

...Royce Lamberth had had enough. Lamberth used the first sentencing hearing for a defendant charged in the attack on the Capitol to blast Republicans trying to cast January 6 as anything other than a violent riot aimed at stopping the wheels of democracy from turning.

"I'm especially troubled by the accounts of some members of Congress that January 6 was just a day of tourists walking through the Capitol," Lamberth said. "I don't know what planet they were on. ... This was not a peaceful demonstration. It was not an accident that it turned violent; it was intended to halt the very functioning of our government."

Lamberth, was nominated to his judgeship by the late Republican president Ronald Reagan in 1987 .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royce_Lamberth .
In June 2021, 34 years later, in sentencing a Jan 6 insurrectionist, Rotce Lamberth got everything right.

More from yours

"Here's McCarthy describing what happened on January during an interview with Fox News Channel in late April:

"What I talked to President Trump about, I was the first person to contact him when the riots was going on. He didn't see it. What he ended the call was saying -- telling me, he'll put something out to make sure to stop this. And that's what he did, he put a video out later."

Which is, uh, not exactly what happened. Here's what did happen, via reporting in February from CNN's Jamie Gangel, Kevin Liptak, Michael Warren and Marshall Cohen:

"Speaking to the President from inside the besieged Capitol, McCarthy pressed Trump to call off his supporters and engaged in a heated disagreement about who comprised the crowd. Trump's comment about the would-be insurrectionists caring more about the election results than McCarthy did was first mentioned by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Washington state, in a town hall earlier this week, and was confirmed to CNN by Herrera Beutler and other Republicans briefed on the conversation."

Lamberth made clear this week that he wouldn't stand for that junk -- blasting as "conspiracy theories" .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/captiol-riot-first-sentence/2021/06/23/8b2825d8-d39c-11eb-ae54-515e2f63d37d_story.html .. the idea that the FBI was somehow involved in the riot. "

Your link - https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-republican-appointed-judge-just-smacked-down-gop-deniers-on-january-6/ar-AALoK61

Late thought, when would the sentence be handed down? .. tidbits ..from a WAPO article

The 49-year-old Indiana woman before him, who had just pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of demonstrating inside the Capitol, did not disagree.

Although the day after the riot Anna Morgan-Lloyd described Jan. 6 as “the most exciting day of my life,” in court she expressed regret and contrition.

“I went there to support .?.?. President Trump peacefully,” she said. “I’m ashamed that it became a savage display of violence that day. .?.?. It was never my intent to be a part of something that’s so disgraceful to our American people and so disgraceful to our country. I just want to apologize.”

[...]

The judge also took time to dismiss “conspiracy theories” about FBI informants and address claims that the Capitol defendants are being treated more harshly than Black Lives Matter protesters. He said he couldn’t speak to what happens in state courts, but that Attorney General Merrick Garland has “promised the law will be applied equally .?.?. whatever the complexion of the demonstrator is.”

He noted that Martin Luther King Jr., although he was never violent, prepared to go to jail when he protested against violence.

“Some of my defendants in some of these other cases think there’s no consequence to this, and there is a consequence,” Lamberth said. “I don’t want to create the impression that probation is the automatic outcome here, because it’s not going to be.”

Lamberth is a respected figure in the federal judiciary who was previously the presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and served a second term chairing a judiciary panel on inter-circuit assignments. Appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987, he is a former federal and U.S. Army prosecutor who is known to be a tough sentencer.

He warned Morgan-Lloyd that if she violates her terms of release in any way, she will go to jail — in his court, “probation comes once in a lifetime.” She must also perform 40 hours of community service and pay $500 in restitution.

Her defense attorney H. Heather Shaner went to great lengths to show that Morgan-Lloyd deserved leniency. She had her client read books and watch movies about discrimination and share her thoughts with the judge.

“I’ve lived a sheltered life and truly haven’t experienced life the way many have,” Morgan-Lloyd wrote. “At first it didn’t dawn on me, but later I realized that if every person like me, who wasn’t violent, was removed from that crowd, the ones who were violent may have lost the nerve to do what they did.”

[...]

The government sentencing recommendation of 36 months of probation is greater than a 12-month term of supervision that would follow a maximum six-month prison term for someone convicted of parading, picketing or demonstrating in the Capitol. Most first-time misdemeanor offenders do not receive prison time.

Prosecutors have been offering first-time offenders charged only with misdemeanors at the Capitol — roughly half the total — the option of pleading guilty to a single count, paying $500 in restitution and meeting with investigators.

Two defendants have pleaded guilty to more serious felony offenses. Jon Ryan Schaffer, 53, described in court documents as a founding member of the Oath Keepers, is cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of trimming a roughly four-year recommended prison term for obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and trespassing in the Capitol while armed.

Tampa crane operator Paul Allard Hodgkins, 38, faces a 15- to 21-month recommended sentencing range after pleading guilty to felony obstruction of Congress.

Lamberth’s remarks were reinforced by other judges Wednesday, including U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a 2017 Trump appointee.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/captiol-riot-first-sentence/2021/06/23/8b2825d8-d39c-11eb-ae54-515e2f63d37d_story.html