Surprise! Merrick Garland, Who Has Claimed He Will Move Heaven and Earth to Punish Domestic Terrorism, Tears Up the Plea Agreement From BLM Firebombers So That They Can Agree to Even Lighter Charges

And then his handpicked lawyer urges the judge in the case to sentence them lightly, even under this new, discounted plea agreement deal.

I stress: They already pled guilty to more serious offenses. Merrick Garland tore up a plea deal he already had in his hand to substitute a softer one.

Because he's such a bear on domestic terrorism.

But not real domestic terrorism. Just fake domestic terrorism, like "parading in a public place."

Andy McCarthy vouched for this guy being a centrist moderate and completely ethical jurist, right?

On the cusp of nonstop, around-the-clock (primetime!) coverage of the Jan. 6 committee hearings, a couple of domestic terrorists are actually getting their day in court, and it is informative to see how Merrick Garland's Justice Department is handling their prosecution.

Recall Garland's breathless declaration, during his confirmation hearings, that "150 years after the Department's founding, battling extremist attacks on our democratic institutions also remains central to its mission."

Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman were arrested in the "mostly peaceful" protests following George Floyd's murder. The two lawyers handed out Molotov cocktails to the crowd, and Rahman tossed one into a police car before fleeing the scene in Mattis's van. They reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in October 2020 that wiped out six of the seven charges against them. Those prosecutors, nonetheless, sought a maximum 10-year sentence and argued that the incident qualified for a so-called terrorism enhancement that would turbocharge sentencing--a determination with which the U.S. Probation Office concurred.

Ginning herself up to distribute explosives to the crowd, Rahman gave a video interview in which she declared, "This shit won't ever stop until we fuckin' take it all down," adding that "the only way [the police] hear us is through violence."

Then, Garland and the U.S. attorney for New York's Eastern District, Breon Peace, who's handling the prosecution, took office, and you won't believe what happened next!

In mid-May, the same career DOJ prosecutors who argued for that 10-year sentence were back in court withdrawing their plea deal and entering a new one that allowed the defendants to cop to the lesser charge of conspiracy. It tosses out the terrorism enhancement entirely.

The new charge carries a five-year maximum sentence, but the prosecutors are urging the judge to go below that, asking for just 18 to 24 months on account of the "history and personal characteristics of the defendants" and the "aberrational nature of the defendants' conduct." Because, you know, Mattis graduated from Princeton and New York University Law School and was an attorney at the white-shoe law firm Pryor Cashman, and Rahman was a public-interest lawyer whose "best friend," Obama administration intelligence official Salmah Rizvi, guaranteed the $250,000 required to release her on bail.

Law360, which reported on the events, calls the new deal an "unusual step."

They said with considerable understatement.

Viva Frei notes that the explanations for reducing the charges from domestic terrorism to a slap on the wrist -- about their "history and personal characteristics," that is, they were rich and well-connected -- are the very definition of actual privilege.

Meanwhile, January 6th protesters are going to jail for four years for stealing a coat tree. And "parading in a public place."

Steve Deace
@SteveDeaceShow

I am going to post a note here I received this morning from a January Sixther. I will post it without comment. Feel free to read it and then come to your own conclusions:

"I listen to your podcast and I follow @julie_kellyz. It's every bit as bad as she describes. I am a husband and father who has zero criminal history.... And I am looking at years in prison AFTER I took a plea.

"You may ask why would people take a plea if they are innocent? Innocent has nothing to do with this as my lawyer has told over and over again. This is payback. There are only a handful of representatives in DC that care about us. The vast majority couldn't care less.

"They secretly despise Trump and anyone on the 6th as well. The DOJ knows this. There will be no reform of this government. There will be no going back. All there is now is the path ahead. But that path will never lead back to the country we once were.

"I watched for 4 years as our government that I pay taxes for, try to impeach and even oust our president with sheer impunity. Hillary's smearing stunt morphed into a coup that lasted Trumps entire term. Then I watched the election get stolen from the American people.

"So I went to DC to support the way I thought best. I wasn't violent, I didn't break anything, I didn't steal anything and that doesn't matter. I lost my 6 figure income, friends, and my family is a wreck. I had the FBI in my home, I was brought before a judge in shackles.

"And I am a lucky one. I got to remain free till sentencing. So this is the country that I now live in. Where the powerful few can attack an elected president attempting to removing him for 4 years and where elections no longer matter.

"We are no longer free. And this country WAS taken without firing a single shot. Guns are meaningless at this point. It was the First Amendment that people should have been fighting for the most.

"I am now barely making a living doing manual labor for just over minimum wage until my sentencing is over. I was threatened with 20 years in prison, something only murderers face. We couldn't change the venue and none of the motions to dismiss were accepted.

"So, at the pleading of my wife, the extreme bias of DC and it's "jury pool of my peers" and advice from my lawyer, I destroyed a part of me and signed a paper full of exaggerations, lies and more importantly a narrative that fits what they want.

"I am a Christian and somehow I feel damned. I lied to save my family. My pastor tells me about rehab but it doesn't help. I don't look at myself in the mirror anymore. A part of me is dead now. I now wake up longing for the Lord to take me.

"January 6th was a dark day. There was violence by some, that's reprehensible. No one should have broken anything or stolen anything or hurt anyone. Having said that, January 6th should be remembered as the last outburst from people who were sick of the coups against Trump...

"The lies about Russia gate, the double standard of the Bidens and how they obtained their wealth compared to the treatment of Trump, the double standard of BLM rioters and everyone else...

"The forced LGBTQ pumped into our children minds at school while trying to shut out God at every corner, the endless wars, the celebrations of abortions, the government spending that has put children not even born into life long debt, the list goes on...

"This was the last cry out for the death of a nation. I don’t know what’s going to happen to my family while I'm gone for years. My wife has depended on me our whole marriage. She is the only woman I have ever been with, the only woman I have ever loved.

4h
"I hope she and my kids can make it without me. I am a J6er and I am going to prison."

Actual domestic terrorists who firebombed a police car and handed out molotov cocktails to rioters are getting 18-24 months, this guy is going away for years.

But let's all keep saluting the flag.

Below, Tucker Carlson talks about our Banana Republic "justice system" and notes that no country can survive in peace when the peace officers are just armed agents of a corrupt, violent repressive regime.

posted by Ace at 01:12 PM

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