Levin: Why Is Biden DOJ Holding Capitol Rioters in Confinement, While Dropping Charges Against BLM and Anarchists?
Fox News host Mark Levin hammered the Department of Justice over the weekend for the unequal treatment of those accused of engaging in wrongdoing during the Jan. 6 incursion into the Capitol versus those who participated in Black Lives Matter and antifa riots last spring and summer.
“I’m not defending in any way what happened on Jan. 6 in the Capitol building, but I am saying we need a little bit of even-handedness and justice here,” he said on his program “Life, Liberty & Levin” which aired Sunday night.
“They’re being treated like they’re terrorists and at Guantanamo Bay, where they’d be treated actually better,” the conservative said of those charged with Jan. 6 related crimes.
Levin — who served a chief of staff for then-Attorney General Edwin Meese during the Reagan administration — cited reporting that the DOJ has brought charges against nearly 500 people, several of whom are being held in confinement without bail.
“I want to know what’s happening to these people. Do we live in a free country or not?” he said. “Do we live in a republic or not? Is there going to be justice, real justice or not? We cannot have our FBI, as we have learned, and these prosecutors conducting themselves in the dark without us knowing exactly what’s going on. Moreover, why are some citizens treated one way and some citizens treated another?”
“You have to ask yourselves, ‘What is going on here?’ Again we hear that people are charged with misdemeanors. We hear that people are being threatened, that they might need to make plea agreements,” Levin added.
“We hear that they’re being told that they have to pay funds so they can fix the Capitol building. Then I ask myself, ‘How about Black Lives Matter and antifa? Who’s rounding them up? Who’s sending SWAT teams out to get them?’ They did billions and billions and billions of dollars in damage. Looting. Arson. Assault. People died.”
The Fox News personality pointed to a report published last week by the Department of the Interior’s inspector general’s office concluding that former President Donald Trump and former Attorney General William Barr did not order Lafayette Park near the White House to be cleared of Black Lives Matters protesters so the 45th president could have a photo opportunity.
Rather it was so additional anti-scaling fencing could be erected to better protect the White House and nearby St. John’s Church.
“We were told that Donald Trump and Bill Barr ordered that Lafayette Park be cleared and they used rubber bullets and tear gas on ‘mostly peaceful protesters.’ First of all, mostly peaceful protesters? They almost burned down the historic church in Washington, D.C., St. John’s Church,” Levin said.
“They were trying to charge the fence at the White House. Over 49 United States park police were injured. Over 50 Secret Service agents and uniformed agents were injured,” he added.
“The president of the United States and his family had to be taken to the nuclear bunker under the White House. That’s an insurrection, ladies and gentlemen.”
The Associated Press reported that Secret Service agents rushed then-President Trump to a White House bunker the night of May 29, 2020, as hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters gathered outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Secret Service said in a May 31 statement, “Some demonstrators repeatedly attempted to knock over security barriers, and vandalized six Secret Service vehicles. Between Friday night and Sunday morning, more than 60 Secret Service Uniformed Division Officers and Special Agents sustained multiple injuries from projectiles such as bricks, rocks, bottles, fireworks and other items.
“Secret Service personnel were also directly physically assaulted as they were kicked, punched, and exposed to bodily fluids. A total of 11 injured employees were transported to a local hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries.”
Protesters also set St. John’s Church on fire that same night. Every president since James Madison has attended services at the church, which was built in 1815.
GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin argued on Levin’s Sunday program that establishment media outlets and Democrats have been trying to make the Jan. 6 incursion into something more than it was.
“It is extremely important to create an accurate, historical record of exactly what happened so the false narrative of thousands of armed insurrectionists doesn’t last,” he said.
Johnson, along with fellow Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Rick Scott of Floria, sent a letter last week to Attorney General Merrick Garland questioning why the DOJ is treating the Capitol rioters so differently than those in Portland, Oregon, and other places.
“Property destruction stemming from the 2020 social justice protests throughout the country will reportedly result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims,” they wrote.
The senators pointed to DOJ statistics finding that one federal officer was killed, 147 federal officers were injured and 600 local officers were also injured as a result of the 2020 protests.
They cited an April 14 Politico article headlined “Leniency for defendants in Portland clashes could affect Capitol riot cases.”
In it, the news outlet reported, “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”
The senators used their letter to highlight the apparent lack of vigor the DOJ has manifested against the social justice rioters versus those at the Capitol.
Among other issues, they wanted to know how many of the former had been incarcerated, allowed to be released on bail or released on their own recognizance with no bail.
The lawmakers then requested similar statistics for the Capitol rioters.
American Greatness reporter Julie Kelly told Levin there is no doubt the Capitol rioters are being treated differently than BLM and other social justice rioters.
“I think what the American people need to know is that the U.S. government, [President] Joe Biden’s Justice Department, is holding political prisoners in a jail in Washington, D.C., that has been opened up specially to house Jan. 6 defendants awaiting trial. They’ve been denied bail. They’re living in harsh, almost solitary confinement conditions in this jail,” she said.
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“They’ve arrested almost 500 people now, mostly for misdemeanor charges related to what happened on Jan. 6,” Kelly added. “This is a political persecution against Trump supporters.”
The reporter accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues of trying to keep a false narrative going about Jan. 6 being an armed insurrection, when no rioter who entered the Capitol has been charged with carrying or using a firearm.
Kelly said those charged are being held on pre-trial detention orders that may last up to a year before the accused have their day in court.
“This is a constitutional and humanitarian crisis that’s happening right in our nation’s capital,” she said.
Kelly argued Democrats just keep “inflating what happened that day, all for political purposes, to keep political prisoners in jail and act as a threat and intimidation and bully to millions of Trump supporters, people on the right, that, ‘You better watch your step or else you’re going to pay a price.'”
