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The strong-arming tactics of the DOJ toward those who were found to be present at the Capitol on Jan 6 during the patriotic events have reached new heights as defendants are now threatened with life in prison if they do not accept a plea deal.
Intimidation of these defendants on the part of the DOJ makes it clear that the investigation into the events of Jan 6 is not a true investigation seeking truth and justice, but a witch hunt seeking scapegoats any way it can get them.
Gateway Pundit reported that a threatening letter from DOJ has been obtained by American Greatness which outlines threats made in a current case against members of the Oath Keepers.
On Jan 6,2021 members of the Oath Keepers were in Washington DC only to provide protection to speakers at the several organized protests that week.
Several members of Oath Keepers sang the National Anthem while standing on the Capitol steps with the tens of thousands of other patriots outside the building, Gateway Pundit reported. These members walked inside the US Capitol with police standing nearby, and were seen taking pictures inside, much as a tour group would.
Now those same men are threatened with life in prison if they do not accept a plea deal stating that their actions were against the law.
In the obtained letter, the U.S. Department of Justice is threatening defendants charged with seditious conspiracy in the sprawling Oath Keepers case to accept plea deals or face life in prison, Gateway Pundit reported.
Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia handling every prosecution related to the events of January 6, 2021, imposed a May 6 deadline for the remaining defendants to accept plea deals.
Three men have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy; nine others, including Oath Keepers’ founder Stewart Rhodes, have rejected government attempts to reach a plea.
“We write to advise you of applicable penalties that could apply upon conviction at trial,” Graves’ chief prosecutor in the case, Kathyrn Rakoczy, wrote to defense attorneys in a letter dated May 2. (Every January 6 defendant who has faced a jury trial in Washington, D.C. has been found guilty on all charges by jurors following brief deliberations.)
The report by Gateway Pundit continued: After detailing the hefty prison sentences and fines associated with other offenses charged in the case, Rakoczy turned to the potential sentence for seditious conspiracy, a crime so rare that federal sentencing guidelines don’t cover it.
“The United States takes the position that the most analogous offense to seditious conspiracy is ‘Treason,’” Rakoczy wrote. If a jury concludes the conspiracy involved conduct “that is tantamount to waging war against the United States,” Rakoczy explained, the government could seek a life sentence upon conviction.
Seditious conspiracy is defined as two or more people who “conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.”
After pressure from the media and Democratic leaders, Graves’ office indicted 11 Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy on January 12, 2022. Another Oath Keeper was indicted this week.
The Oath Keepers are not accused of carrying or using any weapons on January 6; none is charged with directly vandalizing government property.
Two “stacks” of Oath Keepers entered the building after the joint session of Congress recessed that afternoon and walked through open doors with police nearby, Gateway Pundit reported.
Patriots who were present at the Capitol on Jan 6 are now being subject to intimidation in the form of unjustified threats and must stand their ground in the face of persecution, but some are showing resolve as they see the hope of truth and justice in our judicial system.
One such person felt his resolve strengthen at a verdict in another Jan 6 case.
In April, defendant Shawn Witzmann changed his mind about receiving a plea deal after U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, an appointee of President Trump found defendant Matthew Martin not guilty during a bench trial.
Judge McFadden said that prosecutors did not prove Martin knowingly entered a restricted building and that he may have believed police officers had let him into the building, NBC News reported.
Witzemann said in a statement to NBC that he wanted to resolve the case ‘more than anyone,” but that a plea agreement would have forced him to lie under oath.
Witzemann’s attorney, Guy L. Womack, stated,” He didn’t want to plead guilty to begin with, but he was afraid to trust the judicial system in D.C.”
Womack continued that Witzemnn “seeing that the judge did the right thing” in the Martin case strengthened his resolve.
Source: The Republic Brief