Wishing the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters - and their ringleaders - a miserable little Christmas
According to a wartime Christmas standard that has gained new resonance in the throes of the pandemic, we’ll all be together one day “if the fates allow.” But for some of our least deserving fellow Americans headed home for the holidays, it’s not fate making the allowance so much as an uncharacteristically forgiving federal judiciary.
Take Adam Johnson, a Florida man best known for stealing furniture from a California woman. Johnson pleaded guilty last month to federal charges of entering and remaining in a restricted building in a case that was not exactly a whodunit: He was famously photographed in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 with one hand waving at the camera and the other clutching a lectern from the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Johnson could face imprisonment for participating in the worst breach of the Capitol since the War of 1812, but he won’t face anything so draconian as a yuletide away from his family. That’s because while he awaits sentencing, a judge allowed him to traverse the state to spend the holidays with relatives.
He isn’t the only American being shown such Christmas kindnesses by the government he tried to overthrow. Bloomberg News compiled an astounding list of accused Capitol rioters excused from bail restrictions for holiday travels within and among these tenuously United States — with the assent of judges and often without objection from prosecutors. The crimes alleged against this jolly crew include forcibly entering the Capitol, interfering with election certification and assaulting police officers.
Read more at: https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/article256774487.html
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