This morning's Crabgrass learning of the sentencing was via posting at emptywheel.
The emptywheel posting had comments, and one item headline noted the man's given first name is Elmer. Wikipedia gives his full legal name as Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, while websearch also reports him as "Stuart Rhodes." In any event, eighteen years.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked on Thursday about potentially using his pardon power if elected president to offer clemency to Jan. 6 defendants or even Donald Trump -- and while he didn't answer directly, he suggested he would consider it.
"A
big part of being president is pardon powers. Do you think the Jan. 6
defendants deserve to have their cases examined by a Republican
president? And if Trump, let's say, gets charged with federal offenses
and you are the president of the United States, would you look at
potentially pardoning Trump himself based on the evidence that might
emerge of those charges?" Travis asked DeSantis.
The governor did not mention either Trump or any specific Jan. 6 cases by name but suggested he was open to the idea.
"We
will be aggressive [in] issuing pardons," he said, arguing that the
Department of Justice and FBI had become "weaponized" to pursue
political rather than law enforcement goals.
[...] DeSantis' remarks about pardons come on the same day a federal judge handed down the longest sentence to date for a Jan. 6 crime.
Stewart
Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18
years in prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy and other
charges. Rhodes calls himself a "political prisoner."
"You,
sir, present an ongoing threat and peril to this country," the judge
told Rhodes, also citing the stockpile of weapons that the Oath Keepers
had amassed outside the nation's capital ahead of the certification of
Joe Biden's presidential win two years ago.
The Department of Justice reports that more than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the government's Jan. 6 investigation.
More
than 300 people have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or
impeding officers or employees that day, the DOJ has said, and more than
100 defendants have been accused of using deadly weapons.
About 140 police were attacked on Jan. 6, according to DOJ.
Florida
Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a fundraising picnic for U.S. Rep.
Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, Saturday, May 13, 2023, in Sioux Center, Iowa.
Charlie Neibergall/AP
On
Travis and Sexton's radio show, DeSantis said that "what I'm going to
do is -- I'm going to do on day one -- I will have folks that will get
together and look at all these cases, who are people, who are victims of
weaponization or political targeting."
The
governor didn't say whether he felt a pardon would be appropriate for
the former president, whose conduct related to the attack on the Capitol
is being investigated by special counsel Jack Smith.
But DeSantis said that there was the possibility that those charged in Jan. 6 were being mistreated.
"If
there are three other people who did the same thing, but just in a
context like [Black Lives Matter protests] and they don't get prosecuted
at all, that is uneven application of justice, and so we're going to
find ways where that did not happen and then we will use the pardon
power," he said, later noting "it will be done on a case-by-case basis."
"And
that could be from a grandma who got arrested and prosecuted to all the
way up to, potentially, Trump himself," Travis said.
"I
would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics or
weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or
how big," DeSantis said.
His campaign did not respond to a request for clarification on his pardon comments.
The
Florida governor, who has commanded state politics with a Republican
supermajority in Tallahassee, has indicated in interviews that he would
wield more executive muscle as president than is typical, touting the
"levers" of the office that can enact day-one changes -- including by
bypassing norms of independent law enforcement agencies.
Asked about the DOJ and FBI by WTN 99.7's Steve Murphy,
DeSantis said, "Democrat but mostly Republican presidents have bought
this idea that they're independent [agencies] and you can't be involved
with them. No, they answer to the elected president. You have every
right to call in the attorney general, call in the FBI director and say,
'Hey, wait a minute … Why are you doing this?'"
DeSantis declared his long anticipated candidacy on Wednesday night during a Twitter event with Elon Musk which was initially delayed by technical glitches.
As
some of his primary opponents, like Trump, seized on the malfunction to
criticize DeSantis, his team said the problems were due to how popular
the online event was -- straining Twitter's capacity.
He enters the race as potentially the biggest challenger to Trump for the GOP nomination, early polls show.
Why, when the headline talks of sentencing, shift to DeSantis talking of "weaponizing?"
Two reasons, ABC being quoted but with the sentencing being collaterally mentioned, and editorial privilege.
Jan. 6 was what it was. The sentencing is what it is. Reporting of DeSantis is news.
That Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show title sounds as if it is a bluegrass music thing, not politics. But being political, might it move to Twitter?
Donald Trump says he plans to pardon US Capitol attack participants if elected
Donald
Trump said on Thursday he would pardon and apologize to those who
participated in the deadly attack on the US Capitol on January 6 if he
were elected to the White House again.
“I mean full pardons with an apology to many,” he told Wendy Bell, a conservative radio host on Thursday. “I will be looking very, very strongly about pardons, full pardons.”
Jan
29 (Reuters) - U.S. former President Donald Trump said on Saturday if
he were to run for president and win in 2024, he would pardon people
charged with criminal offenses in connection with the deadly Jan. 6
assault by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump,
who has not said whether he will run for president again after his
defeat by Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election, was speaking at a
rally in Conroe, Texas.
"Another
thing we'll do, and so many people have been asking me about it, if I
run and if I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly," Trump
said to applause. "We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons
we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly."
Thousands
of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the worst
assault on Congress since the War of 1812. Fueled by Trump's false
claims that his November 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud,
the attackers sought to stop Congress from certifying Biden's victory.
Both Trump reports were from 2022. The DeSantis report, yesterday.?
Last: websearch = Number pardons DeSantis issued as governor florida
Run that search in whatever search engine you prefer, and make what you will of the items returned.
With Trump and DeSantis the present Republican front runners; Trump leading in polling, DeSantis second, others at single digit percentages; there seems little difference between the two, with regard to pardon power and possible intentions, if winning the 2024 general election.
Both seem intent for now posturing for their party primary via extremism, from which they can tone down and alter positions, whichever wins primary voting, to better fare in the 2024 general election's independent vote.
