Proud Boys’ Joe Biggs Gets 17 Years in Prison for Jan 6 Protest, Judge Suggests Pushing Over Fence Was ‘Terrorism’
Chris Menahan
Proud Boys member Joe Biggs on Thursday was sentenced to 17 years in prison for storming into the Capitol building on Jan 6.
“Judge Tim Kelly just made destruction of part of a temporary metal fence on govt property a federal crime of terrorism,” Julie Kelly reported. “Said removal of fence was part of the Proud Boys ‘conspiracy’ to ‘influence the conduct of government.'”
“This dramatically increases base level of jail time for Joe Biggs and Kelly no doubt will do the same for the other Proud Boys,” she said. “Knew it was coming but still flabbergasted.”
BREAKING: Judge Tim Kelly just made destruction of part of a temporary metal fence on govt property a federal crime of terrorism.
Said removal of fence was part of the Proud Boys “conspiracy” to “influence the conduct of government.”
This dramatically increases base level of…
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) August 31, 2023
Obviously I’ll have a lot to report on what just happened I’m Proud Boys sentencing but I’m still in shock after hearing an assistant US Attorney straining to compare shaking part of a metal fence to a mass causality event to justify terrorism enhancement.
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) August 31, 2023
Here is the fence shaking incident DOJ and Judge Tim Kelly have branded a federal crime of terrorism to “influence government.”
This is what a line prosecutor tried to compare to mass casualty events and use of WMDs.
Just when you think you’ve heard it all… pic.twitter.com/7V3uyAPQN8
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) August 31, 2023
Without a press cheering it on and a silent GOP establishment, this couldn’t happen in America. The slightest unified resistance to the executive branch would force these extreme prosecutions back to reality. But Republican embarrassment of their base keeps them from doing so. https://t.co/Sjkyo3FPlI
— a newsman (@a_newsman) August 31, 2023
2nd Proud Boy sentenced this afternoon. Judge Kelly gives Zack Rehl 15 years in prison. He, like Biggs, already has been incarcerated for 2 1/2+ years.
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) August 31, 2023
From The Gateway Pundit, “Joe Biggs Sobs in Court After He Is Sentenced to 17 Years”:
Observers in the courtroom broke out in tears as Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Joseph Biggs to 204 months in prison for walking in the Capitol building for approximately 20 minutes during the Capitol riot on January 6.
The government sought 33 years for Biggs. Kelly ceded to the defense that the government sentencing recommendation was egregious.
Kelly noted prior offenders who were found guilty of seditious conspiracy had all murdered people, attempted to murder masses of people, bombed or attempted to bomb buildings and committed other violent crimes that resulted in mass casualty.
But the federal judge proceeded to throw the book at the decorated veteran who earned two purple hearts while serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, warning Biggs’ trespassing violation and shaking of a fence for a moment as Congress secured Biden’s presidency warrants severe penalty.
Biggs’ family was not present during the proceeding.
Biggs’ mother is ill with cancer as she raises his now 6-year-old daughter. Attending trial or visiting her son in jail puts her at risk of getting terminated from her job, as other family members of J6 defendants have after their employers catch wind of their association with a defendant deemed a J6 terrorist by the government.
J6 advocate turned court reporter with AMP News, Suzzanne Monk, has attended nearly every day of the Proud Boys trial alongside this reporter.
“Judge Kelly’s decision is an attack on the constitutional principles of this country and will lead to far more violence and division in our nation,” Monk told TGP. “He should stand down and recuse himself from all J6 cases. I love Joe. Joe Biggs is a hero. He deserves none of this. None of these sentences will stand through appeals and congressional action.”
Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Marine Corps veteran Zachary Rehl to 15 years to life in prison for being in the wrong place at the wrong time — walking through the Capitol building for approximately 20 minutes during the Capitol riot on January 6.
The government sought 33 years life in federal prison for Rehl, the head of the Philadelphia chapter of the Proud Boys, for “his role in the Capitol riot.”
Rehl committed no violent crimes on January 6. He walked through the Capitol building on January 6 for merely a few minutes, took a selfie in the building then left the Capitol grounds.
Prosecutors argue the 37-year-old Marine Corps veteran and his allies, former Proud Boys chair Enrique Tarrio, 39, Joseph Biggs. 39, and Ethan Nordean, 33, aimed to foment a revolution on January 6 to keep former President Donald Trump in power in a “terror attack” that left a stain on American democracy.
Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump-appointee from the Federalist Society who has been a massive disappointment, went on a self-righteous monologue while sentencing Biggs to prison and acted like he was being fair and balanced.
“That day broke our tradition of peacefully transferring power,” said U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly as he delivered Biggs’ sentence. “The mob brought an entire branch of government to heel.”
[…] Kelly, an appointee of Donald Trump, agreed with prosecutors that the crimes committed by Biggs and Rehl amounted to an act of terrorism aimed at influencing the government. In Jan. 6 cases, that distinction had until Thursday been applied only to members of the Oath Keepers who were similarly convicted of seditious conspiracy or obstruction.
Kelly spoke at length about his decision to apply the terrorism label and how the Jan. 6 attack compared to other, more stereotypical acts of terrorism that involve mass casualties or bombings.
“While blowing up a building in some city somewhere is a very bad act, the nature of the constitutional moment we were in that day is something that is so sensitive that it deserves a significant sentence,” Kelly said.
The judge, however, did not use the terrorism designation to sharply increase his sentences for Biggs and Rehl. Doing so, he said, would result in an overly harsh punishment because the terrorism enhancement is primarily geared to actions with an “intent to kill” — which he did not attribute to Biggs or Rehl.
The sentences are an important marker in the fraught aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack. Prosecutors, who had asked for a 33-year sentence for Biggs and 30 years for Rehl, said they and their co-conspirators were the driving force behind the violence that unfolded that day, facilitating breaches at multiple police lines and helping the crowd advance into the building itself. A jury convicted the five Proud Boys of multiple conspiracies in June, after a four-month trial that recounted their actions in painstaking detail.
Prosecutors urged Kelly to severely punish Biggs and Rehl as a way to deter others who might consider similar actions in the future aimed at disrupting the government.
The fear and effect on society caused by Jan. 6 is “no different than the act of a spectacular bombing of a building,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough said at Biggs’ sentencing hearing.
“There’s a reason why we will hold our collective breath as we approach future elections,” McCullough said. “We never gave it a second thought before Jan. 6. … They pushed us to the edge of a constitutional crisis.”
“It’s almost seductive in how tangible a future act like this could be,” the prosecutor added. “It doesn’t take the step of amassing bomb-making equipment to bring the United States government and our society to the brink of a constitutional crisis. It just takes slick propaganda and an environment where you encourage people to basically say, ‘It’s us against them,’ and ‘We’re going to use force to achieve our political ends.'”
What a load of crap.
The overwhelmingly majority of BLM rioters escaped all accountability and many are now collecting multi-million dollar settlements left and right from the government but J6 protesters are getting locked up for decades.
There were BLM-Antifa rioters in Portland in 2020 who set fire to occupied buildings who weren’t even prosecuted. https://t.co/ns7jMBgDvh
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) August 31, 2023
There is no justifying this two-tiered “justice” system and the blatantly bias of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s DOJ letting Portland BLM rioters off easy while prosecuting J6ers to the fullest extent of the law should have been reason enough to throw out all their charges under the Equal Protection Clause.
