Federal prosecutors want to wipe out the seditious conspiracy convictions of 12 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who helped plan the Jan. 6, 2021, riots and led the charge into the U.S. Capitol, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
The request, made by U.S. Attorney Jeanine "Box of Wine" Pirro, will probably be granted because prosecutors have such broad discretion to pursue or drop criminal charges, even after convictions. Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers and a lead organizer behind the riots, is among those whose convictions Pirro is seeking to erase.
If Pirro’s request is approved by the courts, it will wipe out the last remaining convictions related to the Jan. 6 assault.
Now, let's compare and contrast this story from Ken Klippenstein. You read about Chamel Abdulkarim, the guy who burned down the Ontario CA warehouse where he worked? This is how the U.S. attorney addressed it:
US Attorney Essayli goes on to cast the arson attack as a sign of anti-capitalist sentiment, promising to “aggressively” pursue anyone who attacks capitalism — or “our way of life,” as he put it:
“Look, America is founded on free enterprise and capitalism. Anyone who attacks our values, our way of life, our system, which provides the best goods and services to the most people, we’re gonna come after aggressively.”
That fact is at the very center of NSPM-7 — national security presidential memorandum 7 — signed by President Trump last September, that identifies “anti-capitalism” as a so-called indicator of domestic terrorism. The directive opens with a section that mentions “the 2024 assassination of a senior healthcare executive” — i.e. Luigi Mangione — as indicative of a growing threat.
Klippenstein warned:
Get used to stuff like this. As I reported in January, a leaked draft copy of the Department of Homeland Security’s upcoming annual Homeland Threat Assessment introduced a new “extremism” threat category: “class-based or economic grievances.”
[...] The obscene price of gasoline as a result of the Iran war (part of our hallowed “way of life,” which allows oil companies to price gouge even in emergencies) has once again thrust the cost of living into the spotlight. Millions of Americans resonate with Mangione and Abdulkarim.
Isn’t anyone in power curious why that is?
As a friend told me today when I brought up the Kimberly-Clark fire: Who that’s worked a shitty job hasn’t fantasized about burning it all down? (This is literally the plot of the cult classic movie Office Space!)
Democrats and Republican politicians alike mouth “affordability” but do nothing. Civil government is also starved, bled of resources by our national security colossus that devises more and more ways to spy on anyone opposed, or drowns out their voices by flooding the media with security-speak.
There are basically two ways the government can respond to things like the Kimberly-Clark fire: (1) treat them as national security threats to be monitored and preempted forever; or (2) address the underlying grievances causing them.
Sounds like a real “head-scratcher.”
