Most of them weren’t caught doing anything more than breaking into the capitol building. The ones who actually attacked cops or did something violent got standard prison sentences for those kinds of crimes. Sure, I would have liked longer sentences. But, these were mostly first-time offenders who didn’t do a violent crime, so they got sentences that go with that. The aim of the justice department wasn’t to try to put them in prison for as long as possible, but to treat them the same as any other criminal. Maybe the idea was that that was going to make the cases harder to overturn on appeal because there wasn’t any hint of political bias in the sentencing.
I think it would have had a pretty solid deterrent effect if Trump hadn’t come back and commuted their sentences / pardoned them. But, pardoning them is yet another way he’s completely throwing away the rule book.
most of them got slap on the wrist even before the election began, it was clear they dont want to upset the voter base of republicans.
Most of them weren’t caught doing anything more than breaking into the capitol building. The ones who actually attacked cops or did something violent got standard prison sentences for those kinds of crimes. Sure, I would have liked longer sentences. But, these were mostly first-time offenders who didn’t do a violent crime, so they got sentences that go with that. The aim of the justice department wasn’t to try to put them in prison for as long as possible, but to treat them the same as any other criminal. Maybe the idea was that that was going to make the cases harder to overturn on appeal because there wasn’t any hint of political bias in the sentencing.
I think it would have had a pretty solid deterrent effect if Trump hadn’t come back and commuted their sentences / pardoned them. But, pardoning them is yet another way he’s completely throwing away the rule book.