Guilty until Proven Innocent

July 30, 2021

If you think China and North Korea are the only countries with "political prisoners," think again. According to some conservatives in Congress, some of the January 6th rioters have been held in jail for months under what they consider abusive conditions. At a press conference earlier this week, Republicans warned about the possible mistreatment of some defendants and demanded that they be treated fairly.

"If they're guilty, they need to be charged accordingly," Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) told the Washington Times, "but they need to be treated just like any other criminal." Stories continue to circulate that even the "nonviolent trespassers" have been put in solitary confinement for several hours a day. "Sadly, two systems of justice exist in America today," Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) (a former state judge) argued, "one for former President Trump along with those who support or don't hate him, and the other for everyone else." His colleague, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) agreed. "To my knowledge, none have been charged for insurrection, so I don't consider them insurrectionists."

And yet, their cases are being closely guarded by the DOJ, whose attorney general, Merrick Garland, refuses to answer basic questions from these congressmen about their status. Gohmert, who joined Tony Perkins on "Washington Watch" this week, argues that Biden's top law enforcer "is only about seeking to please the Democrats. He has no interest in being fair and judicious as the attorney general. It's really unfortunate. We've been begging for answers... We're not looking into specific cases. We're just wanting to know, is it true about the abuse that's been going on?"

Nothing but crickets in return, Gohmert shook his head. He and three other members went to the D.C. jail where some of the defendants are being held and explained that they were congressmen and wanted to ask a few questions. "A lady in uniform came out and said that we were trespassing, and that we had to get out. And I said, we've shown our ID for members of Congress. We're allowed to be here. We have to do oversight to know whether we ought to cut off funding for this facility or keep funding it. We need to know and we haven't gotten an answer."

Incredibly, a supervisor came over to the group -- a sergeant -- and she walked past them to make a phone call outside. So, the four members of Congress followed her outside to ask their questions, and "she double back[ed] around, went into the facility and locked the doors. I've never seen anything like [it]. It's unreal," Gohmert said.

Regardless of the Biden administration cover-up, Gohmert vows, "We're going to keep pushing... And of course there's the media sycophants, but there's [also] other media and even [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer (D-N.Y.) and [Senator Dick] Durbin (D-Ill.) have asked in recent weeks, are these people being treated fairly? So we're making headway by bringing attention to this, and we're just going to keep making noise until the demands get more people involved and finally they can't ignore the requests we have. So we'll see what happens. But we're not giving up."