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    GOP-led House to Force Out Horrible DHS Secretary Mayorkas Over Border, Other Disasters

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    7
    NEW YORK CITY (September 11, 2022) Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas lays flowers for USSS Master Special Officer Craig Miller and participates in the September 11th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City, NY. (DHS photo by Sydney Phoenix)

    ANALYSIS – The pressure on incompetent ideologue, Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden’s Homeland Security chief, is increasing daily. 

    His inability, or unwillingness to control the violent chaos at the border, and other major missteps, such as overhyping the ‘right wing’ domestic threat, are making him the lightning rod for the newly elected GOP-led House.

    As I wrote earlier, the House must aggressively investigate Mayorkas, and if needed, impeach him.

    He should be one of the first Team Biden heads to roll in 2023.

    Newsmax reports: “The White House will pressure Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign before House Republicans can push for his impeachment, but he likely won’t willingly step down…”

    “The White House sees the writing on the wall,”  said Mark Morgan, the acting Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner under former President Donald Trump, on Newsmax TV’s “Wake Up America.” 

    “They know what’s going on. I think they’re going to put pressure on Secretary Mayorkas to resign to prevent them the embarrassment of being dragged through hearings.”

    But Mayorkas’ “ego and pride” won’t let him “do what he needs to do in the best interests of this country,” Morgan added.

    Newsmax continued:

    His comments come after remarks by House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who hopes to become the House speaker after the new Congress is sworn in this coming January.

    Tuesday, McCarthy called on Mayorkas to step down and warned that the House might call for his impeachment after Republicans take over the majority…

    “We know Mayorkas has been this administration’s chief architect of the open border,” said Morgan. “He took the most secure border in our lifetime and intentionally un-secured it. In the last 22 months, we’ve had over 4.5 million encounters and 1.1 million known gotaways. 

    We know drugs are pouring into this country, literally killing Americans every single day. We know among the 1.1. million known gotaways are hardcore criminals, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and gang members.

    But while McCarthy emphasizes the border crisis, Mayorkas is also guilty of falsely demonizing and targeting half of all Americans.

    As the Center for Security Policy (CSP) explains:

    Alejandro Mayorkas [has] parroted the oft-repeated line that the biggest terrorist threat America faces comes from “domestic ideologically motivated extremism.”

    This is a central assertion by the Biden Administration…They have even gone so far as to claim U.S. law enforcement and the military are riddled with domestic extremists despite the fact there has been no real evidence released to support this supposition.

    CSP continues:

    In order to hype the seriousness of the domestic threat, the Biden Administration has soft-pedaled the very real danger of international terrorism.  According to Forbes, Mayorkas reported “that since the September 11 attacks, the threat landscape against the U.S. has substantially ‘evolved’ to the point that foreign terrorism is no longer the chief concern of DHS.”

    In other words, the threat from jihad receded and now takes a back seat to domestic “extremism.” In fact, Mayorkas said that the main threat was now what occurred on January 6 at the U.S. Capitol.

    The actions by Mayorkas at the border, and by hyping the so-called domestic threat are nothing short of disgraceful.

    We can only hope his ego doesn’t allow him to resign. It’s time for a real prime-time Congressional hearing focused on all these critical Team Biden- created issues.

    And then, if Biden doesn’t fire him, he should be impeached. GAND

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Biden Stashed Highly Classified Docs at Beach Home Garage, Next to ‘Corvette TS/SCI’

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    9
    Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Yes, Donald Trump took scores of highly classified materials to his home at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, but at least he didn’t stash them next to his old sports car in a garage.  

    Mar-a-Lago is also protected by the Secret Service.

    Meanwhile, Joe Biden may be the only POTUS to own a very sweet, racing green, 1967 Chevy Corvette Stingray – TS/SCI Edition.

    Who knows what’s in the glove compartment?

    The latest find by government investigators has shown former Vice President Biden apparently took a second batch of highly classified materials after leaving office in 2017 and stashed them in his Delaware beach home’s garage.

    The first batch found in a closet of a private office in DC Biden used relating to his shady relationship with the Penn Biden Center, including Top Secret/SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) which requires extraordinary security measures to protect.

    In fact, since they include intelligence sources and methods (people and processes) they must only be viewed, used, or discussed in a highly secure Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).

    As far as we know, Biden’s garage where he keeps his Corvette is not a SCIF.

    But that didn’t keep Biden from arguing his garage was still somehow secure, because, well, it is locked.

    In the White House’s South Court Auditorium, Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked the president, “Classified materials next to your Corvette? What were you thinking?”

    “My Corvette’s in a locked garage, OK? So, it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” Biden responded. 

    “People know I take classified documents and classified materials seriously.”

    Ummm… LOL. 

    Of course, you do, Joe. And we take you seriously as well.

    Continuing the patterns denial and obfuscation, on Wednesday, Doocy, along with other White House correspondents, had a tense encounter with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the classified documents. 

    “On these documents, how could anyone be that irresponsible?,” Doocy asks, reiterating Biden’s question about Donald Trump after boxes of classified documents were found in former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last year.

    Despite the barrage of intense questions about the documents over the past two days, Jean-Pierre has frustrated reporters by repeatedly dodging the questions.

    The Blaze reported:

    CBS anchors Errol Barnett and Lana Zak slammed Jean-Pierre for having “not answered a single question” about the discovery of the documents.

    “For a second straight day now, the White House struggling to answer any questions related to classified documents discovered at locations associated with President Biden, citing Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, simply reading a statement, where she says the president was surprised by the discovery, takes this matter very seriously, the documents were inadvertently misplaced, and he doesn’t know what’s in them,” Barnett began.

    “She has not answered a single question outside of a prewritten statement by the president’s lawyers,” he said.

    Thankfully, reporters are now directly questioning Team Biden’s narrative about being “transparent” and forthcoming about the classified documents.

    One big question that also remains unanswered is why Biden failed until now, to disclose the finding of the first batch of his mishandled classified documents, which occurred not long after the unprecedented August FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and only days before the 2022 midterm election in November.

    Hopefully, many other unanswered questions, such as did Biden use any of this classified material while writing his 2017 book, “Promise Me, Dad,” will be addressed soon.

    According to an order signed by the attorney general, Merrick Garland has appointed Robert K. Hur as special counsel, a veteran prosecutor, to examine “the possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records discovered” at Mr. Biden’s think tank in Washington and his residence in Wilmington, Del. 

    But this independent counsel should not preclude the media and the GOP-led House from continuing to push for the full truth on this issue.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Amanda Head: Marvel Comics Barley Surviving Woke Trends

    By
    Amanda Head
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    0
    Amanda Head screenshot

    Could the beloved world of Marvel Comics be done for?

    Countless movies, superheroes, and battles have captivated audiences for decades but now the woke mob is threatening to run everything.

    Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Obama DHS Secretary: FBI Overwhelmed by Potential Terrorists Crossing Border

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    0
    Jsg2020, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – You know things are bad when the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Team Obama is worried about terrorists crossing the border under Joe Biden. 

    In the wake of the gruesome and deadly terror attacks against Israeli civilians by Hamas, Jeh Johnson told Fox News that he is concerned that Hamas or other Iranian-backed terrorist groups could use, or already have used, the wide-open border to infiltrate terror cells into the U.S.

    As noted by 19fortyfive:

    “There are a lot of people entering our southern border right now,” Johnson said. “Thousands and thousands. It’s a hemispheric move north bigger than anything we’ve ever seen. [emphasis added] And the challenge for [U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP], for our DHS, the FBI, is to try to keep up.”

    Johnson continued, “Unfortunately, as you know, the system is broken, it’s horribly backlogged, and there’s a whole lot of people entering this country who we cannot identify.”

    we know, Jeh. Please tell Biden!

    Newsweek reported: “There has also been a rise in recent years in the number of people apprehended on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist, with border patrol agents apprehending 151 migrants along the southern border in the fiscal year 2023 who match the FBI’s screening system, according to the CBP.”

    It added: “In fiscal year 2022, 98 people on the watchlist were apprehended after entering from Mexico.”

    If Hamas can get past Israel’s highly fortified border with Gaza and deceive one of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence services to conduct what was mostly a massive surprise suicide raid to kill massive numbers of civilians, what do you think Iranian backed terrorists could do to us across our currently open border with Mexico?

    One scenario involves them working hand in hand with powerful and deadly Mexican drug cartels that have free reign along the border and are behind much of the human and drug smuggling today.

    As 19fortyfive reported:

    Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins noted on X Friday that the Border Patrol had apprehended two Lebanese nationals in Eagle Pass, Texas, an area of high illegal migrant flow. Hizballah is based in Lebanon.

    Hizballah has a documented relationship with the Mexican cartels that could easily be used to smuggle sleeper agents into the U.S. as it is used to smuggle drugs. Such agents likely would only be activated in the event of a war with Iran, because Hizballah is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC].

    Recall that in 2011 the IRGC plotted with Los Zetas cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. at Washington, D.C.’s upscale Café Milano in Georgetown.

    Had that terror attack not been thwarted, it could have killed dozens of innocent civilians on U.S. soil. This is a perfect example of how Iran or its terror proxies could infiltrate the United States in coordination with Mexican cartels.

    Today things could be far worse. They could then use Biden’s wide open border and the cartels’ growing networks inside our country to inflict maximum damage.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    China Tested Biden with Massive ‘Spy Balloon’ While Likely Practicing EMP Attack

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    5
    Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Much of the world watched with rapt attention as a massive, sophisticated, high-altitude Chinese surveillance airship slowly crossed the entire United States last week, and Team Biden did absolutely nothing.

    Despite being detected days earlier over the Aleutian Islands and parts of Alaska, the ‘spy balloon,’ as it has been dubbed, was first reported publicly by the White House when it was spotted over sensitive nuclear missile sites in Montana.

    Most of us with military or intelligence experience quickly saw the danger and risks of allowing this huge thing unfettered access to our national airspace.

    The airship, reportedly 200ft tall and with a payload the size of a jetliner, was likely solar-powered and maneuverable, perhaps using AI technology for guidance.

    But once the news was out, Team Biden’s spin machine kicked into high gear.

    “The balloon is not a threat.”

    “We have everything under control. The Chinese can’t gain any valuable intelligence from the airship that they couldn’t gather from satellites in low earth orbit.”

    And the big one – “we don’t want to shoot it down because the military says that would pose a danger to people on the ground in sparsely populated Montana.

    Of course, much of the establishment news media went along for the ride.

    In a belated show of impotent machismo, Biden finally ordered the balloon destroyed after it had completed its 8-day mission and exited U.S. airspace near South Carolina.

    One of our most expensive and sophisticated stealth fighters, an F-22 Raptor fired a short-range AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile at the balloon, quickly sending down the airship with its surveillance payload breaking off as it dropped.

    New reports say the balloon contained explosives to self-destruct if needed.

    Hopefully, no boaters, swimmers, or fish were hurt by the falling debris.

    And then the second wave of Biden balloon spin began, with reports that President Trump had ignored multiple similar incursions by Chinese surveillance balloons under his tenure.

    Team Trump pushed back saying no one at a senior level had ever been briefed on any similar Chinese balloon incursions.

    And it turns out Team Trump was correct.

    It appears Team Biden had only gathered information that Chinese balloons had briefly entered U.S. airspace on a few occasions after Trump left office.

    They had either not been detected at the time by the Pentagon, or at least they never briefed Trump or his civilian defense or national security officials.

    Trump did not ignore similar Chinese challenges, and none of the short-lived, undetected balloon forays during his term lasted anything close to eight days and traversed the entire continental U.S. spying on key military sites throughout.

    So, what can we gather from this major test by Communist China?

    Well, despite those who claim otherwise, the unprecedented, slow-moving Chinese surveillance platform that traveled across the entire U.S. gave China intelligence it could not otherwise get on nuclear, communications and other critical military and strategic targets.

    It also tested U.S. surveillance and counter-surveillance abilities and reactions.

    It most certainly served to test China’s own growing capabilities, as it pushed the envelope against the United States.

    But most importantly it tested America’s political will.

    And Biden’s willingness to let the behemoth balloon cross the U.S. before finally shooting it down failed that test.

    It also had the added bonus of showing the world how vulnerable the U.S. is to Chinese power and technology. And how unwilling it is to effectively counter it.

    These might be the biggest wins for China.

    But beyond that, could this balloon be a precursor to a new type of weapons delivery system?

    Some would balk at the idea of a balloon dropping bombs in the 21st century as being far-fetched. But China has tested hypersonic missiles launched from balloons in the past.

    And as noted earlier, these aren’t everyday hot air balloons.

    However, that isn’t a likely use for these airships.

    The biggest threat is sending one or more of these high-altitude balloons over the U.S. with a small nuclear EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) device.

    As the Washington Examiner reports:

    In a 2015 report for the American Leadership & Policy Foundation, Air Force Maj. David Stuckenberg, one of the nation’s leading EMP experts, wrote extensively about the threat balloons carrying bombs pose to national security.

    “Using a balloon as a WMD/WME platform could provide adversaries with a pallet of altitudes and payload options with which to maximize offensive effects against the U.S.,” he wrote in the report.

    Detonated at extremely high altitudes (200 miles) these small nukes could knock out power and communications across the US, wreaking widespread havoc for a year or more without firing a shot on the ground. 

    It also wouldn’t kill anyone or cause kinetic physical damage to anything directly. The damage comes afterward.

    The Examiner continues:

    Stuckenberg cited the research of the late Peter Pry, who headed a congressional commission on EMP and reported on the potential of a balloon-launched attack.

    He wrote in the report, “Peter Pry, a former CIA analyst and member of the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from EMP Attack, stated, ‘Imagine the consequences of a balloon EMP attack that damages and destroys electronic systems at the speed of light within an EMP field with a radius of hundreds of kilometers. The Eastern Grid generates 75% of U.S. electricity and supports most of the population.” Pry also notes, “Virtually any nuke detonated anywhere over the Eastern Grid will collapse the entire Eastern Grid, not just the area within the EMP field, because of cascading failures that will ripple outward.”

    This is now a viable threat that Biden’s weakness has made even more possible. 

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Families of Marines Killed During Afghan Retreat Blast Biden and Milley

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    1
    Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Michael J. McCord provide testimony at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2023. (DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)

    ANALYSIS – ‘Gold Star’ families of U.S. troops killed in the August 2021 Abbey Gate bombing at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan, are blasting Team Biden excuses over the disastrous retreat. Saturday marked the two-year anniversary of the terrorist attack during Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from the country.

    At least 183 people were killed in the attack, including the 13 U.S. service members (12 Marines and a sailor).

    Shamefully, Biden allowed the Taliban to retake the country almost 20 years to the day of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Washington, DC, and New York City.

    AND HERE, TWO YEARS AFTER THE AFGHAN COLLAPSE, WE STILL DON’T HAVE ANSWERS, AND NO ONE HAS BEEN HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

    As I wrote about earlier, senior Biden defense officials spent the days before and after the deadly 2021 attack in Kabul obsessing on getting Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to sign off on their Climate Change plan rather than focus on the chaos and death in Afghanistan.

    Now, several of these Gold Star families spoke at a House Foreign Affairs Committee roundtable where they expressed their anger at the Biden administration, including Chairman of the Chiefs Mark Milley, who they blame, in part, for the bombing that killed 13 service members.

    As the hearing was about to commence, Milley released a statement in which he said the U.S. owes Gold Star families “everything.”

    “We owe them transparency, we owe them honesty, we owe them accountability. We owe them the truth about what happened to their loved ones,” Milley said.

    But the families didn’t appear impressed. Instead, they were angry about the “excuses” and misinformation they received.

    Fox News reported on their justified anger and venting. Kelly Barnett, the mother of Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover, said “I don’t want to hear lies, I don’t want to hear excuses from Joe Biden, from the administration.”

    Hoover’s father, Darin Hoover, called on top Pentagon brass to resign. 

    He poignantly noted: “Today is the date, two years ago, that we received our kids home at Dover. Two years ago today, where we were disrespected with stories of Biden’s son and him looking at his watch. And today, here we sit as their families, begging you two years later, to find these answers.”

    Christy Shamblin, mother-in-law of Marine Corps Sergeant Nicole Gee, who was pictured prominently with an Afghan baby in her arms prior to her death, asked why credible warnings were ignored in the days leading up to the attack.

    Some even accused the Pentagon of giving them ‘made-up stories’ about their loved ones in the aftermath of the attack.

    As Breitbart News reported:

    …[in a Fox interview] Cheryl Rex, whose son, Lance Corporal Dylan Merola, was killed in the Kabul airport attack in 2021 reacted to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley saying that he believes military briefers gave all the information to the families of those killed in the bombing all the information they could by stating that the briefing on her son was completely inaccurate…

    …[When Rex was asked] “Do you believe that all the information was there, or do you agree with other families that it wasn’t about the information, it was about the warnings that were ignored?”

    Rex answered, “Me personally, he did not — the brief report was not correct. They changed my son’s location a couple of times. They were trying to accommodate his wounds that were not even in the right spots of his body according to his autopsy report. He did not — the brief report is nothing [like] what we were actually told… I feel it was made-up stories that they were trying to cover up the wounds.”

    These Gold Star families deserve answers and accountability. And so do the American people.

    Amanda Head: Leftists On Twitter Meltdown Over Trump Account Reinstatement

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    0

    Twitter CEO Elon Musk has reinstated former President Donald Trump’s access to his infamous Twitter account which was notoriously blocked following the Jan. 6th Capitol riot.

    While the former President has yet to make his re-entrance to the Twitter sphere, instead opting for his own TRUTH Social platform, the idea is enough to make liberals’ blood boil over.

    Watch Amanda break down the situation below.

    Amanda Head: Leftists Get Taste Of Own Medicine And They’re Going BERSERK!

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    2

    Justice is sweet.

    Radical leftists on Twitter have managed to turn the app into something akin to the wild West over the years but Elon Musk’s recent takeover has brought some major changes these liberals aren’t happy with. After managing to go relatively unchecked leftists have doxxed and harassed conservatives for years but now they’re getting a taste of their own medicine.

    Watch Amanda break down the controversy below:

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Trump Family Member Reveals Why She Will ‘Never’ Get Into Politics

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    1

    While politics might run in the family, one Trump is staying far away…

    President Donald Trump’s granddaughter, Kai, who is slated to play college golf next fall at the University of Miami, said she has no interest in following in her grandfather’s footsteps.

    “To be honest with you, I stay out of politics completely. I would never run, I don’t want anything to do with politics,” Trump said during an appearance on Logan Paul’s podcast. “I feel like politics is such a dangerous thing, and I think if both sides met in the middle, everyone would be so much more happier.”

    Trump said people have gotten “too extreme” on both sides of the coin, and social media has driven people to hone in on their beliefs.

    “There’s not a lot of things on social media where you’re very much in the middle. And I think that kind of makes some people crazy and some people buy into it too much,” Trump added. “I think that’s like the best way to say it. There’s no bad blood. I’m very much in the middle and kind of like, it is what it is. They ran against each other [Trump and Kamala Harris]. Obviously, I’m gonna support my grandpa, my family member, but that’s pretty much it.”

    The closest Trump has dove into the political waters was when she spoke at the Republican National Convention just days after her grandfather was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania.

    In an interview with Fox News Digital in October, Trump said she was “proud” of her grandfather after he brokered the historic ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

    “Always will support him. I think he’s doing amazing things,” she said.

    White Kai Trump may not be interested in politics the same can’t be said for her father, Donald Trump Jr., who has been floated as a future presidential contender. Don Jr, the eldest of the two sons Trump had with Ivana, channels his father’s combative style and is viewed by many as a bridge between Trump’s base.

    The Independent reports:

    Back in August, a McLaughlin & Associates survey had Vance sitting pretty at 36 per cent, with Donald Trump Jr a distant second at 16 per cent. By October, that gap had narrowed, with [VP] Vance at 38 per cent and Trump Jr at 20 per cent (Rubio was in third place at 7 per cent). Then came the November poll, which probably sent shockwaves through Vance’s inner circle: the vice president’s support had slipped to 34 per cent, while Trump Jr had surged.

    “I’m a Second Amendment person, and I don’t know anything about Vance’s position on it,” says Liz Mair, veteran Republican strategist. “For a real Second Amendment voter, the only people I would truly be comfortable supporting right now would be Donald Trump Jr or Ron DeSantis. And I’d probably be more comfortable with Donald Trump Jr. It depends on each state, but for diehard gun voters, it’s a significant issue, and it was one reason Trump Sr had challenges in 2016.”

    Trump Jr has played his hand with characteristic bravado, dismissing speculation in one media organisation that he intends to run. “I’m actually glad you’re printing this bulls**t,” he wrote on X, “because at least now the rest of the press corps will see how s****y your ‘sources’ are and how easily you’re played by them. Congrats, moron.”

    Yet, as is often the case in this family, denials are never absolute. In May 2025, when asked at a panel in Qatar if he would “pick up the reins” after Trump leaves office, he replied: “I don’t know. Maybe one day, you know, that calling is there.” Junior wields that ambiguity like a political weapon – a constant reminder that another Trump is waiting in the wings.

    This race is a coin flip and Vivek NEEDS your help. Vivek Ramaswamy is defending the fundamental truths of America but he can’t do it alone. Join the fight and donate today!

    Jan. 6th Rioters Handed Down Longest Sentences Yet In This Week’s Hearings

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    5
    Ted Eytan from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – Two Proud Boys leaders have been sentenced to more than a decade each in jail after being convicted of the rarely used ‘seditious conspiracy’ charge for storming the Capitol.

    They tried to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, which they considered fraudulent.

    A federal judge sentenced former far-right Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs to 17 years in prison and his co-defendant Zachary Rehl to 15 years. (RELATED: Proud Boys Member Who Led Capitol Break-In Sentenced To 10 Years)

    These sentences are much less than the three decades of jail time proposed by prosecutors but still very long prison terms for a few hours of rioting.

    And yes, I understand that the rioting was at the U.S. Capitol and that the certification of the Electoral College vote was in process. I also understand these two guys and the two others convicted on this same charge were intimately involved in organizing what became violent chaos that day.

    I was there, at the Capitol, as an observer with a TV camera crew. And I denounced the violence the next day. It was outrageous.

    I believe any violent rioter who attacked police or media, or anyone else, on Jan. 6 should be put in jail – as should all the BLM rioters who earlier caused $2 billion in damages throughout the country and injured 2,000 cops months earlier.

    But a decade or two behind bars for ‘conspiracy’?

    Biggs and Rehl are the first Proud Boys convicted of the Civil War-era seditious conspiracy charge to be sentenced for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

    The sentences kicked off a series of hearings scheduled for this week and next, where punishment will be meted out against the former chairman of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio (who was not in D.C. on Jan. 6 but was unbelievably arrested earlier for burning a BLM banner!), and two other members of the group.

    All were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes at a landmark conspiracy trial this spring. But was what they did really as bad as the Biden Justice Department tries to portray?

    As The Guardian noted:

    Seditious conspiracy is a broad statute that concerns attempts to overthrow the government, levy war against it or prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any law. It also can be applied in cases where suspects seize any government property and carries up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

    Partly because seditious conspiracy allegations carry so much political weight, prosecutors have generally been hesitant to bring such charges in the past. “Seditious conspiracy charges are rarely used in American jurisprudence,” said Jeffrey Ian Ross, a criminologist and expert on political crime at the University of Baltimore. Prosecutors can be wary of issuing such charges, even in cases that may fall under its broad statute, he added.

    In the only similar case in the 20th century, federal prosecutors secured a seditious conspiracy conviction against Puerto Rican nationalists who stormed the Capitol building in 1954.

    These four armed Puerto Rican independence militants entered the House floor and fired dozens of bullets around the chamber, wounding five legislators.

    The four shooters and co-conspirators were convicted of seditious conspiracy and spent over two decades in jail until Jimmy Carter commuted their sentence in 1979.

    In that case, however, the perpetrators had firearms and used them to try to kill Congressmen. That’s a pretty big difference.

    The last successfully prosecuted seditious conspiracy was in the mid-1990s, when authorities charged Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine Islamist co-conspirators for plotting to bomb the United Nations, the FBI building, and several other landmarks around New York City.

    Again, this was very serious and involved planning mass murder and terrorism.

    There is little or no evidence that any Jan. 6 rioters planned any offensive violence.

    To date, of those charged in relation to Jan. 6, former Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes holds the record with an 18-year sentence, after he was convicted of seditious conspiracy earlier this year.

    The Guardian reported in 2022 that:

    Even Rhodes, who is not believed to have actually stormed the building, is alleged to have plotted to bring weapons to the area and coordinate militia movements.

    In the weeks before the insurrection, Rhodes allegedly purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of weapons and began communicating to other Oath Keepers in an encrypted group chat. “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” he messaged days after the presidential election. One Oath Keeper admitted as part of a plea deal last year that he brought an M4 rifle to a Comfort Inn hotel near the Capitol, while Rhodes and others allegedly discussed “quick reaction force” teams that could move into Washington DC with firearms. Once inside the Capitol, prosecutors state in their indictment that one group of Oath Keepers moved in a military “stack” formation and went in search of the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

    And at first glance, this does seem serious.

    But Rhodes claims that despite earlier texts about possible ‘civil war,’ Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol went “totally off mission” and that he was only there to prevent his militia members from getting into trouble.

    He has also stated that the armed ‘reaction force’ in Virginia was there to respond if armed leftist antifa thugs attacked pro-Trump protestors.

    In the largest manhunt in FBI history, more than 1,100 people have been arrested on charges related to the Capitol assault. Of those, 597 defendants have had their cases adjudicated and received sentences. About 366 of them have been given jail time.

    The vast majority of these Jan. 6 defendants, though, accepted plea deals for minor, nonviolent offenses such as trespassing or obstructing an official function. Many of them still got jail sentences totally out of proportion to their alleged crimes.

    And these four got the worst of it.

    The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. It was first published in American Liberty News.

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