Marjorie Taylor Greene GRRR MAD About Jail Conditions For Capitol Rioters, Not For Anyone Else
And she's spitting fire at the person most to blame: Lindsey Graham.
This weekend, Donald Trump straight up said that when he is president again (oh please no), he will be doling pardons out to the January 6 Capitol rioters — and then followed that up by encouraging his followers to engage in similar "protests" should any of the various current investigations against him not work out in his favor. Clearly, this was his way of letting people who might decide to attempt another coup that if it's up to him, they too will be pardoned.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who wavers in between trying to look like a reasonable and classy person who just happens to believe and want terrible things and trying to look like a complete Trump wackadoo, did some political calculus and decided to come out on the side of "Trump shouldn't pardon those people because it will encourage them, but also Kamala Harris is worse because she helped raise bail for Black Lives Matter activists who were arrested during protests."
Via The Hill:
“No, I don't want to send any signal that it was OK to defile the Capitol,” Graham told Brennan when asked if he agreed.
“There are other groups with causes that may want to go down to the violent path that these people get pardoned,” he added.
“I think it's inappropriate. ... I don't want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future,” Graham told Brennan.
The Republican senator added that he didn't like it when Vice President Harris "and her associates and the people that work for her, her staffers, raised money to bail out the rioters who hit cops in the head and burned down stores" after sometimes violent demonstrations in the summer of 2020.
"So I don't want to do anything from raising bail to pardoning people who take the law into their own hands because it will make more violence more likely," he said. "I want to deter people who did what on Jan. 6. And those who did it, I hope they go to jail and get the book thrown at them because they deserve it."
This was probably the wrong calculus for him, given where Republicans are these days.
In response, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene went on Telegram and accused Graham of not caring enough about pretending the election was stolen and not doing enough to try to overturn the 2020 election.
He didn’t care about election fraud in the 2020 election, even though thousands of Americans signed affidavits risking jail if they perjure themselves in court saying they witnessed election fraud.
He refused to object on J6 to Joe Biden’s electoral college votes.
He doesn’t care about our justice system being completely violated by Democrats in their political war against Republicans and President Trump.
She then went on a tangent about how horribly the January 6 rioters are being treated, and how Lindsey Graham doesn't even care about that . Which is true. Lindsey Graham does not give a rat's ass about prison or jail conditions in the United States, and quite frankly, neither does Marjorie Taylor Greene, except in this one particular instance.
Pretrial J6 defendants are Americans who are being held in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day while rotting away in prison and they haven’t even seen a day in court.
You know what I don't see Marjorie Taylor Greene's name on? This bill, introduced by New Jersey Democratic Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman restricting the use of solitary confinement. I also don't see her name on this other bill, introduced by Texas Democratic Sen. Sheila Jackson Lee, limiting the use of solitary confinement on juvenile offenders. I don't see any Republicans on either of those bills, or on Dick Durbin's Senate bill to restrict the use of solitary confinement .
If Marjorie Taylor Greene is upset about solitary confinement, I suggest she take that up with herself and her fellow Republicans.
I guess Lindsey Graham doesn’t care about being presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The United States criminal justice system doesn't care about being presumed innocent until guilty, insofar as it concerns people who are being held in pretrial detention. This is not an unusual situation. At any given time there are about 470,000 people in jail who have not been convicted of any crime.
Personally, I think that's bad. If I had my way, this would not be a thing. If this is something that bothers Marjorie Taylor Greene, I suggest she introduce legislation that would ban the use of pretrial detention for all of the accused, not just the people she happens to like.
Americans are being treated worst than Islamic terrorists at Gitmo and Lindsey Graham doesn’t care.
He doesn’t care about their due process rights.He doesn’t care that they haven’t seen their families and are denied seeing their attorneys most of the time.
He doesn’t care that these pretrial J6 defendants are denied hair cuts, shaving, chapel, and the most basic of human rights.
No, he doesn't. And neither does Marjorie Taylor Greene, when these things apply to literally any other person in the criminal justice system. The January 6 defendants were actually in the "nice" part of that jail — conditions are much worse elsewhere. Oh, and perhaps Greene is unaware, but they're not even in that DC jail anymore. They are at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, having been transferred there in November due to "conditions" that others being held in the DC jail still have to deal with.
It would be a lot easier to take Marge at her word, re: caring about basic human rights, were she concerned about the human rights of literally anyone else being held in that jail or any other. You know, those who are not getting special treatment and special transfers.
Here is where she just starts making shit up:
He doesn’t care that they are abused in the DC jail because they are white, male, and voted for the very President that he supposedly supports.
While no one agrees with the violence and riot at the Capitol on J6, Lindsey Graham would rather see pretrial J6 defendants be abused and forgotten just like Nancy Pelosi wants them abused and forgotten.
Instead of actually doing something about the great injustice happening to pretrial Americans awaiting their day in court, Lindsey Graham turns his head to their abuse, votes for Joe Biden’s nominees, votes for Joe Biden’s Infrastructure bill, and then pretends to be a friend to President Trump.
Aren’t we all sick and tired of those kind of “friends.”
If Republicans are mad at the conditions in this jail and the situation the January 6 defendants are in, they have no one but themselves to blame. This is what they wanted for everyone else accused of a crime. Either Marjorie Taylor Greene is entirely unclear on how our criminal justice system works, or she really does just think there should be a special exception for those who are white, male and voted for Trump.
However, this is one instance in which we should actually be thanking Marjorie Taylor Greene — because she just made it a whole lot easier for Democrats to support prison reform without being afraid to look "soft on crime." Because hey! If Marjorie Taylor Greene can get away with being outraged about horrific prison and jail conditions while still appealing to the white soccer moms of Georgia, then there is no reason why any Democrat can't pull that off as well.
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"Americans are being treated worst [sic] than Islamic terrorists at Gitmo and Lindsey Graham doesn’t care.
"He doesn’t care about their due process rights. He doesn’t care that they haven’t seen their families and are denied seeing their attorneys most of the time."
OK - How many accused in Gitmo have any "due process rights" that are both recognized and honored?
Have any of them seen their families in years? Do they have proper legal representation?
Has anyone ever done a study on the cost of alternatives to pretrial incarceration such as ankle monitors? Would it be more or less expensive than warehousing them in county jails? It can be months or even years between indictment and the beginning of trial. That’s a long time for someone to be sitting in jail. With ankle monitors, they could still work and earn a living while the charges were pending. And pay taxes.
I’m just spit balling, but if we reserved the jails for people who a proven history of violence and use alternatives to jail or bail for people facing minor charges, society might be better off in the long run.