[Above: September 5, 2023. As Andrew Weissman explains, Tarrio was considered the architect of the insurrection, and received a sentence reflecting that for his seditious conspiracy and domestic terrorism conviction. - eds.]
Tiger Beat on the Potomac, AKA Politico (thanks Charlie Pierce!) in their afternoon email thingie:
ON THE ANNIVERSARY — The most notorious of all Jan. 6 defendants — former Proud Boys leader ENRIQUE TARRIO — is officially asking Trump to pardon him for his seditious conspiracy conviction related to the attack on the Capitol, Kyle Cheney reports.
“Tarrio was convicted by a jury of helping orchestrate the attack on the Capitol, even though he was banished from the city by prosecutors that day for his role in burning a stolen Black Lives Matter banner. U.S. District Judge TIM KELLY, a Trump appointee, sentenced Tarrio to 22 years in prison, the lengthiest sentence of any Jan. 6 defendant.” In a letter to Trump requesting a full pardon, Tarrio claims he was targeted by the Biden administration for his political views rather than the alleged effort to subvert the 2020 election by force.
Meanwhile, in an exclusive interview with WaPo’s Spencer Hsu, Capitol Police Chief THOMAS MANGER said that the prospect of Trump pardoning Jan. 6 rioters who assaulted officers doesn’t sit right with him.
“What message does that send?” Manger told WaPo. “What message does that send to police officers across this nation, if someone doesn’t think that a conviction for an assault or worse against a police officer is something that should be upheld, given what we ask police officers to do every day?”
As a country we’re clearly a failed democracy. We’re goose-stepping into fascism and Russian-style oligarchy/kleptocracy and there’s every chance Tarrio is going to be pardoned and he’ll probably end up as the head of some sort of Pretorian Guard, officially.
I would say everyone with a chance and in their right mind should get the hell out, but there is literally nowhere to go that would be any better, the authoritarians are ascendent world wide. Our one favorable factor is that these betwattled Republican autogolpes are the dumbest of the authoritarians world-wide and will fail by tripping on their own tiny dicks.
Republished with permission from Mock Paper Scissors.
