The former Infowars correspondent, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, “served as an instigator and leader" during the Capitol attack, federal prosecutors said.
Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy who the government says "served as an instigator and leader" during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison on Thursday.
It is among the longest sentences in Capitol riot cases. The record is the 18-year sentence given to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, also convicted of seditious conspiracy, after prosecutors sought 25 years in federal prison in his case.
In general, a conspiracy charge can't be sustained on speech alone; even speech wherein two or more people agree to commit a crime. It additionally requires some overt material act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
If Alice, Bob, and Carla get together and make a plan to break Dan's window and steal his fancy new TV, that's just talk. But if Alice then goes to the hardware store and buys a window-smashing hammer, now all three can be convicted for conspiracy to commit burglary.
In this case, Biggs' overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy included actually breaking down fences to get at Congress.
indeed. this is why the speech itself must be considered as part of the conspiracy. the comment by his lawyer seems to take the entire act and reframe it around the speech, when its clear the speech and the act are, essentially, one in this case.
If New Hampshire decides he's ineligible for the primary because of his past bullshit, it'll absolutely start a domino effect of other states doing the same.
I'm not american, so I'm not sure, but doesn't that mean if he literally can't be the republican candidate if too many states say no?
I mean, yeah, he can run independent I suppose, but Trump's ego isn't just about being president. He gets off on having the GOP under his thumb. Once that goes away, even if he "wins" as an independent, would he even be able to accomplish anything?
The only thing that makes me think he might not is that he could've preemptively pardoned everyone involved in this in the dead time between the certification and Brandon taking office and he didn't. Idk why he didn't, it would have cost him nothing and made people much more likely to commit overt acts of terrorism for him a second time, but he didn't.
All that prison time just to “own the libs” and for a guy that literally doesn’t give a flying fuck about him. Amazingly stupid. People really are this fucking stupid.
Not in their minds. In their minds they "did it" and "stood up to a tyrannical government" and "tried to stop the Dems from stealing" they just got stopped by the deep state once again cuz it is afraid of how awesome trump is.
These people don't live in reality. They've built a whole alternate one where trump is a billionaire and Russia helping him get elected was a hoax and the corrupt Ukraine phone call is a hoax and trump has a 6 pack of abs.
They literally built a Golden idol of him.
They went to the grassy knoll to wait for JFK to come back from the dead.
They try to deposit trump bucks in atms.
But they also build your house, drive on your roads, send their kids to your schools and vote in your elections.
They are ignorant, and stupid, yes. But the only way to fix that is education and they hate that too.
Just a friendly reminder to any shit-birds reading; this is the nicest version of what we will do to traitors. You will not overthrow the government, you will not reinstate a four time impeached Yankee carpet bagger as president, you will not pass go, nor will you collect $200. You will simply rot in prison, again: at best.
It sort of started out for contexts like the drunken bean pole baiting the bouncer. I think the current more political/court system is an OK variation. It might be getting older but it's still useful, funny, poignant
He claims that, "I’m not a terrorist, I don’t have hate in my heart." It's funny how all of them are just so magically reformed once they're facing actual prison time.
With good behavior, he can be free in only 14.5 years, and he was let off lightly.
Imagine throwing away almost 15 years of your life, destroying your family, and losing everything you worked for, because you believed Trump. Then finding out that it was all one big lie.
The greatest trick ever pulled was liberal New York city elite trump convincing southern yokels he's one of them.
You can fool some of the people all of the time. They're called conservatives.
Trump was perfectly situated to build a coalition of easily manipulated rural blue collar workers who felt (rightly in many cases) that they've been abandoned by the Democratic party...wealthy elites who saw one of their own and felt comfortable and confident that he'd protect their interests...and closet racists, bigots, and neo-fascists all across the country who heard his dog whistles loud and clear.
Combine that with party discipline to fall in behind whoever the party tapped and he ended up with just enough people in just the right locations to snatch the 2016 election.
Unfortunately for Trump, over the next four years, he failed to deliver much of any value to those rural voters, and failed to inflict enough cruelty for the far right contingent, and was too volatile for comfort for enough of those elites that he couldn't put together enough of an effort to take 2020.
While I don't want to jinx it, I feel like 2016 was an absolute perfect storm for him and he'll never be able to scrape up the necessary votes in the necessary states to win another presidential election.
The record is the 18-year sentence given to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, also convicted of seditious conspiracy, after prosecutors sought 25 years in federal prison in his case.
The government sought 33 years for Biggs, an Army veteran who sustained a head injury in Iraq and then served as a correspondent for the conspiracy website Infowars.
Prosecutors argued that he was a “vocal leader and influential proponent of the group’s shift toward political violence” and used his “outsized public profile” and his military experience as he “led a revolt against the government in an effort to stop the peaceful transfer of power.”
He ruled earlier in Thursday's hearing that Biggs’ tearing down of a fence that stood between police and rioters qualified him for a terrorism sentencing enhancement sought by prosecutors.
The other Proud Boys will also be sentenced in the coming days: Rehl on Thursday afternoon, Pezzola and Nordean on Friday and Tarrio on Tuesday.
The actions of the Proud Boys on Jan. 6 were “quintessential pollical behavior” up until the riot turned violent, Pattis said, arguing that prosecutors had used his client’s political speech as evidence of criminal intent.
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