The prosecution of people charged in taking part in the January 6 Capitol riots continues, with hundreds offering pleas or awaiting trial. But one judge who is hearing cases is speaking out about the way these suspects are being treated in court.
The Associated Press (AP) reported on the development:
[Judge Trevor] McFadden, whom President Donald Trump nominated in 2017, has criticized prosecutors’ handling of Capitol riot cases. He suggested that the Justice Department has been unjustly tougher on Capitol riot defendants compared with people arrested at protests against police brutality and racial injustice after George Floyd’s 2020 murder by a Minneapolis police officer.
McFadden also has criticized prosecutors for seeking jail time for some nonviolent Capitol riot defendants but not for left-wing activists who protested Trump’s nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, The Washington Post reported.
Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and chairman of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, right, and Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, during a hearing in Washington, DC, on Thursday, June 9, 2022. (Alex Brandon/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The AP was referring to its reporting in 2021 when McFadden spoke at the hearing of another January 6 defendant:
U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden questioned why federal prosecutors had not brought more cases against those accused in 2020 summertime protests, reading out statistics on riot cases in the nation’s capital that were not prosecuted.
“I think the U.S. attorney would have more credibility if it was even-handed in its concern about riots and mobs in this city,” McFadden said during Danielle Doyle’s sentencing for entering the Capitol on Jan. 6 with a throng of other rioters. Prosecutors recommended two months of home confinement for Doyle, who is from Oklahoma.
(L-R) Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), vice-chair of the select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) listen during a committee meeting on Capitol Hill on December 1, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The revival of the judge’s remarks come as he gets ready to oversee a bench trial — the two men have waived their right to a jury trial — beginning on Monday. Kevin Seefried and his son Hunter Seefried are accused of entering the Capitol. The senior Seefried was photographed inside the building carrying a Confederate flag.
Kevin Seefried, left, walks on a hallway inside the Capitol, January 6, 2021 in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The AP called McFadden’s acquittal of a New Mexico man, Matthew Martin, who faced misdemeanor charges for illegally entering the Capitol and engaging in disorderly conduct, “a rare blemish on the Justice Department’s record of securing convictions in U.S. Capitol riot cases.”
Martin testified that a police officer waved him into the building.
McFadden acquitted Otero County, New Mexico, Commissioner Couy Griffin of disorderly conduct charges but did convict him of illegally entering the Capitol because he said there was enough evidence to show he knew he should not have entered.
The AP reported that more than 300 people have pleaded guilty to riot offenses, mostly misdemeanors punishable by no more than one year in jail. About 100 others have trial dates this year or in 2023. In all, some 800 people have been charged in the January 6 riot.
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