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Former lead Bush advisor Karl Rove erupted into a lengthy tirade about how every single one of the “thugs” and “sons of bi***es” who protested the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021 should be hunted down and jailed.
While appearing on an MSNBC panel in front of a live audience, the former Bush official was asked by network host Ari Melber about the best way for Democrats to attack Trump in 2024. Rove replied by enthusiastically stating that focusing on January 6 provides the best path to victory for President Biden in November.
“If they were smart, they’d take the January 6th and go hard at it. And they would say, ‘he wants to pardon these people, who attacked our Capitol,’” Rove said.
Trump has vowed to pardon the overwhelming majority of the 1,400 people who have been arrested in connection with the January 6 protests. Hundreds of protesters have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms due to the government’s use of an obscure legal theory used to charge defendants with felony “obstruction of an official proceeding” charges when they would otherwise be charged with misdemeanors.
The use of the felony charge is under review by the Supreme Court, though prosecutors and D.C. judges have already implied that they will simply issue longer sentences for misdemeanors if it is struck down.
Protesters charged with only non-violent trespassing misdemeanors have been sent to prison on numerous occasions as well. They are also subjected to armed FBI raids, placed in handcuffs and ankle shackles and paraded in front of their neighbors in the early morning hours before they are thrown in prison for trespassing misdemeanors.
Of course, this conduct has never been used for left-wing protesters who have repeatedly trespassed in the Capitol Building, as well as other government buildings in Washington D.C., in the years following the January 6 protests. The vast majority of protesters for pro-Palestine, abortion, gun control and other left-wing causes are never even charged despite committing the same offenses January 6 defendants are raided and jailed for.
This is not good enough for Karl Rove, however, who called on the Biden Department of Justice to ensure that every single person who protested the 2020 election results is jailed.
“To me, the Congress of the United States is one of the great examples of the strength of our democracy and a jewel of the Constitution. And what those people did, when they violently attacked the Capitol, in order to stop a constitutionally mandated meeting of the Congress to accept the results of the Electoral College is a stain on our history,” Rove said. “And every one of those sons of b****es who did that, we ought to find them, try them and send them to jail,” the former Bush chief adviser continued, drawing applause from the MSNBC crowd.
Rove may end up getting his wish, as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves has long told district court judges to expect 2,000 January 6 cases by 2026. For comparison, 99 percent of charges brought against Black Lives Matter rioters in 2020 were dropped, many of which fell within federal jurisdiction or Washington D.C. itself.
