Yesterday, Politico writers Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney reported that U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, had words for Republican lawmakers who have spread the "delusion" that scores of non-violent participants in the Capitol attack are languishing in jail without trial. "Lamberth roundly dismissed that theory, also spread by far-right activists, as he rejected a bid for release by a Pennsylvania man accused of some of the most violent and offensive rhetoric in any Jan. 6 case. The man’s history was full of racist and anti-Semitic outbursts as well as stark threats to assassinate lawmakers.
Marshall Neefe, the defendant "was arrested in September and has been jailed since. He is accused of bringing to the riot a large wooden club he fashioned-- dubbed 'the Commie Knocker'-- and slamming a large metal sign, along with other rioters, into a line of police officers guarding the Capitol. As part of the case to detain him before trial, prosecutors revealed a series of messages Neefe sent on Facebook using the 'N-word' and discussing lynching people. Neefe also had violent threats towards lawmakers, saying that Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell deserved 'a bullet in the head.' Neefe also talked openly of igniting a civil war and indicated that he was willing to return to D.C. with firearms to renew the attack on the Capitol. One federal prosecutor described Neefe as having a 'poisoned mind.'"
Marjorie Traitor Greene and Florida Panhandle sex criminal Matt Gaetz have led a movement among extreme right members of Congress to spread conspiracy theories that criminal like Neefe are non-violent protesters being held unconstitutionally and even tortured. So far Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX) have joined in on their publicity-seeking stunts. Gohmert called the treatment of the insurrectionists "abuses of political prisoners in tyrannical third-world countries."
After laying out his rationale for detaining Neefe, Lamberth added an unusual addendum.
“Some members of the public and even a few members of Congress retain the impression that peaceful political protestors are being held in jail pending trial,” wrote Lamberth, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan. “Neefe’s detention disproves that delusion. Neefe is detained not because of his beliefs, but because of his alleged violent actions and his expressed intent to engage in violent activity again.”
Several dozen out of the nearly 800 people charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack are detained pending trial, and some of them have been in jail now for almost 14 months. Courts have struggled to ramp up trials delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, which has been further complicated by the mountain of video evidence related to the Capitol riot.
The vast majority of those in detention are accused of directly committing assaults on police officers. Only a handful are charged not with personally carrying out violence, but with organizing or encouraging others to do so.
