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      Far-right Oath Keepers founder sentenced to 18 years over January 6 attack

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      Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was sentenced on Thursday to 18 years in prison, after being convicted of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 attack on Congress.Prosecutors sought a 25-year term. Lawyers for Rhodes said he should be sentenced to time served, since his arrest in January 2022.Before handing down the sentence, the US district judge, Amit Mehta, told a defiant Rhodes he posed a continued threat to the US government, saying it was clear he “wants democracy in this country to devolve into violence”.“The moment you are released, whenever that may be, you will be ready to take up arms against your government,” Mehta said.Rhodes claimed the prosecution was politically motivated.“I’m a political prisoner and like President Trump my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country,” he said.Rhodes also noted that he never went inside the Capitol on January 6 and insisted he never told anyone else to do so.But members of the Oath Keepers took an active role on 6 January 2021, when a mob incited by Donald Trump smashed its way into the Capitol, attempting to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win.Prosecutors successfully made the case that Rhodes and his group prepared an armed rebellion, including stashing arms at a Virginia hotel, meant for quick transfer to Washington DC.Other members of the Oath Keepers, some convicted of seditious conspiracy, are due to be sentenced this week and next. Members of another far-right group, the Proud Boys, will face sentencing on similar convictions later this year.Nine deaths have been linked to the January 6 attack, including suicides among law enforcement. More than 1,000 arrests have been made and more than 500 convictions secured.In court filings in the Oath Keepers cases, prosecutors said: “The justice system’s reaction to January 6 bears the weighty responsibility of impacting whether January 6 becomes an outlier or a watershed moment.”Like all other forms of Trump’s attempted election subversion, the attack on Congress failed. In the aftermath, Trump was impeached for a second time, for inciting an insurrection. He was acquitted by Senate Republicans.Laying out Trump’s actions after the 2020 election, the House January 6 committee made four criminal referrals to the justice department. The former president still faces potential indictments in state and federal investigations of his election subversion and role in the attack on Congress. Nonetheless, he remains the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination next year.At Thursday’s hearing, speaking for the prosecution, the assistant US attorney Kathryn Rakoczy pointed to interviews and speeches Rhodes has given from jail repeating Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen and saying the 2024 election would be stolen too.In remarks just days ago, Rhodes called for “regime change”, Rakoczy said.People “across the political spectrum” want to believe January 6 was an “outlier”, Rakoczy said. “Not defendant Rhodes.”A defense lawyer, Phillip Linder, denied Rhodes gave orders for Oath Keepers to enter the Capitol on January 6. But he told the judge Rhodes could have had many more Oath Keepers come to the Capitol “if he really wanted” to disrupt certification of the electoral college vote.In a first for a January 6 case, Judge Mehta agreed with prosecutors to apply enhanced penalties for “terrorism” under the argument that the Oath Keepers sought to influence the government through “intimidation or coercion”.Judges in previous sentencings had shot down the justice department request for the so-called “terrorism enhancement”, which can lead to a longer prison term, but Mehta said it fitted Rhodes’s case.“Mr Rhodes directed his co-conspirators to come to the Capitol and they abided,” the judge said.Asked if Mehta’s acceptance of the enhancement boded ill for others found guilty of seditious conspiracy, Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, Virginia, said prosecutors “argued that the judge should apply the enhancement because the ‘need to deter others is especially strong because these defendants engaged in acts that were intended to influence the government through intimidation or coercion – in other words, terrorism’.“The judge then stated, ‘It’s hard to say it doesn’t apply when someone is convicted of seditious conspiracy.’“Mehta apparently accepted that argument in imposing the sentence today and may well apply it to others who have been convicted of seditious conspiracy, as he has heard the evidence presented.” More

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      DC officer leaked information to Proud Boys leader, indictment alleges

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      A Washington DC police officer was arrested on Friday on charges that he lied about leaking confidential information to Proud Boys extremist group leader Enrique Tarrio and obstructed an investigation after group members destroyed a Black Lives Matter banner in the nation’s capital.An indictment alleges that Metropolitan police department lieutenant Shane Lamond, 47, of Stafford, Virginia, warned Tarrio, then national chairman of the far-right group, that law enforcement had an arrest warrant for him related to the banner’s destruction.Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before Proud Boys members joined the mob in storming the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Earlier this month, Tarrio and three other leaders were convicted of seditious conspiracy charges for what prosecutors said was a plot to keep the then president, Donald Trump, in the White House after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.A federal grand jury in Washington indicted Lamond on one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of making false statements.The indictment accuses Lamond of lying to and misleading federal investigators.Lamond is expected in court on Friday and is on administrative leave.Lamond, who supervised the intelligence branch of the police department’s Homeland Security Bureau, was responsible for monitoring groups like the Proud Boys.His attorney, Mark Schamel, didn’t immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment.Schamel has previously said that Lamond’s job was to communicate with a variety of groups protesting in Washington, and his conduct with Tarrio was never inappropriate and said his client “doesn’t share any of the indefensible positions” of extremist groups.The Metropolitan police department said it would do an internal review after the federal case against Lamond is resolved.Lamond’s name repeatedly came up in the Capitol riot trial of Tarrio and other Proud Boys leaders.Messages introduced at Tarrio’s trial appeared to show a close rapport between the two men, with Lamond texting “hey brother”.Tarrio’s lawyers had wanted to call Lamond as a witness, but were stymied by the investigation into Lamond.Lamond used the Telegram messaging platform to give Tarrio information about law enforcement activity around July 2020, according to prosecutors.In December 2020, Lamond told Tarrio about where competing antifascist activists were expected to be.Jurors who convicted Tarrio heard testimony that Lamond frequently provided the Proud Boys leader with internal information about law enforcement operations before Proud Boys stormed the Capitol. More

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      UN rebukes Washington over reports it eavesdropped on secretary general

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      The United Nations has raised concerns with the United States over reports that it eavesdropped on the private conversations of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, and other senior officials.“We have made it clear that such actions are inconsistent with the obligations of the United States as enumerated in the Charter of the United Nations and the convention on the privileges and immunities of the United Nations,” said a UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, on Tuesday.The comments followed a number of articles reporting that leaked Pentagon files appear to show Washington was closely monitoring conversations between the secretary general and his aides.The Washington Post reported this week that the documents included embarrassing allegations that Guterres had expressed frustration with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and “outrage” when his plans to visit a war-torn region of Ethiopia were rebuffed.It followed a BBC report last week that the US felt Guterres was too sympathetic to Russian interests when he helped broker the Black Sea grain deal amid fears of a global food crisis. According to the broadcaster, one classified Pentagon file indicated that Guterres preferred to preserve the deal even if it meant accommodating Russian interests.The UN’s implied rebuke on Tuesday comes as Washington scrambles to contain the fallout of the worst leaks of US intelligence in at least a decade.The classified reports were part of a trove of hundreds of secret national security documents, published on the online gaming platform, Discord, and revealed secrets about US, allied and Ukrainian military deployments, US penetration of Russian intelligence and military networks, and US intelligence eavesdropping on key allies, including South Korea and Israel.Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old air national guardsman was arrested last week on suspicion of leaking hundreds of secret defence documents and charged under the Espionage Act. In response to the leaks, Pentagon has moved to tighten access to classified information while the Department of Defense reviews its security procedures.According to the BBC, a Pentagon assessment describing private conversations between the UN chief and his deputy, concluded: “Guterres emphasised his efforts to improve Russia’s ability to export,” and that he would do this, “even if that involves sanctioned Russian entities or individuals”.The secretary general’s approach, one document reportedly said, was “undermining broader efforts to hold Moscow accountable for its actions in Ukraine”.The documents viewed by the Post suggest that Guterres was “really pissed off” after an appearance with Zelenskiy in March. During the visit, Guterres was reportedly surprised Ukrainian officials photographed him at a public presentation of medals to uniformed soldiers and later shared the images in a way that suggested Guterres had congratulated Ukrainian military personnel.The secretary general, who has repeatedly condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a violation of the UN charter and international law, “emphasized that he made a point of not smiling the entire time”, according to the leaked US assessment.Last week, Dujarric said Guterres was “not surprised” that he was allegedly spied on by the US. “Unfortunately, for various reasons, it allows such private conversations to be distorted and made public.”The US has a long history of eavesdropping on allied leaders, including United Nations officials.The National Security Agency monitored the phone conversations of dozens of world leaders, including the then German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and UN diplomats, according to revelations made public by the whistleblower Edward Snowden.And in 2003, a secret memo detailed an “aggressive surveillance operation” against UN security council delegations in New York as part of a campaign to win support for going to war against Iraq. More

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      American Ramble review: a riveting tale of the divided United States

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      In spring 2021, Neil King trekked 330 miles from his Washington DC home to New York City. He passed through countryside, highways, towns and churchyards. His 25-day walk was also a journey through time. He looked at the US as it was and is and how it wishes to be seen. His resultant book is a beautifully written travelog, memoir, chronicle and history text. His prose is mellifluous, yet measured.In his college days, King drove a New York cab. At the Wall Street Journal, his remit included politics, terror and foreign affairs. He did a stint as global economics editor. One might expect him to be jaded. Fortunately, he is not. American Ramble helps make the past come alive.In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, King stops at the home of James Buchanan, the bachelor president from 1857 to 1861, who sympathized with the south and loathed abolition. Ending slavery could wait. Of the supreme court’s infamous Dred Scott decision, Buchanan highly approved.Also in Lancaster, King visits a townhouse once owned by Thaddeus Stevens, the 19th-century Republican congressman and radical abolitionist. At the start of the civil war, Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, viewed the conflict as the vehicle for preserving the Union. He opposed slavery but opposed secession more. For Stevens, slavery was an evil that demanded eradication.Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, King describes how the ancestors of one town greeted Confederate troops as heroes while another just 20 miles away viewed them as a scourge. Forks in the road are everywhere.King pays homage to the underground railroad, describing how the Mason-Dixon Line, the demarcation between north and south, free state and slave, came into being. Astronomy and borders had a lot to do with it. All of this emerges from the scenery and places King passes on his way.Imagining George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware, he delivers a lesson on how such rivers came to be named. Names affixed to bodies of water by Indigenous peoples gave way to Dutch pronunciation, then anglicization. The Delaware, however, derived its moniker from Lord De La Warr, a “dubious aristocrat” otherwise known as Thomas West.Yet joy and wonder suffuse King’s tale. He smiles on the maker’s handiwork, uneven as it is. American Ramble depicts a stirring sunset and nightfall through the roof-window of a Quaker meeting house. Quiet stands at the heart of the experience. The here and now is loud and messy, but King ably conveys the silent majesty of the moment. The Bible recounts the Deity’s meeting with the prophet Elijah. He was not in the wind, a fire or an earthquake. Rather, He resided in a whisper.King recalls an earlier time in a Buddhist monastery. Warned that surrounding scenery would detract from solitude and commitment, he nevertheless succumbed. King is nothing if not curious.The quotidian counts too. He pops cold beers, downs pizzas and snarfs chicken parmesan. A wanderer needs sustenance. He is grateful for the day following the night. Predictability is miraculous, at times invaluable.King is a cancer survivor and a pilgrim. He is a husband and father, son and brother. Life’s fragility and randomness have left their mark. His malady is in remission but he moves like a man unknowing how long good fortune will last. His voice is a croak, a casualty of Lyme disease. He is restless. Life’s clock runs. He writes of how his brother Kevin lost his battle with a brain tumor.King puts his head and heart on the page. His life story helps drive the narrative, a mixture of the personal, political and pastoral. But it is not only about him. He meets strangers who become friends, of a sort. At times, people treat him as an oddity – or simply an unwanted presence. More frequently, they are open if not welcoming. As his walk continues, word gets out. Minor celebrity results.The author is awed by generosity, depravation and the world. He is moved by a homeless woman and her daughter. Traversing the New Jersey Turnpike presents a near-insurmountable challenge. A mother and son offer him a kayak to paddle beneath the traffic. He accepts.A Colorado native, King is at home in the outdoors. Nature is wondrous and sometimes disturbing. Rough waters complicate his passages. He studies heaps on a landfill. He meets a New Jerseyan with pickup truck adorned by Maga flags. The gentleman bestows beer, snacks and jokes. King divides the universe into “anywheres” and “somewheres”. He puts himself in the first camp and finds placed-ness all around.American Ramble captures the religious and demographic topography that marks the mid-Atlantic and north-eastern US. Here, dissenters, Anabaptists, German pietists, Presbyterians and Catholics first landed. King pays homage to their pieces of turf. His reductionism is gentle. He appreciates the legacy of what came before him. Landscapes change, human nature less so, even as it remains unpredictable.“When I crossed the Delaware two days before,” he writes, “I had entered what I later came to call Presbyteriana, a genteel and horsey patch settled by Presbyterians and Quakers.” Princeton University stands at its heart.E pluribus unum was tough to pull off when the settlers came. It may even be tougher now. King quotes Nick Rizzo, a denizen of Staten Island, New York City’s Trumpy outer borough: “We are losing our ability to forge any unity at all from these United States.”Rizzo joined King along the way. In the Canterbury Tales, April stands as the height of spring. It was prime time for religious pilgrimages, “what with Chaucer and all, and it being April”, Rizzo explains.“Strangers rose to the occasion to provide invaluable moments,” King writes. Amen.
      American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal is published in the US by HarperCollins More

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      Aide to Senator Rand Paul critically wounded in Washington DC stabbing

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      A member of Senator Rand Paul’s staff was stabbed and critically wounded in Washington on Saturday in an attack that is likely to raise fears about violence in the nation’s capital.“This past weekend a member of my staff was brutally attacked in broad daylight in Washington DC,” the Kentucky senator said in a statement to ABC News late Monday. “I ask you to join [wife] Kelley and me in praying for a speedy and complete recovery, and thanking the first responders, hospital staff, and police for their diligent actions” after the stabbing.According to a police report obtained by the outlet, officers responded at about 5.15pm to a call about a stabbing fewer than two miles north-east of the US Capitol.The victim, who has not been named, was treated on the scene for “stab wounds” and was seen by a witness “bleeding from the head”, and was later hospitalized for “treatment of life-threatening injuries”, the report states.A suspect is reported to have been taken into custody and is being held without bail.On Monday, DC police said that 42-year-old local resident Glynn Neal was arrested in connection with the attack on counts of assault with intent to kill and wielding a knife. Neal reportedly told police officers a voice had threatened to get him before the attack occurred.According to one of two witnesses cited in the police report, the suspect had “popped out of the corner” and stabbed the Paul staffer multiple times.The victim “was able to grab [the suspect’s] arms” and the witness with him tackled the suspect, “leading to a struggle between the parties”. The victim and the witness ran as the suspect fled, the report added.“We are relieved to hear the suspect has been arrested,” Paul’s statement said. “At this time we would ask for privacy so everyone can focus on healing and recovery”. More

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      Federal prosecutors warn court of potential deluge of January 6 charges – report

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      Federal prosecutors in Washington have reportedly told court officials a thousand more people could be charged in relation to the deadly January 6 Capitol attack.Matthew Graves, the US attorney in Washington DC, sent a one-page letter to the chief judge of Washington DC federal court, apprising her of the potential deluge of defendants, Bloomberg News reported.The correspondence provides details on what the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, has described as “one of the largest, most complex and most resource-intensive investigations in our history”.Graves said in the letter that justice department officials estimated that another 700 to 1,200 defendants could face charges. That would nearly double the number of criminal cases relating to January 6, Bloomberg noted.More than a thousand people have faced charges for alleged involvement in the Capitol riot. Those who attacked Congress did so at the urging of Donald Trump, seeking to thwart certification of Joe Biden’s election win.Graves said knowing how many cases would unfold was “incredibly difficult” due to the “nature and the complexity of the investigation”. The prosecutor also said he did not know the exact proportion of misdemeanor and felony cases to come but thought there would be a larger proportion of felonies, Bloomberg said.“We expect the pace of bringing new cases will increase, in an orderly fashion, over the course of the next few months,” Graves wrote. He concluded by saying prosecutors’ estimates might shift as the justice department continues to “evaluate changing resources and circumstances”.Federal charges against participants in the Capitol riot have ranged from physical violence and property destruction to seditious conspiracy.The justice department has said 326 people have faced charges for “assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees, including approximately 106 individuals who have been charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer”.Some 140 police officers were assaulted. About 55 people have been charged with conspiracy, the justice department said.Of approximately 1,000 people arrested to date, 518 have pleaded guilty, with many facing jail or prison. Fifty-three people were found guilty at trial, justice department data showed.The DC federal judge, Beryl Howell, told Bloomberg the court “continues to manage its caseload and trial calendar efficiently, notwithstanding the delays occasioned by the pandemic”.“So far, the court has been able to manage the increased criminal caseload well,” said Howell, whose term concludes this week. “Should a ‘surge’ of filings occur at a later date, the court would assess what additional steps, if any, it should take.”Criminal investigations into Trump’s attempts to undermine the 2020 election continue. Trump also faces a hush money investigation in Manhattan, a criminal investigation relating to his alleged retention of classified documents, a New York civil suit over his financial dealings and a defamation trial arising from a rape allegation he denies. More

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      Princeton Student Charged With Attacking Officers During Jan. 6 Riot

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      Larry Giberson was part of a mob that fought with the police and he cheered on others who used weapons and pepper spray against officers, prosecutors said.A Princeton University student was charged on Tuesday with being part of a violent mob that assaulted law enforcement officers during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, federal prosecutors said.The student, Larry F. Giberson Jr., was among a group of rioters who pushed against a phalanx of officers defending the Capitol at a tunnel entrance, according to an affidavit filed by a federal agent. With Mr. Giberson at the front of the crowd as the confrontation unfolded, one officer was briefly crushed between the rioters and the tunnel doors, the affidavit says.Mr. Giberson, 21, waved other rioters into the tunnel and joined a second round of shoving against the officers, the affidavit says. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to start a chant of “Drag them out!” and cheered on others as they used weapons and pepper spray to attack the police guarding the tunnel, the affidavit says.Mr. Giberson was charged in a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., with civil disorder, a felony, and several misdemeanors, including engaging in physical violence in a restricted building. He was arrested in Washington and released with conditions after an initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge.A Princeton University spokesman confirmed that Mr. Giberson, of Manahawkin, N.J., was enrolled as a member of this year’s graduating class.A university website lists Mr. Giberson as a James Madison Program undergraduate fellow for the 2022-23 academic year. The program, the website says, provides “a unique opportunity” for students to “pursue, outside of the classroom, academic interests related to politics, history, law and political thought.” Mr. Giberson could not be reached for comment. A lawyer representing him did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Giberson is among about 1,000 people to be charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, and one of more than 320 to be accused of assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers as supporters of former President Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol in a bid to disrupt the certification of President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.Mr. Giberson can be seen in publicly available video footage wearing a blue “Make America Great Again” cap on his head and a Trump flag around his neck and climbing toward the tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace shortly after 3 p.m. the day of the riot, the affidavit says.Once inside the tunnel, prosecutors said, Mr. Giberson and others tried to force their way in with a coordinated “heave-ho” pushing effort that left one officer crushed between a door and a rioter’s shield.Officers eventually gained temporary control of the tunnel and pushed out rioters, including Mr. Giberson, prosecutors said. As the mob continued its attack, Mr. Giberson stood by and watched as one officer was dragged into the crowd, assaulted and injured, they said.Federal investigators matched a photo of Mr. Giberson from the day of the riot with images posted on Instagram and the Princeton website, as well as with photos from his high school, the affidavit says.He was subsequently interviewed at the Princeton Police Department, where he acknowledged being the person seen in videos and photos from the scene of the riot, the affidavit says.The Daily Princetonian, a student newspaper, reported on Tuesday that Mr. Giberson publicly opposed the university’s decision in June 2020 to remove President Woodrow Wilson’s name from its public policy school and one of its residential colleges because of what Princeton leaders said were Mr. Wilson’s “racist thinking and policies.”“If our university can be intimidated by the transient impulses of the mob mentality to disregard their own esteemed standards,” Mr. Giberson wrote in an essay in The Princeton Tory, “what guarantee is there that the university will stand firm against those who would seek to undermine the nation, or indeed, humanity itself?”Sheelagh McNeill contributed research. More

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      A crime bill was supposed to fix Washington DC’s problems. Instead, it polarized a city

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      A crime bill was supposed to fix Washington DC’s problems. Instead, it polarized a cityThe new code revised 120-year-old criminal laws, but the effort was stymied by Joe Biden and an unlikely alliance of Republicans and DemocratsIn Washington DC, the law prohibits the playing of bandy and “shindy” in the streets, the arson of one’s own steamboat and potentially even being a “common scold” – a common law offense levied against those who quarreled with their neighbors.Aware of the need to clean up this 120-year-old criminal code, lawyers in America’s capital city have spent more than a decade and a half going through the law books in a modernization campaign described by those involved as long overdue, only to see the effort stymied this week at the hands of Joe Biden and an unlikely alliance of Republicans and Democrats.“Many residents are worried about taking their kids to school or going to the grocery store. But rather than attempt to fix this problem, the DC city council wants to go even easier on criminals,” Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy said in February, when the chamber’s lawmakers approved a resolution blocking the city council’s passage of the new code.Weeks later, Biden surprised his allies by announcing he would sign the House bill, and last Wednesday, the Senate passed it overwhelmingly – even though the president and many Democratic lawmakers support making Washington DC, the country’s only federal district, a full-fledged state.That Republicans would meddle in Washington DC’s politics is no surprise: they have few friends among the leadership of the overwhelmingly Democratic city. But for Democrats, their willingness to go along with the GOP effort is a sign of just how nervous the party has become to accusations of being weak of crime, which played a role in their loss of the House in last November’s elections. Residents’ frustrations with violence are also seen as a reason why Democrat Lori Lightfoot failed in her bid for a second term as mayor of Chicago.No city in America has political dynamics quite like Washington’s, where Congress has the power to overturn the city council’s will – which it did, for the first time in 30 years, over what local officials say was merely an update that would bring its criminal code in line with national standards.“We are an easy mark,” said Charles Allen, a city councilman who chaired its judiciary committee as the body was considering the revisions. “We don’t have representation in Congress, we have no senators out there that are arguing for us. We don’t have any full members of Congress in the House.”Sandwiched between Virginia and Maryland, Washington DC’s population of nearly 700,000 is greater than Vermont or Wyoming, but unlike those two states, the capital city’s only representation in Congress is a House delegate who can’t cast votes. The city government officially backs Washington DC becoming America’s 51st state, which Republicans universally oppose.In 2006, the council started reviewing the city’s criminal laws, which date back to 1901, and sought out the thoughts of the public defenders office, local prosecutors and criminal justice reform advocates across the city. The outcome of the 16-year process was a new code that removed mandatory minimum sentences for nearly all crimes, aligned sentences with what judges were actually handing down, added new offenses and raised the potential penalties for others, while also stripping out common law penalties that lingered in the turn-of-the-century document.But after the council unanimously passed the revised code last November, the city’s Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser announced she would veto it, citing its reduction in maximum sentences for gun offenses, among other issues. Republicans pounced after the council overrode her veto in January, and the following month, Biden unexpectedly signed on to the GOP effort.“I support DC statehood and home-rule – but I don’t support some of the changes DC council put forward over the mayor’s objections – such as lowering penalties for carjackings,” the Democratic president tweeted.Although police department data indicates overall crime in the city fell by about 4% last year, carjackings have jumped dramatically since the pandemic. Under the current code, armed carjackers could face jail sentences of between 15 and 40 years, but the new code sets the highest penalty at 24 years, in line with what judges were actually giving defendants and comparable to similar penalties nationwide, said Jinwoo Park, executive director of the DC Criminal Code Reform Commission.“I do think this has been completely inaccurately and unfairly painted as some kind of bizarrely radical bill, when really it’s just not the case when you compare it to the norms across the country,” Park said.Studies have repeatedly shown that long prison sentences don’t act as deterrents for criminals. And for Washington’s current batch of carjackers, the code’s revisions would not have made much difference: it was only supposed to come into effect in 2025.“Every crime people are talking about, from yesterday to today to tomorrow, happens under our current criminal code,” said Allen.There’s little evidence that message was received by Congress, particularly not by Republicans, who cast the code revision as consequence of left-wing government run amok – even though they held no hearings on the code before voting to overturn it.“It seems to me that DC is trying to compete with other liberal-led cities to see just how woke they can be. So, just imagine if Congress didn’t have this authority and the DC council was left to its own devices, and this dangerous bill would’ve become law,” said Bill Hagerty, Tennessee’s Republican senator, after almost all the chamber’s Republicans and most Democrats voted for the disapproval resolution.Yet the new code doesn’t address progressive concerns such as mass incarceration or racial equity, which Park said weren’t included in the commission’s mandate.“There’s an enormous amount of compromise built into the bill,” said Patrice Sulton, executive director of the DC Justice Lab, which advocates for reforms of the city’s system of crime and punishment.Local leaders scrambled to react to Congress’s renewed meddling in the city’s affairs, with city council president Phil Mendelson withdrawing the revised code from the legislature’s consideration, and Bowser proposing another round of revisions to the code.“What’s important for this issue is to try to put Democrats in the light of being soft on crime,” Mendelson said as he announced his ill-fated attempt to stop the Senate from blocking the code. “But citizens don’t understand that because [of] the way this has been demagogued, and that’s the challenge we have to overcome.”The GOP has signaled it’s not done yet: House Republicans now want to override a city council bill that would change, among other procedures, how the police department uses force.While he believes there’s still momentum for reform in many cities nationwide, Nick Turner, president of the Vera Institute of Justice, warned that the episode in the capital underscores how rising crime presents a headwind to the calls for change in policing and punishment that George Floyd’s death sparked nearly three years ago.Biden’s veto tell “opponents of good, evidence-based criminal justice policy that scare tactics work. And the risk is that what it signals to other responsible government leaders is that it will show efforts to make sure that we have both safety and justice,” Turner warned.To Sulton, the revised code’s downfall also represents a setback in the city’s desire to take full control of its affairs.“Until we have a new code, we continue to live under laws that are vague, overlapping gaps in law, and just a penal code that the district didn’t make itself,” she said. “And I don’t think you can talk about local control if we don’t have control over our most fundamental freedoms. And I can’t think of anywhere that the stakes are higher than when we’re talking about whether to put a person in a cage.”TopicsWashington DCUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansUS crimenewsReuse this content More