Judge Tim Kelly has sentenced five members of the Proud Boys to a total of 82 years in prison. In the process, Kelly branded the men as terrorists. But what do videos from that day really show?
On September 5, U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced the last of five members of the Proud Boys convicted by a D.C. jury of various crimes, including seditious conspiracy, earlier this year. Kelly imposed the longest sentence to date in any January 6 case by ordering Enrique Tarrio, the group’s ex-leader, to serve 22 years in prison even though Tarrio was not in the Washington, D.C. that day.
Similar to his decision on the fate of Tarrio’s co-defendants, Kelly consented to the Department of Justice’s request to add a terror enhancement to Tarrio’s sentence, which dramatically elevated the base amount of prison time under federal sentencing guidelines. The crime? Shaking a temporary metal fence on Capitol grounds. Admitting that Tarrio “did not directly participate in the fence’s destruction,” now officially a federal crime of terror as I explained here, Kelly nonetheless claimed Tarrio somehow contributed to the destruction of government property from a Baltimore hotel room.
I’ve heavily criticized Kelly’s conduct in court and will have more to say after appeals are filed in each case. His failure to protect the rights of the defendants from egregious government overreach, refusal to move the trial out of D.C., and numerous rulings that prevented the jury (and the public) to learn the full scope of FBI involvement in the group are just a few areas ripe for appeal.
But the question before the public right now is—what exactly did these men do on January 6?
Seditious Conspiracy is Anything The Regime Wants It To Be
One would be hard pressed to get a straight answer from either Judge Kelly or any of the many prosecutors handling the case. Overthrow the government? Interrupt a session of Congress? Thwart the “peaceful transfer” of power? Scare Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? All of the above?
By Julie Kelly
