We discussed this on the Triggered Podcast this week, but this can’t be legal. This sounds like something out of North Korea, Hussein’s Iraq, or Castro’s Cuba. We have a person detained for nearly 90 days without an indictment. Why? Well, this person was around the Capitol Building during the January 6 riot. Leslie McAdoo Gordon of Redstate, who served as a special agent for the Department of Defense Investigative Service and is now an attorney, detailed this sordid tale of prosecutorial misconduct. Being an attorney who has gone through the motions involving cases at the federal level, Gordon details how the government botched this arrest and detention from the beginning starting with the fact that there was no preliminary hearing. It’s a lengthy post but a step-by-step recount of how this man has been detained illegally without trial or charge:
You don’t see this very often in federal court, but one of the January 6 (J6) Defendants, Lucas Denney, is being held illegally. He was arrested in Texas on December 13, 2021, and brought before a federal magistrate, who ordered him detained without bond on a criminal Complaint. It then took six weeks to transfer him to DC, where he is currently being held. He has not appeared before a federal judge in DC since his arrival, although that will change Monday afternoon as a result of his lawyer seeking his release.
Denney’s case involves two distinct, major screwups. The first is that he was not afforded a Preliminary Hearing, to which he is entitled under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the Constitution. The second is that he has not been indicted by a grand jury within 30 days of his arrest, as required by the federal Speedy Trial Act. Consequently, Denney’s detention has been unlawful since at least late January 2022.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) alleges that Denney participated in the riot on January 6, 2021, in Washington D.C. at the United States Capitol. It charged Denney with five felonies: assaults, civil disorder, and obstructions of an official proceeding, and with seven trespassing misdemeanors. An arrest warrant was issued for him in December 2021 based on a criminal Complaint sworn out by a law enforcement officer, not on an indictment returned by a grand jury.
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It's an infuriating legal saga, but also a terrifying story about how the government can trample your rights. Obviously, this isn’t the first time the government has gone off the rails. It doesn’t make it any less disturbing. While the woke mob often misattributes certain events they don’t like as Apartheid South Africa, or whatever authoritarian government comes to mind next, this is a prime example. The good news is that Mr. Denney is probably going to be released soon as the appeals court finally stepped in and made inquiries about the speedy Trial Act violation. Gordon believes Denney will be released and his case dismissed.
January 6 has become the Left’s new raison d'etre post-Trump-Russia collusion. I’d rather have the latter. This little riot has been so overblown and stretched beyond its reasonable limit that we’re venturing into comedy. Liberal America thinks that day was worse than 9/11. It was like Pearl Harbor. It was as traumatizing as the American Civil War. It’s not shocking these were the takes as liberals are historically illiterate. This was hoping to be their grand 2022 midterm strategy, which was to talk about something that 95 percent of the country simply couldn’t care less about. We’ve all moved on because we’re normal. On the Hill, Democrats literally have nothing to run on this cycle. The Ukraine war has totally nuked their entire playbook. Inflation is out of control. We still have a supply chain crisis. The border is a mess. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are tripping all over each other with this Ukraine War. There’s crisis after crisis and Joe Biden can’t do the job.
While it’s perfectly fine to dismiss January 6 because it wasn’t that big of a deal, the fact that the nation is falling apart because Joe Biden is a failed president also lends itself to be a massive cover to those who were illegally detained, like Mr. Denney.
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