He gets jailed for peaceful protest while the corrupt motherfuckers at the DOJ allow violent Antifa and BLM thugs to roam free.
Paul Hodgkins is not my enemy.”
Fighting back tears, Patrick Leduc, an attorney representing a man charged in connection with the January 6 protest at the Capitol, made that statement in a dramatic court hearing Monday morning. Leduc, by the way, is no snowflake. On Tuesday, the 33-year-old U.S. Army reservist will be deployed to the Middle East for his third tour.
Leduc cited his military oath—to protect the country from “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”—to refute the government’s accusation that Paul Hodgkins, 38, is a domestic terrorist. “Words have meaning,” Leduc told U.S. District Court Judge Randoph Moss. “I have been shot at by real terrorists. If we’re going to label this as domestic terrorism, where do we draw that line?”
Sadly, after listening to Monday’s proceedings, I must conclude there is no line. Americans on the political Right are considered an enemy no less lethal than al-Qaeda and minus the civil libertarians to defend them.
It’s clear the Biden regime, in cooperation with federal judges, will stop at nothing to destroy the lives of people who protested the 2020 presidential election. This includes people like Paul Hodgkins, who was sentenced to eight months in prison for denouncing what his government was about to do on January 6—certify a rigged, corrupt presidential election—and for supporting Donald Trump.
Hodgkins, who lives in a working-class neighborhood in Tampa, took a bus alone from his home in central Florida to Washington, D.C. to attend Donald Trump’s January 6 speech. After the speech, he walked to Capitol Hill. He later said he had no intention of going inside the building but got caught up in the moment.
Like many pro-Trump protesters, Hodgkins did not bring a weapon. He did not assault a police officer or damage any property. He was inside the building for roughly 22 minutes, entered the Senate chamber, hoisted a “Trump 2020” flag, took some selfies, and left.
Nonetheless, law enforcement arrested Hodgkins in Tampa on February 16 and charged him with four misdemeanors and one felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding. Joe Biden’s Justice Department has added the obstruction charge to roughly 200 misdemeanor cases so federal prosecutors can get jail time for Capitol defendants.
Which is exactly what happened in the case of Paul Hodgkins. The Justice Department not only sought 18 months in prison for the first-time offender who committed no violent crime but, in the most hyperbolic and inflammatory language possible, accused Hodgkins of being a domestic terrorist. “The need to deter others is especially strong in cases involving domestic terrorism, which the breach of the Capitol certainly was,” federal prosecutors wrote in a July sentencing memo. “Moreover, with respect to specific deterrence, courts have recognized that “terrorists[,] [even those] with no prior criminal behavior, are unique among criminals in the likelihood of recidivism, the difficulty of rehabilitation, and the need for incapacitation.”
In other words, Hodgkins’ actions on January 6 on their face did not merit a prison term but the Biden regime must defend their insistence the Capitol breach represented the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” or that it was comparable to 9/11. They need to pretend that it is something other than political grandstanding. So every top Biden apparatchik, from Attorney General Merrick Garland and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to line prosecutors, gladly wields their unchecked authority to make these alleged terrorists pay.
Without mercy.
Paul Hodgkins, facing an enemy he clearly underestimated, asked for mercy anyway. In a statement before sentencing, Hodgkins told the court “without a shadow of doubt, I am truly regretful for my actions and the way this country I love has been hurt.” He said he traveled to D.C. alone to “support a president I love.”
Then he said the words Joe Biden’s Justice Department wanted to hear, words reminiscent of the sort of Soviet-style confessions beaten out of political dissidents the world over: “Joseph R. Biden is rightfully and respectfully the president of the United States.”
The former Eagle Scout then explained to Judge Moss what would happen if he were sent to prison. (Defense lawyer asked for probation; the government asked for 18 months.) “The felony conviction will cost me several of my civil rights. I will lose the job I love.” Hodgkins said he’s in an apprenticeship at work and hoped to be promoted to mechanic but his employer won’t be able to keep him on while he’s in jail. “I will lose the house I rent and have to find a place for my two cats.”
Moss, however, showed no mercy. The Obama appointee at times sounded more dramatic than the average pre-teen girl. The circumstances of the Capitol breach are so beyond the pale, Moss claimed, that there is no equal—including the weeks-long protests against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, which Patrick Leduc raised in court. “There is no existing benchmark. This case defies comparison to other obstruction cases.” (None of the more than 200 activists arrested during the Kavanaugh protests was charged with obstruction of an official proceeding.)
He called the brief delay in certifying the election results “chilling” and warned the day is a stain on the county’s history. “Democracy requires the cooperation of the governed,” Moss warned. “Democracy is in trouble. This is a damage that will persist in this country for decades.”
The nation’s leaders and law enforcement officers will suffer the long-term consequences, Moss lamented. “People were traumatized [and] killed that day. They will carry it for the rest of their lives.”
Moss seemed particularly offended that Hodgkins carried a Trump flag into the well of the Senate and hoisted the rebel flag in the air at one point. “The symbolism of that act is unmistakable. He was staking a claim on the Senate floor, declaring his loyalty to a single individual over a nation.”
And therein lies the real crime: Paul Hodgkins, a working-class American who took a bus on the 900-mile journey to the nation’s capital to support his president and protest a clearly rigged election, defiled the ruling class’ palace with a Trump flag.
The real enemy are the Dems, the weaponized government agencies and shitbags like Moss who want to make an example of citizens who protest corruption.
If the motherfuckers pursued Antifa and BLM thugs with the same effort, the country would be a lot better off. The goons responsible for the destruction of businesses, police stations, and courthouses, have skated out of any legal consequences for their crimes. The Feds refuse to prosecute.
Since 6 January, FBI jackboots targeted an innocent man for attending President Trump’s 6 January rally, raided the wrong home in Alaska looking for Nancy Pelosi’s laptop, confiscated a Lego set from an “insurrectionist” and asked that citizens turn in their “extremist friends and relatives“. The leftwing media and Dem politicians call them “terrorists” and ran to their psychoanalyst for therapy.
MAGA protesters are held in jail without due process, while murderers walk free.
Dem politicians just breached the Senate building and got a slap on the wrist.
The federal government has turned against the citizens of this country. Act accordingly.
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