Julie Kelly exposes the January 6th prosecutions as a politically weaponized purge, with over 1,000 arrests—mostly for misdemeanors—led by Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves targeting Trump supporters while ignoring violent left-wing protests. Despite misdemeanor charges, 100+ detainees, including veterans like Joe Biggs and cancer patient Christopher Worrell, face two-year pre-trial detentions in D.C.’s jail, where abuse and denied medical care mirror authoritarian tactics. Judges, even Trump-appointed ones, deny bail amid juries skewed toward 93% Biden voters, while prosecutors exploit Trump’s rhetoric—like the "Proud Boys, stand back" remark—to build seditious conspiracy cases against him, signaling broader indictments ahead. The episode frames this as a coordinated war on conservatives, from school board protesters to pro-life activists, with media and Democrats complicit in normalizing the crackdown. [Automatically generated summary]
So we're talking about storytelling today and one of the big stories that's kind of seen from two different angles depending on what you believe and who you are is of course the January 6th kerfuffle at the Capitol.
We know that we've seen it, we've seen people say, oh, it was a complete false flag and we've seen people say it was the overthrow of the American government.
But what is not being told anywhere near enough is what's happening to the people who have been accused and arrested in this incident.
And so we want to talk today to Julie Kelly.
She's a senior contributor to American Greatness, and she's the author of January 6, How Democrats Use the Capitol protest to launch a war on terror against the political right, which is a pretty fierce way of putting it, but it doesn't sound all that inaccurate.
Julie, thank you for coming on.
Andrew, thank you so much for having me on.
I really appreciate it.
So tell us, give me a kind of, you know, big picture of what's happening to the people.
There have been about a thousand people arrested, if I'm correct.
What is happening to those people?
That's correct, Andrew.
More than 1,000 people have been arrested and are being prosecuted by the DC U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves.
Most of those individuals, by the way, have been charged with misdemeanors, low-level offenses, such as parading in the Capitol.
Nonetheless, the prosecution and investigation continues.
Matthew Graves, a Biden campaign advisor and Biden appointee, has promised to arrest another thousand January 6th defendants over the next several months, bringing the total caseload to 2,000.
So this is really a selective political prosecution.
At the same time, Matthew Graves, who has the unique position of prosecuting both federal and local crimes, is under fire from his own residence in Washington, D.C. for letting crime get out of control in his city as he fixates on the four-hour disturbance now more than 28 months ago in the nation's capital.
So are these people being treated?
I mean, this is as opposed to people, for instance, in Oregon and Washington State who burned Portland and Seattle to the ground, basically, but were pulled in and charged with minor crimes and then let go.
Now, if some of them are charged with misdemeanors, are they being treated as if they were charged with misdemeanors?
Are they out on bail?
Are they free?
Those who are charged with misdemeanors are not denied bail like dozens of others, more than 100 Trump supporters who have been denied bail, some of whom languished in prison for two years before their trials began, even though they were charged with nonviolent crimes like obstruction or conspiracy.
But nonetheless, Andrew, these people even charged with misdemeanors, in many instances are subjected to armed FBI raids, hauled off as if they are domestic terrorists, because that's how the Biden regime and this DOJ considers anyone involved in the events of January 6th.
They've referred to it as an act of domestic terror.
And that's how these people are treated, even if they didn't go inside the Capitol.
Even if they just walked in with police standing right there, walked in and out 10 to 15 minutes, their lives are being destroyed by this Department of Justice.
And so what's happening to these people is really heartbreaking.
I cover it in my book and continue to report on it at American Greatness.
But there's no end in sight for what Matthew Graves, Merrick Garland, and this Department of Justice are doing to punish Americans who protested Joe Biden's election on January 6th.
What about the people who are in prison?
Now, these are people you say they haven't been tried yet.
Some of them have been in, I'm kind of stumbling over this.
Some of them have been in prison for two years without being tried.
That's right.
That's right, Andrew.
So for example, members of the Proud Boys who were just convicted at trial last month, some of them, at least three of them, have been detained in custody since January and February of 2021.
They have no criminal record.
Four of them are veterans.
One of them, Joe Biggs, is a Purple Heart veteran who had deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, Judge Tim Kelly repeatedly denied their release while DOJ dragged out their trial, added charges like seditious conspiracy.
And their trial really didn't begin until January begin, first week of January of this year, held as innocent men with no criminal record for two years.
That's just one example.
There are others who have been in jail for 12, 18 months, also awaiting trial.
These are political prisoners.
It is not an exaggeration to call them that, because as you know, prosecutors across the country are not only freeing repeat criminal offenders, they're not asking for bail.
They're trying to get rid of bail.
But yet, Trump supporters in our nation's capital are handled far differently than real legitimate criminals in this country.
This is kind of an ancillary question, but I'm just curious, what kind of conditions are they in?
Are these high security prisons?
What kind of prisons are they in?
So what happened, Andrew, after January 6th, the D.C. Department of Corrections set aside a part of the D.C. jail just to house those arrested for January 6th.
These men were subjected, as I said, to armed raids.
They were transported from as far away as Washington State, Colorado, Texas, to be housed in this political prison.
That's exactly what it is because it's set aside only for Trump supporters, January 6th defendants.
For the first almost year, they were subjected to solitary confinement conditions, let out of their cell one hour a day.
They were tormented and in some cases, physically abused by D.C. jail officials, so much so and denied medical treatment.
I'll give you one quick example.
A man named Christopher Worrell, who was arrested in Florida, transported to the DC jail, a cancer sufferer, was repeatedly denied medical treatment.
And finally, several months later, a judge released him to a different prison and condemned D.C. jail officials for denying him treatment.
It's really horrendous conditions that these men have been subjected to.
And this is one reason why people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and others visited that jail.
They have a whole report.
But how can you have a prison, a special jail set aside for people who are not convicted, but just awaiting trial for protesting the sitting president's election?
I mean, this is Banana Republic stuff, and it's really terrifying.
And there's no end in sight, as I said.
So let me take this just from another position.
Let's say I'm somebody who just thinks, oh, you know, the capital, January 6th, it was an insurrection.
It was an attempt to overthrow the government.
All of that stuff is an opinion some people have.
Still, still, you can't put people in jail forever without trying them in this country theoretically.
I'm not expecting anything from the press.
We know the media is completely corrupt, but the entire justice system isn't corrupt.
I've seen there are good judges, there are good lawyers.
Is there no appeal process?
Is there no place for these people to go to bring their case?
There are.
But, you know, as you know, Andrew, we're talking about Washington, D.C.
And I will tell you, there is not a good judge on the D.C. district court.
And this goes from Trump-appointed judges like Tim Kelly all the way down to Reagan-appointed judges, if you can believe it.
All of them have denied bail for, in many cases, nonviolent offenders.
Then they refuse to move jury trials out of Washington, D.C., a city where jurors are selected from a pool of jurors, potential jurors, that voted 93% for Joe Biden.
They have open contempt for Trump supporters.
And there's no way to weed out these people in these dozens of jury trials.
You're talking about a relatively small city.
And so you have dozens of trials.
And for example, in the Proud Boys trial, you had eight jurors who admitted to being involved in left-wing Democrat protests over the past few years, including BLM, including anti-gun rights protests, demonstrations.
And yet they're seated on these juries.
And so there is no such thing as a fair trial, a jury of their peers.
Yet every judge has denied change of venue motions, especially in some of the more high-profile trials.
At the same time, when the January 6th Select Committee is pointing out these very defendants during jury selection, I mean, this is something that should not be happening in the United States of America, but yet it is.
So that's why I keep referring to it as a banana republic.
What Americans expect out of our legal and judicial system is not happening in Washington, D.C.
Well, you know, this is a good point.
We know we've heard from the left again and again, protest is patriotic.
The BLM riots, which left over 24 or 25 people dead, were supposed to be completely, first of all, they didn't spread COVID magically.
And secondly, that they were completely justified and it was mostly peaceful and all this stuff.
When we see this sort of thing happen to protesters in foreign countries, we, the United States, protest.
We say that people have got to be allowed to express themselves and protest.
I'm willing to say that you shouldn't break into the Capitol building.
I don't think that was the right thing to do.
I think that was a stupid thing to do.
However, this is obviously unjust.
Do you ever talk to people in other countries?
Do you ever get, I mean, we push back when other countries treat protesters like that.
Do you ever talk to people in other countries and hear their response?
I don't, but I do hear from people who are from those, who were born in those regimes and come here.
When people from the Middle East or Southeast Asia, they are terrified to see what's happening in this Department of Justice.
And, you know, not just the political prosecution of January 6ers, of pro-lifers, of parents who are protesting at school board meetings.
I mean, this is across the board.
And I've been told by those people, this is exactly what my parents went through, what my grandparents, what I saw as a child.
And Americans don't fully grasp that this is the beginning.
This is the trajectory that we are on.
And so I think that's a very good point.
In any other situation, we would be demanding human and civil rights for these prisoners.
The Story They're Building00:03:38
But yet this is cheered by the media, not just the media, but by Democrats and half of the country.
I mean, they are Democrats in their base want these people in jail for life to suffer for what they did on January 6th.
And not to your point, the offenses, the idea that they protested the election and still, in many cases, for Donald Trump.
Has anybody, aside from obviously Tucker Carlson or anybody at Fox, has anybody invited you on their show to speak about this?
Any network news people?
So Top Gerr was a great advocate.
It was a huge loss, his program, having him taken off air.
I have been on Laura Ingram's show.
I know that I am a persona non grata during the news segments on Fox News.
Have not been invited to cover any of this, even though, as you know, Andrew, and I'm not bragging, no one can touch my reporting on our side of the aisle anyway.
So no, I have not been asked to.
They are ignoring this abusive, reckless, retaliatory prosecution that is still ongoing.
And the big part, Andrew, is they are coming for Donald Trump.
They are building this massive caseload, especially the convictions in the Proud Boys, where Donald Trump was a key figure, by the way.
This is all to create energy and momentum for special counsel Jack Smith to hand down a multi-count criminal indictment against Donald Trump in the next few months.
Can you explain what do you mean Donald Trump was a key figure in the Proud Boys?
So as you know, Special Counsel Jack Smith has been investigating this since November of 2022.
DOJ has been investigating it since the very beginning.
In the Proud Boys trial, for example, I was there for closing arguments.
The assistant U.S. Attorney Connor Mulro, the very first video clip he played for the jury was not of the Proud Boys committing treason.
It was of Donald Trump's remark in the September 2020 presidential debate when after being goaded by Joe Biden twice to condemn the Proud Boys, he said, as you know, Andrew, Proud Boys stand back and stand by.
The government has claimed that that was sort of a call to arms, that the Proud Boys were jubilant after they heard that, that their membership skyrocketed.
This is actually in a press release that DOJ issued the next day and referred to the Proud Boys as Trump's army.
This is all by design.
I've watched this for more than two years.
They're going to use these convictions.
They're going to use the evidence that they issued in the Proud Boys trial, and they're going to present that also to the grand jury and help concoct the same charges, perhaps seditious conspiracy, because four or five Proud Boys were found guilty of that charge.
Seditious conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, regular conspiracy, possibly tampering with evidence and witness charges as well.
That's what the American people need to prepare for.
And the fact that most, and including the conservative news media, has ignored this up until this point, or the point when Trump is indicted, I think it's going to catch a lot of people off guard.
So they're building a story.
The story they're building is that Donald Trump essentially instigated an overthrow of the government, and they're doing it through these trials.
Julie Kelly, thank you so much for coming on.
Very disturbing stuff.
Senior contributor to American Greatness.
Her reporting is there.
Her book is January 6th, How Democrats Use the Capitol protests to launch a war on terror against the political right.
Julie, I hope we get to talk to you again and hear some updates.