January 6 Defense Attorney Marina Medvin joined The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft to discuss her work with the January 6 defendants.
This was an amazing interview. Gateway Pundit readers know how much we support and report on the plight of the January 6 defendants and political prisoners. But Marina Medvin had so much to say about the J6 prisoners and DC courts that was completely new to us.
Marina accused the government of selective prosecution in January 6 cases. The government is charging individuals who attended the January 6 protests with broad array of charges that they have ignored at previous protests in the nation’s capital.
** Maria recommended donations to RightDefense.org to help the J6 defendants. The donations from the organization go directly to cover the legal bill of the J6 defendants. The organization is linked to the Coolidge-Reagan Foundation.
Transcript clips to our discussion are posted below.
A huge majority of the J6 defendants – possibly 90% – are lower-middle class.
Jim Hoft: It seems like a lot of these charges are just overblown. The people I’ve spoken with at Gateway Pundit, we have people calling us all the time from prison, actually, some of the political prisoners, and most of them have never been charged before with anything. They’re good citizens. Many served in the military. A lot of them are lower middle class. They’ve never been to Washington, DC. They’re just those people who really loved Trump’s message and thought they were doing the right thing to go there.
Marina Medvin: As you said, they’re lower middle class. A majority, I would say maybe 90%, if not more, are represented by court-appointed counsel or public defenders. And that is unique in a large class of cases to understand just what is happening to these individuals that they cannot afford private counsel. The majority of them, this is pretty striking. And people accuse Trump supporters and conservatives of either being rich or people who just don’t want to pay taxes or this or that. But if you see the individuals who actually support Donald Trump, that’s just not the case.
The J6 prosecutions are unique. The government is using COVID as an excuse for the delays in the trials and need to hold men in prison for two years.
Marina Medvin: Two things are unique. Number one, the volume of defendants and discovery is unique. It’s unprecedented in American history. Number two, we had COVID, which caused significant delays in the courts. We weren’t able to have jury trials move forward. And so, while normally there’s a 70-day speedy trial rule in these cases, and technically, you could push forward if you wanted to, to a trial, there’s nowhere to go to trial because COVID closed down the courts… Whether I agree or disagree with that is a whole different issue. I think at a certain point, constitutional issues come into play. Speedy trial. There’s two different speedy trial concepts that people tend to confuse. There’s a speedy trial act, and that’s where it says 70 days of trial after indictment. And that’s what people get confused about. When we talk about waiving speedy trial, we’re talking about the act. Then there is speedy trial, the constitutional right. That’s not a 70-day right. So speedy trial under the Constitution is more broadly understood, and courts look at that case by case specific to see if the constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated, because that is very different.
A vast majority of charges against the Trump supporters are trespassing charges for standing outside or walking into the US Capitol. More than 2/3’s of those charged.
Marina Medvin: I don’t think anyone in the defense bar ever seen charges like that. But also, we haven’t seen 1512(c) charged either, which is the most common charge for all the other trespassers. The one thing to realize about January 6 defendants as a whole is the majority are charged with trespass offenses, nonviolent offenses, but trespass style offenses. It sounds like a lot of the individuals we spoke with were found guilty of more serious felonies or being held on violent charges. But if you really look at January 6 defendants as a whole, those are the minority. The majority are, and I think it’s two-thirds, if not more. The majority are actually just trespass defendants. People who went in the flag waving grandmas, people who went into the capitol, took selfies, walked around, and walked out.
** Maria recommended donations to RightDefense.org to help the J6 defendants.
The government is charging a majority of Trump supporters with 1512.(c)(2) charges – a felony – something that has never happened before.
Marina Medvin: There are four misdemeanors everyone is charged with, and those are trespass-related misdemeanors. And then there’s a felony, 1512.(c)(2) It’s a felony obstruction of Congress charge… It’s not a charge we’ve seen charged in these types of cases ever. I think if you would have spoken to an attorney before this happened, whether they thought 1512 c two would apply, they would probably say, no, I’ve never seen a charge. I don’t think it would. If you look at that code section, it has to do with documents and altering documents. It has nothing to do with actually going in and protesting. We’ve got misdemeanors for that. So be charged with these misdemeanors. But no, now I don’t think you’d be charged with that felony. And then all of a sudden, we started seeing this felony being charged with people who just went in, took selfies just in the capitol building, didn’t touch documents or do anything with those documents. And you’ve got a lot of those people charged with 1512(c)(2) s. That’s a felony up to 20 years in prison.
The 1512.(c)2 charge the government is applying to all of the Trump supporters is more serious than assaulting a law enforcement official.
Marina Medvin: What’s interesting about that felony, it’s actually more serious than assault and law enforcement felony. So assaulting law enforcement is a max of eight years. The obstruction of congress is 20 years. So assaulting a police officer, causing injuries to that officer is less serious a crime than obstructing congress for just being in the building. According to the government. The government charged a lot of trespassers with this. And so the trespassers have more serious charges than the assault offenders.
The government actions against Trump supporters on January 6 are unprecedented.
Marina Medvin: I’ll say that I’m a criminal defense attorney by trade. I was doing this for well over a decade when these cases started. So I’m going to tell you from personal experience in criminal law, I’ve never seen anything like this. That’s the reality, and however they want to explain it. And all my conversations with the government are about the same. You would have a normal plea offer for me had this not been a January 6 case. And it’s back and forth on whether we think that’s fair. And the government is very clear on January 6 cases being distinct, unique, and comparable. They are very clear that there’s not going to be standard plea offers for the cases that we would see in other criminal cases. And so in my sentencing memos, even if we’re accepting a plea to some misdemeanor, I’ll write out all the different other plea agreements offered to BLM protesters, violent ones, and other jurisdictions, which include complete dismissals of their felony assault charges on law enforcement.
The appeals court recently ruled that the government can charge the J6 Trump supporters with the 1512(c) 2 violation. Something the DOJ is using in an unprecedented manner.
** Maria recommended donations to RightDefense.org to help the J6 defendants.
Watch this amazing interview below.