The infamous “Zip Tie Guy” was denied bail this week. Eric Munchel, who went viral for carrying around zip ties during the Capitol riots, was deemed too much of a threat by a federal judge to be allowed out of jail. This order overrode a Tennessee judge granting bail to Munchel.
Why was Munchel deemed a threat? According to federal prosecutors, the zealous Trump supporter needed to be held because people died in the riots (even though they couldn’t prove Munchel’s involvement in any of those deaths), his opinions make him an extremist, and he allegedly was part of a group that yelled at a reporter. The only solid evidence of criminal wrongdoing is that the defendant walked around the Capitol without permission—he didn’t bring the zip ties and there is no evidence he attempted to kidnap lawmakers. That still won’t draw any retractions from media outlets that claimed this foolish demonstrator was a terrorist mastermind bent on abducting the entire Congress.
Even though we grant bail to rapists and murderers, Eric Munchel was apparently too dangerous to be set free. And, as the prosecutors admitted, it was due to his politics. The same federal judge, Beryl Howell, also denied bail to the man who put his feet up on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk. Howell said the Trump supporter, Richard Barnett, didn’t deserve bail due to his “entitled behavior.” The powerful need to teach the plebs a lesson.
Many of the Capitol demonstrators committed crimes, but most of them don’t rise to the level of terrorism. Walking around a federal building and taking selfies isn’t 9/11. The arrested demonstrators are facing far more serious repercussions than any other group of rowdies, however. Authorities are even prepared to file sedition charges against some of the Capitol stormers.
It’s common for conservatives to contrast the weak response to Black Lives Matter riots to the iron crackdown against the Capitol protesters. The FBI certainly weren’t going after its organizers for conspiracy or picking up random people who happened to be in the scrum of the BLM insurrection. Liberals respond that our Capitol is more important than the dozens of small businesses and local structures destroyed by BLM. It’s a far graver crime to pose a threat to government buildings and elected officials.
If this were true, then we should’ve expected the hammer to come down on Antifa’s months-long siege of the Pacific Northwest. Instead, Antifa members are repeatedly released without charges in Portland and Seattle. No one faced serious jail time for the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, even though it was in open rebellion against the American government and Constitution. Very few of the leftists who laid siege to Portland’s federal courthouse face the punishment dealt to the Capitol stormers. And certainly no one has faced any consequences for threatening the Portland mayor.
Antifa’s insurrection continues into the Joe Biden era. Portland and Seattle still deal with regular rioting and violence. Just days after the Capitol protests, leftists stormed the city hall of Bellingham, Washington and forced the mayor to flee. They occupied the building for hours, attacked a reporter, and vandalized the place. This clear assault on government was met with a collective shrug. The same occurred with Portland’s violent riot on Inauguration Day. Many of the arrested rioters were released without bail and had their charges dropped, in spite of being repeat offenders.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler vows to end the violence, but he’s shown no initiative to do so. No one seems to want to end it except the ordinary citizens of Portland who are suffering it.
And that’s the real difference between the Capitol stormers and Antifa. Those in power feel threatened by the former while they don’t care about the latter. One group is labelled domestic terrorists, even if their greatest crime is federal trespassing, while the other is deemed nothing more than a right-wing fantasy. Taking over a government building as a protest is only illegal if you’re wearing a MAGA hat.
Our justice system promises to treat everyone equally and be blind to political influence. The above-mentioned double standard undermines that claim. The Left knows it can weaponize the justice system to go after its enemies and coddle their allies—and it promises to get worse under the Biden Administration.
We were treated to a dark preview of what lies ahead when the Department of Justice announced it had arrested a man for memes. Douglass Mackey was one of the most influential Trump supporters on social media in 2016 under the pseudonym “Ricky Vaughn.” He was arrested over the claim that he interfered with the election with his viral memes. One in particular claimed that Hillary Clinton voters could vote by text. If a person texted the number in the fake ad, they would receive a message from the Clinton campaign informing them they had not in fact voted.
This was a prank not exclusive to Mackey. Liberal comedian Kristina Wong urged Trump supporters to vote by text as well in 2016. Wong faces no investigation from the federal government. Much of the government’s complaint against Mackey whines about how his satirical memes somehow suppressed the vote. It apparently endangers our democracy to share a #DraftOurDaughters meme.
While Mackey faces up to 10 years in federal prison if he’s convicted, former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith was let off with probation for helping to engineer one of the greatest political witch hunts in U.S. history. Clinesmith falsified information that allowed the government to surveil Trump associate Carter Page, a development that helped spur the Russiagate hoax. This flagrant disregard of the law was treated as just an honest mistake by the judge. No federal judge would show the same degree of leniency to someone who put their feet on a Democrat’s desk.
The Mackey case clearly threatens free speech and is nothing more than a political persecution. It’s another extension of the Russiagate hoax perpetuated by Clinesmith and many others. If you doubt the legitimacy of the 2016 election, you can get a plum job in the federal government and arrest your political enemies. If you doubt the legitimacy of the 2020 election, you can’t even make bail. That’s how the system works in Biden’s America.
It should be noted that Mackey’s prosecution was launched by a Trump appointee. Just imagine what Biden appointees will do.
The justice system is one of the many institutions rigged against the Right. It will throw out its basic principles in order to punish those whom the elite deem to be domestic enemies. And if you’re a Trump supporter, that’s you.