Peaceful Oath Keeper Gets 18 Years Jail, Man Who Shot Pro-Lifer Gets Community Service
BY CATHERINE SALGADO, PJ MEDIA
Fox 28 reported on May 23 that 75-year-old Richard Harvey, who “pleaded no contest to shooting an 84-year-old woman” campaigning for the pro-life cause, received a very light sentence indeed. Harvey has to complete 100 hours of community service, “a suspended jail sentence of two months and a delayed sentence of one year on probation.” Just imagine if Joan Jacobson had been a BLM protestor or a pro-abortion activist instead of a pro-lifer. Would Harvey, like Stewart Rhodes, be facing jail time?Fox News reported in February, “According to the Major Cities Chiefs Association’s?2022 crime report,?homicides?have increased by 41% in Chicago, 45% in Philadelphia, and 236% in Portland?since 2019.” Fox added, “In Washington, D.C., just this year, sexual abuse is up 100%, motor vehicle theft is up 111%, and homicides have increased by 18%. But, just weeks ago, even despite the liberal mayor’s veto, the Washington, D.C. City Council approved legislation to slash prison sentences for the worst offenders, eliminate penalties for a slew of violent crimes, and release scores of dangerous criminals back onto our streets.”
I want to share Rhodes’s defense and explanation of his actions from the trial. He argues that he and those Oath Keepers with him did not commit any violence or threaten anyone and that he was unarmed. He calls out the blatant political bias against the Jan. 6 prisoners in contrast to Antifa. Transgender radicals holding disruptive “transurrections” in multiple state Capitols have been largely ignored by the same government agencies and media who pretend that individuals like Rhodes are the greatest threat to America. Rhodes didn’t even enter the Capitol! Rhodes said:
I’ll start by saying I’m a political prisoner like President Trump and my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country… systemic violence of the left to shut down speech of Trump supporters. It started at the Trump inauguration. We started protecting vulnerable Trump supporters from attacks by Antifa — none of them was ever prosecuted to my mind — obviously seditious conspiracy trying to stop the transfer of power To Trump. We’ve protected people outside Trump rallies from Antifa.
Rhodes said Antifa likes to pick on unarmed victims, so Oath Keepers have had to protect people across the country. The policy was always peaceful deterrence, not violence — even when the leftists were violent.
Oath Keepers used protective gear like helmets and body armor both on Jan. 6 and at previous D.C. events because leftist Antifa is habitually violent, Rhodes explained, not because the Oath Keepers themselves meant to get violent. It’s interesting that there were FBI and may have been Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees or plants in the Oath Keepers. Were Rhodes and the other non-fed Oath Keepers set up?
“On January 6, I did not go inside, nor did I expect anyone else to. I had just spoken at the Latinos for Trump rally about a block north,“ Rhodes stated. He was next to the Capitol waiting for the next event, he clarified, and he gathered his Oath Keepers together precisely because he didn’t want them to be involved in what appeared to be a riot. He told some of those who came to him after entering the Capitol that they were “stupid” to go in. Another man (a retired policeman) had been in charge of assigning teams because Rhodes was reluctant always to be personally in charge, he stated.
On January 6, I saw a problem — saw a riot happening. I didn’t want our guys to be a part of it, so, I said, “Come to me.”…No Oath Keeper took part in any of the fighting. No Oath Keeper punched anyone, kicked anyone, pepper sprayed them, struck them with a stun gun. The worst thing an Oath Keeper did that day: Jessica Watkins pushed in a Senate hallway. She was leader her own little militia. The other one was Josh James, he lost his military bearing.
Rhodes stated that he sympathized with Capitol police who were allegedly in danger, but that the Oath Keepers weren’t responsible for any such aggression and he found it “bizarre” to hear the testimony from Capitol police in his trial. “This has been a surreal experience. I feel I’m the lead character in ‘Kafka’s The Trial,’” Rhodes said. In Kafka’s work, a man is prosecuted without being informed of the nature of his supposed crime.
Rhodes argued that he and his fellow Oath Keepers are being targeted for stopping the very violence they are accused of inciting. “I find it very offensive, all meant to smear the Trump supporters and link them to the Ku Klux Klan, which was a Democrat organization,” he said. “The Oath Keepers — the New York Times blames the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. They hate us because we stopped the violence in the streets and they don’t like that.”
It is certainly a sobering fact that in America now, people can murder, assault, burn, and disrupt government proceedings with impunity as long as they are leftists, while an unarmed man who never entered the Capitol on Jan. 6 is going to spend 18 years of his life in jail for allegedly “radicalizing” other Americans.
Outrageous miscarriage of justice