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Tucker Doc: Man Arrested After Sitting at Pelosi's Desk on Jan. 6 Claims Guards Tortured Prisoners

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“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial…”

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

You recall those quaint early American sayings, which, of course, are much more than that — they are vital parts of the Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

The Constitution. Remember that? Seems we haven’t heard from it in awhile.

Those amendments are for everyone — for good guys, for bad guys, for rich people, for poor people. And they apply to those swept up in the demonstration that got out of hand at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson recently unveiled a new documentary series, “Patriot Purge,” which concerns the events and fallout of Jan. 6, and Thursday’s episode topic was the alleged abuse of individuals arrested following the events at the Capitol.

If true, they represent criminal activity against Americans, including torture, going on in the beautiful capital of our country, despite our Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

“Suddenly America has political prisoners, American citizens,” Carlson said in the episode on Fox Nation. “Some of whom committed no violence whatsoever on Jan. 6 remain rotting in pre-trial detention in one of the worst jails in the country.”

Do you think reports of abuse of Jan. 6 defendants are true?

A lawyer for one of the defendants, Joseph McBride, said during the episode, “The D.C. facility where Jan. 6ers are being held is Guantanamo Bay for American citizens.”

McBride’s client is Richard Barnett, the guy photographed infamously posing in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office chair. Following his arrest, Barnett said he was placed in a special unit at the D.C. Central Detention Facility, “And the first thing I noticed about it was, it was filled with black mold. Even in the drinking water that came out of your sink.”

Barnett, now back home in Arkansas, said, “I had inmates wanting to stab me. They’re telling me they’re going to kill me. One of the guards at one point even threatened to come here and harm my wife.”

“Ryan Samsel [another Jan. 6 prisoner] — two guards snuck into his cell in the middle of the night, zip-tied his hands behind his back,” Barnett said. “They pulled him out of the cell, took him down to the end where the cameras [weren’t] showing. He followed instructions. They proceeded to beat the man to the point where now has lost sight in one eye.”

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“I was physically abused,” Barnett said. “I’ve been slammed face-first on the concrete. I’m not saying this for pity. I’m a strong man. Y’all didn’t hurt me. Y’all did not hurt me. You did not hurt my spirit. I love my country.”

In an earlier interview on CNN, a smirking host cut McBride off when he used the word “torture” to describe the prisoners’ conditions. “We’ll stick with the facts,” the host said.

“The facts are torture!” McBride interjected.

In the Carlson documentary, McBride outlined the treatment of Jan. 6 prisoners. “They’re being treated horribly, forced to live in egregious and filthy conditions. For months they’ve been beaten, they’ve been starved, they’ve been denied medical care.”

“This is documented. Just recently, Judge Royce Lamberth of the D.C. District Court held the D.C. jail in contempt! And an investigation happened.”

McBride said that in anticipation of the investigation, D.C. officials spruced up what he called the Patriot Wing of the jail where Jan. 6 prisoners are held.

“In anticipation of the investigation, the D.C. jail sent janitors and maintenance men down to the Patriot Wing to purge it of its filth, to paint the walls, to scrub the rust, to get rid of the black mold in 24 hours, thwarting the investigation and allowing the investigation to look at one side of the jail, while the other side of the jail was essentially swept clean.”

As a result, investigators condemned the part of the jail where regular prisoners were held, causing them to be transferred to a facility in Pennsylvania, but the Jan. 6 section was shined up enough for those prisoners to stay.

McBride said some of the prisoners have been charged with terrorism, assaulting federal officers with deadly weapons and being on Capitol grounds with deadly weapons. “The combination of which could land some of these people in jail — who have never been convicted of any crime before — for 20 or 30 years.”

But McBride and Carlson concurred that there was no evidence of any Jan. 6 demonstrators having firearms. That prompted Carlson to ask if violent demonstrators seen around the country in the summer of 2020 — including those affiliated with Black Lives Matter and antifa — in which a dozen people were murdered, were held in similar circumstances.

“Of course not,” McBride replied. “Not only that but the vice president of the United States of America participated in a fund to help advertising to get them bailed out.

“It’s a complete double standard, it is not equal treatment under the law. These are political persecutions — prosecutions — there’s no doubt about it.”

Asked if there has been an effort to raise money for Jan. 6 prisoners in a similar fashion to how Vice President Kamala Harris raised money for people in antifa, McBride said they have been blocked from doing so by most crowdsourcing mechanisms.

“Thank God for organizations like [Christian fundraising site] GiveSendGo, where you can go to find the clients there and give to whoever you want to. But it’s been a terrible experience.”

Carlson noted that unlike the “rich kids” in antifa, many Jan. 6 defendants are working class people often saddled with debt. Some only have public defenders in Washington who have privately voiced opposition to their clients’ political views.

“Now I don’t all of them under the bus,” McBride said. “There are some very good ones out there, but there are some public defenders that are representing Jan. 6 defendants right now, who absolutely should not doing it because they cannot get over their hatred of [former] President [Donald] Trump, they cannot get over their hatred of Christianity, they cannot get over their hatred of white men, or anything that’s traditional in America.”

“They’ve expressed these views. It’s objectionable. It should not be happening, it is happening now and it’s very wrong.”

A final note — while treatment of Barnett and others has been unconscionable, his vulgar posing in the Speaker’s chair was offensive and an embarrassment to our nation and to the conservative cause.

Yet what has reportedly happened to him and others is wrong. If it is true, the officials who allowed it must be held accountable.

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Mike Landry, PhD, is a retired business professor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster and church pastor. He writes from Northwest Arkansas on current events and business history.
Mike Landry, PhD, is a retired business professor. He has been a journalist, broadcaster and church pastor. He writes from Northwest Arkansas on current events and business history.




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