WASHINGTON —
WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the past four years, judges in Washington’s federal courthouse have punished hundreds of rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an unprecedented attack on the nation’s democracy. On the eve of the next presidential election, some of those judges fear another outbreak of political violence could be on the horizon.
Before sentencing a rioter to prison recently, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said he prays Americans will accept the outcome of next month’s election. But the veteran judge expressed concern that Donald Trump and his allies are spreading the same kind of conspiracy theories that fueled the Jan. 6, 2021, mob riot.
“This sore loser is saying the same things he said before,” Walton said earlier this month, without naming the Republican presidential candidate. “He’s angering the troops again, so if he doesn’t get what he wants, it’s not inconceivable that we’ll see the same thing again. And who knows? It could be worse.”
Walton, a nominee of President George W. Bush, is not alone. Other justices have said the political climate is ripe for another attack like the one that left more than 100 Capitol police officers injured. As Election Day approaches, justices regularly stress the need to send a message outside their courtrooms that political violence will not be tolerated.
“I get scared when I think about what happens when someone on either side is unhappy with the outcome of the election,” Judge Jia Cobb, a nominee of President Joe Biden, said last month during a sentencing hearing for four Capitol rioters.
Judge Rudolph Contreras decried the possibility of more politically motivated violence when he sentenced a Colorado man, Jeffrey Sabol, who helped other rioters drag a police officer into the crowd. Sabol later told FBI agents that a “call to arms was issued” and that he “answered the call because he was a patriotic warrior.”
“It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine that there will be a similar call in the coming months, and the court would be concerned that Mr. Sabol would respond to that call in the same way,” Contreras, a nominee for President Barack Obama, said in March before sentencing Sabol to more than five years in prison.
Trump’s distortion of the Jan. 6 attack is a cornerstone of his bid to reclaim the White House. The former president has denied responsibility for the crimes of supporters who smashed windows, attacked police officers and forced lawmakers into hiding as they gathered to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.
Trump has vowed to pardon rioters, whom he calls “patriots” and “hostages,” if he wins in November. And he said he would only accept the results of the upcoming election if they were “free and fair,” raising doubts reminiscent of his unsubstantiated claims in 2020.
Judges have repeatedly used their platforms on the court to condemn such efforts to downplay the Jan. 6 violence and paint the rioters as political prisoners. And some have expressed concern about what such rhetoric means for the future of the country and its democracy.
“We are in a very difficult time in our country and I hope we can get through it,” Walton said this month when condemning a Tennessee nurse who smashed a glass door at the Capitol with medical scissors.
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“I have a young daughter, I have a young grandson, and I want America to be available to them and be as good to them as it was to me,” he added. “But I don’t know if we’ll survive with the mentality that was there that day.”
More than 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes in connection with the Jan. 6 siege, which disrupted the peaceful transfer of presidential power for the first time in the nation’s history. More than 1,000 rioters have been convicted and sentenced, with about 650 receiving prison sentences ranging from a few days to 22 years.
Justice Department prosecutors have argued in many cases that prison sentences are necessary to deter convicted Capitol rioters from committing more politically motivated violence.
“As the 2024 presidential election approaches and many loud voices in the media and online continue to sow division and distrust, the potential for a repeat of January 6 looms ominously,” prosecutors have repeatedly warned in court documents.
Prosecutors argue that defendants who have shown little or no remorse for their actions on Jan. 6 could break the law again. Some rioters even appear to be proud of their crimes.
The first rioter to enter the Capitol texted his mother: “If I get a chance, I’ll do it again.” A Washington state man who stormed the Capitol with other members of the extremist group Proud Boys told a judge: “You can give me 100 years and I’d do it all over again.” A Kentucky nurse who joined the riot told a TV interviewer that she “would do it again tomorrow.”
A Colorado woman known to her social media followers as the “J6 Praying Grandma” avoided prison time in August when a magistrate convicted her of disorderly conduct and trespassing on Capitol grounds. Rebecca Lavrenz told the judge that God, not Trump, led her to Washington on Jan. 6.
“And she’s almost promised to do it all again,” prosecutor Terence Parker said.
Prosecutors had asked for a 10-month prison sentence. After her conviction in April, Lavrenz went on a “media blitz” to defend the mob, spread misinformation, undermine confidence in the courts and boost her celebrity in a community that believes Jan. 6 “was a good day for this country,” Parker said.
Judge Zia Faruqui sentenced Lavrenz to six months of home confinement and fined her $103,000, stressing that the “volume needs to be turned down” before the next election.
“These outside influences, the people who are tearing our country apart, are not going to help you,” Faruqui told her