No, I was wrong. Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Elmer Rhodes to 18 years and Mehta was an Obama appointee. The Department of Justice is appealing that sentence.

You know, we may just be wrong about Jan. 6. You’ve got two different judges handing out below guidelines sentences to the leader of Oath Keepers and now Biggs and on Tuesday I will be shocked if Judge Kelly gives Tarrio a guidelines sentence.

As a defense attorney I would have been shitting my pants hearing a judge say this to my client. This is what Mehta said before sentencing Rhodes to BELOW the guidelines.

“I dare say, Mr. Rhodes – and I never have said this to anyone I have sentenced – you pose an ongoing threat and peril to our democracy and the fabric of this country.

“I dare say we all now hold our collective breaths when an election is approaching. Will we have another January 6 again? That remains to be seen.

[Prosecutor McCullough today repeated before Judge Kelly Judge Mehta’s words “collective breaths”.]

“You are not a political prisoner, Mr. Rhodes. That is not why you are here. It is not because of your beliefs. It is not because Joe Biden is the president right now.

“A seditious conspiracy, when you take those two concepts and put it together, is among the most serious crimes an American can commit. It is an offense against the government to use force. It is an offense against the people of our country.

“It is a series of acts in which you and others committed to use force, including potentially with weapons, against the government of the United States as it transitioned from one president to another. And what was the motive? You didn’t like the new guy.

“Let me be clear about one thing to you, Mr. Rhodes, and anybody who else that is listening. In this country we don’t paint with a broad brush, and shame on you if you do. Just because somebody supports the former president, it doesn’t mean they are a White supremacist, a White nationalist. It just means they voted for the other guy.

“You don’t take to the streets with rifles. You don’t hope that the president invokes the insurrection act so you can start a war in the streets… You don’t rush into the US Capitol with the hope to stop the electoral vote count.

“It is astonishing to me how average Americans somehow transformed into criminals in the weeks before and on January 6.

“It would be one thing, Mr. Rhodes, if after January 6 you had looked at what happened that day and said … that was not a good day for our democracy. But you celebrated it, you thought it was a good thing. Even as you have been incarcerated you have continued to allude to violence as an acceptable means to address grievances.”

“Nothing has changed, Mr. Rhodes, nothing has changed. And the reality is as you sit here today and as we heard you speak, the moment you are released you will be as we heard you speak, the moment you are released you will be prepared to take up arms against our government. And not because you are a political prisoner, not because of the 2020 election, because you think this is a valid way to address grievances.

“American democracy doesn’t work, Mr. Rhodes, if when you think the Constitution has not been complied with it puts you in a bad place, because from what I’m hearing, when you think you are in a bad place, the rest of us are too. We are all the objects of your plans to – and your willingness to – engage in violence.

“[Rhodes] was the one giving the orders. He was the one organizing the teams that day. He was the reason they were in fact in Washington, DC. Oath Keepers wouldn’t have been there but for Stewart Rhodes, I don’t think anyone contends otherwise. He was the one who gave the order to go, and they went.

“It is in part because of Mr. Rhodes, frankly, that Mr. Meggs is sitting here today.”