On the Eve of the Show Trials

Guy Reffitt is one of hundreds of protesters not charged with committing a violent crime on January 6.

Based on the government's mostly hearsay evidence, a D.C. federal magistrate last year denied Reffitt's release-and it had little to do with his alleged criminal behavior on January 6.

Judge Dabny Friedrich, a judge appointed to the D.C. District Court by President Trump in 2017, upheld Faruqui's ruling last May; Reffitt has remained in a fetid D.C. jail specifically set aside for January 6 defendants ever since.

In January, amid new COVID-related lockdowns that forced Reffitt and at least 35 other January 6 defendants to remain in their D.C. cells for 22 hours a day, his defense lawyer once again asked Friedrich to release his client under strict supervision, particularly since the court continued to delay trial dates and close the courthouse needed for jury trials.

Reffitt's case, to be sure, is complicated; his son, Jackson, who disagrees with his father's politics, taped family conversations about what Reffitt did at the Capitol on January 6 and gave those recordings to the FBI. Jackson later claimed Reffitt threatened him and his younger sister if they turned him into the authorities.

Adding to Reffitt's legal woes, with the FBI under pressure to arrest someone for possessing a firearm on January 6, the Justice Department indicted.

Judge Friedrich granted the Justice Department's request to limit questioning of Secret Service agents in Reffitt's case, but her colleague, Judge Trevor McFadden, recently denied.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/24/on-the-eve-of-the-show-trials/