Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's counterfactual campaign to whitewash the offenses of participants in the Capitol riot continued in a May 7 article by Joe Kovacs:
A Kentucky welder who never entered the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced Friday to a stunning 14 years in prison, the longest sentence to date for any Jan. 6er, and longer than the term of his convicted murderer prison mate.
Peter Schwartz, a 47-year-old Army reservist, gave a phone interview Saturday to the Gateway Pundit, recalling his arrest when he was with his wife in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 2, 2021.
Some 30 agents "assaulted him with flashbang grenades, armored vehicles, and more than 10 assault rifles aimed at his chest," the Gateway Pundit indicated.
"At no point did either my wife or I resist but we were both roughly handled and forced/dragged up the stairs after being shackled and handcuffed as we were shoved around," Schwartz said.
At no point in the article did Kovacs list what Schwartz was charged with or what he as accused of doing -- a egregious omission -- instead just lazily and uncritically repeating his self-proclaimed sob story with the help of the highly unreliable conspiracy site Gateway Pundit.So one must turn to a real news organization to learn the truth about what Schwartz did:
A Pennsylvania man who threw a folding chair at law enforcement and repeatedly used pepper spray on police during the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was sentenced Friday to more than 14 years in prison – the longest of any January 6 defendant so far.
Peter Schwartz, 49, was found guilty on 10 charges in December 2022 during a jury trial, including four felony charges of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon. Schwartz’s prior criminal history of 38 felony convictions dating to 1991 was a significant factor behind his sentence.
“Mr. Schwartz, dare I say, there are not many people who have come to this court with a criminal history like yours,” District Judge Amit Mehta said during a sentencing hearing on Friday.
On January 6, 2021, prosecutors allege that Schwartz thew the first folding chair at police that opened the police line and enabled hundreds of rioters to impede the officers.
Schwartz, according to prosecutors, found an abandoned Metropolitan Police Department-issued canister of pepper spray. He then used the irritant to spray officers, causing them to retreat and put on gas masks, and found a second can of pepper spray that he sprayed at officers, they said.
Schwartz was on probation during the time of the offenses, according to court documents. During his arrest, law enforcement found that he had at least one firearm in his possession at his residence in Pennsylvania. Schwartz has two prior convictions of possessing a firearm after being convicted of a felony.
Another actual news organization added:
Prosecutors said Schwartz has bragged about his participation in the riot, shown no remorse and claimed that his prosecution was politically motivated. He referred to the Capitol attack as the “opening of a war” in a Facebook post a day after the riot.
“I was there and whether people will acknowledge it or not we are now at war,” Schwartz wrote.
Schwartz was on probation when he joined the Jan. 6 riot. His criminal record includes a “jaw-dropping” 38 prior convictions since 1991, “several of which involved assaulting or threatening officers or other authority figures,” Bond wrote.
Kovacs made no mention whatsoever of Schwartz's extensive criminal history, let alone that it was a likely factor in the show of law enforcement during his arrest.
Instead, Kovacs simply copy-and-pasted large chunks of the Gateway Pundit propaganda piece, in which the only allusion to his violent past and present came from Schwartz trying rather lamely to defend himself:
I read an article in the Huffington Post today where if you read the article, you can see that it's saying that I sprayed mace. I didn't hit anybody, and I was accused of throwing a chair that also hit the ground safely, they said. And I never went inside the Capitol building. But they gave me 14 years and two months. Oh, my God. They're basing that off of what they say is they're saying I have a horrible criminal record, which they don't mention because they're talking about stuff from 30 to 35 years ago, which is predominantly traffic offenses. A few little incidents along the way where I've just pled out to some things, but 90 plus percent of it is traffic offenses, and they don't mention that. And I wish I would encourage anybody listening that look up my record. It's not criminal stuff.
Schwartz is lying, of course -- it's nearly impossible to rack up 38 felonies on traffic offenses, but Kovacs couldn't be bothered to do basic research to find this out. Indeed, those prior offenses include a 2019 conviction for terroristic threats "for threatening police officers who placed him under arrest for domestic assault" and a 2020 conviction for domestic violence after he bit his wife on the forehead and punched her multiple times, and on the day of the riot he was on probation for at least one other case that involved both assaultive conduct and illegal firearms possession.
Kovacs uncritically served up more of Schwartz's sob story, then concluded by linking to a crowdfunding account that "has been set up to donate to Schwartz's cause."
Even by WND standards, the total censorship of inconvenient facts is egregious -- and done in the service of trying to present a cop-hating thug as a victim. Kovacs should be ashamed of himself -- at least if he was capable of shame, which he probably isn't given that he works for WND.
