Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has made a habit of late of relying on the notoriously unreliable far-right-blog Gateway Pundit to falsely portray those arrested as a result of their actions during the Capitol riot -- some of them violent -- as political prisoners instead of the criminals they are. A reprinted Aug. 23 Gateway Pundit story by Jim Hoft ranted:
Last week The Gateway Pundit published exclusive images of January 6 prisoner Ryan Samsel held in a prison cell at the FDC in Philadelphia the size of a closet with a light on all of the time. The cell had a thin blue mattress, no sheets or blankets, no clothing, and he was kept here for five months straight.
January 6 political prisoner Ryan Samsel has been held in prison without trial now since January 2021.
During his two-and-a-half years without trial Ryan has been moved around to 17 different facilities. Ryan has been beaten, abused, tortured, and neglected since his arrest in January 2021.
The photos are just shocking. This is taking place in America today. This is who we are.
Hoft offered no evidence that Samsel is being treated no worse than anyone else awaiting trial for criminal actions, and he offered no evidence he was ever concerned about that.Hoft also censored what Samsel is a accused of, As a much more credble news organization reported:
Samsel and four co-defendants "participated in the first breach of the restricted Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, and led the initial attack on United States Capitol Police officers," a prosecutor's filing alleged prior to the trial's start on Oct. 23.
"Their attack paved the way for thousands of rioters to storm the Capitol grounds," the filing claimed.
As the riot continued, Samsel allegedly grabbed at another officer's shield, and threw a pole and a two-by-four plank at police, the Justice Department alleges.
Hoft was brought in by WND again in a reprinted Sept. 9 article to defend a Proud Boy rioter who was sentenced to prison for his leading role in the riot:
On Thursday The Gateway Pundit’s Cara Castronuovo reported that Biden officials asked him to lie about President Trump in order to indict him!
“They asked me to LIE about President Trump in order to indict him,” Enrique Tarrio exclusively told the Gateway Pundit. “I told them to pound sand, and because I refused to lie about President Trump it cost me twenty-two years of my life.
“The truth is, I could have been home,” said Tarrio. “I could have been home a long time ago. I could be in my warm ass bed right now, laughing at the world, without a problem…and all I had to do in order to do that WAS LIE ABOUT TRUMP. All I had to do was confirm a lie.”
But prosecutors offer deals to defendants all the time to gain a guilty plea on lesser charges in exchange for testimony against other defendants. Tarrio (and Hoft) framing this as prosecutors trying to get Tarrio to lie is dishonest and shows a willful misunderstanding of how the justice system works.
WND had Hoft whine again about supposed mistreatment of Capitol rioters in a Sept. 15 article:
The devastating reality of 23 hours per day solitary confinement is back for the January 6 political prisoners.Today the DC Jail announced that the J6 patriot pod would be on lockdown for refusing to submit to COVID testing! This lockdown status is a horrific recurring nightmare for many of the nearly 40 Jan 6 detainees surviving in the Gulag.
In an exclusive statement the Gateway Pundit obtained from J6 prisoner for 980 days without a trial, Jake Lang, we learn what it was like living through nearly 20 months of solitary confinement & COVID lockdowns in prison. “I can’t believe we are back to this, it is truly the most inhumane way to treat people. Even a dog gets to go outside once a day! 23 hours locked in your cell alone everyday has a severe effect on the human psyche – and is considered Cruel & Unusual punishment by the Geneva Convention. It is a torture designed to crumble the resolve of even the strongest people, without a relationship with Jesus – it would have broke me.”
Or you know, Lang and the others could simply take the stupid COVID test. Neither Hoft nor Lang offered any evidence to prove that taking the simple test is an onerous violation of anyone's rights or why taking it was not a possibility. As you might recall (though Hoft won't remind you), Lang faces multiple felony charges in part because he attacked law enforcement with a baseball bat.
WND doesn't seem to realize that its credibilty is damaged even more than it already is by republishing sob-story content from a dubious far-right website that is being sued for defamation by two Georgia election workers for spreading lies about them. Or maybe it does, but it just doesn't care because the operation is going down the tubes anyway and its credibility couldn't get much worse than it already is.
