U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly considered terrorism enhancements, former prosecutor David Kelley said of the sentence for former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.
Speaking to MSNBC's Ari Melber on Tuesday, Kelley explained that the government was asking for 33 years, so Tarrio's 22 years is still under the request. It is the highest sentence of any Jan. 6 insurrectionists yet.
"I think what's interesting about these sentences and the one this afternoon is if I were in a position of being prosecuted in any relation to the capitol insurrection, I'd be very nervous," Kelley said. "If somebody like for instance Trump, or one of his cronies, is prosecuted for something related to Jan. 6th, it's hard to give them a light sentence when folks like this are getting these various gift sentences. This is stiff."
But he went on to relate it to one of the terrorists involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers.
Kelley was among those who prosecuted the cases, including John Walker Lindh, who was known as the American Taliban member. He left the U.S. to train in al Qaeda camps and fought on the Taliban front lines in Afghanistan. He was caught in Afghanistan and charged in the U.S., getting his sentence a little over ten months later.
Lindh was ultimately sentenced to 20 years in prison as part of an agreement in which he would pled guilty to one count of supplying services to the Taliban and a criminal information charge that he carried a rifle and two hand grenades while fighting against the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance, explained a CNN report at the time.
"He got — i forgot exactly what it was, but I think around 22 years," said Kelley. "And that was in the hysteria — not hysteria, but we were all very raw in the wake of 9/11. And this is tantamount to that. So, folks coming up to be sentenced after this case I think have a lot to worry about."
Lindh was sentenced less than a year after Sept. 11, where Tarrio got his sentence more than two years later.
"The goal of the criminal justice system is not to change everyone's mind," said Melber. "You can still go online and post that you think this or that person won the election. But the goal when you look at instigation and insurrection, the goal is to deter. Given some of these people thought they were outside of normal law or thought their alliances, privilege, ties, publicly and otherwise to the outgoing president would help them."
Melber went on to ask Kelley if it would deter others in the future, to which Kelley said he thought it might.
See the discussion below or at the link here.
Enrique Tarrio got a similar sentence to 9/11 attacker known as the Taliban Americanwww.youtube.com
