Jail blocks GOP group checking on Jan. 6 suspects
Lawmakers say facility is biased
D.C. jail officials turned away GOP members of Congress who showed up Thursday at the jail, saying they intended to inspect the treatment of suspects detained in the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Trailed by cameras from right-wing news organizations, Reps. Matt Gaetz, of Florida, Marjorie Taylor Greene, of Georgia, Paul Gosar, of Arizona, and Louie Gohmert, of Texas, crowded into the lobby of the D.C. detention facility demanding to be let inside as members of Congress.
A D.C. jail official told them they were “obstructing entrance into this facility” and appeared to accuse the members of trespassing.
“We’re the people that vote on whether or not to fund you, at what level, and we’re trespassing?” Mr. Gohmert responded.
The D.C. detention center is not a federal facility and is fully funded by D.C. taxpayers — but Congress has oversight over D.C.‘s budget.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, said that their “attempt to basically try to break into the D.C. jail is an abuse of their authority over the District.”
“Congress doesn’t have any authority over the D.C. jail. That’s a home rule issue,” Ms. Norton said. “So no member of Congress, or anybody else, is entitled to special access to the D.C. jail.”
The action at the jail was the group’s second this week, after they barged into the Justice Department on Tuesday trying to ask questions about the detention of Jan. 6 suspects awaiting trial and whether any were being held in solitary confinement. Mr. Gosar called them “political prisoners” who are being “persecuted” and unjustly punished before trial. Reps. Bob Good, R-Va., and Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., joined the group. All have opposed an investigation into Jan. 6 and voted against Congressional Gold Medals for police officers who responded that day.
They knocked on locked doors after a supervisor declined to allow them to tour the facility. They said they showed their congressional IDs and even agreed to wear face masks to try to gain entry. But when the answer remained no, Mr. Gohmert said they were “in totalitarian Marxist territory here” and accused D.C. jail officials of operating a “dictatorship.”
“We suspect there is a two-tier justice system in the United States, for Trump supporters that are charged for Jan. 6 and catch-and-release for BLM rioters,” Ms. Greene said.
D.C. officials revealed in court in March that they were holding suspects in the Jan. 6 insurrection in “restrictive housing” — separate from the general population — for the suspects’ own protection from assault by other inmates.
The D.C. jail also faced scrutiny earlier this year for its draconian but since-relaxed 23-hour coronavirus lockdowns — but those applied to all inmates, not any one group.
It’s unclear exactly how many Jan. 6 suspects are being held there, or whether they remain in restrictive housing. A Washington Post analysis found in May that about 50 suspects tied to the attack on the Capitol remained held without bond awaiting trial, about 13% of more than 400 defendants. But they also are scattered in facilities across the country. Although the cases are federal, some of those charged are held in local facilities before trial under agreements with federal authorities.
The 13% of Jan. 6 defendants held in jail before trial is much lower than the roughly 75% of federal defendants held in jail before trial nationwide, including in immigration custody, The Post’s analysis found. Defendants denied bond were accused of violent offenses — such as assaulting police — or weapons violations, while others were accused of being part of a wider conspiracy. A few defendants have successfully challenged their pretrial detention in court.
Mr. Gohmert and Mr. Gosar later tried to say that they were concerned about all people at the D.C. jail being held before trial, saying no one should be punished without being found guilty.
But Ms. Greene undercut that claim when she interrupted Mr. Gohmert during an ad hoc news conference outside the facility, saying, “Wait, I have a question: What if we had been here just to check on the entire population?”
When Mr. Gohmert insisted that’s what they were doing, Ms. Greene quickly agreed.