A 56-year-old black man was sentenced to five years and three months in prison Tuesday for his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Mark Ponder, a resident of Washington D.C., and former constituent services coordinator for the D.C. city council, pleaded guilty in April to assaulting three police officers with poles. His sentence is tied for the longest jail sentence levied so far against those involved in the riot, which has often been dubbed as "white supremacist" by prominent Democrats and officials.
"The violent, deadly insurrection on the Capitol nine months ago, it was about white supremacy, in my opinion," President Joe Biden said at an event in October of last year.
"These displays of white supremacy are not new," Lecia Brooks, chief of staff for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said of the riot. "Now it's just reached a fever pitch." . . .
"The attackers on Jan. 6 included a number ... of what we would call militia violent extremism. And we have had some already arrested who we would put in the category of racially motivated violent extremism, white, as well," [Christopher] Wray said, according to the Washington Post.
JUST IN: Judge Tanya Chutkan has sentenced Jan. 6 defendant Mark PONDER to 63 months in prison for assault, one of the stiffest sentences handed down yet, and steeper than DOJ's request for five years.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 26, 2022
via joemiller