Hundreds of Americans have been held in jail for months, even years, not because they are accused of some extreme crime, but because they protested the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, likely trespassed, and ultimately offended the Democrats whose candidate then moved into the White House.
There have been many horror stories from those Jan. 6, "political" prisoners, from their detention in horrific conditions, to officials depriving them of ordinary rights to counsel, to apparently coerced plea bargains.
But now, according to a report from the Epoch Times, there could be coming an end to that.
The report explains retiring U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas has proposed a bill to address the detention, treatment, and prosecution of defendants from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
It's called the Matthew Lawrence Perna Act and it's named after the man from Pennsylvania who was arrested for being in the Capitol building during those protests.
The report confirmed, "The bill, if passed, would prohibit the detention of political activists arrested during the course of a protest for non-violent crimes. The bill would also allow for speedy trials for detainees arrested for non-violent crimes during a political protest, among other provisions."
The report noted that after a year of the federal government delaying his case, Perna pleaded guilty, and then, facing enhanced charges and harsher sentencing, he killed himself.
Gohmert said, "The Biden administration and the FBI would like to have the public believe that Trump supporters pose the greatest threat to our democracy. However, the greatest threat to our Republic is our own government which grossly abuses its power, uses tools for spying on foreign threats to spy on its citizens, and now holds political prisoners."
The report noted that Gohmert developed language for the bill that protects "nonviolent political protesters" regardless of the issue at hand or their political affiliation.
The congressman also was helped by Geri Perna, Matthew Perna's aunt, who first worked as her nephew's advocate and then later, after his death, signed on with Gohmert's plan.
She told the Epoch Times in an interview, "From the beginning, Rep. Gohmert has been vocal and hardworking—he has been the loudest and hardest working—in raising the issue of the unjust political prosecution of Matthew, and others protested peacefully and nonviolently on that day."
The bill also addresses "malicious prosecution" and reins in claims by prosecutors that all those cases have "national security" implications.
Just before his death, Perna took a call from his lawyer and learned prosecutors were delaying his sentencing and adding a charge of terrorism so that he could serve years in prison, just for entering the building.
via wnd