Stewart Rhodes gets a long while to think about following Doanld Trump’s suggestions….
“You sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country, to the republic and the very fabric of our democracy,” Judge Amit P. Mehta told Rhodes.
The judge said he had never before expressed such a belief about a defendant appearing in his court. He described Rhodes, who founded his far-right, anti-government group in 2009, as a disturbingly charismatic figure who manipulated dozens of his followers into coming to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
“They too are victims, victims of the lies, the propaganda, the rhetoric and ultimately the intention that you conveyed,” Mehta said.
Noting that Rhodes has continued to spread conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric in interviews from behind bars, Mehta predicted, “The moment you are released you will be prepared to take up arms against your government.”
In a lengthy address to the court before the sentence was read, Rhodes, 58, did not dispute that he was a key figure in the right-wing firmament. He cast his conviction as part of a left-wing plot that included the Biden administration, the media and anti-fascist activists.
“I’m a political prisoner, and like President Trump, my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country,” he told the court. Comparing himself to Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, he promised that from prison he would “expose the criminality of this regime.”
Before Rhodes’s punishment, no Jan. 6 defendant who did not assault police had been sentenced to more than eight years in prison, and only one man had been sentenced to more than a decade —
A traitor
A Terrorist
A Republican
Somne in Texas will be proud of the guy?