Letters From A DC Jail

Letters from a D.C. Jail

Julie Kelly

This week, five Republican senators sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding his office’s handling of January 6 protesters. The letter revealed the senators are aware that several Capitol defendants charged with mostly nonviolent crimes are being held in solitary confinement conditions in a D.C. jail used exclusively to house Capitol detainees.

Joe Biden’s Justice Department routinely requests—and partisan Beltway federal judges routinely approve—pre-trial detention for Americans arrested for their involvement in the January 6 protest. This includes everyone from an 18-year-old high school senior from Georgia to a 70-year-old Virginia farmer with no criminal record.

It is important to emphasize that the accused have languished for months in prison before their trials even have begun. Judges are keeping defendants behind bars largely based on clips selectively produced by the government from a trove of video footage under protective seal and unavailable to defense lawyers and the public—and for the thoughtcrime of doubting the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

The rule of law for anyone involved in the events of January 6 has been flipped on its head by the U.S. justice system; defendants are presumed guilty before proven innocent. The right to a speedy trial and the right to participate in one’s own defense are ignored, as are other constitutional protections.

Prosecutors insist the alleged crimes committed by Capitol protesters—unlike similar or more egregious crimes committed by leftist protesters last year—are exceptionally heinous because the acts resulted in an “attack on our democracy” and interrupted the official business of the U.S. Congress.

The Justice Department and federal judges also continue to lie in court about the number of fatalities from January 6 in order to make the event seem far worse than it actually was. A Senate report issued this week also repeated the falsehood that “seven individuals, including three law enforcement officers, lost their lives.”

Take, for example, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the judge who refused to dismiss the case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn even though both parties sought to do so. Sullivan is presiding over a handful of Capitol breach cases. Last month, he denied a request made by Jonathan Mellis, behind bars in the D.C. jail since February awaiting trial, to attend his father’s funeral in Virginia. Mellis faces several charges including allegations he attempted to strike a police officer with a stick. (Again, this is based only on evidence presented by the government. Nothing has been contested in court.)

Mellis’ 80-year-old father was a decorated Vietnam War veteran and longtime Defense Department employee. Biden’s Justice Department immediately objected to Mellis’ request for a temporary release. “[T]he defendant’s continued dangerousness to the community and flight risk is too great because, if convicted of some or all of the above-mentioned charges, the defendant will serve a significant amount of time of incarceration.”

Judge Sullivan concurred. “Although the Court is sensitive to the news of his father’s death and expresses its condolences, the Court hereby DENIES Motion for Temporary Release.”

Mellis continues to suffer in what I call the D.C. Deplorable jail with no end in sight for him or his fellow detainees.

Mellis wrote to me in an email this week.

We are charged with every possible offense and held in the DC jail on solitary [sic] confinement and treated inhumanely. For example, a correctional officer from a different pod came to C2B screaming at us late at night on 6/1/21 because we had just sang ‘God Bless America’ [sic] from behind our locked doors like we do every night. Being as we are on lockdown 22 hours a day it’s nice to keep morale up through patriotism. 

I am concerned for the safety of myself and my fellow Capitol rioters here in the DC jail. We are locked down all day and threatened with violence regularly. We all know that getting our hands tied together and being beaten is something the DC jail officers have already done to Capitol rioters in this pod. 

Solitary Confinement and beatings. That is our reality. When will the inhumane treatment end? I just want to let everyone know the reality of how we are treated in this place. Left wing rioters are not even held in jail. Much less subjected to the harsh and inhumane treatment my fellow Capitol rioters and I have survived under so far this year.

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