USNWR: Journalist Aaron Cantu made an initial court appearance Friday to face new criminal charges that could carry decades in prison for alleged rioting and property destruction during President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Cantu, who works for the Santa Fe Reporter and has had articles published by Vice, The Nation, The Guardian and The Intercept, declined to comment inside a courthouse in the nation’s capital. His attorney Chantale Fiebig also declined to comment on the case, which the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has criticized.
Cantu, wearing a suit and tie, appeared alongside more than three dozen other defendants crowded in a horseshoe around Judge Lynn Leibovitz. He accepted an Oct. 15, 2018 trial date and entered a not guilty plea for three separate rioting charges and five felony destruction of property charges.
An attorney for another defendant predicted before the hearing that Trump would be impeached before most trials occur.
Many people stood at the hearing and the large chamber ran out of chairs to seat defendants next to their lawyers. Leibovitz joked “we won’t tell the fire marshals” about the cramped conditions.
When Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff said it would be inefficient to split trials into small groups to accommodate defendants wanting a 2017 trial date, the judge said forcefully, “you have chosen to charge 215 people” and “there are a lot of efficient ways to resolve this.”
The defendants were arrested following a Jan. 20 anti-capitalism march. After windows were smashed, police chased members of march, accompanied by journalists and legal observers, through the streets of the nation’s capital. Some of the most aggressive activists busted through a police line and avoided arrest. more here
Too bad his last name wasn’t Biden. He could have gotten off with probation.
Keep a scorecard on all of this bullshit. AntiFas, fake allegations and investigations, plays that depict the assassination of Trump, courts overturning attempts to protect the US.
If (God forbid) the left ever wins the White House back, play their game, use their tactics. Kick ass, revolt, trip them up, delegitimize, bury them in distraction. We need to get all the pieces in place to make sure that the left never again takes us down the road to disaster.
8 yrs of the worst president in history, and they think they still own us.
It is not that they are charging 215 people , it is that 215 people broke the law.
Lock them up!
Typically, Antifa, rioters, anarchists, BLM, looters, criminals who break the law as large groups do not face legal repercussions.
It is good that laws will be enforced for a change.
It’s about time !
Could mass hanging be an outcome?
Crickets from the MSM on this.
The Leftist Elite don’t want their Antifa expendable cannon fodder to realize the consequences of masking up.
The cost of anarchy is about to rise, sharply.
THEY ARE NOT JOURNALISTS THEY ARE DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVES WITH A BY LINE
Did I read that right? The trial doesn’t happen until over a year away??? We could all be dead by then! >:(
“They can’t arrest us all!”
No. All they need to arrest is you.
the judge said forcefully, “you have chosen to charge 215 people” and “there are a lot of efficient ways to resolve this.”
Plea deals and dismissals coming soon, rather than making examples of them.
Maybe the real attraction wuz people wanting to watch anyone named Chantale to work the pole…
Don’t hold your breath. This guy won’t see any jail time – he’s a moonbat, and we all know moonbats have some sort of special immunity.
Now, if he was a black guy, and was arrested with a few grams of marijuana, you could bank on a two year prison sentence….
He will fit right in in the liberal bastion of Santa Fe. I hope he gets jail time.
There was an article in the Washington Times a couple of months ago. One of the black block cretins took to whining “The prosecutor is just using excessive charges in order to scare and coerce us into pleading guilty.”
I dunno. There was a lot of video, and none of you came off as fine, peaceful or upstanding people. Not a bit.