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Yes. Unironically, unabashedly, yes. There would be far less perception of a bureaucratic-driven double standard if the Jan 6 treatment had been done to equivalent rioters years before. That would be worth far more than the money saved.
The question of the thread is how to get an opposition party to buy into the legitimacy of the government of the victorious party. The value of a federal prosecution for state legitimacy in this context doesn't come from securing a conviction, it comes from showing the commitment of the government to seek to bring people to court on the basis of what they did, rather than on the basis of who they protested against. Appearing to turn a blind eye to one's own partisan faction and what they do against their political opponents is about the worst thing you can do for the legitimacy of a legal institution.
If the Justice Department sits on and does nothing with 200 cases against the opposition party, the opposition narrative has 200 examples of the other team- the winning team, in this case- not being prosecuted on the basis of acts conducted. When prosecution isn't being pursued for acts not in dispute, 'we wouldn't secure a conviction' is a poor shield to charges that the real reason is 'we didn't want to.' Especially when there would be plenty of people publicly acknowledging partisan sympathies from within the government, and especially if the opposition would be charged for equivalent acts later.
On the other hand, if the Justice Department brings up the evidence and prosecutes 200 cases and the DC jury fails to convict a single one, the opposition who lost will still be citing 200 cases of the Justice Department being on their side and insisting on the propriety of the Justice Department. This insistence will not only negate years of hostile accusations as to why the government didn't even attempt the case, but has all the usual psychological effects of challenging and/or undermining people who would later go from lauding the Justice Department's willingness to challenge bad actors to (when those were the other side) to accusing the Justice Department of uneven handling (when it was the oppsition side).
That DC juries would jury nullify is a separate issue, and a far better problem to have from the perspective of government legitimacy. If DC juries intend to consistently demonstrated partisan animosity, there are ways the government (Federal or the Congress under the majority party) can respond to that, much as how jury reforms were imposed on the civil rights south to ensure fairness. What is more important is that if DC juries are the problem, opposition party ire will be focused on them, and not the federal government itself.
The legitimacy of the government is considerably better off if a lack of justice is seen as the fault of the jury pool that voted 90% Democratic than if the government simply accepted it. One is a scandal for the Democratic Party, and one is a scandal for the state.
So, I guess you'll be voting for Harris then? That's the only reasonable conclusion I can draw based on the timeline here. The protests happened in 2017, and the decision to drop the charges came in 2018. That's well into the Trump presidency and well into Jessie Lieu's tenure as US Attorney for Washington DC. If Trump had a problem with these non-prosecutions it was well within his power to put pressure on the US Attorney's office or fire Lieu if she didn't comply, but there's no indication he did either. Instead, he tried to get Lieu promoted! You can say the same thing about January 6. Sure, Trump wants to pardon them now, but he could have done a great deal to prevent the prosecutions if he'd actually acted before he left office. While he was warned of the unclear legal ground a blanket pardon would stand on, it would have made prosecutions a hell of a lot more difficult. And 30 of the perpetrators had been arrested by the time his term expired, including most of the prominent ones. Seeing all those guys walking free and the rest having defenses that would take a Supreme Court decision to resolve would have at least delayed proceedings long enough to dampen the Biden Administration's enthusiasm for pursuing the charges. But, of course, he didn't, and here we are.
If that's the limit of your reason, that's the limit of your reason.
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If there was anything close to Civil Rights-era issues, there'd be evidence from J6 people that there were actually innocent people prosecuted and convicted of crimes they didn't commit. The usual issues people have is harsh sentences and that the criminal justice system was unfair to them.
In which case I say, welcome to America. Enjoy your stay.
The problem was all the J6 people committed crimes. Want to not go to jail? Don't commit crimes on video with your face easily visible so much so that random people on Twitter can figure out who you are and report you to the police.
So, the issue isn't the juries. The problem is let's say, a third of the population think what people did on J6 wasn't a crime, regardless of the very clear law on the books. OTOH, the reason the Disrupt protest arrests didn't work out is most of what they were charge is far more vague than basically, "don't do anything the government like on direct government property."
Thank you for demonstrating the point on differing political interest on pursuing crimes.
It was easier to convict J6 people for the same reason it's easier to convict people who then livestream talking about how they just held up a liquor store.
Thank you for continuing to demonstrate the point on differing political interest on pursuing crimes.
There's differing interest in pursuing the stolen car with no other info and the 7-11 robbery where there's video, not for political, but because nobody wants to actually work hard reasons.
Thank you for continuing to demonstrate the importance of differing political interest.
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