Richard Barnett, the guy with his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk during the storming of the Capitol, has been charged with minor offenses. He claimed he took an envelope from her desk as a souvenir, but that it wasn’t theft, because he left a quarter on her desk. Taking something that doesn't belong to you without permission is still theft, despite its lack of value. As a souvenir of the historic storming of the Capitol, it may even be valuable to a collector. Perhaps valuable enough to count as grand theft. I wonder if he knows how lightly he’s getting off.
He could be charged with grand theft, criminal trespass, burglary, and insurrection. I looked up their definitions and penalties in the District of Columbia. If a prosecutor wanted to make an example of Mr. Barnett, he could be facing sentences totaling more than sixty years in federal prison. Parole is not allowed in federal cases.
Even then, he’d be lucky. Taking part in an attack on Congress, causing Congressional leaders and the Vice President to flee for their lives, might be construed as treason. The Constitutional penalty for treason is death. In the past, even those barely associated with treason have hanged.
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