Feds Using Enron Era Law To Seek Longer Sentences For Capitol Rioters

A new report this week has proven that prosecutors are going a little too easy on suspected Capitol Rioters, but these prosecutors now want to use a new legal strategy to obtain longer sentences. The strategy - laid out in the Sarbanes Oxley Act - allows prosecutors to go harder against suspects by prosecuting them for obstructing Congress. Farron Cousins explains how this strategy works.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

Over on the ring of fire channel this week, I have talked a lot about the sentencing of the capital riots. So if you haven't checked out those videos, I do encourage you to do that. But nevertheless, if you haven't seen 'em, let me give you a quick refresher on all of that report came out this week, showing that out of all of the capital riots that have been sentenced so far, very, very few of them are actually being given prison time. And as we reported months ago, judges have already expressed their, I guess, exasperation with prosecutors for not going hard enough against a lot of these alleged capital rioters. You know, reducing the charges before it even goes to trial, letting these people enter into plea agreements where they avoid jail time when the judges clearly thought, no, this person based on what I've seen based on what I, you know, the evidence here really did deserve some jail time.

So the judges were exasperated. Prosecutors were getting a little Z, I guess, but according to yet another new report out this week, cuz apparently we just have tons of reports about capital Rio or sentencing. They're about to start getting a little more tough as we approach more of these cases in the coming year. Federal prosecutors have decided they're gonna start going harder on these capital rioters. So for those who've already had your trial, your plea agreement, whatever it is, uh, y'all got off easy. Those still a waiting trial, probably not gonna be so lenient. Let me read this. This is from the wall street journal this week in the riots, wake prosecutors searched for tools to evaluate some of the cases beyond the misdemeanor charges often applied for unruly, but far less momentous capital arrests. They turn to a provision in the 2002 Sarbanes Oxley act enacted after the accounting fraud, scandal and collapse of Iran, which imposes a potential 20 year on those convicted of obstructing an official proceeding.

The measure expanded what counts as obstruction and closed loopholes used by people involved in the Iran fraud. So prosecutors have offered to drop additional charges for some of the Rios. If they plead guilty to that count and accept a punishment that would like involved more than three years in prison, several have taken the deal with at least two sentence to date. Along those lines, others have rejected those conditions, specifically the enhanced sentence requirements and are opting instead to go to trial. Here's what things get interesting last week, two federal judges in Washington separately rejected arguments that the crime I'm described in the TW uh, 2002 statute wasn't appropriate. The term official proceeding means a proceeding before the Congress, us district judge Amit meta said a straightforward reading of that definition easily reaches the certification of the electoral college vote. So to put this in layman's terms, what prosecutors are going to try to start doing more of in the future and they've already had limited success with it so far is instead of just saying, okay, you were trespassing on federal property. That's a misdemeanor to get you some community service, let's get you probation. And then you're on your way. Instead. They're gonna say by going into the capital, by the act of trespassing, you are also obstructing the official duties of Congress. And according to the Sarbanes Oxley act, we could pop you with 20 years in prison for this.

Now it's unclear why, of course prosecutors would want to go this route. Do they really wanna start sticking these people in prison for 20 years for entering the capital? Well, I think what is happening here and of course this is just my opinion. We're getting overwhelmed. We've had 50 sentences so far are literally more than 700 individuals that have been arrested for this based on this particular report, over 700. So you have hundreds and hundreds of cases still awaiting trial.