Julie Kelly: Trump Could Be Held Without Trial in DC, Like Other Jan. 6 Defendants

The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was a high-security Federal prison on Alcatraz Island, w
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Investigative reporter Julie Kelly says that Special Counsel Jack Smith “very well could ask a D.C. judge to deny Donald Trump’s release, to deny him bail once he is indicted, and arrested, and arraigned” on charges relating to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Kelly spoke to Breitbart News Sunday host Joel B. Pollak on SiriusXM Patriot on Sunday evening about the pending indictment of former President Trump, who said earlier this month that he had received a “target letter” suggesting he would be indicted.

She noted on her Substack on Sunday evening that just as January 6 defendants had been held for months in pretrial detention, even when they were accused of nonviolent offenses, Trump could soon find himself subject to the same treatment.

On air, Kelly noted that despite the evident hypocrisy in the Department of Justice refusing to treat Black Lives Matter rioters in 2020 in the same way, or to apply the same law to left-wing protesters at the Supreme Court or at the homes of individual justices, it was likely that prosecutors would charge Trump and that he would be convicted, thanks to the bias of the Washington, D.C. jury pool.

Trump’s actions on January 6 — in which he told protesters to march “peacefully and patriotically” — to the Capitol — have been scrutinized by a congressional impeachment investigation, as well as the extensive and one-sided January 6 Committee, with no evidence of any crime being found. Smith appears to be testing new theories, such as a so-called “fake elector” theory, to try him.

The Trump campaign — like John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign — prepared alternate slates of electors to reserve the right to have their votes counted in the event that recounts or court cases overturned the results of close elections in battleground states. The Special Counsel’s office is thought to be construing that strategy as an unlawful conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results.

Pollak asked Kelly if Smith could try to keep Trump out of the 2020 presidential race by charging him with sedition, which some Democrats have argued would be grounds for barring Trump from public office under the Fourteenth Amendment.

She agreed that he might: “I think it is a strong possibility that they will charge him with seditious conspiracy,” noting that prosecutors had used Trump’s statements heavily in charging and convicting members of the Proud Boys organization earlier this year.

Kelly also noted that the preferential treatment shown by the Department of Justice to Hunter Biden — with the apparent goal of protecting his father, President Joe Biden — was only possible because prosecutors had “the full support of the corporate media.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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