A group of congressional Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene and House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, are investigating jail conditions in Washington DC over allegations of “inhumane treatment” of defendants charged in connection with the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Ms Greene, Mr Comer and congressman Clay Higgins signed a letter to Washington DC’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser on 9 March demanding that a congressional delegation be allowed to visit jail facilities, which they said paint “a picture of despair, hopelessness, and a severe abuse of justice.”
Poor conditions and other failures inside Washington DC’s jails have long been the subject of scrutiny from criminal justice advocates who noted that the complaints from a prison population of majority-Black people have fallen on deaf ears from Republican members of Congress – until the aftermath of the January 6 attack.
After visiting the jail in 2021, the far-right congresswoman from Georgia issued a report that alleged unsanitary conditions and a lack of access to adequate medical care and counsel. She also said defendants were “denied access to a Bible or denied access to Communion” based on their Covid-19 vaccination status.
The letter alleges “a unique form of mistreatment” due to the defendants’ “politics and beliefs, representing potential several human rights abuses.”
The investigation joins a broader effort among Republican officials to portray members of a mob that breached the halls of Congress as “political prisoners” who were unjustly or unconstitutionally prosecuted for their beliefs after storming the Capitol as lawmakers certified the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Washington DC’s jail consists of two facilities: the Central Detention Facility, where roughly 900 people are held pending trial or while serving short sentences; and the Correctional Treatment Facility, a newer and lower-security wing with roughly 350 inmates.
Roughly 90 per cent of the jail’s population are Black, and January 6 defendants at the jail are predominantly white. They are being held at the Correctional Treatment Facility in what has been named the “Patriot Wing.”
Prompted by January 6 defendants’ complaints, an investigation from the US Marshals Service in 2021 found “systemic failures” at the jail, largely within the Central Detention Facility. But the newer wing where January 6 defendants are held was determined to have conditions that are “largely appropriate and consistent with federal detention standards.”
Prison reform advocates have welcomed more oversight at the jail but accused Republicans of launching a politically motivated probe that overlooks widespread issues at jail facilities in DC and across the country.
Washington DC activist Ronald Moten asked why Ms Greene “came to DC to pray and care for people who killed police in pursuit of committing treason but had no concerns about the Black prisoners in DC jail and housed around the country.”
“The treatment of detained individuals in facilities across the country is an important subject for Congressional oversight,” US Rep Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, said in response to Republicans’ letter.
“That’s why last Congress Oversight Democrats pressed for answers on the deteriorating conditions at Rikers Island in New York, for example,” he added. “Our GOP colleagues’ sudden and selective sympathy for January 6 insurrectionists reflects their continuing effort to lionize the violent attempt to overthrow the 2020 presidential election.”
Ms Greene joined other far-right members of Congress, including Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar, to investigate conditions at the jail in 2021; Mr Gosar called January 6 defendants “political prisoners who are now being persecuted and bearing the pain of unjust suffering.”
Donald Trump also has vowed to issue mass pardons for Capitol riot defendants, praised them as “patriots” and joined them on a song released on streaming platforms. A group of defendants naming themselves the J6 Prison Choir released a track titled “Justice for All” on 3 March that features their rendition of the national anthem while the former president recites the Pledge of Allegiance.
At least 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the attack, according to the US Department of Justice. Roughly one-third of all defendants are charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding law enforcement, including more than 100 people charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious injury to an officer.
More than 500 people have pleaded guilty to a range of federal charges; nearly 400 people have pleaded guilty to misdemeanors, and 133 pleaded guilty to felonies, half of which include assaulting law enforcement officers.
Federal prosecutors have also secured indictments and convictions against several high-profile members of far-right groups on treason-related charges.
Five members of the far-right nationalist gang the Proud Boys, including its former leader, are at the centre of an ongoing trial on charges of seditious conspiracy, marking the third such trial involving similar charges in the aftermath of the attack. That trial began in January.
Across two other jury trials last year, six members of the far-right, anti-government militia group the Oath Keepers – including the group’s founder Stewart Rhodes – were also found guilty of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the attack.
