Thread by @GodlessNZ

(1) There's two different cases of mailing white powder to political targets that are prominent rn.

Frisiello in Boston: justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/mas…

Allen in Utah: justice.gov/opa/pr/utah-ma…

You have to read at least the above press releases to know the basics of each.

(2) I'll use this thread to address comments I see about either case. Currently, people are claiming that Frisiello should not have granted pre-trial home detention for 6 months & that he was likely to be able to easily escape it. The answer to this is not straightforward.

(3) First, some facts of the case (source: above press release):
>Offending occurred in 2015, 2016, 2017, & 2018.
>Wide range of political & personal targets.
>Arrested on 3/1/18, pleaded guilty on 10/17/18 to 19 counts.
>Sentencing is scheduled for 1/16/19.

(4) Further facts from the below article. He:
>Also targeted Democrats.
>Supported the short sentence given to Brock Turner.
>Home confinement continues.
>Agreed not to appeal his sentence if he receives a penalty of 7 years, 3 months or less.

breitbart.com/politics/2018/…

(5) I know you're champing at the bit to tell me how bad all this, & by extension the DOJ, is, but hold on. You see, I read between the lines & I read the actual terms used, with knowledge of the US fed/state justice systems.

Bear in mind the agencies involved:

(6) The US Attorney (DOJ)'s Boston Nat Sec team, Boston FBI & the Boston FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, US Postal Inspection Service, Boston US Secret Service, & the Beverly City PD are/were involved.

The Secret Service have the will, authority & resources to stop Frisiello.

(7) When a federal judge orders "home confinement" in a case such as this, the accused is supervised & monitored to within an inch of his or her life. Yes, an ankle bracelet can be cut off. Good luck to anyone trying that with these agencies watching 24/7. But there's more...

(8) I realize most Americans who are paying attention have lost an enormous amount of trust in law enforcement agencies & the judiciary. That's why I assess things on a case by case basis, with nuance. A knee-jerk reaction to a case like this is really unhelpful. For Trump.

(9) I spent an inordinate amount of time researching & analyzing the ongoing "Islamist Compound" case in Taos Co., NM. The sheer number of tweets in my 5 threads would put anyone off reading them all, so let me sum them up for you.

Attacking the state judge was wrong & evil.

(10) Judges receive death threats & indeed attempted assassination incidents all the time, all over the world. IDGAF how bad you feel a judge is, in my book you do NOT threaten them (or criticize them in a way that distorts the evidence & the law.) I have zero tolerance for it.

(11) My confidence in the NM GOP was shattered forever when I saw the sitting & candidate for gov, the state party chairman, & numerous other NM GOP officials attacking the state judge for her pre-trial detention decision. She was forced into it by the Democrat DA. Thankfully,

(12) Thankfully, federal agencies incl the FBI & ATF came to the rescue & got the defendants arrested & detained within hours of their eventual release from the county jail. I had said from the outset that these agencies were monitoring them 24/7 anyway. #TrumpsFBI =/= #ObamasFBI

(13) Which brings me to another relevant point about Frisiello. He targeted people for 2 years with his domestic terrorist white powder hoaxes during the Obama admin, indeed targeting Trump during the 2016 campaign. Yet he was only arrested in 2018.

(14) This tells me the Secret Service under Obama did not arrest Frisiello for sending a letter that "promised that if Trump did not drop out of the race, the next letter would not be a fake." This is domestic terrorism: Trying to intimidate those who run for office.

(15) For now, I give the benefit of doubt to the theory that agencies lacked evidence of who was sending the threats until 2018. However we now know for sure that many investigations & prosecutions were actively quashed by those high up in the Obama admin. Justice takes time.

(16) While under home confinement, Frisiello can't leave the house unless it's for a pre-agreed reason such as a doctor's appointment. If he wants to send mail, he'd have to recruit someone to do it. That person would then be charged with helping a detainee breach a court order.

(17) Further, every word spoken or typed by Frisiello is recorded, bc sometimes one of the reasons a judge orders home confinement is to hopefully catch criminal associates. A US judge in Boston knows the defense & jury could get this guy a lenient sentence.

(18) I usually dislike plea deals. But sometimes they can end up producing a better result for community safety, esp. where most jurors are inclined to be lenient &/or politically biased. The defense will play down the threat sent to Sen Stabenow (D) & play up the Trump angle.

(19) In NZ, juries make findings of guilt, and never decide on sentences. The judge does that. However, in the US, some systems allow the jury to decide the sentence. I don't know if that's the case with these charges.

(20) I'm analyzing what the attorneys & the judge knew or intended at the initial hearing in March, long before the guilty pleas were made in October. I think there was a real risk that if he pleaded not guilty, the jury's bias against Trump could have risked the conviction.

(21) The sentencing range is 5-10 years. I loathe concurrent sentencing but let's assume that was in play. In that context, I think that securing the waiving of appeal rights in exchange for a >7 year prison term was smart.

The sentence could end up longer anyway.

(22) The other case, Allen in Utah, was much more serious and he is likely to get a life sentence, which I applaud. I don't think we can expect as much in the Frisiello case.

But, remember what a 7 year prison sentence means for him at age 25:

(23) Several yrs in prison allows time for psychiatric treatment (which is clearly indicated), teaching him a lesson, & flagging his record for the future. He seems dumb enough to commit further crime & end up back inside, too.

In the big picture, the plea deal is not all bad.

(24) The judge's home confinement decision may have bn part of shoring up the best chance of a successful prosecution, given local bias.

Federal judges know 2 things:
>liberal defense attorneys are well resourced to delay a case for years,
>they're about to get super busy.

(25) Moral of the story: Instead of a knee jerk "it's a dumb decision & the DOJ are useless!" maybe try gathering the facts & considering the nuances involved, bc often these are anything but dumb decisions. Esp. in the federal jurisdiction in 2018.

Always #VoteGOP.