On Tuesday of this week, I received an email from Laura Lavrenz, daughter of Rebecca Lavrenz, a great-grandmother whose plight I recount in my book “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6.”
“I’ve been thinking on justice the past 24 hours since news broke out that President Biden declared a pardon over his son, Hunter Biden,” wrote Laura. Thousands of other J6ers and their family have surely been doing the same.
“It seems so unjust that my mom continues to wear a monitor around her ankle,” Laura continued, “unable to leave her house outside of the allotted time granted to her by the federal government, restricted from accessing the internet and paying an outrageous fine.”
Unjust it is – across the board. Of the 10 women I profile in “Ashli,” the eight who survived thay day, randomly selected, all have been incarcerated.
A quick rundown of the “crimes” these women committed and the punishments they received serves as useful sample of the injustice doled out to 1,500-and-counting other J6ers.
Rebecca Lavrenz walked in through an open door on the east side of the Capitol, prayed for 10 minutes, and walked out. Punishment: six months of house arrest, no internet and a $103,000 fine.
Dr. Simone Gold had a permit to speak about medical freedom on the steps of the Capitol. When the east side door opened from the inside Dr. Gold and her partner, John Strand, were swept in with the crowd.
In the Rotunda, Gold stood on the base of a statue to speak. Strand hovered nearby protecting her. Following her five-minute speech, Gold took questions.
A police officer then informed the small crowd that it was now possible to leave through the east doors. Gold and Strand thanked him for the info and headed toward the doors.
Punishment: Gold, two months in a maximum security facility; Strand, who refused a plea deal, 32 months in prison.
Lisa Eisenhart entered the Capitol through an open open door with her son Eric Munchel who recorded their half-hour journey through the Capitol.
Munchel can be heard saying to a couple of rowdy young guys, “Don’t vandalize anything, we aren’t Antifa,” and then, more forcefully, “You break sh**, I break you.”
When Eisenhart picked up a pile of zip-ties lying loose and shared them with Munchel, she marked herself and her son, at least in the eyes of the prosecutors, as likely hostage takers.
After spending 11 weeks in pre-trial detention, Eisenhart was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Munchel, 33 and a newlywed, was sentenced to four and a half years.
Sara Carpenter, a medically retired NYPD officer, drove to D.C. by herself on a whim. A Capitol police officer waved Carpenter over to an open door, and she entered peacefully.
Inside, Carpenter got caught up in a scrum and appears to have had something of a panic attack. She soon found herself in front of a row of police in tactical gear with a crowd of Trump supporters and/or provocateurs pushing her from behind.
“The cops were giving no vocal commands,” said Carpenter. “I was waiting for them to act like cops.” When she confronted the police, one officer pushed her, and she pushed back.
“I was antagonized, brutalized, entrapped,” said Carpenter. She was sentenced to 22 months in prison.
Christine Priola entered the Capitol from the east side through open doors. Wandering alone into the vacated Senate chambers, Christine was photographed with a sign reading, “The Children Cry Out for Justice.”
Priola’s fellow educators in the Cleveland School District promptly ratted out their pro-life colleague to the FBI. Agents raided her home on Jan. 8 and arrested her.
Priola pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding and was sentenced 11 months in prison. Upon arrival at West Virginia’s highest security prison for women, officials put Priola in the SHU, the secure housing unit, better known as “the hole.”
For five of the 14 days she was in the SHU, Priola had to share the tiny cell and its open toilet with a man, a sexual predator who claimed to be a woman.
Having gotten separated from her husband in a crowd surge, Yvonne St Cyr entered the Capitol through a broken window and made a live-streamed video of herself once inside.
Rejecting a plea deal, St Cyr went to trial, was convicted and was sentenced to 36 months in prison. Last we spoke, St Cyr was being held at a Minnesota prison, a 22-hour drive from her husband and her Idaho home.
On paper, the charges leveled against Victoria White seem more serious than those against any of the women cited above.
White allegedly raised her fist and cheered as “rioters” pushed a flagpole into an entryway. She helped hoist a protestor onto a ledge. Finally, the police apprehended her and sent her out into the freezing night without her shoes, her phone, or even a coat.
For her crimes, White was sentenced to only 10 days in prison and three months of home confinement. Unlike the others, she had leverage.
A video surfaced that showed two police officers dishing out to the bloodied White what was arguably the most severe police beating of a female ever recorded.
The one woman who committed something resembling an actual crime – the breaking of a window – was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. The fact that Rachel Powell has eight children did not soften the judge.
Biden could preserve a shred of his “legacy” were he to pardon all these women, all the J6ers for that matter.
Pardons, of course, will come too late for the two women killed that day – Ashli Babbitt and Rosanne Boyland. It is not too late, however, for Biden’s DOJ to tell the truth about how these good patriots died.
Jack Cashill’s newest book, “Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6,” is available in all formats.