“I think that the folks who committed crimes, particularly violent crimes, on that day ought to be prosecuted,” Hawley said of the Jan. 6 protesters who have been sentenced to prison. “I think the question becomes, are there people who’ve been caught up in this drag net who, for instance, didn’t know that they were trespassing?“
“There’s a lot of concern about, frankly, the double standard at [the Department of Justice] going after people who may have at most trespassed on federal property and not even known they did it versus folks who have in [Black Lives Matter] riots committed violent crimes and not been prosecuted,” he added, referring to the failure to prosecute people who destroyed property at riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police.
“There absolutely is undeniably a double standard,” he said.