The campaign claimed Thursday that Kennedy did not approve the language of the email and blamed the “error” on the contractor, who the campaign later announced had subsequently terminated the contract. However, President Kennedy himself has previously downplayed the January 6 attack and said he was open to pardoning convicted rioters.
The email, sent by “Team Kennedy,” comes as a result of a British court delaying Assange’s extradition to the United States until free speech protections are guaranteed and American authorities guarantee he will not face the death penalty in a U.S. trial. I am referring to the decision. Mr Kennedy, an anti-vaccination activist who has railed against government censorship as a key pillar of his third-party campaign, said he would pardon Mr Assange if elected president.
“The British people want to make sure the government doesn’t kill Assange,” the email said. “This is the reality facing all Americans, from Ed Snowden to Julian Assange to the J6 activist sitting in a jail cell in Washington, D.C., stripped of his constitutional freedoms.”
It is unclear which of the January 6 defendants the Kennedy campaign is referring to. Only a small percentage of defendants are incarcerated in D.C. prisons, and a small percentage are awaiting trial, sentencing, or transfer to federal prison to complete their sentences. Despite complaints from some far-right politicians, no court has found that the detentions violated their rights.
Labeling the defendants as “activists” reflects President Donald Trump’s decision to join forces with the Jan. 6 rioters. He called them “patriots” and “hostages” and glorified the acts of violence that took place that day to block Joe Biden’s presidential confirmation.
Mr. Trump has played memorial music at his campaign rallies for the defendants imprisoned at the Capitol. Meanwhile, President Biden accused President Trump of refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election or take responsibility for the violence. President Kennedy has largely avoided talking about January 6th in his speeches and social media posts during his campaign.he He did not post about the riot on Twitter, now called X.
But President Kennedy shared his thoughts on the Capitol attack with Politico’s David Friedlander, who asked him in October if he remembered where he was on January 6, 2021. Kennedy’s comments came after the two discussed the candidates’ views on government censorship.
“What do you think is more dangerous?” he asked Friedlander. “Is it government censorship of Americans who disagree with its policies, or is it January 6th?”
He added: On the 6th, there was an attack on a building. And there are layers of government behind that building. ”
Kennedy previously told the Post that he would accept the results of the 2020 election but would not commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election. He said he would consider pardoning people convicted for their role in the riot.
“If prosecutorial misconduct is proven, then yes,” he said. “Otherwise, no.”
On Thursday, the campaign said in a statement that the email was “an error that does not reflect Mr. Kennedy’s views.”
The statement was “inserted by a new marketing contractor and bypassed the normal approval process,” campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Speer said.
kennedy faced criticism Kennedy argued this week that Biden is a greater threat to democracy than Trump, who is still falsely claiming Biden was not duly elected in 2020. Kennedy’s argument was based on the Biden administration’s call for social media companies to monitor their sites for medical misinformation. Kennedy was briefly banned from Instagram for spreading misinformation about vaccines.
Kennedy told CNN that Trump is “clearly a threat to our democracy because he is trying to overturn the election.” “But the question is, who is the more serious threat to democracy? And I would say…I’m not going to answer that question, but I can argue that President Biden is.”
Mr. Kennedy began his presidential bid as a Democrat, but in October he decided to campaign as an independent and has stepped up his attacks on Mr. Biden. The scion of a prominent political family is pushing for voting access across the country and has some appeal to both Republicans and Democrats in what appears to be a rematch of Biden vs. Trump.
More than three years after the Capitol attack, only 30 of the approximately 1,400 people charged with committing crimes that day remain in D.C. prisons. All but a few of them have been charged or convicted of assaulting police officers during the riot. Most are awaiting sentencing or transfer to prison. Among the several people being held ahead of trial are a man with a long criminal history who was charged with firing a gun outside the Capitol, a man who appeared armed outside former President Barack Obama’s home; It also includes people charged with attacking police officers with weapons such as explosives and metal whips.
In late 2021, a federal judge asked the Justice Department to investigate a Jan. 6 complaint from a defendant that he was being abused in a Washington, D.C., prison. Unannounced inspections found the facility was unsanitary and staff members were abusive, but it was not the area where the alleged rioters were being held, and the conditions were “generally adequate and federally acceptable.” It was found to be consistent with the standards for the detention of prisoners.
Fellow judge Royce C. Lamberth, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, joined several of his colleagues in publicly pushing back against claims that rioters were being punished for their beliefs or for demonstrating in support of Trump. In sentencing one rioter this week, Lamberth said the storming of the Capitol was “not an act protected by the First Amendment or civil disobedience…because it was violent and not peaceful.” . Opportunistic, not based on principles. Forced and unpersuasive. And selfish and unpatriotic. ”
A University of Maryland poll conducted in January found that 55% of Americans believe the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was “an attack on our democracy that should never be forgotten.”But the Republican Party More people view the riots positively, with just 18% saying the riots were “mostly violent,” compared to 77% of Democrats and 54% of independents.
correction
A previous version of this article misspelled David Freedlander’s last name. The article has been corrected.
