CNN’s Elie Honig Calls January 6 Prison Sentences ‘Severe’ But ‘Reasonable’: DOJ Has Been ‘Undercharging,’ Going Easy on Defendants

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said he believed that the prison sentences handed down to participants in the January 6 Capitol riot had been “severe” but “reasonable” on Monday morning, even noting that the Department of Justice had been reprimanded by some judges for going easy on less high-profile defendants.

Honig began the CNN This Morning segment by predicting that Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of the far-right Proud Boys, would get the “highest single sentence passed down on anyone connected to January 6 so far.”

“Prosecutors are being very aggressive with these leaders of these extremist groups,” he explained. “It’s the organizational aspect. It’s the fact that they were connected, working as a group together. There was planning.”

“The other aspect with Tarrio was he was a leader, and under the federal sentencing guidelines, if you can prove someone was a leader of organized activity, you can bump the sentence up,” added Honig.

Asked by Phil Mattingly if he was “surprised by the length of sentences we’ve seen,” Honig said he was not.

“I think the sentences thus far have been reasonable. I think the sentences have been severe, not over the top, but when you’re talking about people who were charged, tried, and convicted of seditious conspiracy, not surprising to me to see sentences in the mid-teens,” answered the former federal prosecutor.

He continued:

It is worth noting, though. DOJ has taken heat from multiple federal judges for undercharging and being too light on some of the other players — not Oath Keepers and Proud Boys — but remember, 1,100 plus defendants, a handful of them have been Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, but various judges have called out DOJ for being and I quote the judges here, ‘schizophrenic,’ ‘baffling,’ for basically going too light on some of these folks. Giving them misdemeanor pleas, giving them probation.

Watch above via CNN.

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