Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a statement on the January 6 prosecutions Friday, saying that while violent rioters deserved to be punished, many prosecutions of non-violent protesters were excessive.
Kennedy’s statement undercuts the Democratic Party’s effort to portray the 2024 election as a “defense of democracy” and a referendum on the so-called “insurrection,” which Democrats blame on former President Donald Trump.
Kennedy’s statement reads as follows:
January 6 is one of the most polarizing topics on the political landscape. I am listening to people of diverse viewpoints on it in order to make sense of the event and what followed. I want to hear every side.
It is quite clear that many of the January 6 protestors broke the law in what may have started as a protest but turned into a riot. Because it happened with the encouragement of President Trump, and in the context of his delusion that the election was stolen from him, many people see it not as a riot but as an insurrection.
I have not examined the evidence in detail, but reasonable people, including Trump opponents, tell me there is little evidence of a true insurrection. They observe that the protestors carried no weapons, had no plans or ability to seize the reins of government, and that Trump himself had urged them to protest “peacefully.”
Like many reasonable Americans, I am concerned about the possibility that political objectives motivated the vigor of the prosecution of the J6 defendants, their long sentences, and their harsh treatment. That would fit a disturbing pattern of the weaponization of government agencies — the DoJ, the IRS, the SEC, the FBI, etc. — against political opponents.
One can, as I do, oppose Donald Trump and all he stands for, and still be disturbed by the weaponization of government against him.
As President, I will appoint a special counsel — an individual respected by all sides — to investigate whether prosecutorial discretion was abused for political ends in this case, and I will right any wrongs that we discover. Without the impartial rule of law, there is no true democracy or moral governance. That’s why John Adams, a staunch patriot, defended the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre in court. If we betray justice in pursuit of an ideal, that betrayal will corrupt anything we accomplish.
Both establishment parties are using J6 to pour fuel on the fire of America’s divisions. Each side claims that a victory by their opponents means the end of democracy. Then, anything is justified to stop them. We run the risk of destroying democracy in order to save it.
Instead of demonizing our opponents as apocalyptic threats to democracy, let’s focus on the issues and priorities of how they will govern, and defeat them at the ballot box rather than through legal maneuvers and dirty tricks. Presidents Trump and Biden both presided over the continued worsening of our national debt, chronic disease epidemic, government corruption, erosion of civil liberties, and foreign military entanglements. Maybe it is because the establishment parties differ very little on these key issues that they campaign on the demonization of their opponents and all who support them instead.
Kennedy left the Democratic Party after it became clear that it would be impossible for him to win enough delegates to challenge incumbent President Joe Biden, thanks to the anti-democratic superdelegate system, which is a barrier to insurgent candidates in the primary.
Some polls have Kennedy polling in double-digits against Trump and Biden. Trump leads Biden in most swing states.
