House Republicans are opening an investigation into reports of “inhumane” conditions at the Washington, D.C., jail holding alleged participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
In a letter to District Mayor Muriel Bowser, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee cited reports and eyewitness accounts of the “despair, hopelessness and severe abuse of justice” at the facility.
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“No prisoner in the United States should be treated in this fashion,” said the letter signed by Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) and Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Clay Higgins (R-LA).
The five-page letter makes several demands for documents and other information.
BREAKING: Tonight, Chairman @RepJamesComer, @RepClayHiggins, and I sent a letter on behalf of the Oversight Committee to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser demanding accountability in the DC Jail and it’s treatment of pre-trial detainees. pic.twitter.com/mH7ThRAn9M
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene?? (@RepMTG) March 9, 2023
The district jail and the conditions of the Jan. 6 suspects have been the subject of past investigations. The U.S. Marshals Service, for example, found several problems with the way the prisoners were treated.
The Justice Department recently said that it had charged over 1,000 people in the Jan. 6 riot. Several have been sentenced to jail for their role in disrupting Congress’s certification of the 2020 election. Many more have yet to be tried.
In the letter, the lawmakers spell out several of the charges made about abuse in the jail, some of which Greene has investigated in her trips to visit with Jan. 6 inmates. They include allegations of political persecution, poor and possibly poisoned food, and Bibles being denied to prisoners.
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The investigation is also a bit of payback for the prior lack of cooperation from Bowser and district authorities. Committee Republicans have asked for similar information in the past and have been rebuffed. But that was when the Democrats controlled Congress and ignored the jail conditions of the suspects.
Every night at 9PM, J6 defendants sing the National Anthem at the DC Jail.
And we were there tonight. pic.twitter.com/2uxGbkeqPq
— Marjorie Taylor Greene ?? (@mtgreenee) November 5, 2021
Now, with the GOP in charge, the city is coming under fire on several fronts.
Greene has led efforts to boost the conditions for riot suspects and even called the jailer a “hateful” anti-Trumper who is mistreating the prisoners.
