9 ways Capitol rioters got a better deal than wrongfully deported dad
You’d think White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s plate would be full, what with cosplaying Slenderman and trying to cover up his ever-receding hairline. You’d also think he’d be happy, as his lifetime commitment to xenophobia and racism is finally paying off as the Trump administration gears up to deport millions.
But Miller is not happy because you people won’t stop whining about how Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to a Salvadorean prison, is entitled to due process. You know who didn’t get due process, according to Miller? The Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
Here’s Miller over at X, Elon Musk’s Nazi bar: “If you were an American falsely accused of wrongdoing on January 6th it wasn't merely difficult to get ‘due process,’ it was impossible. The entire system was rigged against you. All of it. Those persecuted Americans could only dream of the ‘due process’ afforded illegal aliens.”
Hoo boy. Where to even start? Let’s count the myriad ways that the abduction of Abrego Garcia is not remotely similar to anything that happened to the Jan. 6 rioters.
1. The Jan. 6 rioters were actually charged with crimes.
Abrego Garcia was deported despite there being no charges against him. The Trump administration has already admitted he was deported in error, a thing they’re now trying to walk back. In contrast, the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were criminally charged as part of the largest investigation in FBI history. That investigation led to the arrest of at least 1,583 people.
That’s not evidence of some nefarious plot to deprive the insurrectionists of due process. In fact, it’s the opposite. There were roughly 10,000 people on the Capitol grounds that day, meaning nearly 85% of the rioters never even faced arrest, much less a trial or a conviction or a deportation.
2. The insurrectionists got trials and plea deals.
Out of those 1,583 arrests, 1,270 were convicted, with 1,009, or 79%, pleading guilty. Two hundred twenty-one of the Jan. 6 defendants were convicted after a trial, with an additional 40 convicted after stipulated trials, where a defendant admits to facts without agreeing they constitute a crime. That number of plea deals might seem high, but it’s lower than the typical rate in federal courts, where 89.5% of defendants pleaded guilty in fiscal year 2022.
Abrego Garcia has not been arrested. He has not been convicted. He did not get to have a trial. He did not get to make a plea deal. He was deported illegally, and the administration refuses to bring him back. Miller knows full well these things aren’t remotely comparable.
3. Nobody manufactured evidence against the Jan. 6 criminals.
It’s not just that Trump posted a doctored photograph, photoshopping “MS-13” onto Abrego Garcia’s knuckles. There’s also White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s now-routine habit of straight-up lying to justify the administration’s actions. Earlier this month, Leavitt called Abrego Garcia a “leader” of MS-13, but when asked to provide details, couldn’t be bothered, saying, “There’s a lot of evidence, and the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have that evidence, and I saw it this morning.”
Last week, Leavitt accused Abrego Garcia of being detained on suspicion of human trafficking, when the reality was that he was stopped for speeding and veering out of his lane.
In contrast, there was no need to manufacture evidence against the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Hundreds of them filmed themselves rioting at the Capitol. Plenty bragged about it on social media. And, of course, the nation watched everything unfold in real time.
4. Many Jan. 6 rioters already had criminal records.
At least 159 convicted insurrectionists had previous criminal records. We’re not talking something like jaywalking here. NPR found that dozens had charges or convictions for serious crimes like manslaughter, rape, drug trafficking, domestic violence, sexual assault of a minor, and production of child sexual abuse material.
Abrego Garcia has no criminal record in the United States or El Salvador. He was arrested once in 2019 by a now-disgraced cop who later pleaded guilty to misconduct. That cop’s evidence for Abrego Garcia’s membership in MS-13? He had a Chicago Bulls cap, which the officer said was “indicative of the Hispanic gang culture.” Of course, it’s also indicative of liking the Chicago Bulls, which is not actually a crime.
5. The Supreme Court gave hundreds of the Jan. 6 rioters a little treat.
Roughly 350 of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were charged under a federal criminal law that makes it a felony to obstruct official proceedings. You’d think that a riot that tried to block the certification of electoral votes and sent members of Congress into hiding would count as an obstruction of an official proceeding, but you’d be wrong. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that the provision applied only to evidence tampering, not rioting.
Fun fact: This was also one of the charges against Trump, not that it matters anymore.
6. Republicans were very concerned about jail conditions for the insurrectionists.
Led by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican members of Congress made a 2023 pilgrimage to see 20 insurrectionists housed at the D.C. jail. Greene howled about a “two-tier justice system” and declared the 20 were “political prisoners,” which is the same nonsense pushed by Trump. These were not people who were being persecuted for their beliefs. And 17 of those 20 were charged with assaulting law enforcement officers.
Greene also ostentatiously worried about the conditions at the jail, saying that inmates had been threatened and denied medical care. She’s correct that conditions at the jail have been bad for a long time, but her passion for fair treatment of the incarcerated extends only to Jan. 6 protesters.
When it comes to Abrego Garcia’s wrongful imprisonment in a notoriously violent foreign prison, Greene’s stance is that it is “dangerously close to treason” for people to advocate for Abrego Garcia’s return. So, it’s treason to demand that the government follow the laws and give Abrego Garcia the due process to which he is entitled, but it’s not treason to try to overturn an election with violence. Got it.
7. The Jan. 6 rioters had Trump in their corner.
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump made no secret of the fact that if he were elected, he’d pardon the rioters, who he said were “hostages.” He showed up at fundraisers on their behalf. He described the violence perpetrated by his supporters as a display of “spirit and faith and love,” and said he’d never seen anything like “the love in the air” that day.
Trump was so smitten that he joined the Washington, D.C. jail inmates in song, sort of. Trump recited the “Pledge of Allegiance,” which was then layered over the “J6 Prison Choir” singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” FBI Director Kash Patel produced this monstrosity, but when he was asked about it during his confirmation hearings, he suddenly couldn’t recall a thing about his involvement.
8. The Jan. 6 insurrectionists were pardoned.
One of Trump’s first official acts of 2025 was to pardon his merry band of treasonists, including people who had violently assaulted police officers. So, not only did they receive all the due process owed to them as criminal defendants, but they also received the gift of a clean slate.
For some defendants, that clean slate was extra-generous. Several had been charged with additional, unrelated crimes, such as weapons charges, that turned up during investigations into their actions on Jan. 6. In at least seven cases, the DOJ then argued that Trump’s pardon covered the unrelated crimes, as the crime wouldn’t have been discovered but for the Jan. 6 investigation. Quite the deal!
9. The rioters were not shipped off to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
Besides the part where they are no longer burdened with any criminal charges, the Jan. 6 rioters are, well, here. They were not transported to El Salvador in the dead of night. They’re not being kept in El Salvador in defiance of a Supreme Court order. And unlike what the White House is saying about Abrego Garcia, senior officials in the Biden administration didn’t mock Jan. 6 prisoners and brag that they were never coming home.
It’s honestly unclear what additional due process Miller thinks the Jan. 6 defendants should have received. His real complaint is that he doesn’t believe they should have ever been charged, regardless of the evidence. When it comes to Abrego Garcia, however, Miller doesn’t believe in due process at all.
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