We saw the latest sentencing of a January 6 defendant on Wednesday of this week, but this person wound up with a significantly shorter sentence than many of his predecessors. 34-year-old Andrew Galloway of Wyoming appeared in federal court in Washington and was sentenced to 30 days in jail along with $1,500 in fines for “parading, demonstrating or picketing” inside the Capitol on January 6 of last year. Compared to others who engaged in completely non-destructive actions during the riot but who will be spending up to five years or more behind bars, Mr. Galloway should probably be thanking his lucky stars, along with his attorney. But his is only one example of this sort of “leniency” and there are still hundreds of other defendants waiting in the queue, so it’s a bit soon to interpret this as some sort of change of heart on the part of the Biden Justice Department. (Associated Press)

A former Wyoming man who climbed through a broken window at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and ordered to pay $1,500 in fines and restitution.

Andrew Galloway, 34, pleaded guilty in March to a misdemeanor charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing inside the Capitol for entering the Capitol about 11 minutes after supporters of then-President Donald Trump were able to overpower Capitol police and break into the building.

Galloway spent about 10 minutes inside, according to prosecutors and his attorney.

Looking further into the details, it is perhaps understandable how Mr. Galloway got off with such a “slap on the wrist” as compared to his fellow rioters. He was late to the action, arriving at the top of the steps well after the initial rioters had already broken into the building and entered. He climbed through one of the broken windows, apparently without encountering any resistance from law enforcement. He then spent approximately ten minutes looking around inside the building before leaving.

Galloway didn’t do anything that would qualify as rioting and was barely present on the scene. He didn’t break anything or steal any souvenirs, to say nothing of “shouting” at any police officers or striking one of their riot shields with a pole. Those actions have already sent some of his fellow “paraders” to prison for more than five years. Galloway crawled in, looked around a bit, and went home.

Still, since there is a specific law against this form of trespassing when it takes place on Capitol Hill property, perhaps thirty days isn’t entirely out of bounds. (Though it’s still almost unheard of for anyone to do a single day in jail for trespassing without other aggravating charges.) If this had been the sort of sentence that all of the participants who didn’t actively destroy property or physically assault any law enforcement officers had received, we probably wouldn’t be dragging out this conversation after all this time. That obviously hasn’t been the case, however.

But let’s just say for the moment that this guy’s sentence is reasonable. If we’re willing to accept that as the baseline, how about 30 days for all of the members of Steven Colbert’s production crew? After all, they were all “parading” inside the Capitol Building without permission. And by banging on the door of one of the members of Congress with their stupid hand puppet, they were “disrupting the work of Congress,” right?

Sadly, that’s never going to happen. Colbert’s team all voted for “the right person” in 2020 so they are immune from prosecution, just like nearly all of the leftist rioters who have been destroying America’s cities since 2020. Perhaps Mr. Galloway can land a book deal and relate his experiences in the aftermath of the riot. It might be an informative read.