Posted on 03/29/2025 8:08:40 AM PDT by MtnClimber
DC Judge Beryl Howell loves to shoot off her mouth when it comes to the president and his supporters. Now she's playing the victim as Trump DOJ uses her own words, and actions, against her.
As the manhunt for American citizens who participated in the events of January 6 accelerated in early 2021, the Biden Department of Justice took an unprecedented approach in the handling of political protesters: demand pretrial detention even for those charged with nonviolent offenses such as obstruction and conspiracy.
A special prison for J6ers had been opened in the nation’s capital a few days after Jan 6; individuals from around the country were being transported to the DC gulag after being denied release following an arrest in their home state. Judges in Washington were flooded with DOJ requests to keep J6ers, most of whom had no criminal record, behind bars awaiting trial; judges needed guidance as to how to proceed.
So, in stepped Beryl Howell, the chief judge of the D.C. district court at the time.
In February 2021, in another unprecedented move, Howell established what became known as the “Chrestman factors.” Named after William Chrestman, a member of the Proud Boys from Kansas, Howell claimed that “the undeniably traumatic events of January 6” required the courts to ditch the standard practice of evaluating pretrial detention on an individual basis and instead lump all J6ers together.
Howell laid out the “differentiating factors that warrant pretrial detention of certain defendants facing criminal liability for their participation in the mob.” Judges should, according to Howell, determine whether the defendant was part of a group that planned in advance to go to the Capitol; injured or interfered with police that day; or used “words and movements during the riot” that represented (in her mind) “egregious” misconduct.
Over the course of the J6 prosecution, Howell sentenced more than three dozen J6ers to hard time in federal prisons—but not before enduring one of her notorious tongue lashings. For example, she berated a man from Tennessee in 2022 convicted of a single misdemeanor for “engaging in political violence that shook our country.” She also forced the man to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
After running roughshod over J6ers for four years, Howell now insists she is the victim of an “ad hominem attack” by the Trump DOJ, which last week asked Howell to recuse herself from presiding over a lawsuit brought by Perkins Coie, the infamous law firm responsible for the Steele dossier.
Protecting Perkins Coie Once Again
Perkins Coie is suing the president over his March 6 executive order that accused the firm of “dishonest and dangerous activity” and stripped Perkins Coie employees of security clearances and government contracts. (A good backgrounder here.)
The lawsuit landed on Howell’s desk. Given her role overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into imaginary Trump-Russia election collusion as chief judge—in a lengthy 2018 decision, Howell determined Mueller’s appointment was legal and did not violate the Constitution, a finding directly contradictory of what Judge Aileen Cannon concluded on the same question in 2024—Howell should have stepped aside.
She is unquestionably conflicted since Perkins Coie acted as the money laundering machine to conceal the role of Democratic consulting shop Fusion GPS—who hired Christopher Steele, an FBI informant and foreign lobbyist at the time—the Hillary Clinton campaign, and the Democratic National Committee in producing the dirty dossier and peddling it around Washington before and after the 2016 election.
But instead of stepping aside from the case, Howell immediately gutted most of the president’s executive order, going so far as to instruct top Trump officials including Attorney General Pam Bondi to notify government agencies “to suspend and rescind any implementation” of three key sections of the president’s directive.
The Trump administration had had enough. (In fact, the week before the Perkins case landed on her desk, Howell issued a scathing 36-page order related to Trump’s firing of a NLRB member, a move Howell repeatedly claimed was “unlawful” and “illegal.” She suggested the president considered himself a “king” and that he “seems intent on pushing the bounds of his office and exercising his power in a manner violative of clear statutory law to test how much the courts will accept the notion of a presidency that is supreme.”)
Citing Howell’s involvement in the Mueller probe; her questionable handling of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation including the suggestion Trump was a “flight risk” to justify a nondisclosure order related to Smith’s successful demand for the president’s Twitter data; and her anti-Trump statements made in and out of court, the DOJ asked Howell to recuse in a March 21 motion.
“As demonstrated through comments in this proceeding, other judicial proceedings, and in the public, observers might reasonably have concerns about the Court’s impartiality in this matter. Recusal is warranted to ensure these proceedings fair and free from concerns about impartiality,” the DOJ wrote.
Poor Poor Pitiful Me
Which prompted an “well I never!” response from the former Democratic Senate staffer and Obama appointee. As is typical for bullies—and there are few bigger bullies inside the DC federal courthouse than Howell—the judge accused the Trump administration of being the bully. And like most bullies when confronted, Howell backed away from her comments and actions in an attempt to portray them as anodyne judicial observations rather than the clearly partisan and at some points vicious attacks they represented.
The DOJ’s detailed account of her open hostility toward Trump and his supporters, Howell argued, represented “innuendo,” an “attack [on] the messenger,” and an attempt to “impugn the integrity of the federal judicial system”—as if Howell and her cohorts are not the ones responsible for the public’s all-time low trust in the judiciary.
Her keynote speech at a November 2023 dinner emceed by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who called Howell a “mentor,” and attended by known Trump saboteurs Lisa Monaco (deputy attorney general at the time), Sally Yates, and Andrew Weissmann had an “apolitical, nonpartisan theme,” Howell insisted. Her obvious shots at the president, intended to gratify the Trump haters including herself in attendance at the dinner, have been “twist[ed]” and “mischaracterize[d]” by the DOJ.
But it is Howell, not the Trump administration, now mischaracterizing her comments and conduct in court. Far from being the victim, Howell is one of the chief instigators leading the decade-long legal and judicial assault against the president, his lawyers, his associates, his campaign aides, and his voters. Not only should she be removed from this case and any case related to the president, but she should also step down from the federal bench as a disgrace to the robe she wears and the threat she poses to American jurisprudence.
And as for her repackaging of that 2023 speech? You be the judge: [videos at article link]
These marxist judges need to be removed. Marxism is incompatible with the Constitution/BoR.
I think I remember seeing her once cleaning motel rooms.
Interesting !
They also need to use these judges words justifying J6 treatment in the immigration cases.
Something is missing from this image.
BTTT
That smug look on her face tells you all you need to know about her.
You're confusing her with Madelaine Albright, who the Albanians thought was the cleaning lady......
Was wondering when someone would point this out.
Figures it would be Julie Kelly, the hero of the whole sickening farce.
Howell is a deranged thugette who acts like a typical bully: violent and harsh to everyone when she has the upper hand, whiny and self pitying when she’s on the defensive.
She had no problem ignoring Constitutional rights of citizens but bleats that non-citizens in the country illegally should be accorded those rights.
Not only should she be removed from the District court but there should be cause of action for what she did to the J6 defendants.
You’re right! That’s who it was. Those pesky liberal old ladies. There are already “thousands of hundreds” of old ladies waving pink crocheted **** Musk! potholders at the passing traffic while their husbands are walking around in circles behind them in their overalls looking like they are trying to round up the chickens.
Sounds like a thoroughly nasty person.
Howell claimed that “the undeniably traumatic events of January 6” required the courts to ditch the standard practice of evaluating pretrial detention on an individual basis and instead lump all J6ers together.
Didn’t traumatize me?
“Now Watergate does not bother me,
Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth”
Lynyrd Skynyrd
She’s a damn communist usurper. It’s pathetic we’ve allowed these kinds of people have power.
What’s the difference between a conspiracy theory and a fact?
About 6 months.
L
Wow!
But Clarence Thomas “must resign” from the Supreme Court. Must recuse himself! Must be impeached!
(Why? Because his wife flew a United States flag upside down a outside their private home.)
Who will pay for the J6ers who were imprisoned FOR YEARS without trial?
This judge is merely something like a major or a captain.
We need to go after the generals.
Beryl Howell is the spitting image of her grandfather Lavrentiy Beria - The former head of Stalin’s Secret Police.
Perkins Coie made a tactical mistake suing the US and going in front of this judge. Now the white house can go back 12 years in discovery and carpet bomb both PC and the judge.
Howell is likely to be looking like Pelosi does before this is over.
J6 traumatic?
LOL
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