Brandon Straka, the founder of the #WalkAway movement, is being sentenced this week for his participation in the January 6 protest at the US Capitol.
A smear campaign has begun against Straka concerning his January 6 case.
FBI arrested Straka on January 25, 2021. Straka never entered the Capitol and was among the crowds outside on Capitol grounds for a total of 10 minutes. He never conspired with anyone before, during, or after the January 6 protest to riot. He was there to give his support for the America First movement and then President Donald Trump.
It’s one thing for leftists to attack conservatives inside the America First movement because that’s always expected. It’s how the game is played.
It is wholly another thing when media types who claim to be in the conservative movement attack one of their own based on speculation and innuendo and use leftist sources to boot. That’s what’s going on against Straka and it’s not right.
For example, on Monday, Red Voice America ran a piece on Straka, making accusations against him and maligning his character based on pure speculation. The story ran a subtitle, “Straka turned snitch?”
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELThe piece used a link from the leftist website Politico that opens up saying Straka provided the government with information that could impact his sentencing recommendation, going on to say state, “It’s an indication that Straka, one of the few Jan. 6 defendants who is also of interest to congressional investigators, has cooperated with prosecutors in a substantive way.”
It’s an indication is one of those tools used by many writers to allow themselves to carry on with speculation about the story.
If you’re going to use Politico to trash a fellow conservative, why not just go straight to White House mouthpiece Jen Psaki?
The Red Voice piece starts out by noting that Straka is reportedly “getting a sentence recommendation of four months of house arrest with probation regarding his exploits on January 6th.”
The piece then goes on to make what I took as an insinuation that Straka must have done something to betray conservatives in order to get a lenient sentencing recommendation.
From Red Voice Media:
Yet the leniency on Straka tends to make a lot more sense when reviewing a December 17th filing by federal prosecutors that sought an extension to his sentencing that was originally scheduled for December 22nd, 2021 that pushed it out to January 20th, 2022.
Red Voice then provided text from the mentioned court document of a motion to continue the sentencing hearing and vacate sentencing related deadlines:
“On December 8, 2021, the defendant provided counsel for the government with information that may impact the government’s sentencing recommendation. Additionally, the government is requesting additional time to investigate information provided in the Final Pre-Sentence Report. Because the government’s sentencing recommendation may be impacted based on the newly discovered information, the government and defendant request a 30-day continuance of this case so that the information can be properly evaluated.”
Red Voice reported on what was available to the public. No problem.
What I do have a problem with is when the piece moved on using speculation about Straka handing over information to federal investigators, and we are to assume by inference that the information was against either people who were there in the January 6 mostly peaceful protest or the movement in some way.
For those that aren’t hip to the legalese of court filings, this filing noted that Straka was funneling information to investigators – so much so that they needed an extra thirty days to extract and digest that information.
Notice the term “funneling” is used to make it appear that something nefarious took place. Bad guys funnel cash into money laundering scams and prisoners get drugs funneled into the prison. The author has no idea what the information was, yet used a term that is normally understood to be connected to the underworld.
Red Voice then used an allegedly convicted fraudster they referred to as a “political activist and investigative journalist,” who also has no idea what he is talking about, to explain more about the #WalkAway founder. The “investigative journalist” said that “Straka was suspicious from the start when he magically went from liberal to MAGA conservative out of nowhere in 2018.”
I say these people have no idea what they are talking about because the information hasn’t yet been made public.
From Red Voice:
“I mean they say Antifa infiltrated the Capitol. Straka to me is Antifa,” said Jonathan Riches.”Weaseled his way into the MAGA movement and was caught on camera telling Trump supporters to take the officers shield.”
Straka didn’t “weasel” his way into anything. He did his own thing. People flocked to him because he has an incredible message that resonated with them. That’s like saying before I voted for Trump in two elections, I weaseled my way into the MAGA movement.
I call bullschtein. Neither of these people knows a damn thing about Straka’s case to make insinuations like that. They read a court document that said Straka provided information to the government that may impact his sentencing recommendation and they linked to a Politico piece for validation. Reading the court document at face value could mean a thousand different things. You don’t automatically go down a dark road and accuse a fellow conservative of being a sellout when you don’t have the facts to support it!
The irony here is that the website offers a description of the site that appears in Google results as the following:
I don’t think creating a false narrative against Straka, a fellow conservative, is helping move the America First agenda forward, do you?
So these two guys trashed Straka, who has done far more to help the America First movement than they could ever dream, allegedly based on a belief that Straka must have sold people out to the Biden DOJ in order to get a lighter sentencing recommendation. They had no evidence to base such a conclusion, and they didn’t wait for the facts to come out.
The sentencing hearing is Thursday. After that, Straka can tell his story.
Did it ever occur to these people that there could be a whole host of things to be the cause of a lighter sentencing recommendation? No. They automatically went with Straka as a “suspicious” character from the start and insinuated he must have sold people out to get a lighter sentencing recommendation. Not cool.
That’s not what conservatives do. Conservatives wait for the facts before speaking out of turn, especially against one of their own. I use speculation from time to time to make an educated guess on a topic while waiting for the facts, but I don’t do character assassination based on an educated guess.
Straka’s attorneys could have discovered mitigating circumstances that made the government realize the initial sentencing recommendation was too harsh given the new information. There could have been information given to the defense from outside sources that revealed Straka may not have done the things he was accused of doing. A more serious crime that took place may have been discovered through evidence provided during the discovery phase that has since been shown to the prosecution.
Nothing presented so far means that Straka sold people out and after what he had done for the movement, he should be given the benefit of the doubt.
Red Voice must have realized the mistakes they made as they have since deleted the story. However, you can read it through the Wayback Machine by clicking here.
Your point of view caught my eye and was very interesting. Thanks. I have a question for you.