As we noted Monday, Dawn Bancroft, 59, of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, was going to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building, the penalty for which is a maximum of six months in jail and a fine of $5,000.^[1]40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(G).

A Doylestown woman who said she wanted to shoot Pelosi ‘in the friggin’ brain’ pleaded guilty to Capitol riot charges

Dawn Bancroft said she didn’t mean to threaten the House Speaker and called her remark a “stupid comment.” A federal judge questioned whether she was getting off too lightly with a misdemeanor plea.

by Jeremy Roebuck | Tuesday, September 28, 2021

A Bucks County gym owner who recorded herself during the storming of the Capitol saying she was looking for Nancy Pelosi “to shoot her in the friggin’ brain” pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor Tuesday, making her the latest Pennsylvanian to admit her role in the Jan. 6 riot.

Dawn Bancroft, 59, of Doylestown, told a federal judge she didn’t mean to threaten the House speaker and described her remark in hindsight as a “stupid, juvenile comment” made in the heat of the moment.

Yet, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan expressed concern about Bancroft’s statements and questioned why prosecutors had agreed to let her plead to a misdemeanor count of illegally demonstrating, picketing, or parading inside the Capitol — which carries a maximum sentence of six months in prison — instead of pursuing more serious charges of threatening a member of Congress.

“It’s very troubling to hear that the reason [she] was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was essentially to murder the speaker of the House,” the judge said.

How can that be considered the statement of an unbiased judge? Would any of the Capitol kerfufflers who appeared in his court for an actual trial get a fair shake?

His remarks came on a day that saw two other Pennsylvania residents admit that they took part in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Also pleading guilty Tuesday was Diana Santo-Smith, 32, of Bucks County, who traveled by train with Bancroft to Washington and who appeared in the background of her incriminating selfie video.

Sullivan ultimately accepted the misdemeanor pleas from both women despite his reservations. But he warned them he would have much more to say about their conduct when it came time for sentencing in January.

He marveled at just how many otherwise law-abiding citizens had “morphed into terrorists” that day and said he agreed with recent comments from former President George W. Bush alluding to the Capitol riot as an act of domestic terrorism on par with the Sept. 11 attacks.

Former President Bush, for whom I twice voted, was being stupid when he said that. Comparing what was, in effect, an out of control college keg party in which the only people who died were the partiers, one of whom was shot in the head by a Capitol policeman, with four hijacked airliners, used as weapons, to kill thousands of people. The Inquirer reported that:

(Mrs Bancroft and Mrs Santos-Smith) broke into the building through an already shattered window and spent less than a minute inside, prosecutors said, before making their way back out again.

It was while they were trying to push their way back out through the crowd that Bancroft filmed herself and Santos-Smith.

“We broke into the Capitol. We got inside. We did our part,” she said. “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain. We didn’t find her, but all is good.”

They spent less than a minute, according to prosecutors, but Judge Sullivan wanted Mrs Bancroft charged much more harshly. The prosecution noted that Mrs Bancroft’s remark was made as they were leaving the building, and there is no evidence that either of them was armed.

Every defense attorney for any of the kerfufflers assigned to Judge Sullivan’s court should be ready with a demand that Judge Sullivan recuse himself in the event of anything more than a guilty plea under 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(G), because His Honor has proven himself not to be honorable, proven himself to be thoroughly biased against the defendants.

I have long called the January 6^th ‘insurrection’ what I believe it to be, the Capitol kerfuffle.

On Monday, Gary Edwards, 68, of Churchville in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to a single count of “parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol,” 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(G) a charge which could result in probation or a sentence of up to six months in jail. Mr Edwards became the 8^th out of 55 Pennsylvanians charged in what amounts to a fraternity keg party getting out of control to plead guilty.

Two more suburban Philadelphia residents are expected to join those ranks this week. Dawn Bancroft, 59, and the owner of a CrossFit gym in Doylestown, and Diana Santos-Smith, of Fort Washington, are scheduled to plead guilty Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.

The Feds identified Mrs Bancroft and Mrs Santos-Smith from a selfie taken during the kerfuffle; does it look like they were engaged in a major operation, a serious attempted coup d’etat, against the United States?

Social media posts have played a large part in helping the Feds identify the kerfufflers. Mr Edwards’ wife found out just who the family’s friends really are.

There was little on his own public-facing Facebook account to suggest what brought him to Washington in January.

But his wife, in her own posts, described how her husband had followed a “small group of young men dressed in military garb” into the building after watching them break down police barricades, smash a window to climb inside, and then break furniture on their way toward storming the upper floors.

She claimed her husband spent his time in the building helping to flush tear gas from the eyes of other rioters, chatting amicably with police and singing “The Star Spangled-Banner.”

“These were people who watched their rights being taken away,” she wrote. “Their votes stolen from them, their state officials violating the constitutions of their country.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that it was one of Mrs Edwards Facebook friends who took a screenshot of the post, and forwarded it to the FBI.

Yeah, I’d unfriend that bitch!

But it’s interesting how the Inquirer, which normally doesn’t run mugshots of accused criminals, posted that photo of Mrs Bancroft and Mrs Santos-Smith. The credentialed media, who really don’t want to make life harder on actual criminals, have been very free with the photos of the kerfufflers.

These are the typical charges placed against the vast majority of the kerfufflers:

• 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(1) – Knowingly Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Grounds Without Lawful Authority. Since the Munns are not accused of harming anyone or carrying a deadly weapon, the maximum punishment under (b)(2) is a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.
• 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(2) – Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds. Since the Munns are not accused of harming anyone or carrying a deadly weapon, the maximum punishment under (b)(2) is a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in any other case.
• 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(D) – Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building: utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or engage in disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place in the Grounds or in any of the Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of a session of Congress or either House of Congress, or the orderly conduct in that building of a hearing before, or any deliberations of, a committee of Congress or either House of Congress; The penalty for violating 40 U.S.C. §5104(e)(2) is a misdemeanor conviction punishable by a maximum fine of $5,000 fine or up to six months in prison, or both.
• 40 U.S.C. § 5104(e)(2)(G) – Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building; The penalty for violating 40 U.S.C. §5104(e)(2) is a misdemeanor conviction punishable by a maximum fine of $5,000 or up to six months in prison, or both.

It’s simple: hammer down on charges, to ‘encourage’ the kerfufflers to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor. After all, if convicted on all four charges, and with judges who have already expressed displeasure that those who have pleaded guilty have done so to such a minor charge, those convicted could be sentenced to three years and possibly crippling fines. That Attorney General Merrick Garland, who hates Republicans because the GOP denied him a seat on the Supreme Court, has allowed his minions to offer pleas on only one misdemeanor charge, is indicative of the fact that this ‘insurrection’ wasn’t much of a much.

Were I to, by some miracle, become President, my first act would be to pardon all of the kerfufflers, and my second to fire Mr Garland in the most humiliating manner I could find.