Navalny's Death Demonstrates Selective Outrage over Political Prisoners

As Joe Biden brags about arresting, convicting, and imprisoning Americans who protested his election on January 6, his outrage over the death of a Russian "political prisoner" is itself an outrage.

Joe Biden wasted no time before shuffling to a White House podium last Friday to denounce the sudden death of Alexey Navalny, the celebrated anti-Kremlin activist.

According to Russian officials, Navalny, 47, lost consciousness after taking a walk at the Arctic penal colony where he had been serving a 19-year prison sentence for allegedly inciting “extremist” activities and other offenses. An outspoken foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Navalny won fans around the world including Hollywood celebrities and government leaders of all political persuasions.

Biden immediately blamed Putin for Navalny’s passing while admitting the cause of death remains unknown. “[Make] no mistake, Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Biden said during a hastily arranged press briefing on February 16. Putin, Biden continued, “had him arrested. He had him prosecuted for fabricated crimes. He sentenced him to prison. He was held in isolation.”

Well, what a difference a few weeks makes. Biden clearly suffers from a faulty if not fantastical memory but are his mental faculties so poor that he has forgotten the past few years—let alone the past few weeks?

Is this the same Joe Biden who has publicly vilified his own detractors for more than three years? The same Joe Biden who continues to deploy the country’s most powerful government agencies and corporations to hunt down, investigate, interrogate, arrest, charge, and imprison Americans for their participation in the events of January 6, 2021?

The same Joe Biden who routinely brands his countrymen as “insurrectionists” and “domestic terrorists” because they protested his election for a few hours that day?

The same Joe Biden who recently bragged about the success in creating his own set of political prisoners? Did Biden happen to forget his remarks at Valley Forge on the third anniversary of January 6? 

Here is a helpful refresher:

“[Since] that day, more than 1,200 people have been charged for their assault on the Capitol.  Nearly 900 of them have been convicted or pled guilty.  Collectively, to date, they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison.”

But Biden faced no backlash for boasting about imprisoning his political opponents; to the contrary, those in the audience, presumably the same individuals currently crying in their coffee over Navalny’s death, enthusiastically cheered.

Hypocrisy Without Limit

Biden, of course, is not alone in displaying such brazen hypocrisy on the matter of “political prisoners.” American lawmakers of both parties competed to pen the most dramatic and overblown statement regarding Navalny’s death.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been silent on the plight of January 6 political prisoners even though Florida is home to the greatest number of J6ers, promised revenge. “Navalny’s tragic death at the hands of the Putin bloodthirsty regime is a stark reminder that Putin and his thugs will stop at nothing to silence dissent or those who might expose the level of corruption in the Kremlin,” Rubio said in a statement. “We must continue to stand with those brave Russians who dare to speak out and continue to press for the release of political prisoners such as Vladimir Kara-Murza.”

While Rubio was not elected to represent Navalny or Vladimir Kara-Murza, another jailed Russian opposition leader, he is obligated to represent the more than 125 Floridians arrested and charged, mostly on low level offenses, related to the events of January 6. A handful of Rubio’s constituents including Joseph Biggs and Enrique Tarrio are serving some of the longest prison sentences—comparable, in fact, to those handed down by Russian officials against Navalny and Kara-Murza—following an extended period of pretrial detention that included stretches of solitary confinement before they were convicted of nonviolent offenses by a hostile jury during a rigged trial in Washington in 2022.

Nothing to say, Marco Rubio?

Plenty of Rubio’s constituents also face what Biden called “fabricated crimes” in the Navalny conviction. Where is Rubio’s outrage over the DOJ’s use of the rarely-used “seditious conspiracy” statute—one historically applied to foreign terrorists attempting to kill U.S. citizens—against Floridians resulting in prison sentences extended by the application of “terror enhancements?”

What about the Biden regime’s weaponization of a document-shredding statute passed in the aftermath of the Enron/Arthur Anderson scandal that instead is being used to criminalize political dissent and turn nonviolent protesters, including several Floridians such as decorated combat veteran Kenneth Harrelson, into lifelong felons?

No comment from Rubio even though the DOJ’s use of the statute currently is under review by the Supreme Court and might be overturned.

What About the Dead J6ers?

Rubio’s Republican colleagues also shared their feelings of heartbreak and indignation over Navalny’s passing. Senators John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Joni Earnst (R-Iowa), and Todd Young (R-Ind.) lined up to condemn Navalny’s “murder.” North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis, another mute when it comes to the persecution of J6ers, warned on X that “History be kind to America’s leaders who stay silent” about Putin’s culpability.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the always reliable slave to the national security state, warned of dire consequences. While repeatedly mispronouncing Navalny’s name, Graham said during a “Meet the Press” interview on Sunday that the U.S. must “make [Putin] pay a price for killing Navalny.”

If the U.S. designated Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, Graham continued, the Navalny family could sue Russia here in the states for “the killing of their loved one.”

So where do the loved ones of at least four January 6 defendants who have committed suicide in the face of relentless, merciless torture by the DOJ go to sue the U.S. government? Can the relatives of Christopher Staunton Georgia, Matthew Perna, Mark Aungst, and Jord Meacham file lawsuits against prosecutors and judges ultimately responsible for “killing” them?

Or what about the relatives of Ashli Babbitt, who was executed at near point-blank range by a Capitol police officer that afternoon? Or the parents of Rosanne Boyland, who died after being gassed and beaten by D.C. cops? Or the children of Benjamin Phillips, who died of a heart attack after being hit with a stun grenade thrown into the crowd by police?

No, those Americans are not entitled to relief. They don’t have an influential celebrity following or the ability to use their martyr status to help launder hundreds of billions in tax dollars to Ukraine.

To the contrary, Lindsey Graham wishes more J6ers were dead. 

The same Lindsey Graham who swoons over Navalny’s efforts to overthrow Putin urged federal police officers to shoot Americans inside the Capitol on January 6. Calling protesters “domestic terrorists,” Graham on January 7, 2021 insisted that “warning shots should have been fired and lethal force should have been used once they’d penetrated the seat of government.”

The Number of Biden’s Political Prisoners Could Exceed Putin’s

While Navalny’s mourners in Washington prepare to leverage his death to secure more aid for Ukraine amid headwind from House Republicans, Biden’s DOJ continues its dragnet for Trump supporters. On the same day the ruling class signed a collective sympathy card for Navalny, Matthew Graves, Biden’s handpicked U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on February 16 announced the arrest of a man from Louisiana on nonviolent charges for his presence inside the Capitol for about an hour.

DOJ’s official J6 caseload now exceeds 1,300 defendants with promises of more to come. In fact, the DOJ is on pace to arrest one J6er a day, which will make 2024 the year with the second-highest number of arrests in an effort to meet DOJ’s stated goal of ultimately charging at least 2,000 J6 protesters before the statute of limitations runs out.

Despite Biden’s claims that the ongoing January 6 investigation is about justice and accountability, the accelerating manhunt actually is about revenge and retaliation. In the words of one famous political dissident, “those in power cannot hold it without the arrest of innocent people. They jail hundreds to instill fear in millions.”

And the dissident who spoke those words was none other than Alexey Navalny.