Fourteen Republican House members led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia demanded Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser terminate Deputy Warden Kathleen Landerkin of the D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility. Landerkin is overseeing the pre-trial detention of Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendants.
In the letter sent Thursday, Greene railed the warden for running a “two-tier justice system” based on a recent congressional visit from the Georgia lawmaker with Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert, who also endorsed Landerkin’s termination.
“January 6 defendants were treated categorically different from the remainder of the prison population,” they wrote, referencing testimony from the accused that claimed “months of solitary confinement, verbal abuse (e.g., called ‘white supremacists’), harassment, beatings from guards, denial of basic medical care, religious services, communion, nutritious diet, and access to attorneys.”
While most of these inmates have no prior history and have yet to be convicted of any crime,” lawmakers added, “Landerkin is allowing them to be treated as subhuman.” Greene published her findings from the November visit in a 28-page eyewitness report titled, “Unusually Cruel” on Dec. 7.
In a 20-tweet Twitter thread published last weekend, Greene highlighted Landerkin’s open political bias. Landerkin has a history of re-publishing hateful anti-Trump and anti-Republican content, including one post on Jan. 2 that read, “Retweet if you want [Nancy Pelosi] to punish the 140 House Republican traitors who are trying to overturn the election by refusing to seat them in Congress.”
Landerkin also advertised a parody book depicting the president as a pig in 2019, titled, “If You Give A Pig The White House.”
“New book to read,” she wrote. “Teach them early of the consequences of an uneducated electorate.”
“These examples are merely a drop in the ocean of statements which Landerkin has publicly supported over the last seven years,” lawmakers wrote after they cited a series of politicized public statements including the ones above. “They reveal the unhinged personality of a left-wing ideologue who despises our system of government and those who serve in it, especially Members of Congress and the former President of the United States.”
Others who signed Greene’s letter include Matt Gaetz of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia, Andy Harris of Maryland, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Mary Miller of Illinois, Barry Moore of Alabama, Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Michael Cloud of Texas, and Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, each from Arizona.
While Jan. 6 defendants have faced months of detention while denied bail by the Biden Justice Department, almost half of federal cases against Portland rioters were dismissed by April this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.