CPAC: Author Julie Kelly equates Biden to Putin over mistreatment of Jan 6 defendants

Kelly is a senior writer for American Greatness, and authored the book "January 6: How Democrats Used the Capitol Protest to Launch a War on Terror Against the Political Right."

Kelly opened her speech telling the audience that she's going to "get everyone up to speed on what a certain authoritarian world leader has been up to in the past year." She hints to the audience that this leader's last name has five letters and ends with the letter N.

"This authoritarian world leader has been using the his most powerful law enforcement tools and agencies to round up, arrest, imprison, and charge his political foes in an attempt to silence and criminalize political dissent," she said.

"He's using this law enforcement agency, armed agents, military-style vehicles to conduct pre-dawn raids at the homes of political dissidents, terrorizing these dissidents in front of their children," Kelly claimed of those that have been arrested in connection to the Jan. 6 riot, adding that these agents are "calling them top, hauling them off, concocting charges against them, fabricating evidence," and sending these people to prison, where they have reportedly been denied bail.

Kelly continued on to state that some of these defendants have been "shipped off to a special political prison in the nation's capital," where these defendants "are then tucked away from their families, their defense attorneys, they can’t see the evidence against them."

"All the rights that those citizens have from their country’s charter, are completely gone," she added. "No due process, no presumption of innocents, trials are delayed, evidence is covered up, their lives are destroyed, their families are destroyed, their businesses are destroyed."

"The media of course helps out with the regime and smearing these people and ruining their lives," Kelly said.

Kelly continued on to ask the crowd which world leader she was previously referring to, to which the crowd answered with mixed responses of "Putin" and "Biden."

"Not Vladimir Putin, of course. Joe Biden," she said.

Kelly continued on to note that more people have been federally charged in the riots throughout 2020. "More than 730 Americans have been charged related to a four hour disturbance at the US Capitol more than a year ago," said Kelly.

"This is more than three times as many people who faced federal charges in the totality of rioters throughout 2020. Three times as many federal charges against Jan. 6 protestors, than months long of rioting, death, and destruction. They actually terrorized this country," she claimed.

Kelly continued on to ask, "so what do we not know about Jan. 6?"

"Well, what we don't know is why the government is trying to hide 14,000 hours of surveillance video captured on publicly funded security cameras in the US Capitol," she said.

"We deserve to know how many FBI undercover agents and informants were involved, not only in what happened that day, but ahead of time," she continued, noting a recent event in which a top FBI official could not tell Senator Ted Cruz how many agents were involved in the day.

Kelly noted that charges against the 2020 rioters are being dropped or have lighter sentencing "because they were involved in social justice protests."

"More egregiously, this government and the media covered up the name of the federal police officer who executed Ashli Babbitt at near point-blank range, almost shooting her in the face, covered up his name for months," she said. "The media knew who it was, they covered it up as well."

Kelly continued on to highlight an "egregious double standard" in the country that has allowed charges to be pursued against officers involved in committing violence against the 2020 rioters, and in cases like George Floyd, but the officer that shot Babbitt will not face charges.

"When the Republicans take over the House, they need to expose exactly what happened on that day," Kelly said, adding that they need to "find out" how people like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, and the Justice Department abused their powers.

"Because that's not what this country is about. We deserve transparency. We deserve the truth. And more importantly, we deserve justice," Kelly said.