The Media Research Center censored all mention of the arrest, filing of additional charges, and conviction of Brent “Zeeker” Bozell IV, son of MRC chief Brent Bozell III, on charges related to his participation in the Capitol riot on its websites. When Bozell IV was sentenced to four years in prison for his actions during the riot, the MRC censored that too presumably on the orders of the boss. Thus, MRC readers will never know what an actual media organization reported — how Bozell was an active participant in the riot by smashing windows in the Capitol, that an investigator found that he was “leaning toward the officers with his head down” and “forcibly” made contact with officers as the mob charged a police line, and that he repeatedly lied on the stand about his conduct.
Prosecutors also pointed out that Bozell IV’s behavior “is a quintessential example of an intent to influence and retaliate against government conduct through intimidation or coercion and warrants the application of the terrorism enhancement,” adding that his comments that the “Capitol siege was morally justified” and his references to former Vice President Mike Pence as a “traitor” as evidence of his intention to engage in an act of domestic terrorism. It was also noted that Bozell IV texted his brother to try to get his father to retract his public condemnation of violence after Jan. 6.
Bozell III also wrote a letter in support of his son to the court, saying that he had “remained silent for the past 3 1/2 years” so he wouldn’t “tip the apple cart of justice” that he but now believed — especially because of the decision to seek a terrorism sentencing enhancement — that “there is more at play” in his son’s case. He added: “I am not pleading my son’s innocence, only that his punishment match the crime. I am asking the Court to consider my son’s character that is sterling and is being defended by absolutely everyone around him.” Actually, his participation in a violent attempted insurrection is proof of the exact opposite.
it was also pointed out that Bozell’s grandfather, Brent Bozell Jr., was “convicted of assaulting a police officer with a five-foot wooden cross” after he led an anti-abortion attack on a clinic in Washington, D.C., in 1970,” so such political violence runs in the family. Bozell IV did his fair share of dubious groveling before sentencing:
“I cannot apologize enough,” he said, adding that the “devastating reality” of what he did had an impact not only on him but on his family as well, adding that he was not raised that way.
“I don’t know what happened on that day and I can’t apologize enough,” Bozell said, adding that he had corrected people he encountered who said they supported what he did on Jan. 6.
He apologized to the people of D.C. as well, noting he wishes he could go door-to-door and apologize too. He said he brought a lot of harassment upon his daughter’s school because he wore a school sweatshirt that day, which helped online sleuths track him down.
It was enough to keep him from getting the terrorism enhancement, though he still got a significant prison sentence.
After Zeeker’s conviction, Bozell III tweeted that “We’re terribly disappointed in the decision. This isn’t the time to say all I want to say.” He finally said what he wanted to say in a Twitter/X post on the day of the sentencing — to which he blocked comments from being posted, presumably so he could avoid his whining being called out — beginning with a healthy dose of whataboutism:
I truly believe Judge John Bates is a fair judge, and a good man, but today’s judgment against my son is a complete travesty. In 2020, America was in flames as Antifa and BLM set fire to city after city – Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Washington DC, and so many more. Police stations were torched, and dozens of officers were injured as all manner of projectiles, from rocks to Molotov cocktails, were hurled at them. Dozens of people died. The damage was estimated at over $1.2 billion – the highest in history. And yet there was no outrage from the Justice Department. Instead, silence. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of crimes will never be prosecuted. In New York, the city is paying rioters $13 million for arresting them.
Bozell conveniently left out the fact that those protesters were peaceful and were subject to brutality techniques by police. It seems that Bozell is happy to punish innocent people if it advances his partisan political narratives. From there, it was right-wing whining that his son was held accountable for his crimes:
My son, like tens of millions of other Americans, believed the 2020 presidential election had been stolen. He does not belong to any political organization. His only organized involvement in the 2020 elections was with a local church group that met daily to pray the rosary for America. But on January 6 he entered the Capitol after breaking two windows (cost: under $3 thousand). He accepted responsibility for those offenses, as well as other minor ancillary charges. But when he would not plead guilty to the charge of obstruction – as unconstitutional a charge as there ever was, and one which is about to be tossed out by the Supreme Court – the Biden Justice Department unloaded. Two and a half years after he was charged, on the eve of his trial, suddenly the “Justice” Department found he’d “assaulted” a policeman when his body possibly momentarily brushed the officer. For this, my son has now been sentenced to 45 months in prison.
But that is not all. After his conviction the “Justice” Department tried relentlessly but unsuccessfully to pin a terrorism enhancement charge on him, thus equating my son, whose most serious crime ever was a traffic offense, to Osama bin Laden.
Bozell left out the part where the terrorism enhancement was sought because his son acted like a terrorist. And while the obstruction charge was overturned by the Supreme Court for many of those who were charged with it, it was not because it was “unconstitutional”; it was because the court majority chose to enforce a very narrow interpretation of the relevant statute.
Bozell also ignored that the 2020 election was not, in fact, stolen, no matter how much his organization tried to peddle that conspiracy theory — indeed, such conspiracy theories were a big part of the MRC’s eletcion narrative. If Bozell IV believed this lie, it was in no small part because his father taught him to, and that narrative is too politically advantageous to Bozell pere to ever do the right thing and apologize for spreading such discredited lies.
It wouldn’t be Bozell if he didn’t claim victimhood, and that’s exactly how he concluded:
This was not a pursuit of justice by a prosecution governed by principle. In Biden’s America, justice has no home if you are on the right. This was a political prosecution because my son, Leo Brent Bozell IV carries his father’s name, and his father is a known conservative leader who is supporting President Trump in 2024. This is just one more way the Biden administration is trying to shut down the conservative movement in America. But in this case, they failed. I love my son and will be more outspoken than ever. The criminal investigation into this corrupt Justice Department is long overdue.
Bozell needs to be reminded that if his son had not committed crimes during an attempted violent insurrection, he would not be in this situation. Also note that nowhere in his statement did Bozell denounce the riot and its violence; indeed, days after the riot, Bozell went on TV to justify it as “explosion of pent-up outrage from Middle America” — apparently acquiescing to his son’s demands to not criticize it — and whined, as he does here, that the riot makes all conservatives look bad, which is the fault of nobody but the rioters, as well as the repeated failure of conservative leaders like Bozell to effectively distance themselves from the violence they have condoned.
Bozell seems incapable of understanding that you refuse to denounce violent actions by your ideological fellow travelers, people will tend to be that you support those violent actions. But Bozell has no interest in being honest or offering a full accounting — he has to exploit everything to benefit his partisan agenda, no matter how far from the truth it is.
Brent Bozell IV indisputably committed crimes (they were caught on video, after all), and he was held accountable for it. It violates principles of American jurisprudence to give him better treatment because his dad is a right-wing bigwig, no matter how much said dad wants that to be the case. Bozell needs to get over himself, accept reality and stop denigrating the criminal justice system because his son was justly punished for his criminal behavior.