Suspect Accused of Stabbing Rand Paul Staffer Was Freed from Prison Early Thanks to GOP-Backed ‘First Step Act’

The suspect accused of brutally stabbing a staffer for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in Washington, DC, had been released early from prison thanks to the “First Step Act,” which was approved by the then-Republican-controlled Congress in 2018 and signed into law by former President Donald Trump.

As Breitbart News reported, 42-year-old Glynn Neal is accused of stabbing, at random, Phillip Todd, who was leaving Sol Mexican Grill in D.C. Todd works for Paul as a chief economic adviser for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Todd is currently recovering from the stabbing attack, which left him with deep wounds to his head and abdomen, spurring a skull fracture and collapsed lung, according to his family.

The day before the stabbing attack, Neal was released early from federal prison in Maryland — earning “good time credit” under the First Step Act, which was championed in 2018 by the majority of House and Senate Republicans, including Paul, and signed into law by Trump.

“I am absolutely thrilled with tonight’s passage of the First Step Act,” Paul said in a statement after the GOP-controlled Senate passed the legislation in December 2018:

True to its name, this prison and sentencing reform bill is a much-needed first step toward shifting our focus to rehabilitation and reentry of offenders, rather than taking every person who ever made a mistake with drugs, locking them up, and throwing away the key. [Emphasis added]

In April 2019, then-Trump White House official Brooke Rollins told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that the First Step Act will “go down as one of [Donald Trump’s] greatest accomplishments.”

Rollins, like many Republicans and Democrats at the time, claimed the law would “improve public safety” and called it “one of the greatest policy wins of our generation.”

As of July 2022, more than 7,500 convicts have been released early from federal prison thanks to the First Step Act — costing taxpayers about $75 million each year. Among those have been violent criminals, including those convicted of sex crimes, armed robberies, murder, assault, and weapons offenses.

Neil is not the only First Step Act beneficiary to go on to allegedly commit additional crimes after his release from federal prison.

Most notoriously, as Breitbart News chronicled in 2019, 41-year-old Joel Francisco, a notorious leader of the “Almighty Latin Kings” gang, was freed by the First Step Act and arrested months later for allegedly murdering 46-year-old Troy Pine.

Francisco was originally convicted in 2005 for dealing crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Days after his release by the First Step Act in February 2019, drug records reveal he immediately returned to using cocaine.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.