NEW YORK — Daniel Penny was not present at the New York Young Republican Club’s 112th annual gala on Sunday evening, but in many ways he felt like the guest of honor.
Several speakers at the event lauded Penny, who was acquitted on a charge of criminally negligent homicide earlier this month in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely. According to witnesses, Neely had been shouting and threatening other passengers. One of the gala speakers who cheered the chokehold was Rep.-elect Brandon Gill (R-TX), who praised Penny as a “great patriot” and called for more.
“I don’t know about you all, but I think we need a lot more Daniel Pennys in this country,” Gill told the gala audience to cheers and applause. “Because we have far too many Jordan Neelys.”
The Penny case has become something of a political litmus test on the right. Neely was a homeless Black man who struggled with mental illness and drugs. Penny is a white former Marine. The disparate identities of the two men and the circumstances of their fateful and fatal meeting sparked a wider debate about homelessness, crime, and vigilante justice.
In the courtroom, jurors were apparently somewhat divided. Penny was initially charged with both second degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. The jury spent days deliberating before informing the judge they had deadlocked on the manslaughter charge, which was the more serious of the two. The manslaughter charge was dismissed and, after further deliberation, the jury ultimately found Penny not guilty of the lesser offense as well.
Top Republicans have had a much easier time unequivocally embracing Penny and his actions. On Saturday, Penny attended the Army versus Navy football game in Maryland. He had been invited by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and the pair mingled in President-elect Donald Trump’s suite at the event. And, at the NYYRC gala, which Trump spoke at via speaker phone, Penny was hailed throughout the night as both a warrior for the group’s values and a model to be expanded on.
The ties between Penny and the club go deeper than words: Penny’s attorney, Thomas Kenniff, is an NYYRC member and attended the gala. During his keynote speech, club president Gavin Wax name-checked Kenniff and bragged that NYYRC was “one of the first organizations to both donate our financial resources into fundraising for Daniel Penny’s legal defense.”
Kenniff did not immediately respond to a request for comment about how much the club raised in total or the broader support he and his client have received from Republicans. Kenniff had been involved with the NYYRC long before the Penny case. The club endorsed him in his run as a Republican candidate for Manhattan District Attorney in May 2021. Kenniff eventually lost to Alvin Bragg.
A page on the NYYRC website that encouraged donations from members indicates it made “an initial $500 contribution” and dramatically described the case as evidence that Bragg, a Democrat famous for bringing charges against Trump, was engaged in a “reign of terror.”
“Democrats allow our streets to be filled with dangerous crackheads, and Penny’s prosecution underscores that New Yorkers have no right to self-defense,” the NYYRC site said.
On stage at the gala, Wax continued to cast the case in existential terms as he called Penny “the folk hero that we need in a post-constitutional America besieged by existential, internal threats.”
“Penny’s example reminds us that we do not have to accept and live with the criminality, the degradation, the subversion, the depravity, and the evil in our society,” Wax added.
The NYYRC, which dates back to the early 20th century, has experienced a revival and surge in membership in recent years as a leadership group including Wax focused it around an aggressive pro-Trump brand of politics. Another leader who has been instrumental in the club’s fiery rhetoric and explosive growth is Vish Burra, a longtime associate of Trump adviser Steve Bannon. At the gala, Burra, who is the club’s outgoing executive secretary, told TPM the event was “our biggest one yet.”
“We have over 1,000 people in the room and everyone’s energized, and happy, and looking forward to the fight,” Burra said.
Despite being a major topic of conversation throughout the evening, Penny was not in attendance. According to Burra, Penny preferred to avoid further publicity. Burra also touted the club’s fundraising efforts for the case and the fact Kenniff is a member.
“We definitely supported him from day one,” Burra said of Penny. “We kind of made sure that Penny was in good hands and taken care of in multiple fronts from where the club can contribute.”
The embrace of Penny and vigilanteism was only part of the combative and defiant tone evident at the NYYRC event following Trump’s resounding victory in last month’s presidential election. Multiple speakers described the result as evidence Democrats and the left pose a serious threat and must be cracked down on by any means necessary.
Gill, the incoming member of Congress who said he wanted “a lot more Daniel Pennys” exemplified this stance in his other remarks.
“Over the next few months we’re gonna hear a lot of talk about unity, and reconciliation, and bipartisanship,” Gill said. “I don’t know about you all, but I have no interest in bipartisanship after what they’ve done to our country.”
Gill is a MAGA loyalist who doesn’t shy away from controversy. He launched his political career by starting a pro-Trump website in 2018 called the D.C. Enquirer. He is the son-in-law of right-wing pundit Dinesh D’Souza, and Gill’s early political work included promoting D’Souza’s extensively debunked 2020 election denial film 2000 Mules. On Monday morning, Gill doubled down on his comments from the gala stage.
“When liberals demonize police officers and refuse to enforce the law, heroes like Daniel Penny are the only thing standing between order and anarchy,” Gill wrote on X.
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