JFK Assassination Forum
Off Topic => News - Off Topic - Weird & Wacky => Topic started by: Rick Plant on September 24, 2021, 11:40:49 PM
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In this thread we will discuss the GOP attempted coup and insurrection which is now under investigation by the U.S. House bipartisan committee.
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Donald Trump Jr. must 'definitely' be subpoenaed — this former GOP congresswoman explains why
One of the most prominent Republicans who investigated President Bill Clinton in the 1990's called for the House select committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots to subpoena Donald Trump, Jr.
Former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) rose to prominence a quarter century ago as the senior counsel on the House Committee on Government Reform. In 2000, she led opposition research into Vice President Al Gore for George W. Bush's successful campaign for president. After working in private practice, she served three terms representing Virginia in Congress.
MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace interviewed Comstock to hear her analysis of the investigation into January 6th after the select committee issued four subpoenas to top Trump advisors.
"Barbara, I set this up with sort of a nod to your history as an incredibly competent and tough investigator," Wallace said. "And I want to come back to you on the same question. What is it you want to know about these men individually and in terms of what ties them together in the planning of and the conduct during the insurrection?"
"Well, I think we need to get every, you know, email, every text, every document that's out there because I don't particularly expect them to be very forthcoming," Comstock replied.
Comstock explained why the former president's eldest son needs to be subpoenaed.
"I think people like Trump, Jr. definitely needs to be subpoenaed. Remember, he was in that tent right before Donald Trump went out to speak," she explained.
"He's there with Mark Meadows saying, 'Hey, you know how to fight, you're fighting.' He obviously knows a lot of what went on in that lead up as do other members of the family and certainly members of the family who knew exactly what was going on on January 6th and from the entire time from election night until then," Comstock said.
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New subpoenas show House panel 'looking beyond just the attack' to nail Trump for insurrection: analysis
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A round of new subpoenas show the House select committee is investigating events that led up to the Jan. 6 insurrection and lawmakers have a pretty clear idea of which Donald Trump loyalists played the biggest role in the attack.
The panel requested records and testimony from former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former White House strategist Steve Bannon, former Trump deputy chief of staff and director of social media Dan Scavino, and former Pentagon official and Trump loyalist Kashyap Patel -- and the subpoenas show lawmakers are looking beyond the insurrection, reported Rolling Stone.
"Among other things, those requests show the committee is investigating the communications various security agencies had with the White House and with each other," wrote Hunter Walker for the magazine. "It is also examining personnel changes at some of those agencies, including the installation of Patel, a Trump loyalist who was placed at the Pentagon in the days after the election, and the firing of Homeland Security cybersecurity chief Christopher Krebs, who loudly refuted Trump's suggestion there was election fraud at play in his defeat."
The committee also wants to see records related to gathering and sharing intelligence before the attack, as well as security plans for the Capitol and any changes made to the way agencies monitor social media for threats before the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the attack.
"Those record requests also indicate the committee is looking beyond just the attack on January 6," Walker wrote. "The committee specifically requested records related to demonstrations against the election that were staged by Trump supporters in D.C. on November 14, 2020, December 12, 2020, and January 5 of this year. It also asked for documents related to attempts that Trump associates (including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and lawyer Sidney Powell) made to allege election fraud, as well documents related to efforts to solicit Justice Department intervention in multiple states."
The FBI's investigation has so far focused on the Trump supporters who stormed into the Capitol, while the congressional probe seems to be focusing on individuals who can describe the former president's actions on that day and what steps they took to prevent an effective response.
"In the statement announcing those subpoenas, the committee indicated it was interested in Patel both for his role in 'discussions among senior Pentagon officials prior to and on January 6th, 2021, regarding 'security at the Capitol' and to a reported effort to place him at the Central Intelligence Agency last December in the aftermath of the election," Walker wrote. "Bannon, a former White House official and on-again-off-again Trump confidant, was cited by the committee for a reported conversation he had with the former president last December 30th, where he pressed Trump 'to focus his efforts on January 6th,' and for allegedly attending 'a gathering at the Willard Hotel on January 5th, 2021, as part of an effort to persuade members of Congress to block the certification of the election the next day.'"
"Meadows, who was Trump's White House chief of staff, was cited by the committee for reportedly communicating 'with officials at the state level and in the Department of Justice as part of an effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election or prevent the election's certification' and for being in touch with organizers of pro-Trump rallies in Washington on January 6," Walker added. "The subpoena announcement indicated Scavino, a former caddy at Trump's golf club who became his social media guru on the campaign trail, attracted the committee's interest due to his promotion of the January 6 rallies and because he was reportedly present 'during a discussion of how to convince Members of Congress not to certify the election for Joe Biden' with Trump the day before the Capitol attack."
https://www.rawstory.com/jan-6-investigation-2655095087/
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When did Kevin McCarthy call Trump on Jan. 6 ? Here's why it matters
On Friday, writing for The Washington Post, Aaron Blake highlighted the massive scope of the House January 6 committee's investigation suggested by the subpoenas of Trump allies and the possibility the White House could turn over additional records — and, if they do, the most important questions the committee could answer.
"Should the Biden White House do this — which hasn't been fully decided and would be subject to a court challenge — it would be significant," wrote Blake. "However little regard Biden's White House might have for Trump's, even White Houses of opposing parties generally avoid this kind of thing. No White House wants to potentially undermine its claims to executive privilege or to set a precedent that its inner workings could one day be disclosed by its successors."
But one of the most significant questions the move could answer, wrote Blake is the timeline of when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) had his infamous phone call with Trump — and what it could reveal.
"If the call to McCarthy came earlier, it would suggest Trump's response was even more delayed. If it came later, it would suggest Trump's callousness about the scenes lasted well into the situation," said Blake. "Even if we might not know the full content of these calls, in other words, the timing of them would fill out the picture of Trump's slow response and possibly how much he liked what he was seeing, even as the situation progressively spiraled out of control.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/24/white-house-might-give-up-goods-what-trump-did-jan-6-what-would-that-mean/
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Legal expert shreds Trump's executive privilege claims: 'You can't tell your lawyer you're going to commit a crime'
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As a House select committee investigates the Capitol insurrection, former president Donald Trump's attorneys are widely expected to argue in court that "executive privilege" prevents administration officials from testifying and documents from being turned over.
However, one former high-ranking federal prosecutor said Friday he believes judges will ultimately reject many of Trump's "executive privilege" claims.
Elliot Williams, a CNN legal analyst who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice, explained that presidents should enjoy executive privilege, so they can have candid conversations with advisers without being sued or subpoenaed every time.
However, Williams said Trump faces two major obstacles when it comes to arguing executive privilege in response to subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the insurrection.
"The problem here for president Trump is that, No. 1, a lot of these communications were in the capacity of him as candidate Trump, not president Trump, and those just aren't going to be protected communications," Williams said. "And No. 2, it can't be a shield for wrongdoing. You can't tell your lawyer you're going to commit a crime, and then say that those are privileged communications. It's the same thing here. He can't have had conversations that teed up wrongdoing, and then claim that he's hiding behind a privilege. So he can make the argument — it's going to be really tricky — because it's hard legally to separate the man from the candidate from the president, but that's going to happen in the courts over the next couple of weeks."
Watch below:
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Trump supporters were breaching the Capitol as Homeland Security claimed 'no major incidents of illegal activity'
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A Homeland Security whistleblower came forward Sunday to reveal that under President Donald Trump's administration, he and other DHS officials were ordered to downplay possible threats on the United States from Russia and white supremacists and to play up incidents at the border.
The misinformation stretched even further, according to Politico reporter Betsy Woodruff Swan, who revealed Tuesday that DHS sent out reports saying everything was fine during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"There are no major incidents of illegal activity at this time," read an internal Army email sent to senior leaders at 1:40 p.m. on Jan. 6. It was referring to an update they had received moments before from DHS's National Operations Center (NOC).
The email was obtained from a public records request by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
"These emails raise serious questions about the response to the threat of January 6th," Swan cited spokesperson Jordan Libowitz, from CREW.
The documents show that the first report from DHS on Jan. 6 at 1:30 p.m. EST didn't even have to do with the mass of Trump supporters marching with weapons to the Capitol. That communication was about the National Guard troops deployed in Wisconsin "in anticipation of prosecutorial decision" in the case of the police officer who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times. They said that there was 851 National Guard personnel ready on hand. They weren't needed there.
The second item on the report says: "In the last 2 hrs - There are no major incidents of illegal activity at this time."
They also mentioned what they characterized as "non-issues," such as a suspicious package at a Metro station near the Capitol. Threats by the Proud Boys "to shut down the water system in the downtown area," weren't credible. It then mentioned, "Protestors near 16th & Pennsylvania Ave reportedly with baseball bats; exaggerated report."
It then commented on two buildings being evacuated because of a bomb threat against the Capitol Hill Club. That was the pipebomb found in front of the Republican Party headquarters and the one found at the Democratic National Committee. The FBI believes that the bombs were placed to explode and distract police from the U.S. Capitol so insurrectionists could get into the building without any barriers.
See the documents and read the full story from Betsy Woodruff Swan here.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/28/dhs-pentagon-jan-6-capitol-riot-514527
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There are only 824 days until 2024!
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There are only 824 days until 2024!
Yes, and another GOP defeat like in 2018 and 2020!
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Bob Woodward’s book reveals damning details about Josh Hawley’s role in Trump’s attempted coup: Missouri newspaper
Sen. Josh Hawley's hometown newspaper bashed the Missouri Republican for encouraging and supporting an attempted coup to keep Donald Trump in the White House.
The Kansas City Star editorial board lists all the Trump administration officials and others who pushed back against baseless claims of election fraud, as described in Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's book, "Peril," but noted that Hawley continued to side with the defeated president.
"You know who never caved to reality, or ever tried to protect the republic instead of his Republican self?" the board writes. "Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, that's who. Yes, we knew that, but 'Peril' reminds any who might have forgotten that in putting his ambition ahead of all else, Hawley was a standout both before and during the attempted coup."
The book's authors say as much.
"'The risk became real,' the book says, 'when Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Yale-law educated freshman and former Supreme Court law clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts, announced on Dec. 30 that he would object to the Electoral College certification on Jan. 6, becoming the first senator to do so,'" the board writes
Hawley stood by himself in the hours after Trump supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol intended the stop or delay the certification of Joe Biden's election win, as both the Star reported at the time and "Peril" showed months later, and the newspaper noted with disdain that the senator told colleagues Roy Blunt and Ted Cruz that he would side with the insurrectionists when the floor vote came.
"Hawley played a big role in the Big Lie," the board writes. "And since so many Missourians love him for it, he may be the rare national Republican who hopes his constituents will read this book, and see how willing he was to distinguish himself."
https://www.rawstory.com/josh-hawley-jan-6/
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Capitol riot committee subpoenas 11 high-profile Trump allies -- and it wants to grill them about their funding
The U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has issued subpoenas for 11 additional Trump supporters being investigated for their role in overturning the 2020 election, which was won by President Joe Biden.
Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) announced the subpoenas in a statement released online on Wednesday evening.
"The Select Committee is investigating the facts, circumstances, and causes of the January 6th attack and issues relating to the peaceful transfer of power, in order to identify and evaluate lessons learned and to recommend to the House and its relevant committees corrective laws, policies, procedures rules, or regulations. The inquiry includes examination of how various individuals and entities coordinated their activities leading up to the events of January 6, 2021," Thompson wrote.
Women for America First (WFAF), which organized the rally preceding the insurrection, is among the groups being investigated. Intriguingly, the committee is also demanding "a range of records that include materials dealing with the planning, funding, and participation in the events."
Here is the full list, with descriptions from the select committee:
Amy Kremer, founder and Chair of WFAF.Kylie Kremer, founder and Executive Director of WFAF.
Cynthia Chafian, submitted the first permit application on behalf of WFAF for the January 6th rally, and founder of the Eighty Percent Coalition.
Caroline Wren, listed on permit paperwork for the January 6th rally as "VIP Advisor."
Maggie Mulvaney, listed on permit paperwork for the January 6th rally as "VIP Lead."
Justin Caporale, of Event Strategies, Inc., listed on permit paperwork for the January 6th rally as "Project Manager."
Tim Unes, of Event Strategies, Inc., listed on permit paperwork for the January 6th rally as "Stage Manager."
Megan Powers, of MPowers Consulting LLC, listed on permit paperwork for the January 6th rally as "Operations Manager for Scheduling and Guidance."
Hannah Salem, of Salem Strategies LLC, listed on permit paperwork for the January 6th rally as "Operations Manager for Logistics and Communications."
Lyndon Brentnall, of RMS Protective Services, listed on permit paperwork for the January 6th rally as "On-Site Supervisor."
Katrina Pierson, former Trump campaign official, reportedly involved in the organization of the January 5th and 6th rallies and was in direct communication with the former President about the rallies.
The select committee had previously subpoenaed former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Daniel Scavino, former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel, and former Trump advisor Stephen Bannon.
https://www.rawstory.com/jan-6-select-committee-subpoenas-2655193873/
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823 days to go! 2024 gets closer every minute! Biden's polls numbers are cratering with each new disaster.
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Leaked document blows the lid off secret group where GOP big shots link up with right-wing extremists
A leaked document reveals the secret membership list for a shadowy right-wing group that links elite Republicans and conservative activists with anti-abortion and anti-Islamic extremists.
The membership list for the Council for National Policy (CNP) showed influential figures in Donald Trump's administration alongside leaders of organizations classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as hate groups, reported The Guardian.
"This new CNP list makes clear that the group still serves as a key venue where mainstream conservatives and extremists mix," said Heidi Beirich, of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. "[SNP] clearly remains a critical nexus for mainstreaming extremism from the far right into conservative circles."
The group was founded in 1981 by right-wing Christian leaders Tim LaHaye, Howard Phillips and Paul Weyrich, who had also been deeply involved with the Moral Majority, to gain influence within Ronald Reagan's administration, and the has gone on to host George W. Bush and Mitt Romney as GOP presidential candidates and Trump, when he was in office last year.
The CNP reportedly instructs members not to reveal their affiliation or even identify the group, whose executive committee chairman Bill Walton was shown on video obtained by the Washington Post last year describing the election as a "spiritual battle" pitting "good versus evil."
The leaked membership list shows anti-Muslim extremists Frank Gaffney, founder and executive chairman of the Center for Security Policy, and Brigitte Gabriel, founder and chairman of Act For America, along with anti-LGBTQ extremists, Michael Farris, president and CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom; Brad Dacus, founder and president of the Pacific Justice Institute; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Matthew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel; and Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association.
Anti-immigrant extremists James and Amapola Hansberger, co-founders of Legal Immigrants For America, also showed up on the list, and so did anti-abortion extremist Margaret Hartshorn, chair of the board of Heartbeat International.
One newcomer was Charlie Kirk, founder and president of the youth organization Turning Point USA, and and pro-Trump conspiracist Jerome Corsi was listed as a member of CNP's board of governors.
Conservative heavyweights were also listed as members, such as L. Brent Bozell III, founder of the Media Research Center; Eugene Mayer, president of the Federalist Society; Lisa Nelson, chief executive of the American Legislative Exchange Council; Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Return; and Daniel Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union.
Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) was named as a member, along with corporate leaders from Boeing, Cinemark Holdings, Coors Brewing, Forbes and Morgan Stanley, as well as GOP megadonors and conservative media figures.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-alfa/
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Trump's lawyer wrote 'bone-chilling' instructions for a coup – but you probably never heard about it: columnist
Writing in The Washington Post this Thursday, columnist Margaret Sullivan says there's a good chance you haven't heard of the Eastman memo, which -- according to her -- just goes to show how how lazy the mainstream press has become about the attempted coup on Jan. 6.
It also shows how easily a coup could succeed the next time around, she writes.
The Eastman memo, which was unearthed in Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's new book, was written by Trump legal adviser John Eastman — "a serious Establishment Type with Federalist Society cred and a law school deanship under his belt — it offered Mike Pence, then in his final days as vice president, a detailed plan to declare the 2020 election invalid and give the presidency to Trump," Sullivan writes, adding that it's basically a tutorial on how to run a coup in six easy steps.
Sullivan describes the memo as "an instruction manual for a coup."
She adds that "it's downright bone-chilling to think that this lawyer and legal scholar who was enough of an insider to have a speaking role at Trump's 'Stop the Steal' rally on Jan. 6, had gamed it out like this."
Several news outlets did cover the memo, including New York magazine, CNN, and the Washington Post, Sullivan notes. "But the news coverage wasn't nearly widespread or prominent enough to make 'the Eastman memo' a household name or to strike that legitimate fear into the hearts of citizens.
Read the full op-ed over at The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/sullivan-eastman-memo/2021/09/29/68d93000-211f-11ec-9309-b743b79abc59_story.html
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Of course this coup was planned. These maga Trump scumbags hate America. They tried to overthrow the US Government and kill members of Congress.
Trump Extremists Brought Numerous Guns on January 6, Evidence Shows
Rioters at the Capitol carried concealed pistols, allegedly stockpiled weapons nearby, and called for overthrowing the US government
For more than eight months, Republican lawmakers have sought to rewrite the harrowing events of January 6. They have continually whitewashed the assault on the US Capitol despite copious footage showing mobs of Trump supporters ransacking Congress, threatening to kill Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and viciously attacking scores of police officers with chemical spray, fire extinguishers, hockey sticks, and flagpoles. The attack led to several deaths and was followed by the suicides of several police officers who defended the Capitol.
“It was not an insurrection,” Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia declared at a House hearing in May, suggesting that most participants were engaged in “a normal tourist visit.”
“By and large it was peaceful protest,” said Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin after the May hearings.
This attempted political cover-up has hinged on another specific claim: that no one who stormed the Capitol brought guns.
“This didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me,” Johnson said five weeks after the attack, adding, “When you think of armed, don’t you think of firearms?” During the May hearings, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona claimed “zero firearms” were found among suspects charged with breaching the Capitol. “There were no guns whatsoever,” former President Trump declared repeatedly during a Fox News interview in July.
Evidence of numerous firearms among January 6 perpetrators shows those claims to be false. A Mother Jones investigation drawing on public video footage, congressional testimony, and documents from more than a dozen federal criminal cases reveals that various Trump supporters descended on DC that day armed for battle with guns and other potentially lethal weapons. At least three people arrested in connection with the insurrection are facing charges for carrying firearms on Capitol grounds. At least eight others carried knives or tasers at the Capitol, including two defendants who allegedly committed assaults with tasers, according to FBI and court documents. Multiple others arrested downtown and in the vicinity of the Capitol had rifles, pistols, explosive materials, and large supplies of ammunition. And communications among numerous January 6 suspects detailed in court documents indicate that many of their fellow insurrectionists were armed with guns.
Evidence disclosed in court filings suggests that some defendants may have decided against bringing guns to the Capitol due to strict DC gun laws. But many other participants that day apparently were undeterred.
“Over the radio I heard our gun recovery unit working constantly,” testified DC Metropolitan police officer Daniel Hodges during late July hearings held by the House Select Committee investigating January 6.
“Multiple gun arrests were made from January 5th through the 7th against those attending, likely had attended, or planned to attend Donald Trump’s gathering.” (A spokesperson for the DC police declined to specify the total number of firearms arrests stemming from January 6, but it appears to be at least six.) In his testimony, Hodges also described fearing that law enforcement would have been perilously outnumbered had they acted more aggressively against suspected armed extremists. “Unfortunately, due to the course of events that day we will never know exactly how many were carrying firearms and other lethal weapons.”
“The people that were around me were all carrying too”
Among the defendants who face weapons charges is Trump supporter Christopher M. Alberts of Maryland, who is accused of multiple federal crimes, including engaging in physical violence at the Capitol and unlawfully carrying a semiautomatic pistol and a large-capacity ammunition device. Appearing in January 6 video footage recorded by an unknown person in the crowd outside the Capitol, Alberts wore a tactical vest and called for overthrowing the US government. “If the government is no longer for the people,” he shouted, “it is your duty to overthrow that government and reinstate a new government, for the people.”
According to court documents, Alberts later tried to flee from DC police, who arrested him carrying a Taurus G2C 9mm pistol and more than two dozen rounds of ammunition. An attorney for Alberts did not respond to multiple requests for comment about Alberts’ alleged crimes and the January 6 footage of him, which Mother Jones authenticated using public records, previous news reporting, and video footage of Alberts, who had long protested publicly in support of Trump.
Another person charged with unlawfully carrying a handgun is Guy Reffitt of Texas, whom the government alleges is a Three Percenter militia member who wore a helmet and body armor as he confronted police defending the Capitol. According to FBI wiretap evidence contained in court documents, Reffitt boasted to family and fellow militia members after returning to Texas in January that he and other insurrectionists brought guns to the siege. “The people that were around me were all carrying too,” he said. “I had every constitutional right to carry a weapon and take over the Congress, as we tried to do. We went in, they scurried like rats and hid. That’s how it works.” Reffitt and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
Mark Sami Ibrahim of California, who was on personal leave on January 6 from his job as a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration, was indicted in July on four federal charges stemming from his alleged activity outside the Capitol. Multiple images contained in the criminal complaint against him show Ibrahim posing for photos while displaying his badge and DEA-issued pistol; according to the complaint, he later made a false statement to a federal investigator, saying he “never exposed” his badge and gun at the Capitol. Among the charges against Ibrahim—who the complaint says was not on DEA duty and “had no role as a law enforcement officer” on January 6—are that he knowingly was on restricted Capitol grounds without lawful authority while carrying “a deadly or dangerous weapon or firearm.” Ibrahim, who said during an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show in March that he did nothing illegal and had since been fired from the DEA, did not respond to requests for comment, nor did his attorney.
The identities of other individuals who carried guns on Capitol grounds remain unclear. One person who wore a star-spangled cowboy hat and is wanted by the FBI, in connection with an assault on a journalist, appeared in footage recorded by Vice News in which he revealed a pistol in his front waistband.
As the scene grew more tense and chaotic that day, escalating calls for violence could be heard around the Capitol. “If you have a weapon, you need to get your weapon,” announced one unidentified man repeatedly through a bullhorn. Elsewhere among the mob, another unidentified man urged opening fire on a police officer guarding a building entrance: “Shoot that mo********er! Shoot him!” the man shouted. “Either you let us in or you die!”
Oath Keepers’ hidden “arsenal” on January 6
In a sweeping conspiracy case stemming from the insurrection, federal prosecutors have indicted 17 members of the Oath Keepers militia network, a loose-knit group of far-right political extremists who claim to have thousands of backers among law enforcement and military veterans. According to court documents, at least seven Oath Keepers involved in the events of January 6 stockpiled firearms in a northern Virginia hotel for potential use by a “quick reaction force” on behalf of Trump inside DC. Three others discussed participating in that effort, court filings show.
Evidence submitted by prosecutors includes video surveillance images from the Comfort Inn Ballston, located about 7 miles from the Capitol, allegedly showing some of the men transporting guns in and out of the hotel between January 5 and January 7. The quantity of weapons and ammunition the Oath Keepers stored there is not publicly known, but it included rifles in cases carried through the hotel lobby on luggage carts—some shrouded in bedsheets—that were retrieved by Oath Keepers the day after the insurrection, according to court documents.
(https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/jan-6-guns-2.jpg)
(https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/jan-6-guns-3.jpg)
The Oath Keepers began planning to mobilize shortly after Trump’s November 2020 election defeat. According to court filings, during a post-election video call two months before the insurrection, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes warned that “a bloody, bloody civil war” could be imminent—which he said would be welcome and “give Trump what he needs.”
“We want him to declare an insurrection, and to call us up as the militia,” said Rhodes, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the case whom Mother Jones and other media have confirmed is referred to as “PERSON ONE” in the federal indictment. Rhodes has not been charged, though he said in March that he thought he might be arrested, according to BuzzFeed News. Court filings show that in a series of communications through video chats and encrypted messaging platforms multiple Oath Keepers discussed coordination of weapons for their January 6 “ops” in DC. Although some talked about not bringing firearms into the city initially, the group was preparing for battle against Trump’s political enemies, including “antifa.” (FBI Director Chris Wray testified to Congress in March that people associated with antifa, a term generally referring to leftists who oppose fascism and in some cases have committed violence, had no role in the events of January 6.)
A lawyer for the militia group told Mother Jones that Oath Keepers transported a cache of firearms from North Carolina to a hotel near downtown DC
Evidence disclosed by prosecutors includes a message from Oath Keepers conspiracy defendant Brian Ulrich, a 43-year-old Georgia resident, who stated in the group’s “Leadership Signal Chat” on December 31 that he planned to bring “a separate backpack with my ammo load” and a common type of semiautomatic rifle: “I will be the guy running around with the budget AR.”
“[W]e have a s***load of [quick reaction force] on standby with an arsenal,” messaged Oath Keeper Joshua James, a 33-year-old Alabama resident, responding to an offer from an unidentified individual to “coordinate help” from “friends not far from DC with a lot of weapons and ammo.”
Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer who represents the Oath Keepers organization and is close with Rhodes, told Mother Jones in an interview that an Oath Keeper member transported a cache of firearms by truck from North Carolina to the Comfort Inn Ballston shortly before the assault on the Capitol. The member who transported the weapons then stayed at the hotel to oversee the stockpile, SoRelle said. (That Oath Keeper member has not been charged; although Mother Jones corroborated various details from SoRelle’s account, we were unable to confirm that member’s identity.) SoRelle herself may be a subject of growing scrutiny from federal prosecutors; as Mother Jones was first to report recently, the FBI seized SoRelle’s personal phone on September 7 as part of an ongoing “seditious conspiracy” investigation focused on January 6.
The Oath Keepers’ armed mobilization followed what prosecutors in court documents called “paramilitary training” undertaken by some defendants in fall 2020. Four Oath Keepers from Florida who currently face conspiracy and other charges—married couple Kelly and Connie Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, and Joseph Hackett—participated last September and October in a firearms course in Leesburg, Florida, as Mother Jones previously reported. In one of those sessions, an instructor coached the militia members on how to “drop” adversaries by shooting them in the heart, lungs, or head.
As Oath Keepers traveled with guns toward the nation’s capital to help “stop the steal” and ostensibly go to war with antifa, several of the Florida members spent the night of January 4 at the home of the leader of the network’s North Carolina chapter, Doug Smith, where they planned to practice at a firing range, according to SoRelle. Smith, who has not been charged, could not be reached for comment. The Oath Keepers drove up to northern Virginia the next day, when members began stashing weapons in the hotel just across the Potomac from downtown DC.
(Where not specified, all Oath Keepers identified in this story or their lawyers either declined to comment or did not respond to inquiries from Mother Jones.)
Since June, three Oath Keepers have pleaded guilty to conspiracy and other charges, including Graydon Young of Florida and Mark Grods of Alabama. As part of a plea deal in mid-September, Jason Dolan of Florida admitted that he drove with other unidentified Oath Keepers from Florida to the nation’s capital, bringing an M4 rifle that he dropped off with at least one of his co-conspirators at the Comfort Inn Ballston. Dolan further admitted to storming the Capitol with fellow Oath Keepers and obstructing Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election by “intimidating and coercing government personnel.”
Dolan also admitted he tried to hide evidence of his crimes by deleting data from his cellphone, including “photographs he had taken while inside the Capitol and encrypted communications with at least some of the co-conspirators.”
To date, more than 600 people have been arrested and charged with federal crimes in connection with January 6. Stark footage and accumulating criminal evidence make clear that the assault on the Capitol, grim as it was, teetered on the brink of turning far worse.
The FBI’s wanted list in connection with that day remains hundreds of people long, including an unknown individual suspected of planting pipe bombs outside the headquarters of both the Democratic and Republican national committees the night before the insurrection. Federal judges overseeing some January 6 cases have warned that the threat is far from gone, with one judge observing in a pretrial detention ruling that the “steady drumbeat” of lies from Trump and other GOP figures about the 2020 election could continue to incite violence. At a political rally in Georgia in late September, Trump added a brazen new twist, suggesting that investigation of the January 6 insurrection was just another partisan “hoax.”
" We had thousands of weapons and fired no rounds yet showed numbers. The next time we will not be so cordial.”
In a 2021 counterterrorism budget request made public in June, Justice Department leaders stated that further acts of political violence from domestic terrorists are highly likely. The FBI announced in late September that it has more than doubled its domestic terrorism caseload.
Some January 6 defendants, including additional Oath Keeper members charged with conspiracy, have lied to investigators and went to significant lengths to destroy evidence of their communications related to the insurrection, according to court documents. Others have kept weapons in their homes in violation of pretrial orders. And some defendants have threatened future attacks.
"We took the Capital and put the POS Capital Hill on it’s [sic] heels,” said Reffitt, the defendant from Texas, in a message to fellow Three Percenters a week after the attack, according to a filing from prosecutors. “This has only just begun and will not end until we The People of The Republic have won our country back. We had thousands of weapons and fired no rounds yet showed numbers. The next time we will not be so cordial.”
In June, defendant and former cop Thomas Robertson of Virginia, who faces charges for going inside the Capitol and was fired by the Rocky Mount police department, violated the terms of his pretrial release by possessing an array of guns and an explosive device in his home, prosecutors allege. That same month, Robertson, whose attorney did not respond to a Mother Jones inquiry, posted some ominous comments online.
“They are trying to teach us a lesson. They have. But its [sic] definitely not the intended lesson,” he wrote, according to court documents. He added, “I have learned very well that if you dip your toe into the Rubicon…cross it. Cross it hard and violent and play for all the marbles.”
https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2021/09/trump-extremists-guns-january-6-insurrection-congress-domestic-terrorism/
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Maddow plays new Capitol riot audio that changes much of what we know about Jan 6 attacks
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Thursday explained the significance of new audio recordings of U.S. Park Police on January 6th.
The "new, never before heard police radio recordings" were obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
"These are recordings that, among other things, show that as the National Park Police, that police force, was overwhelmed, they at one point had a number of their officers backed up inside of the Washington Monument for their own protection and that sort of extreme pressure on those police officers happened as early as 9:30 in the morning on the day of the Capitol attack," Maddow explained.
"Now, as far as I know, we had not previously understood the Trump crowd on the mall and on the Capitol grounds as early as the 9:00 a.m. hour was already fighting with police to the point of overwhelming them," she noted, playing clips from the recordings.
Maddow interviewed Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD) about the new recordings. Raskin, who sits on the select committee investigating the attacks, said he had not previously heard the recordings.
Watch:
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Only 822 days to go. That means one fewer day for another Biden disaster. The economy is next.
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Hacked Oath Keepers Records Show Active Members Of Law Enforcement And The Military Tried To Join The Group After Jan. 6
In the days after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, the Oath Keepers gained notoriety almost overnight as a symbol of right-wing extremism in America.
Images of members in battle armor pushing their way into the Capitol went viral, clips of the group’s leader challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election surfaced, and within weeks FBI agents began arresting Oath Keepers members as part of the largest and arguably most important conspiracy case to come out of the insurgency.
Some active police officers and members of the US military apparently liked what they saw. In some cases ignoring strict policies prohibiting their membership in such groups, many reached out to the Oath Keepers seeking information, according to leaked emails from the group.
“I was wondering what was required to become an oath keeper,” one soldier wrote to the group’s main email address on Jan. 19. He noted that he was “active duty army, 7 years in” and stationed at Fort Hood, Texas.
“I’m not liking what the world is coming to and have a growing concern for our nation,” the person added. “Please let me know how I can get involved.”
On Feb. 4, scarcely a week after three Oath Keepers were indicted for their role in the Capitol riots, an email came in from someone identifying himself as Scott Langton, “a current Washington State Police Officer looking for information,” who added that he was “not looking to be on some Liberal hit list.”
Records confirm that there is a Scott Langton currently serving in the Ferndale, Washington, police department, and that he has been sued at least twice for allegedly committing civil rights and use of force abuses while in uniform. One of those cases settled and the other is currently pending in federal court.
Two weeks later, someone named Benjamin Payne wrote to the Oath Keepers, identifying himself as “active LEO” — or law enforcement officer — and a “lifetime member” of the group. He said he was trying to get in touch with Louisiana leadership for the group. Records and social media confirm there is a Benjamin Payne who works for the Denham Springs, Louisiana, police department; he was sued last week in federal court for alleged civil rights violations. That suit is pending.
Throughout 2021, as federal cases against Oath Keepers continue to grow, interest among some in law enforcement or the military has not appeared to wane. In June, for example, someone calling themselves “active duty LE” in South Carolina wrote to the organization, asking, “how do I join?” And just over two weeks ago, someone claiming to be a Navy yeoman stationed in Fargo, North Dakota, inquired about getting involved with the group.
“Greetings, I am active duty Navy,” the person wrote under the name Ray Triboulet. “I love what my country is supposed to be and this tyrannical idiocy is crushing the freedom out of me and mine. Any opportunity y’all have for me to do something please let me know.” Navy records show there is a Ray Triboulet currently stationed in North Dakota.
None of these police officers or service members responded to requests for comment, and it is unclear what came of their inquiries or whether they ended up joining the group.
According to spokesperson Patricia Kreuzberger, the Navy “does not and will not tolerate supremacist or extremist conduct.” Any reports of misconduct will be investigated, she said, noting that the Department of Defense policy “prohibits military personnel from actively advocating supremacist, extremist, or criminal gang doctrine, ideology, or causes.”
An Army spokesperson said that under its policies “all credible allegations of Soldiers who actively participate in any type of extremist activity will be investigated.”
Ferndale Police Chief Kevin Turner said the department prohibits membership in groups such as the Oath Keepers. “Joining or participating with extremist organizations is not tolerated,” he said.
The Denham Springs Police Department did not respond to a request for its policies on extremist groups.
The emails were obtained by BuzzFeed News after an anonymous group claimed to have hacked the Oath Keepers’ servers and released the records to a group called Distributed Denial of Secrets, which posted much of the data publicly and shared some additional files with journalists and researchers.
Although the hacked Oath Keepers data does not appear to be complete, it provides an unprecedented glimpse inside the workings of the secretive organization, which was founded in 2009 by former Army paratrooper Stewart Rhodes and gets its name from the oath to uphold the constitution sworn by all law enforcement and military personnel.
Rhodes did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the leak.
He and others in Oath Keepers leadership have long claimed that the group includes members drawn from law enforcement and military personnel, but because membership rolls were not public, the scope of such involvement was not known. In May, BuzzFeed News analyzed data from the Oath Keepers website indicating that some 3,000 people appeared to have been added to membership lists in the last two months of 2020, compared to 1,650 members in the first three months of 2021.
BuzzFeed News’ analysis of the newly leaked data, which includes membership lists, emails, and group chats, found more than 500 people associated with the organization who were identified in internal files as military or law enforcement personnel or whose email addresses indicated they may be or previously were employed by the military, state or local police, sheriff’s departments, or federal law enforcement. The leaked membership data does not appear to have been updated past mid-2020; many of the memberships appear to date back at least a decade, and some seem to have been inactive for years.
The group has previously inserted itself into moments of civil unrest, from disaster relief to Black Lives Matter demonstrations, but the events of Jan. 6 brought a higher degree of scrutiny to its activities. Rhodes, who frequently appears on Infowars and other far-right platforms, encouraged members to go to Washington. He was there in person on Jan. 6, and although he did not enter the Capitol, evidence in federal court shows he was in close touch with multiple Oath Keepers during the siege of the building.
To date, 21 people associated with the group have been charged in federal court for alleged crimes on Jan. 6, including Jeremy Brown, a former Green Beret who was arrested this week. Four have pleaded guilty.
The leaked records — which include chat logs, membership rolls, donation receipts, and other information about the Oath Keepers — are largely limited to data from the past 15 months. Between March 2019 and July 2020, for example, the Oath Keepers appear to have received just over $66,000 in donations, with one donor in Texas giving exactly $1,776 — presumably in reference to the date of American independence.
Emails and chats sent in the wake of Jan. 6, meanwhile, reveal hundreds of people demanding that their memberships be canceled or their names removed from Oath Keepers mailing lists. Two Oath Keepers handling the group’s IT in that period saw their inboxes swamped by members complaining that they couldn’t log in or had other technical problems.
Collectively, the records paint a picture of organizational chaos slowed by technological snafus, poor communication, and a fragmented, aging membership unsure in many cases of what the group is up to.
The records also reveal significant anti-government sentiment from Oath Keepers membership, unwillingness to accept the results of the presidential election, and sustained interest from active duty police and military service members.
A separate review by Gothamist found “dozens of names” connected to police, court, and corrections officers in New York State, spurring Mayor Bill de Blasio to open an investigation into the matter.
BuzzFeed News could not determine the current status of all the individuals it identified. Dozens appear to have purchased lifetime memberships to the Oath Keepers, which can cost upward of $1,000; others appear to have stopped paying dues and are listed as “expired,” while email communications indicate that some may have died and their family members asked for their names to be expunged from the group’s mailing lists.
When contacted by BuzzFeed News, some on the email rolls acknowledged having been members of the Oath Keepers in the past but said they had since left the group.
A deputy with the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department in Northern California, for example, said he had joined the Oath Keepers years ago because the idea of supporting the Constitution appealed to him, but he “started getting some weird stuff and let it go.”
He said he “never even thought about it after I quit getting emails” and hasn’t heard from anyone associated with the group in years.
An active officer for the Department of Defense Police reached out to the Oath Keepers via email just two weeks after Jan. 6, describing himself as “very pro-Trump and committed to defending the Constitution of the United States” and asking for more info on the group.
But the man, who said he has since retired, told BuzzFeed News he decided not to join the Oath Keepers after the person who called him in response to his email struck him as strange. The man described his decision not to follow through as akin to looking at a product on Amazon and deciding not to buy it.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kenbensinger/oath-keepers-hacked-emails
Multiple cops and soldiers asked Oath Keepers if they could join after Capitol riot: hacked data
Hacked data obtained by Buzzfeed News shows that several active-duty military and police officers asked to join the Oath Keepers militia in the days after the riots at the United States Capitol building.
One email sent to Oath Keepers leadership came from a man who identified himself as Scott Langton, who said he was a "current Washington State Police Officer looking for information" and who also expressed worry that contacting the Oath Keepers would put him on a "liberal hit list."
One active duty army soldier, meanwhile, emailed the group on January 19th and asked, "I was wondering what was required to become an oath keeper."
The soldier said he wanted to get involved because "I'm not liking what the world is coming to and have a growing concern for our nation."
The Oath Keepers were identified as one of the major groups present at the January 6th riots, and several members have been arrested for taking part in the violent demonstration intended to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's election victory.
BuzzFeed writes that "interest among some in law enforcement or the military has not appeared to wane" when it comes to joining the group, even as "federal cases against Oath Keepers continue to grow."
https://www.rawstory.com/oath-keepers-capitol-riot/
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New report details the dangerous weaponry brought by Capitol rioters — despite claims they were unarmed
Republican lawmakers have spent months gaslighting the American public on what transpired at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Although harrowing footage captured the deadly series of events that transpired, Republicans have adamantly attempted to downplay the incident and cover up multiple aspects of the insurrection.
One fact that hasn't received enough coverage — and has also been falsely denied by many figures on the right — is the serious weaponry brought by some of the insurrectionists.
According to Mother Jones, some of Trump's extremist supporters actually did carry guns into the federal building. "A Mother Jones investigation drawing on public video footage, congressional testimony, and documents from more than a dozen federal criminal cases reveals that various Trump supporters descended on DC that day armed for battle with guns and other potentially lethal weapons," the publication reports.
Multiple individuals are also facing charges of carrying firearms on U.S. Capitol grounds. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and court documents, "at least eight others carried knives or tasers at the Capitol, including two defendants who allegedly committed assaults with tasers." A number of others were also arrested in downtown Washington, D.C. Those individuals reportedly had " rifles, pistols, explosive materials, and large supplies of ammunition."
Despite the existence of evidence, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly pushed back against those claims. "This didn't seem like an armed insurrection to me," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) just weeks after angry Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. He added, 'When you think of armed, don't you think of firearms?'
During the hearings back in May, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) also claimed law enforcement officers found "zero firearms" on riot suspects. Former President Donald Trump had also echoed the same claim. "There were no guns whatsoever"' Trump said when he appeared on Fox News in July.
However, the defendants in the case appear to have made their intentions quite clear. One defendant, in particular, is Guy Reffitt of Texas. Facing a charge for unlawfully carrying a handgun, Reffitt sent a message to fellow members of the extremist organization known as the Three Percenters. He suggested that incidents like the Capitol insurrection are only the beginning of their efforts to take back the country.
"We took the Capital and put the POS Capital Hill on it's [sic] heels," said Reffitt, according to court documents filed by prosecutors. "This has only just begun and will not end until we The People of The Republic have won our country back. We had thousands of weapons and fired no rounds yet showed numbers. The next time we will not be so cordial."
https://www.rawstory.com/new-report-details-the-dangerous-weaponry-brought-by-capitol-rioters-despite-claims-they-were-unarmed/
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These neo nazi and white supremacist hate groups all support Donald Trump and Trump backs them as his supporters. Not only were these thugs involved in the 1/6 Insurrection, they are plotting to cause more violence in the United States These scumbags always existed, but Donald Trump gave them cover and welcomed them to be out in the open to be violent. The GOP says nothing and welcomes these scumbags as voters.
Neo-Nazis wanted to assassinate Virginia house speaker and bust mass murderer Dylann Roof out of prison: prosecutors
On Friday, according to The Virginian-Pilot, prosecutors detailed new allegations in their case against a pair of neo-Nazis, Patrik Mathews and Brian Mark Lemley — alleging that they debated a plan to assassinate the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates before breaking Charleston Emanuel African Methodist Church shooter Dylann Roof out of death row.
"They have been jailed since their January 2020 arrest at a Delaware apartment where the FBI had installed a closed-circuit television camera and microphone," reported Michael Kunzleman. "The surveillance equipment captured them talking about planning an attack during a gun rights rally in Richmond, destroying rail lines and power lines, and how Mathews 'briefly considered' trying to assassinate a Virginia lawmaker, prosecutors wrote in a court filing Thursday. After Mathews found a home address for the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, he and Lemley 'pondered' an attack on the speaker's route to work because they concluded that there probably wasn't a good sniper location near the lawmaker's home, prosecutors said."
The speaker, Eileen Filler-Corn, is Jewish.
"The FBI also heard Lemley and Mathews talk about trying to free Roof, who was sentenced to death for killing nine members of a Black church congregation in South Carolina in 2015," said the report. "They discussed how many people it would take to break into the maximum-security prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where Roof is an inmate, how many guards would be there and how a shootout would happen, prosecutors said. 'Can you imagine Dylann Roof broked out of jail?' Mathews said, according to prosecutors. 'The Base would be known as the guys who broke out Dylann Roof.'"
Mathews and Lemley, veterans of the Canadian and U.S. Armed Forces, respectively, are members of a white supremacist terror cell calling itself "The Base", which believes in accelerating the destruction of society through mass violence. Another Base member who had a farmhouse full of swords in Michigan was recently arrested, and federal agents busted more members at a training ground in Georgia.
According to previous reports, prior to his arrest Mathews' ineptitude had become such a liability to his fellow terrorists that they had been plotting to kill him.
Law enforcement efforts to bring down The Base come amid other white supremacist threats, including a group known as "BSN" full of former Marines who tried to attack the U.S. power grid.
https://www.rawstory.com/neo-nazis-dylann-roof/
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Newly arrested MAGA rioter offered to give a 'Mr. Stone' a ride to Washington DC: criminal complaint
The newly unsealed indictment against former Republican congressional candidate and alleged MAGA rioter Jeremy Brown offers hints that he tried to communicate with longtime Trump associate Roger Stone.
Specifically, the indictment references a message that Brown posted on Parler ahead of his trip to Washington, D.C., that directly referenced a "Mr. Stone."
"Mr. Stone, this is Jeremy Brown," the post began. "I am headed to D.C. on or about [January 3] in our RV with myself and some others... If you need transportation or Security, we can adjust to pick you up."
Stone, like Brown, lives in Florida and was an organizer for the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the Capitol riots.
Stone was given a full pardon by former President Donald Trump late last year after he was convicted in 2019 on multiple counts related to his effort to obstruct special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
See an image of the Parler message below.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-roger-stone/
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'We're not going to play these games': House riot committee member serves notice to subpoenaed Trump aides
Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday morning with host Ali Velshi, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) left no doubt that the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th Capitol riot will use every legal tool in the box to compel members of Donald Trump's inner circle to appear before his committee and reveal what led up to the insurrection that sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives.
Admitting he fully expects Trump's associates to attempt to avoid appearing, the Maryland Democrat warned them not to "try the patience" of the committee members.
"I want to start by understanding this concept of criminal referrals because most of us will never be subpoenaed to Congress so we won't really know what are you supposed to do and what does the threat of criminal referrals mean?" host Velshi prompted.
"Those are two different things," Raskin explained. "The criminal referral is if our select committee on January 6th comes in possession of evidence related by criminal conduct by people that the Department of Justice is currently unaware of, we will refer it to them. In other words, if we have crimes that took place that the DOJ didn't know about we will send it to them for subpoenas, we have all of the same authority that a court would have to issue subpoenas."
"So if you get one of these subpoenas, that is not an optional thing." he continued. "That is legally mandatory and we can coerce your cooperation through criminal contempt or civil contempt or what's called the powers of Congress where we can call people before Congress and fine them and use our own sanctions and that hasn't been done for a long time, but I don't think anybody should be testing our patience at this point."
"I want to get greater clarity on the criminal referral that I asked you, you said we're going to subpoena them, they're going to follow the law," Velshi pressed. "That's it. If any of them think they can slither away from this, they should be worried about the information we've already got. when he said we'll offer criminal referrals is that for not showing up or not giving the information that you requested or is that the fact that they may be underlying criminal activity."
"It could be both," the Democratic lawmaker replied. "When we come to people that have committed crimes on January 6th, we will turn that over, but at the same time, the chairman has signaled our determination to get all of the information we're asking for. It's just not discretionary or optional. It's the government's subpoenas or documents from you: you have to testify unless you will assert a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and we don't think that that exists."
"In other words, we will immunize you from the use of any information you give us, but you do still have to testify," he added. "The point is we're not going to play these games like they did during the Trump Administration."
Watch below:
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The House riot committee 'is on the right track' with focus on Katrina Pierson: former Trump official
(https://www.rawstory.com/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNzU4NjMwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY5MTIzMjgzOH0.6lWcYFaG3Fcc_K2rs6mpLyumvgNDpLgvoLrlLM7N1bc/image.jpg)
Appearing on MSNBC on Saturday afternoon, former Donald Trump White House adviser Omarosa Manigault-Newman said the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th Capitol riot is on the right track by focusing on Trump aide Katrina Pierson if they want to get to the bottom of White House involvement in the insurrection.
Speaking with host Alex Witt, Manigault-Newman said investigators need to "follow the money" and that Pierson -- who has been subpoenaed -- could provide a treasure trove of damaging information.
"What about the House select committee that's investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol, issuing 11 more subpoenas, all for people who helped organize the rally right before the mob went on the attack?" host Witt began. "Among them, 2016 Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson. I've interviewed her. I know that you know her. Are you surprised by this?"
"I'm not really surprised because not only was Katrina one of the organizers, but she was behind the money, you know, and every scandal, it's 'always follow the money,'" Manigault-Newman replied. "And because she was so involved with raising money and organizing the events, I believe the committee is right in subpoenaing her. She's going to have a lot of information, and she had a lot of insight on what they knew and when, and I truly believe because of Donald Trump's violent instincts that he knew that things would probably get out of hand."
"So yes, Katrina should be very concerned, and we'll see what happens, but the committee is on the right track," she added.
Watch below:
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Yawn. Rehash of old news while Biden's numbers continue to tank with each new disaster. The only thing going up under Biden's administration are inflation and the number of pandemic cases.
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Yawn. Rehash of old news while Biden's numbers continue to tank with each new disaster. The only thing going up under Biden's administration are inflation and the number of pandemic cases.
LOL. Covid cases are going down and Trump's inflation disaster is finally getting under control thanks to President Biden.
'I flatly disagree': Judge rejects claim by Trump-appointed colleague that MAGA rioters getting unfair treatment
United States District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday drew a sharp contrast with one of her Trump-appointed colleagues.
Politico reports that Chutkan rejected claims made last week by fellow D.C. Judge Trevor McFadden, who last week said that accused Capitol rioters are being subjected to worse treatment than rioters who were arrested last summer while taking part in Black Lives Matter protests.
"Some have compared what took place on Jan. 6 with other protests that took place throughout the country through the past year and have suggested that the Capitol rioters are being treated unfairly," she said during a sentencing hearing. "I flatly disagree."
Chutkan then expanded on her reasoning for rejecting the comparison.
"What happened... was nothing less than a violent mob trying to prevent the orderly, peaceful transfer of power as part of an election," she said. "That mob was trying to overthrow the government... That is no mere protest."
McFadden last week criticized the Capitol rioters for trying to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election, but he alleged there was a disparity in how they were treated compared to people who have committed similar offenses.
"I think the U.S. attorney would have more credibility if it was even-handed in its concern about riots and mobs in this city," he said.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-judge/
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That's good. Anyone who defies a congressional subpoena will go to jail.
Jan. 6 Committee chair: Witnesses who defy subpoenas will face criminal contempt referrals
https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/jan-6-committee-chair-witnesses-who-defy-subpoenas-will-face-criminal-contempt-referrals-122559045788
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Mike Pence's role ahead of the Jan. 6 riot lands under House investigation
The House select committee on Jan. 6 will be investigating former vice president Mike Pence's role in the attempted insurrection.
New reporting about White House legal adviser John Eastman's memo outlining plans for a coup shows Pence was more deeply enmeshed than previously known in the scheme to keep Donald Trump in office despite his election loss, and committee member Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-MD) wants to learn more about his role, reported the Washington Post.
"It's an important part of the historical record to determine how close Trump actually came to achieving his scheme of getting Pence to declare unilateral power to reject electoral college votes," Raskin told Post columnist Greg Sargent.
Eastman told the New York Times that he urged Pence and his chief counsel Greg Jacob shortly before Jan. 6 that the vice president could delay counting electors when Congress met to certify the election, thus sending the process back to GOP-controlled state legislatures that could send rogue electors for Trump and set off a contingent election in the House.
"I think Jacob was looking for a way for he and Pence to be convinced to take the action that we were requesting, and so I think he continued to meet with me and push back on the arguments and hear my counters, what have you, to try and see whether they could reconcile themselves to what the president had asked," Eastman told the Times.
Pence ultimately decided he did not have the power to enact this scheme, but lawmakers have requested all executive branch documents and communications related to Jacob and are considering changes to the Electoral Count Act to prevent another vice president from corruptly interfering with election results.
"The structural weaknesses exposed by this episode are a looming danger for the republic," Raskin said. "We need to act within the electoral college paradigm to do whatever we can to make sure the vice-presidential role remains an administrative and ministerial one."
https://www.rawstory.com/mike-pence-jan-6-2655219301/
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Still nothing new. How long can you milk this old story to deflect from the unfolding disasters? Meanwhile Old Joe's poll numbers are crashing like the Hindenburg. It's brutal to watch him in late stage dementia. I feel sorry for the guy to be used like that by his family and political party.
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LOL. Covid cases are going down and Trump's inflation disaster is finally getting under control thanks to President Biden.
Cases were up under Biden by 300% around Labor Day despite the widespread availability of the Trump vaccine from day one of his presidency. So by "going down" you are less than a 300% increase? Still significantly higher than under Trump even without the vaccine. And the inflation disaster is "getting under control." LOL. Inflation indexes hit record highs over the summer. It is out of control just like the border, Afghanistan and crime. Just denying reality and demonstrable facts doesn't fool anyone.
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Cases were up under Biden by 300% around Labor Day despite the widespread availability of the Trump vaccine from day one of his presidency. So by "going down" you are less than a 300% increase? Still significantly higher than under Trump even without the vaccine. And the inflation disaster is "getting under control." LOL. Inflation indexes hit record highs over the summer. It is out of control just like the border, Afghanistan and crime. Just denying reality and demonstrable facts doesn't fool anyone.
False.
Cases in red states were surging because right wingers refused to wear masks and get vaccinated like they were supposed to. Plus right wing Governors ended mask mandates which increased the covid transmission rate. That's a Republican failure. But you falsely accuse Biden for Republican failures. That's why President Biden took the initiative to mandate vaccines to end this pandemic. You should be thanking him.
Blue states have the virus under control because of high vaccination rates and mask mandates.
Afghanistan was Trump's deal he made with the Taliban in 2020 where he released 5000 Taliban terrorists from prison. Biden was not President then.
The economic crisis occurred under Trump in 2020. His economic disaster basically caused another Great Depression which then led to inflation. Every credible economist said that was going to happen in late 2020. Trump is the worst jobs "president" in the modern era and has the worst job loss since Herbert Hoover. President Biden took over in late January during Trump's economic disaster and began creating millions of new jobs. Trump destroyed the economy and it will take a while to fix.
All you're doing is denying reality. You take Trump's disasters and then accuse President Biden of creating them. That is hilarious since Trump handed Biden all those disasters to deal with.
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False.
Cases in red states were surging because right wingers refused to wear masks and get vaccinated like they were supposed to. Plus right wing Governors ended mask mandates which increased the covid transmission rate. That's a Republican failure. But you falsely accuse Biden for Republican failures. That's why President Biden took the initiative to mandate vaccines to end this pandemic. You should be thanking him.
Blue states have the virus under control because of high vaccination rates and mask mandates.
Afghanistan was Trump's deal he made with the Taliban in 2020 where he released 5000 Taliban terrorists from prison. Biden was not President then.
The economic crisis occurred under Trump in 2020. His economic disaster basically caused another Great Depression which then led to inflation. Every credible economist said that was going to happen in late 2020. Trump is the worst jobs "president" in the modern era and has the worst job loss since Herbert Hoover. President Biden took over in late January during Trump's economic disaster and began creating millions of new jobs. Trump destroyed the economy and it will take a while to fix.
All you're doing is denying reality. You take Trump's disasters and then accuse President Biden of creating them. That is hilarious since Trump handed Biden all those disasters to deal with.
Perhaps cases are surging in the border states due to the hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated illegals that have been released throughout that area in just last few months. Almost 1 million people! Among Americans, the highest percentage of unvaccinated groups are minorities and young people. The leftist media ignores this, of course, because it doesn't play into their desired political narrative that Trump supporters are responsible for the spread of the virus. Anyone can look the actual numbers up. It's not a matter of opinion or political bias. Your Afghanistan defense is delusional. Trump made an agreement but it was premised on the satisfaction of various conditions. None of which occurred. Biden, who was not bound by that agreement, rushed to end the war in Afghanistan for political purposes to be out by Sept. 11. As a result, he is directly responsible for the chaos and deaths that resulted from his incompetence and weakness.
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Perhaps cases are surging in the border states due to the hundreds of thousands of unvaccinated illegals that have been released throughout that area in just last few months. Almost 1 million people! Among Americans, the highest percentage of unvaccinated groups are minorities and young people. The leftist media ignores this, of course, because it doesn't play into their desired political narrative that Trump supporters are responsible for the spread of the virus. Anyone can look the actual numbers up. It's not a matter of opinion or political bias. Your Afghanistan defense is delusional. Trump made an agreement but it was premised on the satisfaction of various conditions. None of which occurred. Biden, who was not bound by that agreement, rushed to end the war in Afghanistan for political purposes to be out by Sept. 11. As a result, he is directly responsible for the chaos and deaths that resulted from his incompetence and weakness.
Deny, deflect, blame as usual.
There are no "unvaccinated illegals released". That's more right wing disinformation.
Trump caused the Afghanistan disaster because he made the deal with the Taliban and signed an executive order before he left office in disgrace.
All the covid charts shows that right wing red states has the lowest vaccination which are all Trump supporters.
Afghanistan: Former advisor to Mike Pence warned in 2020 that Trump was setting up another 'Benghazi'
"Perhaps by design, perhaps by incompetence, perhaps out of sheer spite or arrogance, Trump has created the circumstances for another Bay of Pigs, Black Hawk Down, or Benghazi," James Golby, who served as a special advisor to Vice President Mike Pence, wrote in a November article for The Atlantic. Those were all situations, he wrote, "where the United States inserted itself into overseas conflicts enough to draw lethal opposition but without sufficient strength to protect its people."
https://www.businessinsider.com/kabul-ex-pence-adviser-warned-trump-setting-up-another-benghazi-2021-8
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Deny, deflect, blame as usual.
There are no "unvaccinated illegals released". That's more right wing disinformation.
Trump caused the Afghanistan disaster because he made the deal with the Taliban and signed an executive order before he left office in disgrace.
You believe that all approximately one million illegals that have been released into the US in the last 8 months (according to the Biden administration's own numbers) were vaccinated? And it is right wing disinformation to suggest otherwise? We are to believe that among a million poor immigrants crossing the border from Mexico, Haiti, and Central America, that all were vaccinated and have not contributed to the surge of cases in the states where they have been released in the tens of thousands? That is completely delusional. It is more likely that none were vaccinated. Again, Trump's agreement with the Taliban was not binding on Biden. Nor were the conditions of that agreement met before Biden ordered the withdrawal. The decision to get out was appropriate. Trump was the only recent president to have the courage to stand up to the military. The implementation under Biden resulted in disaster and chaos. He forever owns that fiasco. Like JFK owns the Bay of Pigs. Biden's incompetence will go down in the history books.
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You believe that all approximately one million illegals that have been released into the US in the last 8 months (according to the Biden administration's own numbers) were vaccinated? And it is right wing disinformation to suggest otherwise? We are to believe that among a million poor immigrants crossing the border from Mexico, Haiti, and Central America, that all were vaccinated and have not contributed to the surge of cases in the states where they have been released in the tens of thousands? That is completely delusional. It is more likely that none were vaccinated. Again, Trump's agreement with the Taliban was not binding on Biden. Nor were the conditions of that agreement met before Biden ordered the withdrawal. The decision to get out was appropriate. Trump was the only recent president to have the courage to stand up to the military. The implementation under Biden resulted in disaster and chaos. He forever owns that fiasco. Like JFK owns the Bay of Pigs. Biden's incompetence will go down in the history books.
:D :D :D
Afghanistan was Trump's disaster and he left it for Biden.
The people dying from COVID-19 in hospitals are white unvaccinated Trump supporters. There are no illegals dying from COVID-19 anywhere. Another fake right wing disinformation talking point debunked.
Criminal Donald tried to use the military to illegally size power.
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Capitol rioter breaks down in tears as he pleads guilty to felony assault on law enforcement
(https://www.rawstory.com/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTgzODgwMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY5NTc5MzE1NH0.H97jHjLigQWKp-paIfB4_EmRxsL65RfwLOYhqkqmtCg/image.jpg)
On Tuesday, WUSA9 reported that Robert Palmer, a man from Tampa, Florida who pleaded guilty to attacking Capitol Police with a fire extinguisher at the January 6 Capitol riot while dressed in a red, white, and blue Trump jacket, was in tears at his sentencing hearing, while his defense attorney expressed his client's regret for participating in the attack.
Palmer was originally arrested in March by federal agents, in part with the help of Huffington Post investigators.
"Palmer told the US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan he was the one identified in Department of Justice images who threw a wooden plank at police, sprayed a fire extinguisher at officers until it was empty, then threw the empty fire extinguisher canister at the line of police. "Before his court hearing, Palmer was not acting as tough as the man in DOJ photos, sobbing onto the shoulder of his defense attorney Bjorn Brunvand moments before the two men entered the court for Palmer to plead guilty to felony assault on law enforcement."
According to the report, Brunvand said of Palmer's breakdown, "That was Mr. Palmer being remorseful for what he did on January 6th. And also, afraid of what's to come."
More than 650 people have been charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol so far, with a number of them already pleading guilty or being sentenced. Many were turned in by their family or acquaintances.
Watch the original report below:
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:D :D :D
Afghanistan was Trump's disaster and he left it for Biden.
The people dying from COVID-19 in hospitals are white unvaccinated Trump supporters. There are no illegals dying from COVID-19 anywhere. Another fake right wing disinformation talking point debunked.
Criminal Donald tried to use the military to illegally size power.
What does it mean to say there are "no illegals dying from COVID-19 anywhere"? You believe that illegal immigrants are impervious to the virus from some reason and that only Trump supporters can get sick? That is downright bizarre even from you.
To compound Biden's fiasco in Afghanistan, we also learn today that the suicide bomber who killed 13 American soldiers and dozens of Afghan citizens was released from the Bagram airbase prison after it was hastily abandoned on Biden's orders. Biden then compounded this incident by directing the military to retaliate with a drone strike that killed more innocent civilians including seven children. None of whom were terrorists. And tried to cover it up as a successful strike to cover for his previous weakness. But that is all somehow Trump's fault. LOL.
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What does it mean to say there are "no illegals dying from COVID-19 anywhere"? You believe that illegal immigrants are impervious to the virus from some reason and that only Trump supporters can get sick? That is downright bizarre even from you.
To compound Biden's fiasco in Afghanistan, we also learn today that the suicide bomber who killed 13 American soldiers and dozens of Afghan citizens was released from the Bagram airbase prison after it was hastily abandoned on Biden's orders. Biden then compounded this incident by directing the military to retaliate with a drone strike that killed more innocent civilians including seven children. None of whom were terrorists. And tried to cover it up as a successful strike to cover for his previous weakness. But that is all somehow Trump's fault. LOL.
There are no illegals dying from COVID-19 inside hospitals anywhere. That's a bogus right wing propaganda talking point.
The man who ordered the release of 5000 Taliban terrorists and removed our troops is Donald Trump.
Own it.
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Trump is committing a criminal conspiracy in plain sight — and DOJ needs to take action: ex-prosecutor
(https://www.rawstory.com/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNzYxODMxNS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY4NDQxNTYzNX0.yhh3ejj9ODFFCfwFQPo_Y-RJjGkDHzQtFdC4E6BZpUE/image.jpg)
The United States Department of Justice should be opening an investigation into alleged efforts by former President Donald Trump to block the investigation being conducted by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a former federal prosector.
Glenn Kirschner explained the situation on the latest episode of his "Justice Matters" podcast.
He noted a new report by the Guardian.
"The former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and other top aides subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack are expected to defy orders for documents and testimony related to 6 January, according to a source familiar with the matter," the Guardian reported. "All four Trump aides targeted by the select committee – Meadows, deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, strategist Steve Bannon and defense department aide Kash Patel – are expected to resist the orders because Trump is preparing to direct them to do so, the source said."
Kirschner offered his analysis.
"Now friends, let's be clear, Donald Trump telling these individuals — his criminal associates in a very real sense — not to testify against him, not to testify at the select committee hearing investigation the January 6th attack, is no different that a mob boss telling his capos, his underbosses, his consigliere, do not testify against me," he explained.
Kirschner noted that Trump pardoned Bannon for a scam to rip off MAGA supporters with a border wall fundraising effort. He explained how Trump essentially let Bannon get away with keeping the money, and is now reportedly asking Bannon to impede the investigation.
"When will the Department of Justice begin indicting these people for the crimes that they continue to commit in the harsh light of day?" he asked.
Watch:
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'This is because of you!' Adam Schiff recalls furious Dems screaming at Republicans as the Jan. 6 attack unfolded
Oct. 6 marks another anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol and the House committee investigating the attacks are having hearings, issuing subpoenas and doing some questioning behind closed doors.
Writing about his experience Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) recalled the shouting matches that broke out as the Capitol came under siege. He noted how everyone began to put on their plastic masks and that Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) had to tell folks to breathe slowly because the fan didn't circulate air quickly enough to ensure people hyperventilating wouldn't pass out.
"This is because of you!" Schiff said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) yelled from the gallery at Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who was speaking when the chamber was stopped.
"Shut up!" the GOP members shot back.
"Call Trump, tell him to call off his revolutionary guards," Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) yelled.
"Phillips wasn't wrong," wrote Schiff. The attack was caused by what has become known as "the big lie," he said, the belief by Republicans that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election and was entitled to the White House. Despite exhaustive efforts, Republicans haven't been able to provide evidence to back up any of their allegations.
"Because of the pandemic, Phillips, Cohen, and other members had been required to wait in the gallery before their chance to speak, and they were the most exposed," Schiff explained. "Down on the House floor, we could barricade ourselves in, but upstairs there are multiple doors to the gallery and little to prevent the rioters from entering."
Some members were crying, afraid for their lives, hiding in the front row. There's a notorious photo of Rep. Jason Crow (D-WI), an Army Ranger, reached to hold the member's hand.
Just a "normal tourist visit"
Representative Jason Crow comforting Representative Susan Wild in the House chamber on Jan. 6. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call, via AP Images
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E_foIFxXoAURNSi?format=png)
Members congress shelter in the House gallery as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErE6QBJW8AkzEwj?format=jpg)
Schiff recalled people screaming to lock doors and officers not knowing which. Police found a route out to get everyone to safety and Schiff said he stayed behind to let others go ahead. His young staffer was concerned and asked why he wasn't leaving. He wasn't panicked, but that's when the loud "thud" sounds came against the doors.
"You need to get out!" Schiff recalled a police officer shouting. "Move!"
"You can't let them see you," he said that a Republican member said to me.
"He's right," another Republican member said. "I know these people, I can talk to them, I can talk my way through them. You're in a whole different category."
He said that in the moment he was "oddly touched" by the Republican members with concern. But he'd been getting death threats for years
"That feeling soon gave way to another: If these Republican members hadn't joined the president in falsely attacking me for four years, I wouldn't need to be worried about my security, none of us would. I kept that thought to myself."
He remembered one Republican who grabbed a wooden post with hand sanitizer on it to use as a weapon.
"Are you that worried?" Schiff asked him. The member confessed he was, noting, "I think I just heard gunshots."
"I was just elected. I replaced John Ratcliffe. I'm Pat Fallon."
Schiff promised the new member it wasn't always like that.
He went on to write that he remembered when he knew Republicans accepted Trump's guilt in the Jan. 6 attack but made the decision that they wouldn't do anything about it.
He said that during the Senate trial members would walk past him or speak directly to him, but the intelligence from Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) staffers revealed questions they were getting. He explained that for years Republicans would confide in him and other Democrats about the "misgivings" they had about Trump. They were people who would go on Fox News and bash Schiff while saying the opposite in private. Some even told him to keep doing what he was doing with his investigation.
"And it became clear that many Republicans felt someone needed to do it, someone needed to put a stop to it all, even if they couldn't, or wouldn't," he wrote.
And the question wasn't so much "Why should he be removed?" as "Why should I be the one to remove him? Why should I risk my seat, my position of power and influence, my career and future? Why should I?"
He had to figure out how to convince Republicans not that they should convict Trump but why they should risk their own seats to remove a president who was already gone. In the end, they weren't willing to do it.
Read the full essay here:
SCREAMING MATCHES, OXYGEN MASKS, AND WILD STAMPEDES: A CONGRESSMAN DESCRIBES JANUARY 6 FROM THE HOUSE FLOOR
This is because of you!” a Democrat yelled at a Republican as protesters battered at the doors and Capitol police officers urged lawmakers to “move!” In Adam Schiff’s new book, Midnight in Washington, he recounts the horrific scene—and the events that enabled it
BY ADAM SCHIFF
OCTOBER 6, 2021
Please grab a mask!” a Capitol Police officer shouted from the well of the House floor. Up until this point, I still wasn’t sure what was happening outside the chamber and whether we were at serious risk. There were rioters in the building, that much I knew. How many of them, or how great a threat they posed, it was impossible to tell. I looked around at my colleagues to see if they were as perplexed as I was, and besides, what were we supposed to do in an emergency? I suddenly wished I had been paying more attention at freshman orientation twenty years earlier.
Sensing our confusion, the officer continued: “Be prepared to don your mask in the event the room is breached.” He told us that we did not need to put the masks on yet, but tear gas was being deployed, so we should get them ready. “Be prepared to get down under your chairs if necessary. So, we have folks entering the Rotunda and coming down this way...Just be prepared. Stay calm.” I pulled a rectangular canvas pouch from under my seat and unzipped it. Inside was a strongly sealed plastic container with no obvious opening. I flipped it from side to side and upside down, trying to open the damned thing. Finally figuring it out, I helped the members around me open theirs, and we removed the plastic hoods. These hoods didn’t resemble the gas masks you see police wearing during a riot; instead, they were a large polyethylene bag that you pulled over your head, with a small motor attached to circulate and filter the air. As you removed the hood from its packaging, the motor began running, and suddenly there was a din of dozens of these hoods buzzing, which only added to the growing sense of alarm.
“When you put on the hood,” one of my colleagues and a former Marine, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, shouted, “breathe slowly.” Ruben was standing behind me, and he could see the panic spreading from member to member. “Take slow, steady breaths. Your impulse will be to hyperventilate, but you need to breathe slowly.” This was very helpful advice. I have a bit of claustrophobia, and the idea of pulling a bag over my head already had my pulse quickening. I resolved to wait until the last moment before I had to don the thing, since I wasn’t smelling tear gas, not yet. “Breathe slowly when you put it on,” Ruben intoned again, “or you will pass out. That is how people can die from wearing these.” Okay, that wasn’t so helpful.
"This is because of you!” yelled Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota from the gallery at Representative Paul Gosar, who had been at the microphone. “Shut up!” came the Republican reply. “Call Trump, tell him to call off his revolutionary guards,” screamed Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee. He was also in the gallery, above me and to the right, his face red with anger. Other members tried to settle things down and not allow the recriminations to spread, but Phillips wasn’t wrong. We were here for what should have been the ceremonial certification of the 2020 presidential election results, but instead we were now in danger. For months, GOP members of Congress had propagated the president’s big lie about the elections, and you could draw a direct line between those lies and the threat we all now faced. Because of the pandemic, Phillips, Cohen, and other members had been required to wait in the gallery before their chance to speak, and they were the most exposed. Down on the House floor, we could barricade ourselves in, but upstairs there are multiple doors to the gallery and little to prevent the rioters from entering.
“Lock the gallery doors!” someone shouted from down below, but it wasn’t clear to police upstairs which doors in the gallery remained open. “Not those doors—those doors!” came another excited shout. “Those doors over there!”
A police officer returned to the well again: He told us that they had secured an escape route and he wanted us to exit the chambers and proceed immediately down the stairs. Now. There are two sets of double doors behind the Speaker’s chair and raised dais, and the doors to our right were pulled open. Members and staff quickly moved toward the exit and I was suddenly aware of just how many people had been on the floor, in the cloakroom or elsewhere, as they crowded by the exit and created a real logjam. I waited by my seat, still feeling relatively calm and wanting to give other members and staff a chance to go first. Besides, so many of the Republican members were not wearing masks, I wasn’t eager to be jammed in with them shoulder to shoulder on my way out the doors. Eventually, I wandered over to the GOP side of the chamber and waited there alone, several rows above the well, until a young staff member approached me, perplexed why I wasn’t leaving.
"Are you okay, Mr. Schiff?” she asked. I was astonished. She was all of about twentysomething and she was asking me if I was okay. What a remarkable calm amid the chaos. “I’m fine,” I said, “just don’t want to add to the melee. Thought I would let others go ahead.” And then, as an afterthought, I asked her—“Are you okay?” She nodded.
Suddenly I could hear the crowd of insurrectionists outside the chamber. They had migrated from the Senate side of the building and were approaching the House floor from Statuary Hall, on the opposite side of the chamber from where members were exiting. And from the noise, it sounded like a lot of them.
Just then came a tremendous thud—something had been thrust against the doors not twenty yards away from me, battering them. Thud. A moment later, again: thud.
“You need to get out!” a police officer shouted. “Move!”
I made my way down to the well and joined the remaining members and staff filing out, looking back at the doors being hammered to the rear of the chamber, glass now shattering. Police officers pushed large cabinets in front of the doors and would soon draw their weapons.
“You can’t let them see you,” a Republican member said to me. “He’s right,” another Republican member said. “I know these people, I can talk to them, I can talk my way through them. You’re in a whole different category.” In that moment, we were not merely members of different political parties, but on opposite sides of a much more dangerous divide. At first I was oddly touched by these GOP members and their evident concern. But by then, I had been receiving death threats for years, and that feeling soon gave way to another: If these Republican members hadn’t joined the president in falsely attacking me for four years, I wouldn’t need to be worried about my security, none of us would. I kept that thought to myself.
As I made my way out of the back of the chamber, I took another look at the Republicans walking out with me. One had grabbed a wooden post with a hand sanitizer dispenser attached to it and was carrying it like a club, in case he needed it to defend himself against the rioters. “Are you that worried?” I asked him, as we began filing down the stairs from the Speaker’s lobby and through the corridors below the Capitol. “Yes,” he said agitatedly. “I think I just heard gunshots.” He was right—only fifty feet away from the stairs, on the other side of the lobby, Ashli Babbitt, a fourteen year veteran of the Air Force, had just been shot to death by a Capitol Police officer. In all the commotion, I had just assumed it was a tear gas canister.
“How long have you been here?” I asked the Republican.
“Seventy-two hours,” he replied.
“What?”
“I was just elected. I replaced John Ratcliffe. I’m Pat Fallon.”
I looked him in the eye and said: “It’s not always like this.”
It was not always like this, it must be said, because the Republican Party has also not always been like this. The four years of the Trump presidency destroyed many friendships, and not a few marriages. But it also destroyed the Republican Party—once devoted to robust alliances, a healthy mistrust of executive power, and the expansion of democracy around the world—and turned it into something else: a party willing to tear down the institutions of its own government, a party willing to give aid and comfort to a malign foreign power that wishes to destroy us, a party hostile to the truth.
This was only possible because many of the Republican members of Congress, people I served with for years, liked, and respected—turned out to prize power and position, even if it meant imperiling the country. I remember precisely the moment during the first impeachment trial when it became so tragically apparent to me that Republicans accepted the President’s guilt but were unwilling to do anything about it. Especially tragic, because we might have avoided the terrible trauma that was to come.
“They think we’ve proven him guilty,” my staff told me just before I would make a closing argument on the second day of the trial. “They need to know why he should be removed.”
I didn’t have time to ask who “they” were. We had been getting feedback during the course of the trial, sometimes directly from senators who would walk past us in the small lobby behind the Senate floor, going to and from lunch, or on a break, or who would wander up to our small table on the Senate floor when the day’s presentations were done. But the best sources of information came from Senator Schumer’s staff, passed on to my staff in whispers and handwritten notes. Were these questions coming from Democratic senators, like Joe Manchin from West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, or Doug Jones of Alabama? If so, we were in trouble.
Or was this feedback coming from Republican senators, several of whom had kept their cards close to the vest? If the Republican senators were asking, that meant their minds were still open to conviction, and that was good, even though at this point in the trial they had yet to hear the defense case.
And still, what were “they” really asking? If senators believed that we had proven Trump guilty of withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid from an ally at war in order to coerce that nation into helping him cheat in the upcoming election, wasn’t that enough? Had the bar become so high with this president? It was like a juror in an extortion case asking the judge, “Okay, he’s guilty, but do we really need to convict?”
But as I walked to the lectern, I suddenly understood, in a way I hadn’t fully appreciated until that moment, that this was the central question: Why should he be removed? He was the president of their party. He was putting conservative judges on the court. He was lowering their taxes. Why remove him? I had watched during breaks in the trial as the president’s Senate defenders took to the airwaves to proclaim his innocence, and I had believed them—not their claims about the president’s conduct, but that they believed what they were saying, that they believed there had been, to quote the president’s mantra of defense, no quid pro quo. But I could see now that that wasn’t it at all.
For the past three years, Republicans had confided, to me and to many of my Democratic colleagues, their serious misgivings about the president. Some would go on Fox News and bash me, only to urge me privately to keep on with the investigation. And it became clear that many Republicans felt someone needed to do it, someone needed to put a stop to it all, even if they couldn’t, or wouldn’t. And the question wasn’t so much “Why should he be removed?” as “Why should I be the one to remove him? Why should I risk my seat, my position of power and influence, my career and future? Why should I?”
There was only half an hour left of our case that day when I made those seven short paces from the House managers’ table to the lectern, and I had no idea how I was going to answer that question. I had prepared to go through the record of the president’s call again, the one in which he says “I want you to do us a favor, though”—because I had discovered there was so much more to that transcript, so much more now that we understood the whole scheme. I had planned to go through it line by line. But the call record now seemed insignificant, compared to the question: Why should I?
Most of the senators were listening politely after a long day, but their concentration was wandering, and so was mine. I was doing a kind of extreme multitasking, reading and speaking about the call but thinking about the question I needed to answer, and all the other questions it presumed: What made this man so dangerous? What had he done to the country? How, in three short years, had he been able to so completely remake his own party, get it to abandon its own ideology, get my friends and colleagues to surrender themselves to his obvious immorality? How had he caused us to question ourselves, our values, our commitment to democracy? How had he been able to convince so many of our fellow citizens that his views were the truth?
When I could delay no longer, I told the senators, “This brings me to the last point I want to make tonight.” At the end of the trial, I said, I believed we would have proven the president guilty—that is, that he had done what he was charged with. But it was a slightly different question, I acknowledged, than whether he really needed to be removed. And all of a sudden, every senator seemed to be watching, alert and keenly interested in the answer. The moment stretched on in silence. “This is why he needs to be removed,” I said at last, and did my best to tell them.
In the year and a half since, I have thought a lot about what I might have said differently to persuade the senators of what a danger the now former president posed then, and poses still. Whether there was any course we might have taken, not just in the trial but in the years that preceded it, to prevent what was coming: a violent insurrection at the Capitol, a wave of antidemocratic efforts, and a full-out assault on the truth.
There is now a dangerous vein of autocratic thought running through one of America’s two parties, and it poses an existential danger to the country. In this we are not alone. All around the world, there is a new competition between autocracy and democracy, and for more than a decade, the autocrats have been on the rise. This trend toward authoritarianism began before Donald Trump and will not have spent its force when he steps off the political stage for good. It will require constant vigilance on our part to ensure it does not gain another foothold in the highest office in our land.
The actions of our government, like the broader sweep of history, are not taken on their own; they are not the product of impersonal forces operating without human actors and agency. We made Donald Trump possible. We the voters, yes, but we in Congress even more so. He would not have been able to batter and break so many of our democratic norms had we not let him, had we not been capable of endless rationalization, had we not forgotten why we came to office in the first place.
Midnight is the darkest moment of the day everywhere in the world. But it is also the most hopeful, because everything that comes after holds the promise of light. America has a genius for reinvention, and we must use it. As Lincoln said, we must “disenthrall ourselves” to save our country. From the same forces of bigotry that divided and nearly defeated us in the Civil War, yes, but from something new to the American landscape as well: a dangerous experimentation with a uniquely American brand of authoritarianism. We must all confront the question: Why should I?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/adam-schiff-describes-january-6-from-the-house-floor
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Trump's coup plot was worse than anyone knew
It seemed odd last December when then-Attorney General Bill Barr resigned before the end of President Trump's term. Barr had been such a loyal soldier throughout, defending Trump's misdeeds and corrupting the Department of Justice (DOJ) on his behalf over and over again. Barr had broken DOJ protocols repeatedly as well, most recently ordering the department to investigate claims of voter fraud before any suit or legal proceedings had been initiated. But it all fell apart when Barr said in an interview that he had not actually seen any evidence of such fraud. The president was very displeased. Barr later told him to his face that the claims were "nonsense" and a major rift developed between the two.
Nonetheless, Barr apparently still tried to appease Trump and later told the U.S. Attorney in Georgia to look into Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani's wild claims and make it a priority. But within a few days, Trump announced that Barr would be leaving his post and he was gone by the end of the month, replaced by his deputy Jeffrey Rosen.
I don't think we know the full scope of what was going on with Barr and Trump during this period despite Barr's self-serving recitations to several authors of books on the final days. But it's clear that he knew that Trump was out of control and he decided to jump off the sinking ship before it went under.
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee released an interim Senate Judiciary Committee Report covering the testimony of various high-level Department of Justice officials during that period between the election and the insurrection and it is a blockbuster. It's titled "Subverting Justice: How the Former President and His Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election," which pretty much says it all.
We knew quite a bit of this already. There was earlier reporting about how Trump had called Acting Attorney General Rosen to instruct him to "just say the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen." And we knew that an obscure Justice Department lawyer in the civil division by the name of Jeffrey Clark had somehow found his way into Trump's inner circle and was pushing some corrupt schemes to overturn the election which Trump liked very much. But until this report we didn't know the scale of this plotting to get the DOJ to step in and use its muscle to carry out Trump's coup.
Trump worked hard to twist Rosen's arm. He had Clark calling him with threats that he was going to replace him and demanding that he send a letter to Georgia and other states to advise them of "serious irregularities" in their elections, telling them to call special sessions of their legislatures and deal with the electoral votes however they chose. Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was haranguing him as well demanding that he look into Giuliani's crazy conspiracy theories, as well as odd lawyers involved in Trump lawsuits around the country, one of whom told Rosen "you're going to force me to call the President and tell him you're recalcitrant," as if that would frighten him into compliance.
Trump himself inappropriately called Rosen and his deputy nine times, and met with him personally several more, the final denouement coming just days before the January 6th insurrection in which he literally said, "one thing we know is you, Rosen, aren't going to do anything to overturn the election." As usual, he said the quiet part out loud.
The report is damning. The president of the United States tried for weeks to get the Attorney General to overturn the election. That is the definition of an attempted coup.
The ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, R-Ia, issued a GOP rebuttal to the report. It is truly mind boggling and makes you wonder if the Republicans even bothered to read it. It suggests that Trump was right to be skeptical of Rosen and Donohue because of Carter Page and the FBI and some other irrelevant nonsense from the Russia investigation. This was pure red meat for their base, of course. But this line is so fatuous you have to wonder if they were just trolling for laughs:
"The available evidence shows that President Trump did what we'd expect a president to do on an issue of this importance: He listened to his senior advisers and followed their advice and recommendations,"
Yes, we expect our presidents to refuse to admit they lost elections and plot a coup to stay in power. It's perfectly normal. And yes, he did back down on firing Rosen and replacing him with his lackey — only once his White House counsel's office and the entire top level of the Department of Justice said they would quit en masse if he did it. I guess you can call that "advice and recommendations" but Trump's White House counsel had another term for it: "a murder-suicide pact."
And anyway, once that part of the plot was foiled, he just switched to plan B — the right-wing lawyer John Eastman's plot to have Pence refuse to count the electoral votes. At the same time, he had his crack legal team of Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani all over the country filing half-baked, embarrassing lawsuits and was egging on activists to come to the Capitol on January 6th saying it was going to be "wild." He was juggling several coup plots at the same time. And he's still at it today, calling for "forensic audits" even in states he won! This deranged plot is still unfolding even though he's been out of office for nine months.
That Senate Republicans would actually defend these actions is outrageous. It's also chilling.
It's quite clear that that brief moment after January 6th when the Republicans seemed shaken by Trump's incitement of a violent insurrection passed very quickly and they have comfortably settled back into rationalizing their complicity by saying that it's no harm no foul if the president tries to extort foreign leaders to help him sabotage a rival's campaign or plan a coup to overturn an election if he doesn't manage to pull it off.
Grassley is appearing with the former president at a rally this weekend where Trump will no doubt insist that he actually won the election. Grassley won't blink an eye, apparently believing that if Trump gets back in power, it will be perfectly fine if he behaves exactly the same way as he did during those insane final weeks of his term. This is how pathetically corrupt and compromised the GOP's moral reasoning has become. According to one of the major political parties in the country, attempted coups are now normal politics in America. And as a result we can be quite sure this isn't the last time that will happen. The only question is whether they can corral enough accomplices to actually succeed next time.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-s-coup-plot-was-worse-than-anyone-knew/
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Throw her in jail. Being unvaccinated is not an excuse. Who cares about her business losses. She chose to take part in an insurrection. Throw her in jail.
Unvaccinated Capitol rioter begs judge to not send her to jail over fear of getting Covid
On Friday, NBC4 Washington reporter Scott MacFarlane reported that Dona Bissey, an Indiana woman who participated in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, is imploring a judge not to sentence her to prison — in part because she is afraid she will contract COVID-19.
"Simply put, if Ms. Bissey is incarcerated at the D.C. Jail or in the BOP, which has seen 259 inmate deaths and over 43,000 infections from COVID-19, she is extremely likely to suffer severe illness or even death," wrote an an attorney representing Bissey in the filing. The attorney acknowledged that his client "has not helped her chances of fighting the virus by remaining unvaccinated."
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Bissey, who has described herself in filings as "God-fearing" and "law-abiding" despite having been involved in an attack on the U.S. Capitol, has asked instead for 18 months probation. She has also lamented in her filings that she is being "shunned" in her small Indiana town upon her neighbors learning she was a Capitol rioter, and that her hair salon has suffered "huge losses" in business.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-2655254594/
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Scumbag Steve Bannon will be arrested for defying a congressional subpoena. These criminals are NOT above the law. Private citizen Donald Trump has no executive privilege.
Steve Bannon says he 'stands with Trump' and will defy subpoena from Jan 6 committee
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon says he will defy a subpoena from the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot, CNN reports. According to a source speaking to CNN, Bannon's rationale for defying the subpoena is that he "stands with Trump."
Four associates of Trump were sent subpoenas by the House select committee. But as The Washington Post reported this Thursday, Trump's legal team sent a letter instructing them not to comply, citing "executive and other privileges, including among others the presidential communications, deliberative process, and attorney-client privileges" as justification.
In addition to Bannon, Mark Meadows, Dan Scavino, and Kash Patel are among the former Trump advisors to be subpoenaed.
Speaking to the Post, Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich said that the records request is "outrageously broad" and "lacks both legal precedent and legislative merit."
"Executive privilege will be defended, not just on behalf of President Trump and his administration, but also on behalf of the Office of the President of the United States and the future of our nation," Budowich said, according to the Post.
https://www.rawstory.com/steve-bannon-2655256230/
Jan. 6 committee will 'swiftly consider' criminal referral for Steve Bannon over subpoena defiance
The House select committee will "swiftly consider" making a criminal referral for Steve Bannon if he continues to defy their subpoena.
Bannon's lawyer told House investigators that former President Donald Trump had instructed him not to comply on the basis of executive privilege, but committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said they would not wait for a court to settle the dispute, reported Politico.
"We will not allow any witnesses to deny a lawful subpoena or attempt to run out the clock, and we will swiftly consider a criminal contempt of Congress referral," the pair said in a statement.
The lawmakers said former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Defense Department chief of staff Kash Patel have been engaging with the committee, while longtime Trump aide Dan Scavino still has not been served with his subpoena.
All four were ordered to turn over documents by Thursday and appear next week for testimony.
NEWS: Jan. 6 committee will "swiftly consider" whether to advance a criminal referral due to Bannon's noncompliance with a subpoena.
Meadows and Kash Patel are engaging with the committee
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Capitol Police whistleblower delivers scathing rebuke to two of its senior leaders on Jan. 6
The whistleblower alleges, among multiple serious allegations, that former acting chief Yogananda Pittman lied to Congress about an intelligence report Capitol Police received before that day’s riot
A former high-ranking Capitol Police official with knowledge of the department’s response to the Jan. 6 attack has sent congressional leaders a scathing letter accusing two of its senior leaders of mishandling evidence and failing to respond properly during the riot.
The whistleblower, who requested anonymity for privacy reasons and left the force months after the attack, sent the 16-page letter late last month to the top members of both parties in the House and Senate. His missive makes scorching allegations against Sean Gallagher, the Capitol Police’s acting chief of uniformed operations, and Yogananda Pittman, its assistant chief of police for protective and intelligence operations — who also served as its former acting chief.
The whistleblower accuses Gallagher and Pittman of deliberately choosing not to help officers under attack on Jan. 6 and alleges that Pittman lied to Congress about an intelligence report Capitol Police received before that day’s riot. After a lengthy career in the department, the whistleblower was a senior official on duty on Jan. 6.
The whistleblower’s criticism went beyond Capitol Police leaders to Congress. Without naming specific lawmakers, his letter accuses congressional leaders of having “purposefully failed” to tell the truth about the department’s failures.
USCP letter to Congress p.4
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POLITICO obtained the letter detailing the allegations, which is circulating among Capitol Police officers, and is publishing portions of it here. To protect the whistleblower’s identity, POLITICO is not publishing the letter in full.
“The truth may be valued less than politics by many members of the congressional community to include those that have made decisions about the leadership of the USCP post January 6th, but I believe the truth still matters to real people and certainly the men and women of the U.S. Capitol Police,” the whistleblower wrote.
A spokesperson for the Capitol Police sent a statement in response to the letter that begins: “A lot has changed since January 6. Although there is more work to do, many of the problems described in the letter have been addressed.”
The spokesperson added that the department “has implemented, and continues to implement, many of the critical recommendations called for in” a Senate inquiry into Jan. 6, a separate review conducted by retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, and multiple probes by its own inspector general.
“The letter from the former employee echoes the thoughtful recommendations in those reports,” the Capitol Police spokesperson continued. “USCP leaders, under new Chief Tom Manger, are committed to learning from prior mistakes and protecting our brave officers, who fought valiantly on January 6, so we can continue to carry out the Department’s critical mission. The men and women of this Department are committed to that critical mission. Our goal is to work as a team, to move forward, and advance the work that keeps the U.S. Capitol and the people who work here safe.”
The letter was sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. The House Administration Committee’s Republican staff was also sent a copy.
The whistleblower accused Pittman of lying to Congress about a key intelligence report the department received in late December. That report noted that a blog called "thedonald.win" posted a map of the Capitol campus, and that commenters on the site called for protesters to carry guns and confront members of Congress on Jan. 6.
Pittman told congressional investigators in April that a cohort of senior officials in the department were also aware of that intelligence before the attack. The whistleblower claimed in his letter, however, that other officials did not receive the intelligence report, and that Pittman lied when she said they did.
USCP letter to Congress p.12
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“These officials were the only officials that had all the intelligence information for the 6th,” the whistleblower wrote, regarding Gallagher and Pittman.
“The single most important piece of intelligence information ... was never shared with any members of USCP leadership,” the whistleblower added, asking: “Why did they approve the operational plan for the 6th if they knew the intelligence?”
A senior law enforcement official said that other people in the department actually did have the intelligence, but that it clearly should have been distributed more widely. The Capitol Police spokesperson disputed the allegation that Pittman lied to Congress and noted that the department has changed its internal and external intelligence-sharing practices because of the attack.
However, the report in question wasn’t the only key piece of intelligence that didn’t reach the right people in the department, according to the whistleblower. Gallagher and Pittman also had information showing groups that received permits to hold events surrounding the Capitol on Jan. 6 were all front operations for Stop the Steal, the whistleblower wrote.
Stop the Steal was a movement promoting the conspiracy theory that nefarious forces stole the election from Trump. The movement’s organizers promoted a rally on the National Mall that preceded the attack on the Capitol.
That was “game changing information,” the whistleblower added, but operational commanders — meaning, the law enforcement officers in the field supervising police activity — never learned about it.
USCP letter to Congress p.5
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In the whistleblower’s view, Gallagher and Pittman had all the intelligence needed to justify demanding reinforcements from the National Guard, closing the doors to the Capitol and using tougher but less-than-lethal weapons on the morning of Jan. 6. But they didn’t share that intelligence with the right people, the whistleblower wrote, and instead approved a woefully inadequate security plan.
The whistleblower also said he spent hours during the attack in the Capitol Police’s Command Center with Pittman and Gallagher, claiming that they did little to stop the violence. The whistleblower's presence in the command center on Jan. 6 was confirmed by two other law enforcement officials and a third person who was there during the attack.
Those three people gave different accounts of how long the whistleblower was there. One of the people said he was there for six hours, another said he was there for “several” hours and a third said he was there for less than two hours.
“What I observed was them mostly sitting there, blankly looking at the TV screens showing real time footage of officers and officials fighting for the Congress and their lives,” the whistleblower wrote.
“It is my allegation that these two with intent and malice opted to not try and assist the officers and officials, blame others for the failures, and chose to try and use this event for their own personal promotions,” he added. “This was done not after the event but while officers and officials were still fighting the demonstrators.”
USCP letter to Congress p.10
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They watched “mostly with their hands in their laps,” he added, and “did not try to help or assist as officers and officials were literally fighting for each other, their lives and the Congress.”
The two law enforcement official who confirmed Pittman and Gallagher's presence in the command center disputed the claim that they passively watched the attacks. Those officials said Gallagher focused on bringing in support from the National Guard and law enforcement partners, and that Pittman focused on the evacuation and protection of members of Congress and the vice president.
The whistleblower, however, wrote that officials and officers have resigned from the department en masse because Pittman and Gallagher haven’t been held accountable for what happened that day.
“This concerted effort to protect the two members of the Department without question the most responsible for the tragic events of January 6th is repulsive,” the whistleblower wrote.
And the whistleblower lambasted congressional leadership for letting Gallagher and Pittman maintain their senior roles in the police department even as a new chief took over at the Capitol Police.
“t is immensely embarrassing to the congressional leadership and staff that they selected the two individuals most responsible for the 6th to lead the Department after the 6th,” he wrote in his conclusion. “Especially since some entity selected them without any investigation. To hold them accountable would require this same group to admit they were wrong.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/08/capitol-police-whistleblower-rebuke-jan-6-515696
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Yes, throw everyone in jail who has a dissenting view. Investigate them, arrest them, censor them. You can even shoot an unarmed woman and later claim it was justified due to her political views. That's the modern leftist view of America. Divide Americans by race, gender, income, and vaccine status and declare them the enemy. It sounds a whole lot like Communist China.
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'Dooms him to the trash bin of history': Heartland newspaper bashes Trump's attempted coup in scathing editorial
Reflecting on new reports that Donald Trump was going to extraordinary lengths to undermine the 2020 presidential election results, the editorial board of the highly influential St. Louis Post-Dispatch slammed both the former president and his die-hard supporters.
With the editor's setting the stage by reporting, "The report makes clear that a handful of top administration officials heroically averted this attempted coup by threatening mass resignations if Trump carried out his scheme," they suggested, "As more and more of these details emerge, Republicans who continue to support Trump's false and toxic claims of electoral victory should think hard about how history will view him — and them."
According to the editorial, "The interim report by the Senate Judiciary Committee shows how Trump's Jan. 6 incitement of a mob of his supporters to attack the Capitol was only his most publicly visible attempt to overturn an election he clearly lost. In the days prior, Trump was maneuvering behind the scenes, trying to weaponize his Justice Department to validate his already-disproven claims of election fraud."
They then drew a parallel to Watergate which eventually brought down the presidency of fellow Republican Richard Nixon, saying Trump's attempt to subvert democracy is miles worse and that he and his enablers should forever live in infamy.
"No rational American today would defend Nixon's actions — and he was merely trying to get away with covering up an illegal wiretap, an objectively less damnable offense than trying to overturn a valid national election," they charged. "With every new revelation, Trump's attempted coup against democracy further dooms him to the trash bin of history. Those who still don't understand that might well find themselves joining him there."
You can read the whole piece here.
https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-history-will-harshly-judge-trumps-coup-attempt-and-those-who-defend-it/article_38697341-a37e-518b-9aa0-96f9d35a0ffb.html
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Jim Jordan handed the House riot commission the keys to subpoenaing him: report
According to a report from Politico, members of the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th insurrection are preparing to go into battle with some of their colleagues over their actions on that day and that may put some Republicans in an awkward spot.
One such GOP lawmaker is combative Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who may have inadvertently handed committee members wanting to talk to him about his multiple conversations with former president Trump, the legal pathway to compel him to testify under oath.
As Politico's Kyle Cheney and Olivia Beavers wrote, "The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has so far avoided directly roping in fellow lawmakers, even as it homes in on Trump's inner circle. Yet each of its investigative steps so far has further underscored the roles that Trump's staunchest House GOP allies played in his bid to throw out the election results," before adding, "Those Republicans connected the former president to willing partners in the Justice Department who might fuel inflated claims of fraud. They huddled with Trump to deliver counsel. And they spoke with Trump by phone on Jan. 6 as he watched his own 'Stop the Steal' rally morph into a violent riot that overtook the Capitol."
According to the report, Jordan will likely find himself under the microscope and -- if he can't get around being subpoenaed by his colleagues -- he only has himself to blame.
"That reality became more explicit this week, when Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked the House to investigate Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) for helping Trump pressure the Justice Department to overturn the election. Perry played a key role in linking Trump with a Justice Department official who was willing to aid the former president's quest to overturn the election, Senate Judiciary Democrats found. Their report also referenced Rep. Jim Jordan's (R-Ohio) contacts with the White House during that timeframe," Politico is reporting.
In Jordan's case, his participation into investigations of Democratic foes and the FBI provided a legal pathway that will likely come back to bite him.
"The question of whether to engage with the select panel is a particularly resonant one for Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. He made his name as an aggressive conservative investigator when Republicans dug into allegations of impropriety at the FBI and Justice Department during the 2016 presidential election. At that time, House Republicans fiercely defended the power of the subpoena to compel testimony from executive-branch officials," the report states. "Now Jordan and several of his colleagues are in uncharted territory, facing possible subpoenas from within their own branch."
You can read more here:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/09/jan-6-investigators-republican-colleagues-515691
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I said this was extremely dangerous last year when Criminal Donald ordered his violent right wing militia thugs to storm the Michigan Capitol. That was a "test run" for the 1/6 insurrection coup attempt. Once again, I was 100% correct.
GOP's 'domestic army': How Michigan Republicans allied with paramilitary extremists and paved the way for insurrection
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Although Michigan is one of the 2016 Trump states that Joe Biden flipped in 2020, it is also a state that has had a disturbing amount of activity from far-right militia extremists — including those who planned to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last year, subject her to a "trial" for treason and execute her if found guilty. Journalists David D. Kirkpatrick and Mike McIntire, in an article published by the New York Times on February 8, takes an in-depth look at the extremism of Michigan's paramilitary militias and their relationship to the Michigan GOP — a relationship that helped pave the way for the violence of January 6.
"Michigan has a long tradition of tolerating self-described private militias, which are unusually common in the state," Kirkpatrick and McIntire explain. "But it is also a critical electoral battleground that draws close attention from top party leaders, and the Republican alliance with paramilitary groups shows how difficult it may be for the national party to extricate itself from the shadow of the former president and his appeal to this aggressive segment of its base."
In April 2020, the Times reporters recall, armed militia members protested coronavirus restrictions in Lansing, Michigan and stormed the Michigan Capitol Building. According to Kirkpatrick and McIntire, "That intrusion into the Statehouse now looks like a portent of the assault halfway across the country months later at the United States Capitol."
Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin has said that in light of the events in Michigan in 2020, "We knew there would be violence" on January 6. When Republican politicians in Michigan condone militia members carrying assault rifles during their protests, Slotkin warned, that "normalizes violence."
Kirkpatrick and McIntire report, "Six Trump supporters from Michigan have been arrested in connection with the storming of the (U.S.) Capitol. One, a former marine accused of beating a Capitol Police officer with a hockey stick, had previously joined armed militiamen in a protest organized by Michigan Republicans to try to disrupt ballot counting in Detroit. The chief organizer of that protest, Meshawn Maddock, on Saturday was elected co-chair of the state Republican Party — one of four diehard Trump loyalists who won top posts."
However, Maddock has condemned the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building and told the Times, "When it comes to militias or the Proud Boys, I have no connection whatsoever to them."
Prominent Michigan Republicans who have allied themselves with militias, according to Kirkpatrick and McIntire, include Ryan Kelley — who has announced a gubernatorial run — and Londa Gatt, a Proud Boys supporter who has described the extremist group as "true patriots." Jeff Timmer, a former director of the Michigan GOP and a conservative critic of former President Donald Trump, is troubled by the alliance between militia members and Michigan Republicans and told the Times, "It is like the Republican Party has its own domestic army."
JoEllen Vinyard, a professor at Eastern Michigan University and expert on political extremism, is also troubled by the Michigan GOP's relationship with militia groups and told the Times, "I think there is a fair amount of sympathy in the Republican Party for these people that wasn't there in the past. It's a much closer relationship now."
Maddock's causes have ranged from fighting coronavirus restrictions in Michigan to trying to help Trump overturn the presidential election results in that state. And although she distanced herself from militias and the Proud Boys in her statement to the Times, she has remained a devout Trump supporter.
"When attempts to stop the counting failed, Ms. Maddock, in December, led 16 Republican electors trying to push into the Michigan Capitol to disrupt the casting of Democratic votes in the Electoral College," Kirkpatrick and McIntire note. "During a 'Stop the Steal' news conference in Washington the next day, she vowed to 'keep fighting.' Marching toward the (U.S.) Capitol on January 6, she tweeted that the throngs were 'the most incredible crowd and sea of people I have ever walked with.'"
https://www.rawstory.com/michigan-gop/
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FBI raids home of Proud Boys' Philadelphia chapter leader as part of Capitol riot-related probe: report
The vice president the of Philadelphia chapter of the Proud Boys had his home in Newark, Delaware, raided by then FBI this Friday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Aaron Whallon Wolkind, 37, had his computer, phone, and other electronics seized by federal agents who were looking for evidence related to the alleged planning of the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Although Wolkind was handcuffed during the raid, he was not arrested or charged. According to Wolkind's lawyer, Jonathon Moseley, agents "took all of his computer and computer devices and phones, including an old broken phone."
"The search warrant permitted agents to seize records and information related to people who 'collaborated, conspired, or assisted,' or 'communicated about matters' including their whereabouts, during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, or the 'legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election,' the filing says. They could also collect 'clothing items' associating Wolkind with the Proud Boys, it said. The offenses cited on the warrant are the same criminal charges Rehl is facing," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Read the full report over at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-proud-boys-raid-aaron-wolkind-20211011.html
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Even the East German Stasi lacked your enthusiasm to lock up political opponents, suppress free speech, and undermine democracy. You should be proud Baghdad Rick. Democracy is not going to be your friend in the upcoming election. A red wave is coming in the aftermath of Old Joe's endless disasters. He is living in a doll house with the entire world laughing. When the shelves are bare soon even the few supporters that are left will be jumping ship. And who could be surprised? Old Joe is a lifelong establishment politician with no accomplishments. None.
Richard always brightens my day with a good laugh. :D Thumb1:
I thought you believed in law and order Richard? When someone commits a serious crime they are supposed to be arrested. That's how our laws work. It appears Richard wants a set of rules for one group but when the Republicans and their supporters commit treason, defy subpoenas, or are involved in financial crimes he wants them to get off the hook.
The "disasters" you speak of were all created by Criminal Donald and Americans know that because they elected President Biden in an election blowout to clean up the mess left by the orange criminal. The laughing stock was Criminal Donald who was laughed out of the U.N. and don't forget the entire world was dancing in the streets when Criminal Donald lost. Never in the world history has that happened when a U.S. President lost an election.
The 81 million that voted for President Biden is NOT going to vote for insurrectionist seditious GOP Republicans. The GOP is in the minority and they simply don't have enough votes. That was proven in 2020. There will be millions of new first time voters 18-21 who will join the effort in defeating the GOP. President Biden is at 50% approval rating and his agenda is massively popular. We all heard about the imaginary "red wave" in 2018 and 2020. Where was it? But keeping going with the phony 2022 "red wave" narrative. The GOP keeps on losing and as long as they are married to Criminal Donald, they will keep on losing.
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1/6 was coordinated, funded, and planned with right wing militia groups behind the attack.
Members Of Right-Wing Militias, Extremist Groups Are Latest Charged In Capitol Siege
https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/2021/01/19/958240531/members-of-right-wing-militias-extremist-groups-are-latest-charged-in-capitol-si
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Black flag: Understanding the Trumpists' latest threatening symbol
Trump zealots have begun flying black U.S. flags, which signal no quarter for enemies. It's a threat of violence
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Trump supporters near the US Capitol following a "Stop the Steal" rally on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. The protesters stormed the historic building, breaking windows and clashing with police. Trump supporters had gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Selcuk Acar/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
It's an old truism that the "real bad men" (and bad women) "move in silence and violence." That's certainly true for the most dangerous and most effective of Donald Trump's allies, henchmen, henchwomen, and other followers. But for Donald Trump himself, and most of his political cult, that rule does not apply.
Trump and his followers were loud, exuberant and enthusiastic on Jan. 6. The lethal attack on the Capitol had been publicly announced weeks in advance, and should have come as no surprise. Trump's rallies and gatherings continue to celebrate violence and the prospect of revenge — and specifically of "getting even" with Trump's "enemies."
Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign chairman and White House strategist, has now threatened to recruit Republican-fascist "shock troops" with the apparent goal of undermining the U.S. government, and by implication multiracial democracy, if and when Trump and the Republicans regain control of both Congress and the White House.
On a daily basis Fox News and other elements of the right-wing disinformation propaganda machine use stochastic terrorism and other techniques to radicalize their audience into committing acts of political violence. To this point, the Democratic Party and the political and news media class in general have remained in denial, and largely passive in response.
In one troubling new development, Trump supporters have begun flying all-black American flags, in an implicit threat to harm or kill their opponents — meaning nonwhite people, "socialist liberals," Muslims, vaccinated people and others deemed to be "enemies" of "real America." As media critic Eric Boehlert recently noted, the liberal opinion site Living Blue in Texas is sounding the alarm about the specific meaning of the black flag and the Republican-fascists support for terrorism and other political violence. That post, "Are Your Republican Neighbors Planning on Killing You?", merits lengthy quotation:
It didn't take long to find hundreds of videos where these Trumpers and so-called patriots were hanging black American flags. ...
Black American flags are the flags that mean "no quarter shall be given." They are the opposite of the white flag of surrender.
According to the people on TikTok and the Sun (British tabloid), the black American flag originated in the civil war and was flown by the Confederates.
It means that they will not surrender, will not take prisoners, and are willing to die for their cause. It means they will execute their enemies.
Who are their enemies? Pretty much any non-Conservative. You know, Democrats, Liberals, LGBTQ, BIPOC, and the vaccinated. ...
So, we're the enemy, and they're openly professing to want to execute us. … So, why are they doing this
Covid vaccinations, mostly. They believe that Joe Biden has declared a civil war on them by mandating that employers with over 100 employees and the military have vaccinations.
Yes, they say civil war, and they say it's already started. But, unfortunately, many of them also live in states where masks and vaccines are required by state governments, healthcare, and law enforcement.
An alarming number of military members have been making Tik Toks talking about how they are being discharged because they refuse the vaccine. It's alarming because there is probably an equal number of guys on there talking about the civil war plans and actively using Tik Tok to recruit these military and ex-military members.
The biggest message they have been sending out is, "it's time" or "the time is now." ...
Although showing guns on Tik Tok is supposed to be against community guidelines, they show lots of videos of their guns, shooting them, wearing them, or sitting on their bed.
They primarily use Tik Tok as a recruiting tool and let others know their willingness to commit violence. Then they tell people to message them or where to find them on Telegram.
However you interpret these videos posted by Trump followers and other neofascists — which could be mainly performative — it is clearly true that the American right is increasingly willing to accept or condone violence as a means of expanding and protecting their social and political power. (Salon did not find licensed news photographs of these flags, and has made the editorial decision not to reproduce the images mentioned above, which are easy to find on social media.)
Public opinion polls and other research have repeatedly shown that millions of Republican voters and Trump followers would support the use of violence to remove Joe Biden from office because of the "Big Lie" and their belief that that he is not a legitimate president. Similarly, a large proportion of Republicans believe that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were "patriots" whose use of violence was justified.
And a new poll from the University of Virginia's Center for Politics even suggests that more than 50 percent of Trump supporters want "red states" to secede from the Union. Republican elected officials and other right-wing opinion leaders have continued to escalate their threats of political violence against Democrats and other targeted groups.
In a recent speech to the North Carolina Faith and Freedom Coalition's "Salt & Light" conference, Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., issued what sounded like a declaration of war:
It is time for the American Christian church to come out of the shadows to say, "No longer are we going to allow our culture to be determined by people who hate the things that we believe in…. We are going to stand valiantly for God's incredible inherent truths that predate any version of government. Because, my friends, if we lose this country today, if we bend the knee to the Democrats today, our country will be lost forever, our children will never know what freedom is. It's our duty to stand up, Let us stand united as men and women of faith to fight for our country.
During an interview with MSNBC's Joy Reid, terrorism and national security expert Malcolm Nance said that Cawthorn's video "picks up on the themes that are not just coming from the Steve Bannon level and Donald Trump level, they are coming from the Republican street — and that Republican street is armed. They're angry. They have been fed an entire line which makes them believe that America is no longer America and that they no longer want the America that the rest of us, the 60 percent of the country, live in. And they`re willing to take up arms for it."
Nance also noted that Cawthorn's propaganda video is thematically similar to the type of propaganda used by Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida to radicalize and recruit members.
During an interview with Scientific American magazine, Dr. Bandy Lee, the principal editor of the 2017 bestseller "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," explained how a mentally pathological leader can "infect" his followers and perhaps even an entire nation:
I have outlined two major emotional drives: narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis. Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence — while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a "lock and key" relationship….
"Shared psychosis" — which is also called "folie à millions" ["madness for millions"] when occurring at the national level or "induced delusions" — refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology. When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person's symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and propensity for violence — even in previously healthy individuals. The treatment is removal of exposure.
Trump and his regime gave permission and encouragement to his followers and other supporters to engage in antisocial and other anti-human behavior on a national scale. Once such a process has begun, and those forces are unleashed, it is not easy to stop. Fascism is not a simple machine with an on-and-off switch. In practice, fascism is given life and takes corporeal form through its followers, with each one being a potential carrier of the pathology.
As Hussein Ibish warned in a recent article in the Atlantic, "The cancer of political violence is not an endemic American disease. At the moment, it is a Republican disease. No one but Republicans themselves can cure it. Until they do, the violence of the right is only going to keep swelling and crashing. From a Middle Eastern perspective, this is all appallingly familiar."
Fascism is a highly virulent social disease that usually destroys the host body – but not before spreading the disease to many other people. In fact, if the original host dies, he or she can be elevated to the status of martyr for "the cause," serving to inspire existing followers and lure in new ones.
Ultimately, Donald Trump, like other fascist and authoritarian leaders, is the symptom of a sick society. Trumpism is not actually the core disease. For America to counteract the deep underlying illness that has made Trumpism possible will require a long-term cultural and moral reckoning. Anything less, and the disease of American fascism will only go dormant until it is resurrected again — perhaps in a more dangerous and virulent form.
https://www.salon.com/2021/10/12/black-flag-understanding-the-trumpists-latest-threatening-symbol/
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Yes, throw everyone in jail who has a dissenting view. Investigate them, arrest them, censor them. You can even shoot an unarmed woman and later claim it was justified due to her political views. That's the modern leftist view of America. Divide Americans by race, gender, income, and vaccine status and declare them the enemy. It sounds a whole lot like Communist China.
Nice phony narrative.
Dissenting views has nothing to do with it and you know it. These MAGA thugs tried to overthrow the US Government so of course they will be jailed. Defying a congressional subpoena is a crime and the punishment is imprisonment. Those are American laws so deal with it. The only division came from Criminal Donald and the right. They have divided us on race, gender, political affiliation, and made a deadly virus a political issue. Criminal Donald called the free press "the enemy" and his thugs declared Liberals the enemy. That's right wing fascism.
Why was the "unarmed woman" illegally breaking through the Capitol window after she was warned several times by Capitol Police to retreat? It's her own fault she was shot.
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US Marshals may be called to round up former Trump aides who disobey Jan. 6 subpoenas: House investigator
A member of the U.S. House select committee explained how Donald Trump's allies might be rounded up and arrested if they continued to defy congressional subpoenas in the Jan. 6 investigation.
Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," where she called for fines or jail time for former Trump advisers who flout orders for their testimony and documents related to the insurrection, and she revealed what questions the committee had for former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and others served with the subpoenas.
"I want to know how much planning was involved, who was involved in the planning, who funded it, how they -- what their intent was when they came into that day, and then what they knew as that day unfolded and the safety and security of people like the vice president and members of Congress were at risk, [and] what they did, either to respond or not respond on that occasion," Murphy said.
If those individuals don't show up for their scheduled testimony, Murphy said they could be taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals Service.
"We have engaged with a wide variety of law enforcement offices, including the U.S. Marshals, in order to issue the subpoenas," Murphy said. "We will use everything, as you said, with all due respect, we will use all of the agencies and all of the tools at our disposal to issue the subpoenas and enforce them."
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‘They will be prosecuted’: Adam Schiff describes how select committee will crack down on Trump obstruction
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol will aggressively hold Trump associates accountable for refusing to cooperate, member Adam Schiff (D-CA) explained on MSNBC on Wednesday.
"What will you do if the deadline comes and goes for two witnesses who have been subpoenaed and they don't show up?" anchor Nicolle Wallace asked.
"We will move to hold them in criminal contempt," Schiff replied.
"So our committee will produce a report about the efforts that were made to get them to testify," he explained. "We will submit that report and we will call for a vote on the House floor that will send it to the Justice Department."
"Our expectation is they will be prosecuted," he continued. "I think part of the reason why some of these witnesses feel like they can thumb their nose at Congress and the power of the subpoena is for four years that's exactly what they did. And they had an attorney general in Bill Barr who would not enforce the subpoenas because anyone covering up for the president was doing Bill Barr and the president's work and they were not about to hold them accountable."
"But that is a very different situation than today," he noted. "Today we have an attorney general that respects the rule of law, who upholds the principle no one is above the law and we expect those subpoenas to be enforced and enforced with prosecution," he said.
Watch:
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Capitol riot committee subpoenas Trump DOJ official who was instrumental in election coup attempt
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The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has subpoenaed former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark.
In a statement, the committee said Clark was "reportedly involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power. The subpoena seeks deposition testimony and records from Mr. Clark as part of the Select Committee's investigation into the events of January 6th and the causes of that day's violence."
The statement then elaborated on why it wanted Clark to testify.
"According to a report released last week by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, there is credible evidence that, while serving as an official at the Department of Justice, Mr. Clark was involved in efforts to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Mr. Clark proposed delivery of a letter to state legislators in Georgia and others encouraging to delay certification of election results. Moreover, he recommended holding a press conference announcing that the Department was investigating allegations of voter fraud despite the lack of evidence that such fraud was present. Both proposals were rejected by Department senior leadership for lacking a factual basis and being inconsistent with the Department's institutional role," the committee said. "The subpoena requires Mr. Clark to produce records and testify at a deposition on October 29th, 2021."
Chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) explained why Clark was subpoenaed.
"The Select Committee needs to understand all the details about efforts inside the previous administration to delay the certification of the 2020 election and amplify misinformation about the election results. We need to understand Mr. Clark's role in these efforts at the Justice Department and learn who was involved across the administration. The Select Committee expects Mr. Clark to cooperate fully with our investigation," Thompson said.
https://www.rawstory.com/jeffrey-clark/
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Trump is in a 'seriously tough spot' with Biden blocking his executive privilege claim: CNN legal analyst
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On CNN Wednesday, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig broke down the difficulties former President Donald Trump will face in trying to assert executive privilege over communications with officials subpoenaed by the House January 6 Committee.
"Just regarding the news from Kaitlan Collins that the White House formally rejected the request to assert executive privilege," said anchor Anderson Cooper. "Absent an intervening court order. Do you think this will end — ultimately, end up with a, you know, a legal fight?"
"I do think it will, Anderson," said Honig. "This move by the Biden administration puts Donald Trump in a very tough spot. Now, Trump has two options. One, he can do nothing and let it be which means 30 days from now, those documents go over to the committee. Or two, Trump can go to court and ask a court to block those documents from going over. But that's a serious uphill climb, legally."
Honig then proceeded to explain how Trump's demand lacked legal precedent.
"It's fairly clear that while a former president can have some say in executive privilege, generally speaking, it's the current president who gets to decide," said Honig. "That makes sense. We've actually seen Barack Obama and George W. Bush exercise or not exercise executive privilege on behalf of their predecessor. So Trump's got a serious uphill climb. It seems the real object here, Anderson, is to get it in the courts and delay. And we have seen courts take months, even years, to resolve these disputes in the past. Courts need to do better, they need to do it quicker. They need to prioritize if these cases land before them so they don't drag on forever."
Watch below:
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If Steve Bannon Defies the January 6 Committee's Subpoena, He Should Be in Handcuffs: He has no claim to executive privilege whatsoever, and Congress must assert itself
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In the plague-spotted orchard of Trumpian malfeasance, which the House of Representatives is trying to defoliate before it poisons everything in the garden, Steve Bannon, the last heir to House Harkonnen, is the low-hanging fruit. There is no reason on god’s despoiled earth why he shouldn’t be made to testify under oath about everything that happened on January 6. He wasn’t working for the president* at the time, so there’s no question of executive privilege. He was a private citizen when he allegedly played a role in orchestrating an insurrection meant to overturn a national election. Steve Bannon is the easy one.
He has until October 14 to turn over everything the special investigative committee’s subpoena demanded. Assuming he ignores the deadline, at 12:01 a.m. on October 15, he should be in cuffs and in the back of a car with two U.S. marshals, on his way to the pokey. From Reuters:
The committee has already threatened criminal contempt charges against Bannon for refusing to cooperate with the inquiry into the attack, in which a mob of Trump's supporters stormed the seat of the U.S. government. Those subpoenaed will have the opportunity to cooperate, but if they do not, the committee will enforce its subpoenas, Cheney, a Republican, told reporters at the U.S. Capitol. She leads the committee along with its chairman, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson.
"In general, people are going to have to appear, or, you know, we will move contempt charges against them,” Cheney said. She said the entire committee was in agreement on that point. Cheney said the committee expected to have depositions from Meadows and Patel later this week. "We'll see if they show up. If they show up, we'll be prepared," she said.
The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they’re Mixmasters compared to watching Congress and the Department of Justice move on this matter. I have been staunchly in the camp of take the time you need. I have believed from the jump that there’s more going on underground at the DOJ than we know about. But even my patience gauge is blinking red. It’s not enough to be doing something. The country needs to see you doing something. It needs to see that to build its confidence that justice is coming. It also needs to see it as a kind of vicarious triumph over all the worst cynicism and corruption that attended the last administration*. A Steve Bannon perp walk would do nicely.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a37952095/steve-bannon-january-6-commission-subpoena/
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Good. Another MAGA scumbag goes to jail.
Kentucky man who sought to 'occupy' the US Capitol during Jan. 6 riot will go to jail
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A Kentucky man who said he entered the U.S. Capitol with his cousin during the Jan. 6 riot in Washington, D.C., to "occupy the space" was sentenced Wednesday to 45 days in jail for his role in the violent insurrection.
Robert "Bob" Bauer, 44, of Cave City was initially charged the week after the deadly riot in January with entering and remaining in a restricted building and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
Federal prosecutors later added two more charges: disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building and violent entry and disorderly conduct at the grounds and in a Capitol building.
But under a plea deal, Bauer and his cousin ended up facing only the charge of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.
That charge is a class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in prison, a maximum $5,000 fine and up to a year of supervised release.
The Department of Justice had recommended Bauer serve 30 days in jail and pay $500 in restitution for damage to the Capitol, according to court documents, while Bauer and his attorney requested no jail time and one year of probation.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, ended up sentencing both Bauer and his cousin, Edward Hemenway of Winchester, Virginia, to a term of 45 days in jail along with 60 hours of community service and the $500 restitution amount.
Both men will be allowed to turn themselves in to the Bureau of Prisons to start their sentences, Chutkan said.
While she noted neither Bauer nor his cousin assaulted any officers at the Capitol, Chutkan said they took photographs of themselves in the building and "clearly celebrated" their presence at the riot.
US Capitol riot arrests: What we know about the Kentucky people charged
"There has to be consequences" for those who play a role in trying to "disrupt the peaceful transfer of power," Chutkan said.
The Capitol riot resulted in the deaths of five people, with hundreds of police officers injured and at least four officers who defended the building later dying by suicide.
Some of the 600-plus defendants charged in connection with the events of Jan. 6 have received jail time or probation, while handfuls of others — including over a dozen Kentuckians — still await sentencing.
Bauer's attorney, Meredith M. Ralls, wrote in a memo prior to Wednesday's sentencing that he cooperated with federal investigators and took responsibility for his actions "immediately after January 6 by posting on Facebook."
"His remorse did not come after being apprehended, but before being apprehended. He even took steps to 'out' himself to authorities," Bauer's attorney wrote. "While many people post on social media out of pride, Mr. Bauer took a fatalistic attitude and posted his January 6 activities so that he would be found by law enforcement. He knew that FBI agents would be looking for people who were involved in the Capitol breach, and he did not want to hide from them as they sought those involved."
Chutkan pushed back Wednesday on Ralls' claim that Bauer posted to social media to alert the authorities, noting many other Jan. 6 defendants had posted photos and videos to Facebook.
"I don't think they were crying out to be apprehended," Chutkan said, asking why Bauer did not just call the FBI if he wanted to alert them.
Bauer, offered a chance to speak during the hearing, told Chutkan when he returned to his cousin's home after the riot, "we turned on the news."
"We didn’t see everything that went on that day," Bauer said. "When I saw ... all that chaos and all that violence, that’s when I realized the true gravity of it."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth C. Kelley said although Bauer took responsibility for his actions, he was well aware of "Do not enter" signs at the Capitol and observed officers getting attacked by the crowd as they pushed inside.
After spending 17 minutes inside the Capitol, Bauer also posed for a photo on top of a government vehicle while raising his two middle fingers in the air, Kelley said.
"Each rioter’s actions, from the most mundane to the most violent, contributed to the violence and destruction at the Capitol on Jan. 6," Kelley told the judge Wednesday. "... He had opportunities to leave the Capitol, but he chose not to leave."
The FBI had initially received an anonymous tip about Bauer and his wife's attendance at the Capitol riot that sought to disrupt Congress in certifying President Joe Biden's victory over former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, according to a criminal complaint.
In separate interviews with the FBI, both Bauer and his cousin said they walked down Pennsylvania Avenue with a crowd of people from the "Stop the Steal" rally.
Hemenway told the judge neither he nor Bauer were "really 100% Trump supporters," and he then choked up when describing Bauer losing his job as a result of his criminal case.
"We are ashamed and wholeheartedly regret it," Hemenway said.
When they arrived at the Capitol grounds, Bauer's wife refused to go in and went back to the hotel room, while Bauer and Hemenway went inside the Capitol, according to the complaint. Bauer's wife was not charged in the riot.
Bauer and Hemenway told the FBI after rushing into the building with the crowd, one Capitol Police officer greeted them with a hug and handshake and told them, "It's your house now," according to the complaint.
Bauer told the FBI he “believed that the policeman was acting out of fear," the complaint said.
Photos taken on Bauer's phone and included in court documents show the two men inside the Capitol, and at some point in the Crypt, or basement, of the building. In one photo, they're seen giving the middle finger.
In a video from Bauer's phone obtained by the FBI, Bauer is in the Capitol chanting, "Our house! Our house!" with a large crowd behind him.
Bauer, in his police interview, said he went into the Capitol to "occupy the space" and had no intention of assaulting law enforcement or hurting anyone.
Hemenway, meanwhile, told the FBI he entered the building out of "stupidity" and "curiosity."
Bauer said people in the crowd were angry about officials who were alleged pedophiles (a debunked conspiracy theory) and about losing their businesses during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, according to the complaint.
In the memo submitted prior to the sentencing hearing, Bauer's attorney said the man and his wife "originally came to the D.C.-Virginia area to visit family, and decided to attend the protest on the Ellipse as part of that trip."
"Mr. Bauer only decided to turn from the Ellipse and head towards the Capitol when then-President Trump directed the crowd to proceed in that direction," the memo said. "Mr. Bauer did not come to D.C. prepared for a riot ... yet he understands that he is nonetheles responsible for following that group."
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/crime/2021/10/13/us-capitol-riot-kentucky-man-robert-bauer-sentenced-insurrection-case/8434252002/
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REVEALED: Police warned Secret Service that Trump supporters might 'come armed' on Jan. 6
A newly uncovered email shows that Washington's Metropolitan Police Department warned federal law enforcement agencies on Jan. 5 that Donald Trump supporters who planned to attend his "Stop the Steal" rally the following day were being urged on social media to "come armed."
"Social media reporting is urging individuals attending the events on January 6 to come armed. No threats have been identified," the email stated.
CNN reported Thursday that the email "provides additional evidence that law enforcement dramatically misread the situation in the critical days before the riot," adding that the document "could prove useful to a House committee investigating the riot."
The email, obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), was sent from the FBI's field office in DC to the Secret Service, according to CNN. It provided a short summary of a Metropolitan Police Department briefing.
"The email noted that eight firearms were recovered and five arrests were made at a pro-Trump event in November 2020," CNN reported. "Further, the document shows how local law enforcement knew DC-area hotels were sold out, indicating that a large crowd would be in the city around that time. The extremist Proud Boys group is also highlighted in the document, although it says 'the number expected' to attend the rally was 'unknown.'"
The email is among numerous documents uncovered recently that suggest the Capitol insurrection was not an intelligence failure.
https://www.rawstory.com/revealed-dc-police-warned-secret-service-that-jan-6-protesters-were-being-urged-to-come-armed/
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Another MAGA scumbag is arrested and also needs to be kicked out of the Army. Insurrectionist anti American traitors are not allowed.
Capitol rioter who joined Army after insurrection arrested at Fort Bragg
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An active-duty soldier has been arrested at Fort Bragg on charges that he participated in the Capitol insurrection.
Spc. James Phillip Mault, 29, of Brockport, New York, joined the Army in May, the Fayetteville Observer reports.
Mault is accused of spraying a chemical agent at police who were attempting to stop a mob of Capitol rioters from entering the building on Jan. 6, according to a newly unsealed criminal complaint.
Col. Joe Buccino, a Fort Bragg spokesman, confirmed that Mault was arrested at the base on Oct. 6.
According to the Fayetteville Observer, Buccino said "it was important to note that Mault joined the Army in May, several months after the incident."
"This thing he allegedly did happened before he was a soldier," Buccino said.
In addition to spraying police with a chemical agent, Mault is accused of ripping down a barricade that allowed rioters to access the Capitol grounds. Although his actions were captured in numerous videos, Mault denied assaulting anyone or damaging property when he was first interviewed by FBI agents on Jan. 18.
"Mault described being caught up in the crowd and the mass of people pushed him closer and closer to the Capitol Building. Mault claimed to have no choice but to move forward because of the press of people behind him," the complaint states.
An anonymous tipster identified Mault to the FBI, pointing out the decal on his hard hat from the Ironworkers Local 33 Rochester, New York. Mault, who became known to online investigators as #IronWorkerGuy, told FBI agents he "wore his hard hat from work because he was aware of ANTIFA attacking Trump supporters after events in Washington, D.C. and the helmet would provide some level of protection."
One video from the insurrection reportedly shows Mault cheering on his friend, Cody Mattice, after Mattice was pepper-sprayed by police.
"And you f***ing took it like a man! I f***ing love you dude!" Mault screams in the video.
Mault and Mattice, who was also arrested last week, allegedly traveled from New York to Washington with several other friends on a bus driven by Mault's father.
Mault and Mattice are charged with assaulting law enforcement, entering a restricted building with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct inside a restricted building with a dangerous weapon, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and an act of violence inside Capitol grounds, according to a Department of Justice news release.
https://www.rawstory.com/military-capitol-riot/
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'We ain't playing nice no more!' New video shows ‘zip-tie guy’ Capitol rioter storming building with his mother
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A newly released video shows "zip-tie guy" Capitol rioter Erik Munchel and his mother making their way through a crowd of insurrectionists as they entered the building and proceeded upstairs to the Senate chamber on Jan. 6.
The 50-minute video, taken from a cellphone attached to the front of Munchel's vest, was recently unsealed by a federal judge, the Tennessean reports.
"(I'm going to) take my weapons off before I go in there," Munchel can be heard telling his mother, Lisa Marie Eisenhart, as they stand outside the Capitol, in a montage from the video published by the newspaper.
But apparently Munchel never did so, because later in the video as they approach the Capitol he says, "This is probably the last time I'll be able to enter the building with armor and weapons."
Munchel is accused of carrying a taser inside the Capitol, and he and Eisenhart wore tactical military gear.
At one point, Eisenhart can be heard telling her son, "This sh*t is on the news, that guy was saying."
"Oh yeah, duh," Munchel responds. "They are going to use this against us as hard as they can. But we ain't playing f*cking nice no godd*mn more."
"I guess they thought we were playing," Munchel yells later in the video. "This is our godd*mn country!"
As Munchel and Eisenhart push their way through the crowd, one fellow rioter announces that "Congress is shut down."
"Tear gas package was thrown in the Congress," the rioter says, as the crowd cheers and Eisenhart laughs.
"Oh my God. That is one of my best days to know that they got tear-gassed," Eisenhart says.
Still outside the Capitol, other fellow rioters comment that Eisenhart and Munchel look "ready to go" in their military gear, and ask if they are members of the far-right Proud Boys.
"No, we're not Proud Boys," Eisenhart responds.
"We're proud Americans," Munchel adds.
As they pass another rioter who is walking away from the Capitol, Eisenhart asks, "Did you get flash-banged and pepper-sprayed?"
"I got maced," the man responds. "I punched two of them (police officers) in the face."
"Good," Eisenhart responds. "While everyone else was on the couch, you guys were training and getting ready."
"Absolutely," the maced rioter says.
After they enter the Capitol, Munchel appears to have second thoughts. "What's your goal here, mom?" he says.
After they walk upstairs and head down a hallway, Munchel can be heard telling other rioters, "Don't vandalize anything, or y'all are Antifa."
Then Munchel discovers a pile of zip ties that would result in iconic photos from the insurrection showing him hopping over seats in the Senate gallery while carrying a handful of the plastic tactical handcuffs.
"Zip ties! I'm gonna get me some of them motherf*ckers!" Munchel says in the video, as both he and Eisenhart grab some of the restraints.
Munchel has said he picked up the handcuffs after a Capitol police officer left them behind, but prosecutors allege he could have used them to take lawmakers hostage.
After they enter the Senate gallery, Munchel can be heard shouting, "I want that f*cking gavel!"
Nashville's Channel 5 reports that, "After passing through the gallery, the pair quickly begin looking for an exit, with little comment on their way out."
Munchel and Eisenhart are awaiting trial of charges of obstructing an official proceeding, entering a restricted area and violent entry related to the insurrection. They were released from jail pending trial in March.
Recently, federal prosecutors asked a judge to bar Munchel from consuming any alcohol, after he was evicted from an apartment where he had been couch-surfing, and violated the conditions of his pretrial release.
Watch the video from the Tennessean and Channel 5's report below:
https://www.rawstory.com/zip-tie-guy-capitol-riot-video/
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Steve Bannon thinks he's above the law. He's about to find out that he's not when he gets arrested.
House Capitol attack committee seeks contempt charges after Steve Bannon defies subpoena
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/oct/14/capitol-attack-house-committee-investigation-bannon-biden-us-politics-live
January 6 panel moves to hold Steve Bannon in criminal contempt
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/14/politics/steve-bannon-deposition-deadline/index.html
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'Be very careful — you're not president anymore': Former Bush AG warns Trump against obstructing Capitol riot probe
On Thursday's edition of CNN's "The Lead," former George W. Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales warned former President Donald Trump that his power to obstruct the House's probe of the January 6 Capitol riot is significantly diminished now that he's no longer in office.
"Trump faces an order to provide documents within 30 days after the Biden White House rejected his attempt to blanketly assert executive privilege," said anchor Jake Tapper. "What happens if Trump doesn't supply?"
"I think we'll find ourselves in somewhat the same position," said Gonzales. "You know, if Trump were a sitting president, there would be a great deal of deference given to the president in terms of making himself available for deposition or to provide testimony. Not so with respect to a former president."
Gonzales then turned to address Trump directly.
"I think if I were advising President Trump, I would say be very careful here because you are not president anymore, and the privileges and protections that you enjoyed while in office simply do not exist when you are out of office," said Gonzales. "So it remains to be seen."
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'Traitors get shot': Capitol rioter accused of threatening kids could be first to stand trial
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A gun-toting Capitol rioter from Texas — who's accused of threatening to kill his children if they turned him in — could soon become the first person to stand trial on charges stemming from the insurrection.
Guy Wesley Reffitt, an oil worker with ties to the Three Percenters militia group, appeared in federal court on Friday and sought to have his case moved from Washington to Texas, invoking Watergate.
However, U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich rejected Reffitt's motion for a change of venue, saying he had "not come close" to demonstrating that such a move is necessary.
After Reffitt, through his attorney, declined to waive his right to a speedy trial, Friedrich scheduled the proceeding for Nov. 15.
"(A)ppears Guy Reffitt will be the 1st #CapitolRiot defendant to go to trial on November 15 – one month from today," WUSA9's Jordan Fischer reported. "Witnesses and exhibit lists are due to the other parties by November 1."
"Parties need to be prepared for opening statements on November 17," Fischer added. "Trial is expected to take 5 days. Guy Reffitt says it is his desire to go to trial on November 15 knowing he has not received all of the evidence the DOJ says may be available in his case."
Reffitt is accused of transporting a rifle and a semi-automatic handgun from Texas to Washington — where he allegedly planned to use them during the insurrection. According to federal prosecutors, he illegally carried the handgun on Capitol grounds. Prosecutors also allege Reffitt played a "significant and dangerous role" at the front of the first group of rioters to challenge a police line trying to secure the building.
After returning home to Wylie, Texas, Reffitt allegedly told his son and daughter: "If you turn me in, you're a traitor and you know what happens to traitors … traitors get shot."
https://www.rawstory.com/guy-wesley-reffitt/
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The Oath Keepers were instrumental in taking part in the 1/6 insurrection.
Dozens of Oregon law enforcement officers have been members of the far-right Oath Keepers militia
An analysis by OPB of hacked data uncovers police officers, sheriff’s deputies and military in Oregon who had joined the far right militia group since 2009.
In early summer 2018, it looked as though Oregon voters might get a chance to ban assault weapons in the state.
It was barely two months since a shooter had killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The proposed Oregon ballot measure met stiff legal challenges and was kept off the ballot, but not before militia groups like the Oath Keepers used the proposed gun restrictions as a rallying cry to bring hundreds of people out to a gun rights rally in Salem.
And those recruitment efforts by the Oath Keepers appear to have had some effect.
Not long after the pro-gun rally in Salem, Portland police officer Joseph Webber appears to have joined the Oath Keepers militia, an anti-government, anti-immigrant extremist group that was thrust into the national security spotlight for its role in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.
According to data leaked earlier this month and reviewed by OPB, Webber — who is still a Portland police officer — is among more than two dozen current and former police officers, sheriff’s deputies, corrections officers, and members of the military in Oregon who appear to have joined the Oath Keepers militia since the group was founded in 2009. OPB compared data in the Oath Keepers leak against public records, social media and state law enforcement certification information to verify the information.
Reached by phone on the same number appearing in the leaked database, Webber denied joining the group before hanging up. He didn’t respond to follow-up text messages.
Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said he expects officers to follow the bureau’s conduct and professionalism policies whether on or off duty. Potentially applicable policies include a prohibition against associations with people advocating criminal behavior or actions which might discredit the bureau or city.
Lovell told OPB this case has been referred to internal affairs for investigation.
The hacked Oath Keepers data was sent to the transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets, which provided the information to journalists and researchers. In several cases across the country, journalists and citizen sleuths have been able to confirm law enforcement and military members using the leaked data. New York City police officers and a detective in the Hudson County prosecutor’s office were in the leaked data, prompting investigations from those two agencies.
The data include names, membership join dates and contact information for nearly 40,000 people across the country who at one point paid dues to the organization, including more than 1,000 names in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Except where people paid the approximately $1,000 for a lifetime membership, it’s not clear from the data if people are still members.
Oath Keepers in Oregon law enforcement
The earliest law enforcement officer in the state to join was Multnomah County Sheriff’s Deputy Phillip Farrell, who signed up in 2009, according to the hacked records. Farrell retired from the Sheriff’s office in 2014 and, until 2019, worked as an instructor at Oregon’s corrections officer academy, according to his LinkedIn, where he recently liked a cartoon of a U.S. Border Patrol agent on horseback. The cartoon — a reference to recently controversial actions taken by Border Patrol — stated the agent is not a villain and that the Haitian immigrant depicted is a lawbreaker, not a victim.
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In this screenshot from retired Multnomah County Sheriff's Deputy Phillip Farrell's LinkedIn, a cartoon depicting U.S. Border Patrol and a Haitian immigrant says the Border Patrol officer is not a villain and the Haitian immigrant depcited is a lawbreaker, not a victim.
Farrell did not respond to multiple phone calls and text messages.
Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese, who did not take office until after Farrell retired, called membership in an anti-government organization like the the Oath Keepers reprehensible.
“MCSO has a number of policies addressing members’ behavior(s) that may bring discredit to the Office of Sheriff and/or could be criminal, discriminatory or harassing in nature,” department spokesperson Chris Liedle added in an email.
In some cases, people who signed up for the Oath Keepers listed skills or experience they could contribute to the group.
"I currently work in a highly stressful environment,” one recently retired corrections officer from Oregon wrote. “I am professionally trained in restraint applications, use of chemical agents, taser deployment, basic first aid and firearms. I have the skills to de-escalate highly volatile situations.”
Current Nyssa, Oregon, police officer Nicholas Codiga joined the Oath Keepers in 2015, according to the leaked data. Codiga, who used to work for the Warm Springs Police Department, also appears to have shared content mocking Indigenous people on his social media accounts. In one Facebook post, a man who appears to be Codiga is photographed putting his face through a cutout that has long black braids, an orange prison jumpsuit and is holding a “WSPD detention center” sign.
OPB reached Codiga by calling the phone number in the leaked data. After confirming his identity, he hung up as soon as a reporter mentioned the Oath Keepers.
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In this screenshot from Nyssa police officer Nicolas Codiga’s Facebook account, a man who appears to be Codiga is photographed putting his face through a cutout that has long black braids, an orange prison jumpsuit and is holding a “WSPD detention center” sign. Codiga, worked previously for the Warm Springs Police Department.
The Nyssa Police Department also hung up on OPB immediately after a reporter identified themselves. Nyssa City Manager Jim Maret said Codiga is transferring to a different law enforcement agency next month, but declined to say where. Maret said he didn’t know of a city policy prohibiting membership in militia groups.
Coos County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Shane Shobar joined the Oath Keepers in 2013 and wrote to the group, “I come from a long line of military members that have served from WWII to present time.”
Reached by phone, Shobar said he is no longer a member.
“That was years ago, and it was just co-workers and I talking about it, but that was it,” Shobar told OPB. He said patriotism motivated him to join. Asked if he thought being a member of an anti-government militia might conflict with his role as a law enforcement officer, Shobar said he didn’t give it any thought.
Shobar is currently a defendant in a federal civil rights lawsuit, along with Coos County Sheriff Craig Zanni and jail medical staff, over allegations that an inmate’s medical needs were ignored, leading to the person suffering kidney failure, nerve damage and permanent incontinence.
Zanni, who has been sheriff of Coos County since 2010, did not respond to multiple emails requesting comment.
Joining the Oath Keepers is as easy as submitting your name and contact information along with payment, which ranges from $50 to $1,500. The group also asks for a copy of a member’s DD214, verifying their military service, or other proof that they are a first responder. According to the Oath Keepers’ website, prospective members are then “vetted” and gain access to a “members only” online forum.
Former military police officer and current corrections officer at Snake River Correctional Institution Jerod Edmondson told OPB that when he joined the Oath Keepers in 2014, it was because he thought it was a veterans organization. He said he is not still a member and wasn’t aware of the group’s anti-government views when he joined.
Edmondson appears to have shared content on his Facebook page calling for “all illegals” to be deported, suggesting George Soros paid protesters “to riot and burn down Ferguson,” and that Muslim members of Congress are trying to destroy the country from within.
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A Facebook screenshot of former military police officer and current corrections officer at Snake River Correctional Institution Jerod Edmondson. The post calls for “all illegals” to be deported, suggesting George Soros paid protesters “to riot and burn down Ferguson,” and that Muslim members of Congress are trying to destroy the country from within.
Edmondson is among six current and former Oregon corrections officers who appear to have joined the militia.
The Oregon Department of Corrections said employees have constitutionally protected speech rights that include off-duty political speech.
“The speech interests of our employees, while significant, are not absolute and there are limitations, including for off-duty speech and/or conduct,” DOC spokesperson Jennifer Black said in a statement. She added speech could be an issue if it affects the department’s mission or “business interests.”
Ties to extremism
The Oath Keepers militia was founded by Army veteran and Yale Law School graduate Elmer Stewart Rhodes in 2009. The group recruits people with experience in law enforcement and the military to prepare for what the organization characterizes as an inevitable armed conflict with the U.S. government.
The organization has been involved in or planned a number of criminal and violent actions over the past decade, according to University of Albany Assistant Professor Sam Jackson, who wrote a book on the Oath Keepers.
“It’s really problematic if you have members of law enforcement saying, for example, that they’re not going to comply with federal court orders because they think those federal court orders are unconstitutional,” Jackson said.
The Oath Keepers gained national attention in 2014 when the group helped back Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy in an armed standoff with federal officers. Three months later, Lake Oswego police officer Vaughn Bechtol appears to have joined the organization. Bechtol is one of six Oregon law enforcement officers who joined in the months following the Bundy Ranch standoff, according to the hacked data.
"I read their mission statement at the time about military and law enforcement officers upholding their oath of office. I felt that lined up with my values,” Bechtol told OPB in an email. “As I did more research into the group after signing up, I realized they did NOT represent my values. I have never participated in any events, meetings, or discussions with any member of that group and I firmly stand against what they represent now after the atrocities of Jan. 6.”
Lake Oswego Police Department policies don’t explicitly mention militia groups but include multiple prohibitions against on- or off-duty behavior which would discredit the department.
“We expect our officers to share the responsibility of embodying our values while serving our community,” Assistant City Manager Madison Thesing said in a statement.
Thesing said violations of policy are investigated but did not specify if this incident would be.
“Some people might have joined Oath Keepers with a minimal understanding of the group,” Jackson said. “But if you had any real level of engagement with the group you would see their promotion of conspiracy theories, their calls to prepare for violence… Do we really want members of our law enforcement community to be absentmindedly joining civic organizations even if they ... aren’t a pernicious extremist organization like the Oath Keepers? I would hope that the people who we are entrusting with firearms and arrest privileges have better discernment than that.”
Oregon Oath Keepers also participated in another armed federal dispute in 2015 at Sugar Pine Mine in Southern Oregon.
Codiga is one of two Oregon law enforcement officers who joined around the time of the Sugar Pine Mine standoff, according to the data.
Core to the Oath Keepers’ ideology are a list of 10 hypothetical orders they say they will not obey, including any orders to disarm Americans, to force Americans into concentration camps, to invade any states, to support foreign peacekeepers on U.S. soil, or to subject civilians to military tribunals.
The group has been closely aligned with extremist causes since its inception following the election of Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president. Oath Keepers founding member and former board member Richard Mack is the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a group that believes county sheriffs are the highest government authority and have the right to ignore state and federal laws.
A number of Oregon sheriffs have aligned themselves with Mack’s movement over the years. In 2013, then-Linn County Sheriff Tim Mueller led eight other Oregon sheriffs in sending a letter to then-Vice President Joe Biden stating they would refuse to enforce any new federal gun laws. More recently, sheriffs from across the state took a page from Mack’s movement and told Gov. Kate Brown they would not enforce state mask mandates, though no state officials asked law enforcement to enforce COVID-19 health guidelines.
Some on the leaked list of Oregon officials, like Shobar and his former colleague, retired Coos County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Robert Kramer, joined the militia in 2013. At the time, local chapters in Southern Oregon were taking on community service projects and championing popular local political issues, according to High Country News.
“I’m into defending the country but not physically overthrowing it at this point,” Kramer told OPB, adding that he only went to one Oath Keepers meeting.
Kramer, who retired in 2018, said he didn’t like that people were “stepping outside of the legal bounds” on Jan. 6., and he said the attacks on law enforcement at the Capitol “cut me a bit.”
Though Kramer said he is no longer a member of the Oath Keepers and was never active in the group, his views line up with at least one of their core beliefs: The U.S. government is waging a war against its own citizens.
“I really do believe with this administration and what they’re doing, they’re trying to push us into some kind of civil war,” Kramer said. “And I think they want to do that so they can come down hard on us.”
Present threat
Oath Keepers in Oregon told Gov. Kate Brown in a 2019 Facebook post that she was risking a civil war after she ordered the Oregon State Police to bring back 11 Republican senators who had fled the statehouse to block climate change legislation from passing. That same month, militia threats forced the state Senate to close for a day.
Approximately 22 Oath Keepers have been charged for their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., though none of those people reside in Oregon. In the investigation’s largest single indictment, at least 18 Oath Keepers face conspiracy charges for their alleged role in plotting to thwart the certification of the Electoral College vote. Five have pleaded guilty and court documents suggest Rhodes, who hasn’t been charged, is a central focus of the investigation.
While some Oregon law enforcement officers joined the Oath Keepers years ago, the leaked data suggests others like Webber and retired Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office reserve deputy Todd Steward joined well after the militia group had firmly established itself and its views on the national stage.
Clackamas County Sheriff Angela Brandenburg told OPB she supports the state Legislature’s recently passed legislation HB 2936, which states “membership or participation in hate groups, racial supremacist organizations or militant groups erodes public trust in law enforcement officers and community safety.”
“The Legislature has made it clear to every law enforcement organization in the state that it is a conflict for law enforcement personnel to be a member or participate in these groups,” Brandenburg said. “My office will uphold this standard of conduct.”
Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell said officers have different backgrounds and life experiences. He said Webber’s potential membership in a militia is a reminder “that laws and our directives mandate that police do not act on any personal beliefs, but must uphold the Constitution at all times.”
Rep. Janelle Bynum was the chief sponsor of HB 2936, which strengthened law enforcement background checks and allows departments to check applicant social media accounts. But it’s not always possible to screen for something like membership in a militia organization.
“It’s not just a policing issue, it’s a community issue,” Bynum said. “What is an acceptable level of association with people who believe in white supremacy or racial superiority? The true change comes from within. Some of it you can mandate but not most of it.”
https://www.opb.org/article/2021/10/15/dozens-of-oregon-law-enforcement-officers-joined-far-right-oath-keepers-militia/
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More right wing disinformation. And when you resort to calling me names it proves you have no argument. Thumb1:
Suddenly no concern about an angry mob of "thugs" attacking police officers and forcing their way into a governmental building? Shocking. I'm sure it has nothing to do with political bias. Where are the videos and desire to "lock them up." The CNN headlines etc. LOL. Such hypocrisy.
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Accused Capitol rioter threatened his children with violence if they reported him to police: prosecutors
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Texas man charged with participating in the deadly Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot by supporters of former President Donald Trump threatened his teenage son and daughter with violence if they reported him to police, according to federal investigators.
Guy Reffitt, of Wylie, Texas, faces five federal criminal charges, including bringing guns to the Capitol and using physical force and the threat of physical force against his children to stop them from providing information to investigators.
U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich held a pretrial hearing in the case on Friday. Reffitt is jailed in Washington awaiting trial. During the riot, police used pepper spray to halt Reffitt outside the Capitol.
Prosecutors have subpoenaed his son, daughter and wife.
The FBI said in a criminal complaint that Reffitt after the riot told his son that he would "do what he had to do" if the son reported him to police, which the son interpreted as a threat to his life. The complaint also said Reffitt threatened to "put a bullet through" his daughter's cellphone.
The 18-year-old son told the New York Times that Reffitt told him: "You're a traitor. And you know what happens to traitors. Traitors get shot."
Prosecutors have said Reffitt traveled to Washington with an AR-15 rifle and a Smith & Wesson .40 caliber handgun. The complaint noted that his wife said Reffitt is a member of the "Three Percenters" right-wing militia.
Defense lawyer William Welch told the judge that Reffitt wants to go forward with a trial beginning Nov. 15 even though the prosecution said it is still going through mountains of evidence.
The rioters had sought to prevent the formal congressional certification of Trump's 2020 re-election loss.
Although Reffitt never actually entered the Capitol, prosecutors have said he charged at police officers on the stairs outside the building and that they "unsuccessfully tried to repel him" with nonlethal projectiles "before successfully halting his advances with pepper spray."
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/accused-us-capitol-rioter-threatened-his-children-prosecutors-say-2021-10-15/
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Capitol Siege Defendant Who Admitted Tasing Michael Fanone Files Court Documents Suggesting He Was ‘Acting Upon’ Donald Trump’s ‘Authorization’
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A defendant who admitted tasing Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone during the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol Complex has filed court papers that indicate he may seek to blame former president Donald Trump for what occurred. The documents also contain a 195-page transcript of an FBI interview where the defendant, who said he was a former Trump campaign volunteer, told agents he became radicalized by listening to InfoWars host Alex Jones.
Daniel Rodriguez is one of several defendants accused in the attack on Fanone. Rodriguez provided notice that he “may” assert a defense of “public authority.” That notice is a precursor to a possible argument at trial that he was acting “on behalf of” a “law enforcement agency or federal intelligence agency” when he stormed the Capitol and admittedly attacked Fanone. Thus, the documents tee up a possible defense but do not directly employ it.
Under federal procedural rules, Rodriguez’s notice was required to contain the following information:
(A) the law enforcement agency or federal intelligence agency involved;
(B) the agency member on whose behalf the defendant claims to have acted; and
(C) the time during which the defendant claims to have acted with public authority.
Accordingly, Rodriguez’s public defenders answered as follows:
(A) “The Executive Branch,”
(B) “Former President Donald Trump,” and
(C) the date of Jan. 6, 2021.
The defense lawyers also launched into a brief bit of advocacy involving the relevant law.
“It offends due process to convict an individual who was acting upon authorization of a government official,” Rodriguez’s counsel argued while addressing the relevant rule of criminal procedure at play (Rule 12.3, for those keeping track) and attempting to simultaneously link Trump to the siege. They then briefly cited the relevant case law:
The genesis of the authority defense is the decision in United States v. Barker, 546 F. 2d 940 (D.C. Cir. 1976).
In United States v. Barker, defendants were recruited to participate in a national security operation led by a White House official, whom the defendants had previously known as a CIA agent. Barker, 546 F.2d at 949. In reversing the defendants’ convictions, the appellate court carved out an exception to the mistake of law rule that would allow exoneration of a defendant who relied on authority. Id. at 947-49.
The defense noted that it was unclear in the Washington, D.C. Circuit how the “public authority” defense tactic may play out. The defense said it wished to at least assert the possible strategy “out of an abundance of caution” at this stage in the proceedings just in case they chose to pursue it.
The Defendant’s Purported Confession
A 195-page transcript of law enforcement interviews with Rodriguez indicates that the defendant confessed to tasing Fanone. His attorneys want the admission thrown out of court.
“I just came up to the steps again, and I saw them pulling him out, and I tased him,” Rodriguez said of the tug-of-war that left the D.C. officer (who, mind you, voted for Trump himself) fearing for his life.
Fanone was “dragged down the Capitol’s marble stairs, beaten with pipes and poles, tear-gassed and stun-gunned,” Time reported. He pleaded for his life when the crowd “threatened to shoot him with his own gun, telling the rioters he had kids.”
The officer suffered a mild heart attack allegedly triggered by Rodriguez’s stun gun, the Washington Post reported. He was knocked unconscious but survived to testify before Congress.
The transcripts reveal how the FBI pressed Rodriguez about what happened:
Q. How many times did you tase him?
A. Oh, just once.
Q. Where’d you tase him at? Like, on his body? Where?
A. Neck.
Q. In the neck? Did you do it twice?
A. No. No, for sure —
Q. Because the video shows it twice.
A. No. No. The video — if the video shows it twice, it’s a replay or something.
The defendant eventually called his own critical thinking skills into question when pressed further:
Q. The disparity is in between your story and what happened to Officer Fanone and what’s on video. I can show you the video of you tasering him twice.
A. It was not twice.
Q. I’ll show it to you in just a minute.
A. Show it to me, please.
Q. I will. But the disparity between what you’re saying happened, describing, oh, I’m such a benevolent man coming up to a poor officer who’s struggling to keep — to survive, thinking he’s going to die. Let me help him out. Let me taser him. Is that really the story you want to be written about you? Is that in all of my benevolence, I decided I was going to taser this man who is struggling for his life in that moment and thinking he’s going to die. Four daughters.
A. No. I wasn’t trying to kill him. I didn’t want him to die.
Q. Then, tell us what happened. Don’t leave the story be this crappy story that you’re telling us right now, that you were just there to help him and taser him.
A. No, I wasn’t — I was —
Q. Danny.
A. I’m not smart.
Q. Think about your mom.
A. . No. I’m just not smart. I’m not lying to you guys. I’m not lying (indiscernible).
Elsewhere, Rodriguez suggested that listening to InfoWars helped push him over the edge:
Q: What happened in your life? Like, how did you start going to these rallies?
A. InfoWars.
Q. InfoWars? So, like, Alex Jones stuff?
He expounded later in a veritable monologue:
I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that we were doing the wrong thing. I thought we were doing the fucking right thing. I thought we were going to be — I’m so stupid. I thought I was going to be awesome. I thought I was a good guy. I wanted to — you know, my whole life, I’ve been, oh, fuck the police. I really have.
And I started to be — I got involved — I came back from Arizona and I lived here and I — I came back home to California and I got involved with some of the — some bad people, some gang members and I start — I wanted to grow weed. I was growing weed. I got involved with the wrong people. I’m telling you, like, people — killers, like, tattoos all over their face, like, not good people.
And I was growing weed with them and I was like, yeah, this is cool. They all got low riders and this and that, and I was like, oh, this is that lifestyle that’s for me. But it wasn’t. I didn’t fit in. I’m a good person trying to — and I wanted to be a bad person, and it just didn’t work for me. And I kept getting robbed and they kept taking from me.
And then Trump — and I was listening to InfoWars and I was, like, getting patriotic and I was — and I ended up leaving all those people behind me and I ended up being homeless.
[ . . . ]
I was homeless and I went — and I called my mom and I told her I needed somewhere to stay. I needed to come back home and move in. And I was already — Trump was already, like — this is 2015, and I was already into InfoWars and Alex Jones, and he’s backing up Trump. And I’m like, all right, man. This is it. I’m going to — this is — I’m going to fight for this. I’m going to do — I want to do this.
Rodriguez elsewhere said he campaigned for Trump in the Whittier, Calif. area by manning telephones and going door to door.
The 195-page transcript was filed in court by Rodriguez’s own attorneys. They’re arguing that the FBI didn’t read Rodriguez his Miranda rights when they initially questioned him and that the FBI botched reading Rodriguez his rights when they finally chose to do so.
Rodriguez is charged with the following: one count of impeding, obstructing, or interfering with a law enforcement officer during the commission of a of civil disorder that obstructs an official proceeding; one count of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon; one count of theft of government property; one count of destruction of government property; and three slightly separate iterations of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building without lawful authority.
Click Link To Read the relevant documents below:
https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/capitol-siege-defendant-who-admitted-tasing-michael-fanone-files-court-documents-claiming-he-was-acting-upon-donald-trumps-authorization/
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Where are the updates on the leftists who stormed the Department of the Interior? Can our democracy survive that violent Biden insurrection?
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Trump melts down ahead of Jan. 6 committee vote on contempt charges for Bannon
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More hot air coming from an insignificant loser.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-statements-today/
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Republicans are living in a fantasy world if they think Trump wasn’t involved in Jan. 6: Washington Post reporter
Washington Post reporter Robert Costa thinks that there's no real way for Republicans to claim former President Donald Trump didn't have any involvement in the Jan. 6 rally and the riot that followed. The reason, he explained, is that Trump was actually involved.
Speaking to MSNBC on Tuesday, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) tried to blame the media for being "obsessed" with Trump, instead of acknowledging that the former president is being held accountable for his behavior.
Costa said that it's easy to simply "go back to the facts," in this case.
"Republicans can have their opinion, but the facts are very clear," he explained. "President Trump was intimately involved with planning the effort and coordinating the effort to block Biden's certification, to overturn the election. Many players around him in his inner circle, Dan Scavino, Steve Bannon, were working with him to try to block Biden's certification."
He cited his recent book with Bob Woodward, Peril, that is actually cited in subpoena documents, proving that Trump spoke over the phone to Bannon, Scavino and others on Jan. 5. Bannon also spoke to several members of Congress in a Washington hotel on Jan. 5.
"Whether you're a Republican or Democrat, you might choose to look away, but the facts still exist," Costa said. "Another point here, executive impressive privilege is not a guarantee. It is a modern phenomenon. When you look at U.S. v. Nixon during Watergate, presidents have been proven in the past to not have this kind of wholesale say over whether their documents or tapes are protected under the law. It's going to be really interesting to see what the Supreme Court does. Is an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, considering criminal activity and documents that need to be shared?"
The host suggested that one way that Republicans may learn that it's a serious issue is if Glenn Youngkin loses in the Virginia governor's race this year.
See the clip below:
https://www.rawstory.com/republican-trump-involved-january-6/
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Did I miss the updates and ersatz outrage at the radical liberals who stormed the Department of Interior just this week? When will there be investigations and impeachments?
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MAGA Domestic Terrorism
Trumpist Senators ‘Hid From Colleagues in Closet’ as Capitol Riot Raged Around Them
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tommy-tuberville-says-maga-senators-hid-from-colleagues-in-closet-as-capitol-riot-raged
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Nobody is above the law.
Jan. 6 committee votes to refer Bannon to DOJ for criminal prosecution
https://news.yahoo.com/january-6-committee-votes-to-refer-bannon-to-doj-for-criminal-prosecution-001519473.html
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Legal expert blasts GOP as ‘a pathetic and dangerous cult’ for whipping votes against Bannon criminal referral
House GOP Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) announced on Thursday that the Republican caucus would whip votes against holding Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon in contempt for refusing to cooperative with the congressional investigation of the Capitol riot.
On Tuesday, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol unanimously voted for a criminal referral of Bannon to the Department of Justice, setting up a floor vote.
"House GOP leaders are recommending a 'no' vote on the criminal contempt referral for Bannon, Scalise announced in conference this morning, per a source in the room. Not the same as a formal whip against the resolution, but it still shows GOP leaders leaning in hard against it," CNN's Melanie Zanona reported.
Harvard Law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe said the decision was not a surprise.
"No surprise there. Until the GOP becomes a genuine political party again and not just a pathetic and dangerous cult, it will continue to vote 'no' on every effort to restore truth and to prevent another coup and insurrection," Tribe said.
https://www.rawstory.com/steve-bannon-criminal-referrl/
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Trump supporter gets harsher sentence than DOJ recommended after making 'offensive' argument to judge
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A judge on Thursday slapped a Trump supporter with a harsher sentence than what the Department of Justice asked for after making what the judge described as an "offensive" argument.
BuzzFeed News reports that Troy Smocks, a Black Trump supporter who encouraged his fellow Trump fans to "prepare our weapons" and "go hunting" for Democrats on right-wing social media website Parler, was sentenced to 14 months in prison by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
Smocks tried to argue to Chutkan, who is also Black, that he is being treated unfairly due to the color of his skin.
"Smocks told Chutkan that he believed he had been treated more harshly than white Trump supporters who were charged with misdemeanor crimes for going into the Capitol," writes BuzzFeed. "He claimed to be the only Black person charged in connection with Jan. 6 to face pretrial detention, but Chutkan noted that wasn't true."
Smocks travelled to Washington D.C. on January 6th but was not charged with taking part in the Capitol riots.
Smocks then compared himself to civil rights protesters in the 1960s who were arrested for protesting against segregation -- and at this point, Chutkan stepped in and said his arguments were "offensive."
"People died fighting for civil rights, people were gassed, they were beaten, they were tortured mentally and physically," Chutkan told him. "For you to hold yourself up as a soldier in that fight is really quite audacious."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-supporter-sentenced/
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Liz Cheney catches fellow GOP Rep. Jim Banks in a deceptive Jan. 6 plot
Liz Cheney publicly called out her fellow Republican congressman for lying on Thursday.
Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., was caught red-handed by Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, sending letters to federal agencies claiming he was the ranking GOP member on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. In fact, Banks was rejected from serving on the committee because he voted to overturn election results — a demand made by violent rioters that day.
Cheney, the committee's vice-chair, called Banks out for his blatant falsehood as she entered his misleading letters into the official Congressional record.
"I would like to introduce for the record a number of letters the gentlemen from Indiana has been sending to federal agencies, dated September 16, 2021, for example, signing his name as the ranking member of the committee he's just informed the House that he's not on," Cheney said during a Thursday speech from the House floor.
Banks was apparently attempting to deceive federal agencies into revealing information that was shared with the committee.
In one of the letters to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Banks asked that the department "provide me any information that is submitted to the Select Committee."
"Additionally, please include me on any update or briefing that you provide," he continued.
The legal justification Banks appears to be using centers around the idea that he was at one point nominated by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to serve as the committee's ranking Republican member — and an assertion the "minority party in Congress retains rights to the same information that is provided to the majority party."
Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately rejected both Banks' placement and that of Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, over their stated intentions of stonewalling any investigation into the events of Jan. 6. At the time, Pelosi cited widespread dismay among Democrats due to the "statements made and actions taken by these members."
Both Banks and Jordan voted to overturn election results in several states on the evening of Jan. 6 — and continue to support Trump's Big Lie to varying degrees.
https://www.rawstory.com/cheney-banks/
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Two North Carolina lawmakers linked to Oath Keepers -- is this who Republicans want to be?
North Carolina Republicans tried to distance themselves from the type of radical extremism that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But a leaked membership roster reveals that at least two state lawmakers are affiliated with the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militant group whose members are among those charged in connection to the Capitol insurrection.
North Carolina Reps. Mike Clampitt, a Republican from Bryson City, and Keith Kidwell, a Republican from coastal Beaufort County, are both listed as members of the group, according to ProPublica. Clampitt was elected to the state legislature for one term in 2016 and then again in 2020. Kidwell has served since 2019, and is the House deputy majority whip. Clampitt and Kidwell joined the Oath Keepers in 2014 and 2012, respectively, ProPublica’s analysis showed.
That information should concern every North Carolinian. The Oath Keepers are one of the country’s largest anti-government extremist groups, whose self-described mission is to defend the Constitution. In practice, that looks like armed standoffs with authorities and, of course, participating in storming the U.S. Capitol. The organization is a threat, and that’s not just our opinion; it’s the FBI’s, which has described the Oath Keepers as a “large but loosely organized collection of militia who believe that the federal government has been co-opted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights.”
Anyone who identifies as an Oath Keeper or member of any anti-government paramilitary group has no place in elected office. So why aren’t Republicans coming out and saying so?
The revelation that state lawmakers would belong to such a group is alarming, if not entirely surprising. Some Republicans in the state legislature have previously shown a willingness to rub elbows with the far right — such as when Kidwell and other legislators met with the North Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans in 2019, for example — but for lawmakers to be members of these groups themselves is additionally concerning.
Kidwell also serves as chairman of the newly reorganized House Freedom Caucus, which has propagated theories of voter fraud in the 2020 election. During the 2021-22 session, Kidwell has introduced legislation such as a bill to allow concealed carry by elected officials at the legislature, a bill to allow certain faculty and school staff to carry weapons on school grounds and a bill called the “Second Amendment Preservation Act.”
Clampitt stands by his Oath Keepers affiliation, according to ProPublica. Clampitt appears to be a Confederate sympathizer who has previously supported legislation to repeal the portion of the state’s constitution that prohibits secession.
Kidwell did not comment on the inclusion of his name on the roster, but said he doesn’t think the information should be in the public domain, according to an article published jointly by Raw Story and Triad City Beat. Kidwell, Clampitt and House Speaker Tim Moore did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this editorial.
The Oath Keeper revelations are one piece of a larger, more worrisome trend. In addition to Clampitt and Kidwell, ProPublica’s analysis identified 46 other state and local government officials on the Oath Keepers roster. Far-right groups aren’t just on the fringes of politics anymore. Slowly but surely, they’re making their way to the mainstream, emboldened by politicians who give legitimacy to their conspiracies whether they belong to these groups or not.
It’s hard for Republicans to distance themselves from the Capitol rioters when members of their own party belong to a militant group — and when their baseless claims about election fraud helped incite the riots in the first place. Both Kidwell and Clampitt have said they don’t condone violence, but those are empty words when they’ve aligned themselves with a vigilante group that thinks violence is the path to justice.
This is a tipping point for North Carolina Republicans, who have, for the most part, avoided the level of election fraud conspiracy we’ve seen in states like Arizona and Pennsylvania. But that’s changing notably with Madison Cawthorn, and having two North Carolina lawmakers belong to Oath Keepers without so much as a “that’s not who we are” statement from leadership is exactly the kind of normalization that should alarm North Carolinians. There’s a fine line between party loyalty and complicity. Republicans need to decide which side of it they want to be on.
https://www.rawstory.com/editorial-2-north-carolina-lawmakers-linked-to-oath-keepers-is-this-who-republicans-want-to-be/
Oath Keepers in the State House: How a militia movement took root in the Republican mainstream
North Carolina state representative Mike Clampitt swore an oath to uphold the Constitution after his election in 2016 and again in 2020. But there's another pledge that Clampitt said he's upholding: to the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militant organization.
Dozens of Oath Keepers have been arrested in connection to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, some of them looking like a paramilitary group, wearing camo helmets and flak vests. But a list of more than 35,000 members of the Oath Keepers — obtained by an anonymous hacker and shared with ProPublica by the whistleblower group Distributed Denial of Secrets — underscores how the organization is evolving into a force within the Republican Party.
ProPublica identified Clampitt and 47 more state and local government officials on the list, all Republicans: 10 sitting state lawmakers; two former state representatives; one current state assembly candidate; a state legislative aide; a city council assistant; county commissioners in Indiana, Arizona and North Carolina; two town aldermen; sheriffs or constables in Montana, Texas and Kentucky; state investigators in Texas and Louisiana; and a New Jersey town's public works director.
ProPublica's analysis also found more than 400 people who signed up for membership or newsletters using government, military or political campaign email addresses, including candidates for Congress and sheriff, a retired assistant school superintendent in Alabama, and an award-winning elementary school teacher in California.
Three of the state lawmakers on the list had already been publicly identified with the Oath Keepers. Other outlets have alsoscouredthelist, finding police officers and military veterans.
People with law enforcement and military backgrounds — like Clampitt, a retired fire captain in Charlotte, North Carolina — have been the focus of the Oath Keepers' recruiting efforts since the group started in 2009. According to researchers who monitor the group's activities, Oath Keepers pledge to resist if the federal government imposes martial law, invades a state or takes people's guns, ideas that show up in a dark swirl of right-wing conspiracy theories. The group is loosely organized and its leaders do not centrally issue commands. The organization's roster has ballooned in recent years, from less than 10,000 members at the start of 2011 to more than 35,000 by 2020, membership records show.
The hacked list marks participants as annual ($50) or lifetime ($1,000) members, so not everyone on the list is currently active, though some said they viewed it as a lifelong commitment even if they only paid for one year. Many members said they had little contact with the group after sending in their dues but still supported the cause. Others drifted away and disavowed the group, even before Jan. 6.
The list also includes at least three people who were arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and who federal prosecutors did not identify as Oath Keepers in charging documents: Andrew Alan Hernandez of Riverside, California; Dawn Frankowski of Naperville, Illinois; and Sean David Watson of Alpine, Texas. They pleaded not guilty. These defendants, their attorneys and family members didn't respond to requests for comment. The Justice Department also declined to comment.
According to experts who monitor violent extremism, the Oath Keepers' broadening membership provides the group with two crucial resources: money and, particularly when government officials get involved, legitimacy.
Clampitt said he went to a few Oath Keepers meetings when he joined back in 2014, but the way he participates now is by being a state legislator. He has co-sponsored a bill to allow elected officials to carry concealed guns in courthouses, schools and government buildings, and he supported legislation stiffening penalties for violent demonstrations in response to last year's protests in Raleigh over George Floyd's murder. Clampitt said he opposes violence but stood by his Oath Keepers affiliation, despite the dozens of members charged in the Capitol riot.
“Five or six years ago, politicians wouldn't be caught dead hanging out with Oath Keepers, you'd have to go pretty fringe," said Jared Holt, who monitors the group for the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab. “When groups like that become emboldened, it makes them significantly more dangerous."
The State Lawmakers
Then-state Delegate Don Dwyer from Maryland was the only elected official at the Oath Keepers' first rally, back in April 2009. Dwyer was, by his own account, a pariah in Annapolis, but he was building a national profile as a conservative firebrand. He claimed to take direction from his own interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and a personal library of 230 books about U.S. history pre-1900.
The Oath Keepers' founder, a former Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate named Stewart Rhodes, invited Dwyer to speak at the group's kickoff rally — they called it a “muster" — in Lexington, Massachusetts, the site of the “shot heard round the world" that started the Revolutionary War in 1775.
“I still support the cause," Dwyer told ProPublica. “And I'm proud to say that I'm a member of that organization." He left politics in 2015 and served six months in prison for violating his probation after a drunk boating accident.
Dwyer said he was not aware of the Oath Keeper's presence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. “If they were there, they were there on a peaceful mission, I'm sure of it," he said. Informed that members were photographed wearing tactical gear, Dwyer responded, “OK, that surprises me. That's all I'll say."
Among the current officeholders on the list is Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem, who was already publicly identified with the Oath Keepers. Finchem was outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 but has said he did not enter the building or engage in violence, and he has disputed the characterization of the Oath Keepers as an anti-government group. He is currently running to be Arizona's top elections official, and he won former President Donald Trump's endorsement in September.
Serving with Clampitt in the North Carolina assembly, deputy majority whip Keith Kidwell appeared on the Oath Keepers list as an annual member in 2012. Kidwell declined to comment, calling the membership list “stolen information." A spokesperson for the state house speaker declined to comment on Kidwell's and Clampitt's Oath Keepers affiliation.
The membership list also names Alaska state Rep. David Eastman as a life member and Indiana state Sen. Scott Baldwin and Georgia state Rep. Steve Tarvin as annual members. Eastman confirmed his membership and declined to answer further questions. Baldwin's spokesperson said he was unavailable to comment.
Tarvin recalled signing up at a booth in White County, Georgia, in 2009 when he was running for Congress. He lost that race but later became a state lawmaker. He didn't view the Oath Keepers as a militia group back then.
Tarvin said he stands by the pledge he signed and said he isn't aware of the Oath Keepers' involvement in the Capitol breach on Jan 6. His congressional district is now represented by Andrew Clyde, who helped barricade a door to the House chamber on Jan. 6 but later compared the riot to a “normal tourist visit."
Kaye Beach, who is listed as an annual member in 2010, is a legislative assistant to Oklahoma state Rep. Jon Echols, the majority floor leader. Beach sued the state in 2011, arguing that the Bible prohibited taking a driver's license photo of her. She eventually lost at the state supreme court. Beach and Echols did not respond to requests for comment.
Two other lawmakers have long been public about their affiliation with the Oath Keepers.
Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers announced her membership a few years ago. She responded to Trump's 2020 loss by encouraging people to buy ammo and recently demanded to “decertify" the election based on the GOP's “audit" of Maricopa County ballots, even though the partisan review confirmed President Joe Biden's win.
Idaho state Rep. Chad Christensen lists his Oath Keepers membership on his official legislative biography, in between the John Birch Society and the Idaho Farm Bureau.
Rogers and Christensen didn't respond to requests for comment.
South Dakota state legislator Phil Jensen appeared on the list as an annual member in 2014, using his title (then state senator) and government email address. His affiliation was reported Tuesday by Rolling Stone. He did not respond to a request for comment.
South Dakota state Sen. Jim Stalzer, listed as an annual member in 2015, told Buzzfeed he has “totally broken" with the Oath Keepers.
The Candidates
Virginia Fuller first encountered the Oath Keepers in 2009 at a meeting in San Francisco featuring Rhodes, the group's founder. Fuller liked Rhodes' message of upholding the Constitution, she told ProPublica. For a while she corresponded with one of the group's leaders but they eventually lost touch, and she moved to Florida and ran unsuccessfully for Congress on the Republican ticket in 2018.
Rhodes and other leaders of the Oath Keepers embraced Trump's lies about election fraud and promoted Jan. 6 as a last chance to make a stand for the republic. Asked about Jan. 6, Fuller said, “There was nothing wrong with that. The Capitol belongs to the people."
The Oath Keepers rose to prominence when handfuls of heavily armed members showed up at racial justice protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, and their profile grew thanks to a series of standoffs between right-wing militants and federal agents in the Western U.S.
At the 2016 funeral for a rancher who officers shot while trying to arrest him, Stan Vaughan met several Oath Keepers and became an annual member. Vaughan, a one-time chess champion from Las Vegas, ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the Nevada State Assembly in 2016, 2018 and 2020. Even though Vaughan ran in a predominantly Democratic district, he had the support of his party's establishment, receiving a $500 campaign contribution from Robin Titus, the Assembly's Republican floor leader. Titus did not respond to requests for comment. Vaughan said he'll probably run again once he sees how new districts are drawn.
Vaughan said he wouldn't join the Oath Keepers today. It's not their ideology that bothers him or their involvement in the Jan. 6 riot. Rather, he said he has concerns about how the group's leaders spend its money.
One Oath Keeper seen on Jan. 6 wearing an earpiece and talking with group leaders outside the Capitol was Edward Durfee, a local Republican committee member in Bergen County, New Jersey, who is running for state assembly in a predominantly Democratic district. Durfee has not been charged and said he did not enter the building.
“They were caught up in the melee, what else can I say? For whatever reason, I didn't go in," Durfee said. “They brand you as white supremacists, domestic terrorists. I don't know how we got in this mix where there's so much hatred and so much dislike and how it continues to get fomented. It's just shameful actually."
The Local Party Officials
When Joe Marmorato, a retired New York City cop who moved upstate, signed up for an Oath Keepers annual membership in 2013, he described the skills he could offer the group: “Pistol Shooting, police street tactics, driving skills, County Republican committee member." Marmorato later rose to vice chairman of the Otsego County GOP, but he recently resigned that post because he's moving. Reached by phone, Marmorato stood by the Oath Keepers, even after Jan. 6. “I just thought they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. I know most of them are all retired police and firemen and have the best interests of the country in mind," he said. “No matter what you do, you're vilified by the left."
Steven K. Booth, a twice-elected Republican county commissioner and state senate candidate in Minnesota in the 2000s, said he wants to run for office again if his wife agrees to it. He's still active in the local GOP. Booth joined the Oath Keepers as an annual member in 2011 and said he hasn't heard from them in years. He said he wasn't aware of their role in Jan. 6 but he's concerned that some Capitol breach defendants are being held in jail. “That seems kind of weird to me," Booth said. “I also think it's kind of weird that nobody is doing anything about all the fraud we were told about in the last election either."
Asked about the possibility of Booth running for office again, local GOP chair Rich Siegert started talking through openings Booth could aim for. Booth's Oath Keepers affiliation did not give Siegert pause. “When tyranny comes, that's when you stop and say you've got to do something about it," said Siegert, who heads the party in northern Minnesota's Beltrami County. “To go out and get violent and kill people like they did in the early days, I'm not really in favor of that. How do you get the attention of liberals and get them to listen? Firing guns, I don't know, it's what they do in some countries. Define what 'radical' is."
Not all party officials shared Siegert's view. Richland County, South Carolina, GOP chair Tyson Grinstead distanced his committee from Patsy Stewart, who is listed as an Oath Keepers annual member in 2015. “Personally," Grinstead said, “I don't think there's a place for that in our party."
Stewart has been a delegate or alternate to the GOP state convention and is currently a party precinct officer in Columbia, South Carolina. She didn't respond to requests for comment. In recent months, Trump supporters have flooded into precinct positions in South Carolina and other states as part of an organized movement inspired by the stolen election myth, ProPublica reported in September.
The Poll Worker
When Andy Maul signed up for the Oath Keepers as an annual member around 2010, he touted his role in the Pittsburgh GOP. Maul, who declined to comment, became the chairman of his city council district starting around 2016. But other local party leaders chafed at Maul's confrontational style and lack of follow-through.
“Andy was getting a little out there," said Allegheny County chairman Sam DeMarco, who had to ask Maul to take down some of his inflammatory social media posts. “If you want to be associated with our committee, you have to represent mainstream traditional Republican values and not be affiliated with fringe groups."
Maul left the local party committee in 2020, but he continued serving as a poll worker. According to the county elections department, Maul was the “judge of elections" in charge of his precinct in every election since 2017, including this year's primary in May.
In Pennsylvania, the judge of elections in every precinct is an elected position. If no one runs, as often happens, the local elections office appoints someone to fill in, so a person can sometimes land the job “if you have a pulse and you call them," said Bob Hillen, the Pittsburgh Republican chairman.
“If I opposed people based on their views for being a judge of elections or anything, that would eliminate a whole lot of people," Hillen said. “I'm a city chairman, I don't have time to think about all those things like that."
The Democrat
Around 2005, Marine veteran Bob Haran joined the Minuteman Project, a group of armed people who took it upon themselves to patrol Arizona's border with Mexico. Haran resented that critics called the group vigilantes and Mexican hunters. All they did, he said, was call the Border Patrol.
Haran held positions in the local GOP and had run for the state House as a Republican. During the tea party wave, Haran became frustrated with the new activists' anti-government tilt and turned to the Constitution Party, a minor party that's to the right of the GOP. Haran rose to be the state chairman and secretary. By the time he became an Oath Keepers annual member in 2016, Haran was looking for a new political home.
When Trump rode down a golden escalator to launch his presidential campaign by calling Mexican immigrants “rapists," Haran took offense. He faulted the government for failing to secure the border, but he didn't blame people for seeking better lives for themselves and their families. Haran grew up in Coney Island, near a middle-class apartment complex built by Trump's father, and he remembered Trump as a braggadocious playboy, not as the successful self-made businessman he later played on TV. Haran said he was appalled as Republicans fell in line behind Trump.
Then, Haran did something unusual, even among never-Trump Republicans: He became a Democrat.
Haran doesn't agree with the Democrats on everything, but he said he feels welcome in the party. He's still passionate about guns and immigration, but he also supports environmental protections and universal health care. Above all, he wanted to help get rid of Trump. In 2020, he joined his local precinct committee and started regularly attending party meetings.
Haran was so excited to see Trump leave office that he tuned in to watch the Electoral College certification process on Jan. 6. He couldn't believe how fast the Trump supporters reached the Senate floor, or how Oath Keepers were attacking the Constitution they swore to defend.
Haran thought back to when he ran for office as a Republican, in 2000, and lost. “I called my opponent and congratulated him: I would have won except he got more votes," Haran said. “I conceded, which is bestowing legitimacy on my opponent, which is more important than anything."
He finds it disturbing that Trump and other Republicans today won't do that anymore. “They were anti-government," Haran said of the GOP, “but now they're being anti-democracy."
https://www.rawstory.com/minnesota-oath-keepers/
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MAGA rioter who boasted he was 'invincible' gets arrested after being ratted out by fellow insurrectionist
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A Capitol rioter who said he wasn't worried about getting caught by the FBI because he was wearing a mask throughout the insurrection has been arrested.
Landon Mitchell was identified by a former co-worker who accompanied him to the Capitol, Luke Wessley Bender.
Bender was arrested in July after a high school classmate tipped off the FBI.
"On Jan. 6, Landon Mitchell bragged to a Facebook friend that he 'breached the Capitol' and was 'one of the very first in' when a pro-Trump mob stormed the halls of Congress. He appeared in video on the floor of the U.S. Senate, went through a senator's desk and took to the dais, where he posed next to the so-called QAnon Shaman," the Huffington Post reports. "Later, when a friend feared that the FBI might arrest Mitchell, he wrote that he was 'invincible' and 'not too worried' because he 'was masked up the whole time' he was inside the Capitol."
Mitchell later bragged to another friend that he appeared in footage from the insurrection that was published by the New Yorker magazine — but he said only the back of his head was visible.
"Thank God for giving me the foresight to put my mask up," he wrote, according to a criminal complaint.
Mitchell also posted photos and videos of himself inside the Senate chamber on Facebook.
When discussing his presence within the Capitol on January 6, Mitchell stated that 'people are fed up with how crooked the government has been and they pretty much been laughing at us thinking we wouldn't do anything about it,'" the complaint states. "He continued, "we[']re not happy. They learned that today.'"
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-arrests-2655330879/
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Republicans are anti American and Pro Insurrection. They are now asking for help to fund these thugs who tried to overthrow the US Government. "Good families" don't try to overthrow the US Government.
Minnesota Republican seeks financial support for two men charged in Jan. 6 Capitol attack: 'They are a good family!'
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A GOP state senator on Friday asked his Facebook followers to donate to the legal defense fund of a family facing felony charges in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
State Sen. Mark Koran, R-North Branch, shared the link to an online fundraiser organized by Rosemarie Westbury, whose husband and son, Robert Westbury and Isaac Westbury, were charged earlier this month with several counts of civil disorder and assaulting a police officer with a deadly weapon, among other charges. Another family member, Jonah Westbury, was also charged in connection with the storming of the Capitol.
“Here's a local family in Lindstrom who can use some help," Koran wrote. “They attended the Jan 6th Rally and have been accused and charged with a variety of crimes. Some very serious and some which seem to be just to punish opposing views."
He added: “They are a good family!"
Koran did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on his fundraising plea.
A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller, R-Winona, also did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.
Koran's defense of the alleged Lindstrom rioters stands in stark contrast to Minnesota Republicans' frequent law-and-order message, as well as their condemnations of people who destroyed property during the demonstrations and rioting that followed the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020.
Koran was among Republicans who supported enhanced penalties for people charged with attempted murder of a police officer.
Koran, who ran unsuccessfully earlier this year for chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, has not dispelled false assertions that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Pressed by the Reformer last summer on whether President Joe Biden was duly elected, he said: “He's been inserted as the president."
Rosemarie Westbury wrote that her family “is being targeted by this illigitimate (sic), tyrannical government."
So far, she has raised $200 of her $50,000 goal. “We have an attorney who is willing to stand up for us, but this isn't going to be an inexpensive endeavor."
According to the charging documents, Isaac Westbury and Aaron James, another person charged in the case, used a police shield to “forcibly assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate and interfere" with an officer. They are also charged with carrying a dangerous weapon into the U.S. Capitol as they allegedly tried to “impede the orderly conduct of government business and official functions."
To date, eight Minnesotans have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
https://www.rawstory.com/gop-state-senator-says-men-charged-in-jan-6-capitol-are-good-family-and-need-financial-support/
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As new evidence emerges it has been revealed that Donald Trump's inner circle and MAGA GOP members of Congress were all involved in the planning of Donald Trump's insurrection and coup attempt. These anti American traitors will go to prison for treason against the United States when it's all said and done. It's hitting the fan folks!
Republican Paul Gosar told Jan. 6 rioters they'd get a blanket pardon from Trump: report
https://www.rawstory.com/paul-gosar-linked-capitol/
Mark Meadows was a 'regular figure' on Jan. 6 planning calls with organizers: report
https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-involved-jan-6-organizing/
Katrina Pierson served as liaison between Jan. 6 insurrectionists and the White House: report
https://www.rawstory.com/katrina-pierson-linked-jan6/
Pro-Trump activists reveal Republican elected officials who participated in planning of Jan. 6 rallies: report
https://www.rawstory.com/insurrectionists-reveal-republican-involved-jan-6/
This mother-daughter duo planned the Jan. 6 rally. Now the House committee wants to hear from them, too.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/10/24/january-6-rally-organizers-called-before-congressional-committee/8536515002/?gnt-cfr=1
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More evidence of the GOP planned and coordinated 1/6 attempted coup and insurrection.
Legal expert says this is the ‘clearest case for prosecuting’ Trump for the Jan. 6 attack
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-capitol-riot-2655365155/
‘Folks knew crimes were about to be committed’: Dem lawmakers furious over Republicans’ involvement in Jan. 6
https://www.rawstory.com/folks-knew-crimes-were-about-to-be-committed-dem-lawmakers-furious-over-republicans-involvement-in-jan-6/
'Call your lawyer': Legal experts weigh in on bombshell report naming GOPers involved in Jan. 6 rally planning
https://www.rawstory.com/just-three-words-call-your-lawyer-legal-experts-weigh-in-on-bombshell-report-naming-republicans-involved-in-jan-6/
Marjorie Taylor Greene fumes after explosive report links her to Jan. 6 ‘Stop the Steal’ rally
https://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-capitol-riot-2655365687/
MAGA rioter's lawyer says he didn't plan to take part in violence despite wearing tactical gear to Capitol
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-court-hearing/
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Trump-loving lawmakers must be investigated for assisting Capitol rioters -- because they clearly had inside help: columnist
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The U.S. Department of Justice must investigate reports that members of Congress and their staffers had extensive contacts with two organizers of the "Stop the Steal" rallies that preceded the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The organizers claim they met directly with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and staffers for Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Madison Cawthorne (R-NC) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and justice correspondent Elie Mystal wrote in The Nation that the Justice Department must determine what role any of them might have played in coordinating the deadly riot.
"The Department of Justice should be leading the criminal investigation into the attack on the Capitol," Mystal wrote. "That is the entity that can not merely catalog but actually punish the insurrectionists."
Congress has a constitutional duty to subpoena documents and testimony about the riots to help pass new laws to ensure another attack cannot happen, but only the Justice Department can hold the conspirators accountable -- and so far, Mystal argued, they have not.
"We know the Justice Department is shirking its responsibilities and leaving Congress to do all the heavy lifting, because we have a good idea of whom its investigators haven't interviewed," he wrote. "There is no credible way to investigate the events of January 6 unless investigators talk to key players like Steve Bannon, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and others in the Trump orbit (like Don Jr.) who may have played a role in planning the event. Any investigation that was seriously committed to getting to the truth would have already interviewed Mike Pence, key congresspeople's staffs, and the congresspeople who had telephone conversations with Trump on the day of the coup attempt."
It's clear the department hasn't gone after those individuals because they haven't gone on Fox News to complain, and Mystal said investigators must learn who helped plot the insurrection because it's obvious that someone in the know gave that assistance.
"The failure of the DOJ to investigate the planning of the putsch is all the more shameful given the publicly available evidence that the insurrectionists may have had help on the inside," Mystal wrote.
Some of the rioters were straight the Senate parliamentarian's office, which is difficult to find without directions, and ransacked the place with a specific goal in mind.
"The insurrectionists somehow got there and began looking for the hard copies of the electoral votes that Congress was meant to certify that day," Mystal wrote. "Had they gotten their hands on those votes, even for a moment, they would have broken the chain of custody of the Electoral College count and at least delayed the certification of the election, as was their goal."
https://www.rawstory.com/jan-6-insurrection/
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FBI takes custody of noose from MAGA riot gallows
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On Tuesday, NBC4's Scott MacFarlane, the chief reporter covering the trials of the January 6 Capitol insurrectionists, reported that the FBI has taken custody of the noose from the makeshift gallows set up outside the Capitol during the MAGA riots.
@MacFarlaneNews: "The noose from the gallows erected near US Capitol on January 6 is in the possession of the FBI Washington field office, per multiple law enforcement sources."
As the gallows was put out, some of the rioters chanted "Hang Mike Pence." The former vice president, as with most officials, had to be evacuated promptly.
An earlier report in April detailed the planning that went into these shows of force, with people on the message board TheDonald.win, debating whether to bring gallows or guillotines to erect outside of the Capitol.
MacFarlane's report comes amid news of ongoing prosecution of several of the rioters, with Thomas Sibick of Buffalo — accused of stealing the badge and radio from D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone — facing a hearing over pre-trial detention on Tuesday.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-gallows/
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This MAGA insurrectionist is tired of sitting in jail so now she wants to sing a different tune. These loons are pathetic.
'Sovereign citizen' who stormed Capitol tells judge she only blew up in court because she was under a lot of stress
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On Wednesday, NBC4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane reported that Pauline Bauer, a so-called "sovereign citizen" who was jailed ahead of trial for her involvement in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, is now seeking for an appeals court to release her from pre-trial detention.
Bauer, a pizzeria owner from Pennsylvania, is accused of shouting "Bring Nancy Pelosi out here now. We want to hang that f*cking b*tch. Bring her out," while forcing her way into the Capitol with the crowd. She was kept in prison after outbursts in court, proclaiming to the judge that the court has "no dominion over a living soul," and that "I have a right to my self-determination!" She has also delivered lengthy, typo-ridden manifestos to the court proclaiming she had a right to be in the Capitol, and has called searches of her home "illegal."
Now, she is taking a different strategy: telling the court that she was under stress when she did all those things.
"When Ms. Bauer appeared before the Court on September 17, she had been working multiple days in a row, putting in 14 to 16 hours days [sic] and was suffering from lack of sleep," said the filing. "Ms. Bauer has also been receiving ugly hate mail ... Counsel respectfully requests that the Court take these circumstances into consideration and release Ms. Bauer to return to her productive and generous activities."
The "Sovereign Citizens" are a loose-knit movement of far-right activists who believe that the U.S. government, and most of its laws, are illegitimate, and that they alone have the right to decide what laws, taxes, and other functions of civil society apply to them. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the movement has roots in a racist and anti-Semitic Christian Identity group that believed nonwhite people are non-human and county sheriffs are the highest-ranking legitimate government authority. Its adherents have been linked to terrorist acts.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-pauline-bauer-2655396690/
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And more and more new evidence of Trump's coup.
New video of pro-Trump lawyer is 'completely damning': legal expert
https://www.rawstory.com/john-eastman-coup-memo-2655406354/
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Capitol cop resigns after being accused of aiding MAGA rioter
On Friday, POLITICO reported that Michael Riley, the Capitol Police officer facing charges for his alleged role in obstructing the investigation of the January 6 Capitol riot, has resigned from the force.
"Riley, who was suspended after federal prosecutors indicted him earlier this month, allegedly urged a participant in the Capitol breach — just days after the attack — to delete incriminating social media posts. He later deleted his own messages with the alleged rioter, who was arrested in January, about two weeks after Jan. 6," reported Kyle Cheney. "Riley was arrested on Oct. 15 and suspended. He has pleaded not guilty to the two counts of obstruction. Riley's legal team, from the D.C. firm Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, confirmed his resignation and indicated he plans to fight the charges."
His attorneys told POLITICO, "[T]he evidence will show that it is not a felony for one person to suggest to another that they take down ill-conceived Facebook posts."
In addition to this Capitol officer, a number of current and former military and law enforcement from around the country have been implicated in the attack, with some defiant and unrepentant about their roles. One of the groups involved in the attack is the Oath Keepers, an extremist organization that radicalizes law enforcement to far-right causes.
https://www.rawstory.com/michael-riley-capitol-police/
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Expert: Jailing Capitol rioters together could lead to a new 'American terror group'
In a column for the Daily Beast, former CIA counterterrorism analyst Aki Peritz warned federal authorities to separate accused Capitol rioters while they are being held in custody pending court appearances lest they start planning another insurrection as part of a newly-formed domestic terrorist group.
Noting reports that accused insurrectionists are being held a separate unit from the other inmates D.C. Correctional Treatment Facility where they reportedly are singing the National Anthem together as well as publishing their own jailhouse newsletter, Peritz, the author of "Disruption: Inside the Largest Counterterrorism Investigation in History," explained that raises serious concerns for him.
"These seemingly small, communal actions of incarcerated men awaiting trial are exactly how other radical groups organized and forged their identity in prisons. Some of these groups then became effective forces that have challenged armies and governments," he explained before adding, "...by mixing the hardcore ideologues with others who may be wavering in their anti-democratic feelings under adverse conditions—and by not giving them an offramp for their beliefs—the D.C. jail might inadvertently be the petri dish for a future American terror group."
Writing that prisons have long been "incubators" for terrorist groups, the counter-terrorism expert claimed they are likely to unleash a wave of terror once released -- and therefore will need to be monitored.
"Radical groups even exploit prison sentences as symbolic acts in their greater struggles. A jail sentence paradoxically provides a degree of gravitas to a subset of individuals, easing their way to recruit new people on the outside to the cause," he elaborated. "Which brings us back to the Jan. 6 insurrectionists in the D.C. jail. Some indeed might have realized the error of their ways. But those who might want to turn away from Jan. 6-style radicalization in the D.C. jail may be at greater risk inside the facility, since they are housed with the people dedicated to deepening their ideological commitment."
Warning that it unlikely D.C. jailers are "monitoring the Jan. 6 folks' activities," Peritz added, "It's hard for a radical ideology to exist for long without committed human infrastructure. But we've seen that multiple federal politicians publicly support the insurrectionists, calling them 'political hostages' who are being 'persecuted" for their beliefs.'"
He then added a cautionary, "Thus, between the identities strengthened inside a correctional facility, and the obvious slice of political support outside it, we may be seeing the emergence of a new, radical group—with a national network and skilled ideological operatives—ready to menace the streets of America in the years to come."
https://www.rawstory.com/captol-rioter-domestic-terrorists/
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REVEALED: Kayleigh McEnany's binders of notes among documents Trump is trying to keep from House riot committee
According to a report from Politico, the National Archives revealed more specifics on which documents former president Donald Trump is attempting to keep away from the House select committee investigating the Jan 6th insurrection.
In a Saturday morning court filing, the list includes former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany's talking point notes along with call logs of Trump's phone calls and notes taken by aides.
As Politico's Kyle Cheney wrote, "... the former president has sought to block about 750 pages out of nearly 1,600 identified by officials as relevant to the Jan. 6 investigation. Among them are hundreds of pages from 'multiple binders of the former press secretary [Kayleigh McEnany] which is made up almost entirely of talking points and statements related to the 2020 election.'"
Pointing out that Trump is also trying to block the release of "daily presidential diaries, drafts of election-related speeches," Cheney adds that multiple files the former president is trying to keep out of the committee's hands include those belonging to, "former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, adviser Stephen Miller and deputy counsel Patrick Philbin."
In the court filing, attorneys representing Archivist David Ferriero wrote, "These records all relate to the events on or about January 6, and may assist the Select Committee's investigation into that day, including what was occurring at the White House immediately before, during and after the January 6 attack."
Pushing back at Trump's efforts to keep the documents away, the filing added, "Even assuming the applicability of executive privilege, however, the documents may assist the Select Committee in understanding efforts to communicate with the American public, including those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, on the subjects of alleged voter fraud, election security, and other topics concerning the 2020 election."
https://www.rawstory.com/kayleigh-mcenany-2655452134/
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Adam Schiff on Jan 6th, Republican lies big and small — and prosecuting Donald Trump
Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, is not the type of person who uses hyperbole just to create soundbites. This former prosecutor has a clear record of sober, measured public rhetoric. So we should all take note when Schiff states that the Department of Justice "should be doing a lot more" when it comes to investigating "any criminal activity that Donald Trump was engaged in," as he did in our recent Salon Talks conversation. In describing the former president's long list of possible or apparent crimes, Schiff said, "I don't think you can ignore the activity and pretend it didn't happen."
I spoke to Schiff about his new book, "Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could," which is currently at No. 1 on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. The clear message Schiff has for America is this: "We came so close to losing our democracy," and that threat is far from over. One of his main motivations in writing the book, Schiff said, is a sense that most people don't "feel a sufficient sense of alarm" over the threat posed by Trump and much of today's Republican Party.
To that end, Schiff opens the book with a gripping retelling of the Jan. 6 act of "domestic terrorism," as the FBI has officially labeled that attack. Schiff says he felt compelled to give that personal account in order "to bring the reader inside that chamber, let them know what it was like to hear the doors being battered, the windows breaking as this mob was trying to get in."
Schiff also discussed what it was like to become a "villain" in Trump's world, as the recipient of a barrage of crude insults launched by the former president and his supporters. Schiff says his sense of humor helped him cope with those slings and arrows, but it was more difficult to face the death threats from those incited by Trump.
Watch the full interview with Schiff here, or read a transcript of our conversation below to hear more about Schiff's warning and call to action. "We don't have the luxury of despair," he told me. "It needs to motivate us to be active."
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length
Your book opens with a retelling of Jan. 6. You paint a great picture — first of all with your sense of humor, but also of the fear involved and how this was very real. Can you share a little bit about what you went through, and other members went through, with gas masks being handed out and everything else. There are Republicans, as you may have heard, who are trying to depict Jan. 6 as a "tourist visit." So I think the reality needs to be relayed to people about what really went on from the inside.
This is one of the reasons that I wanted to write this down. I wanted to bring the reader inside that chamber, let them know what it was like to hear the doors being battered, the windows breaking as this mob was trying to get in.
I wasn't on the floor the whole time. I had been assigned by the speaker to be one of a handful of managers to oppose the Republican efforts to decertify the election. I really was focused on what I was speaking, what I was saying, what the Republicans were saying. Then I looked up and the speaker was missing from her chair, which struck me because I knew from the preparations she planned to preside the entire time. Soon thereafter two Capitol police rushed onto the floor, grabbed [Majority Leader] Steny Hoyer, and whisked him off the floor so quickly. I remember thinking I'd never seen Steny move that fast.
It wasn't long before we started to get messages from the Capitol police, one after another, of increasing severity, that they were rioters in the building, that we needed to get out the gas masks from under our seats, that we should get prepared to get down on the ground, and ultimately that we needed to get out, and that a way had been paved for us to get out. But I still hung back because there was now a real scrum to get out the door behind the chamber. I still felt relatively calm and was waiting for other people to go ahead. A couple of Republicans came up to me on the floor and said, "Basically, you can't let them see you." One of them said, "I know these people, I can talk to these people, I can talk to my way through these people. You're in a whole different category."
At first, I was kind of touched that they were worried about my safety. And then, you know, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if they hadn't been lying about the election, I wouldn't need to worry about my safety. None of us would. One of them, when I finally did head to the doors when they were really starting to break glass to get in, and I walked out with a Republican who was holding a wooden post — it wasn't just the Democrats were worried here — he was holding a post to defend himself. And I said to him, because he had a member pin on, but I didn't recognize him, "How long have you been here?" He said, "72 hours. I just got elected."
As you mentioned I used my sense of humor in dark moments to try to alleviate the stress. So he says he'd been there for 72 hours. I looked at him and I said, "It's not always like this." But I tell you, the anger after that day only grew. What I was most angry at was not the insurrectionists who really believed the Big Lie, although I was furious at them too. It was what I described as the insurrectionists in suits and ties, these members that I work with that knew it was a big lie. And even after that brutal attack, when we went back in the chamber with blood still on the floor outside of the chamber, they were still trying to overturn the election. That to me was unforgivable.
To watch it play off from our side, on TV, was stunning. For me, I'm Muslim and the same people on the right had demonized my community for years, saying we knew who the terrorists were and we weren't turning them in because we were soft on terrorism. All of these are lies. Now we actually have Republicans literally defending terrorists by name. You have Donald Trump defending the terrorists, the same man who wanted to ban Muslims from entering the country. I find that hard to process intellectually because it's just so devoid of any decency whatsoever. You mentioned a Republican congressmen saying to you, "These people might hurt you or kill you." They know their base, they know how dangerous they are. So what do we do?
I thought the most powerful speech that day came from a source I was not expecting. It came from Conor Lamb [a moderate Pennsylvania Democrat], this former Marine, generally very soft-spoken. When we went back on the floor after that insurrection to finish the joint session, he talked about how these people had come in and attacked the Capitol and they'd done so because of the big lies being pushed on the other side of the aisle, and how a lot of them had walked in free and walked out free. And he said, "I think we know why they were able to simply walk away."
What he was saying, of course, was that because of their color, because of who they were, because they were white nationalists and not people of color, that they were treated very differently. It was an inescapable truth. This was not just an insurrection against our form of government. It was also a white nationalist insurrection with Confederate flags and people wearing Auschwitz T-shirts. This too was a very sobering thing for me, which was to see where this was coming from and realizing just how far our country still had to go.
In your book, you share things about your family and growing up. One thing stuck out and it's a small thing: You write that in 2010, you were on a plane flight with Kevin McCarthy, a fellow member of the House from California, a Republican. It was before the midterms and you had a conversation. Then he literally goes out and fabricates something, claiming you had told him, "Republicans are going to win this." That was a lie and you went and confronted him. And I was stunned by his reaction, considering this is the man who might be the next speaker of the House. Can you share a little bit about that story?
Yes, and I tell this story because sometimes little vignettes tell us a lot about what people are made of. One of the most frequent questions I get from people is: When you talk to Republicans privately, do they really believe what they say publicly? And the answer, all too often, is no, they don't. They don't believe what they're saying publicly and they will admit it. In this particular case, I was seated next to McCarthy just by coincidence on United Airlines, flying back to Washington. We were having a nothing conversation about who was going to win the midterms. I said I thought Democrats would win. And he said he thought Republicans were going to win. Then the movie started and I was like, "Thank God the movie started."
So we get to D.C. and we go our separate ways and he goes off and does a press briefing and he tells the press, "Oh, Republicans are definitely going to win the midterms. I sat next to Adam Schiff on the plane and even he admitted Republicans were going to win the midterms." The next morning, when that came out, I was beside myself and I went up to him, I made a beeline for him on the House floor. And I said, "Kevin, I would have thought if we're having a private conversation, it was a private conversation. But if it wasn't, you know, I said the exact opposite of what you told the press."
He looks at me and says, "Yeah, I know Adam. But you know how it goes." And I was like, "No, Kevin, I don't know how it goes. You just make stuff up and that's how you operate? Because that's not how I operate." But it is how he operates, and in that respect, Kevin McCarthy was really made for a moment like this, when the leader of his party had no compunction about lie after lie after lie. You say what you need to say, you do what you need to do. The truth doesn't matter. What's right doesn't matter. And someone like that can never be allowed to go near a position of responsibility like the speaker's office.
You also write about being the brunt of Trump's attacks, over and over. Were you able to laugh it off? What was it like to be a Trump villain? Was it more fun to be villain than a hero like they say in the movies?
You know, much of the time I was able to laugh it off, and my family helped me laugh it off. In fact, I remember walking down the street in New York with my daughter, who lives in Soho. I was wearing blue jeans and a canvas jacket and sunglasses, and I was getting stopped. And I was astonished that I was getting stopped and eventually it started to get annoying to my daughter, because there's only one center of attention in our family, and it's her, not me. So finally, Lexi says, "Enough already." I said to her, "I'm just shocked that people can recognize me." She looks at me and she says, "Well, you know, Dad, it's the pencil neck." This is what you get from your own kid.
I do want to say, on a more serious note, that I found it so upsetting that he would demean his office by engaging in these kinds of juvenile taunts. It just brought the presidency down. But the more serious thing were the not-so-veiled threats he would make, calling me a traitor and saying, "Well, we used to have a way of dealing with traitors." At one point he met with, I think, the president of Guatemala and said, "Well, you know, you used to have a way in your country of dealing with people like Adam Schiff." Something along those lines. And, you know, that reaches people that are not well. I get death threats, and that part, you really couldn't laugh off.
In the book, you write that after Jan. 6 there was no need for impeachment hearings just to have the vote: "No investigation would be necessary given we were all witnesses to his crimes," speaking of Trump. When you think back on that now, do you think the Department of Justice should be doing more in terms of criminal prosecution of Donald Trump and the people around him?
I do think the Justice Department should be doing a lot more than what I can see — which is, with respect to some things, nothing at all. What I would point to most specifically is Donald Trump on the phone with the secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, essentially trying to browbeat him into finding 11,780 votes that don't exist. I think if you or I were on that call, or any of my constituents, they would have been indicted by now. I understand the reluctance on the part of the attorney general to look backward, but you can't have a situation where a president cannot be prosecuted and when they leave office they still can't be prosecuted — that they're too big to jail, somehow.
I think that any criminal activity that Donald Trump was engaged in needs to be investigated. It may be ultimately that the attorney general makes the decision after investigating that for what he thinks is the country's best interests it makes sense not to go forward with a particular charge. But I don't think you can ignore the activity and pretend it didn't happen.
Last week we had the vote in the House on charges of criminal contempt against Steve Bannon. Then it goes to the Justice Department. Do you have any sense what they will do? If they choose not to indict Bannon or to prosecute him, would you be calling for changes in the DOJ?
Well, first of all, I think they are going to move forward. That's my personal opinion. It's my hope and expectation. I say that because of a couple of things. They have repeatedly made it clear now, as they did to Mr. Bannon but in other contexts as wel,l that they are not asserting executive privilege, that the public interest here far outweighs any claim of privilege. So Steve Bannon had no basis in which to simply refuse to appear. I also think that because the Justice Department itself has not resisted our efforts to interview high-ranking, former Justice Department individuals, they understand the importance of this. Should he not go prosecuted, it will essentially send a message that the rule of law doesn't apply to certain people close to the former president. And I just cannot imagine that's a message that the Justice Department wants to send.
Rolling Stone recently reported about certain members of the House, including perhaps Rep. Paul Gosar [of Arizona], meeting with some of the Jan. 6 organizers. It's not completely clear because it's from anonymous sources, but there was an allegation that Gosar promised blanket pardons to people through Donald Trump. I know you're on the Jan. 6 committee, will you be investigating that?
Yes, we will be investigating these issues to see whether the public reports are accurate or not accurate, what role members of Congress played or didn't play. We are determined to be exhaustive. Nobody gets a pass, so yes, we will be looking into all these things. Look, you can't dismiss those allegations as being too incredible to be true because Donald Trump was dangling pardons to people like Paul Manafort. He was attacking those who did cooperate, like Michael Cohen, calling him a rat. The idea that they would dangle more pardons cannot be excluded. And if members of Congress played a role in that, then the public has a right to know. Ultimately Congress and the Justice Department will have to figure out what the consequences need to be.
There was reporting in the Washington Post on the Willard Hotel war room and there were things in it I had never seen, including that Donald Trump and his allies in early January, after all the appeals were done, recounts had been done, the Electoral College had voted, and Trump was on the phone with over 300 state legislative officials in battleground states, telling them essentially to decertify the results. Could that potentially rise to a crime?
That ultimately would be a decision the Justice Department would have to make, whether it violated specific statutes and whether they could meet their burden of proof. But what we are most focused on is this violent attack on the Capitol, just the last stage in an effort to essentially bring about a coup. When all the litigation failed, when all the efforts to coerce the vice president failed, when the efforts to get Brad Raffensperger to find votes that didn't exist failed, then that was the plan: to use violence to intimidate the vice president or the Congress into not doing its job, to interrupt that peaceful transfer of power. Was that the plan all along, and what role did the president play, and people around him?
I think the biggest black box in terms of unknowns, is what was the president's role in all this. We know he incited the insurrection, and that was sufficient grounds to impeach and remove him. But what role did he play? How much was he aware of the propensity for violence, the participation of white nationalists? How much was he celebrating as he opened those doors and windows and heard the sound of the crowd the night before that they would use violence if necessary to make sure that he stayed in the office?
You're a former prosecutor. If Donald Trump is not punished some way criminally for his actions, what would stop Trump or a democratic demagogue one day or another president from mimicking the same conduct, thinking you can get away with this? This was a scene of two-prong coup attempt, one behind the scenes and one right in our face on Jan. 6, how could this be permissible in the United States of America?
It's a very good question and I think you can draw a straight line between the Trump's Russia misconduct in which he invited a foreign power to help them cheat in an election and then lied to cover it up. And feeling he gotten away with that after Bob Mueller testified, and that leading the very next day to his Ukrainian misconduct and new and different ways to try to cheat in the next election. And when he got acquitted and escaped accountability for that in the first trial, you can draw a straight line to the insurrection and even worse ways to help to try to cheat in the election.
If he were to ever take office again, where does that straight line continued to go? So, yes, I think the danger is real and what's going on around the country right now in which the Republicans are running with the big lie to strip independent elections officials of their duties and give them over to partisans seems to be the lesson they learned from the failed insurrection, which is next time, if they couldn't find a Secretary of State in Georgia to come up with votes that don't exist, there'll be sure they have someone there who will. And to me, that's why I titled the book "How Close We Came to Losing Our Democracy and Still Could." Because the danger that we still could is all too real.
In the book, you quote from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" talking about what we saw and went through and with Donald Trump. If this were a play on a stage now I can condemn it as an improbable fiction, but unfortunately it was real where we lived through this. And at this point I'm thinking of "Hamlet" and our democracy: To be, or not to be. It really seems that's where we are, and that it's that dire. Do you get a sense that enough Democrats, enough people in the media, share the dire view of the trajectory of our nation and where we're going? Where just because this republic has been here for 240-plus years doesn't mean it will be here for eternity, and that something needs to be done to save it?
I don't think people feel a sufficient sense of alarm. It's one of the main motivations for me to write this book. I got together recently with a couple of friends of mine. They're both a husband and wife married for decades. They're in their mid 90s. And I asked them, have you ever seen anything like the present? And they told me, "Look, we remember World War II, the Great Depression. We remember Korea and Vietnam, the Civil Rights struggles, the Cuban Missile Crisis. We've never been more worried about the future of our country and democracy than we are today. Because during all those former crises, we always knew we would survive and we would survive as a democracy. But right now we just don't know." And people do need to feel that sense of urgency, not despondent state, not despair we don't have the luxury of despair. It needs to motivate us to be active.
I paint a portrait of a lot of the heroes that came through this period of time, Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill and others. We need to use them to inspire us to act. We can't all be Marie Yovanovitch, but in our own way we can figure out what we can do to come to the rescue of our democracy in this dark hour.
https://www.rawstory.com/adam-schiff-donald-trump-2655455765/
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Trump ignored warnings 'Pence is in trouble' so he could watch the Capitol riot on TV: WaPo reporter
Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday morning, Washington Post reporter Robert Costa was asked to explain what was going on in the White House as the Jan 6th Capitol riot unfolded.
Noting the battle that was going on between Vice President Mike Pence's lawyer and Donald Trump attorney John Eastman over who was at fault for the insurrection that followed the "Stop the Steal" rally, Costa said the former president was unfazed when an aide told him Pence's life was in danger.
"I just want to confirm he was talking during the siege, on the 6th while Mike Pence was potentially hearing chants from the marauders in the Capitol saying, 'Hang Mike Pence?' That's the kind of exchange that was going on as he was literally hiding for his life?" host Witt asked.
"It's not just Eastman who's reacting like that," Costa recalled. "It's Eastman interacting with Greg Jacob, Pence's lawyer, being disappointed by Pence's conduct."
'You also see President Trump," he continued. "Trump, he's in the Oval Office and he's confronted by [National Security Advisor] Keith Kellogg, 'Pence is in trouble over at the Capitol,' and Trump just keeps watching television, as almost an idle person as this insurrection unfolds. And yet Trump, of course, had been very aggressive in pushing Pence in the days prior."
Watch below:
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Coup-promoting Trump DOJ official will talk with Capitol riot committee on Friday
Former Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division Jeffrey Clark, a key figure in former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is reportedly meeting with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots.
According to CNN's Zachary Cohen, Clark "is expected to appear tomorrow for an interview with the January 6th Select Committee," where he is expected to be interviewed about his efforts to keep Trump in the White House despite losing decisively to President Joe Biden last year.
Clark is talking with the committee even though Trump has directly instructed former administration officials to ignore any subpoenas that come from the House select committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots.
The committee subpoenaed Clark last month on the grounds that he was "reportedly involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power."
The subpoena went on to say that it was seeking "deposition testimony and records from Mr. Clark as part of the Select Committee's investigation into the events of January 6th and the causes of that day's violence."
According to the subpoena, Clark "proposed delivery of a letter to state legislators in Georgia and others encouraging to delay certification of election results" and he also "recommended holding a press conference announcing that the Department was investigating allegations of voter fraud despite the lack of evidence that such fraud was present."
https://www.rawstory.com/jeffrey-clark-capitol-riot-2655496868/
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Amazing how all these right wingers feel that they are above the law.
Jenna Ryan, Texas realtor who tweeted she was 'definitely not going to jail,' gets 60 days in jail
Ryan was one of a group of Texans who took a private plane to Washington, D.C., on January 6 and eventually entered the U.S. Capitol Building.
WASHINGTON — A Texas real estate agent who infamously claimed her blonde hair and white skin would keep her out of jail was sentenced Thursday to 60 days behind bars for her role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper told Jenna Ryan, of Frisco, Texas, it was clear she knew what she was doing when she left her hotel to travel to the Capitol after watching coverage of the riot on Fox News.
“You knew it when you walked out of your hotel room and said, ‘We’re going to war and we’re going to be breaking windows,’” Cooper said.
Ryan and several friends – including two, Jason Hyland and Katherine Schwab, who have been charged in the January 6 case – took a private jet from Texas to attend former President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6. At the Capitol, Ryan entered the building with other members of the mob and was later filmed at the front of a crowd encouraging the assault. She also posed for a photo next to a broken window, which she posted with the caption, “Window at The capital [sic]. And if the news doesn’t stop lying about us we’re going to come after their studios next…”
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After returning to Texas, Ryan did a number of interviews with the media, including one with NBC in which she claimed she felt “like a martyr” and another with Fox in which she described her presence at the Capitol as “something noble.” Ryan, who has a large social media following, also posted multiple times about her role in the riot, saying in one message, “I deserve a medal for what I did.”
In her most infamous post, Ryan responded to another Twitter user that she was “definitely not going to jail. Sorry I have blonde hair white skin a great job a great future and I’m not going to jail.”
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In court Thursday, her attorney, Guy Womack, attempted to downplay the significance of her posts.
“She’s a social butterfly,” Womack said. “She goes online and posts things.”
Cooper said he had to take those posts – and a letter Ryan wrote to him that talked more about her social media following than her regret for what she’d done – into account, but he also noted that it wasn’t her posts or her interviews that he was sentencing her for.
“No one is being prosecuted for coming to Washington,” Cooper said. “No one is being prosecuted for the belief that the election was stolen. If you had the good sense not to leave your hotel room, or not go in once you saw what was happening, you wouldn’t be here.”
In part because of the attention her own media appearances drew to the case, Cooper said people would be looking to her sentence to see what the penalty was for attacking democratic institutions.
“I think that sentence should show them we take it seriously,” he said.
Cooper ultimately agreed with the Justice Department’s recommended sentence and ordered Ryan to serve 60 days behind bars. She will also have to pay the standard $500 in restitution required in all January 6 misdemeanor plea deals.
Ryan pleaded guilty in August to one Class “B” misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. She is one of more than 100 defendants who have now entered guilty pleas in connection to the riot.
After her sentencing Thursday, Ryan and her attorney spoke with WUSA9 Chief Investigative Reporter Eric Flack. She told him she was remorseful she entered the Capitol "for two minutes," and then blamed the media attention around her case for her sentence.
"I'm disappointed that I’m being used as an example, because other people that walked in for two minutes may not have the same thing, but because I’m a public person and I have a Twitter account, I’m being punished for that," Ryan said. "Because the media are doing what you’re all doing now, I’m being punished for this. And it’s actually causing my incarceration. I think that’s a travesty. I think that everybody should be able to tweet without being persecuted and treated like crap.”
Asked if she wishes she hadn't posted some of the things she did, Ryan said yes.
"Yes, I regret ever tweeting," she said.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/national/capitol-riots/jenna-ryan-texas-realtor-who-tweeted-she-was-definitely-not-going-to-jail-gets-60-days-in-jail-white-skin-blonde-hair-donald-trump-guy-womack/65-fb717bf2-3a07-4581-9486-bb9d8e144abd
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Capitol riot investigators to issue 20 new subpoenas — but not to GOP lawmakers ‘yet’
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Mississippi Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol insurrection, announced Thursday that he has signed 20 new subpoenas that will go out "soon," possibly by Friday.
"Thompson would not confirm if former Trump lawyer John Eastman, who CNN has reported the committee plans to subpoena, is a part of that group, but said of the next batch of the subpoenas: 'Some of the people have been written about. Some of the people haven't been written about,'" according to CNN. "Asked if there are lawmakers the committee is planning to subpoena, Thompson said: 'Not yet.'"
Also Thursday, Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, vice chair of the committee, said members have already interviewed 150 people.
"We've had, actually, over 150 interviews with a whole range of people connected to the events, connected to understanding what happens, so that just gives you a sense," Cheney told Politico. "It is a range of engagements — some formal interviews, some depositions … There really is a huge amount of work underway that is leading to real progress for us."
According to Politico, Cheney's comments suggested that the public has seen only "the tip of the iceberg" in terms of the committee's investigation.
"This new number is an indication that the vast majority of the committee's work is happening out of public view," the site reported. "Though the panel has announced a flurry of subpoenas against former top aides to President Donald Trump and organizers of a rally that preceded the Jan. 6 insurrection, little is known about the voluntary interviews that have been conducted so far."
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-committee-subpoenas-2655497415/
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MAGA rioter gave House committee evidence of contacts with 'state-level GOP officials': report
A MAGA rioter has reportedly told the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th riots at the United States Capitol that they had contacts ahead of the riot with "state-level GOP officials who worked with former President Donald Trump as he attempted to overturn the 2020 election."
According to Politico, the rioter has interviewed with the committee twice within the last week and "described knowledge of contacts between GOP officials in a key state Trump lost and allies of the former president in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack."
The rioter is scheduled to talk with the committee again in the coming days and Politico's sources say they have already been asked questions that "ranged from the defendant's knowledge of those who organized travel to Washington for the Jan. 6 event as well as details about the preparation of legal affidavits in support of Trump's false claims of voter fraud."
The Capitol riot committee so far has interviewed more than 150 people in its efforts to uncover the full picture about what led up to the deadly events on January 6th.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-committee-testimony-2655498095/
Committee interviews Jan. 6 rioter who witnessed state GOP contacts with Trump allies
Investigators are trying to connect the dots between protesters who broke into the Capitol and whether they coordinated with Republican officials.
Congressional investigators probing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol are examining the contacts between one of the rioters who breached the Capitol and state-level GOP officials who worked with former President Donald Trump as he attempted to overturn the 2020 election.
The rioter, who interviewed with the committee twice in the past week, described knowledge of contacts between GOP officials in a key state Trump lost and allies of the former president in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack. The person interviewed was one of the 650-plus defendants charged in the attack, and discussed those contacts in a voluntary interview with congressional investigators.
A source familiar with the previously unreported interviews said committee investigators asked the defendant to return for a second interview after discussing details about these pre-Jan. 6 interactions. Questions from investigators ranged from the defendant’s knowledge of those who organized travel to Washington for the Jan. 6 event as well as details about the preparation of legal affidavits in support of Trump’s false claims of voter fraud.
POLITICO has agreed not to identify the defendant or state, out of the defendant’s fear of retaliation. Still, it’s a sign that the Jan. 6 committee is obtaining facts about Trump’s activities from unexpected sources: The defendants who breached the Capitol in his name.
More than 100 Capitol riot defendants have pleaded guilty for their roles in the attack, most to misdemeanor crimes. The Jan. 6 select committee began soliciting voluntary testimony last month from these rioters . That request appears to have begun bearing fruit. At least three convicted rioters have cooperated or signaled their intent to speak to the committee, including Leonard Gruppo, who provided testimony on Oct. 12, according to court records. And more may be coming: Judge Beryl Howell, chief of the district court of Washington D.C., recently credited Gruppo during his sentencing for cooperating with Congress.
The defendants’ interviews are part of more than 150 that the committee has conducted in recent days as it seeks details about Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results. The panel has taken an expansive approach to its probe, subpoenaing top Trump aides like former chief of staff Mark Meadows, demanding testimony from the organizers of a Jan. 6 pro-Trump rally that preceded the Capitol attack and interviewing former DOJ officials who Trump pressured to help reverse his defeat.
According to the source familiar with the testimony of the defendant who interviewed this week, the defendant was also pressed to describe reasons for attending Trump’s Jan. 6 rally and then marching to the Capitol — and the answers made clear that the defendant and others traveled in response to Trump and marched to the Capitol at his direction. Many also left after he told them to go home — an invocation that came hours after lawmakers begged him to call off his supporters but got no response.
Gruppo’s attorney, Daniel Lindsey, offered a similar accounting of his client’s interview with the panel.
"He gave them specifics about why he went to Washington, what he did and all the events of that day,” Lindsey said. “Mr. Gruppo is a great man and it was an honor to represent him. Even the greatest of us make mistakes. Former President Trump has left chaos, damage and heart ache in his wake and he has shown no responsibility for all the lies.”
Prosecutors charged Gruppo with misdemeanor offenses for entering the Capitol illegally. In their sentencing recommendation, prosecutors say Gruppo drove with his wife from New Mexico to attend Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally on the morning of Jan. 6.
The retired army lieutenant colonel, entered the Capitol despite obvious signs that police were attempting to turn them back, and prosecutors say Gruppo deleted evidence from his phone after seeing negative press coverage of the attack.
During sentencing, Howell rejected prosecutors’ request to sentence him to 30 days in prison. Rather, she gave him a sentence of probation and said he had demonstrated remorse “particularly by talking to members of Congress on the select committee.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/04/january-6-committee-rioter-interview-519580
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LISTEN: Judge laughs as Trump’s attorney defends claim that FBI cleared ex-president of wrongdoing on Jan 6
Lawyers for former President Donald Trump filed a legal brief this Tuesday falsely claiming that the FBI and the Senate have cleared him of wrongdoing in regards to the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The attorneys say that Trump did nothing wrong by falsely claiming two separate investigations came to that conclusion.
"Notwithstanding their allegations and insinuations of conspiracy," the legal brief says of the bipartisan special committee, "investigations by the FBI and the Senate Committee on Government Affairs and Homeland Security rebuff their contentions of wrongdoing by Trump Administration officials."
While the lawyers presented their argument to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on Thursday, her response indicated that she wasn't buying their argument.
"What's your basis for that assertion?" she asked Trump's lawyers.
"Just a published article," one of the lawyers said, "from Reuters ... quoting the FBI..."
"You cite an article ..." Chutkan began before chuckling in apparent disbelief. "I mean, that's your only support for that statement?"
Listen to the audio below:
https://www.rawstory.com/judge-laughs-at-trumps-attorney/
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Jeffrey Clark refused to answer questions during Capitol riot testimony -- and contempt charges 'on the table'
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Former Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division Jeffrey Clark, a key figure in former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, apparently refused to answer questions during his Friday testimony before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots.
Politico reports that Clark cited attorney-client privileges and former President Donald Trump's assertions of executive privilege as justifications for refusing to answer the committee's questions.
However, as Politico notes, "any such privilege lies with the client to assert, and even if Trump were Clark's client under these circumstances, the former president has already declined to block Clark's testimony."
Select Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) tells Politico's Kyle Cheney that criminal contempt charges against Clark are "on the table" after his refusal to cooperate.
The House of Representatives last month referred criminal contempt charges against Trump ally Steve Bannon after he completely refused to comply with its subpoena.
The committee subpoenaed Clark last month on the grounds that he was "reportedly involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power."
According to the subpoena, Clark "proposed delivery of a letter to state legislators in Georgia and others encouraging to delay certification of election results" and he also "recommended holding a press conference announcing that the Department was investigating allegations of voter fraud despite the lack of evidence that such fraud was present."
https://www.rawstory.com/jeffrey-clark-capitol-riot-2655506122/
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Trump's Willard hotel 'war room' targeted in new round of Capitol riot subpoenas
House investigators are zeroing in on former president Donald Trump's so-called "war room" at the Willard hotel with their latest latest round of subpoenas in the Capitol riot probe.
"The subpoenas, which could be issued as soon as next week, reflect the select committee's interest in events at the hotel just across from the White House, where Donald Trump's most loyal aides plotted to keep him in office," the Guardian reported Saturday, citing a source familiar with the matter. "The select committee is targeting about 20 individuals connected to the Trump command center at the Willard, among them the legal scholar John Eastman, who outlined ways to deny Joe Biden the presidency, the source said."
The source told the Guardian that House investigators are seeking to uncover the "centers of gravity" from which Trump and his allies conspired to block certification of President Joe Biden's victory.
"The select committee appears to be seeking a full account of what transpired in several suites at the Willard in the days leading up to 6 January and during a final 'war room' meeting the night before the Capitol attack," the Guardian reports. "The new line of inquiry centered on the Willard comes after the chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, last week told reporters that he intended to subpoena Eastman, before later revealing that he had signed about 20 subpoenas."
The Washington Post reported last month that the war room, which Trump allies referred to as a "command center," was led by the former president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
In addition to Eastman, the war room reportedly included former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who was there as an investigator, and One America News reporter Christina Bobb, a lawyer who was volunteering for the campaign.
"Kerik said his firm billed the Trump campaign more than $55,000 for rooms for the legal team," the Post reported. "The three people familiar with the operation described intense work in the days and hours leading up to and even extending beyond 1 p.m. on Jan 6, when Congress convened for the counting of electoral votes."
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2655514234/
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Trump allies Michael Flynn, Jason Miller, John Eastman subpoenaed in Jan. 6 House probe
The House committee investigating the deadly Capitol invasion said it issued subpoenas to several high-profile allies of former President Donald Trump.
Also subpoenaed was John Eastman, who wrote a legally dubious memo arguing that Vice President Mike Pence could reject Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory in the 2020 election.
The group of six Trump allies named in the latest round of subpoenas issued by the Jan. 6 select committee are “tied to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election,” the panel said.
The House committee investigating the deadly Capitol invasion said Monday it issued subpoenas to several high-profile allies of former President Donald Trump, including former national security advisor Michael Flynn and former campaign advisor Jason Miller.
Also subpoenaed was John Eastman, the lawyer who spoke at Trump’s rally outside the Capitol on Jan. 6 before the riot began. Eastman is the author of an infamous memo that laid out a legally dubious case for Vice President Mike Pence to reject Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory in the 2020 election.
The other Trump associates to be issued subpoenas were Bill Stepien, the Trump 2020 campaign manager; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to that campaign; and Bernard Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who reportedly participated in a meeting at a Washington hotel the night before the invasion, wherein Trump’s allies brainstormed efforts to overturn the election.
Miller, along with former senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon and Trump’s former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, was also reportedly involved in that Jan. 5 meeting at D.C.’s Willard hotel.
The group of Trump allies, the latest to be subpoenaed for documents and testimony by the Jan. 6 select committee are “tied to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election,” the panel said.
The six figures’ depositions are scheduled to take place between the end of November and mid-December. MacCallum is set to be deposed first on Nov. 30, followed by Kerik, Flynn, Eastman and Miller, with the final deposition for Stepien scheduled for Dec. 13.
The committee “needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all,” Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said in a statement.
Thompson said the committee expects all witnesses to cooperate with its probe to “help ensure nothing like January 6th ever happens again.”
Less than three weeks earlier, the House voted to hold former Bannon in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena to hand over documents to the committee and sit for a deposition.
Robert Costello, an attorney for Bannon, had told the committee that Bannon would not comply with the subpoena in accordance with a directive from Trump’s counsel, who argued that the materials were protected by executive privilege.
The select committee rejected that claim. The Biden administration declined to invoke that privilege to prevent the Archivist of the United States from sending a tranche of records to the House investigators.
Trump has sued to block the congressional committee’s requests for records from the White House during his single term in office.
The committee leaders said at the time of the contempt vote that dozens of witnesses and entities have been contacted as part of the probe, but that Bannon was the only person to completely defy one of its subpoenas.
On Friday, the panel warned ex-Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark that it will take “strong measures to hold him accountable” after he allegedly refused to answer any questions during a closed-door interview.
After the 2020 race was called for Biden, Clark had proposed that the Justice Department encourage key states to reject their presidential electors, according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report titled “Subverting Justice: How the Former President and His Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election.”
The select committee is tasked with investigating the facts and causes of the Jan. 6 invasion, when hundreds of Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol and forced a joint session of Congress to flee their chambers.
Shortly before the rioters broke into the building, Trump, who had spent months spreading a wide array of election-fraud conspiracy theories, told throngs of his supporters to march to the Capitol and pressure Republicans to reject the election results.
The attack led to multiple deaths and temporarily stopped lawmakers from confirming Biden’s electoral victory. Trump has never conceded to Biden, and he continues to proliferate debunked and baseless claims about the 2020 election being rigged against him — a falsehood dubbed the “Big Lie” by his critics.
The panel, comprising seven Democrats and two Republicans, was formed over the summer by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. An earlier bill to set up a “9/11-style” commission would have allowed Democratic and Republican leaders to each appoint half of the members, but Senate Republicans shot down that proposal.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/08/trump-allies-michael-flynn-jason-miller-john-eastman-subpoenaed-in-jan-6-house-probe.html
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This 'low-profile' Trump staffer just got subpoenaed by the Capitol riot committee -- here's why: reporter
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One lesser-known staffer in President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign was included in the recent round of subpoenas by the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack.
According to reporter Betsy Woodruff, the fact that former Trump campaign staffer Angela McCallum was called proves that the House Committee is going into much greater detail about the lies about the 2020 election that led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace noted that Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Liz Cheney (R-WY) have made it clear that they are asking a wide variety of witnesses to appear before the committee.
Wallace noted "the vast geographical scope of where they have investigators on the ground. Notably, it includes Georgia, but it also includes Pennsylvania and Arizona and Michigan. Tell me what stands out for the new batch of subpoenas. Then we will all get into some of the individual letters."
"The most low-profile person in this batch of subpoena is Angela McCallum, somebody who was doing work in connection with the Trump campaign," said Woodruff. "Contemporaneous news reporting out of Michigan, particularly from the site M-Live, documented the fact that McCallum actually reached out to members of the Michigan state legislature... on behalf of Trump campaign and urged them to overturn the election results in their state and try to install a different slate of electors."
Wallace noted that it's the one name that hasn't been covered by anyone in the media.
See the discussion below:
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Good! Violent insurrectionists belong in jail.
Judge refuses release of Jan. 6 defendant who allegedly sought to 'hang' Nancy Pelosi
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A woman who is suspected of participating in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was ordered to remain in jail on Monday after a judge complained about her history of disrupting the courtroom.
NBC 4 correspondent Scott MacFarlane reported on Pauline Bauer as she appeared in court to ask for pre-trial release.
Bauer is accused of entering the U.S. Capitol on January 6 and threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
"Bring Nancy Pelosi out here now. We want to hang that f--*ing bi**h," she reportedly said.
Bauer has a history of interrupting court proceedings with rants about the "sovereign citizen" movement. The judge previously cited her disruptions as a reason for her detention.
According to MacFarlane, Judge Trevor McFadden immediately dismissed "frivolous" motions to dismiss her case.
And although many of her co-defendants have accepted misdemeanor plea deals, the U.S. government is insisting that Bauer plead to a felony. She has declined to accept the plea deal.
The defendant was not allowed to speak during her Monday hearing because of a history of derailing court proceedings with rants about the "sovereign citizen" movement, the judge said.
Bauer's attorney told the judge that she was at risk of losing her restaurant business in Pennsylvania, but the argument did not prove persuasive.
At Monday's hearing, McFadden said that he would rule on Bauer's release at a later date. She will await a Dec. 21 hearing in jail.
Bauer has written a letter promising to obey court orders if she is released.
"I, Pauline, from the House of Bauer, have learned the errors of my ways," she wrote to the judge.
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Pauline Bauer returns to court at 10am in Jan 6 case
Bauer's previous hearings have careened off-the-rails, w/ disruptions, arguments & language associated w/ the "sovereign citizen" movement
She's in pretrial jail, for disruptions & failing to follow court orders
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WATCH: Bob Woodward claims to have evidence of a Trump conspiracy in CNN interview
In an interview with CNN "New Day" host Brianna Keilar, the Washington Post's Bob Woodward explained that his researcher has uncovered evidence that could be used in a conspiracy charge against Donald Trump and some of his closest allies.
Speaking with the CNN host, Woodward explained, "[Co-author] Robert Costa and I didn't discover this, but our assistant who is a lawyer, Claire McMullen, is just bombarding us with research and information. And she discovered on May 5th, John Eastman, in a podcast -- now, this is before our book came out -- specifically talked about the war room and the Willard [hotel] and said it was kind of coordinating all of the communication."
"Then in a very important legal point he said I would not normally talk about things like this, but I have been directed by the president of the United States -- at that time that was Trump, to tell and to talk -- so he's waived the privilege," he continued. "And traditionally judges will look at this and say, 'Hey, wait a minute, you're out talking about it, but also you're saying your client, the president of the united states specifically said talk, explain,' so how do you justify not talking to this committee or a grand jury and so you're kind of -- you've got one and a half feet in the door already."
"It is really fascinating," Keilar interjected. "The Willard, for the uninitiated, the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., it is near the White House and he's referring to this war room, this kind of coordination center that we heard Steve Bannon actually refer to before as well."
"I do want to talk about Michael Flynn," she continued. "You've reported extensively about some of what Michael Flynn has said that is obviously very interesting to this committee and that has to do with his discussion of invoking martial law."
"Yeah, he is the hard-liner in the Trump orbit," he replied, "and would be a key witness in this. Now, as we have discussed, the January 6th committee does not have a strong hand because there will be delaying moves and traditionally congressional committees can't get this kind of information and this goes back to the Nixon tapes case in 1974. So this is in the hands of the Justice Department and, again, Claire, our assistant, has been saying, 'look, go back and look at the Supreme Court decisions.' This is a clear case of a violation of what is called 371 Section conspiracy to defraud the U.S. If this is not a conspiracy to defraud the U.S., I don't know what is."
Watch below:
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Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Stephen Miller, Kayleigh McEnany
House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol released its sixth batch of subpoenas Tuesday targeting some of former President Trump’s highest-ranking staff, including White House adviser Stephen Miller and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
The subpoenas to Miller and McEnany focus on the false statements they made promoting baseless claims of voter fraud.
“As a White House Press Secretary you made multiple public statements from the White House and elsewhere about purported fraud in the November 2020 election, which individuals who attacked the U.S. Capitol echoed on Jan. 6,” the committee wrote in its subpoena to McEnany.
The committee appeared to peg Miller as being at the center of an effort to craft voter fraud conspiracies and Trump's messaging ahead of the Jan. 6 rally where the then-president encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell.”
“You and your team prepared former President Trump’s remarks for the rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6, you were at the White House that day, and you were with Trump when he spoke at the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally,” the committee wrote.
Other aides subpoenaed show an effort by the panel to gain information about the activities of former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who has also been sought for testimony by the committee.
The latest subpoenas include former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Christopher Liddell and Ben Williamson, a right hand man to Meadows.
“The Select Committee wants to learn every detail of what went on in the White House on January 6th and in the days beforehand. We need to know precisely what role the former President and his aides played in efforts to stop the counting of the electoral votes and if they were in touch with anyone outside the White House attempting to overturn the outcome of the election,” Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement.
“We believe the witnesses subpoenaed today have relevant information and we expect them to comply fully with the Select Committee’s investigation as we work to get answers for the American people, make recommendations on changes to the law to protect our democracy, and help ensure that nothing like January 6th ever happens again.”
The subpoenas come just a day after the committee demanded testimony from former Trump campaign aides and John Eastman, who crafted the strategy used to contest the election both at the state level and during Congress’s certification of the vote. The panel also subpoenaed Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor who sat in on a White House meeting about seizing voting machines.
Eastman’s memos became a blueprint for the Trump team in seeking avenues to unwind the election, likely igniting Trump’s focus on having former Vice President Mike Pence buck the largely ceremonial duty of certifying the 2020 election results.
To that end the committee has questions for Nicholas Luna, who served as Trump’s personal assistant and was reportedly in the Oval Office the morning of Jan. 6 when the former President was on a phone call to Pence pressuring him not to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Miller, a powerful aid throughout Trump administration, especially in the immigration sphere, is also set to be asked about Eastman’s plans, including an effort to get states to encourage states to select alternate electors. Eastman held a meeting with some 300 state legislators in a bid to carry out this plan.
The subpoenas also show an increasing interest in the activities of Meadows, who appears to have been involved in multiple aspects of Trump’s plan to push back on the election results.
Cassidy Hutchinson, a special assistant, has been asked to testify about her work arranging a trip for Meadows to travel to Georgia to attend an election audit. Her letter suggests she is “potentially in a position” to inform the committee about Meadows's contact with election officials there; his efforts to contact Department of Justice officials as Trump sought to pressure DOJ to involve itself in the election; and his contacts with Jan. 6 rally organizers.
Liddell and Williamson are asked about similar themes, though Williamson’s subpoena also asks about a report indicating he and Meadows were contacted by former White House communications director Alyssa Farah and asked to persuade Trump to issue a statement condemning the attack at the Capitol as it was playing out.
The committee is also seeking testimony from those with more knowledge about Trump’s efforts at DOJ.
A letter to Molly Michael, special assistant to Trump and Oval Office Operations Coordinator, asks about her role in sending election fraud claims to various officials on behalf of the president, including sending an email to former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen “from POTUS” discussing unfounded election irregularities in Michigan.
Another letter to Kenneth Klukowski seeks more information about the activities of Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level DOJ official that Trump weighed installing as attorney general after he proposed DOJ send a letter to Georgia and other states encouraging them to delay certification of their election results due to alleged fraud.
“You communicated with Mr. Clark about that letter, and Mr. Clark contacted you before he attended a meeting at the White House during which he tried to oust Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and assume the role of acting United State attorney general,” the subpoena states.
Also subpoenaed is John McEntee, the White House personnel director.
The committee said McEntee would likely be familiar with Oval Office conversations as Trump, Pence and Rudy Giuliani discussed the audit process in Georgia and “listened as Giuliani suggested seizing Dominion voting machines because of fraud.”
The committee has sought testimony from top DHS officials Chad Wolf and Ken Cucchinelli about the potential for seeing voting machines and on Monday subpoenaed Michael Flynn after he likewise attended a meeting on the topic.
But McEntee is also sought for his efforts in seeking to halt the transition process.
“You were also involved in communications with officials in various federal agencies regarding loyalty to former President Trump and you specifically discouraged a number of individuals from seeking employment after the election as it would appear to be a concession of President Trump’s defeat,” the committee wrote.
Lastly the committee subpoenaed Keith Kellogg, Pence’s National Security Advisor, including sitting in on a meeting where Trump said Pence “need[ed] to send the votes back.”
It also seeks his insight on Trump’s reaction to the rally throughout the day, noting that he reportedly “urged Mr. Trump to send out a tweet to his supporters at the U.S. Capitol to help control the crowd.”
The slew of subpoenas is likely to raise more executive privilege objections from Trump.
Trump has already encouraged Meadows, his former communications guru Dan Scavino, Kash Patel, chief of staff to the then-defense secretary and Steve Bannon, who was not a White House employee at the time of the attack, to defy the committee and refuse to testify.
While three are reportedly in negotiations with the committee, Bannon has since been censured by the committee and referred to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. DOJ has not yet acted on the matter.
Trump is also seeking to block release of his presidential records to the committee, claiming it would violate his executive privilege and that the committee lacks a valid legislative aim.
The committee has steadfastly rejected those arguments, saying only the sitting president has the authority to exert executive privilege, and President Biden has already agreed to release the records.
Lawmakers on the committee have also pledged to introduce legislation to prevent another similar attack.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/580784-jan-6-committee-subpoenas-stephen-miller-kayleigh-mceneny
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Trump fumes after Jan. 6 committee unleashes a barrage of subpoenas
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-fumes-subpoenas-jan-6/
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'Monumental' legal ruling is a 'huge setback for Donald Trump'
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-capitol-riot-2655531041/
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Trump kids in trouble? DC insider predicts a new ‘pressure point’ in Jan. 6 probe
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-family/
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MAGA rioter arrested for 'whacking' police with a flagpole -- after being identified by another suspect
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-arrests-2655534375/
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Lock these criminals up!
Mark Meadows did not appear for deposition with January 6 committee
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/12/politics/mark-meadows-january-6-deposition/index.html
January 6 committee considers holding Mark Meadows in criminal contempt for not complying with subpoena
https://www.businessinsider.com/january-6-committee-considers-holding-mark-meadows-in-criminal-contempt-2021-11
Steve Bannon indicted for refusing to comply with Capitol attack subpoena
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/nov/12/trump-capitol-inquiry-latest-mark-meadows-contempt-us-politics-biden-democrats
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Trump just handed 'more disturbing evidence' to riot committee in interview with ABC's Karl: impeachment attorney
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-insurrection-evidence/
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‘This is the rule of law striking back’: Legal experts cheer DOJ’s Steve Bannon indictment
https://www.rawstory.com/steve-bannon-indicted-2655546223/
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Which is why Criminal Donald is fighting against having her notebooks turned over to the Jan 6 committee. An innocent man would have no problem turning over books if there wasn't any incriminating evidence. Only a guilty man would fight tooth and nail from having it see the light of day.
Kayleigh McEnany’s notebooks could be a smoking gun in Capitol riot probe: analyst
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Of the 16 people subpoenaed this week in the House's Capitol riot probe, former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany stands out as potentially key, according to MSNBC analyst Betsy Woodruff Swan.
"We know the select committee has also subpoenaed many notebooks that she had that were part of the messaging that was being pushed out," Woodruff Swan said Saturday. "Of course, we know what the administration's public messaging was in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. Their messaging fanned the flames of the deranged conspiracy theories that resulted in the attack on the Capitol."
However, Woodruff Swan said McEnany's notes could "shed light more broadly" on the Trump administration's strategy, goals, and expectations regarding Jan. 6.
"That's the question that always comes back to me as I look at everything that (Trump adviser Steve) Bannon and (former president Donald) Trump and their sordid allies had in mind in those weeks before Jan. 6," Woodruff Swan said. "What did they think was going to happen? What did they expect? What were they hoping the outcome would be when they had that massive gathering on the mall and then gave speeches that were so incredibly incendiary?"
Watch below:
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Jenna Ellis also needs to be subpoenaed by the Jan 6th committee and disbarred as a lawyer.
Trump attorney Jenna Ellis also penned legal memo urging Pence to overturn the election: ABC's Karl
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According to an excerpt from Jonathan Karl's upcoming book, "Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show," former Donald Trump attorney Jenna Ellis also penned a legal memo detailing how former vice president Mike Pence could overturn the 2020 presidential election.
While it was previously reported that attorney John Eastman had provided the Trump White House with what has become known as the "Coup memo," the new report from ABC's notes Ellis also provided legal guidance.
According to the report, "Ellis, in the memo, outlined a multi-step strategy: On Jan. 6, the day Congress was to certify the 2020 election results, Pence was to send back the electoral votes from six battleground states that Trump falsely claimed he had won. The memo said that Pence would give the states a deadline of '7pm eastern standard time on January 15th' to send back a new set of votes, according to Karl."
The report continues, "Then, Ellis wrote, if any state legislature missed that deadline, 'no electoral votes can be opened and counted from that state,'" adding, "Such a scenario would leave neither Biden nor Trump with a majority of votes, Ellis wrote, which would mean 'Congress shall vote by state delegation' -- which, Ellis said, would in turn lead to Trump being declared the winner due to Republicans controlling the majority of state delegations with 26."
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-coup-2655548721/
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We now have THREE coup memos: John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, & John McEntee. Mark Meadows knew about all of them. Pair these with the Clark letters to the states trump intended to rob of their electoral votes, & we have a clear violation of 18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy.
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Mark Meadows was in the middle of Trump's 'harebrained' schemes -- including the coup: ABC's Karl
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According to ABC's Jonathan Karl, the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection will likely focus like a laser on former Donald Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows who was personally involved in many of Donald Trump initiatives -- legal or not.
Speaking with MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, who called the last days of the Trump White House a "clown show," Karl said Meadows seemed to have his fingers in the middle of much of what Trump wanted done.
"It looked like a clown show except these people were in the White House and trying to overthrow the United States government or overturn an election of an American president when every judge said there was nothing to these charges," the Morning Joe host commented. "What was your takeaway talking to Donald Trump and digging into this as deeply as you did? "
"Well, first of all, I think that the role of Mark Meadows that was mentioned by Mika Brzezinski is important."
"This was the white house chief of staff, this was one of his campaign lawyers outlining a very specific plan with dates and times that was all centering on Mike Pence obeying the orders of Donald Trump, and it was a plan that if Pence had gone along with, would have resulted in a much bigger constitutional crisis than what we saw" Karl explained. "And Joe, what I found is that's just one example of where this could have gone off the rails and almost did go off the rails even in a more spectacular way than it did."
"Mark Meadows played a role throughout this, and Joe and Mika, I document this chapter and verse," he continued. "The role that Meadows played during the transition to chase down, to pursue every hare-brained scheme Donald Trump had; every conspiracy theory to try to undo what is really the central miracle of American democracy, a peaceful transition of power."
"Meadows was pressuring the Pentagon, the Justice Department into doing this in the end with Mike Pence -- much of this not known at the time," Karl elaborated. "He just played this role of trying to use all means necessary to effectuate what would have been a coup -- it was a coup overturning a proper election."
Watch below:
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Jan. 6 insurrection was 'treason': DC insider says we haven't faced anything this bad 'since the Civil War'
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There seems to be no realistic prospect that Donald Trump and members of his inner circle, along with Republican collaborators in Congress and other financiers and organizers of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol will ever be punished for their many and obvious crimes. For that matter, the foot soldiers of the Trump regime are not being prosecuted to the full extent of the law either.
Donald Trump is continuing to rally his movement behind the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that Joe Biden is a usurper. Trump is also targeting any Republican candidates or elected officials he deems disloyal. The Republican Party and its propaganda machine are accelerating an internal purge with the goal of purifying Trump's political personality cult. Some observers have suggested that this means Trump's movement is becoming weaker, but the opposite is true.
Trump's disgraced former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, played a key role in Trump's coup attempt, literally advocating that the military be deployed to enforce martial law and invalidate the 2020 election. If that idea had been carried through, American democracy would have been effectively suspended for an indefinite period.
Flynn continues to make public threats against American democracy, suggesting last weekend that the U.S. should have "one religion." Some months ago, Flynn appeared to endorse the idea of a military coup, similar to the one that occurred recently in Myanmar, presumably as a way of returning to power.
It has recently been reported that Trump's coup attempt was more advanced and broader in scope than was known at the time. Former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis apparently sent detailed instructions to Mike Pence's chief of staff, outlining a plan to derail certification of the electoral votes in Congress. The idea was to throw the election into the House — something that has not happened since the early 19th century — presumably resulting in a second term for Trump.
Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign chairman and White House strategist, surrendered to federal authorities this week on charges of contempt of Congress for his refusal to testify before the House committee investigating Jan. 6. Bannon is not likely to be deterred by this prosecution, wishful thinking among the hashtag-resistance aside. Instead, as Salon columnist Heather Digby Parton has observed, Bannon will use this new moment in the limelight as political theater, to the delight of his neofascist fan base.
Why are Attorney General Merrick Garland and the other leaders of the Department of Justice so reluctant to use the full force of the law against the Trump regime and other Republican fascists? Is the Biden administration's desperate desire to appear "apolitical" endangering democracy and the rule of law? What, if anything, does the Bannon prosecution mean in the larger context of the Trump regime's criminal acts? or not – for its approach to the Trump regime's crimes more generally?
In an attempt to answer these questions I recently spoke with Richard Painter, who was White House chief ethics counsel under President George W. Bush. He is also a frequent guest on MSNBC, CNN and other news networks. His most recent book, co-authored with Peter Golenbock, is "American Nero: The History of the Destruction of the Rule of Law, and Why Trump is the Worst Offender."
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length:
Why are Donald Trump and his co-conspirators not in jail for their likely or evident crimes connected to Jan. 6 and the coup plot? Are there no consequences for what they did?
The Department of Justice has not even started to investigate the higher-ups in connection to Jan. 6. The Jan. 6 committee [in Congress] cannot prosecute anything. They are also having a difficult time getting the documents and testimony they need for their investigations. Donald Trump is resisting every step of the way. In the end we will just have to wait and see what the committee comes up with when they finish their work.
I am very disappointed in the Department of Justice. It is being too deferential to Donald Trump. There has been some improvement, with the Department of Justice deciding that the Trump White House documents are not privileged. But again, the Department of Justice is not investigating Donald Trump and other senior people in the White House who may have been involved in the events of Jan. 6.
It is unfortunate that the Department of Justice has decided to go that route, because whether or not a crime is prosecuted should not be a political judgment call. If someone commits a crime — including insurrection and sedition, or inciting insurrection — it should be prosecuted. I am very upset the Department of Justice has not appointed a special prosecutor to focus on Jan. 6 as well as other alleged criminal acts committed by the Trump administration.
One of the common excuses and deflections is that we must be patient because the law moves slowly. There are levels of "slow." But how do we explain the lack of urgency being shown by the Biden administration and the Department of Justice?
They need to appoint a special prosecutor. I do not expect Merrick Garland and Biden's other appointees to prosecute Donald Trump and his cronies in connection with the events of Jan. 6. That would look too political. This is not a question of things taking too long — they have not even started their work.
Garland is trying to avoid the appearance of looking "political" by aggressively pursuing the Trump administration and its allies. But a coup and insurrection are by definition political acts. Please help me sort out Garland's logic.
There is one type of politics in a representative democracy, and there is another type of politics in an authoritarian dictatorship or a country that has otherwise descended into chaos. The making of the law and the passing of laws is a political process, where Congress is involved in agreeing what the law is. Once we have a law and someone violates it as a criminal act, then they need to be prosecuted.
In a society where the law is deemed to just be political, it can be taken to an extreme. The law becomes discretionary and tied to political ideology. That's where you end up with a dictatorship, such as with Nazi Germany.
In a well-functioning representative democracy, once the law has been enacted through the political process, if someone violates it — for example, by inciting a coup or an insurrection — that person or persons is prosecuted. That is the political system I thought we lived under here in America. We should expect that prosecutors are going to do their job.
And it's critically important, because the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, Section Three, says that anyone who's taken an oath of office to support the United States who then engages in an insurrection, or gives aid and comfort to an insurrection or rebellion, is disqualified from public office.
Therefore, we could have a number of people, perhaps including the former president, Donald Trump, who are actually disqualified from public office because they gave aid and comfort to an insurrection on Jan. 6.
Steve Bannon, who is publicly implicated in the 2020 coup plot, has finally been indicted for refusing to testify before the Jan. 6 committee. What does this mean in terms of the Department of Justice and its refusal to go after Donald Trump and the other coup plotters?
The Department of Justice had little choice but to prosecute Bannon — his contempt of Congress is obvious. It might as well not be a crime, if Bannon is not prosecuted.
I see little change in attitude at the Department of Justice on the big picture: They must appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any crimes leading up to and after the 2020 election. It is inexplicable that the Department of Justice has not done so.
I have no idea whether others in Trump's inner circle will cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee. Unlike Bannon, most were White House staffers at the time, so there is a claim of executive privilege — by Trump, not by Biden — that needs to be soundly rejected by the courts on appeal. They probably cannot be prosecuted until those appeals are exhausted.
Jan. 6 and the related events before and after that day constitute the actions of a cabal who were involved in what, by all common-sense definitions, was a conspiracy. Again, this gets to the question of urgency. That language is being actively avoided by the mainstream news media and political leaders.
Yes, that is what was taking place. We went through this when Donald Trump became president by collaborating and colluding with the Russians. What we have here is not ,collusion with the Russians but instead collusion and collaboration with domestic terrorists or insurrectionists who planned to overthrow the United States government. We have not had to deal with something of this magnitude since the Civil War, and it needs to be properly investigated.
What message is being sent if Trump, the coup plotters and his foot soldiers are not punished?
The message is that you can get away with the most egregious crimes, including insurrection and sedition, so long as you have enough political power that people do not want to stop you or otherwise interfere with you.
That is not how a representative democracy is supposed to function. We need to revisit the question of whether the most powerful people in this country are going to be held accountable under the Constitution and our criminal laws just like everyone else.
It also seems as if those who participated in the January insurrection and the Capitol assault are receiving relatively minor punishments, under Department of Justice guidelines and instructions.
The people who showed up on Jan. 6 and invaded the Capitol should be held accountable. They should not be punished with small fines and little jail time. This was an attempted coup. It was violent. People were killed. Those who were involved should be serving time in jail. Extraordinarily light sentences are being handed out in view of what happened here, which was an attempt to overthrow the government. That is considered treason in many respects, and is one of the most serious felonies imaginable. These are not misdemeanors. These are not minor felonies. I would think people would be getting some serious jail time.
The people who are behind the events of Jan. 6 are not even being investigated, much less prosecuted. I don't believe that crowd just came out of thin air. Those events were not spontaneous. There were individuals and groups pushing them to be there and organizing and inciting those events. None of those people are being held responsible, and that may ultimately include the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump.
At some point the full truth of Jan. 6 and the Trump regime's coup plot will be revealed to the American people and the world. I am deeply concerned that these investigations will take so long that people will be so exhausted that they no longer care. In essence, the reaction will be, "So what?" If the Trumpists and coup plotters are able to escape serious punishment, then it will mean the end of the country's democracy, because another coup is almost guaranteed to happen. Am I being too pessimistic and cynical?
That is a grave risk. People must be held accountable for their actions. These events can't be discounted or minimized as being "just a crazy insurrection" with a bunch of "crazy guys," where in the end some people are sent to prison for a small length of time and are then let out, as though nothing is going to happen again that the public needs to be worried about.
That is like the mistake that Weimar Germany made in 1923, when Hitler and his followers had the Beer Hall Putsch and thought they could take over the German government. They were all tried and sent to jail. Hitler did one year or so in prison. Then he gets out and he is elevated by the right-wing extremists as a hero. Ten years later, Hitler is sitting in the chancellor's office running the whole country.
When people engage in a coup attempt like this and are allowed to come back, it will be much worse the second time around.
https://www.rawstory.com/richard-painter/
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Jon Karl reveals the office ransacked most on Jan. 6 and what it exposes about the insurrection
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While speaking to the Washington Post about his new book "Betrayal," ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl revealed that one of the offices most ransacked in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 tells a lot about the aims of the attackers.
While it's clear that many of President Donald Trump's supporters were caught up in the moment, it was also clear that a subset of those had very specific goals to accomplish on Jan. 6.
According to Karl, the Senate Parliamentarian's office was the most pillaged among the other rooms in the Capitol. CNN's Ali Zaslav posted a video of the office at the time. Karl explained that it was clear those going through the office were looking for something specific and he thinks it was the Electoral College ballots.
The book describes the ceremony of Jan. 6, with "three dark and shiny mahogany boxes brought in by the parliamentarian's office to be carried along as the senators walked over to the House. The boxes looked like relics from a time long past—each one held shut by wide leather straps with brass clasps and locked with a skeleton key."
It was then that back at the rally in the White House Ellipse, Trump announced that he was going to lead his supporters to the Capitol building. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) was responsible for the day's events as the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee.
"I thought it was the case that the president can come on the Senate floor anytime he wants to, but the president can come on the House floor only when invited," Blunt told Karl. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) didn't invite Trump to the House, nor was she about to. Blunt explained that if Trump was headed to the Capitol it would only be in the Senate, and members weren't there as they were headed to the House for the joint session that counts the Electoral College ballots.
A small group was already outside of the Capitol, but a large crowd of Trump's supporters was en route to the building. Around then, the FBI and Capitol Police responded to reports of explosive devices outside of the Democratic and Republican Party headquarters.
As the chambers were being evacuated, a Parliamentarian staffer had the wherewithal to save the ballots as they raced from the chamber, Karl recalled. Wherever the members and staff were evacuated, the ballots were with them. Karl explained that if the insurrectionists were able to steal the ballots they could always be replaced, but the Constitution is specific about votes being done by certain dates and signatures being received and authorized by certain dates. There's no legal framework to deal with what could unfold if the ballots were taken by the attackers. It would clearly go to the Supreme Court, he explained, but who would do that? What kind of lawsuit would be filed?
While the staffer ensured it didn't happen, after the insurrection it was discovered that a website that posts historical maps of the Capitol was being read all over the country.
A Washington, D.C. history website that posts photos, maps and other information about the Capitol saw a dramatic increase in readership in the days leading up to Jan. 6.
Elliot Carter, who runs the website WashingtonTunnels.com, was worried that people were trying to find escape routes or entry points to the building for the attack. His concern made its way to leadership in the U.S. Capitol Police.
"These people were suddenly obsessed with the Capitol building," Carter said in August.
While it's possible the attackers wanted to figure out escape routes for officials, the fact that the Parliamentarian's office was the most destroyed makes Karl think this was part of the plan all along.
"Betrayal" is on sale now.
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Feds seeks four years in prison for Capitol rioter 'QAnon Shaman'
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The U.S. Capitol rioter nicknamed the "QAnon Shaman" for his horned head-dress faces a judge on Wednesday who could sentence him to more than four years in prison for his role in the deadly Jan. 6 attack by former President Donald Trump's followers.
Prosecutors have asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to impose a 51-month sentence on Jacob Chansley, who pleaded guilty in September to obstructing an official proceeding when he and thousands of others stormed the building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's election.
"Defendant Chansley's now-famous criminal acts have made him the public face of the Capitol riot," prosecutors said in asking for the 51-month sentence. That would be the stiffest imposed on any Capitol rioter, after a former mixed martial artist filmed punching a police officer during violence was sentenced last week to 41 months in prison.
Chansley's attorneys have asked the judge for a sentence of time served for their client, who has been detained since his January arrest.
While in detention, Chansley was diagnosed by prison officials with transient schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety. When he entered his guilty plea, Chansley said he was disappointed Trump had not pardoned him.
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives and acquitted by the Senate on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 riot for a fiery speech that preceded it in which he told his followers to "fight like hell."
Four people died in the violence. A Capitol Police officer who had been attacked by protesters died the day after the riot and four police officers who took part in the defense of the Capitol later took their own lives. About 140 police officers were injured.
Defense lawyer Albert Watkins said the U.S. Navy in 2006 had found Chansley suffered from personality disorder but nonetheless declared him "fit for duty."
https://www.rawstory.com/qanon-shaman-2655750452/
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'QAnon shaman' Jacob Chansley gets 41 months in prison for storming US Capitol
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Jacob Chansley, the so-called "QAnon shaman," was ordered to spend more than three years in federal prison for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
The 34-year-old Chansley wore a fur hat with horns and carried a spear when he stormed into the U.S. Capitol to protest Donald Trump's election loss, and Judge Royce Lamberth imposed the 41-month prison term recommended by prosecutors, reported HuffPost.
"If the defendant had been peaceful on that day, your honor, we would not be here," said assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Paschall.
Chansley's attorney had argued for leniency, citing his client's mental health issues, but prosecutors pointed out that he left a threatening note for then-vice president Mike Pence and attempted to stop him from certifying President Joe Biden's election win.
The Arizona man had pleaded guilty in September to one felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding.
https://www.rawstory.com/jacob-chansley-capitol/
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The GQP Party is all in for sedition, treason, and insurrection! Another right winger has been caught partaking in an attempt to overthrow the US Government.
Former GOP candidate arrested after bragging he was a 'key player' in breaking police lines at MAGA riot
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On Wednesday, WUSA9 reported that a former Republican candidate for the New York State Assembly has been arrested, along with his brother, after bragging on social media that he was "one of the key players" in breaking the Capitol Police line at the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"Arrest warrants for Gregory Purdy, his brother Matthew Purdy and a third defendant, Robert Turner, were authorized by a federal judge earlier this month," reported Jordan Fischer, Eric Flack, and Stephanie Wilson. "In addition to the four misdemeanor counts they all share, Gregory Purdy and Turner are additionally charged with civil disorder, obstruction and assaulting, resisting or impeding police."
The court documents state that Purdy travelled with members of his family to Washington D.C. for the January 6th "Stop the Steal" rally. Prosecutors allege that Purdy then led the charge against Capitol police officers trying to stop demonstrators from breaching the Capitol building.
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MORE: The affidavit for Greg Purdy is now available. In it, the FBI says Purdy posted that he and his group were "key players" in the mob pushing past police barriers (which he calls "peaceful pushes"). In one post he wrote "peep my war cry." #CapitolRiot
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According to the affidavit, Purdy said that he believed it was his job to "uphold the Constitution and do a f****** rebellion." He also boasted about the progress he was making against police officers, writing on social media, "This was after the last videos after we successfully got through their first force!!! Look at the f****** blood on the ground."
Purdy is far from the only politician to have participated in the attack. Former West Virginia state Rep. Derrick Evans resigned shortly after being elected when he was arrested for his involvement. Many others, including members of Congress like Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Mo Brooks (R-AL), reportedly helped Trump plan the "Stop the Steal" rally which fed people into the riot.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-arrests-2655751483/
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Trump and his allies are just as guilty as the QAnon Shaman: op-ed
In her column for the Washington Post this Thursday, Jennifer Rubin contends that the recent sentencing Jacob Chansley, also known as the "QAnon Shaman," to more than three years in prison for his role in the riot at the U.S. Capitol was "a direct rebuke to former president Donald Trump and his apologists."
But Rubin says former President Donald Trump was just as guilty, considering that he had beaten the drum for weeks, spread the "big lie" about a stolen election, and demanded his followers "stop the steal" as Congress was certifying the 2020 election's results.
"Penalties for the crimes committed that day are needed to send a message to purveyors of the Jan. 6 whitewash," Rubin writes. "District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth handed out a punishment at the low end of the sentencing guidelines. But his message was clear: 'What you did was terrible. You made yourself the epitome of the riot.'"
Rubin adds that is obvious that "the decline" of the GOP "has accelerated" since the Jan. 6. "With a handful of exceptions, the House Republican caucus has tried to prevent a full investigation of Jan. 6 and remains aligned with Trump."
Given that Trump and his allies are still denying the violent nature of Jan. 6, Rubin writes that "criminal investigation and prosecution must ensue for everyone involved to the extent that facts and the law allow."
Read her full op-ed at The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/18/insurrectionists-are-finally-receiving-justice-gop-is-more-unhinged-than-ever/
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Lock her up!
REVEALED: Kimberly Guilfoyle bragged about raising millions for Jan. 6 rally
Series: The Insurrection
The Effort to Overturn the Election
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Kimberly Guilfoyle, a top fundraiser for former President Donald Trump and the girlfriend of his son Donald Trump Jr., boasted to a GOP operative that she had raised $3 million for the rally that helped fuel the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In a series of text messages sent on Jan. 4 to Katrina Pierson, the White House liaison to the event, Guilfoyle detailed her fundraising efforts and supported a push to get far-right speakers on the stage alongside Trump for the rally, which sought to overturn the election of President Joe Biden.
Guilfoyle's texts, reviewed by ProPublica, represent the strongest indication yet that members of the Trump family circle were directly involved in the financing and organization of the rally. The attack on the Capitol that followed it left five dead and scores injured.
A House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 has subpoenaed more than 30 Trump allies for testimony and documents, including Pierson and Caroline Wren, a former deputy to Guilfoyle. But Guilfoyle herself has so far not received any official scrutiny from Congress.
Guilfoyle's attorney, Joe Tacopina, denied that Guilfoyle had anything to do with fundraising or approving speakers. He said the text from Guilfoyle “did not relate to the Save America rally" on Jan. 6 and the “content of the message itself" was “inaccurate" and “taken out of context." He did not respond to additional questions asking about the accuracy and context of the message.
Reached by phone, Pierson declined to comment.
The text messages show that Guilfoyle expressed specific concerns that she might not be allowed to speak on stage at the Jan. 6 rally. Pierson responded that Trump himself set the speaking lineup and that it was limited to people he selected, including some of his children and Amy Kremer, a grassroots activist who organized the event.
Guilfoyle replied that she only wanted to introduce Trump Jr. and had "raised so much money for this."
"Literally one of my donors Julie at 3 million," she added.
Guilfoyle was referring to Julie Jenkins Fancelli, a Publix supermarket heir who Guilfoyle had developed a professional relationship with during the campaign.
Until now, Wren has been the only person identified as having worked with Fancelli. As ProPublica reported last month, Wren also boasted in private conversations with colleagues of raising $3 million for the events of Jan. 6.
It remains unclear whether that amount was really raised and, if so, how the majority of it was spent. Some of the money raised from Fancelli flowed to dark money groups that supported the rally, according to wire transfers described to ProPublica, planning documents and interviews with insiders.
In a statement from her attorney, Wren acknowledged helping to produce the rally but did not provide further details about her role in fundraising.
“To Ms. Wren's knowledge, Kimberly Guilfoyle had no involvement in raising funds for any events on January 6th," the statement said. “They were both present at a peaceful rally with hundreds of thousands of Americans who were in DC to lawfully exercise their first amendment rights, a primary pillar of American democracy."
The texts between Guilfoyle and Pierson and interviews with Trump officials also suggest that Guilfoyle attempted to influence the lineup of speakers scheduled to appear at the event.
On the night of Jan. 5, Trump Jr., Guilfoyle and Wren attended an event at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, where Trump donors mingled with prominent figures in the movement to overturn the election, according to interviews and social media posts from attendees.
Around the time of that event, Wren called rally staff and urged them to allow speaking roles for Ali Alexander, a far-right provocateur and leader of the Stop the Steal movement; Roger Stone, a former Trump advisor; and conspiracy theorist and InfoWars leader Alex Jones, according to a former campaign official who was told details of the call by people who listened to it.
Trump aides had already deemed the men too radical to go on stage, worrying they might embarrass the president.
During the call, Guilfoyle voiced her support for the controversial speakers, the former campaign official was told. She also specifically demanded that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who had sued to challenge election results in four other states, address the crowd. Alexander later said on a newscast that he also received a call from Guilfoyle that same evening.
Tacopina, Guilfoyle's lawyer, said she did not urge staffers to change the speakers. "Your contention that Ms. Guilfoyle approved a speaking list for January 6th is patently false," he wrote. He threatened to “aggressively pursue all legal remedies available" against ProPublica.
But the texts show Guilfoyle and Pierson talking about a “leaked" speaking list — an apparent reference to an article about the Jan. 6 rally published by the conservative news website Breitbart the day before.
That list included Alexander, Stone and Paxton, among others.
“All I know is that someone leaked a list of 'speakers' that the WH had not seen or approved," Pierson wrote. “I've never had so much interference."
Guilfoyle responded: “Yea and this the list we approved."
Tacopina did not answer further questions about what Guilfoyle meant in the text where she said "we" had approved a speaking list.
Untangling the relationship between Guilfoyle, Wren and Fancelli is key to understanding the financing of the events of Jan. 6.
In January 2020, Guilfoyle was appointed national chair of the Trump Victory finance committee, a leading fundraising vehicle for Trump's reelection campaign. She brought Wren on as her deputy.
Guilfoyle, through her relationship with Trump Jr., had access to the family and a certain star power that appealed to donors. Wren, by all accounts a relentless, high-energy worker, brought fundraising expertise and a Rolodex of wealthy Republicans willing to invest handsomely to keep Trump in office. The duo ultimately brought in tens of millions of dollars toward Trump's reelection.
The pair focused primarily on ramping up the campaign's “bundling" program, a method of fundraising that relies on volunteers collecting money from their personal networks.
Fancelli, a reclusive member of one of the country's richest families, was one of those volunteers, according to interviews and internal Trump Victory records. Splitting her time between Florida and Italy, Fancelli raised at least $72,000 from her friends and family.
She stood out to Wren and Guilfoyle, who in 2020 considered her for a role as Florida state co-chair for the bundling program, according to an internal Trump Victory planning document reviewed by ProPublica. The document highlighted Fancelli as a person Guilfoyle should contact personally.
Tacopina said Guilfoyle had never seen any such document "nor is aware of its supposed existence."
On or just before July 14, 2020, Guilfoyle called Fancelli directly, according to a different set of text messages reviewed by ProPublica. The next day, Fancelli made her largest federal political contribution to date, according to campaign finance records: $250,000 to Trump Victory.
By election night, she had chipped in $565,000 more, records show.
Tacopina did not address the July 2020 phone call in his statement and did not respond to questions about Guilfoyle's relationship with Fancelli. Fancelli did not respond to requests for comment.
After the election, Wren became the main fundraising consultant for a newly formed super PAC run by two of Trump Jr.'s closest aides. The super PAC, called “Save the US Senate PAC," placed ads starring Trump Jr. in which he encouraged Georgians to vote Republican in the bitterly contested runoff elections that would result in Democratic control of the Senate.
That PAC was primarily funded by LJ Management Services Inc., a company closely linked to Fancelli's family foundation. It gave $800,000 to the PAC in several installments, records show.
In late December, Wren became involved in the rally preparations for Jan. 6.
Wren told multiple organizers interviewed by ProPublica that she was carrying out the wishes of the Trump family. Some believed her and feared that defying her would upset the Trumps. Others suspected she was exaggerating.
“Caroline kept talking about her connections to Don Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle," said Cindy Chafian, a rally organizer who told ProPublica she was put in touch with Wren and Fancelli by Alex Jones. “I thought she was full of crap."
As ProPublica previously reported, Wren told Dustin Stockton, another rally organizer, that she had raised $3 million for Jan. 6 and “parked" funds with three Republican dark money groups supporting the rally.
In one case, Wren routed roughly $150,000 from Fancelli to the Republican Attorneys General Association's Rule of Law Defense Fund, which then purchased a robocall instructing Trump supporters to come to Washington and march on the Capitol after the president's speech. The robocall was purchased in order to satisfy the conditions of the donation, a person familiar with the transaction told ProPublica.
ProPublica also reported that Wren had pressured rally organizers to allow Jones and other far-right leaders to speak on stage before the president. The effort grew so intense and volatile that on the morning of Jan. 6, a senior White House official suggested rally organizers call the U.S. Park Police on Wren to have her escorted off the Ellipse. Officers arrived but took no action. Wren has previously declined to comment on the incident.
Around the same time, Guilfoyle sat with Trump and other members of his inner circle in the Oval Office and discussed the growing throngs outside, according to The Washington Post. “They're just reflecting the will of the people," she reportedly told the president. “This is the will of the people."
On stage later that morning, Guilfoyle gave a rousing speech introducing Trump Jr. “We will not allow the liberals and the Democrats to steal our dream or steal our elections," Guilfoyle told the crowd.
Trump Jr. then exhorted the crowd to send a message to the Republican members of Congress who “did nothing to stop the steal."
Trump Jr. did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Jones and Alexander left the rally early. Wren escorted the men away from the White House as they prepared to lead the march on the Capitol.
As the Capitol plunged into chaos later that day — police officers outnumbered and overrun, lawmakers huddled behind makeshift bunkers, tear gas enshrouding the building — Guilfoyle boarded a private jet.
She was off to Florida with at least two major Trump donors, Nebraska gubernatorial candidate Charles Herbster and California entrepreneur Richard Kofoed, who had chartered the jet. The plane left Dulles International Airport at 3:47 p.m., according to aviation records. It dropped Herbster off on Florida's Amelia Island before heading for West Palm Beach. Wren listed both Kofoed and Herbster as her VIPs for the rally in planning documents. Planning documents show Cassidy Kofoed, Richard Kofoed's 23-year-old daughter, also worked with Wren on preparations for Jan. 6.
Herbster confirmed that he was on board the plane with Guilfoyle. Richard and Cassidy Kofoed did not respond to requests for comment.
In response to questions about the flight, Tacopina said that Guilfoyle lived with Kofoed and his wife at a rented property in Mar-a-Lago from approximately December 2020 through July 2021.
Guilfoyle has continued her role as a major Trump fundraiser. In October, she was put at the helm of Trump's super PAC, called Make America Great Again, Again!
https://www.propublica.org/series/the-insurrection
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What a joke!
Jailed MAGA rioter seeks release because it’s ‘not healthy’ to be ‘stuck in a bubble’ with other insurrectionists
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A violent Capitol rioter is seeking his pretrial release from the DC Jail, arguing that it's "not healthy" to be "stuck in a bubble" with other insurrectionists who share his views.
Robert Gieswein is member of the Three Percenters militia group who's accused of assaulting police officers at the Capitol after traveling to Washington from Colorado "prepared for battle," according to media reports.
In a handwritten letter to U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan filed in court on Thursday, Gieswein wrote that he read a recent Vice News article about the "Patriot Wing" of the DC Jail, where he is housed with other hardcore perpetrators of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
"I am not an expert in anything, but I do know it's not healthy to spend every day in here like it's Groundhog's (SIC) Day, with people with the same viewpoint, in the same situation, because we are all portrayed by much of the media as one type of person," Gieswein wrote. "It is natural in this environment for the conversation to turn to January 6, and for us to look to each other for strength."
Gieswein added that he does participate in nightly singalongs of the national anthem that take place in the Patriot Wing — because it helps him remember that he loves his country.
"And I am saying nothing against the other men in here," he wrote. "Still, most of us do share a lot of the same views, and it's easy to get stuck in your bubble in this environment. ... Outside, I could choose to seek out other perspectives."
Gieswein wrote that he tries to watch "many news sites for perspective" — from CNN to Steve Bannon's War Room.
"But it seems like they try to rile everybody up to make money," he wrote. "What I am missing in here is time away from a bubble, and a real chance to talk to real people I trust who may have different perspectives on January 6."
Read the full letter below:
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https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvwjp/january-6-rioters-jailed-together-forming-rituals-fanbase
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One of the best articles that I've read which details Trump's coup and insurrection with all the players involved.
Trump Insurrection Timeline: First the coup — and then the cover-up
https://www.rawstory.com/insurrection-act/
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GOP-linked nonprofit funneled millions to white supremacists and Jan 6th organizers
According to a report from the Daily Beast's Roger Sollenberger, a dark money nonprofit with ties to the Koch family has been funneling millions of dollars into organizations promoting white supremacy as well as supporters of Donald Trump linked to the Jan 6th insurrection.
Based upon an IRS filing from Donors Trust, reported upon by CNBC, the Beast explains that the nonprofit took in $360 million last year to disperse as it sees fit.
According to the report, beneficiaries of donations have been linked to the organizers of the Jan 6th rally -- that turned into a riot at the U.S. Capitol -- as well private universities.
Calling Donors Trust the "dark money ATM of the right," the report states the organization that does not have to reveal who gives it money, "... gave more than $2 million to groups linked to white supremacists, including the VDARE Foundation."
Government ethics expert Norm Eisen claimed, after reviewing the IRS filing that it is "profoundly concerning for the future of our democracy."
With the Beast reporting, "the group channeled major support for entities which fought to overturn President Joe Biden's 2020 victory and organized the Jan. 6 rallies in Washington, D.C." Eisen claimed, "The Donors Trust is taking advantage of the dangerous opacity of our tax and related laws and regulations to fund alleged white supremacist and white nationalist associated groups, those who were bad actors in wrongly attempting to spread misinformation about or overturn the legitimate 2020 election results, and even groups that were responsible for the rally that helped trigger the Jan. 6 insurrection."
According to the Beast's Sollenberger, "Donors Trust posted record numbers in 2020. The group, which has hauled in more than $1 billion since 2016, raised more than $360 million last year, while spreading around $182 million across 339 organizations. Donors Trust itself held on to about $174 million in contributions, bringing its total assets to $607 million."
The GOP Dark Money Group Giving Big to White Supremacists
Donors Trust raised $360 million last year. They’ve been spreading around that money to white supremacist organizations, Jan. 6 organizers, conservative causes, and universities
Efforts to overturn the election. Jan. 6 organizers. White supremacist groups. And more than a dozen private and public universities.
They all have one thing in common: They received anonymous funding funneled through a single conservative dark money behemoth.
That’s the news in the latest IRS filing from Donors Trust—a conservative, Koch-aligned nonprofit which does not need to reveal the names of its donors and has been called the “dark money ATM of the right.”
The disclosure, first obtained by CNBC, shows the group channeled major support for entities which fought to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and organized the Jan. 6 rallies in Washington, D.C.
Donors Trust also gave more than $2 million to groups linked to white supremacists, including the VDARE Foundation.
Norm Eisen, a government ethics expert and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, analyzed the filing with colleagues and remarked that it was “profoundly concerning for the future of our democracy.”
“The Donors Trust is taking advantage of the dangerous opacity of our tax and related laws and regulations to fund alleged white supremacist and white nationalist associated groups, those who were bad actors in wrongly attempting to spread misinformation about or overturn the legitimate 2020 election results, and even groups that were responsible for the rally that helped trigger the Jan. 6 insurrection,” he told The Daily Beast.
But the same vehicle that quietly fuels white supremacist rhetoric also fanned money out to major educational institutions, including state public schools like the University of Texas, Virginia Tech, Michigan State University, and Florida State University. Leading private colleges like Georgetown, Vanderbilt, and a conservative think tank headquartered at Brown University also drew anonymous support.
At the same time, the fund shipped millions of dollars to right-wing organizations agitating for education reform, including to groups pushing unfounded fears about critical race theory.
The Donors Trust primarily funds right-leaning, libertarian, and free-market advocates. It describes itself as “a charitable savings account”—a go-between that allows wealthy donors to deposit money in lump sums, where it gets invested at tax-free growth. They can later direct contributions at any time while remaining anonymous.
These donor-advised funds are common across the ideological spectrum, and “act as a clearinghouse of donated money,” according to Phil Hackney, a nonprofit law expert at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.
“Donors can contribute to these organizations and take a charitable deduction, and they let the group hold the money, invest it, and then contribute to other charitable organizations when the donor advises them to do so,” Hackney explained.
Donors, particularly wealthy ones, often seek anonymity from the public, “particularly where they’re donating to controversial causes,” he said.
Donors Trust posted record numbers in 2020. The group, which has hauled in more than $1 billion since 2016, raised more than $360 million last year, while spreading around $182 million across 339 organizations. Donors Trust itself held on to about $174 million in contributions, bringing its total assets to $607 million.
While the group’s 501(c)3 tax status affords anonymity, reporting has identified several major conservative backers over the years, like the Koch and Bradley families. The biggest single donor this year contributed $158 million, and eight individuals accounted for $270 million in donations—75 percent of the total.
Asked about the money raised for white supremacist and anti-democratic groups, Donors Trust president and CEO Lawson Bader provided a statement touting the fund’s financial success, claiming the organizations they support are “worthy causes” and that the donations “serve the public good.”
“2020 was a year of great uncertainty and change. Despite this, donors stepped up to support public charities, especially those embroiled in alleviating and addressing the vast economic and health challenges facing the country,” the statement said. “Many account holders held ‘rainy day’ charitable funds in their respective accounts, which made it possible for many to extend their generosity and serves as a reminder about the essential nature of donor-advised fund providers during times of crisis.”
Bader, who pulled a $390,000 salary in 2020, said the $186 million distributed last year was “to serve the public good.” He claimed the group has, since its 2001 inception, “distributed more than $1.5 billion to thousands of worthy causes and institutions focused on science, medicine, religion, public policy, the arts, civics and health.”
A representative from a public relations firm that serves the company told The Daily Beast that the organization exists to give legitimate groups “a seat at the table” and “not to advance any cause,” including “those they may disagree with.”
But that appears to contradict with the mission statement on the group’s IRS filing, which states that its purpose is “to promote liberty through limited government, personal responsibility, and free enterprise by providing financial support to other publicly supported charities that share in its purpose.”
It is unclear from Bader’s statement which goals the Donors Trust organization shares with some of its “worthy causes,” including groups that have been associated with white identity and white supremacist movements, like VDARE, Young Americans for Liberty, and the New Century Foundation.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, VDARE, which received $70,000 last year and nearly $2 million in 2019, “regularly publishes articles by white supremacists.” YAL, which received $1.3 million through Donors Trust in 2020, has been affiliated with the white nationalist and the neo-Nazi organization Identity Evropa. The group removed its president after multiple women leveled allegations of sexual assault in January. And another $600,000 went to the New Century Foundation, which SPLC, the Anti-Defamation League, and academics consider a white supremacist group.
The Donor Trust’s self-described efforts to “serve the public good” included bankrolling an array of groups which challenged the 2020 election and seeded unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. Those organizations received nearly $10 million in anonymous cash last year, according to an analysis of the filing.
Two of those entities played key roles in the events surrounding Jan. 6. One of them, the Tea Party Patriots, was listed as a rally organizer and received $250,000. The second, Turning Point—the right-wing youth group run by Charlie Kirk—provided buses to D.C. and participated in the “March to Save America” ahead of the event. Turning Point groups took in a total $780,000 from trust contributions in 2020.
Articles on the VDARE website also rejected Donald Trump’s loss and “cheered on” the rioters.
The Center for Security Policy, a group founded by anti-Muslim activist and conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney—who also disputed the election results—received $1.1 million. After the riot, CSP told CNBC that Gaffney no longer ran the organization. But Gaffney also appears on the board of a Texas-based group called Propter Strategies, which was incorporated in June 2020 and raised $5 million last year through Donors Trust, split evenly between Propter’s “Delta Project” and the “Internal Security Project.”
While plenty of the disbursements went to traditional conservative groups, those groups have also increasingly been voyaging into far-right causes, like “election integrity.”
Take, for example, the group FreedomWorks.
FreedomWorks has been a Koch-funded, libertarian-leaning advocacy group for almost two decades.
But after the election, the nonprofit FreedomWorks reportedly led protests against voter fraud. And in the wake of the Capitol riot, it partnered with Newsmax on a Sunday show called “Save Our Nation.” FreedomWorks received roughly $1.1 million in Donor Trust money last year, including for the Keep Elections Great Project and an initiative identified on the IRS filing as “Save Our Country.”
Additionally, FreedomWorks recently hired attorney and conservative activist Cleta Mitchell, who lost her job at Foley Lardner after participating in Trump’s phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Mitchell also now serves on the board at the Conservative Partnership Institute, a think tank which is also now pushing ideological election reforms and took in more than half a million dollars through Donors Trust last year.
Another traditional conservative cause—the Thomas More Society, which is a law firm that routinely files suits on behalf of right-wing interests, like abortion, gay marriage, and now, overturning the 2020 election—saw more than $2 million come its way through the dark money group.
About $1 million of that money was earmarked for the Amistad Project, an aggressive initiative created in August 2020 which litigated the election both before and after votes were cast, including challenges in five states. Donald Trump’s former election lawyer Jenna Ellis served as the society’s special counsel at the time.
And the Government Accountability Institute, a nonprofit co-founded by Trump loyalist Steve Bannon and backed by right-wing billionaire financier Rebekah Mercer, raked in $1.6 million through the fund last year. The GAI has pushed voter fraud claims, including in a “flawed” 2017 report that has since been removed from the White House website.
Still, these groups make up only a small slice of Donor Trust’s grants. The fund, which over the years has received major financial support from Republican megadonors, backs a panoply of influential conservative think tanks, nonprofits, and activists.
A number of universities, which accept anonymous direct donations, also draw support through the backchannel. The top recipient last year was George Mason University, a public institution in Virginia and home to the conservative Mercatus think tank and Antonin Scalia School of Law. GMU pocketed several million dollars in anonymous gifts, and it is unclear whether any donors have independently revealed themselves to the school.
"We need a tax and legal system that prevents these kinds of abuses of secrecy to undermine democracy,” Eisen said. “If we had a proper set of rules that applied to everyone, then the hidden donors, whoever they may be, would probably be ashamed to be associated with organizations that engage in this kind of activity. In the absence of those across-the-board fair and reasonable principles, we can’t benefit from the famous Brandeis maxim that ‘sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.’”
The Donors Trust public relations representative also pointed out that the group only funds “legit” organizations, who have the blessing of the IRS. But last year, Donors Trust gave $1.4 million to Fair Lines America, a group that was targeted in a watchdog complaint that July for misleading the IRS about $225,000 in 2018 revenue from Donors Trust.
Still, Donors Trust contributors support a number of smaller and apolitical groups as well. For instance, last year the fund raised $25,100 for the Special Olympics, and $15,000 for the Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-gop-dark-money-group-donors-trust-giving-big-to-vdare-white-supremacists?ref=home
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Leaked Texts: Jan. 6 Organizers Say They Were ‘Following POTUS’ Lead’
Rally planners coordinated closely with the White House before Jan. 6 and readied a dinner party while the Capitol was under siege, according to leaked group text messages obtained by Rolling Stone
At 5:30 pm on Jan. 6, police were in their third hour of battle with supporters of former President Trump on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Meanwhile, about a mile away in a suite at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel, Amy Kremer, a conservative activist who organized a major pro-Trump rally near the White House that preceded the violence, apparently had hors d’oeuvres on her mind.
Kremer sent her fellow rally organizers a text preceded by three siren emojis. It was an urgent update.
“We ordered dinner again tonight. Sorry, but we forgot to take orders in the chaos of the event this morning, so we just ordered the same thing as last night. I figured that was better than not eating. Lol,” Kremer wrote. “Cheese & Charcuterie should be here at 6PM and dinner around 7PM.”
An emergency curfew took effect and National Guard troops arrived at the Capitol to clear the remaining crowds at roughly the same time Kremer and her fellow organizers received their cured meats. Three sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigations into the rally, told Rolling Stone that, along with food, people were drinking champagne in the suite while rioters skirmished with law enforcement at the Capitol complex.
Kremer’s insurrection night dinner order was detailed in a series of text messages and group chats from January 6 rally organizers that were obtained and reviewed by Rolling Stone. The messages included months of discussions as Kremer’s “March For Trump” group staged a bus tour around the country to protest the former president’s election loss. The conversations revealed new details of the rally organizers’ coordination with the Trump White House.
Kremer’s Jan. 6 rally took place on the White House Ellipse as Trump’s election loss was being certified at the U.S. Capitol. The event featured a speech by Trump where he urged the crowd to “fight like hell,” and indicated he expected them to march to the Capitol complex. Some of the audience at the rally began making the approximately mile-and-a-half long trek to the Capitol as Trump concluded his remarks. The barricades at the Capitol were breached minutes before the former president finished the speech.
Two sources who were involved in planning the Ellipse rally previously told Rolling Stone they had extensive interactions with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. The text messages provide a deeper understanding of what that cooperation entailed, including an in-person meeting at the White House. Rally organizers also described working with Trump’s team to announce the event, promote it, and grant access to VIP guests. A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment on the record.
Group chats also provided a glimpse of tensions between rally planners. And the conversations showed how their core group reacted to the chaos that erupted that day in real time, including Kremer rejecting calls to hold a press conference denouncing the violence.
Rolling Stone reviewed the text messages in a phone where they were originally received and timestamped. The messages from Amy Kremer and her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, came from phone numbers that have been used by both women. We are publishing excerpts of these messages as they were originally written including some typos.
Kremer, who began her political career as a Tea Party activist, is the chairwoman of Women For America First, the pro-Trump organization that obtained the permit for the Ellipse rally. Kylie is the group’s executive director.
Along with Women For America First, Amy Kremer was also a leader of March For Trump, a group that was launched in 2019 to protest against Trump’s first impeachment. In late November of 2020, after Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden, March For Trump began a bus tour with events around the country, where Kremer and other conservative activists promoted false conspiracy theories about the election and called for the results to be overturned. On Nov. 28, 2020, the day before the bus tour began, Kremer texted fellow activists in a group chat.
“Welcome to the March for Trump bus tour,” Kremer wrote. “We are going to save the world!”
Two days later, Kremer texted some of the organizers to let them know she was temporarily getting off the bus to travel to Washington for a White House meeting.
“For those of you that weren’t aware, I have jumped off the tour for the night and am headed to DC. I have a mtg at the WH tomorrow afternoon and then will be back tomorrow night,” wrote Kremer. “Rest well. I’ll make sure the President knows about the tour tomorrow!”
The message describing Kremer’s White House meeting is one of several where she and Kylie, indicated they were in communication with Trump’s team. Both Amy and Kylie Kremer did not respond to requests for comment on the record. Chris Barron, a spokesperson for the Kremers, called Rolling Stone to insist elements of this reporting are untrue.
“You are printing things that are 100 percent factually untrue that we can prove are not true,” Barron said. “You are printing things that are absolutely, factually untrue and, beyond being factually untrue, for anybody who knows Amy are like hilariously preposterous.”
Barron repeatedly declined to answer specific questions about which aspects of the story he wanted to dispute.
The texts reviewed by Rolling Stone reveal that on December 13, 2020, Kremer texted the group to say she was “still waiting to hear from the WH on the photo op with the bus.” On January 1, before the Ellipse rally was publicly announced, Kylie sent a message to another group chat that said she was still working on the permits and “just FYI – we still can’t tweet out about the ellipse.”
“We are following POTUS’ lead,” Kylie wrote, using an abbreviation for the president.
Two days later, on January 3, March For Trump activist Dustin Stockton texted one of the team’s groups to ask who was “handling” rally credentials for VIPs. “It’s a combination of us and WH,” Kylie replied.
Stockton’s fiancee, Jennifer Lawrence, had a similar question when she asked a chat group where media credential requests for the Ellipse rally were going after being submitted on the group’s website.
“To campaign,” Kylie responded in an apparent reference to Trump’s re-election team. “They are handling all.”
Stockton and Lawrence did not respond to requests for comment on the record.
On January 3, Trump tweeted an announcement that he would be attending the Ellipse rally. Trump also retweeted posts from Lawrence and Kremer advertising the event. Some of these messages were excitedly shared in a March For Trump group chat.
“Whoop whoop,” wrote Greg Locke, a Tennessee pastor who was a fixture on the bus tour. Locke added a heart, praying hands, and “100” emoji for good measure. Locke did not respond to a request for comment on record.
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack has subpoenaed documents and testimony from both Amy and Kylie Kremer. The pair were asked to give depositions on Oct. 29. The committee has indicated it will consider criminal contempt referrals against individuals who defy its subpoenas. A spokesperson for the committee declined to comment on whether the Kremers have complied with the subpoena.
Multiple members of Trump’s inner circle — including former White House officials — have also been subpoenaed by the committee as it examines the role the former president’s team played in the events of January 6. An attorney familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing probe, told Rolling Stone the congressional investigators have obtained “tons of” group chats from organizers.
As the big rally approached, the group chats grew even more excited. On the morning of January 5, Kremer texted the organizers and declared “we are about to be part of a pivotal and historic moment in our nation’s history.”
“Thank you for taking this journey with Women For America First. I love you all and am grateful for each of you,” Kremer wrote, adding, “Let’s go save the Republic!”
But the conversations weren’t all celebratory. The group chats also revealed some of the tensions behind the scenes of the efforts to protest Trump’s election loss.
Kremer and Women For America First weren’t the only ones involved in planning events to protest the election result. Another group, Stop the Steal, which was led by far right activist Ali Alexander, held its own rallies around the country and planned a “Wild Protest” outside the Capitol on January 6. Two sources who were involved in the Ellipse rally planning previously told Rolling Stone they had concerns Alexander’s event could turn violent due to his apparent ties to militia groups and its location directly outside the Capitol. Those sources claimed Alexander initially agreed he would not hold the “Wild Protest” and would allow the Ellipse rally to be the only major pro-Trump event in D.C. on January 6.
The March For Trump group chat conversations hint at some of the tensions between Kremer’s group and the “Wild Protest” planners. On the 6th, the group chats indicate Kremer’s group had a dispute with Alexander over VIP seats at the Ellipse rally.
“Ali trying to rearrange our women for america seats,” wrote one of the group’s volunteers. “Stop that s**t,” replied Stockton.
Alexander did not respond to a request for comment on record.
The group chats also show some of the drama that played out within Kremer’s team. On Dec. 31, as the members of the group realized the “Wild Protest” seemed to be moving forward, Kylie posted a series of angry messages accusing the people who were riding the bus of focusing on irrelevant issues and not sufficiently appreciating the work being done to plan the Ellipse event. Kylie dismissed the “Wild Protest” as “all the people who aren’t invited or POTUS won’t be associated with.”
“How do yall not get it? Seriously. Everyone needs to get off that damn bus because you are all going crazy focused on things that don’t matter.”
A volunteer responded that the group’s supporters were uneasy about a lack of guidance since the Ellipse rally plans had not yet been tweeted. Kylie replied with a pair of messages noting how rare it is for events to take place on the Ellipse. She added that she was working with colleagues and “Team Trump” to get the event squared away.
“I am very frustrated and feel like you guys have NO IDEA the hoops we have been jumping through 24-7 lately. Google events at the Ellipse. Send me pictures that you can find of anything other than the Christmas tree light or menorah lighting that are official WH events. THEY DONT HAPPEN,” Kylie wrote. “Y’all this has got to stop. The back and forth. If anyone doesn’t like what … team trump and I are doing then you don’t have to come to January 6th.”
There were also multiple messages indicating alcohol was a source of controversy among some of the organizers. In one group chat message on Dec. 27, 2020, Kremer admonished her daughter for drinking.
“Kylie, you need to slow your roll on the wine RIGHT NOW,” Kremer wrote. “We have so much work to do and not enough time to get it done.”
At another point, Kremer sent a message to the group declaring, “There will be no more drinking on this trip.”
There was plenty of drinking on Jan. 6 at Kremer’s Willard suite, according to multiple sources. The text messages include a menu for a dinner for the organizers on the night before the rally. Menu options included a “Willard Burger” with truffle aioli, red wine braised Angus short rib Beef Bourguignon, steak frites, and a salmon filet with aged balsamic. Based on Kremer’s text about the charcuterie plate, she chose options from the same menu for the organizers on the evening of Jan. 6. The options in the Willard suite also included champagne that Kremer’s guests were drinking just as her organization issued a press release denouncing the violence and calling the group “saddened and disappointed.”
Pam Silleman, the coordinator for the Napa Tea Party in California and one of the VIP guests invited to the event, previously told the website The Uprising, which is written by this reporter, that she drank champagne in the suite with the Kremers and other organizers after the Ellipse rally as the storming of the Capitol played on TV. A member of the March For Trump team suggested some in the suite were “totally sloshed that night.”
According to the March For Trump team member, the Kremers booked one of the nicest suites at the hotel and had a variety of special requests for staff, including fresh lightbulbs. And the team member further suggested the lavish spread at the Willard may have attracted the attention of law enforcement.
"I got the call from someone at the FBI asking why I used my card at the Willard in DC. … It was an exorbitant bill. The suite they were in, it was ungodly expensive because Kylie had to have the presidential suite. That was what made her comfortable,” the March For Trump team member says. “She had to have her waffles every morning. She would check the lightbulbs at every hotel. She would have maintenance change the lightbulbs.”
Another person who worked on the rally and spoke on the condition of anonymity claimed there were approximately 12 to 15 people in the suite on the evening of Jan. 6 and that it was “stocked up with wine.”
“She was sh**faced that night Kylie Kremer was,” the person says.
On the morning after January 6, the group chats show some of the Ellipse rally organizers wanted to hold a press conference or make a statement denouncing the violence. Shortly before noon, Kremer replied that she felt her initial Women For America First statement was sufficient.
“I don’t think it is wise for us to talk to the press or have a press conference. Our statement yesterday was strong enough and we need to leave it at that,” Kremer wrote to the group chat on January 7. “Nothing god will come from us talking to CBS or any other mainstream media outlet. I hope you guys understand and agree.”
About twenty minutes later, Kremer had another problem on her hands at the Willard. She texted the group for urgent help.
“Someone pls come let me out of my bathroom,” Kremer wrote. “I’m locked in here."
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/j6-white-house-rally-organizers-trump-cooperate-1260849/
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Good! More anti American traitors are being subpoenaed. Criminal Roger Stone doesn't have Criminal Donald to protect him anymore.
Capitol riot committee subpoenas Alex Jones and Roger Stone
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots has issued subpoenas to Trump allies Alex Jones and Roger Stone, reports Politico's Kyle Cheney.
Both Jones and Stone encouraged their supporters to attend the January 6th "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the riots.
Stone was convicted in 2019 of several charges related to his efforts to obstruct special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He was subsequently pardoned by former President Donald Trump.
Jones last week lost a massive defamation case filed by families of children who were murdered in the 2012 massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones had falsely accused the parents of being "crisis actors" who lied about their children being murdered as a pretext for taking away Americans' guns.
In addition to Stone and Jones, the committee also subpoenaed Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, as well as pro-Trump activists Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence.
https://www.rawstory.com/roger-stone-alex-jones/
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'What liars!' Morning Joe busts GOP apologists after Jan 6 rioter admits he brought a gun to kill Nancy Pelosi
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough blasted Republicans who downplayed the violent threat from the Jan. 6 insurrectionists after new proof emerged of their violent intentions.
Mark Mazza, a 56-year-old Indiana man charged with carrying a loaded firearm to the U.S. Capitol riot, suggested to investigators that he intended to kill House speaker Nancy Pelosi during the chaos, and the "Morning Joe" host unloaded on GOP lawmakers who have insisted those Donald Trump supporters were merely protesters or even tourists.
"We have another person who was there with a gun proving what liars those Republican apologists are, saying they looked like a bunch of tourists," Scarborough said. "This criminal defendant, said he went to Jan. 6 with a gun if he had found Nancy Pelosi, they'd be talking to him about something else completely different."
"This whole idea that people were going after Mike Pence and saying, 'Hang Mike Pence,' that it was, like, a football cheer or something or people screaming, 'Nancy, where are you, Nancy' -- no, it's very clear this was not a group of tourists," Scarborough added. "There were people inside this group that were mobs, rioters who wanted to find and kill Nancy Pelosi and wanted to find and kill the sitting vice president of the United States."
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Roger Stone looks like he's 'at the red-hot center' of planning Capitol demonstrations: CNN legal analyst
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th riots at the United States Capitol building subpoenaed Trump ally Roger Stone on Monday, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said that it appeared the committee was zeroing in on "Stop the Steal" organizers.
Appearing on CNN, McCabe broke down why he thought it was so significant that both Stone and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones were summoned by the committee.
"I think they could be right at the red-hot center of it," McCabe said. "The committee has kind of telegraphed what they are thinking with each round of subpoenas that we see coming out. And for my money, what seems clear is they are focused intently not on, specifically, the mayhem of the insurrection on January 6th, but on the days leading up to January 6th. They are trying to get to who was at the center of planning this activity."
McCabe went on to say that the committee appeared to be looking at who spent money to bring Trump supporters to Washington D.C. and whether they coordinated with the Trump White House.
Most importantly, said McCabe, they need to answer "the ultimate question," which is, "Was the violence part of the plan?"
Watch the video below:
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FBI arrests Capitol rioter who pepper-sprayed cops and then left for basic training in the Air Force
(https://www.rawstory.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=28023673&width=800&height=450)
A Trump supporter who allegedly sprayed police with pepper spray and damaged property at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 before leaving for basic training in the U.S. Air Force has been arrested by the FBI, HuffPost reports.
"At the time, BILYARD was attending basic training for the United States Air Force but has since separated from the Air Force and moved back home to Cary, North Carolina," an FBI special agent wrote in an affidavit unsealed Tuesday.
Aiden Bilyard, who was arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina, has been charged with felony civil disorder, assaulting officers with a dangerous weapon, destruction of government property, entering and remaining in a restricted building with a deadly or dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct with a deadly or dangerous weapon, as well as other misdemeanors.
Online sleuths and the FBI relied on public Facebook posts by Bilyard's mother that showed him wearing the same Harvard sweatshirt he wore to the Capitol on Jan. 6.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/aiden-bilyard-capitol-riot-air-force_n_619d3479e4b044a1cc0dc38c
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Older brother of MAGA rioter from posh Chicago suburb gets indicted with him five months later
(https://www.rawstory.com/media-library/capitol-rioter-from-posh-chicago-suburb-promises-judge-he-ll-obey-his-mom-at-family-s-mansion.jpg?id=28023006&width=980&height=551)
A 27-year-old man from a wealthy suburb of Chicago has joined his younger brother as a defendant in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Mark Kulas Jr., 27, of Lake Forest, was charged in a criminal information made public Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington with one misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct on the grounds of a government building," the Chicago Tribune reported.
"He was charged five months after his brother, Christian Kulas, 24, was hit with similar counts alleging he posted video of himself on Instagram storming the Capitol building during the Jan. 6 siege while wearing a designer coat and pro-Trump hat.
"Both Mark and Christian Kulas are scheduled to plead guilty Dec. 6 before U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan, records show. The charge they're facing carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison."
As reported at Raw Story June 8, Christian Kulas was most notable for the promises he made to a judge related to his release pending disposition of his case:
"Kulas' mother agreed to be responsible for her son returning for upcoming court appearances.
"Yes, I understand I must listen to everything my mother says your honor," Christian Kulas told the judge during a hearing conducted by phone Tuesday.
"Attorneys indicated Kulas would be staying at his parents' home in Kenilworth. Public records indicate it is $4.5 million mansion that sits on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. His father agreed to remove two guns from the premises.
Christian Kulas' designer fashion statement at the riot was quite distinctive, as we reported:
"The individual depicted in the video is laughing. The individual is wearing a dark baseball type hat with "KEEP AMERICA GREAT" in bright orange letters on the hat. The individual was also wearing a dark coat with a Burberry print around the hood of the coat."
The specific charges against Mark Kulas were not spelled out in the charges made public Monday, the Tribune reported. Here's more from the newspaper:
"The Kulases are sons to the wealthy owner of a North Shore maid service, Kulas Maids, and attended Lake Forest High School. The FBI began receiving tips about Kulas' participation three days after the attack, according to the complaint. An informant who went to middle school and high school with Kulas later identified him from the videos and said it was his voice talking about storming the Capitol.
"Zana Weismantel, 22, who said she went to high school with Christian, was one of many people to identify and condemn Kulas on their social media accounts soon after the siege took place. She told the Tribune in June he became the talk of the town once his name and photo hit the internet.
"I do know that a lot of people were fully aware," she said. 'It's a small town. It traveled really quickly.'"
https://www.rawstory.com/older-brother-of-maga-rioter-from-posh-chicago-suburb-gets-indicted-with-him-five-months-later/
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Jan 6 committee subpoenas Oath Keepers and Proud Boys
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The House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol released another round of subpoenas Tuesday.
According to the request, the committee is calling on Proud Boys International, L.L.C., Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, the Oath Keepers, Elmer Stewart Rhodes, and Robert Patrick Lewis/1st Amendment Praetorian to hand over documents related to the Jan. 6 attack.
According to the committee, they'll be seeking information because they believe "the individuals and organizations we subpoenaed today have relevant information about how violence erupted at the Capitol and the preparation leading up to this violent attack. The Select Committee is moving swiftly to uncover the facts of what happened on that day and we expect every witness to comply with the law and cooperate so we can get answers to the American people."
The committee explained that the Proud Boys called for violence leading into the attack and at least 34 of their members have already been indicted by the Justice Department
"Many individuals associated with the Proud Boys repeatedly spread the former President's unsupported claim that the 2020 election was stolen and suggested the use of force against police officers and government officials," the release said.
Tarrio, the former Proud Boys chair, was blocked from coming into Washington, D.C., however, the committee explained that he too helped his organization plot the events.
The Oath Keepers group was also involved with 18 members indicted by a federal grand jury for "planning a coordinated attack to storm the Capitol, including by traveling to Washington, D.C., with paramilitary gear and supplies," said the release.
Oath Keepers president Elmer Stewart Rhodes suggested this group should "engage in violence to ensure their preferred election outcome," the committee explained.
The 1st Amendment Praetorian claims to be an organization that provided security at 2020 election protest rallies. The group's Twitter account suggested that violence was imminent in a message sent on Jan. 4.
The chair of the group, Robert Patrick Lewis, tweeted Jan. 6 tweeted: "Today is the day that true battles begin."
After the attack on the Capitol, Lewis claimed he was involved in "war-games" to continue the efforts to overthrow the government.
Read the full statement:
SELECT COMMITTEE SUBPOENAS GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS LINKED TO VIOLENT ATTACK ON THE CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6TH
Nov 23, 2021
Bolton, MS—Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) today announced that the Select Committee has issued five subpoenas as a part of its investigation into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and its causes. The committee is demanding information from groups involved in violence both leading up to and on January 6th and testimony and records from individuals who may have information about the attack.
Chairman Thompson issued the following statement:
“The Select Committee is seeking information from individuals and organizations reportedly involved with planning the attack, with the violent mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6th, or with efforts to overturn the results of the election. We believe the individuals and organizations we subpoenaed today have relevant information about how violence erupted at the Capitol and the preparation leading up to this violent attack. The Select Committee is moving swiftly to uncover the facts of what happened on that day and we expect every witness to comply with the law and cooperate so we can get answers to the American people.”
The Select Committee issued subpoenas for records and testimony from three organizations and a number of associated individuals.
Members of Proud Boys International, L.L.C., called for violence leading up to January 6th, and at least 34 individuals affiliated with the Proud Boys have been indicted by the Department of Justice in relation to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Many individuals associated with the Proud Boys repeatedly spread the former President’s unsupported claim that the 2020 election was stolen and suggested the use of force against police officers and government officials. Henry “Enrique” Tarrio was Chairman of the Proud Boys during the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Though Mr. Tarrio was prevented from entering Washington, D.C., on January 6th, he was allegedly involved in the Proud Boys’ preparation for the events at the Capitol.
Individuals associated with the Oath Keepers organization were similarly involved in planning and participating in the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6th. Eighteen members of the Oath Keepers were indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly planning a coordinated attack to storm the Capitol, including by traveling to Washington, D.C., with paramilitary gear and supplies. Elmer Stewart Rhodes is President of the Oath Keepers. Prior to January 6th, Mr. Rhodes repeatedly suggested the Oath Keepers should engage in violence to ensure their preferred election outcome. On January 6th, Mr. Rhodes was allegedly in contact with several of the indicted Oath Keepers members before, during, and after the Capitol attack, including meeting some of them outside the Capitol.
1st Amendment Praetorian is an organization that provided security at multiple rallies leading up to January 6th that amplified the former President’s unsupported claim that the election was stolen. On January 4th, the 1st Amendment Praetorian Twitter account suggested that violence was imminent. Robert Patrick Lewis, Chairman of 1st Amendment Praetorian, was listed as a speaker on the permit for the January 5th rally on Freedom Plaza. On January 6th, Mr. Lewis tweeted: “Today is the day that true battles begin.” The day after, Mr. Lewis claimed that he was involved in “war-gaming” to continue efforts to overturn the election results.
The letters to the witnesses can be found here:
Proud Boys International, L.L.C.
Henry “Enrique” Tarrio
Oath Keepers
Elmer Stewart Rhodes
Robert Patrick Lewis/1st Amendment Praetorian
https://january6th.house.gov/news/press-releases/select-committee-subpoenas-groups-and-individuals-linked-violent-attack-capitol
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Eric Trump and Lara Trump reportedly used burner phones to communicate with January 6th organizers, meaning they didn’t want the planning to be traced back to them. That's something you do in a criminal plot. The 1/6 committee will certainly subpoena them under threat of criminal indictment.
Jan. 6 Organizers Used Anonymous ‘Burner Phones’ to Communicate with White House and Trump Family, Sources Say
A key planner of the Jan. 6 rally near the White House insisted the burner phones be purchased with cash, a source says
Some of the organizers who planned the rally that took place on the White House Ellipse on Jan. 6 allegedly used difficult to trace burner phones for their most “high level” communications with former President Trump’s team.
Kylie Kremer, a top official in the “March for Trump” group that helped plan the Ellipse rally, directed an aide to pick up three burner phones days before Jan. 6, according to three sources who were involved in the event. One of the sources, a member of the “March for Trump” team, says Kremer insisted the phones be purchased using cash and described this as being “of the utmost importance.”
The three sources said Kylie Kremer took one of the phones and used it to communicate with top White House and Trump campaign officials, including Eric Trump, the president’s second-oldest son, who leads the family’s real-estate business; Lara Trump, Eric’s wife and a former senior Trump campaign consultant; Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff; and Katrina Pierson, a Trump surrogate and campaign consultant.
The member said a second phone was given to Amy Kremer, Kylie Kremer’s mother and another key rally organizer. The team member said they did not know who the third phone was purchased for.
“That was when the planning for the event on the Ellipse was happening, she needed burner phones in order to communicate with high level people is how she put it,” the March For Trump team member tells Rolling Stone, referencing Kylie Kremer.
Kylie and Amy Kremer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on record.
According to the three sources, some of the most crucial planning conversations between top rally organizers and Trump’s inner circle took place on those burner phones. “They were planning all kinds of stuff, marches and rallies. Any conversation she had with the White House or Trump family took place on those phones,” the team member said of Kylie Kremer.
Spokespeople for President Trump and Meadows also did not respond to a request for comment. Eric Trump, Lara Trump, and Pierson did not respond to requests for comment.
Burner phones — cheap, prepaid cells designed for temporary usage — do not require users to have an account. This makes them hard to trace and ideal for those who are seeking anonymity — particularly if they are purchased with cash. The use of burner phones could make it more difficult for congressional investigators to find evidence of coordination between Trump’s team and rally planners.
The House select committee on the January 6 attack has been examining what role Trump and his allies played in what the committee has described as “efforts to subvert the rule of law, overturn the results of the November 3, 2020 election, or otherwise impede the peaceful transfer of power.” As part of that effort, the committee has subpoenaed documents from the Kremers, other “March For Trump” organizers, rally planners, and top Trump advisers including members of his White House staff and campaign team. The committee has received “thousands of pages of records” and, according to an attorney familiar with the investigation, that includes “tons” of group text conversations. (The committee declined to comment.) Rolling Stone reviewed group texts from the rally planners that show the Kremers claiming they worked with the White House Trump’s team to plan the Ellipse event.
Kylie and Amy Kremer helped lead the nationwide “March For Trump” bus tour where speakers promoted false conspiracy theories about last November’s election and called for the results to be overturned. That tour culminated on January 6, with the large “Save America” rally on the White House Ellipse, which took place as Trump’s loss was being certified at the U.S. Capitol. The Kremers also lead an organization called “Women for America First,” which obtained the permit for the Ellipse rally.
Trump spoke at the Ellipse rally on January 6 and said they should “walk down Pennsylvania Avenue” to the Capitol which is located about 1.5 miles away from the Ellipse. In his remarks, the former president told the crowd to both “fight like hell” and to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” As the speech concluded, crowds of Trump supporters breached barricades at the Capitol complex. Some supporters proceeded to break into the building and spend hours attacking Capitol police and threatening violence against lawmakers, an attack that delayed the certification of President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
There was no evidence the Kremers and the other rally organizers encouraged or planned violence in the group text messages reviewed by Rolling Stone. However, critics have argued Trump and the leaders who encouraged thousands of his supporters to come to Washington as the vote was certified deserve some blame for the violence because of their pre-Jan. 6 rhetoric and the fiery content of the former president’s speech at the Ellipse rally.
The three sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the ongoing investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack, say Kylie asked the aide to buy the three “burner phones” as the group passed through Palm Springs, California about a week before the Ellipse event. Based on the group’s website, which has since been deleted, the tour began on December 27, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada before moving on to California.
There could still be some evidence of direct communications between Kylie Kremer and the White House in more traditional phone records. The team member says that there were rare exceptions in which Kylie Kremer used her regular phone to communicate with Trump officials. “She talked with Mark Meadows on her personal phone once, but mainly on the burner phone,” the team member says.
The sources who spoke to Rolling Stone about the phones also describe an incident that occurred around last Christmastime as the “March For Trump” bus tour kicked off in Las Vegas — just before the phones were allegedly purchased. According to the sources, the group stayed at the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, which is co-owned and managed by the former president’s real estate company. The team member said the group hoped to park their bus, which was emblazoned with logos, a picture of Trump, and a message declaring “PROTECT ELECTION INTEGRITY” in front of the hotel. However, the team member said hotel management initially declined due to political sensitivities and a lack of space in front of the building.
“The hotel manager said, ‘There’s no way in hell you can have that here unless you can have a member of the Trump family on the phone,’” the team member recalls.
Photos reviewed by Rolling Stone showed the bus parked prominently in front of the hotel’s main entrance. According to the team member, it was able to park because of calls from the Kremers to the Trump family.
“Amy and Kylie,” the team member says, “got Eric and Lara on the phone right away.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/jan-6-rally-organizers-trump-white-house-1262122/
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GOP's 'domestic army': How Michigan Republicans allied with paramilitary extremists and paved the way for insurrection
https://www.rawstory.com/michigan-gop/
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How Charlottesville set the stage for Jan. 6 -- and helped launch some of the biggest players in the Capitol riot
Days after neo-Nazi James Fields Jr. murdered antiracist activist Heather Heyer in a horrific car-ramming attack in Charlottesville, Va., the Daily Caller, a website founded by Tucker Carlson, quietly removed articles by contributor Jason Kessler.
Kessler was the primary organizer of the Unite the Right rally, which saw neo-Nazis chant, "Jews will not replace us," as they carried torches to the Rotunda at the University of Virginia on Aug. 11, 2017 and again the following day as they marched through Charlottesville.
More than four years later, the ideas that galvanized the Unite the Right rally are no longer considered too radioactive for mainstream conservative media. Carlson himself embraced the Great Replacement theory — responsible for fueling massacres in Pittsburgh; Christchurch, New Zealand; Poway, Calif.; and El Paso, Texas — on his Fox News show in April 2021. He accused Democrats of "trying to replace the current electorate" in the United States "with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World."
There are distinct differences in messaging between Unite the Right, in which white supremacists used Confederate symbols and neo-Nazi aesthetics to nakedly promote white nationalism, and the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which Trump supporters filtered similar aims through QAnon, paranoid anticommunism, and a perverted version of patriotism.
Amy Spitalnick, executive director of Integrity First for America — the nonprofit that won the civil lawsuit against the organizers of Unite the Right — is among those who see distinct similarities between the two events.
"The four years in between have shown us how much of this extremism has moved into the mainstream," she said. "If you look at the tools and tactics, there are many, many parallels, from the use of social media to plan the violence to explicit discussion of the use of free speech instruments like flagpoles as weapons, to the immediate finger-pointing to 'antifa, blaming them for the violence that far-right extremists were responsible for to even some of the ideology.
"While Charlottesville was explicitly white nationalist with holocaust imagery, and with KKK and Nazi paraphernalia like the tiki torches that are meant to evoke dark periods of our history, on January 6th when you think about 'stopping the steal,' it also speaks at its core to this same idea: There's a plot to steal the country from largely white Christians," Spitalnick continued. "That idea that Jews will not replace us is at the core of Unite the Right, but it's also at the core of Jan. 6. We've seen how these ideas have been mainstreamed, from Tucker Carlson giving replacement theory a home on Fox News every night to Republican politicians talking about it."
The two dozen leaders and organizations that were in trial earlier this month in Charlottesville have not been the primary drivers of far-right radicalization over the past four years. While the defendants who were the central organizers of Unite the Right have been financially hobbled by ongoing litigation, some of those who attended the rally played important roles in organizing support for the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Nicholas Fuentes, who attended the rally as an 18-year-old Boston University student, gushed on Facebook on Aug. 12, 2017: "The rootless transnational elite knows that a tidal wave of white identity is coming. And they know that once the word gets outs, they will not be able to stop us. The fire rises!"
More than three years later, Fuentes was recruited to bring the legion of young, white men known — known as "Groypers" — that follow him into the #StopTheSteal coalition. Introduced by #StopTheSteal organizer Ali Alexander, Fuentes ascended a stepladder and addressed Trump supporters outside of the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta on Nov. 21, 2020.
"This is an intergenerational struggle of the real American people that constitute this country over and against the global special interests that have taken it over," Fuentes said, electrifying the crowd. "If we are unsuccessful in our struggle to secure President Trump another term in office, then that will institute and introduce the rule of global corporations over this country.
"What is at stake is nothing short of our civilizational inheritance," Fuentes continued, using language strikingly similar to that of Richard Spencer, the marquee leader at Unite the Right. "We Americans have inherited the greatest civilization in the history of the world, and we're not giving it up without a fight." Launching into a transphobic rant accusing global elites of harboring "sick plans" for Americans, Fuentes then falsely equated immigration with criminality, claiming that the globalists "want dirt and scum and crime on these streets." He declared: "This is not a Third World country; this is the United States of America!"
The Proud Boys, which also emerged from the alt-right movement that rode Trump's coattails, are likewise intertwined with the organizing efforts surrounding Unite the Right, though they evaded legal liability in Charlottesville.
As well as being a contributor to the Daily Caller, Kessler was also member of the Proud Boys. As the complaint in the civil suit noted, prior to Unite the Right, Kessler organized a "Proud Boys" event in Charlottesville in which he was initiated into the gang by being beaten in an alley until he could name five breakfast cereals. The plaintiffs introduced into evidence an article published by defendant organization Traditionalist Worker Party entitled, "Proud Boys are Cordially Invited to Unite the Right."
But shortly before Unite the Right, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnis publicly disavowed the event. Many Proud Boys, including future national chairman Enrique Tarrio, attended anyway. Shane Reeves, a Proud Boy from Colorado posted a photo of himself on Facebook providing a security escort for Augustus Sol Invictus at Unite the Right. Invictus led the short-lived Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights, formed as the "tactical defense arm" of the Proud Boys. Both Invictus and Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knight were defendants in the Charlottesville lawsuit. Although they did not show up in court to represent themselves during the trial, the plaintiffs are seeking a default judgement against them.
"It is still an overwhelming experience to process, and the men I met that day I consider brothers for life," Reeves wrote in the Facebook post.
As other far-right groups dealt with the legal fallout and public-relations backlash after Unite the Right, over the ensuing four years the Proud Boys would engage in escalating street violence against left-wing adversaries, build ties with the GOP, and supply foot soldiers to the effort to prevent Joe Biden from taking office. Dozens of Proud Boys face federal charges in connection with the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
"The clearest winners from Unite the Right were the Proud Boys," said Alexander Reid Ross, a doctoral fellow at the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right. "They backed out. There's a part of the alt-right within the Unite the Right coalition that was able to bring that legacy further into fascism. That was the Proud Boys.
"McInnis recognized astutely in a sense that with the National Socialist Movement getting involved, it was going to be a debacle," Ross continued. "It was always going to be associated with the Nazi movement, and not just the broad right wing. He disassociated at the last minute. But the Proud Boys are interwoven with Unite the Right. Tarrio was there, as well as the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights."
At least one person who attended Unite the Right has also been charged in connection with the storming of the US Capitol: Tim Gionet aka Baked Alaska.
The plaintiffs introduced evidence showing a text message between Kessler and Gionet, who is prominent far-right live-streamer.
On. Aug. 8, 2017, Gionet tweeted a photo of himself pointing a pistol at a camera, accompanied by the misogynistic text: "Get in b*** we are saving the world." On Jan. 6, 2021, Gionet live-streamed himself inside a Capitol office saying, "America First is inevitable. F*** globalists, let's go."
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who serves on the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, is among those who have drawn a tight connection between that event and Unite the Right.
"The events in Charlottesville in 2017 were a nightmare and a precursor and a foreshadowing of everything that would unfold over the next four years, culminating in the violent insurrection against the union on January 6th, the attack on our US Capitol," Raskin said during an online fundraiser for Integrity First for America on Sept. 30.
The most horrific aspect of Unite the Right — James Fields' deadly car attack — has unfortunately become a common feature in white vigilante response to antiracist protests.
As the civil complaint detailed, the tactic was already gaining mainstream acceptance prior to August 2017. In January 2017, Fox News' opinion website tweeted out a video entitled "Reel of Cars Plowing Through Protestors Trying to Block the Road" that had originally appeared on the Daily Caller.
"One thought that perhaps the car attack in Charlottesville would diminish that strategy, and the Daily Caller deleted the post," Ross said. But in 2020, there was an unprecedented number of car attacks — 129 since the beginning of the George Floyd protests in May 2020, and an additional five since the beginning of 2021.
"The Charlottesville car attack is a propaganda of the deed," Ross said. "It publicized the act; people see it as possible and sort of proliferate it."
While Biden's election marks a victory for progressives, many observers continue to see far-right politics making inroads in American politics. Ross said that in the aftermath of Unite the Right, the Proud Boys were perfectly positioned to push forward the process of fascism.
"Their mission is to restore Western civilization to the seat of power culturally," he said. "Their approach to doing it is a performance: If they can beat up enough of the people who disagree with them, they show can they're superior and spread the myth of the crusading knights of Western civilization. It's kind of like what the Klan did. They're more inclusive than the Klan; they don't exclude Catholics. But the underpinning of their ideology is white nationalist."
Whatever the seeds of right-wing radicalization, there's little doubt that extremism has taken a tighter hold since Unite the Right.
"I think people are sleeping on the idea that there's a wide swath of America that is radicalized," said Shawn Breen, an independent researcher who has tracked many of the participating groups since before and after Unite the Right rally. "Not necessarily due to these groups. They've been radicalized by proxy, by Trump and the GOP. People that weren't receptive to these groups then would be a lot more receptive now."
In a number of respects, the GOP base and what was known as the alt-right in 2017 have arrived at the same place.
"I think you can watch Tucker Carlson, and see many of the alt-right's positions put plain and simple," Ross said. "He goes off on the Great Replacement. He says white Americans are being replaced by immigrants. He specifies white conservative Americans being replaced by immigrants."
Another point of convergence is admiration for Hungary.
Mike Peinovich, who was dismissed as one of the original defendants in the Charlottesville lawsuit, went on to co-found the National Justice Party, which is modeled after the ruling Fidesz party in Hungary. And in August, Carlson traveled to Hungary to meet the country's authoritarian leader, Viktor Orban.
"The positioning of Hungary as an international center for conservatism — that is deeply disturbing," Ross said. "This is a deeply authoritarian situation in Hungary. It's admired for sure by the alt-right today with the National Justice Party. You can see the alt-right and the Republican Party reconverging over the dual exigency of illiberal populism."
So far, at least, Ross said, Carlson has refrained from explicit antisemitism.
"Tucker Carlson will simply use liberals as a stand-in for the role played by the Jews," Ross said. "He talks about [liberal financier George] Soros a lot. He promotes conspiracy theories, but he doesn't make those the obvious center of his politics; it's more obscure. That might be changing. We've seen in the US an increase in attacks on Jews. We've seen major sports stars and comedians come out with antisemitic extremism. I think we're witnessing a frightening increase in antisemitism in the mainstream of the United States. I think they're preparing the ground for openly antisemitic populism."
In her closing remarks during the Sept. 30 fundraiser, Spitalnick said the goal of the lawsuit against the neo-Nazis who organized the Unite the Right rally was multifaceted.
"This case is about making clear the consequences of violent hate, about winning accountability for our plaintiffs, who survived the unthinkable; for the community of Charlottesville, which was violently targeted by the extremists who descended on their city from around the country," she said. "It's about setting a precedent serving as an example of how you can bring violent extremists to justice, and deterring others from participating in the next violent act."
But Spitalnick wanted to make sure the last point didn't get overlooked.
"And it's about helping to wake up our country to the crisis of white supremacy and hate," she said.
https://www.rawstory.com/jan-6-charlottesville/
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Capitol riot organizers' body-cam footage may come back to haunt them: reporter
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Appearing on MSNBC Saturday afternoon with host Alex Witt, Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell revealed that the House select committee that recently subpoenaed organizers of the January 6th protest that turned into a riot have every intention of demanding new video taken by the insurrectionists -- many of whom were wearing body cams.
According to Lowell, the recent round of subpoenas handed out to Roger Stone and members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys could turn up more valuable information about the events of the day.
"What do investigators want to know from these groups? What kind of information could they provide?" host Witt asked.
"Well, the January 6th committee, as you know, is trying to see if there was a connection between the [Donald] Trump White House, possibly Trump himself, and the attack on the Capitol," the journalist explained. "And, of course, the people that attacked the Capitol were led by these paramilitary groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, and if you look into the subpoenas that were issued, I think Tuesday, you see kind of what the committee is trying to get at."
"They want the documents, they want testimony as usual," he elaborated. "They're also looking for body cam footage. These guys wore body cams everywhere. If there were incriminating conversations or meetings, then the committee wants to get ahold of that as well."
"That makes sense," Witt replied. "What about the subpoenas that were issued to five political operatives that were associated with Trump; the most notable is Roger Stone, Alex Jones as well. What does that tell you about the direction of the investigation and the kinds of questions they could answer, and what do you think the odds are, Hugo, that they actually cooperate?"
'Well, I think these subpoenas are really interesting," he replied. "If you look at the subpoena for these two guys, like Roger Stone, Alex Jones, what becomes clear is that the committee has noted that these two guys, huge figures in Trump world were invited to speak at the rally before the January 6th attack, and they were also invited to lead the march from the rally to the Capitol, but curiously, they didn't attend either."
"I think the fact that chairman Bennie Thompson mentioned this in the letter shows where the committee is going with this, and they want to know did these guys, you know, who are connected to the people -- that are connected to Trump world operatives, possibly even to president Trump himself, did they have advance knowledge of what might go down at the capitol and was that the reason why they didn't participate? I think this is the central question," he explained.
Watch below:
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Key Jan. 6 organizer to comply with Capitol riot subpoena: 'I don't want to go to jail'
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Jan. 6 organizer Ali Alexander, who calls himself the "founder" of former president Donald Trump's "Stop the Steal" movement, announced Saturday that he will comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
"You may have missed the news that I've been subpoenaed by the the Democrats' partisan Jan. 6 committee," Alexander said in a video posted to the right-wing social-media platform Telegram. "This is a midterm issue that they want to run on, and what they want to do is paint me as the black face for a white supremacy movement that doesn't actually exist."
Speaking in front of a poster of singer Johnny Cash flashing the middle finger, Alexander added that he respects his "fellow patriots" who are defying the committee, but called it "an expensive right" — claiming that it would cost between $250,000 and $500,000 to fight the subpoena.
"I frankly don't have that money to spend on legal bills, so for this unselect committee, I will actually be privately deposed in December," Alexander said. "I've asked to make it public testimony. They won't cooperate with that request."
"The only reason I'm going is that I don't want to go to jail," he added. "So under the threat of imprisonment and spending tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers, I will be privately deposed before this committee in December, and I will make public whatever I can."
In a post accompanying the video, Alexander wrote that he plans to submit to the committee "photographic and video evidence of agitators sabotaging his January 6th peaceful protests."
Referring to himself in the third person, Alexander wrote: "He will also present evidence to the Committee that President Trump was betrayed by someone in his inner circle. Someone made the decision to take instructions for patriots out of the Ellipse Rally. Ali says he's not backing down and the Democrat Committee has already threatened to imprison him."
Watch below:
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Editorial: It's long past time for the Senate ethics panel to address Hawley's Jan. 6 actions
Ten months after a group of Senate Democrats lodged ethics complaints into the conduct of Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas regarding their roles in sparking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the Senate Ethics Committee has shown no sign of movement. Both senators tell Politico they haven’t even been contacted by the committee.
The House recently moved with appropriate speed to censure Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, for promoting a cartoon fantasy in which his character kills a fellow member of Congress.
Jan. 6 wasn’t a fantasy; it was real, and the culpability of these two senators must be determined.
Hawley and Cruz were the only two senators to object to certification of Joe Biden’s clear victory in the 2020 election results, citing (with zero evidence) supposed concerns about the election’s integrity. That was the same baseless, toxic nonsense then-President Donald Trump had been spewing since before the election. Such talk whipped up the mob of Trump loyalists to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Hawley was the first senator to object to certification, which is the only reason there had to be a floor vote on the issue. That vote provided the rallying point for the mob. Without that, the attack might not have even happened.
More than a dozen Republican senators initially said they would join Hawley in voting against certification. But after the mob attacked, most of them realized the damage the charade had done to the country and backed off, voting to certify an election in which — again — there wasn’t a single valid indication of significant irregularities. But not Hawley. Even after the violence, he persisted in voting with just five other senators to continue promoting Trump’s big lie that Biden’s win was illegitimate.
Hawley even had the nerve to give a glowering Senate floor speech later that night condemning the violence — an arsonist standing among the ashes. If he had an ounce of honor, he’d have heeded our Jan. 7 call for his resignation (we certainly weren’t alone on that). But at this point, why even talk about honor?
Hawley, of course, now claims victimhood, alleging the ethics complaint would punish him for exercising his official power to object to election results. But the complaint, filed in late January, specifically cites the Code of Ethics for Government Service, which requires that elected officials put “loyalty to the highest moral principles and to country above loyalty to persons, party, or Government department.” Just because there’s a mechanism in place allowing senators to object to election results doesn’t mean it’s OK for Hawley to abuse that process for crass political gain.
Hawley and Cruz have the right to defend themselves from the allegations — but so far, they haven’t even had to. The Ethics Committee should stop sitting on this.
https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-its-long-past-time-for-the-senate-ethics-panel-to-address-hawleys-jan-6/article_3ca27f48-21fa-5eca-ab0f-3856bb9b5c79.html
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Lauren Boebert needs to be subpoenaed to explain her 'violent revolution' Jan 6th tweets: MSNBC contributor
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During an MSNBC "The Sunday Show" panel on the chaos being created by far-right Republican Party lawmakers, SiriusXM radio host and political commentator Dean Obeidallah suggested it is about time the House committee investigating the Jan. 6th Capitol riot to subpoena Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and grill her over her suspicious tweets she made that day.
With host Jonathan Capehart wondering who is next to be subpoenaed, Obeidallah immediately mentioned the controversial Boebert who is currently under fire for inflammatory comments she made about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
"I think you're going to see some," the radio host began. "I think it's really important that the DOJ has indicted Steve Bannon. It sends a very clear message we're not playing games. This is a congressional subpoena and you're going to go to jail potentially if you don't comply with it."
"I hope Congress will consider subpoenaing Lauren Boebart," he continued before quoting one tweet from the Republican on Jan 6th that stated, "Today is 1776."
"1776, that's code for violent revolution to overthrow the government so Trump can stay in power," he explained. "I hope that Congress doesn't stop with just some of the Proud Boys which they are subpoenaing and the Oath Keepers. But Lauren Boebart, she tweeted 'Today is 1776' when she knew that was code for violent revolution for those on the right. I want that answer."
Watch below:
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'This is not going well for Bannon': MSNBC legal analyst says Trump ally on track for stinging defeat
Former Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained that Trump ally Steve Bannon is going to be highly unsuccessful in his efforts to beat criminal contempt charges.
In a Sunday filing by the Justice Department, prosecutors said Bannon's attorney, Evan Corcoran, refused their attempts to negotiate on some kind of agreement. According to the 10-page filing, the prosecutors alleged Bannon's lawyers were using their filing as a press release instead of a legal filing.
"The prosecutors called Steve Bannon's filing frivolous, so Bannon claimed that he wanted to make certain documents public and the Justice Department wasn't letting him," said Katyal. "And the Justice Department's response today was to call it frivolous and basically say, 'Oh, no, you didn't!' They point out that Bannon never even asked the Justice Department to try and make these documents public, and so this dispute is not going to go well for Bannon. Judges don't like it when parties can't work out stuff among themselves... and that's particularly true here, given Bannon's specific claim."
At its heart, Katyal said that Bannon is complaining that he can't publicly discuss certain documents.
"I have a very easy suggestion for him if he's worried about that: Testify," he continued. "This guy is afraid to go and tell the truth about what happened under oath, and that's what all of these legal skirmishes are about. That's the part that's frivolous. So, I think he's going to lose these claims and it's going to embolden the House investigators."
See the full conversation below:
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Jan 6 committee to vote on a criminal referral of Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark
The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol has announced it will vote on holding Trump-era Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark.
"According to a report released last week by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, there is credible evidence that, while serving as an official at the Department of Justice, Mr. Clark was involved in efforts to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Mr. Clark proposed delivery of a letter to state legislators in Georgia and others encouraging to delay certification of election results. Moreover, he recommended holding a press conference announcing that the Department was investigating allegations of voter fraud despite the lack of evidence that such fraud was present. Both proposals were rejected by Department senior leadership for lacking a factual basis and being inconsistent with the Department’s institutional role," the committee announced on October 13.
https://www.rawstory.com/jeffrey-clrk/
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Jan 6 committee has interviewed over 250 people: Congressman
Rep. Pet Aguilar (D-CA) revealed that over 250 witnesses were interviewed, so far, by the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
Speaking to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Monday, Aguilar explained that people like Steve Bannon, Jeffrey Clark, and former Donald Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows are outliers in those willing to come forward and speak to the committee.
"We've said all along we want to tell the full and complete story, and in order to do that we're going to need documents and interviews," said Aguilar. "So, clearly that is what's helpful about the document requests and national archives request. We're pleased with the timeline the court is addressing this, and Doug Letter and the team here will be arguing that before the Court of Appeals tomorrow. So, we're excited to move to that next step, but it's helpful and important to the work that we need to have those documents."
Maddow asked about those few members of the Trump inner circle who have refused to testify and what the next steps will be for those people.
"Mr. Clark is in a small group that has continued to stonewall us," Aguilar said of the former Justice Department deputy who penned a kind of guide to justify Vice President Mike Pence refusing to certify the 2020 election. "He has not produced any documents. He came to the deposition but refused to answer questions and exerted both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege, which is a little confusing. And so we're going to proceed, and so that's what the business committee meeting on Wednesday evening will be about is referral of the criminal contempt. We feel that he has shown just an unwillingness to come forward and to testify, and we feel that over 250 people have come before us and given -- submitted interviews and this should be no different, including his two superiors at the time, acting Attorney General [Jeff] Rosen and Deputy Attorney General [Richard] Donahue, so we've received a lot of information."
He went on to note that the Senate Judiciary Committee report detailed Clark's attempts to delegitimize the election and that he should be willing to talk to them as well.
See the video below:
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MAGA rioter who talked of desire to commit 'assassination' hit with conspiracy charges
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A Capitol rioter who is already facing serious charges for Tasering Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone was hit with new conspiracy charges on Monday.
As reported by NBC 4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane, federal prosecutors alleged in a superseding indictment unsealed Monday that an unidentified witness has told a grand jury that MAGA rioter Daniel Rodriguez told them that he would "assassinate Joe Biden" if he had the opportunity and would "rather die than live under a Biden administration."
Federal prosecutors go on to accuse Rodriguez and other defendants of engaging in a conspiracy whose goal was to "stop, delay, and hinder Congress's Certification of the Electoral College vote" and then to "corruptly alter, destroy, mutilate, and conceal a record, document, or other object to prevent evidence of their unlawful acts on January 6, 2021 from being used in an official proceeding, that is, the grand jury investigation into the attack of the Capitol on January 6, 2021."
READ MORE: Ex-Trump official warns former colleagues that they're defying the Capitol riot probe at their own peril
Rodriguez was arrested this past spring after being identified as the Capitol rioter who Tasered Michael Fanone.
In an interview with the FBI, Rodriguez claimed that he Tasered Fanone in order to "protect" him from other Capitol rioters whom he claimed would have hurt him even worse.
Read the full indictment here (PDF).
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-conspiracy-charges/
Ex-Trump official warns former colleagues that they're defying the Capitol riot probe at their own peril
Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace on Monday, former Trump official Miles Taylor warned his one-time colleagues against defying the Capitol riot committee -- and especially singled out former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, whom he said was attempting to use his position at the DOJ to justify a coup d'etat.
"Jeffrey Clark was stirring up the department to turn against the government it was set up to serve," Wallace agreed. "He was plotting a coup and putting together the pieces, including overturning the result of an election. Do you think someone like Clark should be retaining lawyers for other legal issues he may face?"
Taylor said he hoped that Clark was smart enough to hire a top legal team, but what he's seen from most of the former Trump advisers is that they're doubling down on being defiant, even though the Jan. 6 committee has proved that it isn't messing around, he said.
"I mean, they are taking the subjects to the mat and making sure that the law is enforced," said Taylor. "Congress's ability to subpoena someone and interview them is one of its most crucial oversight powers. If that oversight power is undermined, it fundamentally undermines the checks and balances. And whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, you shouldn't want that to be the case. People like Steve Bannon, Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark — they are going to pull every legal trick in the book to prevent their cases from going forward. That's their right. Everyone in this country gets due process."
He went on to call for "rational Republicans" willing to fight for America.
Wallace pushed back, saying that she doesn't believe there are many of those left.
"The disinformation has already permeated and rotted to its base from its roots -- the grassroots, literally, of the party, all way to its highest leaders, Kevin McCarthy. I think, if — you talk about decent Republicans, I count two," she said. "Only two! We started with Adam Kinzinger. The right has already predetermined what they are going to do about this."
Taylor agreed, saying that the Republican Party looks like "The Walking Dead" at this point.
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said that she is worried at how slow the Justice Department is going when it comes to people at the highest levels of power who attempted to overturn the election and unmake American democracy simply because they didn't like the result.
"My message to the Department of Justice is 'Get on it!'" she exclaimed. "Do not act like feds here. Act like state prosecutors. Go fast! Do not take the time -- don't give the other side a month to answer a pleading. Go to the judges. We saw this Supreme Court go quickly when they wanted to hear the Texas case."
See the full discussion below:
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Former top Trump aide Mark Meadows is cooperating with the Jan. 6 committee
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Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is cooperating with the committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, CNN reports.
"Mr. Meadows has been engaging with the Select Committee through his attorney," Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) said in a statement. "He has produced records to the committee and will soon appear for an initial deposition. The Select Committee expects all witnesses, including Mr. Meadows, to provide all information requested and that the Select Committee is lawfully entitled to receive. The Committee will continue to assess his degree of compliance with our subpoena after the deposition."
Speaking to CNN, Meadow's lawyer George Terwilliger said that Democrats and Republicans have reached an understanding on the exchange of information moving forward.
"As we have from the beginning, we continue to work with the Select Committee and its staff to see if we can reach an accommodation that does not require Mr. Meadows to waive Executive Privilege or to forfeit the long-standing position that senior White House aides cannot be compelled to testify before Congress," Terwilliger said. "We appreciate the Select Committee's openness to receiving voluntary responses on non-privileged topics."
While Meadow's cooperation is welcome news, the extent of his cooperation remains to be seen.
"It's not incorrect to say he has cooperated to some extent, but he hasn't completely fulfilled his obligation and we need to see what happens. But Meadows doesn't want to be held in contempt," a source told CNN.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/30/politics/mark-meadows-january-6-committee/index.html
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Mark Meadows will testify before Capitol riot committee next week: Liz Cheney
https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-capitol-riot-2655891596/
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Adam Schiff is 'skeptical' about the newly cooperative Mark Meadows -- here's why
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is skeptical of Mark Meadows' cooperation with the House select committee investigating the U.S. Capitol riot.
The former White House chief of staff spent Jan. 6 alongside Donald Trump as the former president's supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of his election loss, and Schiff told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that Meadows could be a key witness for the bipartisan committee -- if he fully cooperates in good faith.
"He is producing documents, I can't speak to the contents yet," Schiff said. "In terms of whether he is cooperating, time will tell when he comes in to be deposed. We'll find out whether this is a gambit or whether he is serious about cooperating with the committee. We don't know. I have to say, I'm a bit skeptical, given his track record, but we are going to find out very soon."
"We think he has a lot to offer the committee, but I think at this point, it is still too early to tell whether this is a legal strategy to avoid being held in criminal contempt or whether we're seeing the road that Steve Bannon is on," he added. "He made a decision to change course. We'll find out when he comes for the deposition. If he tries to assert privilege over things that are not privileged, it is clearly a legal stratagem. We don't think there is any meritorious claim of privilege here, and we have to decide what to do if he makes assertions."
That includes a referral to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress charges.
"We won't take anything off the table," Schiff said.
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FBI arrests MAGA rioter who attacked cops with flagpole and wrote about it in his diary
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A 71-year-old Pennsylvania man has been charged by the Department of Justice with assaulting police officers during the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Like many other MAGA rioters that day, Howard Charles Richardson of King Prussia was captured on video as part of the crowd fighting with law enforcement outside the building. But Richardson was also betrayed by an unusual witness, according to the Feds: His own diary.
The FBI visited Richardson October 25 at his home, according to the criminal complaint against him. Here’s how that went:
‘Agents executed a search warrant for Richardson's residence and person. During the search, agents located two red hats and a black and blue windbreaker with a "Brigantine Beach" logo on the upper left chest, which matches the jacket Richardson is seen wearing (at the riot). Agents also found a day planner that Richardson acknowledged was his. Richardson wrote that he parked at 11:00 a.m., was at the front of the Capitol building at 12: 15 p.m., "gates were breeched" at 1:00 p.m., "moving up to steps" at 1:30-1 :45 p.m., and "got pepper sprayed" at 2:00 p.m. He noted that he "started to leave" the Capitol at 3:30 p.m. (U.S. Capitol surveillance footage in fact shows RICHARDSON, identified by the same blue windbreaker and khaki pants, walking away from the Capitol building at approximately 3: 10 p.m. on January 6.)”
The FBI also cited more conventional video evidence against Richardson, as reported in a DOJ new release:
“Video footage depicts Richardson in a group near the bicycle rack-style barricades outside the Capitol. At approximately 1:38 p.m., carrying a metal flagpole with a blue flag attached, he approached an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department. In the video, Richardson can be heard yelling, “here it comes,” before swiftly approaching the officer’s position and striking the officer with the flagpole three times. He only stopped swinging after the flagpole broke in his hands.”
Richardson is charged with engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, civil disorder, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a dangerous weapon, among other charges.
You can read the FBI complaint against Richardson here.
https://www.rawstory.com/fbi-arrests-maga-rioter-who-attacked-cops-with-flagpole-and-wrote-about-it-in-his-diary/
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Federal judge blasts Trump and his allies for 'stoking the flames of fear' before Capitol riot
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This Wednesday, a federal judge said that the individuals behind the Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the Capitol riot should be held accountable for stoking "the flames of fear," POLITICO reports.
Although U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson didn't mention former President Donald Trump by name, she said the efforts of Trump's allies stoked "discontent and explicitly encouraged [attendees] to go to the Capitol and fight for one reason and one reason only: to make sure the certification of the election didn’t happen.”
Jackson made her comments as she was sentencing Capitol riot defendant Russell Peterson. As POLITICO points out, Jackson is the latest judge to suggest Trump's influence helped spark the events of Jan. 6.
"No one was swept away to the Capitol. No one was carried,” she said to Peterson. “There may be others who bear greater responsibility and should be held accountable. But this is not their day in court. It’s yours.”
Peterson was sentenced to 30 days in jail and $500 in restitution.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-capitol-riot-2655904572/
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Trump DOJ official to plead the 5th -- and Capitol riot committee will 'hang it around his neck'
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig on Wednesday told CNN's Erin Burnett that the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots was about to make things very uncomfortable for former Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark.
Even though the committee voted to move forward with criminal contempt charges against Clark on Wednesday, the former Trump official is nonetheless slated to appear before the committee soon, where he is expected to assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
Burnett pointed out that "it's going to sound damning" if Clark pleads the Fifth on every question at the hearing, and Honig replied that this is exactly why the Capitol riot committee wants to make him do it.
"The committee wants to make Jeffrey Clark own it," he explained. "The want to hang that Fifth Amendment [response] around his neck. Make him said it over and over, 'I take the Fifth, I take the Fifth, I take the Fifth.'"
Honig went on to explain that Clark is well within his rights to assert his Fifth Amendment rights -- but only if he believes that speaking truthfully could implicate him in a crime.
Burnett then played a supercut of all the times former President Donald Trump attacked aides of one-time Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for asserting their Fifth Amendment rights.
Watch the video below:
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'Big warning signs' for indicted Capitol rioters after a Wednesday court hearing: reporter
On Wednesday, NBC4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane, a leading reporter covering the Capitol riot trials, reported that one of the latest cases portends "big warning signs" for participants in the attack.
"Some big takeaways, perhaps some very big warnings, for U.S. Capitol riot defendants today in an otherwise low-level case," said MacFarlane. "Today was sentencing day for Russell Peterson, his day to ask for leniency. Peterson pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in his case, unlawful picketing at the Capitol. He faced up to six months in jail at sentencing, and he ended up getting one month."
Even though the defendant got just one month in jail, MacFarlane said that the judge's remarks during the hearing were nonetheless an ominous sign.
"The judge says Peterson wrote a letter to the court that seemed genuine, seemed to show remorse, and Peterson said very little during the proceedings, saying only that he's sorry and that this is his cross to bear," MacFarlane explained. "Genuine remorse seems to benefit defendants. And the judge went further and said, 'For a lot of other January 6th defendants, their minds haven't changed, their ways haven't changed, they're not showing remorse.'"
MacFarlane added that, according to his own reporting, "at least 40 January 6th defendants are in the D.C. jail as of tonight in pretrial detention, and according to lawyers and some who've served time there, they're almost cult-like in the January 6th wing, segregated from the rest of the population, and that it's a radicalizing dynamic in that jail, and that minds aren't being changed in that wing."
In other words, he said, these defendants should expect the law to come down much harder on them.
"What's more, the judge said this," added MacFarlane. "Donald Trump and the White House rally may have stoked the mob, may be partly responsible for that mob, but that the defendants are, in her words, 'adults,' and they bear responsibility for what they did that day. Another possible warning for the defendants not to assume Donald Trump will be a get-out-of-jail-free card."
Watch video in link below:
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-hearing-2655906762/
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MAGA rioter with middle-finger tattoo arrested after girlfriend tags him on Facebook
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An accused Capitol rioter who swung a stick at police on Jan. 6 was arrested Thursday after online sleuths tracked him down based partly on the tattoo on his middle finger saying, "F*ck you."
Justin Jersey of Flint, Michigan, who became known as #Fingerman, was shown attacking officers while wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt in video circulated by the FBI over the summer. At the time, he was listed as No. 106 on the FBI’s Capitol wanted page.
"Jersey was friends with another Capitol riot defendant, Trevor Brown, and Jersey’s girlfriend publicly tagged the two men in a post about Jan. 6 on Facebook," the Huffington Post's Ryan Reilly reports. "Online sleuths found an Instagram image of Jersey that showed what appeared to be a 'FUCK YOU' tattoo on his left middle finger — which can also be spotted in images of him swinging a stick at officers — erasing any doubt about the identification."
Reilly added on Twitter, "Tattoos are the unsung heroes of the Jan. 6 probe, probably followed closely by freckles and moles."
According to the Detroit News, which first reported Jersey's arrest, he is facing six charges, including assault, civil disorder, breaking into a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct, violent entry and engaging in physical violence.
The assault charges are punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison.
"Jersey made a brief appearance Thursday in federal court and is being held without bond pending transfer to federal court in Washington, D.C.," the newspaper reported.
Watch the video of Jersey assaulting officers below:
https://www.rawstory.com/maga-rioter-arrested-2655912624/
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Pardoned Trump ally will only agree to hand over documents if he can testify publicly to Jan 6 committee
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Bernie Kerik, a former New York City police chief and friend to Rudy Giuliani, has agreed to hand over documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, but only if they agree to let him testify publicly. The committee wants information about the "command center" that was stationed at the Willard Hotel during the attack, reporter Betsy Woodruff Swan wrote Thursday.
When Kerik was first called his lawyers sent out a letter to the committee saying that he wasn't even there. The problem is that President Donald Trump's campaign gave $225,000 in payments to the firms owned by Kerik and Giuliani. Those funds include more than $50,000 for rooms and suites at the Willard. The committee also cited the book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, which discusses Giuliani's attendance, but doesn't mention Kerik.
“If you were not personally responsible for this fabrication and false statements, then someone on your staff was and should be held accountable,” the letter continues. “Someone either intentionally fabricated this claim, or someone failed at the simple task of carefully reading the sources before writing a letter claiming that the sources ‘have revealed credible evidence.’”
A week after the statement was released, Kerik said that he will comply with the subpoena, hand over the documents they're seeking and he will testify.
He then gave mixed messages, saying that whatever work Kerik did is covered by lawyer/client privilege because Giuliani's firm was working for the Trump campaign. Kerik, who isn't a lawyer, has his own company, The Kerik Group. If he was paid through that and not through Giuliani he may not have a case to claim lawyer/client privilege.
Kerik was among the pardons that Trump issued before leaving office. He was sentenced to four years in prison, pleading guilty to eight felony charges including tax fraud and lying to White House officials during his failed nomination to be the first Secretary of Homeland Security by George W. Bush.
Read the full report:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/23/bernie-kerik-january-6-apology-523259
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Trump's coup was not defeated and America's democracy crisis is now worsening
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-s-coup-was-not-defeated-and-america-s-democracy-crisis-is-worsening/
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WATCH: MAGA rioter starts sobbing in front of FBI agents when asked about Trump calling him to DC
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Newly released video shows an emotional MAGA rioter crying in front of FBI interrogators after being asked about former President Donald Trump calling him to Washington D.C.
The video, which was posted on Twitter by NBC 4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane, shows Capitol rioter Danny Rodriguez being grilled by the FBI about the reasons he came to Washington to take part in the siege of the United States Capitol.
"How did he let you guys know to come to D.C.?" asked one agent.
"He was the commander-in-chief and the leader of our country," an emotional Rodriguez recalled. "And he was calling for help! I thought he was calling for help! I thought he was..."
At this point, Rodriguez started openly sobbing.
"I thought I was doing the right thing," he continued.
Rodriguez is currently facing multiple criminal charges, including conspiracy, assaulting a police officer, entering a restricted building, and theft and destruction of government property.
Watch the video below:
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-crying-video/
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House probe will hold public hearings in 2022 detailing Jan. 6 Capitol riot and Trump White House response ‘in vivid color,’ Liz Cheney says
The House panel investigating the Capitol riot aims to hold lengthy public hearings next year detailing “in vivid color” the events of Jan. 6, including in former President Donald Trump’s White House.
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney said the select committee aims to conduct “multiple weeks of public hearings” sometime in 2022, a year of crucial midterm elections.
Less than a day earlier, the panel voted to advance contempt proceedings for ex-Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark over his alleged defiance of a subpoena.
The House panel investigating the deadly invasion of the U.S. Capitol aims to hold lengthy public hearings next year detailing “in vivid color” the events of Jan. 6, both at the Capitol and in former President Donald Trump’s White House, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said Thursday.
Cheney, the vice chair of the select committee and one of its two Republican members, said the panel aims to conduct “multiple weeks of public hearings” sometime in 2022, a year of crucial midterm elections where the GOP hopes to retake majority control of at least one chamber of Congress.
Those hearings will lay out “exactly what happened every minute of the day on Jan. 6 here at the Capitol and at the White House and what led to that violent attack,” Cheney said in a House Rules Committee hearing.
Cheney revealed the plans less than a day after the select committee voted to advance contempt proceedings for former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark over his alleged defiance of a subpoena for documents and testimony.
The investigators on Wednesday evening unanimously voted for a report recommending that the House hold Clark in contempt. Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said Thursday morning that his panel would not yet rule on that report, because Clark was being given another chance to appear before the investigators on Saturday.
Clark is the second Trump associate to be accused of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with the committee’s subpoenas. The first, former White House senior advisor Steve Bannon, was held in contempt by the House and subsequently indicted on two criminal counts by a federal grand jury. He has pleaded not guilty.
Cheney’s consistent denouncements of Trump over the Capitol riot, and her participation in the Jan. 6 committee itself, have made her a target of criticism from the former president and from many of her Republican colleagues.
Cheney was stripped of her leadership role after she refused to stop criticizing Trump for spreading the false conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
Hundreds of Trump’s supporters, many of whom claimed they wanted to reverse President Joe Biden’s victory in the election, stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and forced Congress into hiding.
Trump has never conceded to Biden, and continues to spread baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud even as he hints he may run for president again in 2024. Trump was impeached in the House for inciting the attempted insurrection, but he was acquitted in the Senate where 60 votes are required for conviction.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/02/jan-6-probe-will-detail-capitol-riot-and-trump-white-house-response-in-public-hearings.html
Cheney warns of consequences for Trump in dealings with Jan. 6 committee
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the vice chairwoman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, suggested Wednesday that former President Trump could be held responsible for any falsehoods exchanged with the panel.
“President Trump continues to make the same false claims about a stolen election with which he has misled millions of Americans. These are the same claims he knows provoked violence in the past. He has recently suggested that he wants to debate members of this committee,” Cheney said.
“This committee's investigation into the violent assault on our Capitol on Jan. 6 is not a game. When this committee convenes hearings, witnesses will be called to testify under oath. Any communications Mr. Trump has with this committee will be under oath. And if he persists in lying, then he will be accountable under the laws of this great nation and subject to criminal penalties for every false word he speaks.”
Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) previously said “no one is off limits” when asked if the committee may eventually subpoena Trump.
Cheney’s comments came at a business meeting where the panel forwarded its second referral for criminal contempt to the full House, in this case for Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who was central to Trump’s efforts to pressure the department to act on his baseless claims of voter fraud.
If Trump, like Clark, failed to appear before the committee following a subpoena, a contempt report would detail all the exchanges between him and his attorneys and committee staff. If he appeared, he could face charges if he lied to congressional investigators. It’s the same charge his confidant Roger Stone, now also subpoenaed by the committee, faced before being pardoned by Trump.
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/583933-cheney-warns-of-consequences-for-trump-in-dealings-with-jan-6
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These MAGA lowlifes think of themselves as "Patriots". There is nothing "patriotic" about these right wing domestic terrorists.
Recently arrested Capitol rioter texted with Proud Boys leader -- a signal of broader coordination
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Federal court documents allege that one of two men recently arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 assault on the US Capitol communicated in advance with a Proud Boys leader, pointing to a wider organizational footprint in the execution of the effort to overwhelm the Capitol and prevent transfer of the presidency from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
Ronald Loehrke, 30, was arrested today in Cummings, Ga. and charged with obstruction of law enforcement, unlawful entry on restricted buildings and grounds, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, according to the government. James Haffner, 53, was arrested in South Dakota on Wednesday, on the same complaint. He faced the same charges, along with an additional charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers.
The two men marched with the Proud Boys and were part of the mob that overwhelmed US Capitol police officers during the initial breach at the northwest pedestrian path. The government alleges that shortly after the crowd broke through the police line, Loehrke helped another rioter over the barricade and then waved protesters towards the Capitol. As thousands of rioters surged over a toppled fence, a statement of offenses in the case alleges that Loehrke and Haffner made their way to a line of officers equipped with riot gear at the west plaza outside the Capitol.
According to the document, Loehrke chastised the other rioters for allowing themselves to be “stopped by twenty-five officers.”
“Don’t back down, patriots!” Loehrke reportedly shouted while Haffner stood nearby. “The whole f***ing world is watching. Stand the f**k up today!”
The statement of offense indicates that Loehrke and Haffner then made their way to the east side of the Capitol, potentially indicating a broader coordinated strategy to breach the building from multiple sides. Several members of the Proud Boys, who are charged with conspiracy, ascended the scaffolding stairs.
Another Proud Boy, Dominic Pezzola, who has been indicted along with two others in a separate conspiracy case, used a stolen police shield to break out a window, allowing the first wave of rioters to enter the building.
The statement of offense in support of the charges against Loehrke and Haffner includes text messages exchanged in late December 2020 between Loehrke and Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean that hint at a coordinated plan for Jan. 6 extending beyond the Proud Boys.
A Seattle-area leader of the Proud Boys, Nordean was propelled to fame within the organization when he delivered a knockout punch to a left-wing counter-protester during a 2018 protest in Portland, Ore. On Jan. 6, 2021, Nordean led the Proud Boys march, along with Joe Biggs. Nordean, Biggs and two other Proud Boys leaders are charged together in a separate conspiracy case.
The government alleges that Nordean texted Loehrke, whose number was saved in his cell phone as “Ron (Lisa’s friend),” on Dec. 27, 2020, asking if Loerke was coming to Washington, DC. Loehrke, who also lived in Seattle at the time, responded affirmatively. The government alleges that Nordean then texted Loehrke to tell him that he wanted him “on the front line” with him, and Loehrke responded that he planned to bring three “bad mother f***ers” with him.
Two photos included in the statement of offense show Loehrke at the Washington Monument, where the Proud Boys mustered before marching to the Capitol. Biggs is pictured in both photos and Lohrke can be seen shaking hands with a third unidentified individual.
After diverging from the larger Proud Boys group and heading towards the east side of the Capitol, the statement of offense alleges that Loehrke and Haffner dismantled three sets of barricades. After dragging aside the third set, the government alleges that Loehrke encouraged the other rioters by saying words to the effect of, “Let’s go! Get in there!”
The government alleges that the two men ascended the east stairs and as they stood a few rows back from the mob attempting to break through the Columbus Doors, Haffner sprayed an aerosol substance at the Capitol police officers. Soon after, the rioters breached the doors, and Haffner and Loehrke followed them in.
Inside the Capitol, the government alleges that Loehrke engaged in a confrontation with a Capitol police officer, citing a Getty Images photograph, and made it inside of Sen. Jeff Merkley’s office.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-arrests-2655919505/
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Prosecutors say Capitol rioter who traveled to DC with guns 'sought to remove Pelosi'
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Prosecutors say a Capitol rioter who brought a gun to D.C. on Jan. 6 was targeting both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, CNN reports.
Guy Reffitt, who is a member of the Texas Three Percenter militia, "specifically targeted at least two lawmakers -- the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and then-Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell -- whom he sought to physically remove or displace from the Capitol building," according to a filing from prosecutors.
Court documents say Reffitt drove to D.C. with an AR-15 and a handgun in his car. When he entered Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, he was wearing body armor, carrying his handgun, and had plastic handcuffs.
Reffitt made headlines in October when his son spoke publicly about how his dad threatened family members with death if they turned him in to the FBI.
https://www.rawstory.com/guy-reffitt-2655918472/
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LA man allegedly ran chat forum to advocate violence, collected weapons for Capitol riot
LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- A Los Angeles man accused of joining the Jan. 6 Capitol breach in Washington, D.C., was arrested on charges of conspiracy and other crimes, according to the Department of Justice.
Edward Badalian, 27, of Los Angeles, was charged in an indictment with conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding and abetting, tampering with documents or proceedings, and other offenses, prosecutors said. The indictment was unsealed Monday in the District of Columbia.
Badalian was arrested Nov. 17 in Los Angeles and was arraigned Nov. 23 in the District of Columbia.
Badalian is charged along with Daniel Rodriguez, 39, of Fontana. Rodriguez was indicted in March on charges including the assault of Metropolitan Police Department Officer Michael Fanone. He was subsequently charged with conspiracy along with Badalian. Rodriguez has been in custody since his arrest on March 31, according to prosecutors.
According to the indictment, Badalian, Rodriguez and others created a Telegram group chat in fall 2020 called the Patriots 45 MAGA Gang and used it to advocate violence against groups and individuals that either supported the 2020 presidential election results, supported what the group perceived as liberal, or communist ideologies, or held positions of authority in government,'' according to the Department of Justice said.
Prosecutors contend the defendants conspired to stall the congressional certification of the presidential election results, and they collected weapons and tactical gear and stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
In the 10 months since Jan. 6, more than 675 individuals have been arrested for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including 210 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
https://abc7.com/jan-6-capitol-riot-insurrection-edward-badalian-officer-michael-fanone/11286586/
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'Absolute liars': Mike Flynn's brother implicated in Army coverup of Jan. 6 failures in scathing memo
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A former National Guard official issued a scathing 36-page memo accusing Michael Flynn's brother and another U.S. Army general of lying to Congress about the military response to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Col. Earl Matthews, who served in the National Security Council and Pentagon during Donald Trump's administration, ripped the Defense Department's inspector general for what he calls an erroneous report that protects a top Army official who delayed sending the National Guard to the U.S. Capitol, reported Politico.
“Every leader in the D.C. Guard wanted to respond and knew they could respond to the riot at the seat of government,” Matthews' memo reads. "[Instead, D.C. guard officials sat] stunned watching in the Armory" as Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
Matthews sent the memo to the House select committee earlier this month, and provided detailed recollections of the response to the riot by Gen. Charles Flynn, who served as deputy chief of staff for operations on Jan. 6, and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, the director of Army staff -- who he called “absolute and unmitigated liars” for their own accounts of that day in congressional testimony.
The memo accuses both Flynn and Piatt of lying about their response to requests for the D.C. Guard to be quickly sent to help police at the Capitol, and claims the Pentagon inspector general issued a report last month that was “replete with factual inaccuracies,” and he said the Army was trying to rewrite history with a document that's “worthy of the best Stalinist or North Korea propagandist.”
Matthews, who now serves in the Army reserves, has publicly called for the inspector general to retract the Jan. 6 report, which he described as "inaccurate" and "sloppy work."
“Our Army has never failed us and did not do so on January 6, 2021,” Matthews told Politico. “However, occasionally some of our Army leaders have failed us and they did so on January 6th. Then they lied about it and tried to cover it up. They tried to smear a good man and to erase history.”
https://www.rawstory.com/charles-flynn-jan-6/
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'We all know they're lying!' Morning Joe busts Pentagon 'coverup' of Trump links to Jan. 6 riot
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough reacted to the latest bombshell revelations about the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Col. Earl Matthews, a D.C. National Guard official at the time, issued a scathing 36-page memo accusing Gen. Charles Flynn, who served as deputy chief of staff for operations on Jan. 6, and Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, the director of Army staff, of lying to Congress about their response to the U.S. Capitol riot -- and the "Morning Joe" host said investigators must unravel the coordination between Donald Trump's White House and the Pentagon on that day.
"It's more important to know what happened between the White House and the Pentagon," Scarborough said. "Why was there such delay? Why didn't the National Guard get moving? We all know Donald Trump, the commander in chief, was loving what he was seeing. We all know he gutted the Pentagon and he had fired a lot of the top people there. There were not a lot of independent thinkers at the Pentagon at that time."
The late Colin Powell appeared on the program shortly after the insurrection and told the hosts that he was baffled by inaction as the riot unfolded, but Scarborough said even civilian observers could see the response was woefully inadequate.
"I am no expert in what's going on at the Pentagon, obviously none of us are Colin Powell, but anybody that saw what happened that morning and now is hearing the Pentagon saying, 'Nothing to see here, move along, move along' -- we all know they're lying. We all know they're covering up. We need a tick-tock, a second-by-second accounting of where the Pentagon was, why they were dragging to their feet, why they let our Capitol, why Trump's leaders inside the Pentagon and why the commander in chief himself, why did they let our Capitol get ransacked and ravaged, torn to shreds excrement spread on the walls -- the people's house defiled."
"We understand Donald Trump enjoyed the show," he added. "I'm just curious what was happening inside the Pentagon."
https://www.rawstory.com/pentagon-jan-6/
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Marc Short's cooperation could be a game-changer for Capitol riot probe: former FBI deputy director
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On CNN Monday, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe weighed in on the news that Marc Short, a longtime top aide of former Vice President Mike Pence, is cooperating with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack.
"You can't overstate the value of having a prominent, connected Republican acknowledging the ought authority of the committee and doing the right thing," said McCabe, who was previously targeted for retaliation by the Trump administration. "To the extent that other witnesses are looking for some sort of a sign as to how to respond to subpoenas they may receive, the example of Marc Short might be very influential."
"Let's remember," McCabe added, "we're not putting on a case for trial. No one is being prosecuted here. The committee is trying to construct a narrative of what happened. They don't need every person who was in attendance at every interesting meeting. They just need one. With Marc Short, they now have a key witness who was in some key events. This might open up a lot of information."
Watch below:
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Capitol riot committee scores what could be a 'pivotal witness' who 'is not loyal to Trump': CNN legal analyst
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Marc Short, the former chief of staff of former Vice President Mike Pence, is now reportedly cooperating with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots, and CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said that could be a major breakthrough in the probe.
Appearing on Erin Burnett's show Monday, Honig explained how Short could deliver damning new information about Trump's actions leading up to and during the January 6th riots.
"Marc Short could really be a pivotal witness," he said. "Here's what we know about him: He is completely loyal to Mike Pence. He is, importantly, not loyal necessarily to Donald Trump. He's spoken publicly critically about Donald Trump for his role on January 6th."
Honig then outlined some crucial pieces of information Short could give to the committee.
"First, that January 4th meeting... in the Oval Office," he said. "I mean, let's not lose sight of how important that is. Donald Trump and this lawyer, John Eastman are trying to pressure Mike Pence... And then, key moments on January 6th, he is with Mike Pence."
Honig finished up by predicting Short could make "a big difference" in the committee's findings.
Watch the video below:
Former Pence chief of staff cooperating with January 6 Committee as probe gains 'momentum'
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On Monday's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room," correspondent Jamie Gangel broke down the significance of former Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff Marc Short cooperating with the House January 6 Committee.
"We learned the committee subpoenaed Marc Short a few weeks ago, but unlike some other Trump officials, he is not fighting the subpoena," said Gangel. "Short's cooperation ... is a significant development because he is a firsthand witness to many critical events. He was with Mike Pence at the Capitol on January 6th. He was also in the Oval Office on January 4th when former President Trump tried to convince Pence not to certify the election results."
She then suggested that Short's cooperation could open the door to more Pence loyalists testifying at the committee.
"Our sources say that Short's assistance signals a greater openness among Pence's inner circle, with one source telling me the committee is getting, quote, 'significant cooperation with Team Pence,' and another source telling me that Short's help is an example of the momentum the investigation is having behind the scenes," continued Gangel. "I do think it's important for context to remember this: Short is considered one of Pence's most loyal aides. He has worked with him off and on for more than a decade. It is hard to imagine that Marc Short would cooperate with the committee without Pence's blessing."
"That's really an important point, Jamie," said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "Why is Short's cooperation as a result so, so significant?"
"We've heard a lot about Trump officials, allies of Trump claiming executive privilege or saying they'll take the fifth," said Gangel. "This marks a significant break for the committee, because Marc Short is a firsthand witness and he's willing to cooperate, according to our sources. He knows firsthand what was going on in the days leading up to January 6th. He knows what happened at the Capitol on January 6th. It's hard not to imagine that Marc Short, who was then chief of staff to Mike Pence, he's there in the Capitol, was not calling or texting someone like Mark Meadows ,who was chief of staff to Donald Trump, when the riot was going on."
"He is likely to be able to provide information about conversations, phone calls, texts that were going on in real time on January 6," added Gangel. "Just as one example, he may be able to tell the committee what the communication was when they were reaching out, trying to find out why did it take so long for Trump to come out and tell the rioters to stop."
Watch below:
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Jan. 6 Committee files subpoenas for phone records of over 100 people including many Trump associates
The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack has officially issued subpoenas to wireless companies for the phone records of over 100 people, a "substantial" number of them Trump associates, in an effort to piece together the actions of Donald Trump and his inner circle on the day of the violent insurrection.
The records do not include actual voice or text content, but rather who called or texted whom, when, for how long, CNN reports, and possibly from where.
Included in the massive list is Mark Meadows, the former Trump White House chief of staff.
The data should give the Committee "the ability to draw a web of communications before, during and after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol."
CNN adds that one subpoena it reviewed "requests 'all call, message, Internet Protocol and data connection detail records associated with the phone number' from November 1, 2020 through January 31, 2021. The letter also asks for information related to phone numbers, IP addresses and devices that the account in question has communicated with."
https://www.rawstory.com/bank/jan-6-committee-files-subpoenas-for-phone-records-of-over-100-people-including-many-trump-associates/
Capitol riot committee 'quietly issued an unknown number of subpoenas' to key Trump officials: report
On Tuesday, the Huffington Post reported that the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack has been doing an enormous amount of work "beneath the radar" that has not been made public — and have "quietly issued an unknown number of subpoenas" to former Trump administration officials.
This suggests that the committee's public steps, which include securing the cooperation of former Mike Pence chief of staff Marc Short and threatening a contempt referral against Trump chief of Staff Mark Meadows, could barely scratch the surface of the committee's activity.
“'While we’ve announced roughly 40 subpoenas, the select committee has heard from 275 witnesses, both individuals complying with subpoenas and those participating with our investigation voluntarily," one unnamed aide told Huffington Post reporter S.V. Date. "We’ve taken in more than 30,000 pages of records, received hundreds of tips, and are making rapid progress in this phase of our investigation."
According to the report, "while the committee in August released letters to 35 telecommunications and technology companies asking them to preserve records of certain individuals, the names of those people were not released, and it was not until Meadows’ lawyer told the committee his client would not be cooperating that it became clear that Meadows — who was with Trump all that day — was among them."
Meadows recently reneged on his offer to cooperate with the committee, claiming that the House investigators were not respecting the former president's executive privilege.
All of this comes amid fears that if Republicans win control of the House in 2022 and the committee has not yet arrived at its final conclusions, they will move to shut down the committee.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-committee-subpoenas-2655939772/
Capitol riot committee warns Mark Meadows he's headed for 'criminal prosecution'
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riot has apparently lost patience with former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows.
On Tuesday afternoon, the committee released a statement slamming Meadows for backing out of cooperating with them despite writing publicly in his new book about former President Donald Trump's response to the riots.
"Mark Meadows has informed the Select Committee that he does not intend to cooperate further despite his apparent willingness to provide details about the January 6th attack, including conversations with President Trump, in the book he is now promoting and selling," the committee said. "The Select Committee has numerous questions for Mr. Meadows about records he has turned over to the Committee with no claim of privilege, which include real-time communications with many individuals as the events of January 6th unfolded."
The committee then warned Meadows of severe consequences should he remain defiant.
"Tomorrow’s deposition will go forward as planned," the committee said. "If indeed Mr. Meadows refuses to appear, the Select Committee will be left no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which Meadows once served refer him for criminal prosecution.
https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-criminal-contempt/
Trump will 'be furious' when he realizes how many documents Meadows already turned over: CNN reporter
On Tuesday's edition of CNN's "OutFront," correspondent Jamie Gangel broke down the significance of former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows handing over a significant number of documents, even as he moved to renege on his pledge to cooperate.
"Let's start with your new reporting," said anchor Erin Burnett. "What is included in what Meadows did hand over? The roughly 6,000 pages of documents, what is in there, as far as you know?"
"So let's remember, this was voluntary, no claim of privilege," said Gangel. "We are told by the committee that in those documents Meadows has handed over include messages sent and received during the riot, texts, e-mails, calls, while the events of the insurrection were actually going on on January 6th. Committee member Zoe Lofgren told us earlier today the records include, quote, 'volumes of material,' including real-time communication."
"So, look, Erin, we don't know yet the details of who Meadows was communicating with that day," added Gangel. "But we do know a lot of people had Meadows' cell phone. So, think about it. White House officials, rally organizers, Trump loyalists, members of Congress. All should be aware that if they were communicating with Meadows, texting, emailing on January 6th, the committee may already have those documents. I just want to add one thing. If Donald Trump is as mad about Mark Meadows' book as we're hearing, he's going to be furious when he realizes that Meadows handed over all these records with no claim of privilege."
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Reclusive Publix heiress became obsessed with Alex Jones — and wound up funding Jan. 6: report
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The reclusive heiress of the Publix supermarket chain helped finance former president Donald Trump's Jan. 6 rally after she became obsessed with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, according to a report from the Washington Post.
Julie Fancelli, 72, contributed $650,000 to three organizations that helped stage and promote the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceeded the Capitol insurrection, making her the largest publicly known donor to the event.
"In the weeks leading up to the rally, Fancelli frequently emailed to her relatives and friends links to Jones’s talk show, according to two people with knowledge of the emails who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications," the Post reports. "Jones was a leading proponent of false claims that Trump’s reelection had been foiled by election fraud and that Congress could refuse to certify Biden’s victory."
Fancelli, who reportedly splits her time between Florida and Tuscan, Italy, had planned to attend the Stop the Steal rally and stay at the Willard hotel in Washington, but ultimately opted not to travel due to COVID-19.
"Fancelli was a regular listener to Jones’s show and had an assistant make contact with him at his office in Austin to find out how she could support Trump’s attempt to undermine Biden’s victory, the person said," the Post reports. "She and Jones talked by phone at least once between Dec. 27 and Jan. 1, the person said."
Jones, who did attend the rally, has received a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Captiol insurrection.
Fancelli’s brother-in-law Barney Barnett, a retired Publix executive who describes himself as a conservative Republican, told the newspaper: “I am not tantalized by that fellow (Jones), but apparently she is, and a lot of other people are addicted, to the detriment of the country. Julie is one of the finest people I know, and I am sorry she got tied up with this guy.”
Fancelli’s sister, Nancy Jenkins, added: “He’s kind of a rabble rouser, and I don’t listen to that. I listen to the regular news. That guy is crazy. Everybody knows Trump lost.”
With some shoppers threatening boycotts, Publix has tried to distance itself from Fancelli, saying in statement that the company is "deeply troubled" by her involvement in Jan. 6.
Fancelli, who rarely speaks to the media, previously told the Post in a statement: “I am a proud conservative and have real concerns associated with election integrity, yet I would never support any violence, particularly the tragic and horrific events that unfolded on January 6th.”
One prominent Republican fundraiser from Florida questioned whether Fancelli even knew she was "writing checks for Jan. 6." But the narrative of an innocent grandmother who unwittingly bankrolled an insurrection is undercut by Fancelli's continued donations to far-right causes this year.
"In September, she gave $5,800 to Rep. Matthew M. Rosendale of Montana, who was among 21 House Republicans who opposed awarding the congressional gold medal to police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6," the Post reports. "In July, Fancelli gave $1,000 to an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Lakeland, Fla., who thanked the right-wing One America News for 'correctly' referring to Trump as the president after Biden’s inauguration."
Read the full story:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/publix-heiress-capitol-insurrection-fancelli/2021/12/08/5144fe1c-5219-11ec-8ad5-b5c50c1fb4d9_story.html
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MAGA rioter who called Biden 'stupid' bragged about assaulting cops on social media: feds
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A Michigan man who attacked Capitol police officers with a chemical spray and bragged later on social media that “I f***ed those cops up” has been arrested by the FBI.
Tim Levon Boughner, 41, of Romeo, Michigan is being held without bond pending a detention hearing on Thursday on a variety of charges in connection with the January 6 insurrection. The FBI cited video evidence of Boughner’s attacks and the assistance of his body art in helping confirm his identity.
But the FBI arrest report also indicated that Boughner was quite chatty on social media before and after his alleged activities at the Capitol.
As early as November 8, 2020, Boughner posted this on his Facebook account: “Trump 2020. This ain't over.”
On November 28, he posted “All ex presidents get secret service when they leave White House. Trump won’t be leaving for 4 more years.” On December he added, “stupid Biden will not be president”.
On December 20, 2020, he replied to a comment saying “they have to keep us busy and blind on what is really happening in our country. I can’t believe I’m saying this but we are going to be at war. USA will be dealing with all the evils in this world. They tried to use the flu too steal our country.”
On January 3, 2021, Boughner asked a Facebook friend, “Are you ready to go to DC Tuesday?” He subsequently stated “I got a open spot if you want to go.” Later, Boughner stated in the same conversation “Never will there be anything like this again bro. Might even get lucky and stomp some *ss. Lmao”.
On January 5, Boughner posted, “I’m on my way to Washington DC. To make sure Biden’s doesn’t become president.”
On January 6, he posted, “Tear gassed peppered sprayed guy got next to me got the rubber bullet. I grabbed a can from them and started spraying. I got it on video lol”. Boughner subsequently stated “That was wild. We made it to the senate floor till National guard started fight back”; a statement which indicates Boughner entered the Capitol Building.
Also that day, Boughner posted “F***ed those cops up,” the report states.
On February 17, Boughner posted on the account, “Biden’s not the president,” the FBI stated, and then noted that he subsequently posted, "I have to share. My life has not been the same since this day. I got pull threw (sic) something amazing. I still don’t know how I ended up on the capital (sic) steps having a pepper spray fight with the capital police (sic)."
A notable aside in the criminal complaint is that Boughner came to the Capitol with his siblings Amber and Adam. There is no allegation in the complaint that they joined him in breaching the Capitol and they have not been charged to date, according to the Department of Justice website.
But Tim Boughner did show up on his sister’s Facebook page, labeled “Target Account 2” in the FBI complaint.
“Amber, Adam, and Tim Boughner crossed a fence line as they approached the United States Capitol Building; as they did, Amber stated that the time was 1:36 (presumed to be 1:36 PM EST). A loud noise was heard in the background which Adam stated was gunshots (perhaps blanks). Tim Boughner can be seen walking away from Amber and Adam as Tim Boughner moved through the crowd. Adam stated “He’s mad. He’s my brother.”
Boughner is charged with engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds, civil disorder, and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a dangerous weapon, among other charges.
You can read the full FBI complaint here (PDF).
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-arrests-2655954437/
Prosecutors recommend up to 4 years for armed MAGA rioter who threatened to kill Nancy Pelosi
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On Wednesday, NBC4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane reported that federal prosecutors are recommending up to 4 years for Cleveland Meredith, a Georgia man who threatened to "put a bullet in" House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser during the January 6 Capitol attack.
Meredith showed up with a Glock 19, 9mm pistol, Taver X95 rifle with a telescopic sight, high-capacity magazines, and more than 2,500 rounds of ammunition and has been described as having mental health issues and a history of violent incidents, including an episode in 2018 in which he allegedly brandished a gun at his mother and daughter during a fit of road rage.
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In May, Meredith told federal judge Amy Berman Jackson that he was "just having fun" — which she did not consider a credible excuse for his behavior. He has subsequently pleaded guilty to sending threatening communications.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-sentence-2655952268/
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Here's a flashback to January 6, 2021.
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Donnie looks increasingly senile in his recent photos with his fake grin. And here's another criminal that Donnie hired for his corrupt administration. A felon with a record and a guy who hits his girlfriend.
Former Trump aide responds to Jan. 6 subpoena by threatening to ‘disband’ House committee
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Max Miller, a former Trump aide who's now running for Congress in Ohio, is reportedly being subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
Miller, who's been endorsed by Trump, wrote on Twitter on Thursday that he will “accept service of this subpoena, but I will defend my rights — just as I will defend the rights of my constituents when elected."
"Upon taking office, I will make sure one of my first votes is to disband this partisan committee that has weaponized its powers against innocent Americans,” he added. “Ohioans are tired of watching D.C.’s witch hunts and political theater while the country burns. Sadly, it’s the only card the Democrats can play, because their policies are destroying our nation."
According to Cleveland.com, Miller's campaign "did not respond to inquiries on how he’ll respond to the subpoena and whether he had any role in the January 6 rally in Washington whose participants eventually breached the U.S. Capitol."
"At the time of the riot, Miller worked as a White House senior advisor to Trump," the site noted.
Miller is running for the seat being vacated by GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who recently announced his retirement after voting to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection.
Miler recently sued his ex-girlfriend, former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, after she accused him of domestic abuse in her new book. Politico reported in July that Miller and Grisham's 18-month relationship ended after he "pushed her against a wall and slapped her in the face in his Washington apartment after she accused him of cheating on her."
Miller also has a criminal record that includes speeding, underage drinking and disorderly conduct.
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/12/ohio-congressional-candidate-max-miller-says-hes-being-subpoenaed-by-the-committee-probing-the-jan-6-riot.html
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Capitol attack panel obtains PowerPoint that set out plan for Trump to stage coup
Presentation turned over by Mark Meadows made several recommendations for Trump to pursue to retain presidency
Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows turned over to the House select committee investigating the 6 January Capitol attack a PowerPoint recommending Donald Trump to declare a national security emergency in order to return himself to the presidency.
The fact that Meadows was in possession of a PowerPoint the day before the Capitol attack that detailed ways to stage a coup suggests he was at least aware of efforts by Trump and his allies to stop Joe Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January.
The PowerPoint, titled “Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 Jan”, made several recommendations for Trump to pursue in order to retain the presidency for a second term on the basis of lies and debunked conspiracies about widespread election fraud.
Meadows turned over a version of the PowerPoint presentation that he received in an email and spanned 38 pages, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The Guardian reviewed a second, 36-page version of the PowerPoint marked for dissemination with 5 January metadata, which had some differences with what the select committee received. But the title of the PowerPoint and its recommendations remained the same, the source said.
Senators and members of Congress should first be briefed about foreign interference, the PowerPoint said, at which point Trump could declare a national emergency, declare all electronic voting invalid, and ask Congress to agree on a constitutionally acceptable remedy.
The PowerPoint also outlined three options for then vice-president Mike Pence to abuse his largely ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress on 6 January, when Biden was to be certified president, and unilaterally return Trump to the White House.
Pence could pursue one of three options, the PowerPoint said: seat Trump slates of electors over the objections of Democrats in key states, reject the Biden slates of electors, or delay the certification to allow for a “vetting” and counting of only “legal paper ballots”.
The final option for Pence is similar to an option that was simultaneously being advanced on 4 and 5 January by Trump lieutenants – led by lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, as well as Trump strategist Steve Bannon – working from the Willard hotel in Washington DC.
The Guardian revealed last week that sometime between the late evening of 5 January and the early hours of 6 January, after Pence declined to go ahead with such plans, Trump then pressed his lieutenants about how to stop Biden’s certification from taking place entirely.
The recommendations in the PowerPoint for both Trump and Pence were based on wild and unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, including that “the Chinese systematically gained control over our election system” in eight key battleground states.
The then acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, and his predecessor, Bill Barr, who had both been appointed by Trump, by 5 January had already determined that there was no evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election.
House investigators said that they became aware of the PowerPoint after it surfaced in more than 6,000 documents Meadows turned over to the select committee. The PowerPoint was to be presented “on the Hill”, a reference to Congress, the panel said.
The powerpoint was presented on 4 January to a number of Republican senators and members of Congress, the source said. Trump’s lawyers working at the Willard hotel were not shown the presentation, according to a source familiar with the matter.
But the select committee said they did find in the materials turned over by Meadows, his text messages with a member of Congress, who told Meadows about a “highly controversial” plan to send slates of electors for Trump to the joint session of Congress.
Meadows replied: “I love it.”
Trump’s former White House chief of staff had turned over the materials to the select committee until the cooperation deal broke down on Tuesday, when Meadows’ attorney, Terwilliger, abruptly told House investigators that Meadows would no longer help the investigation.
The select committee announced on Wednesday that in response, it would refer Meadows for criminal prosecution for defying a subpoena. The chairman of the select committee, Bennie Thompson, said the vote to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress would come next week.
“The select committee will meet next week to advance a report recommending that the House cite Mr Meadows for contempt of Congress and refer him to the Department of Justice for prosecution,” Thompson said in a statement.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/10/trump-powerpoint-mark-meadows-capitol-attack
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Jenna Ellis freaks out after Politico publishes her Trump coup memos
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Pro-Trump attorney Jenna Ellis reacted angrily on Friday after Politico published her memos advocating that former Vice President Mike Pence refuse to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.
As described by Politico, Ellis argued that "Pence, while presiding over lawmakers’ counting of electors, should simply halt the process when their alphabetical proceeding reached Arizona" and then "declare that the state failed to meet the legal standard for certifying its own electors and 'require the final ascertainment of electors to be completed before continuing.'"
In a statement to Politico, Ellis denied that she argued Pence should overturn the election, but rather said that he should halt its certification and send the matter back to the states.
"At no time did I advocate for overturning the election or that Mike Pence had the authority to do so," she said. "As part of my role as a campaign lawyer and counsel for President Trump, I explored legal options that might be available within the context of the U.S. Constitution and statutory law.”
Shortly afterward, Ellis lashed out at the publication for publishing her memos, even though they meet the definition of being newsworthy given that they recommended the disruption of the constitutional process of certifying a presidential election.
"Wondering how Politico thinks it’s responsible or ethical journalism to publish attorney-client privileged documents," she said. "They admit they are the first to publish in their entirety the two Ellis memos, which both have the banner 'ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGED.' Trump hatred persists."
https://www.rawstory.com/jenna-ellis-memos/
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New January 6 subpoenas show first direct line between Trump and 'Stop the Steal' organizers: CNN's Ryan Nobles
On Friday's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room," reporter Ryan Nobles explained that the new set of subpoenas issued by the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack show a firmer link between the "Stop the Steal" rally organizers and former President Donald Trump.
"The select committee issued a new round of subpoenas today," said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "Who do they target?"
"This round of subpoenas today, Wolf, are not necessarily too many household names, but their role in what took place in the days leading up to January 6th are very important," said Nobles. "Among them, Robert 'Bobby' Peede Jr., Max Miller, who is of course running for Congress right now in Ohio, Brian Jack, Bryan Lewis, Ed Martin, and Kimberly Fletcher."
Nobles then documented the importance of each witness to the committee's work.
"Peede and Max Miller are of particular interest," he explained. "This is the first time they've talked about a direct link to the rally organizers, people that planned rallies on January 4th, 5, and 6th. Many of those who participated in those rallies ended up storming the Capitol. And they both joined Katrina Pierson, who is also under subpoena, in a meeting with the former president in the executive dining room at the White House, where they discussed plans for the rallies. Now, we don't know exactly what took place in the conversation surrounding that, but this is one of the first times that we're hearing about the president in a room with rally organizers, discussing plans for that day, Wolf."
Watch below:
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REVEALED: Militia group abruptly changed its name as Capitol riot probe was closing in
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A far-right paramilitary group linked to Donald Trump's one-time national security adviser, Michael Flynn, abruptly changed its name shortly before its leader was subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
The 1st Amendment Praetorian — which has provided bodyguards to Flynn and other conspiracy theorists, including on the eve of the insurrection — has rebranded itself as an “intelligence, investigations, security and support” firm, the Daily Beast reported Saturday.
"Between Nov. 1 and Nov. 19, multiple social-media accounts associated with a California-based company calling itself 'The Shepherd Group' went live, as did a website hawking its 'holistic, boutique approach' to digital forensics, physical security, surveillance/counter-surveillance, and corporate intelligence," the site reported. "But a little digging reveals that the Shepherd Group is not entirely new: rather, it appears to be a front for the militant group 1st Amendment Praetorian, previously a volunteer outfit that has deployed its self-described force of former armed forces and police personnel as security for right-wing leaders and events. The group’s name derives from the elite cadre of Roman soldiers who served as the emperor’s personal retinue."
The leader of the 1st Amendment Praetorian, Robert Patrick Lewis, was subpoenaed in the Capitol riot probe in November. He now lists himself as CEO of the Shepherd Group on LinkedIn.
The 1st Amendment Praetorian chaperoned a pro-Trump rally at D.C's Freedom Plaza on Jan. 5, and Lewis reportedly had contact with both Flynn and "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander prior to the insurrection. The subpoena "alluded to Lewis’ social-media cheerleading of the rioters, which he previously told The Daily Beast he did from the Willard Hotel, where various Trump allies had established a 'war room' that day."
"Experts suggested the pivot to a for-profit business model might represent a bid for legitimacy in the face of public scrutiny," according to the Daily Beast.
Chuck Tanner of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights told the Daily Beast that other militia groups, including the Oath Keepers, also "present themselves as a protective service as a means of expanding further into the mainstream."
“Being a security firm and not a far-right paramilitary outfit can give you more legitimacy in that respect, for monetizing and recruiting, and putting on a public face as a more respectable entity,” Tanner said. “There’s a long history of violence stemming from far-right paramilitary organizations. So anything that can foster recruitment, or give them legitimacy, or inflate their sense of power potentially amps up the threat.”
Pointing to Lewis' promotion of conspiracy theories, Tanner added, "It’s terrifying: you combine the conspiracy framework that a lot of these groups operate under with far-right ideas and weapons training."
Read the full story below:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/flynns-fave-paramilitary-rebrands-as-private-security-firm
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Capitol rioters' boasts on social media are coming back to haunt them as they face prison
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According to a report from the Associated Press, participants in the Jan 6th Capitol insurrection are finding out that their boasts on social media about taking part in the riot that sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives are influencing the amount of time they may spend in jail.
Case in point: convicted insurrectionist Russell Peterson of Pennsylvania was confronted by U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson with a Facebook post he wrote where he told his friends, "Overall I had fun lol.”
That didn't sit well with the judge who told him, before sentencing him to 30 days in jail, "The ’lol’ particularly stuck in my craw because, as I hope you’ve come to understand, nothing about January 6th was funny. No one locked in a room, cowering under a table for hours, was laughing.”
Peterson is not the only one to have his social media comments blow up in his face months after the riot.
"FBI agents have identified scores of rioters from public posts and records subpoenaed from social media platforms. Prosecutors use the posts to build cases. Judge now are citing defendants' words and images as factors weighing in favor of tougher sentences," AP's Michael Kunzelman wrote. "As of Friday, more than 50 people have been sentenced for federal crimes related to the insurrection. In at least 28 of those cases, prosecutors factored a defendant’s social media posts into their requests for stricter sentences, according to an Associated Press review of court records."
According to the report, "Rioters’ statements, in person or on social media, aren’t the only consideration for prosecutors or judges. Justice Department sentencing memos say defendants also should be judged by whether they engaged in any violence or damaged property, whether they destroyed evidence, how long they spent inside the Capitol, where they went inside the building and whether they have shown sincere remorse."
In the case of Lori Ann Vinson who "publicly expressed pride in her actions at the Capitol during television news interviews and on Facebook," Judge Reggie Walton admonished her, “I understand that sometimes emotions get in the way and people do and say stupid things, because it was ridiculous what was said. But does that justify me giving a prison sentence or a jail sentence? That’s a hard question for me to ask,” before sentencing her to five years of probation and ordering her "to pay a $5,000 fine and perform 120 hours of community service."
New Jersey gym owner Scott Fairlamb was filmed punching a police officer outside the Capitol, with AP reporting, "His Facebook and Instagram posts showed he was prepared to commit violence in Washington, D.C., and had no remorse for his actions, prosecutors said."
Facing Senior Judge Royce Lamberth, Fairlamb was told after accepting a plea deal, "You couldn’t have beat this if you went to trial on the evidence that I saw.”
Fairlamb was subsequently sentenced to 41 months in prison.
You can read more here:
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-12-11/capitol-rioters-social-media-posts-influencing-sentencings
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Mark Meadows met multiple times at White House with retired military officer tied to insurrection PowerPoint
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According to a report from the Washington Post, a retired military officer who was a strong proponent of overturning the 2020 presidential election, was welcomed at the White House and spoke with Donald Trump's chief of staff "maybe eight to 10 times" before the January 6th riot at the Capitol.
The report states that retired Colonel Phil Waldron -- 'who circulated a proposal to challenge the 2020 election, including by declaring a national security emergency and seizing paper ballots' -- was in constant contact with Mark Meadows.
The WaPo reports, "Philip Waldron, the retired colonel, was working with Trump’s outside lawyers and was part of a team that briefed the lawmakers on a PowerPoint presentation detailing 'Options for 6 JAN,' Waldron told The Washington Post. He said his contribution to the presentation focused on his claims of foreign interference in the vote, as did his discussions with the White House. A version of the presentation made its way to the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Jan. 5. That information surfaced publicly this week after the congressional committee investigating the insurrection released a letter that said Meadows had turned the document over to the committee."
"The presentation was that there was significant foreign interference in the election, here’s the proof. These are constitutional, legal, feasible, acceptable and suitable courses of action," Waldron explained.
Summing up, the Washington Post reports, "Waldron’s account of his interactions with the White House, together with a 36-page version of the presentation that surfaced online this week and was reviewed by The Post, shed new light on the wild theories and proposals that circulated among the people advising Trump as they worked to overturn his election defeat, causing a crisis at the heart of government. They suggest that Meadows, who also pressed senior Justice Department leaders to investigate baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud, was more directly in contact with proponents of such theories than was previously known."
You can read more here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/phil-waldron-mark-meadows-powerpoint/2021/12/11/4ea67938-59df-11ec-9a18-a506cf3aa31d_story.html
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Here's another serious crime Criminal Donald committed
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2656000211/
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The House Select Jan 6 Committee released its Contempt of Congress report against Mark Meadows. It's 51 pages long.
This section highlighted really stands out. The Committee wants to know about the Jan 5th Meadows email about getting the National Guard to "protect Pro-Trump people".
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IJ/IJ00/20211213/114313/HRPT-117-NA.pdf
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The House Select Jan 6 Committee released its Contempt of Congress report against Mark Meadows. It's 51 pages long.
This section highlighted really stands out. The Committee wants to know about the Jan 5th Meadows email about getting the National Guard to "protect Pro-Trump people".
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IJ/IJ00/20211213/114313/HRPT-117-NA.pdf
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What this amounts to is clear treason by Criminal Donald. He knew there was going to be violence at the Capitol,
otherwise why would he call on the National Guard to "protect his people"? It's illegal for a President to use the National Guard as his own personal military against other Americans.
Mayor Bowser of DC asked for help begging for the National Guard to step in to stop the attack on the Capitol. The National Guard never showed up until hours after the riots, because it looks like what we already knew, and that is the National Guard had direct orders from Trump to stand down because it was "his people" committing the acts of violence. In this email is says for the National Guard to "protect his people".
Another piece of damning information is that, in the District of Columbia, the National Guard answers only to the President and then Secretary of Defense. Criminal Donald fired the Secretary of Defense on November 9th AFTER he lost the election. So, Criminal Donald was the only one who could have told the National Guard not to show up to protect our Capitol Police officers under attack and our members of Congress who's lives were in serious danger. 100% treason.
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The list of people who called Mark Meadows begging Trump stop Capitol attackers on Jan 6
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The new 52-page report from the House Select Committee on the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6 details a list of people who called chief of staff Mark Meadows begging then-President Donald Trump to stop the attack.
While many attempted to call Trump himself, he wasn't answering many calls. That's when people turned to other Trump staffers as well as family members like Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
The committee report says that Meadows got text messages from a "media personality," who told Meadows to tell Trump he had to issue a statement telling his people to leave the Capitol "peacefully."
Another text, according to the footnotes of the report, captured even the confusion with the direct quotes: It read that Meadows "sent to one of — by one of the President’s family members indicating that Mr. Meadows is, quote, ‘pushing hard,’ end quote, for a statement from President Trump to, quote, ‘condemn this sh*t.’”
The report also said, "We would ask Mr. Meadows questions about text messages reflecting Mr. Meadows’ skepticism about public statements regarding allegations of election fraud put forth by Sidney Powell and his skepticism about the veracity of claims of tampering with Dominion voting machines."
Other text messages and calls cite Meadows' conversations about Trump's Jan. 2, 2021 call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
Meadows' communications include "texts to and from participants in the call as it took place, as well as text messages to and received from Members of Congress after the call took place regarding strategy for dealing with criticism of the call."
Another cited by the committee revealed that Meadows participated in meetings and calls where those participating agreed there was a need to "fight" back against "mounting evidence" for voter fraud that courts had overwhelmingly rejected. The report said that Meadows also participated in an Oval Office meeting with Trump and Republican members of Congress he bragged about on Twitter after the fact. There was another call he participated in just days before.
The Justice Department's Trump ally, Jeffrey Clark, was trying to convince Trump and Meadows that he should be installed as the new Attorney General so that he could stop the Jan. 6 certification. In Dec. 2020 text messages, Meadows was discussing the Clark appointment with GOP members of Congress.
Other text messages came from Meadows to members begged for Trump-friendly state legislators who could help stop state certification of the vote. In Nov. 2020, Meadows also asked congressional allies for contact information from the Arizona's attorney general to discuss "election fraud." According to a member, "the President asked him to call Governor Ducey."
Communications between Meadows and organizers of the Jan. 6 political rally after the Capitol attack were also discovered. He discussed with the organizers about who would speak at the Ellipse, about planning and "where certain individuals would be located."
You can read the full Jan. 6 Committee report here:
https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=114313
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January 6 probe, new books lift lid on Trump's final days in office
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The Congressional investigation into the January 6 assault on the US Capitol by a mob loyal to Donald Trump is increasingly focusing on the former president and his top aides -- and what they did before the riot.
Last week, an appeals court ruled that Trump cannot block the release to investigators of his White House records relating to the attack, and his former chief of staff Mark Meadows faces being ruled in contempt for refusing to testify.
The committee has so far interviewed nearly 300 people.
It is piecing together a picture of the moves made by Trump after he lost the November 2020 election to Joe Biden, and the possibility that he was attempting to engineer a coup in an unprecedented threat to US democracy.
Here is a look at what happened in the crucial weeks leading up to January 6, 2021:
Trump serious about reversing election
Trump's pushback against Biden's election victory was not just an extended fit of pique, but rather a serious effort to retain power, which the Republican mounted for weeks.
After failing to reverse vote counts in the states he needed to change the result, Trump focused intensely on preventing Congress from certifying Biden's victory on January 6.
In mid-December, attorney John Eastman laid out for Trump a precise plan to have then vice president Mike Pence, who was to preside over the certification, exploit legal loopholes to keep Biden from moving into the Oval Office.
Meadows was one of several people close to Trump who, according to various reports, disseminated that plan, along with bizarre conspiracy theories alleging the election was fraudulent.
Others in Trump's camp also mapped out legal justifications for Pence to reject Biden's certification.
Pence, increasingly under pressure, sought advice in late December from former vice president Dan Quayle, who said he was required to certify Biden's win.
But according to new accounts and books about Trump's last months in office, Pence simply would not say no to his boss.
"You don't know the position I'm in," he said, according to "Peril," the book by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
"There are other guys saying I've got this power."
Meanwhile, on January 5 and 6, Trump, Meadows and other White House aides liaised regularly with a "war room" in a nearby hotel staffed by Eastman, advisor Steve Bannon and numerous others, who also were in contact with Trump supporters in the streets.
CIA, Pentagon feared Trump 'coup'
In the weeks after Trump refused to concede defeat, top officials feared he could try to mobilize the military to hold onto power.
They also feared that Trump, out of frustration, could start a war.
After the election, when Trump fired defense secretary Mark Esper, CIA Director Gina Haspel called the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, saying: "We are on the way to a right-wing coup. The whole thing is insanity," according to "Peril."
As January 6 neared, Milley warned staff of a "Reichstag moment" -- referring to when Nazis seized power after the 1933 torching of the German parliament.
On January 2, 10 former defense secretaries issued an extraordinary statement warning it was dangerous to challenge the election results or use the military to resolve political issues.
War with Iran, China feared
Nine days after the November election, Trump asked advisors about launching air strikes to take out Iran's entire nuclear program. They persuaded him to stand down, but they were unnerved.
"This is a highly dangerous situation. We are going to lash out for his ego?" Haspel asked Milley, according to "Peril."
When the issue was again raised after a barrage of missiles was launched at the US embassy in Baghdad on December 21, officials struggled to contain Trump, according to "Betrayal," a new book by ABC journalist Jonathan Karl.
But a much more serious situation was smoldering: China was worried an unhinged Trump could attack. And the Pentagon worried that Beijing could launch a first strike.
Just before the election, Milley took the unusual step of calling his Chinese counterpart to offer reassurances.
"I want to assure you the American government is stable," Milley told General Li Zuocheng. "We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you."
Beijing's worries resurfaced after the January 6 riot, and Milley called Li again.
"Things may look unsteady.... But that's the nature of democracy, General Li. We are 100 percent steady," he said.
'Got it?'
Before the January 6 attack, the people who might have been able to deter Trump -- the top Republicans in Congress, Senator Mitch McConnell and Congressman Kevin McCarthy -- are depicted in the books as frozen by their own political ambitions, and thus unwilling to challenge Trump.
In the hours after the attack, both Republican and Democratic political figures, including some in Trump's own cabinet, felt he was unstable and should be removed from office by constitutional means.
But there was no clear path, especially as Pence refused to consider it and his support would have been necessary.
Ultimately, Pence certified the election result, and calm was restored -- more or less.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Milley to ask how an "unhinged president" could be prevented from ordering a nuclear strike.
"The nuclear triggers are secure," Milley told her, according to "Peril." "I can assure you that that will not happen."
Milley then called in some senior officers and told them any order coming from Trump had to be checked with him.
He looked at each one and said, "Got it?"
© Agence France-Presse
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Who else would love to see smug Laura Ingraham be subpoenaed and fired? She is nothing but a liar and her lies about COVID and the phony Hydroxychloroquine remedy she promoted are killing people.
‘Is it time?’ Laura Ingraham’s own brother suggests she needs to be subpoenaed by Jan. 6 committee
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The brother of Fox News personality Laura Ingraham wondered aloud on Monday night if it might be time for her to testify before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
During a hearing before the committee voted to advance a contempt of Congress resolution against former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) read text messages sent to Meadow on Jan. 6 from Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade.
"[Trump] needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy," Ingraham said.
Despite her private view, Ingraham tried to blame Antifa on the night of the attack during her nationally broadcast show.
Her brother, Curtis Ingraham, suggested on Twitter it was time for the select committee to question his sister.
Read tweets and watch video in the link:
https://www.rawstory.com/laura-ingraham-brother-jan-6/
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Time to subpoena Junior.
Liz Cheney reads bombshell Jan. 6th text messages -- including panicked messages from Don Trump Jr.
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Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) on Monday read aloud several text messages sent to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows during the January 6th riots at the Capitol -- including panicked messages from Donald Trump Jr.
During a House Select Committee hearing, Cheney outlined damning evidence turned over by Meadows showing that multiple Trump allies implored him to take action to call off the rioters who were storming the Capitol, but that Trump still did nothing for more than three hours.
"We need an Oval Office address," Donald Trump Jr. implored Meadows in one text message, urging Meadows to get the then-president to tell the rioters to stand down.
Cheney noted that Trump Jr. texted "again and again" in an effort to get his father to stop the riots.
"He’s got to condemn this sh*t ASAP," Trump Jr. wrote in another text. "The Capitol Police tweet is not enough."
And Trump Jr. was far from the only big name to beg Trump to act.
"Please get him on TV," texted Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, who added that the riots were "destroying everything you have accomplished.”
Fox News host Laura Ingraham, meanwhile, told Meadows that Trump was "destroying his legacy" by not speaking out on the riots.
https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-capitol-riot-texts/
Jan 6 organizers warned the White House of violence — and they're turning over the docs to prove it
Organizers for the Jan. 6 rally are turning over documents to the House Select Committee implicating Republican officials, reported Rolling Stone on Monday evening.
According to the report, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) is among those rally organizers who were trying to get to speak at the rally that day.
Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lynn Lawrence will testify before the committee and turn over all of their documents, text messages and extensive information allegedly implicating members of Congress in the Jan. 6 attack.
"Among the documents the couple is providing are conversations they had with staffers and members of Congress as they planned the main rally that took place on the White House Ellipse that day," Rolling Stone reported. "Stockton described these discussions as largely logistical and focused on planning the members’ participation in objections to the electoral certification on the House floor and various events that were staged to protest against the election. They include Instagram messages Lawrence exchanged with Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) as she tried to get him to speak at the Ellipse rally."
"We’re turning it all over and we’ll let the cards fall where they may," Stockton told Rolling Stone.
The main reason that they're cooperating, the report explained, is that the two are running out of options as they face subpoenas.
Stockton and Lawrence have a history of staging political stunts and previously led the "March for Trump" bus tour that ended at the Ellipse rally with the president. Rolling Stone revealed that they were the sources for an October report saying members of Congress were involved in planning Trump's efforts to overturn the election.
"They claimed one of these lawmakers, Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), suggested the possibility Trump could get them a 'blanket pardon' in an unrelated ongoing investigation if they helped protest the election," the report said.
Gosar has called the claims "categorically false and defamatory." But Stockton and Lawrence may have proof. They also said that they were coordinating with Mark Meadows and warned him ahead of time that there could be potential violence.
“The people and the history books deserve a real account of what happened,” Stockton said.
"Violent sh*t happened,” Lawrence said. “We want to get to the bottom of that."
“We’ve seen what’s happened with Bannon, and we don’t have the resources that a Steve Bannon has,” Stockton explained, noting Bannon's multi-million-dollar life. “Our options are, in a lot of ways, limited."
The couple has been living out of their RV as well as hotels and other locations as they hide "on the run," Rolling Stone described. Stockton said he's doing odd jobs trying to make some extra money for them. They said that they grew scared when they noticed that a group of paramilitary-looking men showed up after they'd agreed to speak to the House committee. So, they left in the middle of the night to a hideout.
Stockton and Lawrence were once held at gunpoint by officers investigating a group that the couple worked on with Bannon. They'd been working for him since 2014 when he was running Breitbart. That's when they began working on "special projects" for the website. They recruited Black activists to discourage people from voting and joined the Bernie Sanders supporters groups to attack Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton.
Regretful MAGA rioter says Trump 'lied' to him in apology letter to judge
On Monday, Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post reported that Robert Scott Palmer, a Florida man involved in the January 6 Capitol attack, wrote a handwritten apology letter to the judge in his case, in which he fingered former President Donald Trump as the inciter of the violence that day.
"They kept spitting out the false narative [sic] about a stolen election and how it was 'our duty' to stand up to tyranny," wrote Scott in the letter. "Little did I realize that they were the tyrannical ones."
He added that he understands Trump supporters "were lied to by ... the sitting president, as well as those acting on his behalf."
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Scott, who wore a red, white, and blue Trump sweatshirt and a "Florida for Trump" hat at the riot and was seen on video assaulting Capitol police with a fire extinguisher, was arrested in March with the help of an online activist in the group calling itself the "Sedition Hunters." He tearfully pleaded guilty to the charges of assaulting law enforcement in October.
Many defendants in the Capitol riot cases have tried to argue they were pushed into it by Trump and right-wing media, although judges have broadly not bought this argument.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-plea/
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Jan 6 committee has received 'quite revealing' info about Republicans involved in Trump’s coup: Bennie Thompson
After the Jan. 6 committee voted to hold former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress, chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) answered questions from reporters where he revealed that many Republican officials appear to be implicated in Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Standing outside of the member's elevator, Thompson said that he couldn't reveal the names of those members that were implicated.
Thompson also said that the information they got was "quite revealing" about "members of Congress involved in the activities of Jan. 6, as well as staff."
See the video in link below:
https://www.rawstory.com/republican-officials-involved-january-6/
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Trump's public statements match up with coup plot laid out in PowerPoint
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Donald Trump's public statements from late last year show he was clearly on board with the coup plot laid out in a newly revealed PowerPoint document.
Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows turned over the 38-page document to the House select committee, eliciting shock from many in the media and government, but Popular Information researcher Judd Legum found substantial evidence that the twice-impeached one-term president knew about and supported that unconstitutional strategy to remain in office.
"Trump spoke repeatedly, without evidence, about 'foreign influence and control of electronic voting systems,'" Legum wrote. "In a November 29, 2020 appearance on Fox Business, Trump said that votes recorded on Dominion voting machines 'are counted in foreign countries.' He repeated the same claim in a recorded speech released on December 2, 2020."
"On December 22, 2020, Trump promoted a tweet in his feed encouraging Pence to reject the electors certified by the Electoral College in order to defend the country from 'China, Russia, Iran,'" he added.
Those comments track with one of the pages found in a similar, 36-page PowerPoint that has surfaced online, which recommends briefing members of Congress on alleged "foreign interference," and a retired colonel who was involved in creating the document said those meetings actually happened in the weeks before Jan. 6.
"[Retired Col. Phil] Waldron told the Washington Post that he briefed Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and other members of Congress who he did not identify," Legum wrote. "Neither Johnson nor Graham denied Waldron's claims."
The former president ultimately did not declare a national emergency, as the PowerPoint recommended, but he did cast certification of Joe Biden's election win as a national security threat during his Jan. 6 speech at the "Stop the Steal" rally, and that language aligned with his public statements casting doubt on electronic and mail-in votes.
"Trump did not personally have the power to invalidate all electronic votes," Legum wrote. "But he did declare that all electronic voting was invalid, falsely claiming it was tainted by fraud. In a Thanksgiving speech to troops around the world on November 26, 2020, Trump said that electronic votes were 'rigged' and only paper ballots are accurate. Trump made similar claims on December 2, 2020, when he told the nation that none of the electronic results can be trusted and the nation must 'go to paper.'"
All those baseless doubts underpinned the PowerPoint's overarching strategy to have then-vice president Mike Pence refuse to count or recognize Biden electors -- which Trump publicly called on him to do before and during the U.S. Capitol riot.
"It is unclear what influence, if any, the PowerPoint had on Trump or his inner circle," Legum wrote. "But that is not because the PowerPoint outlined a strategy that was more 'extreme' or 'wild' than the one Trump pursued. It was largely the same. Trump did not lack the will to overturn the democratic process; he lacked a way to execute a plan."
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-coup-2656025092/
The House riot committee has more evidence than we had for Trump's impeachment: Eric Swalwell
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Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday, Rep Eric Swalwell (D-CA) urged patience with the House committee investigating the Jan 6th Capitol riot and claimed the investigators have a mountain of evidence that dwarfs what was turned up in Donald Trump's second impeachment.
Speaking on a panel, the California Democrat was asked about Donald Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows' texts that were read by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) on Monday before turning to what is coming next.
After describing the events of Jan 6th as "maddening" Swalwell explained, "You will probably see, after the New Year, public hearings where they animate exactly what happened."
"Much like we did in the second impeachment of Donald Trump, they have a lot more evidence than we had," he continued. "We had very little. This was weeks after the insurrection and they have the benefit of hundreds of witnesses and documents and they're going to show the public just how all of this came together."
"I think but for one person, it wouldn't have happened," he added as a pointed jab at the former president.
Watch below:
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WATCH: Former federal prosecutor explains why she thinks the DOJ will indict Mark Meadows
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White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was voted in contempt of Congress in the Jan. 6 select committee Monday evening, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Justice Department will indict him.
According to former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance, however, the DOJ is likely to move forward with the indictment.
"It's hard to get into Mark Meadows' mind, and I'm sure we jump into speculation. What is the impact that he stopped cooperation?" asked Vance. "I think this is Liz Cheney's analysis from last night where she was clearly making an argument not just to hurt fellow members of Congress, but also to the Justice Department about why they should ultimately indict Mark Meadows."
It all hinges on the fact that Meadows stopped cooperating. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said Tuesday that Meadows turned over thousands of documents and that the Jan. 6 committee is "quibbling" over a few things. Vance explained that Cheney's analysis is more sophisticated, saying Meadows only turned over documents he conceded weren't privileged. Now he's refusing to testify about those documents.
MSNBC host Katy Tur noted that the Meadows case isn't the same as Steve Bannon. In Meadows' case, he was a White House staffer at the time, where Bannon was not. Meadows has documents that likely do fall under executive privilege, however, President Joe Biden has waived that privilege.
"You'll recall that DOJ and the Bannon indictment references repeatedly the fact that Bannon did absolutely nothing to comply with the subpoena," Vance continued. "Ultimately I think that Meadows does end up getting indicted and here's the reason. I think even if DOJ concedes that in all the cases where Meadows asserts a privilege that they won't look at those any further, you know, Katy, in many of those instances, the way he suggests that the documents are privileged is very speculative and he's probably wrong in many cases, especially about executive privilege."
She explained that in this universe, where Meadows has agreed no privilege exists, there is no reason he should refuse to testify.
"And, in fact, you can't just say I have executive privilege and not show up," she told Tur. "You have to appear when you're asked to testify. You have to listen to each question, and for each question consider whether you can answer it or whether it's privileged. It's Meadows' failure to participate and play by the rules that ultimately means, at least in my judgment, that DOJ will perhaps, after a great deal more time than with Bannon and a lot more angst, decide he should be prosecuted."
See the discussion below:
Riot committee: Mark Meadows already facing legal jeopardy no matter what else turns up in his phone records
Mark Meadows could be facing legal jeopardy over his phone records regardless of what turns up.
The former White House chief of staff is refusing to turn over some personal emails, text messages and encrypted chats by arguing Donald Trump still maintains executive privilege over those communications, but the House select committee believes those should have already been turned over to the National Archives, reported The Daily Beast.
“It appears that Mr. Meadows may not have complied with legal requirements to retain or archive documents under the Presidential Records Act,” the panel said in its report, which noted concerns that some of those materials may already be lost.
Congressional investigators are especially interested in the former presidential staffer's use of personal devices to coordinate challenges to Trump's election loss, including a Jan. 2 phone call to Georgia's secretary of state that's under criminal investigation in that state and the Jan. 6 protest that turned into the U.S. Capitol riot.
"Had Mr. Meadows been deposed under oath, the committee would have asked him about his handling official government records, a topic that is not subject to any conceivable legal privilege,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) said during the contempt vote meeting.
Congress will vote Tuesday whether to hold Meadows in contempt, but investigators will likely look at whether he violated federal records laws.
“Mr. Meadows’ production of documents shows that he used the Gmail accounts and his personal cellular phone for official business related to his service as White House chief of staff,” the committee said in its latest report. “Given that fact, we would ask Mr. Meadows about his efforts to preserve those documents and provide them to the National Archives.”
It should not matter who paid for Meadows' phone service, according to a former national archivist.
Don W. Wilson, who served as the nation’s archivist from 1987 until 1993, told The Daily Beast that there’s little wiggle room here.
“If it’s official business, then it’s a record," said Don W. Wilson, who served as the nation’s archivist from 1987 until 1993, "and by the nature of his role and his office, there’s not much unofficial. He shouldn’t have been using his personal cellphone… and if he was, there should have been some sort of transfer to the National Archives.”
Wilson believes Meadows' reluctance to turning over the communications should be a red flag in itself.
“What were the texts? What were the phone calls? If they can’t even get the logs for the official phone calls, that’s pretty revealing,” he said. “It’s going to come out eventually. But what it’s doing to the country right now is a travesty.”
https://www.rawstory.com/mark-meadows-phone-records/
A federal judge has already made the legal connection to Trump's accountability over Jan 6: columnist
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In her Tuesday column, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin cited a federal judge who has already made a case for holding former President Donald Trump accountable.
According to the Washington Post column, U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich ruled last week that it's illegal to interrupt the counting of electoral votes, even if it was not "specifically contemplated." Meaning, it doesn't matter whether it was premeditated or not. Leading a crowd to the U.S. Capitol to interrupt an election's counting, she ruled, is illegal.
“There is a presiding officer, a process by which objections can be heard, debated, and ruled upon, and a decision — the certification of the results — that must be reached before the session can be adjourned," wrote Judge Friedrich. Indeed, the certificates of electoral results are akin to records or documents that are produced during judicial proceedings, and any objections to these certificates can be analogized to evidentiary objections.”
The judge went on to say that the Jan. 6 attackers not only acted "corruptly," but those who planned the attack to stop the counting fits the bill for the accused.
"In this sense, the plain meaning of 'corruptly' encompasses both corrupt (improper) means and corrupt (morally debased) purposes," the decision also said … "The Court agrees that § 1512(c)’s proscription of knowing conduct undertaken with the specific intent to obstruct, impede, or influence the proceeding provides a clear standard to which the defendant can conform his behavior."
Rubin then cited former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, who has been making a similar argument, citing those laws for months.
"Judge Friedrich’s decision means the prosecutors don’t have to show someone intended violence for it to be a crime," he told Rubin. "So long as the intent was to influence and disrupt the congressional function of counting the votes, that is sufficient — so long as it was done ‘corruptly.'"
He also explained that Judge Friedrich referenced a previous ruling by the conservative Judge Laurence Silberman, who ruled that the "corruptly" piece of the law meant "doing something by unlawful means."
It only adds to the other problems that Trump faces, like election fraud in Georgia and financial issues in New York.
"Too many people have let themselves be sidetracked into looking for a connection between Trump and the violence of Jan. 6. But that evidence is unnecessary because the crime here is the end result — the intended disruption of the House electoral vote-counting. And from every document, news report or tell-all book we have seen, that is precisely what Trump tried to do. Simply because he told the world about his corrupt intent does not make it any less illegal," Rubin closed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/14/federal-court-has-ruled-that-obstructing-electoral-vote-count-is-illegal-trump-should-panic/
Jen Psaki shames Fox News hosts for privately condemning MAGA riot -- then 'spreading lies' about it anyway
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had some tough words for Fox News hosts who knew that former President Donald Trump's supporters were responsible for the January 6th riots, but then chose to blame the riots on Antifa anyway.
After being asked about the bombshell text messages revealed on Monday night by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riots, Psaki didn't waste time slamming Fox News personalities such as Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity for expressing concern about the riots in private while brushing them off to their viewers that very same day.
"It's disappointing, and unfortunately not surprising, that some of the very same individuals who were willing to mourn, condemn, and express horror over what happened on January 6 in private, were totally silent in public," she said. "Or, even worse, were spreading lies and conspiracy theories, and have continued to since that time."
The text messages, all of which were sent to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, asked him to get Trump to publicly come out and call off his supporters at the Capitol.
Despite their pleas, however, Trump would not act to tell the rioters to go home for more than three hours.
Watch the video below:
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Jan. 6 panel to identify lawmakers who sent texts to Mark Meadows 'probably very soon': House Dem
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The American public will soon learn the identities of lawmakers who sent text messages to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows related to Jan. 6, according to a member of the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
On Monday and Tuesday, members of the committee released the content of several of the text messages, including one in which a lawmaker wrote to Meadows on Jan. 7, “Yesterday was a terrible day. We tried everything we could in our objection to the 6 states. I’m sorry nothing worked.”
In another message, an unidentified lawmaker wrote to Meadows on Nov. 4, the day after the presidential election: "Here’s an aggressive strategy. Why can’t the states GA, NC, PENN, and other R controlled state houses declare this BS.. and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to SCOTUS."
And on Jan. 5, a lawmaker wrote to Meadows, "Please check your Signal," referring to the encrypted messaging app.
On Tuesday night, MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), a member of the committee, "whether the public has a right to know" the identities of the lawmakers and "when we would find that out."
"I certainly think the public has a right to know," Luria responded. "I would say the committee chair is being very deliberate about when we release that information, because we don't want to impede or interfere with the investigation and other witnesses we're speaking to at this point, but you can certainly expect to hear those names, and probably very soon. But i think that maintaining that in the committee until we're ready to release it publicly is very important to the progress of our investigation right now."
Watch the full interview below:
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The GOP Treason Team. Lock them all up!
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Two Jan. 6 Organizers Are Coming Forward and Naming Names: ‘We’re Turning It All Over’
After losing faith in Trump, the pair plan to hand over text messages, Instagram direct messages, and other documents related to the planning of the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse where Trump spoke
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jan6-rally-trump-2020-election-capitol-congress-gosar-1253392/
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Louie Gohmert's involvement in Jan. 6 riot and his pressure campaign on Pence has gone largely overlooked so far
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Rep. Louie Gohmert's role in the Jan. 6 insurrection has gone largely overlooked by the public and investigators.
The Texas Republican filed a lawsuit Dec. 27 against then-vice president Mike Pence, who he argued should exert unilateral control over the electoral certification, and then went onto right-wing media to seemingly encourage violence to contest Donald Trump's election loss after a district court rejected his challenge, reported Politico.
"In effect, the ruling would be that you’ve got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM,“ Gohmert said on Newsmax on Jan. 1, five days before the violent U.S. Capitol riot.
Pence allies have long suspected the twice-impeached one-term president was involved in Gohmert's pressure campaign, which was backed by lawyers associated with conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell, but it's unclear whether the House select committee is examining the Texas lawmaker's role in the insurrection, but at least one panelist agrees it played an important role in the violence on Jan. 6.
“It’s a significant detail in that it was part of a plan to isolate and coerce Pence,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
Gohmert hoped to force Pence to ignore a 130-year-old law governing the certification of presidential elections, but the former vice president ultimately decided he did not have that authority to throw out election results -- and Pence allies say Trump was furious that the Justice Department intervened to defend him as the suit was swiftly rejected by federal district and appellate courts in Texas.
The GOP lawmaker did not respond to two emails sent by Politico asking about the lawsuit.
Gohmert has previous denied reports that he was among “multiple members of Congress [who] were intimately involved in planning both (former President Donald) Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.”
https://www.rawstory.com/louie-gohmert-jan-6/
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'Don’t worry about money': New charges show extensive coordination between extremist groups before Jan. 6
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The arrests of two members of the Patriot Boys militia in northern Texas earlier this week raises new questions about outside funding to pay for tactical gear and travel to Washington, DC on Jan. 6, 2021, and broader coordination among the various groups that led the assault on the US Capitol.
According to the charging document for the two men, Lucas Denney, a US Army veteran and president of the Patriot Boys, recruited Donald Hazard to go to DC on Jan. 6 in a text on Christmas Day in 2020, simultaneously appointing him to serve as “sergeant at arms” for the militia.
“Hey, if your trip is paid for, can you go to DC?” Denney asked Hazard. “Don’t worry about money. Just get the days off if you can.”
The following day, Denney allegedly texted Hazard again, reporting: “Have plenty of money now. I just got a 1 thousand dollar donation from just one person for the trip. I have more donations coming in to [sic].” Denney then asked Hazard if he knew “any other guys that can go that’s like us and will fight, we could use them. And it will be paid for.”
An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on who may have contributed funding to Denney to finance the Patriot Boys’ travel to DC.
READ: #PoleTosser rioter flagrantly taunts FBI, poses with GOPers and 'patrols' the border with his pals
The charging document also cites statements by Denney as early as Christmas day that indicate he was communicating with other right-wing paramilitary leaders, including chapter leaders of the Proud Boys, about plans for Jan. 6.
To date, 17 members of the Oath Keepers have been charged with conspiracy to stop, delay or hinder Congress’ certification of the electoral vote. Four different sets of Proud Boys have also been charged with conspiracy to stop, delay or hinder the electoral vote certification, and members of all but one of those sets also face charges of conspiracy to obstruct and interfere with law enforcement officers engaged in their official duties to protect the Capitol. Five men in the California Patriots-DC Brigade and three men in the Patriots 45 MAGA Gang have also been charged in separate conspiracy cases.
All of the defendants in those cases are accused only of conspiring with other members and affiliates of their particular groups. No cases have been brought so far that allege a wider conspiracy involving the multiple groups or unaffiliated individuals involved in the insurrection. But statements by Denney bolster the view that the insurrection involved coordination among the various groups.
“We will need linking up with Proud Boys though,” Denney allegedly told Hazard in a Dec. 25. “I’ve been in contact with a few different chapters and they’re helping us out with safe hotels to get.
“We’ll all be staying in the same hotels that they are,” Denney added.
In a Dec. 31 Facebook message to an unidentified individual, Denney reportedly said: “A lot of the presidents and commanders of militias like myself are meeting on the 5th to organize and plan.” In another message sent at 2:09 a.m. that day, Denney wrote: “I’m still up chatting with all my brothers that are going to DC. All the presidents have been so busy organizing, planning and talking lol.”
Court documents that are publicly available do not indicate whether the Jan. 5 meeting actually took place.
The FBI declined to comment on whether the government plans to bring additional conspiracy charges that outline broader coordination among the various groups and unaffiliated individuals that were involved in the insurrection.
The recent arrests of two other men charged with assaulting law enforcement also point to the Proud Boys as a hub of broader organization for the Jan. 6 attack. The government alleges that Ethan Nordean, a Proud Boys leader in Seattle, texted Ronald Loehrke, a Marine Corps veteran whose name was saved as “Ron (Lisa’s friend)” in Nordean’s phone, and asked if he was coming to DC. Loehrke reportedly confirmed to Nordean that he was planning to make the trip. The government alleges that phone records show Loehrke was in contact with co-defendant James Haffner during the same time period.
Both Denney and Nordean used the term “front line” to describe where they expected fighters to be positioned in DC on Jan. 6, according to charging documents.
“I’m so pumped, brother,” Denney reportedly said in a Jan. 1 Facebook comment. “I can’t wait to be in the middle of it on the front line on the 6th.”
And according to the charging document for Ronald Loehrke and James Haffner, Nordean texted Loehrke on Dec. 27 to tell him he wanted him “on the front line” with him. Loehrke reportedly responded by saying, “Sounds good,” adding that he planned to bring three “Bad mother f*ckers” with him.
True to his word, Denney fought law enforcement on the west plaza of the Capitol. According to the government, he “grabbed and shoved a police officer,” attempted to grab a canister of crowd-control spray from another officer before swinging a long metal pole at him, and then launched a large tube toward a line of officers.
Later, according to the government, Denney relocated to the Lower West Terrace and joined a crowd of rioters in the tunnel, where they pushed a riot shield into and on top of a line of Metropolitan police officers. When Officer Michael Fanone was pulled into the crowd and down the steps about three minutes later, the government alleges that Denney swung his arm and fist at Fanone, grabbed him and pulled him further down the stairs.
Like Denney, Hazard is also accused of assaulting law enforcement at the Capitol.
Denney and Hazard were arrested earlier this week, and are being held in detention. A detention hearing for Hazard is scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m. in federal court in Fort Worth.
Similarly, the government alleges that Loehrke and Haffner positioned themselves near the front of a line of US Capitol police officers assembled in riot gear on the west plaza.
Loehrke reportedly admonished the other rioters for allowing themselves to be stopped by 25 officers. “Don’t back down, patriots!” he said. “The whole f*cking world is watching. Stand the f*ck up today!”
Multiple statements in the 42-page charging documents outlining Denney and Hazard’s alleged offenses indicate that funds donated to Patriot Boys were used to pay for tactical equipment, along with travel and lodging.
“I want to pick you up and take you to get a helmet and pick up some other gear,” Denney reportedly said to Hazard in a text on Dec. 30. Later, Denney told Hazard that he had “picked us each up a bottle of police grade pepper spray from the Fort Worth Police store…. I’ll have you a vest, too.”
And Denney reportedly thanked another unidentified individual for donating and said, “If you know anyone else that can donate, let them know about us. I still need more protective gear for some more of my guys and other supplies before we leave Sunday.”
It is unclear whether anyone else traveled to DC with Denney and Hazard, but in a Dec. 30 text message to Hazard, Denney is said to have reported that “we have 3 guys so far.” In a Facebook message to an unidentified individual on the same day, Denney reportedly said, “I have 5 of my guys going but I’m linking up with over 300 in DC.” In another message, Denney mentioned that “two of the guys” still needed helmets, vests and medical equipment.
Beyond outside funding, coordination with the Proud Boys and other “militia” groups, the Denney-Hazard charging document indicates that Denney had foreknowledge that something significant was going to happen at the Capitol on Jan. 6. In a Facebook message to an unidentified individual on Dec. 29, Denney reported; “Got the room booked and plans to meet with about 1 thousand other guys that we are all in a Intel chatroom together.”
On Dec. 30, Denney reportedly shared two similar digital posters on Facebook, each with the hashtage #OccupyCongress, along with the date of Jan. 6, 2021. One read, “Stand up! Get Loud!” It specified the time to be at the Capitol as “noon.” Rioters initially breached the entrance of the Pennsylvania Avenue Walkway leading onto the Capitol grounds at 12:50 p.m., while President Trump was still speaking at the Ellipse.
The other #OccupyCongress poster shared by Denney included the text, “If they won’t hear us, they will fear us. Election fraud is the reason.”
According to the charging document, Denney told an unidentified individual on Facebook: “Trump is calling this rally himself. It’s the day that Congress is going to try and certify the electoral college. But Pence can deny the ones coming from the states where the fraud took place. So, we are thinking Trump wants us there to keep the area from being burned down by antifa thugs when they get mad…. Biden ain’t getting into office.”
Denney’s statement about the purpose of going to DC echoed a comment made by Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes on Christmas day in a Signal thread for Florida members of the militia group.
“I think Congress will screw [Trump over],” Rhodes reportedly said in the “OKFL Hangout” thread. “The only change [sic] we/he has is if we scare the spombleprofglidnoctobuns out of them and convince them it will be torches and pitchforks time is [sic] they don’t do the right thing. But I don’t think they will listen.”
In his text exchange with Hazard on Christmas day, Denney promised, “So, the 6th is going to be bigger than the last rally. I can’t tell you everything I know over media here but it’s gonna be big. Millions and millions will be there, I can tell you that.”
To an unidentified individual on Facebook, Denney messaged on Jan. 5: “Things are going to be happening here. Trump is going to be speaking to everyone Wed before everyone marches to the capital. Rumour has it that he may march with us. I’ll tell you more when you get here on where to be and what time so you have the best seats.”
Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist and the CEO of Trump’s 2016 campaign, reportedly made a similar statement to his podcast listeners on Jan. 5.
“All hell will break loose tomorrow,” Bannon said. “It will be quite extraordinarily different. All I can say is, strap in. Tomorrow is game day. So many people said, ‘Man, if I was in a revolution I would be in Washington.’ Well, this is your time in history.”
In the early morning hours of Jan. 6, Denney relayed the message to a friend on Facebook.
“Trump speaking to us around 11am; then we march to the capital and after that we have special plan that I can’t say right now over Facebook,” Denney wrote. “But keep an eye out for live feed tomorrow from me. Tomorrow will be historic.”
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-coordination/
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Author of Trump coup PowerPoint presentation hit with Jan. 6th Committee subpoena
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The man who wrote the infamous PowerPoint presentation outlining how former President Donald Trump could stay in power despite losing the 2020 election by declaring a "national emergency" has just been subpoenaed by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riots.
The committee announced on Thursday that it had subpoenaed Phil Waldron, whose now-infamous PowerPoint presentation was given to the committee by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows.
"The document he reportedly provided to Administration officials and Members of Congress is an alarming blueprint for overturning a nationwide election," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS). "The Select Committee needs to hear from him about all these activities. We expect him to comply with the law and provide records and testimony as the Select Committee continues its work to get answers for the American people about January 6th."
Waldron's PowerPoint contained multiple false claims about the Chinese government completely infiltrating America's voting machines, and also recommended declaring all voting done through voting machines to be invalid.
"The electronic voting machines are shifting votes from Trump to Biden," the presentation wrote in justifying tossing out all votes cast electronically. "The election fraud perpetrated used the major brands of machines Dominion and ES&S."
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-committee-subpoenas-2656056201/
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How the January 6 committee finally exposed Trump's empire of lies
If politics still turned on truth and facts, this would be the week when the lie-filled foundations of Donald Trump's movement imploded, destroying his apparent dream of a return to power after the 2024 election.
But it is the ex-President's greatest, most subversive victory that his empire of falsehoods will surely survive new disclosures that lay bare his own abuses of power and the voter-mocking deceit of his political and media enablers.
While there has already been a steady accumulation of shocking evidence of Trump's coup attempt on January 6 and the emptiness of his election fraud claims, recent days put the saga into a horrifying new light. They brought the clearest indicators yet that the entire Make America Great Again infrastructure and Trump's potential next White House campaign rest on hogwash and the whitewashing of history.
The House select committee probing the January 6 insurrection has released fresh details of the elaborate behind-the-scenes plot to subvert the certification of President Joe Biden's election. There's embarrassing new evidence of how conservative media stars were privately alarmed by the attack by Trump's mob but quickly reverted to amplifying his lies to millions of Americans they willfully deceived. And a major new Associated Press survey of 2020 swing states contested by Trump found cases of voter fraud were sparse and far from the nationwide conspiracy he claims. There are separate reports that three Florida residents were recently arrested and charged with election fraud -- two of whom were registered Republicans.
This week will be remembered for Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the vice chair of the House committee, bringing receipts that exposed the hypocrisy of Trump's extended orbit.
Texts from Republican lawmakers, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. and Fox News prime-time anchors to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows show that they knew the attack on the Capitol was a disaster and wanted it to stop.
Yet those same conservative heroes are part of a political media operation that spent the last 11 months obscuring what really happened, in many cases denying the truth of Biden's election win and fueling lies about voter fraud that are feeding anti-democratic extremism. All to preserve a meal ticket named Trump.
In another development fraught with chilling implications, the committee revealed that Meadows wrote in an email that the National Guard would be present to "protect pro Trump people" on January 6. It was the latest example of a habit of weaponizing sacred American institutions for Trump's political gain.
The former President, meanwhile, encapsulated perverted political values that now rule much of the Republican Party and will likely produce its next presidential nominee. He recently declared that former Vice President Mike Pence had been "mortally wounded" because he had refused to steal the election during his ceremonial role in certifying Biden's victory. The ex-President was giving voice to a GOP incentive system that now rewards coup attempts and despotic behavior over honoring the Constitution.
The scale of the evidence coming to light this week is remarkable. But daily bombshells about what happened on January 6 often have the effect of diminishing the shock value of Trump-related outrages. And voters have pressing concerns like the rising cost of living and a pandemic that will shortly drag into a third year. Yet this week's developments are important not just because they chart the staggering breadth of Trump's election conspiracy. They are also exposing the lies on which his future political prospects are built -- and on which multiple Republican-run states have passed laws that make it harder to vote and easier to steal future elections.
Trump's biggest confidence trick
There has always been an aura of a con man about Trump, from his days as a bankruptcy-plagued real estate chancer who adopted a persona as the master of the art of the deal. His presidency opened with false claims about the size of his inauguration crowd that in retrospect augured an administration constructed on untruths -- or what his former senior aide Kellyanne Conway once dubbed "alternative facts."
It is now clear that his big lie that "frankly, we did win this election" is the most audacious and damaging confidence trick of his career.
A few Trump supporters are seeing the light, including Dustin Stockton, one of the organizers of the January 6 rally that preceded the insurrection, who found himself subpoenaed by the House committee -- and lacks the means to wage a legal battle like Trump's wealthy political guru Steve Bannon.
"Essentially, he abandons people when the going gets tough for people. And, you know, in some ways, it's embarrassing to think that in a lot of ways, we bought into what essentially turned out to be a bluff or a con," Stockton told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Tuesday.
Yet Stockton is an outlier. Trump's popularity among Republican voters makes him the preemptive favorite for the GOP's 2024 nomination. He has the power to shape the political careers of those willing to accept his extremism -- as his raft of endorsements of midterm election candidates, nationally and in the states, shows. The Trump story, meanwhile, makes millions for conservative media outlets and stars -- giving them an incentive to promote a false alternative reality that has won over legions of viewers.
The mendacity of the conservative media propaganda machine was exposed by Cheney's reading aloud of texts sent to Meadows by several Fox News powerhouses, including Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, pleading with Meadows to get Trump to intervene on January 6.
"Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home," Ingraham texted. "This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy." Hannity asked the-then chief of staff whether Trump could make a statement that would tell the people at the Capitol to leave.
Both anchors later condemned the violence on January 6. But they have been among Fox News personalities who attack the investigation as a political vendetta against Trump rather than a probe into one of the worst assaults on democracy in American political history. And television disinformation is only a small part of the problem; social media networks teem with falsehoods about the election and boost Trump's lies in what is almost a fact-free zone.
Trump's Orwellian method
Trump's enablers have reacted to the disclosures of recent days by adopting the signature move of their leader -- spinning a false reality to excuse his behavior and mislead his supporters about what really happened.
Meadows, for instance, appeared on Hannity's show on Monday and concocted a story that contradicts reports that the former President had cooled his heels and watched on TV as his rioting supporters marauded through the Capitol.
"At the end of the day, they're going to find that not only did the President act, but he acted quickly," Meadows said. The former chief of staff has since been cited for criminal contempt by the House for refusing a subpoena to testify to the committee. His tactic was familiar from previous Trump scandals, as he pivoted away from the truth to create a more palatable tale for Trump supporters that absolved the ex-President of culpability.
The approach recalled Trump's own when his pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky to open an investigation into then-candidate Biden and his son Hunter came out. The ex-President simply insisted that their call was "perfect," even though a White House transcript showed repeated abuses of power as he used military aid as a carrot -- a transgression that led to his first impeachment.
This Trump gambit -- also used by conservative news outlets every day -- recalls the party's reality-defying "War is Peace" slogan in George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four." Trump explained his method in a less literal way in 2018 when instructing followers to distrust their own eyes and non-partisan media and to believe only him. "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening," he said.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/16/politics/donald-trump-january-6-committee-republicans-fox-news/index.html
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Cop-assaulting MAGA rioter gets longest January 6th prison sentence yet
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Robert Scott Palmer, a Florida man who assaulted Capitol Police during the January 6 Capitol attack, got slapped with a five-year prison sentence on Friday, the longest sentence handed out yet in cases related to the deadly Trump-incited riots.
NBC News reports that the 54-year-old Palmer was sentenced to 63 months in prison for assaulting multiple officers during the January 6th riots.
"Prosecutors said he threw a wooden plank the police, then picked up a fire extinguisher and sprayed its contents at a line of officers, throwing the canister at them after it was empty," writes NBC News. "A few minutes later, prosecutors said, he picked up the fire extinguisher and threw it at them a second time and assaulted another group of officers with a metal pole, throwing it like a spear."
Palmer earlier this week made a bid for leniency when he expressed regret for his actions and blamed former President Donald Trump for lying to his supporters about a "stolen" election.
"[We] were lied to by... the sitting president, as well as those acting on his behalf," Palmer wrote.
Nonetheless, that didn't stop U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan from coming down hard on him in her ruling.
"It has to be made clear that trying to violently overthrow the government, trying to stop the peaceful transition of power, and assaulting law enforcement officers in that effort is going to be met with absolutely certain punishment," she said Friday.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-sentence-2656063330/
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Good! Should have gotten a longer sentence.
Proud Boys supporter who vowed Dem senator would be 'swinging with the fish' gets 3 years in prison
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On Friday, BuzzFeed News reported that a Proud Boys supporter who issued violent threats against elected officials including Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) has been sentenced to 33 months in prison.
"Eduard Florea used the social media app Parler to issue the threats against elected officials, trying to gather others to join him before the Jan. 6 insurrection, when a mob of supporters of then-president Donald Trump stormed the Capitol," reported Salvador Hernandez.
The report cited a social media post dated January 5th in which Florea said "'Warnock is going to have a hard time casting votes for communist policies when he's swinging with the f***ing fish... It's time to unleash some violence."
Florea ultimately did not travel to the Capitol himself on January 6, but pleaded guilty in August to transmitting threats. He was also convicted of illegally possessing ammunition, having been banned from doing so after a 2013 felony conviction.
"At a court hearing following his arrest, a prosecutor said Florea had told the FBI he'd applied to join the white nationalist group Proud Boys, the New York Times reported," Hernandez wrote. "He posted online using an account with the handle LoneWolfWar to issue the threatening messages."
The Proud Boys, a self-described "Western Chauvinist" group known for their violent street brawls, have been heavily implicated in the Capitol attack, with members involved at the incident. They have been subpoenaed for information by the House committee investigating the attack, along with the far-right paramilitary group the Oath Keepers.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/proud-boy-threats-sentencing-florea
Jan. 6 investigators eye role of 'foreign adversaries' in Capitol insurrection
A House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection may soon hire new staff members to examine the possible role of foreign adversaries in former president Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The committee, which already has about 40 staff members, is also considering whether to hire additional investigators to help analyze "the vast amount of information that Mr. Trump’s supporters posted on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Parler and YouTube in the weeks before and after the attack," the New York Times reported Friday.
"These digital footprints could help congressional investigators connect players and events, or bring to light details that witnesses might not know or remember," the NYT reported.
In addition to further scrutinizing the social media information, the committee reportedly wants "to understand whether foreign governments were able to exploit and deepen social divisions created by Mr. Trump’s refusal to concede his election loss."
"Foreign adversaries have long tried to damage America’s national security interests by exacerbating social unrest and polarization," the newspaper reported. "The committee has also discussed examining whether foreign adversaries had any other connections to the assault on Congress, according to a person briefed on that part of the inquiry."
Read the full story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/us/politics/january-6-committee-capitol-riot.html
Trump's coup accomplices have been exposed -- and they're sitting in Congress
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Around this time one year ago, Donald Trump was leaning heavily on the Justice Department (DOJ) to help him overturn the presidential election. According to notes taken by top DOJ official Richard Donoghue, after attorney general Bill Barr had abruptly skedaddled out of town before the proverbial manure hit the fan, the president called up the newly installed acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and told him "just say the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen."
That Nixonian "request" was denied by Rosen, since it would have been a bald-faced lie but as we later learned, the White House was also plotting with an obscure DOJ lawyer named Jeffrey Clark to put the heat on Rosen to squeeze state election officials in states Trump claimed without evidence had been stolen from him. Rosen was told that Trump planned for Clark to replace him if he didn't comply but Rosen resisted and Trump backed off after his own White House counsel convinced him that there would be mass resignations at the DOJ if he followed through. Other than one congressman from Pennsylvania, a Republican by the name of Scott Perry who had reportedly called up Donoghue to threaten him into doing Clark's bidding, until now we didn't know exactly who the "R. Congressmen" were. Now The New York Times reports that Trump's accomplices were none other than the members of the House's far-right Freedom Caucus.
The Times names Jim Jordan of Ohio, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar of Arizona, Louis Gohmert of Texas, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Pennsylvania's Perry, who is described by the Times as the coordinator of the plans to replace the attorney general with the compliant Clark. They all worked closely with one of the original founders of the Freedom Caucus, Mark Meadows, the former North Carolina congressman who served as Trump's chief of staff.
The Times reports on a previously unknown meeting that took place shortly after the election which included Jordan, Perry and Meadows along with White House adviser Stephen Miller, Trump's campaign manager Bill Stepien and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Jordan claims it was purely a media strategy meeting. But when it comes to The Big Lie, that amounts to a strategy to overturn the election. Everything flowed from that. These Freedom Caucus members were all over TV spreading falsehoods about voter fraud. They pressured Republican officials and ran around chasing rumors of foreign interference. And after Barr announced that the DOJ had found no evidence of fraud, they smeared the FBI and the DOJ in the press. That's when they turned their full attention to overturning the election, focusing on January 6th.
Gohmert sued vice president Mike Pence to force him to nullify the election. (The case was thrown out of court.) Perry forwarded a letter from some Pennsylvania state legislators to Sen. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House, asking them to delay the certification which they had no authority to do.
And they met personally with the president to make plans to "stop the sedition."
And now we know from the Times' reporting that the PowerPoint coup plot was forwarded to Meadows by none other than Jim Jordan --- who Trump awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom after the insurrection. (That would be the same Jim Jordan who Kevin McCarthy had the chutzpah to attempt to install on the Jan. 6th Committee.)
The "R. Congressmen" were up to their necks in coup plots. But that's not surprising. If anyone had told me five years ago that we'd have an attempted coup in America I would have assumed that the Freedom Caucus would be involved. They've been practicing for years on their own party.
When the Freedom Caucus was formed in 2015, Mark Meadows was one of its founding members. So was Mick Mulvaney, another former Trump chief of staff, and current Florida Governor Ron Desantis among others, like Jordan. They presented themselves as dedicated to fiscal conservatism and re-establishing congressional prerogatives but from the start it was clear that their prime directive was to make the GOP leadership miserable and drive Democrats to drink.
Meadows went even beyond the caucus at times, unintentionally showing the way forward. He challenged then House Speaker John Boehner's leadership by deploying an obscure procedure that hadn't been used since 1910. It failed, but it riled up the right-wing media and the base in a way that only Trump has since mastered. With their in-your-face extremism they managed to create so much chaos in the GOP caucus that House Speaker John Boehner was eventually forced out.
They refused to vote for his assumed successor, Kevin McCarthy of California, helping to doom his candidacy and instead they got Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, an up and coming conservative superstar who had run for Vice President on the ticket with Mitt Romney in 2012. Ryan was considered one of their own at the time, although he wasn't a formal member of the Freedom Caucus. But that didn't really work out all that well either. They made Ryan's life hell too and he ended up quitting politics altogether in 2018.
The truth is that the Freedom Caucus has been running the House Republican caucus in a reign of terror for over half a decade now and if they manage to take the majority in 2022, Kevin McCarthy is likely to have a big fight on his hands. He's never been one of them and despite his desperate attempts to ingratiate himself with Trump, the Freedom Caucus is going to want to put a homeboy in charge for real. That person is almost surely going to be Jim Jordan, the man who helped Mark Meadows plot the attempted coup.
These people have been fighting a guerilla war against their own party for years and were the perfect choice to be Trump's personal henchmen. In many ways they paved the way for his mafioso style of governance. And you can bet that as Trump goes around the country wreaking revenge on all those who betrayed him over the next few years, the Freedom Caucus will be right there with him. When it comes to stabbing fellow Republicans in the back, they are professionals.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-s-coup-accomplices-have-been-exposed-and-they-re-sitting-in-congress/
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'Stop the Steal' organizer fingered the GOP lawmakers he communicated with to House riot committee
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According to a report from Politico, Ali Alexander -- one of the principles behind the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the storming of the U.S. Capitol -- has handed over names of Republican Party lawmakers he was in communication with prior to the events on Jan 6th.
The report notes Alexander revealed the names in the lawsuit he filed attempting to block the House committee from accessing his phone records.
The report notes that, in the late Friday court filing, Alexander admits he had "a few phone conversations" with Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and engaged in a "text exchange with Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL)."
Politico reports that Alexander also implicated Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) saying he was in contact in person “and never by phone, to the best of his recollection,” according to his lawyers.
According to Politico's Kyle Cheney, "Alexander’s testimony underscores the degree to which the select committee continues to probe the roles of their Republican colleagues in efforts to promote former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud — and their potential support for fringe figures who helped gather people in Washington on Jan. 6, the day Congress was required to certify the 2020 election results."
He adds, "The panel hasn’t formally requested testimony from any of the GOP lawmakers yet but has continued to ask witnesses about Gosar, Biggs, Brooks and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who helped push a strategy to use the Department of Justice to promote the fraud claims."
The report also adds that Alexander was in contact with Trump campaign official Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is also the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr., on the morning of the insurrection, but that it was just a courtesy call where she thanked him for organizing the rally.
Read More Here:
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/18/stop-the-steal-founder-jan-6-committee-gop-lawmakers-525345
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Kinzinger: It's 'possible' some GOP colleagues are responsible for Jan. 6 attack
He said the committee isn't ruling out issuing subpoenas to members of Congress
Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Sunday "it’s possible" some of his GOP colleagues in Congress are responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol but added he's not ready to "go to that point" yet, because he wants to "let the facts dictate it."
The Illinois Republican also revealed that the committee investigating the insurrection is not ruling out issuing subpoenas for sitting members of Congress.
"Nobody -- member of Congress, former president, nobody -- in America is above the law," Kinzinger told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl.
Kinzinger, who announced in October he will not seek reelection to Congress, was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump following the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and is one of two Republicans serving on the committee. He said the committee would subpoena Trump if they determine it’s necessary.
"Nobody should be above the law, but we also recognize we can get the information without him at this point, and, obviously, when you subpoena the former president, that comes with a whole kind of, you know, circus environment," Kinzinger said. "But if we need him, we'll do it."
Kinzinger and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., on Tuesday night joined Democrats in the House in voting to hold Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, in contempt of Congress. Meadows defied a subpoena to appear for a deposition before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Prior to the vote, members of the committee unveiled text messages sent to Meadows during the attack on the Capitol, reading aloud texts from Republican lawmakers, Fox News personalities and the former president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., that implored Meadows to get Trump to denounce the rioters. Rep Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, was one of the GOP lawmakers whose texts to Meadows were revealed, his office confirmed.
The new messages were part of the approximately 9,000 documents Meadows turned over to the committee, before he reversed course and decided to not cooperate with the investigation. The House previously voted to hold Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena by the Jan. 6 committee.
Kinzinger said he’s "not sure" whether Meadows knew how damaging the text messages would be, but emphasized he had no choice given the committee's legal authority.
"I will tell you, yes, there are more texts out there we haven’t released," he added.
During debate on the House floor before the vote, Cheney emphasized the importance of Meadows' testimony. "Mr. Meadows' testimony will bear on another key question before this committee. Did Donald Trump through action or inaction corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress' official proceedings to count electoral votes?" Cheney said.
Karl pressed Kinzinger on the possibility of the Justice Department filing criminal charges based on what the committee finds, given that it is a crime to obstruct the official proceedings of Congress.
"Are you sending a message that the Justice Department should be prosecuting not just those that broke into the building on Jan. 6, but should be prosecuting Donald Trump himself or at least investigating that possibility?" Karl asked.
"I think investigating that possibility, for sure," Kinzinger responded. "Our committee is getting more information than law enforcement agencies and DOJ, because we’ve had the power and the ability to get that done."
"Whatever information we get will be public record, and the DOJ should take a look, particularly if there's criminal charges to be filed, because again, the big thing is as bad as it was on Jan. 6, there's really nothing in place to stop another one from happening again," he added. "If somebody broke the law, it is so essential that we send the message that you are not untouchable as president -- you're not untouchable as a former president."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday in an interview with Spectrum News he looks forward to seeing what the Jan. 6 committee finds in its probe, effectively endorsing the work of the commission after he had opposed its creation. "I think that what they're seeking to find out is something that public needs to know," McConnell said.
"That's not exactly what Kevin McCarthy, the leader over there in the House, is saying," Karl pointed out, alluding to the fact that the two GOP leaders in the House and Senate have juxtaposing views toward the investigation.
"Right," Kinzinger replied, laughing. "Look, I mean -- I got to tell you, so, you know, say what you want about Mitch McConnell. He obviously holds his cards very close. I think that was a very powerful statement and I appreciate it."
Kinzinger, who along with Cheney has faced harsh backlash for sitting on the committee, criticized McCarthy for not doing something similar.
"Kevin McCarthy, on the other hand, has not said a word about anything, except for that Donald Trump is probably the greatest president to ever exist," Kinzinger said. "Kevin McCarthy himself I think made Donald Trump relevant again when two weeks after Jan. 6 or so, he went back down to Mar-a-Lago and brought him back to political life by putting his arm around him and taking that picture and basically sending the signal to the rest of the Republicans that were pretty quiet at this moment, that we got to get back on the Trump train."
"He bears responsibility for that," he added. "I don't think history books are going to be kind to him."
Watch video in link below:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/kinzinger-gop-colleagues-responsible-jan-attack/story?id=81834432
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Judge ends Capitol rioter's hopes of getting out of jail early after watching violence-inciting video
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Ryan Nichols, a Marine Corps veteran facing felony charges in connection with the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, has spent 11 months in pre-trial lockup at the DC Central Detention Facility.
By filing a motion for modification of bail to allow conditional release pending trial, Nichols forced the government to lay out evidence of his dangerousness to the American public, which reveals extensive advance coordination with other rioters and Nichols’ leadership role.
Explaining his decision from the bench on Monday evening, Judge Thomas F. Hogan said that Nichols’ calls for civil war, coordination with other rioters, violent conduct at the Capitol on Jan. 6, subsequent calls for future violence, and leadership role all weigh in favor of his continued detention.
Nichols and his codefendant, Alex Harkrider, have volunteered for hurricane rescue and disaster relief efforts, and Nichols’ lawyer argued before the court on Monday that Nichols’ preparations to travel from Texas to Washington DC in January 2021 were consistent with what they would do for a search-and-rescue mission.
Joseph McBride, Nichols’ lawyer, explained Nichols’ decision to bring steel-toe boots, GoPro camera, crowbar and chest plate as reasonable measures to protect himself from Black Lives Matter and Antifa as he attended the Save America Rally as a peaceful protester.
Judge Hogan indicated he was unimpressed with McBride’s characterization of his client.
“This was not a rescue mission,” Hogan said.
The judge dismissed McBride’s explanation that Nichols carried weapons and protective gear based on his experience volunteering for relief efforts in “high-crime areas,” saying, “There has been no Antifa identified as attacking individuals protesting the election.”
The government presented transcripts of Nichols’ GoPro video on Jan. 5 to show as evidence that his preparation efforts were geared towards law enforcement and lawmakers, not counter-protesters.
The videos reportedly show Nichols in a large crowd on Jan. 5 saying, “Cops don’t know what’s going on. Too many of us, not enough of them,” and later yelling, “Those people in [the] f***ing Capitol building are our enemy,” according to a motion filed by the government.
The video captures one of the men saying, “There’s gonna be a f***ing war tomorrow,” and then, “You can’t stop what’s coming tomorrow,” according to the motion.
“The night before when he walked the streets and told the police to watch out and be prepared for war, he was not talking about Antifa,” Hogan observed.
Nichols’ tirade on Facebook Live while marching from the Ellipse to the Capitol on Jan. 6 even more explicitly outlines his intentions.
Trump’s surrogates had promoted the legally unfounded idea that Vice President Mike Pence could intervene to prevent the certification of the electoral vote, stoking his supporters' hopes and then fueling their rage when Pence declined to go along with the plan.
“I’m hearing reports that Pence caved,” Nichols told his followers on Facebook. “I’m telling you if Pence caved, we’re gonna drag m****r***ers through the streets. You f***ing politicians are going to get f***ing dragged through the streets. Because we’re not going to have our election or our country stolen. If we find out you politicians voted for it, we’re going to drag your f***ing ass through the streets. Because it’s the second f***ing revolution and we’re f***ing done.”
In the video the government played in court on Monday, others in the crowd can be heard chanting in response: “USA! USA! USA!”
On Jan. 6, Nichols and Harkrider made their way to the front of a mob and attempted to break through a line of Metropolitan police officers guarding the tunnel entrance to the Capitol at the Lower West Terrace. The government accuses the defendants of taking a canister of pepper spray from another rioter and dispersing two blasts of spray at the line of officers.
Later, Nichols and Harkrider climbed through a broken window into a conference room and barricaded the doors with desks and chairs, according to the government. Then the two men exited the conference room, and Nichols allegedly took a bullhorn from another rioter and waved his crowbar as he gave a speech.
“They are talking about using lethal force against you,” Nichols told the other rioters.
“Get in the building!” he told them. “Get in the building!”
“This is not a peaceful protest,” Nichols continued. “If you have a weapon, you need to get your weapon!”
The government clinched its argument that Nichols’ pre-trial release would pose a danger to the American public by playing a Facebook Live video the defendant recorded at 8:13 p.m. on Jan. 6, following the mayhem at the Capitol.
“Yes, we are calling for violence at this point!” he said, referring to himself in third person. “So, if you want to know where Ryan Nichols stands, Ryan Nichols stands for violence! Ryan Nichols is done allowing his country to be stolen and I understand that the first revolutionary war, folks, it was violent. We had to be violent to take our country back. Well, guess what? The second revolutionary war — right now, the American revolutionary war that’s going on right now — it started today."
“It’s going to be violent,” he continued. “And yes, if you are asking is Ryan Nichols going to bring violence? Yes, Ryan Nichols is going to bring violence.”
The government deflected McBride’s argument that his client was just someone who heeded President Trump’s call to protest purportedly election fraud and got caught up in the moment.
As early as Nov. 20, 2020, according to the government, Nichols told friends on Facebook: “War is the answer to terrorism. Hope that democracy wins, because war will be next. The narrative is already set for civil unrest. What happens next will not be good for this country.”
On Dec. 24, he reportedly wrote: “Any Democrat found guilty of treason should be executed. Any Republican found guilty of treason should be VIOLENTLY executed!”
And on Dec. 28: “Pence better do the right thing, or we’re going to MAKE you do the right thing.” Again, on the same day: “The time for games is OVER. Patriots will be in Washington DC on Jan 6th! If Pence doesn’t do the right thing, WE FIGHT.”
The government also cited texts exchanged between Nichols and Harkrider in the run-up to Jan. 6 that show Nichols was coordinating with other groups that were preparing for events at the Capitol on the day of the electoral certification. Among them is a Dec. 14, 2020 text from Nichols telling Harkrider that he was considering joining the Proud Boys. Two days earlier, the Proud Boys had roamed the streets of downtown Washington DC attempting to provoke fights with counter-protesters and local residents following a pro-Trump rally. Nichols’ lawyer told the court on Monday that regardless of his intentions, his client didn’t wind up joining the Proud Boys, while Assistant US Attorney Luke Matthew Jones noted that there likely wouldn’t have been time to process his application.
Nichols is at least the second Texas Jan. 6 defendant who is alleged to have communicated with the Proud Boys in advance of the assault on the Capitol. While multiple sets of defendants have been charged with conspiracy within particular groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, to date the government has not alleged a conspiracy among members of the various groups.
Lucas Denney, founder of the Patriot Boys militia, is alleged to have told codefendant Donald Hazard on Dec. 25, 2020: “I’ve been in contact with a few different chapters, and they’re helping us with safe hotels to get.”
According to the charging document in his case, Denney made multiple references in private messages in late December 2020 and early January 2021 to coordinating with other militia “commanders” in advance of the assault on the Capitol.
“A lot of the presidents and commanders of militias like myself are meeting on the 5th to organize and plan,” Denney said, according to a Dec. 31 Facebook message cited by the government.
Nichols similarly was communicating with others on Zello, an app used by militias and volunteer first responders.
According to the government, Nichols sent Harkrider screenshots of Zello alerts with the headings “J6 & J20,” “STOPTHESTEAL operation,” “chat to debrief discuss and decide the #SavetheStealJ20 Intel Brief posted above” and “stand up boots online and boots on the ground rallypoint.”
“Are you ready bro?” Nichols asked Harkrider on Dec. 27. “1775 is about to go down in this As I was walking a' alane, I heard twa corbies makin' a mane. The tane untae the tither did say, Whaur sail we gang and dine the day, O. Whaur sail we gang and dine the day? It's in ahint yon auld fail dyke I wot there lies a new slain knight; And naebody kens that he lies there But his hawk and his hound, and his lady fair, O. But his hawk and his hound, and his lady fair. His hound is to the hunting gane His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame, His lady ta'en anither mate, So we may mak' our dinner swate, O. So we may mak' our dinner swate. Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane, And I'll pike oot his bonny blue e'en Wi' ae lock o' his gowden hair We'll theek oor nest when it grows bare, O. We'll theek oor nest when it grows bare. There's mony a ane for him maks mane But nane sail ken whaur he is gane O'er his white banes when they are bare The wind sail blaw for evermair, O. The wind sail blaw for evermair.'.”
Then, he added, “We’ve got front seat tickets to the REAL revolution.”
Denney had a similar message to an unidentified contact on Facebook on Jan. 5, according to the government: “Things are going to be happening here. Trump is going to be speaking to everyone Wed before everyone marches to the capital. Rumour has it that he may march with us. I’ll tell you more when you get here on where to be and what time so you have the best seats.”
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-hearing-2656078431/
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Here's how some Republican officials could end up with wire fraud charges: law professor
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The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 revealed Monday that they are considering wire fraud charges for Republican officials who tried to make money off of the "Big Lie," the false allegation that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
Law professor Jennifer Taub, who penned "Big Dirty Money," explained on Twitter that 18 US Code 1341 and 1343, which made mail fraud and wire fraud a crime, could be applied in the cases of Republicans who lied in their fundraising solicits to get cash.
"Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication or interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both," says the wire fraud part of the law.
Taub also cited the recent New York Times report saying that it seems the committee is looking at possible criminal charges for not only former President Donald Trump but also for Republicans who pushed the false story.
"Whether there was wire fraud by Republicans who raised millions of dollars off assertions that the election was stolen, despite knowing the claims were not true; and whether Mr. Trump and his allies obstructed Congress by trying to stop the certification of electoral votes," said the Times.
While many Republicans used the "big lie" to cash in, it was Trump and the GOP that made the most.
The report goes on to say, “The committee is also examining whether there is enough evidence to make a wire fraud referral over how Mr. Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party raised $255.4 million from donors as he and his allies fund-raised off the false claim that the election had been stolen."
https://www.rawstory.com/some-republicans-wire-fraud/
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Judge scolds MAGA rioter's lawyer for spreading bogus claims that January 6th was an FBI false flag operation
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United States District Court Judge Thomas Hogan on Monday admonished an attorney representing accused MAGA rioter Ryan Nichols for spreading false information about the FBI being behind the unrest that occurred at the United States Capitol on January 6th.
As reported by Politico's Kyle Cheney, Judge Hogan warned attorney Joseph McBride against peddling false claims about January 6th being a "false flag" operation in his court.
"We’re getting a false narrative being produced that’s not appropriate to be relied upon," Hogan told McBride. "I’m not going to rely on anything about that in this case."
McBride earlier this year went on Tucker Carlson's show and falsely claimed that a man wearing red face paint spotted at the Capitol riots was clearly a government official who deliberately stoked violence to entrap Trump supporters.
"He is clearly a law enforcement officer," McBride claimed.
In reality, as Huffington Post reported, the man in question is actually a big fan of Tucker Carlson.
"He is mainly known to St. Louis Cardinals fans as 'Rally Runner,' HuffPost has learned, and he sprints around the outside of Busch Stadium during home games," the publication wrote earlier this month. "Based on the man’s Facebook posts, he appears to have a fairly difficult life and has a tenuous relationship with reality. And he’s a huge Tucker Carlson fan."
Oath Keepers crash and burn as judge smacks down their ploy to dismiss MAGA riot charges
In a lengthy ruling on Monday, District Judge Amit Mehta of the District of Columbia rejected a push by seven members of the far-right paramilitary group the Oath Keepers to dismiss criminal charges against them relating to their participation in the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
The defendants are charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and with an individual violation of the same statute.
"Defendants move to dismiss Counts One and Two, raising a host of arguments why those counts are fatally deficient. The court is persuaded by none of their contentions," wrote Mehta. "In short, the court concludes that Counts One and Two state offenses that are encompassed by the plain text of section 1512(c)(2), and that section 1512(c)(2) is neither void for vagueness nor vague as applied to these Defendants. The charged offenses also do not run afoul of the First Amendment."
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The Oath Keepers are a group consisting mainly of current or retired military or law enforcement, and swear an "oath" to uphold an extreme far-right interpretation of the Constitution, as well as refusing to follow orders or laws that conflict with this interpretation. They have been involved in a number of high-profile standoffs with the government, including the 2014 Bundy Ranch incident, and their members helped carry out the January 6 attack on the Capitol, with one member talking of "blood in the streets."
Reports indicate that some members have since turned on each other in the effort to secure plea deals with federal prosecutors.
'I'm calling for violence -- I will be violent!' Prosecutors play damning video of MAGA rioter during court hearing
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Federal prosecutors on Monday played damning video of accused MAGA rioter Ryan Nichols while arguing that he should not be released ahead of his trial.
As reported by NBC 4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane, prosecutors played a video that was filmed in the immediate aftermath of the January 6th Capitol riots in which Nichols made about as explicit call for violence as it is possible to make.
"I'm calling for violence -- I will be violent!" Nichols said after the riots. "I've been peaceful and my vote didn't count."
Nichols also bragged about his role in temporarily stopping Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory.
"We shut down the vote today because those coward ass politicians ran into the tunnels," he said, according to MacFarlane. "I've seen the last of you treasonous bastard politicians... give me liberty or give me death... I'm prepared to f***ing die for this. I took an oath against all enemies foreign or domestic. But I plan to have others die first."
Earlier in the hearing, Judge Hogan warned Nichols's attorney, Joseph McBride, against peddling false claims about January 6th being a "false flag" operation in his court.
McBride earlier this year went on Tucker Carlson's show and falsely claimed that a man wearing red face paint spotted at the Capitol riots was clearly a government official who deliberately stoked violence to entrap Trump supporters.
"He is clearly a law enforcement officer," McBride claimed.
Pentagon cracks down on extremism in its ranks: report
Following the Jan. 6 attack on the United Sates Capitol, the United States Department of Defense is taking action to weed out extremists from the ranks.
"Warning that extremism in the ranks is increasing, Pentagon officials are issuing detailed new rules prohibiting service members from actively engaging in extremist activities. The new guidelines come nearly a year after some current and former service members participated in the riot at the U.S. Capitol, triggering a broad department review," the AP reported.
Citing "senior defense officials," the AP reported, " new policy lays out in detail the banned activities, which range from advocating terrorism or supporting the overthrow of the government to fundraising or rallying on behalf of an extremist group or 'liking' or reposting extremist views on social media."
There are questions about the slow Pentagon response on Jan. 6.
"The military has long been aware of small numbers of white supremacists and other extremists among the troops. But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other leaders launched a broader campaign to root out extremism in the force after it became clear that military veterans and some current service members were present at the Jan. 6 insurrection," the AP reported.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-pentagon-jan-6/
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Here is what House investigators are looking for in Trump inner circle communications to prove sedition
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Here is what House investigators are looking for in Trump inner circle communications to prove sedition
Writing for Above the Law, veteran attorney Mark Herrman attempted to explain what investigators working for the House Capitol riot committee are probably looking for as evidence of sedition in emails and texts turned over to the committee.
Noting that the written word can be a powerful weapon when seeking criminal indictments, Herrman wrote that lawyers are likely seeking out anyone who "may have encouraged or assisted the January 6 mob in the attack on the Capitol" in the documents as a way to make their case.
Rhetorically asking, "In all those communications, what are the words that will send someone to jail?" Herrman explained, "So long as people can honestly say that they thought Trump won the election, then it’s probably not sedition to try to move votes from Biden to Trump," before adding, "But, if you knew that Trump lost and still tried to change the election results, that’s a whole different matter."
"You knew that Trump lost, but nevertheless tried to change the election results. That’s criminal," he elaborated. "So long as a witness insists that the witness thought Trump had won, then it’s tricky to establish intent. But a document that acknowledges that Trump lost and nonetheless tries to interfere with an election result? Pack a toothbrush."
The attorney doesn't expect anyone to have made a formal admission that they were trying to steal the election. However, he cautioned, "I’ve seen an awful lot of stupid emails in my time."
"If I had to bet, I’d place about even odds on the public one day seeing a document that starts more or less with the incriminating words, 'Although I know that Trump lost the election …," he wrote before asserting, "The person who wrote those words will (for good reason) regret those words for eternity."
The Words Of Sedition That May Be Hidden In Trump Emails
In all those communications, what are the words that will send someone to jail?
Apparently, those close to President Donald Trump exchanged many emails analyzing how to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Some of those communications may have encouraged or assisted the January 6 mob in the attack on the Capitol. Other memos, PowerPoint decks, emails, and text messages all considered ways the vice president, members of Congress, state election officials, and others could move votes from the Biden column to the Trump column and thus change the result of the 2020 election.
In all those communications, what are the words that will send someone to jail?
So long as people can honestly say that they thought Trump won the election, then it’s probably not sedition to try to move votes from Biden to Trump. If you thought Trump actually won, then moving votes from one person to another is arguably simply trying to right a wrong — trying to fix the mistaken public impression that Biden won the 2020 election.
But, if you knew that Trump lost and still tried to change the election results, that’s a whole different matter. Thus, these are the words that could cost someone jail time:
“Although I know that Trump lost ….”
If you know that Trump lost and, with that knowledge, you assisted a mob, or tried to convince a state election official to change results, or tried to convince a member of Congress to vote to overturn the election results, or otherwise sought to interfere with the election, then you’re in trouble.
Knowledge lifts the facade: You knew that Trump lost, but nevertheless tried to change the election results.
That’s criminal.
Proving intent is a hard thing. So long as a witness insists that the witness thought Trump had won, then it’s tricky to establish intent. But a document that acknowledges that Trump lost and nonetheless tries to interfere with an election result? Pack a toothbrush.
Does a document exist that says, “Although I know that Trump lost, [I propose taking the following steps to overturn the result of the election]”?
I have no idea.
The January 6 Committee may now know the answer to this question, or the January 6 Committee may know that, to date, that terribly incriminating document has not yet surfaced.
(The January 6 Committee may also have seen a text message that says, for instance, “I don’t care whether or not Trump lost; either way, we should do the following things to overturn the apparent result of the election: ….” Would that message merit jail time? Don’t ask me; that’s why we have juries.)
But an awful lot of people seem to have sent an awful lot of memos, and PowerPoint decks, and emails, and text messages trying to overturn the election results.
I suspect you won’t see language disclosing evil intent in a formal memo or a PowerPoint deck. One tends to scrub formal presentations before sending them out, so one would be a fool to leave in a formal presentation incriminating words that could send the author to prison.
But emails, text messages, and other electronic communications are far less formal than memos and presentation decks.
I’ve seen an awful lot of stupid emails in my time.
If I had to bet, I’d place about even odds on the public one day seeing a document that starts more or less with the incriminating words, “Although I know that Trump lost the election ….”
The person who wrote those words will (for good reason) regret those words for eternity.
https://abovethelaw.com/2021/12/the-words-of-sedition-that-may-be-hidden-in-trump-emails/
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'So many pieces falling together’: Jan. 6 panel nails GOP’s Scott Perry as ‘leading conduit’ for Trump's election theft ploy
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A Republican congressman has landed in the crosshairs of the House select committee, but he's been on investigators' minds all along.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) has been asked to turn over documents and sit down with committee members to discuss his role in Donald Trump's attempt to install loyalist Jeffrey Clark as attorney general ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection, and Washington Post reporter Jacqueline Alemany told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" what investigators already know.
"My colleague Tom Hamburger and I confirmed that Scott Perry was, in fact, the lawmaker who did send that text to Mark Meadows that Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) read aloud last week to direct [Mark] Meadows to please check your Signal [encrypted app] and that immediately, I think, piqued the interest of the investigators," Alemany said.
"Look, this letter is a significant step forward for the committee and for the reporters that have been covering the committee since its inception in July or earlier this summer," she continued. "It's always been a question of how the panel is going to handle getting sitting lawmakers to cooperate with them, as we knew from the very beginning that people like [House minority leader] Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), [Rep.] Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Scott Perry were in touch with the president and his inner circle about the effort to overturn the result of the 2020 election."
"But Scott Perry, in particular, is of interest," Alemany said. "We found reporting that he's the leading conduit from the House GOP to the White House in terms of trying to effort the challenge to the 2020 election, and he's been on the mind of congressional investigators really for a whole year now. When the Senate Judiciary Committee released their report in October, they cited Perry as someone who was integrally involved with these efforts. They had already gotten evidence that [Rep. Bennie] Thompson echoed yesterday that he was directly pressuring [Department of Justice] officials to investigate these various fringe conspiracy theories. He also acknowledged in those interviews with the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was the person who introduced Mark Meadows to Jeffery Clark, who has also become a central player."
"So there are so many different pieces that are kind of falling together here," Alemany added. "But he big question remains whether Scott Perry is going to cooperate and how far this committee is going to go in getting a sitting member of Congress to actually comply with this investigation."
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Glad she got what she deserved. 7 charges!
Beverly Hills salon owner's life in shambles as she faces seven Capitol riot charges: report
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According to a deep dive into the lives of three Capitol rioters, looking at how they came to be at the Jan 6th insurrection and where they are today, Intelligencer's Kerry Howley writes that a Beverly Hills salon owner who became one of the more recognizable faces of the riot is destitute as she faces seven counts to which she has pleaded not guilty.
Prior to her arrest, Gina Bisignano was living the good life as the owner of Gina’s Eyelashes and Skincare in the wealthy community and now she is awaiting trial on counts ranging from Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds to Engaging in Physical Violence in a Restricted Building or Grounds after her business shut down and what money she had has been used up fighting for her freedom.
As the report notes, "Two days after the riot, Gina appeared on Infowars to share video she had taken," which, in turn, helped lead to her arrest before being granted bail.
However that didn't last long, with Howley reporting that prosecutors appealed and told the court, "Her sincere belief in conspiracy theories and the absence of rational, evidence-based decision-making show that she is extraordinarily unlikely to accept the legitimacy of this court’s orders," which led a judge to order her bail revoked that left her languishing in a Los Angeles jail before later being transported to Grady County Detention Center in Chickasha, Oklahoma.
According to Howley, "By late February, in Grady County, she had been imprisoned in one facility or another for over a month, during which she saw the sun exactly once: on the long day when she was transferred from L.A. to Oklahoma," adding that a judge finally agreed to her supervised release as she awaited trial.
Upon her release, the report states, "Gina had no ID, no credit card, no way to get home, and it was not clear what she would do on the scrubby, sidewalkless Oklahoma streets onto which she was being dumped."
Bisignano was then taken in immediately by a woman only identified as Rachel "whose church friend had seen a post on Facebook about a woman who needed help."
"Rachel took Gina to Sonic and placed a large Diet Coke in her hands before taking her to the 122-acre farm where she lived with her mother and father," Howley reported, "Soon Rachel would drive Gina to another home, the home of the friend she knew from Martha Road Baptist Church. In this home, the kitchen would smell of cookies a man had made for his friends at work, a round woman would root around for clothes that would not fit Gina’s slim form, and the couple’s autistic son, David, would give up his bed for her."
She added, "Gina had not slept on a mattress in many weeks. In too-big sweatpants tied at the waist, Gina stood in a boy’s room in rural Oklahoma, beside his bed, under a WWE poster. She crawled in, pulled the covers over her head, and wept."
As for Bisingnano's court date, the website of the U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C, still states, "Defendant remains on home detention. Status conference set for 9/2/21 at 2 pm.," with Reuters reporting on September 16th that a judge has refused her request to end her house arrest order and to allow her to have her ankle bracelet monitor removed.
According to an order signed Judge Carl J. Nichols, located on Pacer, Bisignano was scheduled to report for a hearing on Dec. 21 , with the judge admonishing her and her attorney for skipping a previously scheduled one on Dec. 14 by writing, "This is not the first time timely attendance has been a problem in this case," and that "additional failures to appear timely will be looked upon even more unfavorably."
You can read the more detailed Intelligencer report here.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12/january-6-insurrection-us-capitol-riots.html
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Jim Bob Elliott is the latest Capitol attacker to be indicted for allegedly beating cops with a flag pole
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The Justice Department has officially indicted James Robert Elliott, 24, known as "Jim Bob" on six counts for his involvement in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The Illinois man was arrested for assaulting law enforcement with a flag pole, classified as a dangerous weapon in the indictment. Other charges include civil disorder, assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a dangerous weapon, and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon said the DOJ statement.
He is one of many Capitol attackers who are being linked to violence against police, after the DOJ has largely focused on those who merely breached the building.
Elliott adds to 700 other people indicted for their participation in the attack that attempted to stop the counting of the Electoral College. Of those 700 people arrested, 220 have been charged with assaulting law enforcement.
"The case is being investigated by the FBI’s Chicago and Washington Field Offices," the report note.
Flags are allowed at protests, but poles have always been banned at events near the White House and the U.S. Capitol because the poles can be used as a weapon.
"It was very scary, because I thought I was going to lose my life," said US Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell when testifying before Congress. "Then I started getting beat up with a flagpole, with a flag, the American flag that I swore to defend here and overseas. And I don't know how I got this strength, but I hit that person so hard that they let me go. I started backpedaling."
https://www.rawstory.com/flag-pole-attacker-indicted/
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House investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection just took an unexpected turn: report
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Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) has become a key focal point for the House Select Committee's investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, according to The Washington Post's Jacqueline Alemany.
Per Politicus USA, the investigative committee has released a new report that suggests Perry was part of a small group that may have worked to help plan the insurrection that took place on Jan. 6.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Jacqueline Alemany shared details about what she could confirm regarding Perry and his communication with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
“My colleague Tom Hamburger and I confirmed that Scott Perry was, in fact, the lawmaker who did send that text to Mark Meadows that Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) read aloud last week to direct [Mark] Meadows to please check your Signal [encrypted app] and that immediately, I think, piqued the interest of the investigators,” Alemany said.
Alemany went on to share details about the latest letter and how it could make lawmakers more inclined to cooperate with the committee investigating.
“Look, this letter is a significant step forward for the committee and for the reporters that have been covering the committee since its inception in July or earlier this summer," Alemany said. "It’s always been a question of how the panel is going to handle getting sitting lawmakers to cooperate with them, as we knew from the very beginning that people like [House minority leader] Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), [Rep.] Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Scott Perry were in touch with the president and his inner circle about the effort to overturn the result of the 2020 election.”
The Committee is also said to have plans to question Perry about his involvement in Trump's previous plan to fire “Acting Attorney-General Jeff Rosen” and install his own ally Jeffery Clark as "Acting-Attorney General." Alemany reported that Perry was "directly involved in the effort to install Clark, which may expose Perry to more criminal liability than even a role in the riot on January 6th."
“… They had already gotten evidence that [Rep. Bennie] Thompson echoed yesterday that [Perry] was directly pressuring [Department of Justice] officials to investigate these various fringe conspiracy theories. He also acknowledged in those interviews with the Senate Judiciary Committee that he was the person who introduced Mark Meadows to Jeffery Clark, who has also become a central player. So there are so many different pieces that are kind of falling together here."
Despite the angle the investigative committee chooses to pursue, Politicus USA notes that "Perry is squarely in the middle of the Select Committee’s investigation and that the Committee already has significant evidence that concerns him as it seeks his testimony."
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Jan. 6 committee wants to speak to Jim Jordan about his conversations with Trump
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The House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has called Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to appear and answer questions before them. Jordan was almost appointed to the committee by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
“We understand that you had at least one and possibly multiple communications with President Trump on January 6th," the letter explains. "We would like to discuss each such communication with you in detail. And we also wish to inquire about any communications you had on January 5th or 6th with those in the Willard War Room, the Trump legal team, White House personnel or others involved in organizing or planning the actions and strategies for January 6th."
Jordan was asked twice by reporters if he had spoken to Trump on Jan. 6. Each time he stumbled over his words, seemingly confused, saying that he talks to the president frequently but wouldn't clarify any specifics.
The Committee explains that because the scope of their investigation involves Jan. 6 and what lead to Jan. 6, it wrote to Jordan "we would also like to ask you about any discussions involving the possibility of presidential pardons for individuals involved in any aspect of January 6th or the planning for January 6th. When you were asked during a Rules Committee hearing on October 20, 2021, whether you would be willing to share with the Select Committee the information you have regarding January 6th and events leading up to the day, you responded, 'I've said all along, 'I have nothing to hide.' I've been straightforward all along."
Read the full letter below:
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Capitol riot committee is playing 'hardball' with Jim Jordan -- and he's 'earned' it: CNN's Elie Honig
On Wednesday's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room," former federal prosecutor Elie Honig broke down the significance of the House Select Committee's decision to seek information from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) on his involvement in former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
"It may be wishful thinking that Congressman Jordan will voluntarily cooperate with the committee, but he is a critical figure in this investigation, isn't he?" asked anchor Wolf Blitzer.
"He is," said Honig. "The committee has made clear they're playing hardball, that they're going to pursue the truth no matter who may hold the truth, up to and including their own colleagues in Congress. Jim Jordan is not being picked on here just for fun. He has absolutely earned this request for information which could soon become a subpoena, because we know for a fact that Jim Jordan spoke with Donald Trump on January 6th."
"Jim Jordan has now admitted that, sort of reluctantly, in a way, he's not super proud of what he talked about with Donald Trump on January 6th," added Honig. "So there is a real reason and purpose behind this subpoena. Jim Jordan has said he has nothing to hide, and soon we'll see if he can back up that talk."
Watch below:
Jim Jordan has repeatedly 'tripped over' his story about communications with Trump: CNN's Bolduan
On Wednesday's edition of CNN's "OutFront," anchor Kate Bolduan and former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean discussed the new push by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack to get information from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).
"One key question with Jordan, really ever since January 6th, has been what were his communications with Donald Trump on January 6th?" said Bolduan. "Because the question has become all the more interesting as Jordan himself has tripped over answering it multiple times. Let me play this for you."
"I have talked to the president so many — I can't remember all the days I have talked to him but I certainly talked to the president. I spoke with him that day after? I think after? I don't know if I spoke with him in the morning or not. I — I just don't know," said Jordan in the first clip.
"Of course I talked to the president. I talked to him that day. I have been clear about that. I don't recall the number of times," said Jordan in the second clip.
"John, what do you do with that?" asked Bolduan.
"Well, that's not the normal Jordan answer," said Dean. "He is pretty crisp and pretty clear on most of his answers. His mind is probably trying to calculate, well, what kind of exposure do I have at this stage in answering that question? And I think he does have exposure because of the texts he forwarded the day before. I'll tell you, if they ever start pursuing conspiracy charges, he walked right into a conspiracy to obstruct Congress. To — was it a seditious conspiracy? May — may well have been. So I think he knows he has exposure, and if he ever is in front of that committee, he will probably have to take the [Fifth Amendment]. That's probably another reason he doesn't want to go."
Watch below:
Jim Jordan ‘has priors’: Dem draws parallel between Capitol riot probe and Ohio State abuse scandal
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Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan suggested Wednesday night that he will refuse to cooperate with the House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection — saying he has "real concerns" about the panel.
A short time later, California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell appeared on MSNBC to discuss Jordan's response to the committee's request for him to testify.
"I'm not a Harvard lawyer, but the way that he has talked about his involvement certainly makes him relevant, and the way that he is now moonwalking away from the responsibility to testify, to me, makes him probably complicit," Swalwell said, calling the insurrection "an incident of workplace violence."
"At any workplace if this happened, and you were in contact with somebody who was responsible for the workplace violence, if you didn't do anything wrong, if you had nothing to do with it, you would raise your hand and say, 'Let me help to make our workplace safer,'" Swalwell said. "And the fact that he does not want to cooperate just puts him in the category of people who had some role or some knowledge of what Donald Trump wanted to do."
"And oh, by the way, this guy probably has priors, because it's not the first time he's been accused of witnessing a crime and then not wanting to report it or help investigators," Swalwell added, referring to Jordan's role in a s*x-abuse scandal at Ohio State University, where he served as an assistant wrestling coach.
MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell responded to Swalwell by noting that former members of the Ohio State wrestling team "have said under oath that he (Jordan) knew that players on that team were being sexually abused by a physician, and he did absolutely nothing about it."
Watch Swalwell's full interview below:
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Violent MAGA rioters are getting pandemic relief loans forgiven despite their crimes
The Small Business Administration has been forgiving pandemic relief loans issued to insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The loans were issued under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which was part of the $2 trillion CARES Act signed by former president Donald Trump in March 2020. The PPP program was designed to cover payroll for small businesses, which could apply to have the loans forgiven if they could show that the money was used for intended purposes.
"Amazingly, some of the people who received the money responded, less than a year later, by attempting to kill the very legislators who put the program in place—the ones who kept their businesses afloat and employees able to survive," the Daily Dot reported Wednesday. "But the government is forgiving them anyway. In a review of PPP data obtained from ProPublica, the Daily Dot discovered many well-known Capitol insurrectionists have had their loans forgiven, some being absolved of nearly a million dollars in funds."
Dominic Pezzola, a member of the Proud Boys, had a $12,502 loan for his home-contracting business forgiven in June despite that fact that he remains incarcerated, having been denied bail.
Russell Taylor, a member of the Three Percenters, received two loans totaling more than $1 million for his graphic design company. One of the loans was issued after the insurrection, and both have been forgiven.
George Pierre Tanios allegedly assaulted officer Brian Sicknick, who died from stroke a day after the insurrection. One day after Sicknick's death, on Jan. 8, Tanios had a $52,110 loan for his West Virginia sandwich shop forgiven.
"Other high-profile insurrectionists at the Capitol that day also received loan forgiveness," the Daily Dot reported. "That includes Dr. Simone Gold, who spreads misinformation about COVID-19 and received $20,833, and Trump booster Brandon Straka, who received two loans totaling $33,154."
According to the SBA, people who are incarcerated or under indictment for felonies are barred from applying for PPP loans. However, there is no such restriction when it comes to seeking forgiveness for the loans.
Read the full story:
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/capitol-rioters-ppp-loans-forgiven/
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Good. This scumbag belongs in prison!
Michael Flynn's lawsuit against the January 6th committee tossed by judge one day after being filed
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It did not take long for a judge to toss out former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn's lawsuit against the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th riots at the United States Capitol building.
NBC News reports that a federal judge in Florida refused to grant Flynn a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the committee from accessing his communications records in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riots.
Flynn had asked the judge to block the committee from obtaining his records on Tuesday, which means it took the court just one day to throw out his complaint.
"U.S. District Court Judge Mary Scriven in Tampa said Flynn’s motion... failed for two reasons, including a lack of urgency," writes NBC News' Pete Williams. "The judge noted that the committee postponed Flynn’s deposition to 'a date to be determined.' And while the committee's subpoena said he should produce the documents it requested by Nov. 23, 'there is no evidence in the record as to the date by which the select committee now expects Flynn to comply with its document requests.'"
Because of this, the judge concluded that there is no proof that Flynn "will face immediate and irreparable harm" that would have justified a restraining order against the committee.
Flynn was also supposed to have appeared before the committee to testify this week.
Read More:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/judge-denies-michael-flynn-s-request-restraining-order-against-jan-n1286507?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma
Proud Boy pleads guilty to conspiracy charge in January 6th case that has major implications for other rioters
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A member of the Proud Boys who took part in the January 6th Capitol riots has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in a case that has major implications for other Capitol rioters.
As reported by NBC 4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane, 34-year-old Proud Boy Matthew Greene of Syracuse, New York pleaded guilty both to conspiracy and obstructing an official congressional proceeding.
"Prosecutors accused Greene of 'advertising' that he was a 'first degree Proud Boy' on social media," reports MacFarlane. "And he allegedly sent encrypted message on Jan 6 saying 'We took the Capitol.'"
MacFarlane also reports that Greene has accepted a plea deal in which he will spend between 41 months and 51 months in prison.
The conspiracy charge is particularly noteworthy because it could implicate any fellow Proud Boys and other assorted rioters who took part in conspiring with Greene to commit violence at the Capitol.
Politico's Kyle Cheney reports that Greene's plea deal includes a deal to cooperate with other government prosecutions, which means that Greene likely has information that can implicate others in the conspiracy.
Read More:
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1473736086493048839
https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1473736024362823681
Proud Boy who allegedly vowed to 'kill them all' at MAGA riot set to plead guilty
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On Thursday NBC4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane, the key correspondent covering the January 6 Capitol insurrection trials, reported that Matthew Greene, a Proud Boy from New York City, is set to plead guilty to his role in the attack.
@MacFarlaneNews "BIG, BIG HEARING at 2pm today in DC federal court
Accused Proud Boys Jan 6 conspirator Matthew Greene of Syracuse is scheduled to plead guilty. This could be a breakthrough in a large & particularly high level US Capitol riot case
Standby"
Greene, a high-profile defendant, was accused of "conspiracy involving terrorism," as well as illegal gun charges after an FBI raid on his home uncovered his stockpile. He allegedly shared guerrilla tactics with co-conspirators on the encrypted messaging app Telegram and planned for killing any politicians they could capture, and witnesses of the attack at the Capitol described hearing him proclaim "we'll kill them all."
The Proud Boys are a self-described "Western Chauvinist" group, with ties to white supremacists. They are infamous for violent street fights, and were heavily implicated at the Capitol attack.
https://www.rawstory.com/proud-boys-2656091836/
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New report says 'evidence is mounting' for a disturbing reason the National Guard failed to act on Jan. 6
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Almost a year after that the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building, the events of that day continue to inspire a great deal of analysis and discussion — including the fact that the National Guard didn’t get to the Capitol sooner when it was under attack. Writers Ryan Goodman and Justin Hendrix, in an article published by Just Security this week, argue that the National Guard was “restrained” by the Pentagon because of fears that then-President Donald Trump would “invoke the Insurrection Act.”
“One of the most vexing questions about January 6 is why the National Guard took more than three hours to arrive at the Capitol after D.C. authorities and Capitol Police called for immediate assistance,” Goodman and Hendrix explain. “The Pentagon’s restraint in allowing the Guard to get to the Capitol was not simply a reflection of officials’ misgivings about the deployment of military force during the summer 2020 protests; nor was it simply a concern about ‘optics’ of having military personnel at the Capitol. Instead, evidence is mounting that the most senior defense officials did not want to send troops to the Capitol because they harbored concerns that President Donald Trump might utilize the forces’ presence in an attempt to hold onto power.”
Christopher Miller, who was serving as acting secretary of defense on January 6, told the U.S. Defense Department Inspector General’s office he feared that “if we put U.S. military personnel on the Capitol, I would have created the greatest constitutional crisis probably since the Civil War.”
Miller, Goodman and Hendrix note, “does not specify who held the fears that Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act.”
They also point out that Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “confided in one another that they had a persistent worry Trump would try to use the military in an attempt to hold onto power if he lost the election, the Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker reported.”
Goodman and Hendrix write, “The top officials’ fears were warranted: Donald Trump, his close aides and a segment of Republican political figures had openly discussed the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act or using the military to prevent the transfer of power on the basis of false claims that the election was ‘stolen.’ But the Pentagon’s actions with respect to the National Guard suggest a scenario in which, on the basis of such concerns, a potentially profound crisis of command may have played out on January 6.”
In other words, their report suggests that the National Guard may have failed to adequately protect Congress because top military officials feared Trump could turn around and use the troops to undermine the Constitution itself. Presumably, the Jan. 6 committee is examining this and other lines of inquiry in their largely behind-the-scenes investigation.
https://www.rawstory.com/national-guard-capitol-riot/
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The Obscure Charge Jan. 6 Investigators Are Looking at for Trump
Prosecutors have hit 240 insurrectionists with the rare charge of obstructing an official congressional proceeding. The Jan. 6 Committee might be looking at that charge for Trump.
As federal prosecutors increasingly use an obscure criminal charge to jail Jan. 6 insurrectionists, congressional investigators seem to be building a case that could result in that same charge against former President Donald Trump.
A third of the 700 people arrested by the Justice Department for attacking the U.S. Capitol building have been hit with a peculiar federal “witness tampering” law, according to researchers at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Those 240 insurrectionists have been charged with corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, a never-before-seen tactic by prosecutors for an equally unprecedented event.
So far, 12 have pleaded guilty, and three of those have already been sentenced. But if hundreds of people face prison time for interrupting Congress while it was certifying the 2020 election results, what happens to the president who ordered them to march there?
While the DOJ pursues the rioters, the special House Jan. 6 Committee is separately collecting evidence to formulate a picture about how this all came together. And legal scholars say a strategy is taking shape—one that builds a case to criminally charge the former president.
“The DOJ and the committee are building a pyramid of guilt to get to the top. The more people who plead guilty, the more the top of the pyramid begins to take shape,” said Joshua E. Kastenberg, a professor at University of New Mexico’s law school.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), one of the two GOP members on the congressional panel investigating the insurrection, first drew attention to that possibility during a televised hearing last week. That’s when she made an obscure reference to “another key question before this committee: Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’ official proceeding to count electoral votes?”
On Monday, The New York Times pushed that idea further when it revealed that the House committee investigating the insurrection is considering referring Trump to the Justice Department.
A source close to the committee told The Daily Beast that Cheney is an experienced attorney, and she was being deliberate when she raised the question that night.
“Her choice to use that language was not an accident,” the source said.
David Schultz, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said congressional investigators could be building a case that Trump “aided and abetted” the rioters to interrupt the vote count. And Cheney’s statements, combined with the Justice Department’s aggressive use of this federal charge, hint at what might come.
“We are seeing a pattern of establishing an obstruction of justice that takes it up the food chain,” he said.
Cheney knows the committee can’t, on its own, charge anyone with a crime. But its findings can certainly result in Congress asking the Justice Department to pursue a case against the former president.
Trump’s representatives did not respond to an inquiry on Tuesday, but the former president in the past has repeatedly berated the committee’s work as illegitimate. Staff on the bipartisan Jan. 6 Committee declined to comment on the subject. And the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia declined to speak about their ongoing cases.
It might seem odd for a federal law against witness tampering to be used this way, but the statute includes a provision that makes it a crime for anyone who “corruptly… obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding,” or tries to do so.
As insurrection cases make their way through federal courts in the District of Columbia, judges are increasingly allowing prosecutors to use it.
Ronald Sandlin and Nathaniel DeGrave, accused rioters who were caught in Las Vegas, recently tried to stop the DOJ from using it against them. That effort was promptly cut short by U.S. District Court Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, a Trump appointee, when she issued an opinion on Dec. 10 that noted how Sandlin recorded a livestream shortly before the attack in which he said, “freedom is paid for with blood” and “there is going to be violence.”
Friedrich ruled that it’s appropriate for the feds to pursue these charges, because the dynamic duo’s alleged conduct—gearing up with pistols, knives, and walkie talkies and then storming the Capitol—“fall on the obviously unlawful side of the line.”
“And it was allegedly done with the intent to obstruct the congressional proceeding,” Friedrich wrote.
“This is a really a novel application of this law,” said Jonathan Lewis, a research fellow at GWU’s Program on Extremism who has been closely tracking the hundreds of insurrection cases.
“We’ve seen a number of legal challenges to 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2) saying this wasn’t an official proceeding. Or saying this was a political use of a U.S. code in an improper way,” he told The Daily Beast.
Then again, legal scholars concede, this is also the first time hundreds of people stormed into the meeting place of the nation’s Congress.
It worked against Paul Hodgkins, a Florida man who carried a Trump flag onto the Senate floor and got slapped with eight months in prison. Two others, “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley and gym owner Scott Fairlamb, were sentenced to 41 months behind bars. Eight others have already pleaded guilty and await sentencing in the next year.
“One of the most commonly used defenses by January 6 defense attorneys is that their client could not have been intentionally obstructing the proceeding because they had no idea it was an official proceeding,” Lewis said.
But that defense has an obvious weakness: rioters were expressly there to “stop the steal” by preventing Congress from certifying the 2020 election results.
“They were there to interfere with the process. They may not have been there to commit acts of violence or commit an insurrection. But they were absolutely there to do exactly what this statute covers,” Kastenberg told The Daily Beast.
The more defendants plead guilty to this charge, the more they establish it as the norm. And prosecutors have established this pattern before.
“This is how you prosecute the mob. You don’t start at the top,” said Vermont Law School professor Jared Carter.
Going after Trump himself, however, is another matter.
Legal scholars said for this charge to work, prosecutors would have to find that Trump rebuffed his advisers’ pleas that he intervene and redirect the crowd—because he explicitly intended for the attack to happen. Or that he held back the National Guard or federal law enforcement forces from coming to the rescue.
This might be what Cheney means by “inaction” on Trump’s part, said Rachel E. VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles who spent years as a lawyer in the military.
“It’s going to be really hard to pin criminal liability on the president on this ‘obstruction of justice’ statute, especially when he has wide discretion as president in employing military force domestically,” said VanLandingham, who noted that “criminal law isn’t for bad judgment calls.”
As for Trump’s speech to protestors, where he told them to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell,” VanLandingham said it just wouldn’t be enough.
“This is so tied up with political speech. One could make an incredible argument that President Trump was inciting lawlessness. And there’s a strong argument he was aiding and abetting the obstruction of proceedings. But that has to be weighed against the core constitutional value that animates the First Amendment: the ability to engage in fiery, incendiary rhetoric. And the balance has to be tilted in favor of protecting that speech,” she said.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-obscure-charge-jan-6-investigators-are-looking-at-for-donald-trump
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Capitol rioter accused of DUI in incident with assault rifle and cops while out on bail
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James Grant was one of many who drove to Washington, D.C. for the Jan. 6 rally that turned into a riot at the U.S. Capitol. While out on bail, however, Grant got in trouble with the law again.
The Justice Department's statement of facts about Grant explains that Grant was among those who shoved through the police barricades at the Capitol that day. He has already been indicted by the DOJ.
And despite the fact that he's currently out on bail, Grant continues getting into trouble with the law.
A recent police report involving Grant, flagged by legal expert Marcy Wheeler, revealed that earlier this month he "was operating a motor vehicle under the influence of an impairing substance(s)."
The report also claimed Grant "made statements such as, 'Just kill me now' and 'It's over'" an "was in possession of an Assault Rifle, ammunition, weapon accessories, and fatigues."
They are now attempting to revoke bail for Grant.
"Now, while on pretrial release for these crimes, he was caught driving drunk with an assault rifle and over 60 rounds of ammunition in his vehicle, and initially attempted to flee from law enforcement. There are no conditions or combination of conditions that could ensure the safety of the community and Grant's presence in Court if he were to remain released, and the Government requests that he be detained pending trial in this case," the motion to revoke bail says.
That isn't the whole story. The documents also note that unlike many of the rioters, "Grant has a criminal history and was on probation through the summer of 2019."
According to the filing, he was "convicted in 2018 for tampering with a vehicle and was sentenced on July 16, 2018 to 30 days of incarceration and 12 months of probation." Ahead of the Dec. 2021 incident, he was involved in something similar."
See the screen captures of the court documents from Wheeler below:
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https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-attacker-arrested-again/
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Jim Jordan is ‘not a serious American’ -- and is ‘running very scared’ from Jan. 6 probe: House Dem
A Democratic lawmaker ripped into Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan for allegedly "running very, very scared" from a congressional probe of the Capitol insurrection.
Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) made the comments Thursday night on MSNBC after the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 requested documents and testimony from Jordan.
MSNBC host Joy Reid played two clips of Jordan's recent comments about the committee. In October, Jordan said he has "nothing to hide" from the panel. On Wednesday, in response to the request for documents and testimony, he said he has "real concerns" about the investigation.
Dean didn't pull any punches in her response.
"He is not a serious legislator," Dean said of her colleague on the House Judiciary Committee. "He is a serious performer, but he's not a serious legislator, and he's not a serious American. He doesn't care about democracy. He doesn't care what happened on Jan. 6 and the lies that led up to it that he participated in. And he's running quite scared."
Dean also pointed to Jordan's inability in an interview earlier this year to specify the timing of his conversations with former President Donald Trump on the day of the insurrection.
"He stammers, he can't figure it out," Dean said. "He's running very, very scared. We have to make sure that the truth comes out. The Jan. 6 committee is doing extraordinary work, has interviewed more than 300 witnesses, people who know something. And what I have said to Jim Jordan or anybody else, like (House GOP) leader (Kevin) McCarthy or the former chief of staff (Mark Meadows) is, 'You should say I will offer you everything I know. I'll give you my phone. I'll give you my documents. I'll give you my emails, because I know that we suffered the most extraordinary attack on our democracy, and it must never happen again.'"
Watch below:
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Gun-toting MAGA rioter gets early gift from feds: A Christmas Eve request for pre-trial detention
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A MAGA rioter who brought a loaded gun to the United States Capitol building last year got notice on Christmas Eve that federal prosecutors would be asking for him to be detained in jail ahead of his trial.
NBC 4 Washington's Scott MacFarlane reports that prosecutors filed a request on Friday that Indiana resident Mark Mazza be held in pre-trial detention due to being a continued threat to public safety.
Mazza brought a Taurus revolver loaded with shotgun shells with him to the Capitol protests, although he would subsequently lose the gun during the mayhem that followed.
Mazza then falsely reported that the gun had been stolen, only for police to use surveillance footage to put him in the area where the gun was found during the Capitol riots.
In their filing, prosecutors explained how his history of violent behavior makes him unfit to be released pre-trial.
"Mazza admitted to taking the police baton on January 6... and to using it to strike a law enforcement officer in the tunnel," prosecutors allege. :Mazza further admitted that he was recently in possession of several other firearms... Defendant had armed himself with a firearm loaded with hollow point bullets and shotgun shells capable of causing serious injury and his comments about Speaker Pelosi suggest he intended to commit serious bodily harm to the Speaker of the House of Representatives."
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-arrests-2656159012/
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DOJ releases longest video yet showing Capitol rioters fighting and pepper spraying police
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This week, the Department of Justice released a three-hour video showing rioters fighting with police at the Capitol on Jan. 6, CNN reports.
According to CNN, the confrontations between police and rioters on the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol were the most violent on that day.
"The video, taken from a Capitol security camera, does not have sound. It starts as officers retreat, helping each other as they stumble inside and washing their eyes out with water from chemical spray," reports CNN. "Rioters crowd in behind them, coordinate efforts to attack and push through in infamous moments that have haunted the public, and officers, ever since."
CNN obtained the video after suing the DOJ for its release.
Watch the full video below:
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. . .
The House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has called Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) to appear and answer questions before them. Jordan was almost appointed to the committee by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
. . .
It is fortunate he was not appointed to the committee. That would be like appointing a fox to a committee tasked with investigating an unfortunate incident that occurred inside a chicken coop.
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Good. This scumbag belongs in prison!
Michael Flynn's lawsuit against the January 6th committee tossed by judge one day after being filed
. . .
Michael Flynn has frequently called upon the military and others to overthrow a fairly elected president. As clear a case of a domestic enemy of America, of democracy, as one is ever going to find. He should be brought back to active duty where he can be court martialed and sent to prison. Treason should be discouraged.
And his brother, Lieutenant General Charles Flynn should be retired after this three-year term as Lieutenant General is up, and not promoted as a four-star general, which would make him eligible for being the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His inaction on January 6 is too suspicious. Anyone else who likely argued against immediately deploying the National Guard to the Capitol on January 6 should not receive another pr0motion as well.
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Michael Flynn has frequently called upon the military and others to overthrow a fairly elected president. As clear a case of a domestic enemy of America, of democracy, as one is ever going to find. He should be brought back to active duty where he can be court martialed and sent to prison. Treason should be discouraged.
And his brother, Lieutenant General Charles Flynn should be retired after this three-year term as Lieutenant General is up, and not promoted as a four-star general, which would make him eligible for being the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His inaction on January 6 is too suspicious. Anyone else who likely argued against immediately deploying the National Guard to the Capitol on January 6 should not receive another pr0motion as well.
Flynn also called for the military to occupy the United States of America based on the "Big Lie" of imaginary voter fraud. These right wing fascists want to have supreme control of the United States and they made up a lie in order to attempt it. Clear treason.
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Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich has provided 1,700 pages of documents and hours of testimony to Jan. 6th Committee
The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th riots at the United States Capitol has scored significant cooperation from Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich.
Politico's Kyle Cheney flags a new legal filing in which Budowich claims that he has provided the committee with 1,700 pages of documents and four hours of testimony.
Most significantly, Budowich has given the committee information about the money trail that helped fund the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the deadly riot.
Cheney notes that Budowich has also filed a lawsuit against the committee in an effort to block it from obtaining his financial records currently held by J.P. Morgan Chase Bank.
In the court filing, Budowich argues that the cooperation he has already provided to the committee means he should not also have to hand over his financial records.
The House Select Committee has been gathering evidence about several aspects of the Capitol riots, and has been most focused on the funding behind the "Stop the Steal" rally, the legal strategies Trump and his allies employed in a bid to keep him in power, and on Trump's actions during the riot, when it took him more than three hours before he put out a video telling the rioters to go home.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-capitol-riot-commitee-2656159377/
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'I will shed more' blood: Judge orders oath-breaking former deputy to remain in jail to await MAGA riot trial`
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A federal judge has ruled that a former sheriff’s deputy from Tennessee who is accused of dragging a Metropolitan police officer into a crowd of violent rioters at the US Capitol on Jan. 6 must stay in jail while he awaits trial.
Ronald Colton McAbee was employed by the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee at the time he and a friend joined the mob at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to the government. In his order requiring McAbee to remain in pretrial detention, issued on Dec. 21, 2021, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan cited evidence submitted by the government that McAbee was “excused from work” at the sheriff’s office due to a shoulder injury sustained during a recent car accident. According to a text submitted into evidence by the government, the 27-year-old sheriff’s deputy went to the doctor for CT scans and MRIs only two days before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
McAbee texted his friend on Dec. 23, 2020, according to the government to ask whether he planned to go to Washington, DC on Jan. 6.
“I want to go, but only if you’re going,” McAbee reportedly wrote. “I’m not in shape to fight right now.”
When the friend indicated he was interested in the trip, McAbee reportedly wrote, “Let’s link up and go. I’ll slap a commie with this dead arm.”
McAbee is charged alongside six other men — Jack Wade Whitton, Jeffrey Sabol, Peter Francis Stager, John Michael Lopatic Sr., Clayton Ray Mullins and Logan James Barnhart — with assaulting law enforcement. McAbee was part of a group of rioters who were throwing and swinging various objects at the officers guarding the entrance to the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace, according to the government. At about 4:28 p.m., Whitton and Sabol allegedly knocked an officer identified as “AW” to the ground. Afterwards, Whitton reportedly boasted that he “fed an officer to the people.” The government alleges that McAbee grabbed Officer AW by his left leg and torso while Mullins grabbed his left leg, and the two men dragged the officer towards the stairs.
McAbee hovered over AW as he lay on the ground and screamed at other officers who were attempting to assist him, according to court documents. When an officer identified as “CM” pushed McAbee and hit him with a police baton, McAbee reportedly swung at him. At that point, Lopatic reportedly began punching CM, and McAbee turned his attention back to AW. McAbee reportedly grabbed AW by the torso, and the two men tumbled down the steps into the mob. As AW struggled to get to his feet, the mob reportedly kicked him, struck him with poles and stomped him. They ripped off his helmet, stripped his baton and cell phone, and maced him. Officer AW had to go to the hospital with a laceration on his head that required two staples to close.
In an earlier ruling finding that McAbee should be released, Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Frensley in the Eastern District of Tennessee ruled that none of the government’s evidence showed that McAbee took “offensive action” and that other evidence suggested the defendant was in the area to “provide aid and assistance to individuals he saw who were in peril.”
Judge Sullivan refuted that finding in his Dec. 21 order.
“To the contrary, Mr. McAbee appears to have acted deliberately when he fought against MPD officers who were attempting to protect the US Capitol and when he used physical force to pull an officer into the violent and angry mob,” Sullivan wrote. “The government’s video evidence captures multiple angles of the horrifying scene that unfolded that day.
“Watching the video footage of these events unfold continues to elicit horror and sadness — this was, without a doubt, a crime that is unparalleled in our nation’s history,” Sullivan concluded.
McAbee wore a black tactical vest with one patch that read “SHERIFF” and another with the Three Percenter insignia, along with black gloves with hard, metal knuckles, while participating in the mob assault on the three officers, according to the government. Three Percenters typically view themselves as analogous to the American revolutionaries who took up arms against the British colonial government. As such they see themselves as a militant vanguard responsible for confronting a modern-day tyrannical government. Texts between McAbee and an individual identified as “Associate-1” that the government turned over to the court include an exchange that conveys a sentiment common among Three Percenters.
“I had to explain to [my child] last night why I was going to DC and what could happen,” Associate-1 reportedly said. “This is my fight so he doesn’t have to fight.”
“I will rise or fall along side you,” McAbee reportedly responded. “This is for future generations.”
The texts also show that Associate-1, who has not been charged to date, submitted an application to join the Proud Boys two days before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
McAbee reportedly texted Associate-1 with a light-hearted endorsement of the catchphrase the Proud Boys use to describe their beliefs.
“You western chauvinist lol,” he wrote.
Despite allegedly participating in an assault on officers protecting the Capitol, the government’s case against McAbee suggests that he tried to leverage his status as a member of law enforcement to get preferential treatment.
After the assault on the officers, the government alleges, the rioters surged back into the tunnel opening, pushing McAbee into the side of the archway and aggravating his preexisting shoulder injury from the car accident a month earlier.
“As Mr. McAbee tried to get away from the surging crowd and through the police line, he pointed to the lettering on his vest that said ‘SHERIFF’ as he asked to be let through,” Judge Sullivan wrote in his order.
After the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, according to government evidence, McAbee reportedly sent an unidentified individual three photos showing a bloodied baseball hat and head injury. The texts suggests that McAbee viewed his actions on Jan. 6 as a fulfillment of his oath to the US Constitution even as he strengthened his resolve to commit an insurrection against the American government.
“I’ve shed blood for my country. By the hands of the swamp,” the 27-year-old McAbee reportedly wrote. “I will shed more in the days to come. But I will not forget the Oath I swore years ago to protect the America I once knew.”
The texts exchanged between McAbee and Associate-1 indicate that after Jan. 6 the two men were preparing for an escalation of violence as the Jan. 20 inauguration approached.
“Yeah, I’ve just put my go-bag in the car and told the girls to get ready,” McAbee texted on Jan. 9. “Idk what for. But just be ready.”
Other texts indicate that McAbee was following Lin Wood, the high-profile Atlanta defamation lawyer who spread conspiracy theories promoting the false claim that that the election was stolen from Donald Trump.
“Vatican is blacked out,” McAbee wrote to Associate-1. “Supposedly Pakistan is blacked out.” In the next text, he added, “Lin Wood on Parler.”
The following day, McAbee asked his friend if he planned to go to the inauguration.
“It will be bullets this time there,” he wrote. “Currently 6200 National Guardsmen, several police agencies throughout the US. Snipers everywhere.” He added, “I call for secession!”
Sullivan wrote in his order that he was troubled by the fact that McAbee was employed as a sheriff’s deputy at the time that “he participated in the riot at the US Capitol and physically assaulted MPD officers attempting to protect the building and members of Congress.” Sullivan approvingly cited the government’s argument that McAbee’s “occupation invested him with the responsibility to uphold and enforce the law. It also required an understanding of what constitutes a violation of that law. Yet, neither prevented the defendant from engaging in the assaultive, criminal conduct.”
Even worse, Judge Sullivan concluded, McAbee allowed his mistaken belief that the 2020 election was stolen “to override his sworn duty to uphold the rule of law as a law enforcement officer and even fight against officers with whom one would expect he held a mutual respect or kinship.”
https://www.rawstory.com/ronald-colton-mcabee/
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House Jan 6th committee focusing on Trump phone call to Willard hotel 'war room' before riot
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The House select committee investigating the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol is zeroing in on communications Donald Trump had with top lieutenants before the riots began.
"Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, has said the panel will open an inquiry into Donald Trump’s phone call seeking to stop Joe Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January hours before the insurrection," Hugo Lowell reported for The Guardian. "The chairman said the select committee intended to scrutinize the phone call – revealed last month by the Guardian – should they prevail in their legal effort to obtain Trump White House records over the former president’s objections of executive privilege."
Trump reportedly referred to his aides' headquarters in the Willard Hotel as his "war room."
"The Guardian reported last month that Trump, according to multiple sources, called lieutenants based at the Willard hotel in Washington DC from the White House in the late hours of 5 January and sought ways to stop Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January," Lowell reported. "The former president’s remarks came as part of wider discussions he had with the lieutenants at the Willard – a team led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Trump strategist Steve Bannon – about delaying the certification, the sources said."
However, the specific details of Trump's call or calls could have major ramifications for what congressional investigators learn.
"The Guardian also reported Trump made several calls the day before the Capitol attack from both the White House residence, his preferred place to work, as well as the West Wing, but it was not certain from which location he phoned his top lieutenants at the Willard. The distinction is significant as phone calls placed from the White House residence, even from a landline desk phone, are not automatically memorialized in records sent to the National Archives after the end of an administration," the Guardian explained.
Capitol panel to investigate Trump call to Willard hotel in hours before attack
Committee to request contents of the call seeking to stop Biden’s certification and may subpoena Rudy Giuliani
Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, has said the panel will open an inquiry into Donald Trump’s phone call seeking to stop Joe Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January hours before the insurrection.
The chairman said the select committee intended to scrutinize the phone call – revealed last month by the Guardian – should they prevail in their legal effort to obtain Trump White House records over the former president’s objections of executive privilege.
“That’s right,” Thompson said when asked by the Guardian whether the select committee would look into Trump’s phone call, and suggested House investigators had already started to consider ways to investigate Trump’s demand that Biden not be certified as president on 6 January.
Thompson said the select committee could not ask the National Archives for records about specific calls, but noted “if we say we want all White House calls made on January 5 and 6, if he made it on a White House phone, then obviously we would look at it there.”
The Guardian reported last month that Trump, according to multiple sources, called lieutenants based at the Willard hotel in Washington DC from the White House in the late hours of 5 January and sought ways to stop Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January.
Trump first told the lieutenants his vice-president, Mike Pence, was reluctant to go along with the plan to commandeer his ceremonial role at the joint session of Congress in a way that would allow Trump to retain the presidency for a second term, the sources said.
But as Trump relayed to them the situation with Pence, the sources said, on at least one call, he pressed his lieutenants about how to stop Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January in a scheme to get alternate slates of electors for Trump sent to Congress.
The former president’s remarks came as part of wider discussions he had with the lieutenants at the Willard – a team led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Trump strategist Steve Bannon – about delaying the certification, the sources said.
But as Trump relayed to them the situation with Pence, the sources said, on at least one call, he pressed his lieutenants about how to stop Biden’s certification from taking place on 6 January in a scheme to get alternate slates of electors for Trump sent to Congress.
The former president’s remarks came as part of wider discussions he had with the lieutenants at the Willard – a team led by Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Boris Epshteyn and Trump strategist Steve Bannon – about delaying the certification, the sources said.
House investigators in recent months have pursued an initial in into Trump’s contacts with lieutenants at the Willard, issuing a flurry of subpoenas compelling documents and testimony to crucial witnesses, including Bannon and Eastman.
But Thompson said that the select committee would now also investigate both the contents of Trump’s phone calls to the Willard and the White House’s potential involvement, in a move certain to intensify the pressure on the former president’s inner circle.
“If we get the information that we requested,” Thompson said of the select committee’s demands for records from the Trump White House and Trump aides, “those calls potentially will be reflected to the Willard hotel and whomever.”
A spokesperson for the select committee declined to comment about what else such a line of inquiry might involve. But a subpoena to Giuliani, the lead Trump lawyer at the Willard, is understood to be in the offing, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The Guardian reported that the night before the Capitol attack, Trump called the lawyers and non-lawyers at the Willard separately, because Giuliani did not want to have non-lawyers participate on sensitive calls and jeopardize claims to attorney-client privilege.
It was not clear whether Giulaini might invoke attorney-client privilege as a way to escape cooperating with the investigation in the event of a subpoena, but Congressman Jamie Raskin, a member of the select committee, noted the protection does not confer broad immunity.
“The attorney-client privilege does not operate to shield participants in a crime from an investigation into a crime,” Raskin said. “If it did, then all you would have to do to rob a bank is bring a lawyer with you, and be asking for advice along the way.”
The Guardian also reported Trump made several calls the day before the Capitol attack from both the White House residence, his preferred place to work, as well as the West Wing, but it was not certain from which location he phoned his top lieutenants at the Willard.
The distinction is significant as phone calls placed from the White House residence, even from a landline desk phone, are not automatically memorialized in records sent to the National Archives after the end of an administration.
That means even if the select committee succeeds in its litigation to pry free Trump’s call detail records from the National Archives, without testimony from people with knowledge of what was said, House investigators might only learn the target and time of the calls.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/27/capitol-attack-panel-investigate-trump-call-willard-hotel-before-assault
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Trump's bank records could blow up former president's efforts to derail Jan. 6 probe
Donald Trump has tried repeatedly to stall or disrupt the House investigation of his efforts to overturn last year's election, but the select committee has been moving forward with new speed.
Some of the twice-impeached one-term president's closest allies have resisted efforts to obtain documents and interviews, and Trump's own efforts to shield himself from the probe has reached the U.S. Supreme Court, but CNN reported that House investigators are moving closer to revealing what happened in the leadup to Jan. 6.
"The panel's attempt to reach deep into Trump world and behind the scenes in the West Wing on January 6 kicked into higher gear in the days before Christmas, offering new insight into its areas of focus," wrote CNN analyst Stephen Collinson. "Trump responded by stepping up his own strategy of defying the truth. It is now clear committee members are trying to build a detailed picture of exactly what Trump said, did and thought in the days leading up to the insurrection and in the hours when it raged on Capitol Hill after he incited the mob with fresh election fraud lies."
The panel has called for testimony from lawmakers who were closely involved in Trump's efforts to stay in power, but the committee may be forced to subpoena recalcitrant Republicans such as Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).
"From the outside, it is difficult to tell how deeply the House select committee has managed to penetrate what was happening in Trump's West Wing on January 6," Collinson wrote. "While several prominent associates of the ex-President are refusing to testify, the committee has conducted several hundred interviews with people inside and outside the former administration."
"Not everyone has the political commitment or the financial resources to enter a legal battle by defying a subpoena," he added. "And details from the lawsuit that emerged on Christmas Eve showed that [Trump spokesman Taylor] Budowich had supplied the committee with more than 1,700 pages of documents and provided about four hours of testimony. He sued on Friday night to stop the committee from obtaining records from a bank. The previously undisclosed records request is another indication the committee has made substantial behind-the-scenes progress and could at least partially derail Trump's cover-up despite his best efforts."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/27/politics/donald-trump-january-6-committee/index.html
Trump seems to throw the Proud Boys under the bus for Capitol riots in new legal filing
In his effort to have a lawsuit accusing him of sparking the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol dismissed, former President Donald Trump is arguing he's not responsible for the violent actions his supporters took, Bloomberg reports.
“Speakers at political rallies do not owe a duty of care to members of Congress or Capitol Police Officers not at the rally,” Trump’s lawyer Jesse Binnall said in the Dec. 24 court filing.
Trump's team argued that his words on Jan. 6 were in line with a president’s right to “take advantage of the bully pulpit.”
"The complaint, which also names right-wing groups like the Proud Boys, alleges many of the defendants 'planned, aided, and actively participated in that attack' and that 'all defendants are responsible for it,'" Bloomberg reports.
Trump argued in the filing that he “acted responsibly” during the speech, and that he had “simply called for peaceful and patriotic demonstrations.” Trump also denies that he was threatening violence when he said it was “a very dangerous moment in our history” and that people are “not going to stand having this election stolen from them.”
The suit was brought in August by eight Capitol Police officers who claim they were assaulted on Jan. 6.
Read the full report over at Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-27/trump-says-he-didn-t-owe-duty-of-care-to-rivals-on-jan-6
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Michigan Republicans are being called to testify about Trump's efforts to get them to overturn 2020 election
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Local Michigan Republican officials are among those being called to answer questions about events related to the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol.
According to two sources who spoke to the Detroit News, those officials have agreed to answer questions, but their names haven't yet been released. However, the report also states that GOP Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey "won't say whether he was approached by the panel."
The report noted that the outreach is likely about the efforts to overthrow the 2020 election results in Michigan.
"In August, the committee sought communications referring to the election between White House officials and a group of three Michigan Republicans from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. The only current officeholder in the group was Shirkey, R-Clarklake, the top lawmaker in the state Senate. The other two were former House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, and then-Wayne County Canvasser Monica Palmer," said the report.
Most have refused to respond to questions, but Shirkey was among the seven Michigan Republicans who went to Washington D.C. after the 2020 election to meet with Trump. The visit happened during Trump's legal battles. Shirkey was swarmed by protesters leaving for Washington with state House Speaker Lee Chatfield.
"No matter the party, when you have an opportunity to meet with the President of the United States, of course you take it. I won’t apologize for that. In fact, I’m honored to speak with POTUS and proud to meet with him. And I look forward to our conversation," Chatfield said to WWMT at the time.
Trump then responded to social media posts from the men claiming "Massive voter fraud will be shown!"
It never was.
Read the full report:
https://www.bakersfield.com/ap/news/multiple-michigan-republicans-contacted-by-us-houses-jan-6-committee/article_e2183c34-3a0f-5bc8-a603-6f978aceb7de.html
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‘Trump is in a bit of a meltdown down in Mar-A-Lago’ as Jan. 6 committee weighs criminal referrals: reporter
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Donald Trump's actions in the lead-up to the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection have been increasingly coming into focus, according to a reporter who has broken some major news about the congressional investigation.
The House select committee will open an investigation of a call Trump made to the Willard hotel, where his allies Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani and others were huddled in a "war room" as part of an effort to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden's election win, and Guardian reporter Hugo Lowell -- who first revealed that call -- told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" what that means for the probe.
"It's a pivotal moment the night of Jan. 5 and Jan. 6 when Trump picked up the phone call from the White House," Lowell said. "According to sources, he instructed his operatives the find ways to stop the certification from taking place at all at the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6. If you speak to Trump's allies, this is not a big deal -- he was just trying to find ways to delay certification and find another day, but I always thought this was a really disingenuous characterization because, either way, through action or inaction, he managed to get the certification stopped, and the Capitol was attacked and now it's going to loom large in the committee's investigation."
The twice-impeached one-term president has claimed executive privilege over hundreds of documents, and Lowell predicted the U.S. Supreme Court would decide in the spring whether Congress may see that evidence, and he agreed the committee would eventually take some action against Trump personally.
"It's increasingly becoming more likely because they are looking at criminal referrals for the former president," Lowell said. "They're still looking at Bannon and they're still looking at Giuliani and [John] Eastman. These are the guys at the Willard that Trump called up Jan. 5 and sought advice. There were multiple war rooms. There is one with Eastman, Giuliani and Bannon and there was a separate one is where people like [Michael] Flynn and Roger Stone and Alex Jones. There was, like, a massive operation happening at the Willard."
"This is going to bloom really pivotally in the investigation," he added. "But it's true, they are now focusing on the culpability of Trump himself and whether he directed the Willard to then direct the Capitol attack, and if there was some sort of ongoing conspiracy."
The select committee has been criticized for moving too slowly ahead of next year’s midterm elections, but Lowell said they had already gathered substantial evidence despite Trump’s efforts to stall the investigation.“
"They're up against this deadline," he said. "It’s a hard deadline, it’s the end of this Congress at the latest because if Republicans retake the majority and this is the end of the committee, they’re not going to want to reinstate committee. So they are up against this time limit, but they have amassed a real trove of evidence. They spoke to [Mark] Meadows, he ultimately decided not to cooperate, and he did provide a trove of documents and communication and text messages which we have only seen a sliver of, and those are already quite damming, and Trump is in a bit of a meltdown, from what we understand, down in Mar-A-Lago."
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MAGA rioter Jenna Ryan has reported to prison — and she could be in for 'a reality check’
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Infamous Capitol rioter Jenna Ryan, the Texas real estate agent who once said she wouldn't serve time in prison because she's white and blonde, reportedly has begun her 60-day sentence.
The 51-year-old Ryan, who was sentenced last month for her role in the Jan. 6 insurrection, was initially scheduled to report to prison in January.
However, the Dallas Observer reported Tuesday that Ryan checked in to the Bryan Federal Prison Camp in Texas before Christmas.
Daniel Wise, a Florida-based prison consultant, said he believes Ryan — who recently announced a book deal — may have strategically surrendered early, the Observer reported.
“I have to imagine that there was a motive behind this, and your motive probably is: You want to go in there, now you can write in your book what it was like to be in prison for Christmas,” Wise said on his YouTube channel. “I mean I think people are going to see right through the smokescreen. I don’t think you’re going to get a lot of sympathy.”
Another prison consultant, Holli Coulman, said Ryan recently contacted her to ask whether she could choose to be housed in solitary confinement due to concerns that she might get hit with a “lock in a sock," the Observer reported.
"But Ryan eventually decided that she’d do just fine in the general population, claiming that she knows how to make friends with anyone, Coulman said. '[Ryan] goes, "I grew up in the streets,"' she said, laughing," according to the Observer. "Regardless, Ryan has big plans for her time in prison. In videos posted to her TikTok account, she claimed to look forward to doing lots of yoga. She also said it would be 'worth going to prison' if she manages to lose 30 pounds thanks to a new workout regimen and diet, free from alcohol and junk food."
On YouTuber who appeared on Wise's channel, DOCTV813, said he doesn't think prison officials will appreciate Ryan's TikTok videos.
“With her doing what she’s doing, they’re going to look at that and they’re going to make her time hard because they’re going to give her a reality check,” DOCTV813 said. “And she’s not going to lose weight; she’s going to probably gain weight because of how they cook everything in there with starches and all that. I don’t think she realizes what she’s about to walk into."
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/frisco-real-estate-broker-and-capitol-rioter-jenna-ryan-surrenders-to-federal-prison-13098960
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MAGA rioter 'Bear-spray guy' goes missing as Jan. 6 hearing gets started
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Jan. 6 defendant Tim Boughner was supposed to appear in court Tuesday morning but it appears that the court has lost him.
NBC reporter Scott MacFarlane, who has been covering the insurrection cases, tweeted that the Michigan man was scheduled to appear in court at 11 a.m. The jail trial involves charges of assaulting police officers with chemical spray and bike racks, along with other charges. He was one of the alleged Capitol attackers who reportedly brought bear spray, which resulted in taking down several police officers guarding the building.
According to the judge in the case, Boughner was being moved from a jail in Michigan to a jail in Washington, D.C. That means that he's on the road and can't exactly appear in court. They think he's "possibly en route to DC," said MacFarlane. But the federal government confessed that it doesn't exactly know where Bougher is. They're thinking Oklahoma.
The FBI statement of facts on Boughner includes specific details about his tattoos and visible scars that were used to pinpoint his identity in photos and videos of the attack.
Using Facebook data, investigators were able to find communications beginning on Nov. 8, 2020, that show the pathway that Boughner took from the election to the Capitol attack. He even posted, "I’m on my way to Washington DC. to make sure Biden doesn’t become president."
After the attack, he used his Facebook account to admit to his involvement that day: “Tear gassed peppered sprayed guy got next to me got the rubber bullet. I grabbed a can from them and started spraying. I got it on video lol." Boughner then stated "That was wild. We made it to the senate floor till National guard started fight back."
It's an ironic statement given Donald Trump tweeted that his supporters should come to Washington, D.C. because it "will be wild."
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https://www.rawstory.com/feds-lose-january-6-inmate/
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MAGA riot suspect bragged to friends about being in insurrection -- then acted 'ashamed' during FBI interview
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On January 11, a tipster contacted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center to report that an individual “had been publicly bragging to friends and family about participating in the riots within the United States Capitol Building.”
Just 11 days later, the FBI says, Paul Gray Colbath of Fort Mill, South Carolina -- the subject of that tip -- agreed to an interview with agents at his residence. Apparently, he was not bragging by then.
Colbath was arrested October 28 in connection with the insurrection at the U. S. Capitol, but his file was just released today by the Department of Justice. It was a case study in humility, as relayed by the FBI agent who did the interview.
“(Colbath) stated that he did not 'assault' the Capitol building but did enter it via an open door. Before entering the Capitol, Colbath heard the sound of glass breaking, which he stated he assumed was a window," the agent wrote. "During the interview, Colbath stated that when he first entered the Capitol building, he was in a hallway, and saw a cloud of what he believed was tear gas, and he saw a man near him who had been affected by the tear gas. He ushered the unidentified man into a nearby office to get fresh air. He did not know whose office he occupied. He advised that he saw a broken window and vandalism to the office, and when he saw the clear signs of destruction, he knew that being in the Capitol building was wrong. He only stayed in the office a short time, and he believed it was no more than five minutes.”
The report continued: “Colbath advised that it felt good to get this off his chest. He stated that he did not want to turn himself in, because he did not feel like he did anything criminal, but that he still felt guilt about his participation. He felt ashamed and like he made 'a big mistake.' He did not take any weapons with him to the Capitol or plan to promote sedition or overthrow the government.”
The report did not specify details of the boasting that the tipster claimed had prompted the contact to the FBI. It stated that Colbath had provided cellphone video of his participation and the report contained photos showing him in and outside the Capitol.
Colbath is charged with illegal entry, disorderly conduct and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol Building.
You can read the FBI statement of facts here:
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-arrests-2656179732/
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Feds using Enron-era law to seek longer sentences for leaders of the Jan. 6 MAGA mob: report
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Government prosecutors are testing “a novel legal strategy” by reaching back to a 2002 federal law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal to obtain longer sentences against leaders of the MAGA riot, according to a Wall Street Journal report today.
“The investigation is entering a more contentious phase as it nears the one-year mark, with initial trials set to test the government’s strategy of using provisions first laid out in a 2002 financial-industry law to prosecute some accused of leading the mob,” the Journal reported.
“In the riot’s wake, prosecutors searched for tools to elevate some of the cases beyond the misdemeanor charges often applied for unruly but far less momentous Capitol protests. They turned to a provision in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted after the accounting-fraud scandal and collapse of Enron, which imposes a potential 20-year sentence on those convicted of obstructing an ‘official proceeding.’ The measure expanded what counts as obstruction and closed loopholes used by people involved in the Enron fraud.”
Some 270 rioters are facing that felony charge, the Journal reported. The use of the charge has evoked sharply divergent reactions from former prosecutors and current defense attorneys.
“Some former prosecutors said the unprecedented events of Jan. 6 prompted the government to think creatively about how to charge the rioters. “I do think the charge makes sense under the circumstances, but I also think it’s necessarily novel, because these facts haven’t arisen before,” said Ben Glassman, a former U.S. attorney in Ohio who has prosecuted domestic terrorism cases,” the Journal reported.
“Defense lawyers say they particularly object to prosecutors’ demands that defendants agree to the enhanced punishments under a plea deal that bump a sentence to 41 months or more, which they say is out of line with past cases.”
The Journal reported that “some of the defendants ‘have coalesced around an effort to poke holes in that central element of the government’s strategy—with limited success to date.” And this:
“Prosecutors have offered to drop additional charges for some of the rioters if they plead guilty to that count and accept a punishment that would likely involve more than three years in prison. Several have taken that deal, with at least two sentenced to date along those lines. Others have rejected those conditions—specifically the enhanced sentence requirements—and are opting instead to go to trial.”
The Journal report indicated that federal judges might be receptive to the application of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act’s conspiracy provisions to the Capitol riot cases.
“Last week, two federal judges in Washington separately rejected arguments that the crime described in the 2002 statute wasn’t appropriate. “The term ‘official proceeding’…means ‘a proceeding before the Congress,’ ” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who is overseeing one of the most high-profile cases to stem from the riot against 17 people affiliated with the Oath Keepers militia, wrote in a Dec. 20 opinion. “A straightforward reading of that definition easily reaches the Certification of the Electoral College vote,” he wrote.
The first trials testing the strategy before juries are expected to begin in February, the Journal reported.
Read More Here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-prosecute-jan-6-capitol-rioters-government-tests-novel-legal-strategy-11640786405?mod=politics_lead_pos1
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‘Just kill me now’: Jan. 6 rioter who led initial breach at Capitol ordered back in jail
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A federal judge has revoked bond for a man who helped lead the initial breach of the US Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, after he reportedly threatened to kill himself and fled police, who later found an AR-15 assault rifle in his car, in Garner, NC earlier this month.
Judge Timothy J. Kelly issued a warrant for James Tate Grant’s arrest on Tuesday and directed the defendant to make contact with pre-trial services in the Eastern District of North Carolina to arrange his surrender.
According to charging documents, the Grant and Ryan Samsel led a crowd of rioters up to a barricade at the entrance of the Pennsylvania Avenue Walkway at about 12:50 p.m. on Jan. 6 and started accosting US Capitol police officers. The government alleges that Grant began yelling at officers and then lifted the metal barricade and then shoved it into the officers, causing at least one officer to fall. As the officers attempted to re-erect the barricade, Grant and others reportedly overran them and forced the officers to retreat.
The mob that streamed towards the Capitol after the initial breach included dozens of Proud Boys, including Charles Donohoe, the president of the Piedmont North Carolina chapter, who is charged with conspiracy to corruptly obstruct the certification of the electoral vote, alongside fellow Proud Boys leaders Joe Biggs, Ethan Nordean and Zach Rehl.
Samsel reportedly told law enforcement that Biggs ordered him to push down the barricades; Biggs has denied the assertion through his attorney.
Nine other Proud Boys in the mob, including Dominic Pezzola who is accused of using a stolen police riot shield to bash out a window at the Capitol building are charged in separate conspiracy cases. One of the defendants, Matthew Greene, has pleaded guilty and agreed to provide assistance to the government.
Video stills included in his charging document indicate that Grant eventually made it into a Senate office building, where he was filmed by live-streamer Tim Gionet aka Baked Alaska, who also faces charges related to the assault on the Capitol.
On Dec. 15, a grand jury handed down an indictment against Grant and Samsel, charging them with assaulting an officer with the metal crowd control barrier, along with nine other offenses.
Grant was out on pre-trial release at 5 a.m. on Dec. 7 when police in Garner, NC responded to a restaurant in response to a suicide threat, according to a motion filed by the federal government a couple days before Christmas. Grant was reportedly pulling out of the parking lot in a silver car and flagged the officer down.
“They probably called on me,” Grant reportedly told the officer, explaining that he was involved in the “January 6th incident.”
When the officer initiated a DWI investigation, Grant reportedly attempted to flee. Then, according to the motion, he dropped to the ground and said something to the effect of, “Just kill me now…. It’s over.”
Officers reportedly recovered an AR-15 assault rifle, 60 rounds of .223 ammunition, weapon accessories, and combat fatigues from Grant’s car.
A month before his arrest, Grant was also charged with DWI and carrying a concealed gun in Wake County.
Federal prosecutors wrote in their Dec. 23 motion to revoke bond that committing crimes while on release creates a presumption that no conditions will assure that the person will not pose a threat to the safety of the community.
“He has abused the release privileges given to him by the court in several ways,” the prosecutors wrote. “He committed a crime by driving while intoxicated. He possessed a firearm (and not just any firearm — an assault rifle) and 60 rounds of ammunition and was carrying these items in his vehicle — despite being barred from doing so as a condition of his release. He initially tried to flee from law enforcement. He used prohibited substances. And he did all this while [he] had charges pending in Wake County for a very similar offense and while on federal supervision for his violent conduct at the US Capitol. Grant’s statements are of such a concerning nature that there is reason to believe he is a danger not only to the community, but also to himself.”
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-james-tate-grant/
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MAGA rioter kept baton he used to attack cops as a memento – and his judge isn’t impressed
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A Florida man used a police baton to strike an officer during the January 6 Capitol insurrection and then kept it as a possible “trophy,” newly released court records show.
Mason Joel Courson, 26, of Tamarac, Florida had been arrested December 15 on multiple assault charges for an “assault of a Metropolitan Police Department officer who was beaten by a group armed with a baton, flagpole and crutch,” according to the Associated Press. Courson also was accused of having taken part in “heave ho” efforts to breach a tunnel at the Capitol, the report said.
But today, Courson’s hometown newspaper -- the Tamarac Talk-- advanced the story with this reporting from December 23 court records that had not previously received coverage:
“Prosecutors argued before a federal judge that Courson posed too serious a threat to the public to be released on bond, and the judge hearing the evidence agreed, court records show,” the newspaper reported.
"I find it significant that [Courson] kept the baton with which he assaulted [the officer],” U.S. Magistrate Judge Jared M. Strauss wrote in a Dec. 23 detention order issued in federal court in Fort Lauderdale. “Whether [Courson] intended to keep it as a trophy or a memento, I cannot determine. However, the fact that [Courson] kept that weapon over the course of the last year is not emblematic of someone who has remorse or has come to regret his actions after the passions of the moment have subsided.”
“For all of these reasons, I find that [Courson’s] character and history provide significant doubt for whether he would respect and abide by conditions of bond that I could set.”
There was also this from the judge:
“[Courson] was among those seeking to ‘battering ram’ their way through officers protecting the entrance and actually entered the Capitol,” Strauss wrote. “Even more significantly, he attempted to injure another person–specifically [one] officer…by striking him with the baton and [a second] officer…by assisting in dragging him down the stairs.”
During his post-Miranda statement to the FBI, [Courson] “admitted to exchanging blows with officers” and to attacking the officer with the baton, Strauss wrote. He also said, “he felt striking the officers was ‘justified.’”
Courson told agents the scene on the Capitol grounds was like being in a “war zone” and that he felt like he was engaged in a “battle,” according to the records.
“Despite his ‘Thin Blue Line’ face covering (seemingly showing support for law enforcement), he stated that he felt these officers were not ‘thin blue line’ but rather were traitors,” wrote Strauss.
“Clear and convincing evidence indicates [Courson] took part in what can only be described as an armed insurrection against American democracy,” Strauss said in his order rejecting bond for Courson.
“The rioters sought to overturn the results of a democratic election with which they were unhappy–not by politics or by law, but by force. I cannot conceive of anything evincing a greater disrespect for the rule of law.”
The Tamarac Talk also reported this:
“On Dec. 14, around ten FBI agents along with a SWAT team executed a search warrant on Courson’s residence in Tamarac, the records show. They found the baton he had used during the Capitol attack, along with two firearms and the clothes he had worn during the riots, according to the documents.
“Courson, a father and businessman who sells audio equipment, has a criminal history that includes several arrests between 2013 and 2018, including busts for battery, grand theft, and resisting arrest without violence, the records show.”
Courson remains in federal custody in D.C. He is charged with eight federal offenses that include assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers and inflicting bodily injury, civil disorder, and entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, according to court records.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-mason-joel-courson/
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Jan. 6 Committee asks Supreme Court to not even bother hearing Trump's case for hiding documents
Thus far, two courts have ruled that former President Donald Trump cannot block the documents subpoenaed by the House Select Committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol -- but that hasn't stopped him from appealing the case of the Supreme Court.
In a rare 44-page legal filing from the Jan. 6 committee, the committee cited previous rulings rejecting Trump's pleas, and also cited past precedent set by Nixon v. The United States, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a president can't withhold documents in a criminal investigation.
"In balancing these interests, the Court emphasized that the incumbent President is 'in the best position to assess the present and future needs of the Executive Branch, and to support invocation of the privilege accordingly,'" cited the filing.
The committee also argued that if the court wants to hear arguments on the case and refuses to dismiss, then it urges them to hear it quickly.
"If this Court nonetheless believes that the decision below warrants its review, the Congressional Respondents respectfully request that the case be resolved expeditiously," said the writ. "The Select Committee urgently needs the documents at issue to inform its forthcoming hearings and reports. The Select Committee’s authorization will expire on January 3, 2023, and each passing day handicaps the Select Committee’s investigation, forcing it to proceed without the benefit of documents to which it is entitled. For these reasons and the reasons set forth in the motion for expedited consideration of the petition, if this Court grants certiorari, the Congressional Respondents respectfully request that the case be heard as early as the Court’s February sitting."
Read the full document here:
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-january-6-supreme-court/
Armed MAGA rioter who brought hollow-point bullets to Capitol ordered to remain in detention
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An Indiana man who allegedly carried a revolver to the US Capitol on Jan. 6 and hinted to the FBI that he wanted to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will remain in jail pending trial, Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui ruled on Thursday.
Faruqui issued the order on Thursday after holding a detention hearing two days earlier.
Mark Mazza was arrested by federal agents in Indiana in November, and faces 13 separate charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding; resisting or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon; and unlawful possession of a firearm on Capitol grounds or buildings. If convicted, Mazza could face a maximum conviction of more than 100 years.
"This is the only case that I'm aware of where the defendant had a loaded firearm on the grounds of the Capitol," Faruqui said, explaining his order on Thursday. "The firearm was found in the same place where Mr. Mazza was in a scuffle with a police officer.... That in itself is enough to show prior planning to cause grave concern."
Mazza told the court on Tuesday that he hasn't had access to his medication in jail for four days, which made it hard for him to understand, but he said he wanted to go forward with the arraignment and detention hearing regardless. Mazza was represented by a private attorney during the hearing.
The government alleges that Mazza carried with Taurus revolver with loaded shotgun shells and cartridges containing hollow point bullets, which expand on contact and are significantly more lethal than regular bullets, when he entered Capitol grounds. According to the government, Mazza dropped or abandoned the firearm on the steps leading up to the West Front Terrace during a likely assault on a US Capitol police sergeant who defending the Capitol.
During his detention hearing on Tuesday, Assistant US Attorney Tejpal S. Chawla told the court that Mazza has not been charged with assault on the officer at this point but the matter is still under investigation.
After losing or abandoning his firearm, Mazza allegedly entered the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace, where rioters fought a pitched battle against Metropolitan police officers attempting to prevent them from entering the building.
During the hearing, the government played video showing Mazza at the front of the crowd of rioters attempting to break the police line in the tunnel. The video showed Officer Daniel Hodges crying out in agony as he was squeezed between the doors. Narrating the video, Chawla told the court that it showed Mazza holding open the doors as rioters assaulted the officers with sticks, shields and other objects. “This is our f***ing house!" Mazza yelled. "We own this house! We want our house!
Chawla also showed the court footage from a scene that took place later in the battle that depicted Mazza swinging a baton at the officers.
Later, rioters dragged Officer Michael Fanone into the crowd, where he was tased. Chawla told he court that Mazza told investigators he assisted Fanone. Chawla said that while it's not exactly clear what Mazza was doing, the government has no evidence to dispute his account.
After returning to Indiana, the government alleges that Mazza filed a false report with a local police department asserting that his firearm had been stolen at a casino in Ohio. When agents raided Mazza’s house in Indiana in November, they found a baton issued by the Metropolitan Police Department, along with more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and more than a dozen hunting knives and swords. Mazza told the agents he had several firearms, but had given them to his brother because he expected to be arrested.
According to the government’s motion for detention, agents interviewed Mazza as early as March 2021. During that meeting, Mazza reportedly said his only regret about the events of Jan. 6 was that he didn’t see House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Never did get to talk to Nancy,” Mazza reportedly told the agents. “I thought Nan and I would hit it off.” He reportedly added, “I was glad I didn’t because you’d be here for another reason and I told my kids that if they show up, I’m surrendering, nope they can have me, because I may go down a hero.”
Gregory English, Mazza's lawyer, told the court that his client served in the US Army, adding that he was injured while serving on active duty and that he receives monthly disability payments from the Veterans Administration. English said that at the time of Mazza's arrest, he was facilitating a support group for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
English did not address the implied threat to Speaker Pelosi during his remarks to the court requesting that his client be released and allowed to return home to Indiana. English asked the court to consider "that this is a unique situation where the president of the United States called upon people to come to Washington. He lied to them by saying that the election was stolen, when, as far as I know, there's no evidence to support that. It essentially got out of hand.... It's a once-in-a-lifetime situation."
The government argued in its motion that Mazza is “highly dangerous and deserving of detention.”
“Before attending the riot, the defendant had armed himself with a firearm loaded with hollow point bullets and shotgun shells capable of causing serious injury, and his comment about Speaker Pelosi suggest he intended to commit serious bodily harm to the speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress,” Chawla wrote in the motion.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-detention/
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Trump is headed for a 'legal blowout' at hands of January 6 committee: CNN legal analyst
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On Thursday's edition of CNN's "OutFront," former federal prosecutor Elie Honig said that the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack are poised to win a major court victory in their fight with former President Donald Trump to obtain White House records.
"You've gone through these new filings," said anchor Poppy Harlow. "How strong are the arguments?"
"Poppy, the stakes here are enormous," said Honig. "That said, it doesn't mean this is a close case. This is really a legal blow out in favor of the committee against Donald Trump. We've already had rulings in favor of the committee from the federal district court and unanimous three judge panel on the court of appeals. The arguments that got made in this today's belief were the same ones that won below."
"First on executive privilege, the argument from the committee is we have Congress and the current president who agree no executive privilege here," Honig continued. "The former president has no basis in this case to overturn that. Then the second big issue is this question of legitimate, legislative purpose. The committee says, look, we're Congress, we know whether we have a legitimate legislative purpose. We are looking at changing various laws. Trump doesn't have any comeback other than, 'We don't believe them, we think they have bad motives.' That is not going to carry the day legally."
"A couple other interesting points about the new brief," added Honig. "The committee confirmed they will be holding public hearings this year, confirmed they'll be issuing a report and show clearly they understand they are on the clock and only have a year to get this done."
Watch below:
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Prosecutors walloping MAGA rioters with 'novel' new legal charges
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Followers of Donald Trump who thought they might get away with simple misdemeanor charges for invading the Capitol building during the Jan 6th insurrection are instead facing years in prison as prosecutors use a law passed in 2002 that was aimed at curbing financial crimes.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, as the courts move on to prosecuting some of the more complicated cases, accused rioters are being hit with charges of obstructing an “official proceeding," which carries a much stiffer penalty if they are found guilty.
As the Journal's Aruna Vizwanatha wrote, prosecutors were looking for a way to more strenuously punish the Capitol rioters who forced lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to flee for their lives and "left more than 100 police officers injured and caused millions of dollars in damage."
Over 150 of the rioters have already entered guilty pleas, many of them related to the misdemeanor crime of entering a restricted federal building, with an estimated 270 of the fans of the former president being slammed with a provision found in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
According to the report, "prosecutors searched for tools to elevate some of the cases beyond the misdemeanor charges often applied for unruly but far less momentous Capitol protests. They turned to a provision in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, enacted after the accounting-fraud scandal and collapse of Enron, which imposes a potential 20-year sentence on those convicted of obstructing an 'official proceeding.' The measure expanded what counts as obstruction and closed loopholes used by people involved in the Enron fraud," the Journal is reporting.
The report notes that attorneys for a few of the accused insurrectionists have attempted to "poke holes" in the charges but to no avail so far, leading to plea bargaining due to the threat of extended jail time.
"Prosecutors have offered to drop additional charges for some of the rioters if they plead guilty to that count and accept a punishment that would likely involve more than three years in prison. Several have taken that deal, with at least two sentenced to date along those lines. Others have rejected those conditions—specifically the enhanced sentence requirements—and are opting instead to go to trial, " the Journal is reporting. "Many rioters who face that charge have argued in court filings that the law is meant to apply to obstructing pending investigations—where it has commonly been used—rather than an event like the certification of the electoral votes, which some of the defendants described as a pro forma event that was 'ceremonial or ministerial.'"
According to former U.S. Attorney Ben Glassman, he thinks the charge is perfectly legitimate in light of the crime.
“I do think the charge makes sense under the circumstances, but I also think it’s necessarily novel, because these facts haven’t arisen before,” he explained.
Judges overseeing the cases seem to agree.
"The term ‘official proceeding’…means ‘a proceeding before the Congress,’ ” noted U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who, the Journal reports, "is overseeing one of the most high-profile cases to stem from the riot against 17 people affiliated with the Oath Keepers militia."
Mehta added in his Dec 20 decision, "A straightforward reading of that definition easily reaches the Certification of the Electoral College vote."
The report adds, "Defense lawyers say they particularly object to prosecutors’ demands that defendants agree to the enhanced punishments under a plea deal that bump a sentence to 41 months or more, which they say is out of line with past cases."
https://www.rawstory.com/prosecutors-walloping-maga-rioters-with-novel-new-legal-charges/
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Have you seen these people? Here are some of the 350 insurrectionists the FBI is still looking for
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It has been a year since President Donald Trump's supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol and attempted to assassinate Vice President Mike Pence.
While the FBI said that they've arrested 725 people they linked to the attack, there are still 350 more that the FBI has identified that are still at large.
According to videos and photos they have collected from the day, these people are among the final chunk of people who have been able to evade arrest by laying low and none of the people in their lives turning them in.
Thus far there have been 165 guilty pleas and the punishments vary from probation to years in prison depending on the level of the offense and previous criminal behavior.
You can see the list of photos that the FBI has of attackers they're still searching for here.
Below you can find some of those that the FBI is still searching for:
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Trump served notice that there will be no hesitation on criminal referrals by Capitol riot committee chair
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During an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union," Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told host Dana Bash that the House select committee looking into the Jan 6th insurrection that he heads will not hesitate to ask for criminal, charges against former president Donald Trump.
Pressed by the CNN host whether he believes the former president engaged in criminal conduct, the Mississippi Democrat kept his cards close to his vest and divulged little, but said criminal charges would certainly be warranted based on what the committee discovers.
"Well, we don't know," he stated when asked about the possibility of Trump criminality before adding, "We're in the process of trying to get all the information. But I can say if there's anything that we come up on as a committee that we think would warrant a referral to the Department of Justice, we'll do that."
"That's our oath as members of Congress," elaborated. "So it's not just that. It's any of the other things we're looking at, if there's any confidence on the part of our committee that something criminal we believe has occurred, we'll make the referral."
Watch below:
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Liz Cheney reveals Ivanka visited Donald Trump 'at least twice' on Jan. 6 to stop the violence
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Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka visited at least twice on Jan. 6, 2020 in an effort to stop the attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY).
During an interview on ABC, Cheney explained why the Jan. 6 Select Committee could consider criminal charges for Trump.
"We are learning much more about what former President Trump was doing while the violent assault was underway," Cheney told ABC host George Stephanopoulos. "The Committee has firsthand testimony now that he was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television as the assault on the Capitol occurred."
"The briefing room at the White House is just a mere few steps from the Oval Office," she continued. "The president could have at any moment walked those very few steps into the briefing room, gone on live television and told his supporters who were assaulting the Capitol to stop, he could have told them to stand down, he could have told them to go home and he failed to do so."
Cheney said that there was "no question" that Trump's failure to act was a "dereliction of duty."
"But I think it's also important for the American people to understand how dangerous Donald Trump was," she asserted. "We know, as he was sitting there in the dining room next to the Oval Office, members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television, to tell people to stop. We know Leader [Kevin] McCarthy was pleading with him to do that."
"We know members of his family," she added, "we know his daughter -- we have firsthand testimony that his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence. Any man who would not do so, any man who would provoke a violent assault on the Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, any man who would watch television as police officers were being beaten, as his supporters were invading the Capitol of the United States is clearly unfit for future office, clearly can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again."
Watch the video below from ABC:
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Capitol rioters' excuses 'imploding' as judges begin 'the punishment phase': report
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According to a report from the Associated Press, accused Capitol rioters are finding their own boasts, excuses and actions coming back to haunt them as they face sentencing for participating in the Jan 6th insurrection.
As the courts move on from simple cases where the charges are limited to simple trespassing, accused insurrectionists are finding that their explanations for why they were in the Capitol building after storming through the doors are not swaying federal judges.
As AP's Michael Kunzelman wrote, "Judges are hearing tearful expressions of remorse — and a litany of excuses — from rioters paying a price for joining the Jan. 6 insurrection, even as others try to play down the deadly attack on a seat of American democracy," before adding, "The Justice Department's investigation of the riot has now entered the punishment phase."
With over 700 Jan 6th riot participants having already been charged, the report notes that the most serious cases are just now finding their way to the courtrooms.
"Among the most serious charges are against far-right extremist group members accused of plotting attacks to obstruct Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election. Their cases haven’t yet gone to trial," Kunzelman explained. "The rioters' refrains before the judges are often the same: They were caught up in the moment or just following the crowd into the Capitol. They didn’t see any violence or vandalism. They thought police were letting them enter the building. They insist they went there to peacefully protest."
Judges, he notes, aren't buying it so far.
"Their excuses often implode in the face of overwhelming evidence. Thousands of hours of videos from surveillance cameras, mobile phones and police body cameras captured them reveling in the mayhem. Many boasted about their crimes on social media in the days after the deadly attack," he reported while noting that Judge Amy Berman Jackson told one defendant, "No one was swept away to the Capitol. No one was carried. The rioters were adults.”
The report adds, "Many other prominent cases remain unresolved. Dozens of people linked to extremist groups have been charged with conspiring to carry out coordinated attacks on the Capitol, including more than 20 defendants tied to the anti-government Oath Keepers and at least 16 connected to the far-right Proud Boys. At least five people associated with the Oath Keepers have pleaded guilty. At least one Proud Boys member has pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. None of them has been sentenced yet."
https://www.yahoo.com/now/capitol-rioters-tears-remorse-dont-050926360.html
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Trump and his supporters still repeating lies about who was behind Jan. 6 MAGA riot
According to NPR's Tom Bowman, the enduring myth that it was outsider agitators who were behind the Capitol riot that followed the "Stop the Steal" rally continues to this day even though it is patently false.
And he should know -- because he was there.
As NPR's Lauren Hodges writes, Bowman described what he saw and heard that day and -- going back and speaking with fans of Donald Trump -- found that they and the former president are still trying to whitewash what happened that day.
According to Bowman, "Some Trump supporters were singing YMCA but using the letters M-A-G-A," at the 'Save America"' rally, however, "things were different at the Capitol building, where I was standing with Hannah Allam, NPR's extremism reporter. The far-right group the Proud Boys had just shown up and were organizing a crowd to head for the rally. We had quietly embedded ourselves with them as they began to walk west on Pennsylvania Avenue."
Arriving nearer the Capitol, Bowman stated he spoke with one man who identified himself as "Joe from Ohio," and asked him what the plan was.
With a replica gallows being built on the Capitol grounds, Joe stated, "The people in this house, who stole this election from us, hanging from a gallows out here in this lawn for the whole world to see, so it never happens again. That's what needs to happen. Four by four by four, hanging from a rope out here for treason."
Natalie O'Brien of Detroit explained her reason for being there, claiming, "The Republic is falling. And becoming corrupt and unmanageable. And our vote not mattering at all whatsoever. Our tax dollars pay for this monument. This is kind of our property."
As NPR's Hodges notes, "Months later, Tom Bowman and I went back to the Capitol grounds in Sept. for the 'Justice for J6' rally. A lot of the people we spoke to had also been there on Jan. 6. And yet, they were echoing the story they had heard on Fox News."
According to Phil from Kentucky, "Those weren't Trump supporters," with Janie from South Carolina adding, "... she saw members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter committing the violence. She also claimed the Trump supporters were actually trying to fight them off. But when we mentioned we were on site that day, she admitted that she never actually came close enough to the Capitol to see any violence," according to Hodges.
With Trump still repeating the lie that it was outsiders who were responsible for the violence, the attorney for several of the Capitol insurgents said his clients have seen the light.
Tampa Bay attorney Bjorn Brunvand explained one of his clients, "...believed in the lies that were being professed by former President Trump and his accomplices," but now knows he was duped.
"It went from 100% support for President Trump and the idea that the election was fraudulent at the beginning ... to the recognition that he was misled. He's sitting in a detention facility here in Washington, D.C. and this big powerful former president who said 'meet me at the Capitol', he's too busy playing golf and has no interest in any of the guys that have been arrested," he explained.
As for Trump, Brunvand added, "Not only did he not show up, he's not there for anyone who were there and supposedly were there to save democracy and save the country. When in fact, they were doing quite the opposite."
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-16-lies/
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Jim Jordan looking at 'jail time' if he defies Capitol riot committee: former US attorney
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During an appearance on MSNBC's "The Sunday Show," former U.S. Attorney Barabra McQuade agreed with host Jonathan Capehart that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) doesn't "have a leg to stand on" if he defies the House select committee and refuses to talk if they subpoena him.
Stating it would be "unprecedented" McQuade said Jordan could nonetheless end up in jail while talking about the lawmaker and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who could also be subpoenaed
"You know, the word unprecedented is sometimes overused I think in these days," the former Justice Department official told the host. "But this is absolutely a situation that's unprecedented, subpoenaing a member of Congress. As a professional courtesy, they have first been requested to come forward, but if they continue to refuse, Chairman [Bennie] Thompson (D-MS) said they will use subpoenas if necessary."
"I imagine they will fight them, you know, asserting some of the same legal arguments we heard from others," she continued. "But I think, if Congress wants this information, there is nothing in the law that prohibits them from issuing subpoenas to fellow members of Congress."
Focusing on Jordan after watching a clip of him admitting he spoke with former president Donald Trump, the smirking McQuade added, "Well, I think at some point if he continues to fight, then the committee will demand that he come by issuing a subpoena. At that point his options are to be held in contempt, which can include jail time if he is prosecuted for that crime; so the same path that we have seen for Steve Bannon. So I think it is going to be difficult for him to manage, because unlike Steve Bannon, he's an elected official."
"At some point I think his refusal to testify could impact his candidacy down the road," she added. "Of course, he represents a base that perhaps would see that sort of defiance as being more attractive rather than less attractive. He's clearly somebody who has information. I think if I put somebody on the stand with that kind of evasive answer, I would use that as evidence of consciousness of guilt. I want to know what they discussed that day, before that day, and after that day."
Watch below:
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Capitol police ‘probably 400 officers down’ as Jan 6th riot anniversary looms: report
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As the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol looms over America, Capitol Police are warning of increased threats and overburdened officers.
"...while leaders feel readier today than they did on Jan. 5, no one is rushing to declare the threat has passed," POLITICO reported.
“The last thing that I want to do is say, ‘this could never happen again’ and have it sound like a challenge to those people,” Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger told POLITICO. Manger took over the department in August after his predecessor's ouster following the siege. “I’m not trying to be overconfident. We are much better prepared.”
The U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6 resulted in upward of 150 police officers wounded and four rioters dead. Additionally, several officers died by suicide following the riots and another officer succumbed to a stroke.
POLITICO reported that "Capitol Police officers remain overtaxed and exhausted, logging crushing amounts of overtime as they grapple with a depleted force. Threats against members of Congress are still spiking. A Sept. 18 rally to support certain insurrectionists drew an overwhelming police presence that dwarfed the smattering of demonstrators, raising questions about an overcorrection and quality of intelligence."
Manger revealed that 135 officers have retired or resigned since the Jan. 6 riots. The force is “probably 400 officers down from where we should be.”
“My concern about the Capitol Police is that we're making them work too hard and too long,” Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the top Republican on the Senate committee that oversees Capitol security, told reporters recently. “And we need to figure out a way to shift some of those responsibilities ... or to figure out a way to recruit more people.”
Could Jan. 6 happen again?
The Capitol Police has made progress under a new chief. But many on the Hill don't have an easy answer.
Could it happen again?
That’s the question facing policymakers and law enforcement leaders who've spent the last year assessing the failures in their response to Jan. 6, 2021.
As they cope with the searing trauma in their own ranks, they’ve tried to patch flaws in Capitol security exposed by the attack — inspired by former President Donald Trump — that wounded more than 150 police officers and left four rioters dead. Another officer died of a stroke after responding to the riot, and several more died by suicide in the ensuing weeks.
But the political blight that contributed to the attack has only worsened, inside and outside the Capitol. So while leaders feel readier today than they did on Jan. 5, no one is rushing to declare the threat has passed.
“The last thing that I want to do is say, ‘this could never happen again’ and have it sound like a challenge to those people,” said Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger, who took over the department in August after his predecessor's ouster following the siege. “I’m not trying to be overconfident. We are much better prepared.”
The story of that preparation is only partially written, though. Capitol Police officers remain overtaxed and exhausted, logging crushing amounts of overtime as they grapple with a depleted force. Threats against members of Congress are still spiking. A Sept. 18 rally to support certain insurrectionists drew an overwhelming police presence that dwarfed the smattering of demonstrators, raising questions about an overcorrection and quality of intelligence.
And with the atmosphere under the dome as personally corrosive as ever, it's tough to say the Capitol has moved forward from Jan. 6. Many of those who fled from or responded to the violence are indelibly scarred.
“My concern about the Capitol Police is that we're making them work too hard and too long,” Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, the top Republican on the Senate committee that oversees Capitol security, told reporters recently. “And we need to figure out a way to shift some of those responsibilities ... or to figure out a way to recruit more people.”
Manger says 135 officers have retired or resigned since Jan. 6, and the force as a whole is “probably 400 officers down from where we should be.”
The chair of the House select panel on Jan. 6, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), recently took stock of the challenges facing the Capitol during a police-led tour of sites breached by rioters.
“I am more confident, given what occurred on Jan. 6 of last year, that if something like that occurred this time, the likelihood of anything close [happening again] would be zero," Thompson said in an interview. "The only question is whether or not we have put our intelligence gathering entities on a sharing path ... It was the worst-kept secret in America that something was going to happen, and why our agencies did not pick it up in real-time and be better prepared is one of those weaknesses we have to make sure we fix."
What has changed...
Manger can claim a number of notable improvements in preparation since he took charge.
Every Capitol Police officer now carries a department-issued phone that provides real-time emergency alerts. The phones address what became a crippling problem on Jan. 6: A flood of radio traffic that drowned out key messages and left officers feeling leaderless during the fighting.
The department’s riot control unit, singled out as deficient on Jan. 6, now has more diverse “non-lethal” gear to help with crowd control. Its intelligence analysts now regularly share threat assessments with rank-and-file officers, after many of those officers lamented that their leaders never informed them of prior intelligence about the potential for violence at the Capitol.
Wes Schwark, an operational planning expert who organized Secret Service security during major events, is now on board. Congress gave the department a needed $100 million cash infusion over the summer.
With little fanfare, Congress also passed — and President Joe Biden signed — legislation giving the Capitol Police chief the unilateral authority to seek National Guard assistance, eliminating a hurdle that delayed a request for help on Jan. 6, 2021. Thompson pointed to this policy change and noted the new leadership not just at the U.S. Capitol Police but also in the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms, who are responsible for coordinating security for their respective sides of the Capitol.
Manger's also working to beef up Capitol Police coordination with other law enforcement agencies. When intelligence pointed to violence at the Capitol during September's protest in support of some alleged Jan. 6 rioters, he brought together 13 agencies, conducted tabletop exercises and “planned for the worst.”
“The things that went wrong on Jan. 6, the failures within this organization,” Manger said, “those have been fixed to a point where I don’t believe that you’d have the same outcome.”
However, the September protest proved minuscule. And some lawmakers skeptically eyed that day's overwhelming law enforcement presence.
“I don't believe we're in any better security posture today than we were on Jan. 5,” said Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee. "I think there's still way too much politics involved in security decisions."
Davis pointed to the mismatch between the security posture near the Capitol on Sept. 18 and the scale of the event that took place as a sign that the Capitol Police has more work to do on analyzing its intelligence.
...and what still needs attention
Manger expects the department will have investigated more than 9,000 potential threats against members of Congress since Jan. 6, a tenfold increase since 2016. He attributes the increase to a cauldron of animosity fueled by social media.
“We definitely need to add staffing to fulfill that responsibility,” Manger said, lamenting “the dynamics of social media and, I think, the lack of civility that a lot of folks have. And just the toxic culture.”
He'll face questions during a Wednesday Senate hearing about other challenges, including whether the Capitol Police has done enough to implement the post-Jan. 6 recommendations of its inspector general.
“[T]he Department still has more work to achieve the goal of making the Capitol Complex safe and secure,” independent watchdog Michael Bolton told senators recently.
Bolton issued monthly reports throughout 2021, identifying problems that hurt the Capitol Police's response to the riot. In addition to insufficient deployment of non-lethal weaponry, a problem Manger has tackled, the inspector general found the department's leaders lacking a cohesive emergency plan. Its intelligence division was threadbare and ill-prepared.
More fundamentally, Bolton wants the Capitol Police to function more like a protective agency — akin to the Secret Service — than a police department. Of the 104 recommendations delivered by his office, the Capitol Police has only fully implemented one-third so far, he told senators. (Manger says Bolton’s tally doesn’t include the fact that another 60 recommendations are substantially, if not fully, complete.)
The inspector general isn't alone in evaluating the Capitol Police's still-unfinished progress on incorporating the lessons from a brutal year. The Jan. 6 select committee, though its primary focus is on Trump and his network, is also eyeing recommendations to protect the Capitol campus.
An outside review ordered by House Democratic leaders, as well as a bipartisan Senate investigation, culminated in more sets of suggested reforms last year. One small but meaningful proposed shift became law last month — it allows a Capitol Police chief to request National Guard assistance without going through the department's oft-criticized board structure.
From inside the Capitol?
While GOP lawmakers have lambasted a few Democrats for suggesting that Republicans gave rioters "reconnaissance" tours or other help, a claim for which no evidence has emerged, the Capitol Police has reckoned with misdeeds in its own ranks. Some officers were seen fist-bumping or taking selfies with people who breached the Capitol, and the department substantiated a handful of the three dozen-plus misconduct reports it investigated.
More significantly, 25-year Capitol Police officer Michael Riley was indicted for attempting to help a rioter erase evidence. That rioter rejected his advice and helped the FBI bring charges against Riley.
Bolton recommended that all officers obtain secret- or top secret-level security clearances, which involve extensive background checks. The inspector general said this would raise the caliber of recruits and guard against potential insider threats; department leaders resisted the move.
Manger told POLITICO that Bolton’s goal may be worthy, but it’s premature and not universally necessary as the department struggles to fill open positions.
“If we require every officer to have a security clearance, we’re slowing down that process,” Manger said, adding that the department conducts comprehensive vetting during hiring.
Possible insider threats, Manger said, aren't considered "a huge problem.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/03/could-january-6th-happen-again-526167
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Jan. 6 panel moving closer to establishing Trump's state of mind during Capitol riot
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Congressional investigators are getting closer to building a case for Donald Trump's state of mind during the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) revealed the House select committee has "firsthand testimony" that Ivanka Trump asked her father to call off his supporters from storming the U.S. Capitol, and chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) says the panel has "significant testimony" that the White House was asked to intervene, but the former president waited nearly three hours before half-heartedly urging the rioters to go home.
"Just think about this, his daughter Ivanka asked him twice to do something and intervene to stop the riots, Don Jr. sending frantic texts asking for somebody to do something to stop the riot," said host Joe Scarborough. "Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans begging him to do anything to stop the violence. They thought their lives were in danger and, of course, several of them, including Kevin McCarthy, going on the House floor afterwards blaming Donald Trump for the violence."
MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire said the situation revealed how hollowed out the White House staff was in the final days of Trump's presidency, and he said the House panel was moving closer toward establishing evidence of the twice-impeached one-term president's thoughts about the riot being carried out on his behalf.
"Let's also recall when they finally were able to move the president to release a video he would push out in a tweet, he wouldn't do that," Lemire said. "He was indeed in that private dining room just off the Oval Office, he liked to brag about the 'super Tivo' setup he had and he was watching live footage and sort of cheering on the protesters. They finally got him outside to the Rose Garden to cut a few videos. The first three efforts, we've now learned, he didn't really urge people to go home, he sort of saluted the protesters' efforts at the Capitol. It took until, like, the fourth or fifth take before he finally told them to leave. He even, while doing so, said he loved them."
"So we know the committee is also trying to get its hands on those first few cuts of the video, the unreleased versions, thinking it will also help build the case of the president's state of mind on Jan. 6," Lemire added.
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'Bad news for Donald Trump' as House riot committee acquires 'direct knowledge' of White House doings: CNN
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According to CNN's Jamie Gangel, the decision by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to divulge information about what the House select committee investigating the January 6th riot has acquired so far is "bad news for Donald Trump."
Speaking with hosts Jim Sciutto and Bianna Golodryga, Gangel explained that the Wyoming Republican's words were intended as a "warning" that White House insiders are turning on the ex-president.
On Sunday, Cheney told ABC News, "The Committee has firsthand testimony now that he was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television as the assault on the Capitol occurred."
Asked to explain Cheney's motivation to go public, Gangel stated, "First of all, let's put it out there : this is bad news for Donald Trump."
"In addition to what Congresswoman Cheney said, a person with knowledge of the investigation has told me the January 6th committee has information from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge," she added. "So not just one source, and that these sources describe what the president was saying, doing and not doing during the riot."
"The source said 'there's a collection of people with relevant information.' Translation? Firsthand indicates someone with direct contact or knowledge," she elaborated. "It could be someone who is in the room, someone on the phone, someone with direct firsthand information. Bottom-line? The committee has broken through Trump's wall."
Watch below:
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'Seditious conspiracy charges in play' for Trump after damning House committee revelations: former US attorney
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Appearing on MSNBC on Monday morning, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said new revelations about what was going on in Donald Trump's White House seem to indicate that sedition charges are being considered by the House committee investigators.
Speaking with host Andrea Mitchell, the former federal prosecutor explained that damning comments made by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) over the weekend seem to indicate expanded possibilities for prosecuting the former president.
"Congresswoman Cheney was saying that there are several criminal statutes in play as to whether or not there could be some enhanced penalties or some issue regarding the former president's actions that day," host Mitchell prompted. "What laws do you think could be used against the former president if it's approved that he was criminally negligent by not calling off the rioters or do you think new laws would have to be enacted?"
"No, I think there are current laws on the books that could be applied there," McQuade began. "I don't know that negligence alone is going to be enough, but as Congresswoman Cheney has recited on occasion, there is a crime making it illegal to corruptly impede or obstruct an official proceeding, which includes proceedings before Congress. If he [Trump] had the power to stop that riot from happening and to permit the vote to go forward, his failure to do that could be that effort to corruptly obstruct the official proceeding. It may be, you know."
She continued, "We've got this 187 minutes when he sat and did nothing despite the fact that he knew that this violence and destruction was occurring. Is it because it was all part of a larger plan? So I think, in addition to that obstruction statute that Congresswoman Cheney has mentioned, I think we could also look at conspiracy to defraud the United States -- that just means trying to impede the normal functioning of government -- all the way up to seditious conspiracy. I think all of those potential crimes are in play."
Watch below:
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-sedition-charges-2656210804/
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'The committee has broken through Trump's wall' and knows exactly what he did during riot: CNN's Jamie Gangel
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CNN reporter Jamie Gangel on Monday said that the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots has gained direct testimony describing former President Donald Trump's actions as he watched his supporters storm the Capitol.
Speaking with host Jake Tapper, Gangel broke down what sources have been telling her about testimony the committee has secured.
"The source said, quote, there's a collection of people with relevant information," she said. "Translation, Jake: 'Firsthand' indicates the committee is now hearing from people with direct knowledge. It could be someone who was in the room, someone on the phone, but these are people with firsthand information. I would say, bottom line, Jake, this means the committee has broken through Trump's wall."
Trump had indicted to top allies such as Mark Meadows and Steve Bannon that he did not want them cooperating with the committee, but it seems that the committee has nonetheless gathered testimony from other Trump officials to create a full picture of the president's actions during the riots.
During her talk with Tapper, Gangel elaborated on one potential witness who could have given the committee significant information.
"One witness that we know of who has given a deposition to the committee is Keith Kellogg," she said. "He was former vice president Mike Pence's national security adviser who happened to be with Trump in the White House on January 6th when the riot was going on."
Watch the video below:
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Liz Cheney 'has the goods' on Trump and doesn't need Bannon or Meadows to comply: reporter
MSNBC's Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman explained that Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) doesn't need former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows or Trump ally Steve Bannon to testify to have the information necessary to sink former President Donald Trump.
Speaking to "Deadline White House" host Nicolle Wallace, Sherman made it clear that Cheney is making other Republicans "uncomfortable" because of the amount of evidence she and the Select Committee on Jan. 6 has and who they will expose.
"I would say even more than uncomfortable, what Cheney is doing -- and by the way, let's address the [Kevin] McCarthy dynamic," Sherman began. "Liz Cheney and Kevin McCarthy couldn't like each other less. He forced her out of the leadership. She thinks McCarthy is a stooge, she's said as much publicly. And McCarthy sees her as a hot dog, someone doing this for the attention. Clearly, there is no love lost between either one of those people."
He went on to say that what she's doing is showing that people are cooperating with the committee, and that the number of people who are resisting subpoenas are very few.
He went on to say that Trump's White House aides have been more than willing to come forward with information. So whatever information Meadows is holding back, the chances are, Cheney and the committee already has it.
"What is interesting to me is who is actually participating without getting subpoenaed," he explained. "And I know some of it has become public, ... but there are many White House aides, many of them, from the Trump era, who are talking to the committee voluntarily because they don't think they did any wrong and they are willing to participate and talk about what they think Donald Trump did wrong on those days. So, those dynamics here are really, really interesting. And she's showing that — in my estimation — that she has the goods and it doesn't much matter if these people defy subpoenas."
See the full discussion below:
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Hack Hannity is in the hot seat!
'More than a Fox host': Adam Schiff explains why the committee wants to hear from Sean Hannity
https://www.rawstory.com/hannity-capitol-riot/
Sean Hannity called to testify to Jan. 6 committee
Informal adviser to former President Donald Trump and Fox News host Sean Hannity is among those being called by the House Select Committee on the Capitol attack, reported Axios Tuesday.
It was reported in 2018 by the Washington Post that Trump would speak so frequently with Hannity that "he basically has a desk in the [White House]." One senior aide even went so far as to sarcastically claim that Hannity was the "real chief of staff." So, when the attack on the Capitol happened, the Fox host was among the voices that tried to reach Trump.
In a speech before the House, Committee co-chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) noted that on Jan. 6, "multiple Fox News hosts knew the president needed to act immediately. They texted Mark Meadows, and he has turned over those texts." Those hosts were Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade.
Hannity told Meadows that Trump should "make a statement" and "ask people to leave the Capitol." When the facts became known, Hannity then cried that it was part of a "smear campaign" against him.
Kilmeade begged Meadows "please get him on TV." He even went so far as to say that the attack was "destroying everything you have accomplished."
“If true, any such request would raise serious constitutional issues including First Amendment concerns regarding freedom of the press," said said Jay Sekulow, who is acting as Hannity's lawyer.
Read the full report at Axios:
https://www.axios.com/jan-6-committee-sean-hannity-d454ed9f-bec1-4d72-a160-6d742f3c3cb5.html
Hannity's texts show a broader 'betrayal' of Trump as the riot surged around him: CNN analyst
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On Tuesday's edition of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," correspondent Jamie Gangel outlined how the Sean Hannity texts obtained by the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack reveal the breakdown and disunity in Trump's inner circle as events unfolded.
"What have we learned from these new text messages?" asked Cooper.
"This is bad news for Donald Trump," said Gangel. "These texts show Sean Hannity, Mark Meadows having exchanges that are, in effect, a betrayal. They are talking behind his back. And just for context, I want to point out what the committee's letter says at the top. They say that — to Hannity — quote, 'You seemed to have advance knowledge regarding President Trump's and his legal team's planning.' That he was, quote, 'providing advice,' and that he had relevant communications while the riot was underway. That these communications make you, Hannity, quote, 'a fact witness.'"
"It appears that Hannity may be talking to the White House counsel, Anderson," added Gangel. "But in any case, he understands and he's saying to Meadows that the pressure we know that Trump was putting on Mike Pence not to do the right thing on January 6th — this is evidence that the White House counsels were threatening to quit."
Watch below:
New Hannity texts revealed -- including one where he admits being 'very worried' one day before Jan. 6: CNN
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On Tuesday's edition of CNN's "The Lead," correspondent Jamie Gangel detailed the specific requests made in the House January 6 Committee letter to Fox News' Sean Hannity.
"They're asking him for voluntary cooperation," said Gangel. "And it's based on the fact that they say they have a series of texts, multiple texts from him to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, as well as other members of the White House staff ... they say to Hannity that it indicates that he had, quote, 'Advanced knowledge regarding President Trump's and his legal team's planning for January 6th.' It goes on to say that it appears Hannity was, quote, 'Expressing concerns and providing advice to the president and certain White House staff regarding the planning.' It goes on to say that Sean Hannity, quote, 'Also had relevant communications while the riot was underway, and in the days thereafter,' and that, quote, 'The communications make you a fact witness in our investigation.'"
"Within the letter, they have released a number of text messages," continued Gangel. "They refer to a text message on January 5th. This would be, obviously, the night before the riot. And they say, 'On January 5th, the night before the violent riot, you sent and received a stream of texts. You wrote, quote, 'I am very worried about the next 48 hours.'' With the counting of the electoral votes scheduled for January 6th at 1:00 p.m., this is now the committee saying to Hannity, why were you concerned about the next 48 hours?"
"I think it gives you a sense of two things," Gangel added. "One is while they say in the letter that they have the utmost respect for the First Amendment, they feel that Sean Hannity has relevant information that does not interfere with the First Amendment, and it's also obvious from their letter that they have, it would seem, dozens if not more email exchanges in this critical period of time."
Watch below:
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Girlfriend of police officer who died after Jan. 6 says Trump 'needs to be in prison' for sparking Capitol riot
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The girlfriend of the Capitol Police officer who died after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 is speaking out, saying that former President Donald Trump should serve prison time for his alleged role in sparking the riot.
Speaking to PBS News Hour, Sandra Garza, who was in a relationship with Officer Brian D. Sicknick, said she wants to see justice for Sicknick, who suffered two strokes just hours after rioters attacked him with chemical spray. He was 42. The medical examiner ruled his death to be from natural causes.
“I hold Donald Trump 100 percent responsible for what happened on January 6 and all of the people that have enabled him, enabled him that day, and continue to enable him now,” said Garza.
“Personally, for me, I think he needs to be in prison. That is what I think," she said after referring to Trump as a horrible person.
Watch the video below:
https://www.rawstory.com/sandra-garza-2656216456/
Jan. 6 committee already has a smoking gun to force changes to election law: columnist
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The House select committee may already have enough evidence to push changes to the Electoral Count Act, which would undercut one of Donald Trump's arguments and possibly lead to penalties against him.
The twice-impeached one-term president's attorneys have argued the Jan. 6 investigation lacks a legitimate legislative purpose, but Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent argued that Rep. Liz Cheney has shown the panel has the "smoking gun" evidence they need to make changes to protect the electoral process.
"For weeks, Rep. Liz Cheney has hinted that the House select committee examining Jan. 6 might urge the Justice Department to consider prosecuting Donald Trump," Sargent wrote. "The grounds for this criminal referral might be that Trump obstructed the 'official proceeding' in which Congress counts presidential electors."
The Wyoming Republican says Trump stood by for more than two hours watching his supporters violently attack law enforcement as they tried to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden's election win, and Cheney accused the former president of inciting that crowd and ignored pleas from his family, White House staffers, lawmakers and media allies to call them off.
"Some comments from Cheney herself — and clarification I’ve now obtained from a Cheney spokesman — shed new light on where this is going," Sargent revealed. "The short version: It’s likely the committee will explore recommending changes to federal law to further clarify that obstructing the electoral count in Congress is a crime subject to stiff penalties."
Trump's failure was a "dereliction of duty," Cheney has publicly stated, and her spokesman made clear what legislative steps the committee was considering to hold him accountable and protect future elections.
“The committee will explore whether to make changes to current law to hold a future president accountable,” he told Sargent, without elaborating. “That’s part of the legislative purpose of the committee.”
The panel hasn't established, based on publicly known evidence, that Trump believed the violence would help him remain in power and that prevented him from intervening, but Sargent believes they will recommend changes to the law to make disrupting the electoral count a federal crime and introduce stiffer penalties.
"It will be interesting to see if Republicans will support strengthening the criminal code against disruption of the electoral count, and whether a certain pair of Democratic senators will support ending the filibuster to pass such a safeguard," Sargent wrote. "We may soon get answers to those questions. And they probably won’t be to our liking."
https://www.rawstory.com/electoral-county-act/
Merrick Garland should reveal any Jan. 6 probe of Trump to restore 'public confidence': MSNBC analyst
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Attorney General Merrick Garland should use his planned speech about Jan. 6 on Wednesday to indicate that his office is investigating all responsible parties, including former President Donald Trump, according to former acting U.S. solicitor general Neal Katyal.
Katyal said he's been "very patient" with Garland, adding that no one was "more meticulous" or "more careful" as a judge.
"But I'm getting worried," Katyal said. "Nobody's asking Merrick Garland to get up in his speech tomorrow and announce indictments against Donald Trump and his pals. Merrick Garland is the attorney general; he is not Santa Claus. But we are all hoping for some reassurance from him that he's investigating all leads and all people who may be responsible. So that's what I want to hear tomorrow, and right now we've heard really crickets."
Katyal added that while Garland's Department of Justice has secured convictions against 275 "rank-and-file" Capitol rioters, there has been nothing but silence about "higher-ups." He said there are two main possibilities.
"One is that Garland is too scared of his shadow and he's doing nothing," Katyal said. "Or the other is that he's got a secret investigation, and we just don't know about it. And it's rare to think an investigation of this magnitude could be kept secret, but I suppose it's possible. The thing that concerns me is that the governing documents here, the U.S. Attorneys' Manuals, do say that when the public confidence requires an announcement of an investigation, it can be done, so we've heard silence in the teeth of what the U.S. Attorney's Manual says, and that to me is concerning."
Watch the full interview below:
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REVEALED: Jan. 6 committee has info on Trump aides discussing use of 25th Amendment to remove him
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In its letter requesting Fox News host Sean Hannity's testimony on Tuesday, the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection referenced efforts to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove former president Donald Trump from office.
According to the letter, Hannity sent chief of staff Mark Meadows a text message on Jan. 6 "relating to a potential effort by members of President Trump’s cabinet to remove him from office under the 25th Amendment."
"As you may recall, Secretaries DeVos and Chao both resigned following the President’s conduct on January 6th, as did members of the President’s White House staff," the committee wrote to Hannity. "We would like to question you regarding any conversations you had with Mr. Meadows or others about any effort to remove the President under the 25th Amendment."
CNN reporter Jamie Gangel addressed the letter's references to the 25th Amendment on Tuesday night.
"There is nothing that was put in this letter by accident, and that was mentioned very far down," Gangel said. "There was not a text (message) associated with it, but the words '25th Amendment' were repeated. And my understanding is that there is — we don't know, they didn't reveal texts there — but it appears the committee has information about conversations that were going on at the highest level about the 25th Amendment. And just to remind our audience ... we heard reporting that maybe some people in the cabinet thought Trump should be removed from office. The fact that the committee may have information about that will also speak, once again, to Trump's state of mind."
Watch below.:
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Three more cops sue Trump for inciting MAGA riots that left them with 'physical and emotional injuries'
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Three more police officers are suing former President Donald Trump for the "physical and emotional injuries" they suffered as a result of the riots he incited at the United States Capitol building last year.
Politico reports that Capitol Officer Marcus Moore, who has spent the last decade on the force, filed a lawsuit in which he described "the intense terror of the day as he moved from his post at the Madison Building to the East Side of the Capitol and eventually into the House chamber, helping evacuate lawmakers to safety."
Moore is seeking damages against Trump, whom he says incited a riot that left him suffering from tinnitus, a condition that produces frequent ringing in a person's ear.
In a separate lawsuit filed against Trump, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officers Bobby Tabron and Dedevine Carter described "suffering physical assaults with poles, pepper spray and other projectiles, in addition to hand-to-hand violence," while also "seeking compensatory damages for their injuries," writes Politico.
Trump has sought to downplay the violence that his supporters inflicted upon police at the Capitol, and even falsely claimed that the MAGA rioters were "hugging and kissing" police who were guarding the building, when in reality they were beating them with blunt objects and attacking them with bear spray.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/04/police-officer-lawsuits-capitol-riot-trump-526491
FBI nabs Capitol rioter who said he was ‘involved with helping Lin Wood and Sidney Powell’
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Atlanta home contractor Matthew Jay Webler said that Jan. 6, 2021, was his best birthday ever. Now he's been charged for partaking in the riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
Court records show that Webler was recorded by multiple security cameras wearing a bright yellow jacket and a QAnon flag as cape, making him easy to spot.
In one selfie video he took inside the Capitol, he says, “It’s my birthday, and it’s the best one ever.” The video, which he posted to Facebook, is among other social media posts used as evidence by authorities.
“Biden called Jan 6 the worst domestic terror attack in our history. Here’s some of my footage,” Webler posted to Facebook in April after dozens of Capitol rioters had already been arrested. “Can you find the terror?”
'I have been involved with helping Lin Wood and Sidney Powell try find all the information that we can,” Webler said in the video published Dec. 28, 2020. He also claimed that he conducted overnight surveillance on what he said was a “official election warehouse.”
Webler has a criminal history which includes two prison terms in Georgia and totalling more than six years for charges related to burglary, aggravated assault and auto theft, and other crimes.
He faces four misdemeanor charges related to the Capitol riot, each carrying up to a year in prison.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-matthew-jay-webler/
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Jan. 6 investigator reveals how Sean Hannity has landed in House probe's crosshairs
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A member of the House select committee explained why Fox News host Sean Hannity has landed in the Jan. 6 investigation's crosshairs.
Congressional investigators have obtained text messages suggesting that Hannity was aware of and deeply concerned about Donald Trump's plans for the day Joe Biden would be certified as the 2020 election winner, and Rep. Jamie Raskin told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" why the panel has asked for the conservative broadcaster's voluntary cooperation in their probe.
"Sean Hannity is being, has become a figure of interest because he's a fact witness, obviously, to the planning that preceded both the attempt at a political coup on Jan. 6 and also, apparently, organizing for the insurrection," Raskin said. "Based on the evidence of the texts we've seen, it looks like he was very concerned about what was going to happen, and we just want to try to reconstruct the chronology of his involvement."
Raskin dismissed First Amendment concerns about Hannity's broadcast statements, saying investigators were only interested in his private communications with White House officials before and during the insurrection.
"Obviously, he is not a figure of interest because of whatever he may have said publicly, and we were clear it has nothing to do with any of his public pronouncements," Raskin said. "It all has to do with his role as a fact witness and player in these events."
The texts show Hannity was extremely concerned about the violence playing out at the U.S. Capitol and tried to urge Trump to call off his supporters, and they also show that he had advance knowledge of what might unfold on that day.
"That's why we want to bring him in, in order to get a statement in his own voice, but those are the bread crumbs we received, that he was concerned about where things were going," Raskin said. "Obviously, the president and his team were escalating their attacks on Mike Pence, their attacks on the election and the propagation of the 'Big Lie' in the days in advance. so anybody on the inside who was privy to their conversations, obviously, would have known about where they were headed in terms of both the inside attack on Pence, the attempt to destroy Joe Biden's majority in the Electoral College vote, but also the eliciting of violence and insurrectionary movement in the streets."
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REVEALED: Louie Gohmert's violent rhetoric was flagged by Capitol police 3 days before insurrection
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Three days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, Capitol police intelligence analysts warned of potential danger stemming from comments made by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).
The warning was part of a Special Event Assessment dated Jan. 3, 2021 — analyzing threats associated with Congress' impending vote on the certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6.
Politico's Betsy Woodruff Swan, who obtained a copy of the Special Event Assessment, reported Wednesday: "The Jan. 3 assessment noted that Gohmert had sued to try to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results. The assessment added that a federal judge had thrown out Gohmert’s suit."
Capitol police analysts wrote in the intelligence assessment: “In an interview Friday evening on pro-Trump news network Newsmax, Representative Gohmert claimed that letting the will of the voters stand would ‘mean the end of our republic, the end of the experiment in self-government. Representative Gohmert then seemed to encourage violence as a means to this end. ‘But bottom line is, the court is saying, ‘We’re not going to touch this. You have no remedy – basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you gotta go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM.’”
Later in the report, Capitol police intelligence analysts noted that the White House was actively helping to plan a rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6. And they warned that Trump supporters' "sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent."
At the time, Gohmert issued a statement claiming he had “not encouraged and unequivocally do not advocate for violence.”
A.J. Swinson, a spokesperson for Gohmert, alleged Wednesday that the intelligence assessment had taken the congressman's remarks out of context.
“Therefore, such an out of context statement promotes fake news, promotes injustice, and fails to note his ongoing advocacy as a former judge and appellate court Chief Justice," Swinson told Politico. "The institutions created to resolve disputes MUST have the courage to resolve the disputes they were created to resolve so our system can function peaceably.”
Appearing on MSNBC shortly after her story broke, Woodruff Swan said the intelligence assessment also raised concerns about white supremacists and people with weapons endangering lawmakers and law enforcement officers on Jan. 6.
"The problem with comments like this is that not every person hearing them is the most sophisticated news consumer," Woodruff Swan said of Gohmert. "When you have lawmakers making comments along the line of 'you've got to go out into the streets and be violent,' that's the kind of thing that worries people who are in the intelligence space, and it worried people in the Capitol police department just three days before this extraordinarily violent attack on the Capitol."
https://www.rawstory.com/louie-gohmert-2656239114/
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The right wing media is the cause for all the damage done in the United States today. For decades, they fueled the anger, racism, and hate that allowed the right wing base to become a deranged cult paving the way for Criminal Donald and these violent MAGA right wing extremists in Congress to have power. This same right wing media which is spreading outright COVID and vaccine lies to keep this pandemic going which is killing off their own supporters.
MAGA rioter's mother begs for leniency: His 'anger issues' were fueled by Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones
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On Wednesday, CBS News' Scott MacFarlane, the key correspondent covering the January 6 trials, reported that the mother of Jack Kostolsky -- an Allentown, Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty to unlawful picketing at the Capitol -- is begging the judge to show mercy — arguing that his mind was poisoned by far-right conspiracy theories.
"Somewhere along the way while in his 20's and living at his father's, Jackson became inspired by the far-right media," wrote his mother, noting that both she and his father are Democrats. "He was very influenced by Rush Limbaugh and, sadly, Alex Jones and his conspiracy theories. It seemed to fuel his anger issues. He believes everything Alex Jones has to say. Jack is what I believe to be a victim of the media."
Mother of Jan 6 defendant Jack Kostolsky of Allentown, PA writes judge seeking leniency at his sentencing Tuesday (Unlawful picketing plea)
She writes, "He was very influenced by Rush Limbaugh and sadly Alex Jones & his conspiracy theories. It seemed to fuel his anger issues"
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Jones, who has been deplatformed from most social media, is infamous for spreading violent antigovernment paranoia through his Infowars webcast, most notably the idea that the Sandy Hook mass shooting was staged with child actors — a claim that ultimately led to a devastating defamation suit.
A number of Capitol rioters have sought to defend their behavior by arguing that former President Donald Trump, or right-wing media personalities, convinced them to take action, although judges have broadly rejected these defenses.
https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-sentences-2656229144/
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Mike Lindell becomes latest target of Jan. 6 probe — but he's fighting a subpoena for his phone records
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MyPIllow CEO Mike Lindell says he's fighting a subpoena for his phone records from the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.
“I wasn’t there on January 6th and yes they did subpoena my phone records but we filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the January 6th committee and Verizon to completely invalidate this corrupt subpoena,” Lindell told CNBC on Wednesday.
Lindell say he filed the complaint in federal court in Minneapolis on Wednesday, on the eve for the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot.
"He said he received a notice from Verizon about the subpoena no more than 10 days ago and that he was informed the committee wanted his phone records from November through early January," CNBC reports. "Lindell is the latest Trump ally who is trying to use the legal system to block the release of his phone records. Former Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn, who was previously pardoned by the then-commander-in-chief after pleading guilty to federal charges, sued the committee after it subpoenaed his records. Former White House advisor Sebastian Gorka also filed a lawsuit in a similar effort."
Although Lindell denies any involvement in the Capitol insurrection, CNBC notes that multiple people have said the MyPillow CEO met with other Trump allies at the former president's DC hotel on Jan. 5, 2021.
Lindell also sponsored the Women for America First bus tour, which culminated in Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally on the Ellipse prior to the insurrection. And he has admitted to staying in touch with Trump's Stop the Steal attorneys, including Sidney Powell, after the election.
"Lindell was pictured leaving the White House days after the attack on the Capitol," CNBC reports. "The papers carried by Lindell partially read 'martial law if necessary.'”
https://www.rawstory.com/mike-lindell-2656237917/
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Fox News has a big Jan. 6 problem
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Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the Capitol insurrection and attempted coup of the U.S. government by former president Donald Trump. There was a time not long ago when everything about that sentence would have made us laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. Nobody's laughing now.
Trump was apparently persuaded by his advisers to cancel his scheduled press conference for Jan. 6 after seeing that he would not get live coverage on all the networks to spread the Big Lie and excuse the violent mob that stormed the capitol a year ago vowing to hang Vice President Mike Pence. He promised to deliver that message to his loyal followers at a rally next weekend instead, drawing a huge sigh of relief from most Republican officials in Washington who just want to keep a low profile and put the unpleasantness behind them.
Unfortunately for them, however, it's not going away.
Trump will be talking about this for the rest of his life and the January 6th committee is revving up for several months of public hearings. Even some MAGA Republicans on Capitol Hill are determined to try to muddy the waters by dusting off their Benghazi playbook and holding their own "investigation" into why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was derelict in her duties by allowing hundreds of rabid Trump-voting fanatics to breach the Capitol that day.
On Tuesday, committee chairs, Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Liz Cheney R-Wy., released a letter they sent to Fox News host Sean Hannity in which they revealed that they had many text messages from him to high-level members of the White House staff in the run-up to January 6th. They ostensibly want Hannity to cooperate with the committee, but I doubt that there is any expectation that he will. This seemed more likely to be a notice to anyone who ever texted people in the White House during this period that the committee probably has them and intends to make them public. And it will almost certainly cause more dissension in Trumpworld. Meadows is already on thin ice. Now Hannity's backchannel "concerns", as Thompson and Cheney put it, about what Trump and his cronies were up to before and after January 6th leave him at odds with the president, who very likely had no idea that Hannity was pressing his staff to stop him from doing what he did.
Hannity's lawyer issued a statement saying they were examining the letter and had First Amendment concerns. However, his texts indicate that he was acting as an adviser to the president and comparing what he said privately to what he was saying on the air at the time, it's quite clear that he wasn't acting as any kind of journalist. It will be interesting to see if his bosses at Fox News have a problem with one of their stars brazenly lying to their audience. (Yeah, never mind. They won't.)
The committee homed in on just the period between December 31 and January 20th when Trump finally left office. They mention a text to Meadows in which Hannity said:
"We can't lose the entire WH counsels office. I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told. After the 6 th. He should announce will lead the nationwide effort to reform voting integrity. Go to Fl and watch Joe mess up daily. Stay engaged. When he speaks people will listen."
It's impossible to know for sure what he meant by "January 6th happening the way he is being told" but according to a number of accounts this was when Trump's henchmen were hatching their plot to have Republicans in Congress object to the electoral count and have Pence throw the election to the House of Representatives where Trump would win despite losing through legitimate means. In other words, the coup was being planned. And apparently, the White House counsel's office knew it was illegal and was threatening to quit en masse over it, or at least that's the suspicion based upon what Hannity was texting.
Hannity was obviously very much in the loop inside the upper echelons of the White House and knew all about the discussions to put the heat on Pence. On January 5th he wrote to Meadows "Pence pressure, WH counsel will leave." On the night before the insurrection he wrote, "I'm very worried about the next 48 hours" which prompted the committee to ask, "why?" — which is a very good question. Surely he couldn't have foreseen the violent insurrection. But was Hannity worried that the entire administration would resign? Massive protests? It would be very interesting to know, although I doubt we ever will.
The letter suggests there are other texts which indicate that Hannity spoke with Trump personally that night as well as others. I have a sneaking suspicion that he didn't express his "concerns" quite as openly with Trump. Nobody does that. No, this was Hannity wringing his hands with the chief of staff and others in the White House while he put on a happy face with Trump and his MAGA-crazed audience.
After Trump's egregious performance on that day, which will live in infamy, and in the days after, Hannity once more proved that he was anything but a member of the press when he texted Meadows and Trump sycophant Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, worried about what Trump might do before the inauguration:
"Guys, we have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days. He can't mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I'm not sure what is left to do or say, and I don't like not knowing if it's truly understood. Ideas?"
Trump responded to that on Thursday night, telling Kaitlin Collins of CNN, "I disagree with Sean on that statement and the facts are proving me right." Actually, they are not.
As I said, I don't think Hannity will cooperate and there's no doubt that there will be much shrieking and caterwauling about the freedom of the press and Hannity's sources being revealed. But Meadows is the one who turned over the texts and Hannity never reported any of this. In fact, this was what he was sharing with his audience which he was clutching his pearls behind the scenes:
Hannity privately on 1/5: "I'm very worried about the next 48 hours"
Hannity on Fox on 1/5: "Big day tomorrow, big crowds" and "this all kicks off in the morning tomorrow"
The Committee is seeking information from Sean Hannity.
Chair @BennieGThompson and Vice Chair @RepLizCheney request Hannity answer questions about matters including communications between Hannity and the former President, Mark Meadows, and others in the days surrounding Jan 6th.
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Every day we hear new evidence about the attempted coup and insurrection of January 6th and there's every reason to believe that the next few months will offer even more. It is simply astonishing that this happened in America in 2021. But even more astonishing than that is the fact that after all that (and everything that came before) Donald Trump is still the most popular and influential Republican in the country and is overwhelmingly favored to win the nomination for president in 2024. The man plotted a coup and incited a violent insurrection and he didn't lose any voters. No wonder he just keeps spewing the Big Lie. It works. And I have no doubt that Sean Hannity will be at his side helping him do it.
IN OTHER NEWS: Watch what Sean Hannity was saying publicly while texting Trump allies in private.
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Jan. 6 committee has one crucial piece of evidence that hasn't been revealed yet
The House committee investigating the Capitol insurrection is sitting on potentially explosive details about former President Donald Trump's actions in the 187 minutes before he finally told rioters to "go home" on Jan. 6, 2021.
"It’s the timestamps, stupid," Politico reported Wednesday, noting that unlike the rest of us, the committee knows precisely when key text messages were sent.
For example, as the violent mob penetrated deeper into the Capitol, Trump posted a tweet at 2:24 p.m. attacking Vice President Mike Pence. Two minutes later, at 2:26 p.m., Trump called Rep. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) to encourage further challenges to the election results.
"But what occurred in the immediate moments before and after that phone call remains imprecise, at least to the public," Politico reported. "Precision on the timing and order of these exchanges is crucial. Did Donald Trump receive urgent pleas to call off the rioters before he decided to call Tuberville and ask him to continue challenging the election? Did he return to a single-minded focus on overturning his defeat even after his daughter Ivanka Trump attempted to prevail on him in the Oval Office?"
The public also doesn't know the exact timing of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's call to Trump, in which he pleaded with the former president to denounce the riot. "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are," Trump responded.
In addition to the timing of Ivanka Trump's visit to the Oval Office, the committee knows exactly when Donald Trump Jr. texted chief of staff Mark Meadows and urged him to get his father to "end this (spombleprofglidnoctobuns) ASAP."
"What time did Laura Ingraham warn Meadows that Trump was 'destroying his legacy' and needed to tell rioters to retreat?" Politico's Kyle Cheney asked. "What time did Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade make similar entreaties? ... When did Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) talk to Trump?"
Trump's video telling rioters to "go home" was released after 4 p.m., but reportedly was the third take.
The 1/6 question: Not what, but when
DELIVERED — It’s the timestamps, stupid.
Investigators, prosecutors and journalists have spent a year reconstructing the horror of Jan. 6 in granular, painstaking detail — unearthing eye-popping vignettes about a president obsessed with subverting his own defeat, and a mob willing to do his bidding at nearly any cost.
The evidence has been as voluminous as it has been devastating: President Donald Trump, glued to his television as violent supporters ransacked the Capitol, ignored increasingly frantic efforts by his aides and his own children to call off the assault. They believed his words would make a difference, but for hours, he refused to use them — and dozens of police officers paid for it in blood.
But as the Jan. 6 select committee scrounges for scraps of even more devastating evidence of Trump’s inaction, the most explosive details they may be sitting on could, on the surface, be the most mundane.
That’s because the committee, unlike the rest of us, knows precisely what time key texts were sent and urgent pleas went ignored. Where those messages fit in the already-known timeline of Trump’s movements on Jan. 6 could be among the panel’s more crucial findings.
We’ve long known, for example, that Trump sent a 2:24 p.m. tweet attacking Vice President Mike Pence, as the mob penetrated deeper into the Capitol: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” We also know Trump placed a 2:26 p.m. call to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) to encourage further challenges to the election results that could buy time to execute other elements of his plan.
But what occurred in the immediate moments before and after that phone call remains imprecise, at least to the public. Precision on the timing and order of these exchanges is crucial. Did Donald Trump receive urgent pleas to call off the rioters before he decided to call Tuberville and ask him to continue challenging the election? Did he return to a single-minded focus on overturning his defeat even after his daughter Ivanka Trump attempted to prevail on him in the Oval Office?
Until now, those episodes have been described largely in isolation and without an exact relationship to other known developments that day. The committee is attempting to change that.
For example, we don’t know — and the Jan. 6 select committee likely does — whether Trump’s tweet and call to Tuberville preceded GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s plea to Trump by phone to publicly denounce the riot. Trump, according to one account, downplayed his supporters’ role in the violence and said, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” McCarthy, according to an account in Jonathan Karl’s “Betrayal,” responded that he had heard shots fired near the House floor, which places the conversation sometime after 2:44 p.m., when a Capitol Police officer shot and killed Ashli Babbitt.
We don’t know — and the Jan. 6 select committee does — the precise time Ivanka Trump went into the Oval Office to plead for her father’s help stanching the violence or when Donald Trump Jr. texted Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and urged him to get his father to “condemn this [s**t] ASAP.”
Meadows replied, at a time unknown to the public, that he was “pushing it hard.”
Like Ivanka Trump, Keith Kellogg — a national security adviser to Pence — also appealed directly to Trump to intervene. According to the Washington Post, Kellogg told the president, ”You’ve got to get on top of this and say something.” The timing of that exchange is unclear, but Kellogg has interviewed with the Jan. 6 committee — one of several Pence aides to comply with the panel’s requests.
What time did Laura Ingraham warn Meadows that Trump was “destroying his legacy” and needed to tell rioters to retreat?
What time did Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade make similar entreaties?
And when did Trump’s staff finally get Trump to begin filming a video that, however haltingingly, urged rioters to “go home?”
When did Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) talk to Trump? The congressman has acknowledged talking to him at least once that day.
We know that the video the White House ultimately released, which arrived after 4 p.m., was the third take. Trump said of the rioters, “We love you. You’re very special,” even as he urged them to leave.
The Jan. 6 committee has been quietly filling in the timeline of Trump’s actions during the 187 minutes it took before he told his supporters to leave. Unless the Supreme Court allows Trump to shield his White House records from the committee, the panel will obtain a trove of call and meeting logs, as well as contemporaneous notes and documents created during those frantic hours.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2022/01/05/the-1-6-question-not-what-but-when-495608?nname=politico-nightly&nid=00000170-c000-da87-af78-e185fa700000&nrid=40eaf4aa-9e07-4d0d-9fc4-461aa0fdd6bd&nlid=2670445
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'To save America': Jan. 6 rioters networked in advance, planned to storm the Capitol and fantasized about hanging lawmakers for 'treason'
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As the January 6th Committee bears down on its investigation into potential coordination between high-level Trump associates involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 election and the rioters who stormed the Capitol, legal filings in the cases of 725-plus people who have been criminally charged to date yield a patchwork of clues.
Court documents in the cases brought against some of the Jan. 6 defendants facing the most serious charges yield information about communication and coordination among the defendants from different groups in advance of Jan. 6, 2021, shared memes that placed a bullseye on the US Capitol on the day Congress convened to certify the electoral vote, and aspirations to kill or kidnap lawmakers that were articulated by the rioters with disturbing frequency. Much of the information in this story has been previously reported in other outlets, but patterns of conduct and overlaps between the participants make a striking impression when considered as a whole. Conversely, this story is by no means comprehensive as a summary of all the evidence of coordination that has been published.
Members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are charged with conspiracy, but none of the charges specifically allege coordination between members of the two groups or with unaffiliated individuals. Similarly, federal authorities have unveiled conspiracy charges against members of two smaller groups from southern California: the Patriots 45 MAGA Gang and the California Patriots-DC Brigade.
Members of both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers a pro-Trump rally in Washington, DC on Dec. 12, 2020 in which Proud Boys and their allies clashed with left-wing counter-protesters and Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes called on President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. Proud Boys leaders Enrique Tarrio and Ethan Nordean stood alongside Trump confidant Roger Stone as he exhorted a crowd of the former president’s supporters to “fight to the bitter end for an honest count of the 2020 election.”
In two separate Facebook messages on Dec. 22 and 25, 2020 — within a week of Trump’s tweet summoning supporters to DC for a “wild protest” on Jan. 6 — Kelly Meggs, the designated state lead for the Oath Keepers in Florida mentioned to contacts that he had formulated a plan to join forces with the Proud Boys.
“Orchestrated a plan with the Proud Boys,” Meggs wrote on Dec. 25, according to a government filing. “I’ve been communicating with their leader. We’re going to march with them for a while. Then fall back to the back of the crowd and turn off. Then we will have the Proud Boys get in front of them. The cops will get between antifa and the Proud Boys. We will come in behind antifa and beat the hell out of them.”
Meggs’ lawyer, Jonathon Moseley, told Raw Story he hasn’t had the opportunity to ask his client about the statement.
Meggs’ use of the word “leader” to describe his Proud Boy contact mostly likely points to Chairman Enrique Tarrio, who lived in Miami, but Joe Biggs, a former InfoWars correspondent and Proud Boys organizer is also from Florida.
Dan Hull, a lawyer who represents Tarrio in his capacity as a witness subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee, told Raw Story he hasn’t had an opportunity to ask Tarrio whether he communicated with Meggs before Jan. 6, 2021. Hull also represents Biggs in his criminal defense against conspiracy charges related to the Jan. 6 assault. Hull said that Biggs told him, “Absolutely not,” when asked if he had talked to Meggs during the runup to Jan. 6.
David A. Wilson, who also represents Meggs, told a federal judge during his client’s detention hearing in March 2021 that the messages “seem to point to a preparation for some sort of perceived confrontation with antifa,” adding, “There is not one communication that the government can point to where Mr. Meggs plans, discusses, or mentions any pre-planning to enter the Capitol.”
Referencing evidence presented by a prosecutor that Meggs said he was “organizing an alliance between the Oath Keepers, the Florida Three Percenters and the Proud Boys” to “work together and shut this spombleprofglidnoctobuns down,” Judge Amit Mehta concluded: “Whether he’s talking about the election count or shutting down violent protests or violence involving antifa; nevertheless, we have somebody who’s already prepared to organize and engage with other groups in violent acts on the streets of the District of Columbia.”
The claim that the Oath Keepers were only concerned with confronting counter-protesters, alongside providing security and VIP escort for dignitaries like Stone, is undercut by evidence that Meggs and other Oath Keepers went looking for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after they followed a mob through the Columbus Doors on the east side of the Capitol.
In an exchange cited by the government, an unidentified person reportedly said to Meggs that they had been “hoping to see Nancy’s head rolling down the front steps.” Meggs reportedly answered: “We looked forward her [sic].”
Explaining his decision to hold Meggs in pre-trial detention, Mehta also cited a message from Meggs upon learning that Vice President Mike Pence would count the electoral votes, in which the Oath Keeper leader reportedly said, “That checks all the boxes. I think this is why we were called here. Anything less would be a terrible mistake. The natives are getting restless. Tell your friend this isn’t a rally.”
Judge Mehta concluded, “I think there’s ample evidence here of conspiring and planning and coordinating dangerous activities, including nighttime confrontations with the likes of antifa and others, and planning for those purposes.”
The government presented strikingly similar evidence to support its request for the detention of Proud Boy defendant Matthew Greene, an Army veteran from upstate New York with combat experience in Afghanistan.
The government’s motion for detention cited an FBI interview with an unidentified witness, who reportedly told agents that Greene was with a group of individuals who described their actions on Jan. 6. The witness reportedly told the FBI that members of the group told them that “anyone they got their hands on they would have killed, including Nancy Pelosi” and also “that they would have killed Mike Pence if given the chance.”
The witness reportedly told the FBI that the Proud Boys discussed plans to return on Jan. 20 for the inauguration and that Greene said words to the effect of “We’ll kill them all.”
Greene pleaded guilty to obstructing Congress and conspiracy to obstruct law enforcement on Dec. 22; the plea deal offers him the opportunity to reduce his sentence in exchange for providing substantial assistance to the government in its cases against other defendants.
Greene’s lawyer did not respond to emails from Raw Story seeking comment on his client’s alleged threats against lawmakers, although a federal judge who ordered Greene’s detention in August indicated that he has denied making the statement.
Some of the Jan. 6 defendants accused of the most violent conduct at the Capitol reported coordinating with the Proud Boys or other extremist groups in the runup to Jan. 6.
Lucas Denney, an Army veteran from the Fort Worth suburbs in Texas who launched the Patriot Boys militia as a vehicle to mobilize people for Jan. 6, exchanged messages with Donald Hazard, his sergeant at arms, about their plans for the day on Dec. 25, 2020, according to the affidavit providing the factual basis for the charges against the two men.
“So, the 6th is going to be bigger than the last rally,” Denney reportedly told Hazard. “I can’t tell you everything I know over media here but it’s gonna be big. Millions and millions will be there, I can tell you that.
“We will be linking up with proud boys though,” Denney said in the next message. “I’ve been in contact with a few different chapters, and they’re helping us out with safe hotels to get.”
When Metropolitan police Officer Michael Fanone was dragged into the crowd of rioters outside the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace, Denney is accused of swinging his arm and fist at the officer and then grabbing him and pulling him further down the steps.
As previously reported by Raw Story, the government alleges that Denney wrote in a Dec. 31, 2020 message to an unidentified individual that “a lot of the presidents and commanders of militias like myself are meeting on the 5th to organize and plan.” It’s unclear whether the Jan. 5 meeting took place, but Denney is also reported to have said in a separate message sent on New Year’s Eve: “I’m still up chatting with all my brothers that are going to DC. All the presidents have been so busy organizing, planning and talking lol.”
Ryan Nichols, a Marine Corps veteran from east Texas, reportedly expressed interest in joining the Proud Boys before traveling to Washington DC with his friend, Alex Harkrider.
“I’m thinking of joining the Proud Boys chapter in Texas,” Nichols wrote to Harkrider on Dec. 14, according to texts cited by the government. “Would you be open to doing that with me?”
Nichols “coordinated with other participants before, during and after the riot,” according to the government. Prior to Jan. 6, Nichols “reported on ‘intel’ he was gathering, passed along messages from ‘group sources,’ joined several Zello groups which were active before and during the attack on the Capitol, and attempted to recruit others to join him in DC,” prosecutors wrote in a motion requesting Nichols’ detention.
Another rioter who has not been arrested but who is identified as “Associate-1” in charging the documents for Ronald Colton McAbee, with whom he traveled to DC, put in an application a couple days before Jan. 6, according to the government. McAbee, who was working as a deputy with the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee when he joined the Capitol riot, is accused of dragging a police officer into the crowd and participating outside the tunnel on the Lower West Terrace. After fellow rioter Jack Wade Whitton and another man allegedly knocked Officer “AW” to the ground, Whitton later bragging that he “fed an officer to the people,” McAbee is accused of grabbing “AW” by his left leg and torso while another man grabbed his right leg, and dragging the officer towards the stairs. In texts released by the government, “Associate-1,” who has been dubbed #ScaryCherry3P by online sleuths, indicated that he knew one of the other rioters. While sharing a video depicting a battle between rioters and police outside the Lower West Terrace tunnel, “Associate-1” wrote to McAbee: “I know the guy in the red and black crowd surfing.”
It’s not clear based on Associate-1’s description who the other rioter is, but a number of men climbed on top of the crowd and swung sticks and other makeshift weapons at officers.
Other unaffiliated Jan. 6 defendants joined forces with the Proud Boys at the Capitol. Kevin Tuck, who was employed by the Windermere Police Department in Florida at the time of the riot, and his son, Nathaniel Tuck, who was formerly employed as a police officer, were charged together with three Proud Boys — Arthur Jackman, Paul Rae and Edward George Jr. The five men posed together for a photo together on the Capitol lawn after breaching the building, along with Proud Boys leaders Nordean and Biggs. Nordean and Biggs were charged together with conspiracy in a separate case.
In one case, the allegation of coordination between the Proud Boys and an apparently unaffiliated rioter is even more direct.
Court documents indicate that Nordean communicated by phone with Ronald Loehrke in December 2020. Nordean reportedly told Loehrke on Dec. 29, 2020 he wanted him with him “on the front line.” Loehrke, in turn, is reported to have pledged to Nordean he would bring three “Bad mother f*ckers [sic]” with him. After marching with the Proud Boys and making his way to the line of officers protecting the Capitol at the West Plaza, Loehrke is alleged to have upbraided the other rioters for allowing themselves to be “stopped by twenty-five officers.”
“Don’t back down, patriots!” Loehrke reportedly shouted. “The whole f*cking world is watching. Stand the f*ck up today!”
Later, Loehrke is alleged to have made his way to the east side of the Capitol, dismantling barricades and urging on other rioters with words to the effect of, “Let’s go! Get in there!”
David Dempsey, a southern California man accused of spraying a chemical agent at police officers and striking them with a pole and a crutch near the mouth of the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace, had previously attended rallies with Proud Boys. Dempsey’s charging document includes a photo of him posing with two men dressed in Proud Boys gear in Sacramento, Calif. in November 2020, and Dempsey can be seen in another photo marching with the Proud Boys in DC on Dec. 12, 2020.
Dempsey can be seen wearing the same American flag gaiter that he would wear on Jan. 6 behind Michael Sobczak, who stood out because of his yellow knit hat and handlebar mustache. Sobczak was removed from his position as commander of the American Legion post in Escondido, Calif. after his involvement with the Proud Boys came to light. But he posted a meme featuring a photo of a gallows, accompanied by the text “Government repair kit” on the social media platform Parler under the handle @PatriotMick on Dec. 30, 2020.
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Proud Boy Michael Sobczak posted a meme depicting a gallows on Parler on Dec. 30, 2020 that foreshadowed the actual gallows erected at the US Capitol seven days later.Screenshot
On Jan. 6, 2021, prior to the assault on the Capitol, Dempsey was filmed in front of a makeshift gallows fitted with a noose on the National Mall, where he launched into a violent rant.
“Them worthless f***in’ s***holes like Jerry Nadler, f***in’ Pelosi,” Dempsey said. “They don’t need a jail cell. They need to hang from these mo*****ers…. They need to get the point across that the time for peace is over…. For four, or five years really, they’ve been ****ing demonizing us, belittling us... doing everything they can to stop what this is, and people are sick of that s**t…. Hopefully one day soon we really have someone hanging from one of these mothe****ers.”
James Mault, a member of the Ironworkers Local 33 union in Rochester, NY who is also accused of spraying chemical agents at officers stationed at the Lower West Terrace tunnel with two separate canisters. Photos in Mault’s charging document show him handing one of the canisters off to Dempsey. There’s no indication that the two men knew each other prior to Jan. 6.
Mault traveled with his friend, Cody Mattice, to the Capitol. While court documents provide no indications that Mault and Mattice held formal membership in any extremist groups, they appear to have derived esteem from their perception that they were fighting alongside the Proud Boys.
“It was dope, and James had everyone hyped bro,” Mattice texted another person at 7:44 p.m. on Jan. 6, according to the government. “Even the Proud Boys were thanking us. Legit, bro, it feels like a f***in movie.”
One interaction between a Proud Boy leader and an unaffiliated rioter stands out as a potentially decisive moment in the assault on the Capitol.
Ryan Samsel, a Pennsylvania man who was one of the first two rioters to approach the police line at the entrance to the Pennsylvania Avenue Walkway, can be seen in a video published by the New York Times conferring with Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs shortly before pushing and pulling the barricades apart and knocking down a police officer. The crowd quickly overran the police line and streamed onto the Capitol lawn.
According to a New York Times report, Samsel told investigators that Biggs encouraged him to push at the barricades and then flashed a gun at him when he hesitated, questioning his manhood.
“Absolutely false,” Biggs' lawyer, Dan Hull, told Raw Story. “There hasn’t been anything to support that theory that I’ve seen or heard. Nothing from DOJ. Certainly, you would have heard it from DOJ because it would go to his detention. It continues to be laughable.”
He added that Biggs did not show Samsel a gun, and would never bring a gun to DC.
Hull said his client doesn’t recall what words were exchanged between the two men.
"He doesn’t remember a conversation with Samsel,” Hull said. “He doesn’t know Samsel. He doesn’t remember a conversation at all, other than several people said, ‘Oh, it’s Joe Biggs. I saw you on InfoWars.’”
Hull has acknowledged a complex interplay between Proud Boys members and unaffiliated individuals on Jan. 6, while promoting the view that the Proud Boys were unwittingly steered into the assault on the Capitol.
“The Proud Boys are sitting down,” Hull told host Ron Coleman on a podcast recorded last month, describing their activities shortly before they joined a mob that streamed onto the Capitol lawn. “They’re looking around and somebody says, ‘What are they doing?’ So, rather than go to the Ellipse, at the last minute, there’s this magic moment, and they say, ‘Let’s go over there to the edge. Let’s go over there in Peace Circle, the roundabout.’”
Hull added that “by that point, a few people that we now know were not Proud Boys who were in the group — there were people who worked for other organizations….”
While alluding to other actors on the group’s periphery, Hull has also steadfastly stuck to the narrative that his client’s defense hinges on — that there was no conspiracy, at least on the part of the Proud Boys.
“This was the madness of crowds when the people went up that hill,” he said.
Regardless of the nature of the exchange between Samsel and Biggs, the Proud Boys played a decisive role in the breach of the Capitol. Dominic Pezzola, Greene’s co-defendant in a separate conspiracy case, used a stolen police riot shield to bust out a window in the Capitol building, allowing the first group of rioters to enter the building shortly after 2 p.m.
Joseph Padilla, an Iraq war veteran from Georgia, reportedly told a friend on Facebook in advance of the attack that he did not believe “anything less than taking DC with an a [sic] heavily armed protest” would work, adding that if he couldn’t find an organized group, he “might just have to fight Proud Boys style.” Afterward, according to Padilla’s charging document, he lamented on TheDonald.win: “If we could have occupied the Capitol, we could have invoked the right given to us in the 2nd paragraph of the Declaration of Independence…. We would have been in the Seat of Power. All we would need to do is declare our grievances with the government and dissolve the legislature, and replace it with Patriots who were there. Then simply re-adopt the Constitution with amendments added to secure future Federal elections.”
Edward Jacob Lang, a 25-year-old man from New York’s Hudson River Valley, is accused by the government of attempting to organize a militia on Telegram after the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. Lang, who is accused of three separate assaults on police officers including swinging a metal bat at them, disputed the notion that those who participated in the siege of the assault were merely swept up in the moment.
“This was no mob,” Lang reportedly told his associates in the private Telegram video. “A mob is a bunch of people like attacking each other. This was an organized unit of patriots trying to take on tyrants. You know what I mean. A mob has no goal. A mob is just, uh, screaming and spombleprofglidnoctobuns. This was patriots on a goal, on a mission to have the Capitol building. To stop this presidential election from being stolen so that we at least have one presidential veto left from all of these bull**it laws and restrictions.”
Some of the early arrests in the Jan. 6 investigation included tantalizing leads suggesting the defendants were linked to a broader network, but information available through court documents has yet to yield charges against additional defendants.
Rachel Marie Powell, previously identified by online sleuths as #PinkHatLady, used a large metal pole to break out a window to the Senate conference room adjacent to the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace. Video footage of her speaking into a bullhorn through an open window stating that the rioters should “coordinate together if you are going to take this building” and that they “have another window to break” commanded public attention in the early days of the investigation.
“She corralled her fellow rioters and gave instructions on how to take the Capitol, including instructions that I believe you indicated you saw in the video, that seemed to suggest an operative knowledge of the interior layout of the Capitol,” the government argued in a motion for Powell’s detention.
Powell’s lawyer proffered that there was no evidence that Powell had ever been to the Capitol before Jan. 6, which he said undercuts “the argument that she was some kind of organizer or leader with respect to this.”
Judge Beryl Howell appeared to agree with Powell’s counsel.
“And there is no evidence in the proffer that’s been given based on her social media… that she was part of a larger group of people whose mission is disruption,” Howell said during Powell’s detention hearing.
But the government noted that Powell traveled to DC with a man named Kevin Lynn, whom she had met at a July 4, 2020 rally at Gettysburg National Military Park.
Lynn, who is the executive director of a group called Progressives for Immigration Reform, reportedly met President Trump at the White House. To date, Lynn has not been arrested. Prosecutor Elizabeth Loi described Lynn to the court as “a militia member” during Powell’s detention hearing in February 2021. At the time, she said the government was still investigating Powell’s “relationship to the other rioters.”
Lynn did not respond to an email message and voicemail from Raw Story seeking comment for this story.
Riley June Williams, a 22-year-old follower of white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes, urged rioters to ascend a stairway leading to Pelosi’s office, according to the FBI. She appears to be in a video depicting the theft of a laptop computer consistent with one stolen from Pelosi’s office. Williams’ ex-boyfriend told the FBI she had unsuccessfully attempted to broker the transfer of the computer to Russian intelligence. Her lawyer cast doubt on that claim during a detention hearing.
“Based on our initial investigation in preparation for today, it is our position that the allegations surrounding the theft of Speaker Pelosi’s computer came in part from a former abusive boyfriend,” Lori J. Ulrich, Williams’ lawyer, told a federal judge during her detention hearing in Harrisburg, Pa. on Jan. 21. “He threatened Ms. Williams in a number of ways, including if she filed a restraining order against him, he was going to go after her. His accusations are overstated.”
In November, Williams was indicted on eight counts, including theft of government property and aiding and abetting, and assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers. To date, no additional arrests have been made against individuals accused of involvement in the alleged theft of the computer or any scheme to pass it along to the Russian intelligence services. AJ Kramer, one of Williams’ lawyers, declined to comment on her behalf.
In other cases, the government has acknowledged that violent rioters who played decisive roles in the attack appear to have not coordinated with other rioters before Jan. 6.
In a motion to detain Albuquerque Head, a Tennessee man, ahead of his trial, prosecutors wrote, “While the evidence does not suggest coordination or pre-planning, the defendant instigated the assault on Officer [Fanone] by pulling him into the crowd away from the police line and shouted, ‘I got one!’”
Although there is abundant evidence of horizontal coordination among the defendants, few, if any, cases filed to date provide clues about potential vertical organization. But Cindy Chafian, an organizer behind the rallies that brought Trump supporters to DC, and her husband Scott, a retired Navy officer, were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Nathan Hughes, an Arkansas man who rode to the Capitol in a golf cart driven by Scott Chafian, was in the crowd of rioters that battled police inside the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace, at one point urging his fellow rioters to take one of the officer’s shields. Publicly available video also shows Hughes hovering over Officer Michael Fanone after he was dragged into the mob. Neither the Hughes nor the Chafians have been arrested to date, but the January 6th Committee has issued a subpoena to Cindy Chafian, ordering her to turn over documents and give testimony.
Hughes had previously attended the Nov. 14, 2020 Million MAGA March in DC and filmed Trump passing the rally at Freedom Plaza in his motorcade. Hughes’ video was incorporated into a story published on the DCPatriot website run by Hughes’ friend, Matt Couch.
Couch played an instrumental role in mobilizing Trump supporters to get to DC on Jan. 6. In a Jan. 4, 2021 tweet, Couch tagged Hughes and seven other social media influencers. “TrumpTheStreets.com and FighttheFrauds.com are on the ground here in DC,” Couch wrote. “Big events planned all day Tues/Wed!”
Hughes responded: “See you soon brother!”
In a Jan. 3 Periscope stream to more than 100,000 viewers, Couch said he had “been in touch” with Ali Alexander and various other Stop the Steal organizers. Couch also suggested that he had a liaison with the Trump administration, speaking with an individual named “Jason,” who was offscreen during the video recording.
“I’ve already walked the Capitol grounds today with — what’s your name — a very skilled gentleman called Jason — that’s his real name — but Jason’s obviously worked on the campaign and done other things for the administration, and he’s involved in a lot of different things,” Couch said. “He’s kind of one of those guys, he’s the straw that stirs the drink in a lot of these events you see going on around the country.
“And so, we’ve walked the Capitol grounds,” Couch continued. “We’re checking security protocols. We have guys on the ground doing ahead-of-the-game surveillance from different groups that we’re in coordination and talks with. There’s a lot of things happening here. A lot of moving parts. You will be safe. We need to send a loud message that we need you in Washington DC.”
While declaring that “God is leading the charge, and patriots are heeding his call,” and that “the time to fight is now,” Couch added a disclaimer. “These are peaceful events,” he said. “There is strength in numbers. And let them hear our voices.”
Couch could not be reached for comment for this story.
In a speech about the January 6th anniversary on Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland offered a few clues about what’s in store for the FBI’s ongoing investigations into the Jan. 6 assault.
“The actions we have have taken thus far will not be our last,” he said. “The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law — whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy. We will follow the facts wherever they lead.”
Garland acknowledged the frustration among some members of the public who are anxious to see more high-profile arrests.
“Because January 6th was an unprecedented attack on the seat of our democracy, we understand that there is broad public interest in our investigation,” the attorney general said. “We understand that there are questions about how long the investigation will take, and about what exactly we are doing. Our answer is, and will continue to be, the same answer we would give with respect to any ongoing investigation: as long as it takes and whatever it takes for justice to be done — consistent with the facts and the law.”
Garland’s remarks were ambiguous as to whether the Justice Department will be reluctant to hold Trump and his associates accountable out of a concern that the department’s actions would be viewed as politicized.
“The central norm is that, in our criminal investigations, there cannot be different rules depending on one’s political party or affiliation,” he said. “There cannot be different rules for friends and foes. And there cannot be different rules for the powerful and the powerless.”
Several of the most violent rioters expressed intentions to storm the Capitol in advance of Jan. 6.
Lucas Denney, the president of the Patriot Boys militia in Texas, shared a meme on Facebook on Dec. 30, 2020 that read, “Occupy Congress: If they won’t hear us, they will fear us. The great betrayal is over. Election fraud is treason. January 6, 2021.
Michael John Lopatic, a resident of Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, made a Facebook post on Jan. 1, 2021 reading, “Assemble on the Capital January 6th, 2021,” according to the government. “United we stand, go forth and fight.”
On Dec. 31, 2020, Charles Bradford Smith, who rode in a car with his friend Marshall Neefe from nearby Cumberland County to DC, reportedly discussed the election results and their plans for the upcoming rally in DC.\
“I can’t wait for DC!” Smith wrote to Neefe, according to the government charging document. “Apparently it’s going to be WAY bigger lol. If it’s big enough we should all just storm the buildings… Seriously. I was talking to my Dad about how easy that would be with enough people.”
Ronald Sandlin, who traveled to DC with his friends Nate DeGrave and Josiah Colt, recorded a livestream before the attack, according to the government, in which he “urge[d] other patriots” to “take the Capitol.” He also reportedly told his followers on social media that “we are going to be there back by one o’clock when it is action time; it is game time.”
According to the government, Sandlin and DeGrave wrestled with officers to get inside the Senate gallery. The government accuses Sandlin of striking one of the officers in the back of the head, while alleging that DeGrave shouted at the rioters to “take laptops, paperwork, take everything.”
Nicholas Languerand, a QAnon follower whose phone reportedly included pictures of Proud Boys leaders, the logo of the Three Percenter movement and pictures of Nazi iconography, is accused of throwing a traffic bollard and other objects at police officers guarding the entrance of the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace. Federal agents who searched the Vermont trailer where Languerand had once lived with his grandparents reportedly found a notebook “containing militaristic language seemingly referring to Washington, DC,” according to a detention order signed by Judge John D. Bates.
“One page was headed ‘(Obj Washington) (N&J),’ followed by what appears to be coded language, examples of which include ‘diamond — road (waiting point),’ ‘emerald — breach point,’ and ‘iron — N. obj cleared,’” Judge Bates wrote.
Despite Languerand’s apparent interest in the Proud Boys and Three Percenters, Judge Bates concluded that there was no evidence that he coordinated with other participants before Jan. 6, 2021, or on the day of the assault on the Capitol.
Charging documents for other defendants show startling consistency in statements expressing motivation to harm lawmakers from individuals who stormed the Capitol, some with links to extremist organizations and others who appear to have traveled to DC alone or with one or two friends.
Mark Mazza, a disabled Army veteran from Indiana, brought a Taurus revolver loaded with deadly hollow-point bullets that he apparently dropped during a scuffle with a police sergeant on the Capitol steps.
Mazza reportedly told an FBI agent who interviewed him in March 2021 that the only thing he regretted about going to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 is that he didn’t see House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, suggesting that he would have harmed her.
“I was glad I didn’t because you’d be here for another reason, and I told my kids that if they show up, I’m surrendering, nope they can have me, because I may go down a hero,” Mazza continued, according to the government’s motion for pre-trial detention.
Guy Reffitt, from northeastern Texas, is accused of continuing to plan for violence after defying Capitol police officers attempting to hold the line on the Capitol steps.
During a Zoom call with fellow Three percenter militia members four days after the Jan. 6 assault, Reffitt reportedly told them: “I had my Spartan Armor plates, my kidney plates, and my .40 on my side.”
Then, according to the government, Reffitt said his objective had been to kidnap House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“I said, ‘Well I’m not done till we drag them out screaming and kicking. I don’t care if Pelosi’s head is hitting every step while I drag her by her ankles — she’s coming out,’” he said.
Many of the rioters who made it to the front lines at the Capitol on Jan. 6 either had extremist ties or had actively coordinated with others in advance.
Gina Bisignano, a salon owner from Beverly Hills, Calif. who is linked to the Patriots 45 MAGA Gang, and Ryan Nichols, the Marine Corps veteran who contemplated joining the Proud Boys, both found themselves in the Senate conference room adjacent to the tunnel at the Lower West Terrace.
Wearing a Louis Vuitton sweater and with her makeup smeared from teargas, Bisignano can be seen in videos livestreamed by other rioters standing on the ledge of the window to the conference room.
“Everybody, we need gas masks… we need weapons… we need strong, angry patriots to help our boys,” she told the other rioters, speaking into a bullhorn. “They don’t want to leave. We need protection.”
The government alleges that seconds after Bisignano made that statement, a rioter “begins striking at officers in the police line with what appears to be a baseball bat.” Based on the time, place and conduct, the individual described in Bisignano’s court documents is consistent with Edward Lang.
Later, according to the government, Bisignano entered the window through a hole.
“We need Americans,” she said, continuing to address the rioters through the bullhorn. “Come on guys. We need patriots! You guys, it’s the way in. We need some people. We need some people.”
The government has described Bisignano as “an instigator, a director, and an active participant in the violence, destruction and obstruction at the Capitol” on Jan. 6, 2021.
Nichols, who is alleged to have dispersed pepper spray at officers, was one of the first rioters to climb through the broken window, according to the government.
After going inside the conference room and using furniture to barricade doors, Nichols reportedly came back out and climbed onto the ledge, grabbing a bullhorn and waving a crowbar.
“Get in the building!” he yelled. “Get in the building! This is your country. Get in the building! This is your country! Get in the building! We will not be told no!
“If you have a weapon, you need to get your weapon!” Nichols continued. “If you have a weapon, you need to get your weapon!”
Daniel Rodriguez, a 38-year-old resident of Panorama City, Calif. and member of the Patriots 45 MAGA Gang had tased Officer Michael Fanone in the back of the neck when he was dragged out into the mob. Now, along with two other members of Patriots 45 MAGA Gang — Edward Badalian and a man known only as #SwedishScarf — climbed through the window into the conference room.
After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Rodriguez, Badalian and #SwedishScarf visited Bisignano at her home in Beverly Hills, according to the indictment against the three men. (Although Bisignano is charged separately, she is identified as “Person One” in the Patriots 45 MAGA gang indictment.) According to the government. #SwedishScarf unplugged Bisignano’s Amazon Alexa devices and gestured for her to keep quiet, and then wrote in a notebook: “I want to help you delete everything and to transfer the files to a secure hard drive.”
Rodriguez told the FBI after his arrest in March 2021 that he was radicalized by watching InfoWars, the show hosted by conspiracy-monger Alex Jones. After Jan. 6, Badalian and Bisignano would appear on the show, and a slip by Bisignano appears to have helped authorities identify Badalian.
During an earlier period in his life, Rodriguez told the FBI he was hanging out with gang members in southern California. He started growing marijuana, but he “kept getting robbed” and he felt like he never fit in.
“And then Trump — and I was listening to InfoWars, and I was, like, getting patriotic, and I was — and I ended up leaving all those people behind me, and I ended up being homeless,” Rodriguez told the FBI. “I became — I put myself to be homeless because I didn’t want to deal with those people anymore.”
Rodriguez liked what he heard from then-candidate Donald Trump in 2015, and he went to a campaign office in Whittier to sign up as a volunteer. He wound up knocking on doors and making phone calls.
“I was homeless and I went — and I called my mom and I told her I needed somewhere to stay,” Rodriguez continued. “I needed to come back home and move in. And I was already — Trump was already, like — this is 2015, and I was already into InfoWars and Alex Jones, and he’s backing Trump. And I’m like, ‘All right, man. This is it. I’m going to — this is — I’m going to fight for this. I’m going to do — I want to do this.”
Rodriguez started attending rallies where right-wingers protested COVID measures and clashed with antifascists in August 2021, mostly in Beverly Hills, but sometimes also in Huntington Beach.
“We’re learning about, like, Jade Helm and the FEMA camps, you know?” Rodriguez told the FBI. “Why are they ordering all these body bags and what’s all this military movement and, you know, these plastic coffins and, like, there’s just hundreds of thousands, you know? So, it started, like, triggering reactions in my mind that, like, you know, this country is — I mean, that’s how Rome fell. Rome fell from within, right?”
One of Rodriguez’s statements to the FBI suggests he wasn’t someone with the resources to get to DC on his own. After Rodriguez told the FBI that he and his friends expected Trump supporters to be “rounded up” after the election, one of the agents asked him what he would have done to defend himself.
“Well, there’s not much I could’ve done,” Rodriguez responded. “I mean, I don’t have a — I’m not financially stable that I couldn’t be home. I don’t really have anywhere to go. So, you’re saying, like — I could’ve been homeless or living in a tent or something.” He told the agents he put about $100 towards the van trip from California to DC.
“What were your thoughts at the Capitol when you tasered Officer Fanone or when you entered the Capitol building?” one of the agents asked Rodriguez during the interrogation.
“I thought that we were going to save this — I thought we were going to do something,” Rodriguez responded. “I thought that it was not going to end — happen like that. I thought that Trump was going to stay president and they were going to find all this crooked stuff and we were going to — I mean, we found out that — we thought we did something good.
“We were getting Nancy — somebody was — it was rumored that Nancy Pelosi got her laptop stolen and that they found all this evidence on it and it was a secret plan,” he continued. “We were like — it was, like, a — it was a — were a distraction. We were put there to go distract and so somebody can go get Pelosi’s laptop and then get all the intel.
“And then we could just bust everything and find the truth and it’ll all be exposed and we’ll see that she’s corrupt or some kind of evidence,” Rodriguez said. “And we thought we were being — we were part of a bigger thing. We thought we were being sued as part of a plan to save the country, to save America, save the Constitution, and the election, the integrity.”
https://www.rawstory.com/rioters-coordinated/
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Imagine the time and effort devoted to posting these endless rambling monologues on this topic to which no one ever responds. And on a JFK assassination forum! It is downright creepy in its compulsion driven mania. It makes you wonder what is the motivation of an individual who would devote so much of his time to this seemingly pointless effort? And how long can it go on? Forever?
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The Capitol riot wouldn't have happened without the influence of the Christian nationalist movement: op-ed
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Writing for The New York Times on the anniversary of Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Katherine Stewart contends that the violence wouldn't have been possible without the influence of America’s Christian nationalist movement, and she's warning that next time "it may well succeed in making the promise of American democracy a relic of the past."
"Pastors, congregations and the religious media are among the most trusted sources of information for many voters," Stewart writes, adding that the repeated message that they sought to deliver through social media "is that outside sources of information are simply not credible. The creation of an information bubble, impervious to correction, was the first prerequisite of Mr. Trump’s claim."
"Movement leaders now appear to be working to prime the base for the next attempt to subvert the electoral process. At dozens of conservative churches in swing states this past year, groups of pastors were treated to presentations by an initiative called Faith Wins," she continues. "Featuring speakers like David Barton, a key figure in the fabrication of Christian nationalist myths about history, and led by Chad Connelly, a Republican political veteran, Faith Wins serves up elections skepticism while demanding that pastors mobilize their flocks to vote 'biblical' values.
The persecution complex shared by some Christian leaders also contributed to Jan. 6, writes Stewart, pointing out that Christian nationalism plays off the belief that conservative Christians are the most oppressed group in American society.
Read her full op-ed over at The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/opinion/jan-6-christian-nationalism.html
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Donald Trump slams Jan. 6 panel after Ivanka Trump interview request: ‘They’ll go after children’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-slams-jan-6-panel-after-ivanka-trump-interview-request-they-ll-go-after-children/ar-AAT2GKo?ocid=msedgntp (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-slams-jan-6-panel-after-ivanka-trump-interview-request-they-ll-go-after-children/ar-AAT2GKo?ocid=msedgntp)
Former President Donald Trump slammed the Jan. 6 committee investigating the Capitol insurrection after it asking his daughter Ivanka Trump to sit for an interview.
"It's a very unfair situation for my children. Very, very unfair," Donald Trump told The Washington Examiner in an interview for an op-ed published Friday.
"It's a disgrace, what's going on. They're using these things to try and get people's minds off how incompetently our country is being run. And they don't care. They'll go after children," Donald Trump said.
I have two words. Hunter Biden.
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Donald Trump slams Jan. 6 panel after Ivanka Trump interview request: ‘They’ll go after children’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-slams-jan-6-panel-after-ivanka-trump-interview-request-they-ll-go-after-children/ar-AAT2GKo?ocid=msedgntp (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-slams-jan-6-panel-after-ivanka-trump-interview-request-they-ll-go-after-children/ar-AAT2GKo?ocid=msedgntp)
I have two words. Hunter Biden.
LOL. Who is going after Hunter? Instead the DOJ and FBI have covered up for him and the "big guy."
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Bill Barr has spoken with the Jan. 6 committee 'more than once' and without subpoena
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Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) revealed in an interview with CNN's Jim Acosta that the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 hasn't just interviewed former Attorney General Bill Barr for a few minutes. According to the report, he has spoken to the committee "more than once" and without a subpoena.
"It was more than once, and it was a voluntary discussion with our staff attorneys, and we appreciate his willingness to help us find the truth," she told CNN.
Acosta asked if Barr knew about the executive order that Trump and his team drafted to have the Pentagon seize all U.S. electronic voting machines. She explained that she can't reveal anything until the committee approves that it can be released.
She also noted that she expects further information from the National Archives to be turned over to the committee in the coming weeks. She too is concerned that there were some documents not turned over to the National Archives, in violation of the Presidential Records Act.
Former chief of staff Mark Meadows was the one who ultimately revealed the draft of the executive order and it's unclear if that document was sent to the archives. Text messages were discovered by the committee in Dec. 2021 that were also not turned over to the National Archives, despite communicating about the election to members of Congress.
It was discovered that several people were using personal email servers, which is what they attacked Hillary Clinton for in 2016. It was also revealed that many members of the Donald Trump White House were using their personal cell phones to talk or text government business, which may not have been turned over to the archives.
See the interview below:
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With new subpoenas, Jan. 6 committee closes in on its ultimate target: Donald Trump
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Lawyers, investigative reporters and congressional committees have one thing in common: They like to ask questions they already know the answer to. That's the big takeaway from the four subpoenas issued by the House committee investigating the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 of last year. On Tuesday, the committee subpoenaed former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani; former Michael Flynn lawyer and "election fraud" conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell; former Trump legal adviser and evangelical law professor Jenna Ellis; and former Trump adviser and TV commentator Boris Epshteyn. If this committee's investigation is being run like many others I've followed over the years, they already have the answers to most of the questions they plan on posing to all four of these witnesses.
I realize that everyone they just subpoenaed is a "former" of one kind or another, but that's where the committee is now as it closes in on people close to Trump who were involved in the events leading up to the assault on the Capitol last year. The committee has already subpoenaed a long list of Trump acolytes, hangers-on, former administration officials and former White House employees, including such luminaries as Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino, the former White House director of communications.
That's just the tip of a rather large iceberg. The committee has issued 60 subpoenas, interviewed about 400 witnesses and obtained more than 50,000 pages of documents in its six-month investigation of the Capitol insurrection. Some of the witnesses who didn't appear voluntarily and had to be subpoenaed by the committee include:
Ali Alexander, an organizer of the "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan. 5.Amy Kremer, founder and chair of Women for America First, involved in planning for the Jan. 6 rally on the Ellipse, where Trump, Giuliani and many others spoke.Tim Unes, listed on Parks Department paperwork for the Jan. 6 rally as "stage manager."Taylor Budowich, who organized radio and social media advertising for the Ellipse rally, and is now employed as Trump's primary spokesman and communications director for Trump's Save America PAC.Ed Martin, an organizer of the "Stop the Steal" movement and fundraiser for the Jan. 6 rally.
And here's where it gets interesting: There are more than 300 other people who appeared voluntarily and have testified to committee investigators under oath, including at least a dozen former White House employees, some of whom were questioned for as long as five or six hours.
Under oath. Remember those words. All of the 400 people interviewed by the committee have done so under oath. That means they were subject to federal criminal charges for perjury, which means there is real pressure on them to provide truthful answers. At least some of the witnesses who appeared voluntarily also provided at least a portion of the 50,000 documents the committee has assembled, which would give even more credence to their testimony.
It was after hearing testimony for over six months that the committee issued its subpoenas to Giuliani, Powell, Ellis and Epshteyn on Tuesday. Giuliani and Epshteyn are known to have been in the "war room" at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 5, the night before the assault on the Capitol. Committee Chair Bennie Thompson announced that the committee already knows that Epshteyn was on a phone call with Trump on the morning of Jan. 6, which means that they were informed of this by another witness. See what I mean about investigators already knowing the answers to questions they intend to ask certain witnesses?
If I were Epshteyn or Giuliani or any of the others, I would be very worried right now. Let me assure you, as a longtime observer of these kinds of investigations, including Watergate, it is never a good sign if you are among the last of the witnesses to be subpoenaed by an investigative committee or a prosecutor. That means that they have already talked to everybody under, across and around you under oath, and you can count on the fact that they have already assembled volumes of information on your activities. Which means it would be a very bad idea to give false testimony, because the investigators you will be talking to already have the truth at their fingertips in the form of testimony by previous witnesses and documents already submitted to the committee.
Because the Supreme Court denied Donald Trump's claim of executive privilege on Wednesday, the committee will now have yet another trove of official documents, visitor lists, call logs, talking points and plans to challenge electoral ballots before they question Giuliani and his compatriots. White House documents released by the National Archives will also produce names of new witnesses the committee will want to question. One document received by the committee, and published by Politico on Friday, exposed a fantastical plan to use the military to seize voting machines and electoral records in all 50 states and have them "analyzed and assessed" by the — get this — director of national intelligence. It was, in effect, a plan for a military coup using a "national security emergency" as a pretext — the "emergency" apparently being Trump's loss in the election.
If the whole thing with the recently subpoenaed witnesses sounds like a trap, that's because it is. Investigators for the Jan. 6 committee are lying in wait for any lies Giuliani and the other witnesses might tell to cover up what they did in the days and weeks preceding the assault on the Capitol. In fact, it may be that the committee doesn't really need the testimony of Giuliani and Powell and the rest of the "elite strike force team" of legal eagles who filed and lost at least 60 lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election in battleground states. The committee has those lawsuits, as well as the judicial decisions either dismissing them or finding in favor of the defendants. They already have access to a voluminous record of the falsehoods in those lawsuits, all the phony "affidavits" filed on behalf of Trump and his campaign, all the false charges against Dominion Voting Systems and other outfits which have now dragged Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani into court to face charges that they defamed that company and others, charges which have at least temporarily cost Giuliani his law license and clearly threaten the law licenses of Powell and others.
Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat who sits on the Jan. 6 committee and is a former prosecutor, was quoted last week saying that the upcoming hearings, likely to begin later this month or early next month, "will blow the roof off the House." I'm beginning to believe it. The problem that Donald Trump and his aides like Mark Meadows and his "elite strike force team" of lawyers and the rest of them have is that lies are not advisable when you are testifying under oath. All the lies they have told since Nov. 3, 2020, about how Joe Biden "stole" the election from Trump won't hold up under the weight of thousands of pages of documents and phone records and text messages and all the other stuff from the National Archives and the documents already submitted to the committee, and they won't hold up in the face of sworn testimony by former White House aides and members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys charged with conspiracy who have already flipped and have been interviewed by prosecutors investigating the assault on the Capitol.
I don't have any evidence for this, but based on what I saw during Watergate and other major investigations I have followed, I would place a large bet that there is a pipeline between the Department of Justice and the Jan. 6 committee, and evidence has been flowing in both directions for months now.
When the committee, and the Department of Justice for that matter, get to the point that they're issuing subpoenas to people who were regularly in the room with the president during the days and weeks leading up to the assault on the Capitol, I would be very, very worried if I were the ultimate target of both investigations. The lid may be getting ready to come off the House of Representatives, but down at Mar-a-Lago, the roof is falling in on Trump's House of Lies.
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-2656459272/
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Ivanka Trump falling under scrutiny shows ‘puzzle pieces coming together’ in Jan. 6 probe
The House select committee wants to talk to Ivanka Trump, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said that shows the Jan. 6 investigation is starting to come into focus.
Donald Trump raged against the committee's request for an interview with his eldest daughter, saying the panel was willing to "go after children," but "Morning Joe" panelists pointed out that the former White House adviser was indeed an adult with valuable information to share about the insurrection.
"She is 40 years old and she served four years in the White House as adviser, along with her husband Jared Kushner," said MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire. "She by no estimation is a child. She also was one of the leading voices in the administration and, frankly, one of the last senior advisers still left as Jan. 6 rolled around. Chief of staff [Mark] Meadows was still there, but so much of that West Wing had hollowed out. People left for other jobs because they believed the race was indeed over and Donald Trump lost. There also had been a couple of COVID outbreaks in the building and a lot of folks were working from home."
Witnesses have told investigators that Ivanka Trump unsuccessfully tried to get her father to call off his mob of supporters, and Lemire said she could describe those discussions and explain why the former president decided not to act.
"Her testimony would, of course, be of great interest to the Jan. 6 select committee," Lemire said. "It comes, as we mentioned earlier, at a very tough stretch for the president with the National Archives turning over thousands upon thousands upon thousands of documents to the committee, which is also looking to ramp up the public face of these investigations, looking to have televised hearings, potentially even in primetime some time this spring."
Scarborough said all these developments showed the investigation had reached an inflection point.
"Over the past two weeks the momentum has picked up on the Jan. 6 committee despite all of the arguments, despite all of the Republicans trying to block this, the law is the law is the law," Scarborough said. "They've got a Supreme Court ruling that says Jan. 6 committee has the right to get the information. They've got volumes of documents, had volumes of documents before that. They have former Trump White House people like Kayleigh McEnany and others who were working with this committee, trying to get information. They certainly weren't in support of the Jan. 6 commission."
"It seems to me they're going to be able to piece together whatever timeline they want to piece together," Scarborough added, "not only on Jan. 6 but in the days leading up to Jan. 6. I mean, you can see the puzzle pieces really coming together here."
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Yes, it's all "coming together." Any day now. Like Russia collusion and every other fake anti-Trump conspiracy theory. The goal here is to undermine the democratic process by keeping Trump from running again in 2024. That's the real insurrection. The American public can't be trusted to elect the "right" candidate. They need a Stasi-like process to help them out. The red tsunami is coming, though. Closer every day to the mid-term elections and 2024. Old Joe has reached historic lows in the polls not seen since Watergate. The bottom is dropping out. And it has only been one year!
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Oath Keepers leader and 10 others charged with 'seditious conspiracy' related to US Capitol attack
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The Justice Department escalated its January 6 investigation by bringing seditious conspiracy charges against 11 defendants, including the leader of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes.
The latest accusations -- with a charge that had not previously been brought in the department's US Capitol attack prosecutions -- remove any sense that prosecutors believe the riot emerged from just a group of overzealous protestors, with new details about the planning and logistics alleged to have predated the Capitol breach.
The Justice Department until now had been careful not to push the idea of sedition, instead charging defendants affiliated with right-wing groups with conspiracy to obstruct the congressional proceeding on January 6. The seditious conspiracy charge carries the same possible consequence as an obstruction charge, but is rarely used, politically loaded and has been difficult for the Justice Department to use successfully against defendants in the past.
Attorney General Merrick Garland had balked at the earlier efforts to bring the seditious conspiracy charge. But in the months since, people briefed on the matter say FBI investigators and DC federal prosecutors have spent much time building the case, at least in part with the help of cooperators and the benefit of internal communications among the Oath Keepers.
The new indictment brings to light planning the Oath Keepers are accused to have done ahead of the Capitol attack, as they allegedly recruited members, stocked up on weapons and organized to disrupt Congress' certification of the 2020 election. Prosecutors say they also continued to plot "to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power" after the Capitol riot failed to block the electoral college vote, according to a Justice Department statement on Thursday.
One Oath Keeper claimed to travel to Washington, DC, for a scouting trip ahead of January 6, according to the indictment. The new court filings also detail accusations that the defendants stashed weapons at a Virginia hotel and that they were prepared to "rapidly transport firearms and other weapons into Washington, D.C." to support the efforts to stop the presidential certification vote.
Rhodes was arrested Thursday in Little Elm, Texas.
Allegedly opposing 'by force' the lawful transfer of power
The new indictment, approved by a grand jury on Wednesday and made public Thursday, alleges that Rhodes and his co-conspirators engaged in a conspiracy to "oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force, by preventing, hindering, or delaying by force execution of laws governing the transfer of power."
The latest court filings revealed that Oath Keeper Thomas Caldwell, who was arrested in January, claimed to take a reconnaissance trip to DC before January 6. The indictment also surfaces previously unknown communications Rhodes is alleged to have sent that prosecutors say encouraged the use of force to oppose the lawful transfer of power.
"We aren't going through this without civil war. Too late for that. Prepare your mind, body and spirit," Rhodes allegedly said in a November 5, 2020, Signal message. In December, Rhodes -- according to the indictment -- wrote of the electoral college certification that "there is no standard political or legal way out of this."
Prosecutors have previously said that Rhodes used Signal during the attack to communicate with other members of the Oath Keepers who were at the Capitol.
"All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything," Rhodes allegedly wrote. "So the patriots are taking it into their own hands. They've had enough," he allegedly said on Signal at 1:38 p.m. that day, shortly after the siege had begun.
Additionally, the indictment says that Oath Keepers from three different states, including newly charged Edward Vallejo, stashed weapons in a Virginia hotel as part of a quick reaction force.
"Quick reaction force teams were prepared to rapidly transport firearms and other weapons into Washington, D.C., in support of operations aimed at using force to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power," the indictment said.
On his way to DC on January 3, Rhodes allegedly bought an AR-platform rifle and other firearms equipment, including sights, mounts, triggers, slings, and other firearms attachments in Texas. The next day, he allegedly bought more firearms equipment in Mississippi including sights, mounts, an optic plate, and a magazine, according to the filings.
Accusations of plotting before and after the Capitol attack
The Rhodes indictment walks through public and private statements the Oath Keeper leader made, starting just days after the election, that prosecutors say illuminate the plot to oppose by force the transfer of presidential power.
Those alleged discussions include a November readout that Caldwell reached out to provide Rhodes about a November 9 trip he had taken to DC to do recon for an upcoming "op." Communications about the "bloody" "fight" and "revolution" were accompanied by logistical planning, prosecutors alleged, with defendants discussing obtaining and bringing weapons to the Washington area. Rhodes allegedly spent thousands on firearms equipment en route to DC, prosecutors allege.
On January 6, prosecutors allege that Oath Keepers stationed themselves around the DC area -- some near the Capitol, others providing security and a third group waiting across the river in a Virginia hotel with a cache of weapons. At the Capitol, some members moved in a military "stack" formation into the Capitol where they fought with police, and a small group unsuccessfully looked for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to court documents.
The plotting didn't end with the Capitol riot, prosecutors say, alleging Rhodes and other co-conspirators met in Virginia to "celebrate" the attack and "discuss next steps." In a Signal chat to other members of Oath Keepers leadership, Rhodes allegedly said that "Patriots entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING compared to what's coming."
In the week after the riot, Rhodes allegedly spent more than $17,500 on weapons, equipment, and ammunition. One member, according to the filings, said Rhodes should stay "below the radar," while another brought what he called "all available weapons" to Rhodes' home in Texas.
Around Inauguration Day, January 20, Rhodes allegedly told associates to organize local militias to oppose the Biden administration. Another member allegedly said, "After this... if nothing happens...its war...Civil War 2.0."
Change in approach
The charges mark a dramatic change in the Justice Department's January 6 probe.
Previously, some Biden administration officials believed using the sedition charge could politicize the Justice Department's prosecution of the Capitol attackers, and the department recoiled after the former top prosecutor over the investigation, Michael Sherwin, said on CBS' "60 Minutes" he believed seditious conspiracy could be charged.
Garland said in a speech last week commemorating the Capitol attack that the department was "committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law -- whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy."
Rhodes has also been of interest to the House's January 6 investigation, which issued subpoenas in November for him and his organization for a deposition and documents related to the events of that day.
In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper Thursday night, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who serves on the January 6 committee, said he hopes the newly filed charges will "shut up those of our colleagues who keep saying, 'Well if it was a conspiracy, how come there are no conspiracy charges? If it was seditious, how come there were no sedition charges?'"
"So, there we go," he continued. "We've got those with, undoubtedly, a lot more to come soon."
CNN reported in July that Rhodes gave a voluntary interview to the FBI and that investigators seized his cell phone. He has denied all wrongdoing.
According to previous court filings submitted by the Justice Department in other cases, Rhodes said at a November 2020 online meeting, "We're going to defend the president, the duly elected president, and we call on him to do what needs to be done to save our country. Because if you don't guys, you're going to be in a bloody, bloody civil war and a bloody -- you can call it an insurrection, or you can call it a war or fight."
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/13/politics/oathkeeper-rhodes-arrested-doj/index.html
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Phoenix Man Charged for Conspiring in January 6 Attack
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Seven from the Valley were charged for their role in the riot inside and around the U.S. Capitol on January 6 last year. Those were merely the foot soldiers.
A federal grand jury Thursday indicted ten people, including one Phoenix man, with the much more serious charge of seditious conspiracy.
Edward Vallejo, 63, was also charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging during duty.
“We have only [begun] the fight!” Vallejo said in the hours following the attack, according to a 48-page indictment filed in federal court.
Vallejo is a born and bred Arizonan, records show. He doesn’t have a criminal history. Instead, he has spent his career with Homefront Battle Buddies, an Arizona nonprofit providing resources to veterans. His photo appears on the homepage of the organization’s website.
Vallejo was integral in coordinating the attack on the U.S. Capitol, federal agents claim in court documents. They allege he helped transport firearms, organized teams and combat training, and used violence against law enforcement in an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election by force.
On December 30, 2020, Vallejo was added to a group chat on Google Hangouts called “DC OP: Jan 6 21,” records show. He and other co-conspirators, orchestrated by alt-right Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes of Texas, plotted the insurrection in a conversation of encrypted instant messages there.
"We will have to do a bloody, massively bloody revolution against them,” he told other Oath Keepers, speaking of the incoming Biden Administration. “That’s what’s going to have to happen.”
In the days leading up to the riot, cabalists checked into a Comfort Inn hotel in Arlington, Virginia, records show. One room was occupied by Vallejo and other members of the “Arizona Quick Reaction Force.” The group used the hotel room to store and guard firearms, according to the indictment.
On January 4, 2021, Vallejo messaged co-defendant in the indictment Kelly Meggs of Florida, saying “Sir, Ed Vallejo of Arizona in Tenn. With cadre requesting coordinates to Allied encampment outside DC boundaries to rendezvous. Please respond ASAP. For the Republic.”
Between January 1 and 5, Vallejo transported firearms, ammunition, and tactical gear from Virginia to Washington, D.C., according to court documents.
On the morning of the attack, Vallejo discussed the probability of “armed conflict” and “guerrilla war” between his group and law enforcement after he and co-conspirators would breach the Capitol.
“There are people who are prepared, have the will, have the facilities to do more than taunt,” he said.
Around 2:30 p.m. on January 6, Vallejo told the group he had two trucks on standby, according to court records, saying, “Just say the word.”
After the mob of more than 2,000 forced entry into the Senate chamber, Vallejo met his cronies at a restaurant in suburban D.C. to celebrate the attack and discuss next steps, court documents allege. After dinner, he messaged the group.
“We’ll be back at 6am to do it again … they should let us in,” he said. “We got food for 30 days.”
On January 12, while in Texas on the drive back to Arizona from Washington, D.C., an Arizona QRF team member messaged Rhodes, “Hi Stewart. I’m sure you’re busy but wanted to let you know that [Vallejo] and I are here … We are excited to learn next steps and would like to know what we should be doing right now.”
Five people died and several more were injured in the attack. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland this month called the resulting Justice Department probe “the largest federal investigation in history.”
The latest of more than 700 people to be named as suspects brought the Oath Keeper militia founder Rhodes, a good friend of Vallejo’s, and nine of his cohort before a federal grand jury.
Also affiliated with the Oath Keepers is Queen Creek resident James Ray Epps, who was seen on video encouraging the mob to enter the U.S. Capitol and was the center of an FBI informant conspiracy theory that was busted this week.
Epps, who was listed as Arizona Oath Keeper State Chapter president in 2011, runs Rocking R Farms and Knotty Barn out of Queen Creek, less than 30 miles from where former President Donald Trump will rally in Florence on Saturday. He hasn’t been charged or arrested for his role in the January 6, 2021 agitation.
Dozens of one-star reviews on the wedding venue he owns with his wife point to his role in the attack on the capitol with calls for the business to shut down for good.
“Great place to plan an insurrection,” Derek Helbert wrote in a review.
“This guy is a far right nut-job, steer clear,” wrote another reviewer.
"Storming the capitol in their free time,” wrote Tiffany Hernandez. “This is not the type of business owner I want to do business with. Very dangerous.”
And there are dozens more. The venue’s profile on Google is littered with pleas for his prosecution. Sixty-two of its 170 reviews are one-star jabs that reference January 6.
Epps didn’t return Phoenix New Times’ attempts to contact him over phone and email, a trend he’s upheld since a solitary interview with the Arizona Republic on January 11, 2021. He’s been called a coward online.
“If you do not speak out publicly I can assure you the time will come when you will have no choice,” reviewer Mike Boileau wrote to Epps just this week. “A time when you will find yourself in jail.”
Vallejo faces 20 years in prison for conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government.
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/phoenix-man-edward-vallejo-accused-of-organizing-january-6-insurrection-12822379
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John Eastman pleads the Fifth 146 times when asked about his infamous 'coup memo' at hearing
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Attorney John Eastman has worked to try to block his former employer from handing over approximately 19,000 emails that are being requested by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S.
CNN justice reporter Katelyn Polantz reported from the case that it was established Eastman worked for former President Donald Trump without getting permission from his existing employer, Chapman University. According to his attorney, Eastman worked for Trump during many relevant moments, without asking permission.
Judge David Carter, who is presiding over the case, asked for specifics about what kind of work Eastman was doing for Trump. He admitted to briefing hundreds of state legislators, and also said that he was at the Willard with Trump strategists on Jan. 6 and that he met with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 3, 2021.
It was ten days later that Eastman resigned from the University.
During the case, CNN reporter Ana Cabrara tweeted that Chapman University decided that they would not help Eastman in his attempt to block his university emails from January 6 committee.
Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff revealed that at one point, the House counsel, Doug Letter, revealed that Eastman authored the memo on how Pence could stop the certification of the 2020 election. Eastman then invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 146 times.
https://www.rawstory.com/john-eastman-pleads-fifth-amendment/
John Eastman's former university wants to hand over 19,000 of his emails on its server to Congress
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On Monday, Yahoo News' Michael Isikoff reported that Chapman University supports a subpoena from the House January 6 Committee requesting 19,000 emails from pro-Trump lawyer John Eastman relating to his work for the former president to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which are apparently on the school servers.
At a hearing on the matter, a lawyer for the university said that Eastman's use of their server to conduct that business was "improper, unauthorized and I liken to contraband."
Eastman, who previously taught constitutional law at Chapman University, was forced into retirement after he spoke at the pro-Trump "Stop the Steal" rally calling to overturn the election that immediately preceded the attack on the Capitol on January 6.
It was subsequently revealed that he drafted a memo for the Trump team outlining a strategy to execute a coup using Vice President Mike Pence to toss out the electors of several states that narrowly voted for Joe Biden, a strategy Pence rejected as unconstitutional.
Now facing a complaint at the California State Bar for his actions, Eastman now claims he didn't actually intend for the memo to be used to execute a coup.
https://www.rawstory.com/john-eastman-2656471056/