1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 6 rioter who assaulted cop, threatened Pelosi and Pence convicted of all charges



An Oregon man who was seen picking up a phone inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and shouting threats against then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence has been convicted of almost a dozen charges.

Richard L. Harris, 42, was found guilty Wednesday following a three-day bench trial. According to prosecutors, he was among the first in the crowd of Donald Trump supporters who violently breached the Capitol building as Congress was certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win, having forced his way to the front of the crowd despite having been hit with chemical spray by police trying to keep the mob at bay.

Once inside, he was seen on video “menacing Capitol Police officers from the front of a large crowd, resulting in the officers moving aside so that Harris and the crowd could continue into the building.”

Video also recorded Harris picking up a landline phone in the Capitol Rotunda and demanding to speak with Pelosi, a Democrat and then-leader of the House of Representatives, and Pence, who was overseeing the certification process — both of whom were repeatedly targeted with vile, violent threats that day.

“Can I speak to Pelosi? We’re coming, b—-,” Harris said. “Oh, Mike Pence? We’re coming for you, too, you f—— traitor.”

Video from inside the Rotunda also showed Harris “physically assaulting a Metropolitan Police Department officer” by grabbing the officer’s baton and pulling it.

Harris was ultimately forced out by police after spending almost 90 minutes inside the building.

Video footage also shows Harris standing on a statue of former President Gerald Ford in the Capitol Rotunda, upon which a Trump flag and red baseball cap had been improperly placed.

Harris was arrested in Florida in March 2021. Prosecutors say that he had fled his home state of Oregon — where he allegedly tried to break into the state capitol building in December 2020, assaulting a journalist in the process — in order to evade post-Jan. 6 arrest by federal authorities.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, convicted Harris of all charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding, civil disorder, assaulting a police officer, and various trespassing and disorderly conduct crimes.

Harris faces a potential 20 years behind bars on the most severe charge of obstruction. Sentencing has been set for Sept. 27.

https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-breach/were-coming-b-jan-6-rioter-who-assaulted-cop-threatened-pelosi-and-pence-convicted-of-all-charges/

[Rick Plant]

Capitol rioter who was armed with gun on Jan. 6 found guilty on all charges

Christopher Alberts had a gun on his hip when he charged up the stairs of the Capitol on Jan. 6, and he later yelled at police officers before he was arrested.



WASHINGTON — A Jan. 6 rioter who admitted he was armed with a concealed gun during the attack on the U.S. Capitol was found guilty Wednesday of all nine charges he faced.

Christopher Alberts, of Maryland, was arrested with a weapon on the night of Jan. 6, 2021, after having spent several hours on the Capitol grounds. He was wearing a gas mask and a protective vest and had a backpack containing ready-to-eat meals and other materials, including bungee cords.

After the verdict was read, Justice Department prosecutors sought to take Alberts into custody and keep him detained until his sentencing, which is scheduled for July 19. But U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said he would allow Alberts to remain on pretrial release until then.

Alberts assured Cooper after his conviction that he would show up for his sentencing date.

The convictions could lead to more than five years in prison for Alberts, prosecutors said.

Alberts was accompanied by his fiancée in the courtroom Wednesday. Both appeared shocked when the verdict was read.

Alberts and one of his attorneys, John Pierce, declined to comment on the verdict.

In his testimony, Alberts said that “instinct took over” when he used a wooden pallet to “build a wall” between police and the rioters. He maintained that police used excessive force after thousands of Trump supporters entered the restricted grounds of the Capitol and began climbing the platform that had been set up for Joe Biden's inauguration.

“Somebody had to put a stop to it,” Alberts said. “It was wrong.”

Before he charged the police line, evidence showed Alberts assisted in keeping a pathway clear so that authorities could get another Jan. 6 rioter who needed medical assistance to safety.

On cross-examination, Alberts admitted that he called police "domestic terrorists," yelled "y'all wanted war, you asked for it, you got it," and threw a water bottle at police officers' feet.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/capitol-rioter-armed-gun-jan-6-found-guilty-charges-rcna80387

[Rick Plant]

GOP leadership still 'flirting' with Jan. 6 extremists



Republicans with an eye on the 2024 general election don't want to talk about the Jan 6th insurrection over fears that it will cripple their chances of retaking the White House and the Senate, but that doesn't mean that they are shunning far-right extremists who are still pushing conspiracy theories that it was instigated by the "deep state."

According to a report from Politico's Jordain Carney and Kyle Cheney, some GOP members of the House -- including some members of the leadership -- continue to pander to voters who believe the riot that sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives was a righteous cause.

According to the report, "At times, GOP lawmakers insist they’re uninterested in relitigating an attack that is political poison for the party outside of deep-red areas. But at other times, some Republicans have stoked narratives that falsely pin blame for the attack on police, Democrats or far-left agitators — or downplay the violence at the Capitol. The latter approach has seen a noticeable uptick of late."

The report notes that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) "encapsulates the half-hearted embrace. He angered some allies on the right this year by defending a Capitol Police officer’s decision to shoot a Jan. 6 rioter who was attempting to breach a room adjacent to the House chamber. But he’s also provided exclusive access to thousands of hours of security footage to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who’s used the film to demean and distort police officers’ actions."

Add to that, House Judiciary chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) has been focusing on Jan. 6 issues when he isn't holding hearings on the "weaponization" of the Department of Justice.

"Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) did recently release a wider report that accused the FBI of artificially conflating the number of Jan. 6-related investigations. The report and a subsequent hearing also included testimony from whistleblowers who lost their security clearances due to improper actions related to Jan. 6," Politico is reporting.

The report added, "Jordan also fired off new Jan. 6-related letters, one asking for more information on the FBI’s investigation into pipe bombs found near the Capitol the day of the attack and another expanding a probe into record-sharing with federal investigators. But those efforts make up a small slice of his collective, sweeping investigations."

Read More Here: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/18/house-gop-jan-6-extremism-00101259

[Rick Plant]

'We were embarrassed': DOJ insiders told reporter they acted on Jan. 6 only after House committee shamed them

The Washington Post revealed that the Department of Justice and the FBI were resistant to opening a probe into Donald Trump for Jan. 6 for over a year, but reporter Carol Leonnig told MSNBC on Monday they were finally shamed into acting when the House Select Committee launched an investigation into the insurrection.

Leonnig began by explaining that between her and her co-author, they interviewed more than 100 people – and many had assumed that the DOJ was already involved in a Jan. 6 investigation. What her report revealed was that, at the time, it wasn't.

She said the reluctance was because the FBI was afraid of Donald Trump because so many people had lost their jobs or careers because of the FBI's probe into Trump and alleged Russia connections during the 2016 election.

At the same time, she said, the DOJ was scared that if it went after the Jan. 6 attacks it would appear as if it was going after the Republican Party because so many Republicans were involved.

"Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco embraced the strategy of let's do it like a mob case," Leonnig said. "Build up from the riot. Figure out if there's somebody higher and higher and higher and perhaps it will lead to those individuals around Donald Trump. Perhaps not. Let's let the evidence lead us up that ladder.

"The problem is no ladder between militia members, the Oath Keepers, and the Proud Boys wearing flak jackets and bullet-proof vests and carrying bear spray and emails to Mark Meadows or Donald Trump or Rudy Giuliani about convincing state officials to help them create fake electors to swing the election for Trump and away from Biden.

"As it started to emerge in the summer and especially the fall of 2022, still, the DOJ sort of turned its eyes away from this until it became a drumbeat of criticism, news stories, some of them on this story and some of them in my paper. And a groundswell of concern that the Jan. 6th committee was really without the same kind of power as the Department of Justice uncovering stunning and worrisome and, likely criminal acts," she continued.

MSNBC Host Nicolle Wallace pointed to the important explanation she gave about missing the links between the militias and the White House.

"But it was also true that Trump committed crimes in plain sight," she said. "He committed the crime of blocking an official proceeding. Even with the limits to their investigative powers, he committed the crimes of insurrection. I mean, there were criminal acts that were ignored."

Leonnig said that inside the Justice Department, there are a lot of prosecutors that were more disheartened than angry about Jan. 6 going un-investigated. She said that there were many at the DOJ that were pressing to investigate the fake electors' scandal. It was even referred to the DOJ by the attorney general of Michigan. Still, the DOJ took a full year and four months before it acted.

"I think that another really important thing, Nicolle, which you have really zeroed in on over and over again is the Jan. 6th committee's work," Leonnig continued. "The Department of Justice has said to us, in different ways, this committee didn't influence us at all. Except when you interview people who were right in the thick of it, they said, 'Look, we were embarrassed and goaded into it.'"

It was the work of the Jan. 6 committee that made it impossible for the DOJ to justify its bottom-up strategy, she said.

Leonnig also said that the FBI is refusing to comment on the piece, answer questions about the decisions around Jan. 6, and blocked any of the principal decision-makers from giving a statement. The reporting on the FBI's resistance to investigate comes after it was revealed the FBI was told Jan. 6 was going to be violent, but did nothing to stop it.

Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor under Robert Mueller, explained that there is a philosophy that still persists among some in law enforcement: "Little cases, little problems. No cases, no problems. Big cases, big problems."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Sentencing set for Sept 11 in Capitol riot case of Ralph Celentano of New York.

He was found guilty at trial. Feds argued "Celentano locked arms with other rioters & pushed forward to breach the police line and then repeatedly shoved a separate law enforcement officer backward".

[Rick Plant]

Feds announce MORE Jan 6 arrests, including Ken, Caleb & Nicholas Fuller of Minnesota.

Charging documents: "Nicholas Fuller & Caleb Fuller can be seen on body-worn camera footage allegedly pushing against police lines & pushing others to prevent the forward movement of officers".

[Rick Plant]

Judge orders OathKeepers lawyer & Jan 6 defendant Kellye Sorelle hospitalized for competency exam:

"Court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that Defendant is presently suffering from a mental
disease or defect rendering her mentally incompetent."