2021 Trump-Incited Insurrection at Capitol Building

[TopHatter]

...but he wanted to contextualize his actions...

Later in direct Facebook messages, the judge noted, McHugh wrote, “I unloaded a whole can of bear spray on a line of cops I got three of them down really really good.”

Bates said McHugh shouted police officers were “protecting pedophiles” and “protecting communists.” He said that McHugh claimed “I have a job to do, and it’s defend the Constitution.”

Here's the context, asshole. You did the crime so now you do the time.

And you bet we ANTIFA folks are over here pointing and laughing!

Such a magnificent display of "personal responsibility"

[Albany Rifles]

Such a magnificent display of "personal responsiblity"

But...but...YOUR the snowflake!!!

[TopHatter]

Such a magnificent display of "personal responsibility"

But...but...YOUR the snowflake!!!

Quote from John Cleese, back in 2018:

"Yes I've heard this word [snowflake]. I think sociopaths use it in an attempt to discredit the notion of empathy"

[Albany Rifles]

Quote from John Cleese, back in 2018:

"Yes I've heard this word [snowflake]. I think sociopaths use it in an attempt to discredit the notion of empathy"

People often overlook all the Pythons were graduate students at Oxford & Cambridge when they started their bits. These aren't a collection of dummies.

[TopHatter]

Capitol rioter shot at local deputies after FBI informed him of Jan. 6 charges
Nathan Donald Pelham, of Texas, now faces an additional felony count, on top of the four misdemeanor charges stemming from the attack on the Capitol.

A Texas man facing charges in the Jan. 6 riot opened fire last week on sheriff’s deputies who had gone to his home to check on him ahead of his scheduled surrender to the FBI, according to new criminal complaint.

Nathan Donald Pelham of Greenville, who initially faced four misdemeanor charges tied to the insurrection, now faces an additional felonycharge of being a felon in possession of firearm following the April 12 incident, a criminal complaint filed this week shows.

An FBI special agent wrote in a filing that he had called Pelham on April 12 and asked him to surrender in a few days. That evening, according to the agent, local authorities went to Pelham’s home after his father requested a welfare check.

When the deputies arrived, Pelham fired several shots toward them, prosecutors said.

One of the law enforcement officers said that one gunshot “came in so close proximity to myself that I could hear the distinct whistling sound as the bullet traveled by me and then strike a metal object to my right side,” according to a court filing.

The new weapon charge against Pelham will likely give federal authorities a quick way to keep him locked up before his trial. He could face other charges related to the shooting down the line.

Court records show that Pelham waived a detention hearing and a federal magistrate judge ordered him detained.

The initial charges against Pelham included disorderly conduct, and parading, demonstrating or picketing at the Capitol. He appeared in at least one photo from the riot donning a hat with a logo associated with the Proud Boys, the FBI said.


Nathan Pelham at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Many the Jan. 6 defendants who have pleaded guilty to the same misdemeanor charges against Pelham have been sentenced only to periods of probation.

Pelham's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Two months after the Capitol riot, Pelham tried to leave the United States and enter Canada, but was denied entry by Canadian authorities and subsequently detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents in Port Huron, Michigan, the FBI said.

During an interview with two FBI task force officers, Pelham admitted to appearing at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and going up the steps of the building's Senate chamber side. Pelham said he never touched or breached a barricade, and said he was never told he was entering a restricted area, according to court documents.

Pelham previously claimed that he did not enter the Capitol, and said he would be willing to take a polygraph to prove he wasn’t lying, according to court documents.

After obtaining a search warrant, authorities said they found text messages on Pelham's phone that suggested he entered the Capitol, according to court documents.

“If you have a video of being inside, don’t post it,” his wife allegedly wrote a day after the riot. “I know I am smart honey,” Pelham replied, according to court documents.

Pelham later said he was only inside for 10 to 11 seconds, but footage showed he was inside for more than 7 minutes, the FBI said.

More than 1,000 defendants have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and hundreds more arrests are expected.
________

Not the brightest of bulbs are they...

[TopHatter]

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



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.

Alberts maintained the crowd was “completely peaceful" and said there were “a couple thousand patriots on the lawn.” He said he “feared that he was about to be shot” when an officer placed a hand on their weapon.

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.
________

“Somebody had to put a stop to the 224 years of peaceful transition of presidential power in this country....Donald Trump said It was wrong.”

[Albany Rifles]

I always wear a gas mask to a speech on the Mall!

[tbm3fan]

Capitol rioter shot at local deputies after FBI informed him of Jan. 6 charges
Nathan Donald Pelham, of Texas, now faces an additional felony count, on top of the four misdemeanor charges stemming from the attack on the Capitol.

A Texas man facing charges in the Jan. 6 riot opened fire last week on sheriff’s deputies who had gone to his home to check on him ahead of his scheduled surrender to the FBI, according to new criminal complaint.

Nathan Donald Pelham of Greenville, who initially faced four misdemeanor charges tied to the insurrection, now faces an additional felonycharge of being a felon in possession of firearm following the April 12 incident, a criminal complaint filed this week shows.


Not the brightest of bulbs are they...

What is this guy 30 years old plus or minus a few. I know what he is really minus in and am conflicted about wanting to beat some sense into him or beat the crap out of him. Decisions, decisions...

[TopHatter]

What is this guy 30 years old plus or minus a few. I know what he is really minus in and am conflicted about wanting to beat some sense into him or beat the crap out of him. Decisions, decisions...

I was thinking that too. Turns out he's 40 years old.

[tbm3fan]

I was thinking that too. Turns out he's 40 years old.

Well that seals it. I need to wear a safety mask and hat in order to make me look 40 which I'll take...

[TopHatter]

Jan. 6 rioter invokes Ray Epps conspiracy theory at Proud Boys trial



WASHINGTON — A member of the Proud Boys who is on trial charged with seditious conspiracy used his courtroom testimony on Wednesday to try to advance a conspiracy theory about a fellow Jan. 6 participant.

Dominic Pezzola, a member of the far-right extremist group who smashed in a U.S. Capitol window with a stolen police shield, said while testifying is his own defense that the pro-Trump protester Ray Epps was a "suspected government operative.” Federal prosecutors moved to strike Pezzola's claim, and U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, agreed to remove his comments from the court record.

Far-right conspirators have alleged that Epps was working with the federal government and sought to provoke violence during the 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Epps, who has said conspiracy theories had a significant impact on his life, told the House Jan. 6 committee that "the crazies started coming out of the woodwork" after conservative members of Congress and commentators referred to him by name. On the eve of the insurrection, Epps had called for protesters to enter the Capitol, but the next day he was seen on video trying to calm protesters and maintain a line between police and the pro-Trump mob.

Epps is seeking a public retraction from Tucker Carlson and Fox News over “false and defamatory statements” alleging that he was secretly working with the federal government on Jan. 6.

Pezzola is on trial alongside fellow Proud Boys members Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl. The seditious conspiracy trial has been underway for more than three months. Jury selection began in December, and opening statements took place the next month.

Under questioning by his attorney Steven Metcalf on Wednesday, Pezzola said there was no plan to storm the Capitol ahead of Jan. 6, and he depicted himself as an average Joe who had just stumbled into situations and made some poor decisions.

“Our only plans were to maybe storm the liquor store. That was it,” he said.

Pezzola said he woke up on Jan. 6 with no clue what was going to happen and met up with the Proud Boys at the Washington Monument around 10 a.m., then joined them on their march to the Capitol. He said that he was frustrated that they were missing Trump’s speech and that he eventually headed back toward the White House before he followed a stream of protesters back to the Capitol and rejoined the Proud Boys.

Pezzola said that when he entered the restricted grounds of the Capitol and moved to the front of the stage that had been set up for Joe Biden's inauguration, it “almost felt like being under sniper fire” as police used so-called less-lethal munitions.

“There was definitely fear and concern for my safety and my life,” Pezzola said, adding that he couldn’t believe the level of force against what he called an “unarmed crowd” of “people who were just pushing on riot shields.”

“In my mind this is pretty much what I thought combat would be like,” he said.

Pezzola said he saw Joshua Black, a fellow Capitol rioter, get shot through the cheek with a less-lethal round. Black, who was convicted in January, made it onto the Senate floor on Jan. 6.

Pezzola, a Marine Corps veteran, testified that his military training took over during clashes with police and that he didn’t run away because that’s not what the military trains you to do. “I guess I’m just programmed to charge toward danger," he said.

“My intent was never to rob or take or steal,” Pezzola said of the moment he grabbed a police shield. “My only intention was to protect myself from a similar fate of Joshua Black.”

Pezzola testified Tuesday that he “got caught up in all the craziness” and was “angry,” “upset” and “not thinking clearly” on Jan. 6. He said the rest of the Proud Boys “should not be roped into my actions" and insisted that there wasn't a coordinated plan ahead of the attack.

The government is expected to begin its cross-examination of Pezzola on Thursday before the trial moves to closing arguments.

About 1,000 defendants have been arrested in connection with Jan. 6, and hundreds of cases are in the works. On Wednesday, cases were unsealed against Christopher Pearce of Pennsylvania and Tricia LaCount of Oklahoma. Pearce entered the building wearing goggles and a respirator, authorities said, while LaCount joined the mob in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office, which she called "so gaudy."
___________

Epps bought into the lies, supported Trump, and is now in fear for his life from other people exactly like him. Sometimes karma acts quickly.

I like how the "personal responsibility" MAGAs have been blaming everyone but themselves for January 6th . The "they made me do it" defense.

[TopHatter]

Defense rests at sedition trial for Proud Boys leaders


FILE - Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio rallies in Portland, Ore. Outside pressures and internal strife are roiling two far-right extremist groups after members were charged in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Aug. 17, 2019. A jury will soon decide whether the onetime leader of the Proud Boys extremist group is guilty in one of the most serious cases brought in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense attorneys on Thursday finished presenting their trial testimony for the landmark case against former Proud Boys national leader Enrique Tarrio and four other group members charged with conspiring to stop the peaceful transfer of presidential power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

Federal prosecutors have a right to call rebuttal witnesses to testify before jurors hear attorneys’ closing arguments and begin deliberating. The trial, which started more than three months ago, is scheduled to resume on Friday.

Lawyers for the five defendants rested their respective cases on the 50th day of trial testimony. The last defense witness to testify was one of the five defendants, Dominic Pezzola, who was a Proud Boys member from Rochester, New York.

The jury is poised to decide one of the most important cases from the Justice Department's investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Tarrio and his co-defendants are charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a violent plot to keep Trump in the White House.

During a prosecutor's cross-examination on Thursday, Pezzola referred to the trial as “corrupt” and “phony” and said he was facing “fake charges."

“I just want the truth out,” Pezzola said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Erik Kenerson showed Pezzola a photograph of police officers scuffling with rioters storming the Capitol. The prosecutor asked Pezzola if he and the rest of the crowd were acting as an “invading force.”

“We were acting as trespassing protesters,” said Pezzola, who began testifying on Tuesday.

Jurors also saw a “selfie" video that Pezzola took of himself after he entered the Capitol. He talked about taking a “victory smoke” on a cigar and said, “I knew we could take this (expletive) if we just tried hard enough.”

Pezzola, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, said he now feels “idiotic" and ashamed that he recorded that video. He reiterated that he didn't know of any plot or plan for the Proud Boys to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“That was the most spontaneous thing I've ever witnessed in my life,” he said of the riot.

Pezzola testified on Wednesday that he wasn't coordinating with any Proud Boys when he smashed a window with a riot shield stolen from one of the police officers guarding the Capitol.

Jurors have heard testimony by more than three dozen witnesses since the trial started in January. Prosecutors rested their case on March 20 but have the right to call more witnesses to rebut defense testimony.

Pezzola and Tarrio, a Miami resident, are on trial with Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl. Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter president. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Rehl was president of a Proud Boys chapter in Philadelphia.

Rehl, the only other defendant to testify at the trial, said the group had “no objective” that day.

Tarrio wasn't in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. Police arrested him in the nation's capital two days before the riot on charges that he burned a church’s Black Lives Matter banner during an earlier march in the city. A judge ordered Tarrio to leave the city after his arrest.
________

[TopHatter]

‘Donald Trump’s army’: Prosecutors close seditious conspiracy case against Proud Boys leaders



Leaders of the far-right Proud Boys, fearful about their place in a post-Trump America, instead tried to prevent it from happening at all — even if it meant a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, prosecutors argued Monday.

“These defendants saw themselves as Donald Trump’s army, fighting to keep their preferred leader in power no matter what the law or the courts had to say about it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor Mulroe said Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Mulroe made the Justice Department’s closing pitch Monday in the most significant trial to emerge from the Jan. 6 attack. More than 1,000 people have been charged for their behavior that day, but prosecutors say the Proud Boys played the most critical, galvanizing role in assembling and leading the mob to the Capitol — and then breaching police lines and the building itself.

U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves and Criminal Division Chief John Crabb, among other high-ranking DOJ officials, were on hand for the closing arguments, underscoring the significance of the case to the government.

A jury that has heard the case for nearly four months is expected to begin deliberating Tuesday, after each of the five defendants presents a closing argument as well.

Mulroe urged jurors to convict former Proud Boys Chair Enrique Tarrio and four associates — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola — of seditious conspiracy, a plan to forcibly prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden, as well as a host of other federal crimes.

Tarrio, prosecutors say, ignited the conspiracy on Dec. 19, 2020, hours after Trump had urged his supporters to descend on D.C. for a “wild” protest against the election results. Tarrio was concerned that the group — which had already mobilized to participate in two pro-Trump marches in Washington over the prior two months — had been undisciplined, leading to violent street clashes that left some of their members injured.

So he formed a new Proud Boys chapter that he dubbed the “Ministry of Self-Defense,” featuring only handpicked members whom leaders could trust to follow orders. Prosecutors say this group, which grew to several hundred members nationwide, became the “fighting force” that was the backbone of the Proud Boys’ presence on Jan. 6. That decision by Tarrio belies the defense’s claim, Mulroe argued, that the Proud Boys were merely a glorified men’s club, where members goaded each other and used overheated language but did little more than drink and talk.

"You want to call this a drinking club? You want to call this a men’s fraternal organization? Let’s call this what it is,” Mulroe said. “The Ministry of Self-Defense was a violent gang that came together to use force against its enemies."

At the heart of the case is the group’s symbiotic relationship with Trump. Prosecutors showed how Trump’s debate-stage call in September 2020 for the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” became a slogan for the group and fueled recruitment efforts in the months before Jan. 6. And when Trump called for a “wild” protest on Jan. 6, the Proud Boys saw it as a call to arms that they were prepared to answer.

“They clearly believed their club was so much better off with Donald Trump in the White House,” Mulroe said.

Much of the government’s closing argument reconstructed the Proud Boys’ descent on the Capitol on Jan. 6. Just two days earlier, Tarrio was arrested for burning a Black Lives Matter flag during the December pro-Trump rally in Washington — an arrest he saw coming due to a longstanding relationship with a D.C. police lieutenant. So on the day of the attack, Nordean assembled hundreds of Proud Boys at the Washington Monument early in the morning.

Rather than attend Trump’s long-planned speech nearby, Nordean marched the group to the Capitol, arriving just before 1 p.m., while Trump was still speaking. Mulroe emphasized that the Proud Boys’ arrival turned a relatively placid crowd into a rabid one. Soon, Biggs would huddle briefly with a member of the crowd, Ryan Samsel, who would just moments later charge at the police lines and provoke the first breach of Capitol grounds.

Members of the Proud Boys march followed the mob across the toppled barricades and arrived at a second police line, where Biggs and Nordean helped the mob disassemble a black metal fence, Mulroe said. As the mob amassed at the foot of the Capitol, police began to launch crowd control munitions. Amid the chaos that ensued, Pezzola helped wrest free a riot shield from a Capitol Police officer that he quickly carted away. After another Proud Boy, Daniel Scott, helped instigate a breach of the final police line between the mob and the Capitol, Pezzola rushed through the opening and reached the base of the building, where he used the shield to shatter a Senate-wing window.

“The Capitol Building would be breached in more places than you can count,” Mulroe said. “Pezzola was the first.”

The prosecutors’ close was the government’s first bid to stitch together months of complex and often disjointed testimony caused by numerous delays and disruptions to the trial. Mulroe contended that two of the defendants who testified — Rehl and Pezzola — lied on the stand as they defended their conduct. And he highlighted newly discovered evidence that Rehl appeared to discharge pepper spray at police as they fended off the mob.

Pezzola, Nordena, Biggs and Rehl all entered the Capitol while Tarrio — barred from D.C. due to his arrest two days earlier — monitored events from a hotel in Baltimore. Once inside, they milled around with the crowd until reinforcements helped police eject the mob from the Capitol.

“They went into that building like soldiers into a conquered city,” Mulroe said, noting that Pezzola took a selfie video while smoking a cigar and Biggs grabbed items from a Senate convenience store.

“This is a national disgrace,” Mulroe said. “To them, this was mission accomplished. They had done it. They had stopped the certification of the election.”
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[TopHatter]

Jan 6 conspiracy target Ray Epps says ‘obsessed’ Tucker Carlson trying to destroy his life
‘He’s going to any means possible to destroy my life and our lives’

Ray Epps has accused Fox News host Tucker Carlson of being “obsessed” with him and said he will go to any lengths to “destroy” his life.

“He’s [Carlson] obsessed with me,” said the man who has found himself at the centre of allegations that he was an instigator during the Jan 6 riots.

“He’s going to any means possible to destroy my life and our lives,” he said in the interview with CBS’s Bill Whitaker on Sunday’s 60 Minutes.

“Why?” asked Whitaker.

“To shift blame on somebody else,” Mr Epps said. “If you look at it, Fox News, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, (Matt) Gaetz, they’re all tellin’ us before this thing that it was stolen. So you tell me, who has more impact on people, them or me?”

Mr Epps has been accused by various far right media personalities aligned with former president Donald Trump of being an FBI plant.

Though he was at one time on the FBI’s wanted list, Mr Epps never ended up facing criminal charges over his involvement in the Jan 6 Capitol riots.

In January 2021, he traveled to Washington DC from Arizona to support Mr Trump as a joint session of Congress was set to certify the results of the 2020 election which Joe Biden won.

Mr Epps was filmed the night before the attack urging people to go inside the Capitol and also was seen moving past exterior barricades on 6 January, though he did not go inside and sought to diffuse the tensions with a violent mob.

Carlson has focused on Mr Epps more than 20 times on his top-rated show and a half dozen times so far this year, according to CBS.

His remarks come amid Fox News’s $787.5bn settlement with Dominion Voting Systems which had accused the network of defamation for airing false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Mr Epps said during the 60 Minutes interview along with his wife that they had received death threats and relive the day of the Capitol riot everyday.

Mr Epps’ wife Robyn told Whitaker: “Some people have said, ‘Well, just let it go, and let it die down’.”

“What they don’t understand is it doesn’t,” she said.

In Mr Epps’s interview with investigators, he testified he was not a federal agent and said the “crazy” conspiracy theories surrounding him had torn his life apart.

Last month, a lawyer for Mr Epps demanded Carlson retract his “false and defamatory” statements about him and deliver a “formal on-air apology” for the “lies” he promoted.
________

Oh Ray, he's not obsessed with you. It's Trump's Deranged Supporters that are obsessed with you. Tucker just knows what will enrage them and generate ratings*

And why are TDS obsessed with you?

Well you nailed that part pretty well: “To shift blame on somebody else”

See, if it was you (and only you) that incited Cult45 to storm the Capitol (peacefully, remember!) then their Orange God Emperor is innocent and it's really the "Deep State" that's at fault!

*The fun part now is, will Tucker Carlson find a new outlet with which to continue shifting blame from Trump to Epps?

[TopHatter]

'Traitors Need To Be Executed': 'Stop The Steal' Organizer Indicted In Jan. 6 Conspiracy Case

The 56-year-old Hostetter and five other men from the Orange County area ― Russell Taylor, 40, Erik Warner, 45, Felipe Martinez, 47, Derek Kinnison, 39, and Ronald Mele, 51 ― were accused of entering into a conspiracy to “corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede the Congressional proceeding at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

Jan. 6 insurrectionist from O.C. worked to create hatchet-wielding band of 'fighters,' faces 20 years


Insurrectionists stream into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Ladera Ranch resident Russell Taylor, who once messaged that he wanted to “be one of the first ones to breach the doors” of the U.S. Capitol, agreed to a plea deal in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Taylor, one of six members of a Southern California group known as the DC Brigade, pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. He could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

The agreement means that multiple additional charges against Taylor, including unlawful possession of a dangerous weapon on capitol grounds and in buildings, were dropped. In return, the government may call upon Taylor to testify against his fellow co-conspirators.

Taylor’s confederates, according to court records, include former La Habra Police Chief Alan Hostetter, and Riverside County Three Percenters militia members Derek Kinnison of Lake Elsinore, Felipe “Tony” Martinez of Lake Elsinore, Erik Scott Warner of Menifee and Ronald Mele of Temecula.

The men were indicted on June 9, 2021, and Taylor was arrested in Orange the next day. He initially pleaded not guilty on all charges at his arraignment on June 28, 2021.

According to court documents, Taylor and members of the DC Brigade stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with Taylor, referring to the act as the beginning of an “insurrection!”

Taylor said at a protest in front of the Supreme Court on Jan. 5 that “we will fight and we will bleed before we allow our freedoms to be taken from us,” according to court documents.

He and his fellow insurrectionists did not accept the legitimacy of the 2020 election and, according to court documents, planned not to leave Washington until “this election is made right, our freedoms are restored and America is preserved.”

Court documents state that Taylor, Hostetter and others met at the Ellipse near the White House for a speech on Jan. 6 by then-President Trump and marched to the Capitol afterward.

Taylor wore a black-plate carrier vest body armor and had a knife in his vest pocket and a stun baton in his backpack, court filings said.

Because of the knife, according to courts documents, Taylor was denied entry into the Ellipse by the Secret Service for Trump's speech.

Court filings say Taylor directed a group of insurrections at the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol into the building and warned police not to get involved, saying, “Last chance, boys. Move back!” Taylor, though, did not enter the building.

In the days leading up to the insurrection, Taylor helped organize “a group of fighters” in a private, encrypted group chat through the instant messaging app Telegram, according to the court files. More than 35 members participated in the California Patriots-DC Brigade planning thread.

“I am assuming that you have some type of weaponry that you are bringing with you and [body armor] as well,” he is quoted in court documents, suggesting the group bring hatchets, bats and large metal flashlights.

In court documents, other members of the group messaged that they were bringing firearms to Washington.

Taylor’s journey to the insurrection began the previous spring. Hostetter founded the American Phoenix Project, a San Clemente-based nonprofit, in 2020 and railed against COVID-19 restrictions.

The duo also amplified Trump's stolen election claims.

Both spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally in Huntington Beach on Dec. 12, 2020, in which Hostetter said the “enemies and traitors of America … must be held accountable,” according to court records. He advocated for long prison terms and executions.

Taylor and Hostetter began, according to court documents, communicating through Telegram with other members of the DC Brigade.

On Dec. 20, Taylor posted a link to a Trump tweet from earlier in the day. In the message, the president said it was “statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election” and that there would be “a big protest in D.C. on January 6.”

Taylor asked members, “Who is going?”
_________

So...if I'm not mistaken, an insurrectionist identified his intentions and actions as....an insurrection.

"We will fight and we will bleed before we allow our freedoms to be taken from us". That position quickly changed to "I will rat out anyone to guarantee my freedom from jail".