2021 Trump-Incited Insurrection at Capitol Building

[TopHatter]

Ex-Proud Boys leader Tarrio, 3 other members guilty of Jan. 6 sedition plot


Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio rallies in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 17, 2019. A federal jury is scheduled to hear a second day of attorneys’ closing arguments in the landmark trial for former Proud Boys extremist group leaders charged with plotting to violently stop the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three other members of the far-right extremist group were convicted Thursday of a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol in a desperate bid to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 presidential election.

A jury in Washington, D.C., found Tarrio guilty of seditious conspiracy after hearing from dozens of witnesses over more than three months in one of the most serious cases brought in the stunning attack that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021, as the world watched on live TV.

It’s a significant milestone for the Justice Department, which has now secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the leaders of two major extremist groups prosecutors say were intent on keeping Democrat Joe Biden out of the White House at all costs. The charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

Tarrio was a top target of what has become the largest Justice Department investigation in American history. He led the neo-fascist group — known for street fights with left-wing activists — when Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during his first debate with Biden.

Tarrio wasn’t in Washington on Jan. 6, because he had been arrested two days earlier in a separate case and ordered out of the capital city. But prosecutors said he organized and directed the attack by Proud Boys who stormed the Capitol that day.

In addition to Tarrio, a Miami resident, three other Proud Boys were convicted of seditious conspiracy: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl.

Jurors have not yet reached a unanimous verdict on the sedition charge for fifth defendant: Dominic Pezzola. The judge told them to keep deliberating.

Nordean, of Auburn, Washington, was a Proud Boys chapter leader. Rehl led a group chapter in Philadelphia. Biggs, of Ormond Beach, Florida, was a self-described Proud Boys organizer. Pezzola was a group member from Rochester, New York.

Prosecutors told jurors the group viewed itself as “Trump’s army” and was prepared for “all-out war” to stop Biden from becoming president.

The Proud Boys were “lined up behind Donald Trump and willing to commit violence on his behalf,” prosecutor Conor Mulroe said in his closing argument.

The backbone of the government’s case was hundreds of messages exchanged by Proud Boys in the days leading up to Jan. 6 that show the far-right extremist group peddling Trump’s false claims of a stolen election and trading fears over what would happen when Biden took office.

As Proud Boys swarmed the Capitol, Tarrio cheered them on from afar, writing on social media: “Do what must be done.” In a Proud Boys encrypted group chat later that day someone asked what they should do next. Tarrio responded: “Do it again.”

“Make no mistake,” Tarrio wrote in another message. “We did this.”

Defense lawyers denied there was any plot to attack the Capitol or stop Congress’ certification of Biden’s win. A lawyer for Tarrio sought to push the blame onto Trump, arguing the former president incited the pro-Trump mob’s attack when he urged the crowd near the White House to “fight like hell.”

“It was Donald Trump’s words. It was his motivation. It was his anger that caused what occurred on January 6th in your beautiful and amazing city,” attorney Nayib Hassan said in his final appeal to jurors. “It was not Enrique Tarrio. They want to use Enrique Tarrio as a scapegoat for Donald J. Trump and those in power.”

The Justice Department hadn’t tried a seditious conspiracy case in a decade before a jury convicted another extremist group leader, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, of the Civil War-era charge last year.

Over the course of two Oath Keepers trials, Rhodes and five other members were convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors said was a separate plot to forcibly halt the transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden. Three defendants were acquitted of the sedition charge, but convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

The Justice Department has yet to disclose how much prison time it will seek when the Oath Keepers are sentenced next month.
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I almost miss the days when this wasn't a "real" insurrection because nobody had been charged with insurrection.

Now someone who wasn't even in D.C. on that horrifying day has been found guilty in a court of law on the charge of seditious conspiracy, a charge with twice the potential prison sentence as a charge of insurrection.

[Gun Grape]

Noticed that the story is on every news site except one.

Care to guess who isn't covering it?

[TopHatter]

Noticed that the story is on every news site except one.

Care to guess who isn't covering it?

The newly "woke" Fox News?

[TopHatter]

Proud Boys Verdict Is a Rebuttal to Those Claiming Jan. 6 Wasn't an Insurrection



In an all-too-common alternative reality, the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was merely a sightseeing group that got a little over its skis. Or it was a Democratic “false flag” operation meant to make Republicans look bad. Or Antifa infiltrated the good-natured, good-government groups and lit the kindling that left the Capitol shattered. No one—let alone democracy itself—was ever at risk, the death and injury tolls are totally bogus, and anyone suggesting it was an insurrection is just fake news.

Well, that fanciful hogwash once again fell apart. A federal jury here in Washington on Thursday convicted four more far-right Proud Boys—the so-called Donald Trump’s Army—on charges of seditious conspiracy, a crime dating back to the Civil War era when secessionist Southerners tried to break the Union government. (A fifth Proud Boy was found guilty on lesser charges but was found not guilty on seditious conspiracy charges.) Those convictions follow two other trials of members of a separate but equally noxious group, the Oath Keepers.

Put simply, the Department of Justice is now 3-and-0 in its most serious cases against the leaders who orchestrated and carried out a plan meant to overturn the results of the 2020 elections and to install its loser, then-President Donald Trump, in the White House for another four years despite a deafening loss. It is entirely fair to call the planning and execution of Jan. 6 what it was: an insurrection.

At least 10 ringleaders of the assault on Capitol Hill have now added their names to an inglorious list of those convicted of seditious conspiracy that includes Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine followers who in 1995 were convicted of plotting to blow up the United Nations, an FBI office, and two New York tunnels; a group of white supremacists who in 1988 planned to establish an all-white nation in the Pacific Northwest, while plotting to kill an FBI agent and judge; and Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was found guilty in 1981 in a bombing campaign in the 1970s and ‘80s to push Puerto Rican independence. In other words, these are among the most serious threats to the United States you can summon.

And yet, it may not matter to the hardcore denialists who make up at least a quarter of the current Republican Party. The closed-loop right-wing media environment has conditioned the hardcore audience to ignore such facts and insist this is all somehow the fault of Democrats. Their fantasies might be tough to drown, but it’s getting harder and harder for anyone to keep them afloat given the crushing consistency of prosecutors’ cases.

That conspiracy theory, much like the mob that marched on the Capitol wearing body armor and clinging to weapons and bad-faith notions alike, represents a standing threat to the United States.

All told, more than 1,000 people have been charged for their roles that day. A stunning 562 people have pleaded guilty, according to NPR’s invaluable database of the cases, and only one case has ended in an acquittal.

Thursday’s news rang the loudest so far, coming at the end of a trial that started in January. Former Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola were the latest extremists to be held to account. (Pezzola alone was not found guilty of seditious conspiracy.) A federal jury took seven days of deliberation before finding the group guilty on more than 30 of 46 counts. The conspiracy counts alone could earn each man decades in prison, and they were found guilty of other felonies as well.

The GOP talking points downplaying the severity of the Jan. 6 scene—one that involved tear gas wafting through the halls of Congress, windows broken out, statues smeared with blood, and lawmakers’ offices ransacked—simply are falling apart. No matter how much the now-deposed Tucker Carlson tried to rehabilitate the insurrectionists, there is no denying that their actions prompted lawmakers from both parties to cower in fear and flee for their lives, and for Trump’s own Vice President to shelter in a loading dock while White House allies begged contacts inside the West Wing to do something.

Washington is still grappling with Jan. 6. There has been a pronounced exodus of longtime workers from the Capitol. Democratic staffers and their bosses are still shook, and with good reason. Members of Congress have been open about seeking PTSD treatment. The Justice Department has since changed the rules so that the four Capitol Police officers who died by suicide after the attacks are eligible for benefits matching those killed in the line of duty. And other officers, 150 of whom were injured that day, are still skittish. Journalists who covered the attack while enduring it have formed their own underground support network.

Republicans, meanwhile, are trying to find the proper balance of outrage over the threat to their lives and many of their colleagues’ indifference to democratic norms. After all, Trump, whom many Republicans in Congress have already endorsed for 2024, released a song that featured him and The J6 Choir, prisoners being held for their alleged roles in the attacks. He often plays it at his political appearances.

The seep is massive and the tone so toxic that some members can’t even look at colleagues without open disdain. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who owes his current role almost entirely to Trump’s permission for him to have it, gave Carlson and Fox unfettered access to closed-circuit video of the Jan. 6 attacks so they could whitewash the filthy history of that day. Fox viewers were left with the impression that the whole coup was a load of hooey. Most serious Republicans were critical of that decision—and the faux proof of exoneration—but were careful not to tweak Trump too badly given he remains a massive power center in the GOP.

Just look at how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis handled the first anniversary of the attack: “This is their Christmas, January 6th,” he said. “They are going to take this and milk this for anything they could to try to be able to smear anyone who ever supported Donald Trump.”

The House spent a whole lot of valuable time in 2022 examining the roots, the run-through, and the reaction to the Jan. 6 attacks. Their must-see-TV hearings laid bare the threats of these anti-democratic movements and left most reasonable Americans with little doubt about the challenges ahead. And yet, polling shows Republicans remain unfazed: 54% of them regard the Jan. 6 events as “legitimate political discourse” and 27% of them approve of the takeover of the Capitol.

Those views should get harder and harder to hold. The jurors who agreed to convict four Proud Boys with seditious conspiracy on Thursday not only advanced the fight against extremism, they struck another blow to the most dangerous kind of denialism. But that threat has to this point proven tough to shake loose, facts be damned.
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So - DoJ is 562 to 1 for pleas and convictions. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and bet that pretty much 100% of those who plead guilty or were found guilty, will have had social media or other statements that shows that they supported Trump and were not "antifa" or the FBI.

But don't worry, Cult45 will ignore the score, focus in on that one acquittal, and will still insist that it was not Trump supporters behind it (Ray Epps!!), while secretly wishing that it had been successful....because after all, it was a rigged election, and baying for the blood of Mike Pence is only "common sense", as Trump put it.

[Monash]

Apparently certain elements believe it was a 'kangaroo court'. Guess who? Oh and no evidence was offered to support that contention BTW.

The same people also left in a huff when I asked for some.

[TopHatter]

Apparently certain elements believe it was a 'kangaroo court'. Guess who? Oh and no evidence was offered to support that contention BTW.

The same people also left in a huff when I asked for some.

The "evidence" was that still more proof was piled on that January 6th was in fact an insurrection.

[TopHatter]

'Our work will continue': Merrick Garland speaks after Proud Boys and Oath Keepers convictions

United States Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday held a press conference at which he reflected on the convictions of members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, who were instrumental players in the January 6th, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Garland, who rarely gives lengthy public speeches, praised the Department of Justice for conducting the unprecedented probes into the attempted coup following the 2020 election.

"Those defendants and a fifth member of the Proud Boys were all convicted of felonies, including obstructing Congress's certification of the 2020 presidential election results and conspiring to prevent Congress and federal officers from discharging their duties. The evidence presented at trial detailed the extent of the violence at the Capitol on January 6th, and the central role these defendants played in setting into motion the unlawful events of that day. Today's verdict makes clear that the Justice Department will do everything in its power to defend the American people and American democracy. Since the January 6th attack, the Justice Department has conducted one of the largest, most complex and most resource-intensive investigations in our history."

Garland touched upon the scope and scale of what the DOJ pursued.

"We have worked to analyze massive amounts of physical and digital data. We have recovered devices, decrypted, electronic messages, triangulated phones, and poured through tens of thousands of hours of video. We have also benefited from tens of thousands of tips we receive from the public. Following these digital and physical footprints, we were able to identify hundreds of people who, often masked, took part in the unlawful conduct that day," he explained.

Garland also recalled the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6th.

"I am grateful to the Department's, prosecutors, FBI agents, investigators, analysts, and others who have worked on these cases with extraordinary diligence, skill, integrity, and courage. Over the past two years, the department has secured more than six hundred convictions. For a wide fraught range of criminal conduct on January 6th, as well as in the days and weeks leading up to the attack. We have secured the convictions of defendants who fought, punched, tackled, and even tased police officers who were defending the capitol that day, who crushed one officer in a door and dragged another down a flight of stairs who attacked law enforcement officers with chemical agents that burned their eyes and skin, and who assaulted officers with pipes, poles, and other dangerous or deadly weapons,"

"We have secured the convictions of defendants who obstructed the certification of a presidential election as well as the subsequent criminal investigation in the events of January 6th. And now after three trials, we have secured the convictions of leaders of both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. For Seditious conspiracy, specifically conspiring to oppose by force, the lawful transfer of presidential power," Garland added. "Our work will continue."
______

I used to firmly believe that once Trump was a presidential candidate, that he would be basically immune to prosecution, thanks to past Justice Department policies.

But now?

If I was Donald Trump, I would be inhaling McDonald's and KFC like a vacuum cleaner and throwing my Crestor prescription in the garbage.

[TopHatter]

Proud Boys juror says group’s deleted messages weighed on jury



Jurors who convicted four Proud Boys leaders of seditious conspiracy reviewed thousands upon thousands of text messages and private chats that the defendants sent in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, 2021 — exchanges prosecutors described as the prelude to a violent effort to keep Donald Trump in power.

But paradoxically, it may have been the absence of key messages that sealed the case for prosecutors.

Andre Mundell, one of the 12 jurors who decided the four-month trial on Thursday, told Vice News that he was convinced that the Proud Boys leaders — including former national chair Enrique Tarrio — had committed seditious conspiracy in part because of the lengths the group took to hide its activities, deleting key messages.

“The Proud Boys didn't want everybody to know the plan, because then I guess it would have gotten out. And they didn't want it to get out,” Mundell said in the interview, noting that the thousands of messages they reviewed — extracted from the phones of Tarrio and his co-defendants — were peppered with blank slots where exchanges had been deleted.

“And that's why the government couldn't present too much of the evidence that they had already deleted, because it was unrecoverable,” Mundell said. “So, they definitely didn't want people to know.”

And that wasn’t the only absence of evidence that factored into the jury’s deliberations. Mundell said that he was persuaded by the fact that there wasn’t a single message among the Proud Boys leaders — even after their members contributed to the chaos at the Capitol — urging their allies to withdraw from the riot or stay away from the violence.

“That factored in for me. It showed an absence of evidence of standing down. No one says, ‘no, don't do this. We're not going to do this.’ There was none of that,” Mundell said. “And that was probably because they never said it. And the things that were affirming that they were going to be violent. They just kind of let it happen.”

Mundell’s comments are the first insight into the jury’s deliberation in the case of Tarrio and four Proud Boys who prosecutors say were the most crucial drivers of the violence that unfolded at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The Justice Department contends that Tarrio, along with leaders Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs and Zachary Rehl, spearheaded a conspiracy to prevent Joe Biden from taking office — and were prepared to use force to get their way. A fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of numerous felonies for his own role in the attack — which included igniting the breach of the Capitol itself when he smashed a Senate window with a riot shield.

Prosecutors showed evidence that the Proud Boys spent weeks before Jan. 6 discussing their desire to prevent Biden from taking office, and on Jan. 6, hundreds — in a crowd led by Nordean, Biggs and Rehl — marched to the Capitol even while Trump was speaking to his supporters near the White House. At the Capitol, members of the Proud Boys marching group were present — and often involved — in the crucial moments when the mob breached police lines and many later entered the Capitol, led by Pezzola.

Mundell said he understood the jury’s work on the case as a significant moment for the country.

“I think it's huge. It's something that needed to happen,” he said. “I definitely think it's important because otherwise, somebody might get the idea that this is okay to do again.”

Although the jury deliberated for about a week, Mundell said it didn’t take long for jurors to agree that the group had committed a seditious conspiracy.

“The first day we elected a foreman. After that, we all put out our initial impressions of the evidence. We all voted and most people saw the evidence pointed towards seditious conspiracy. By the second day, we had pretty much established guilty verdicts on the conspiracy,” he said.

Mundell said the group agreed that Pezzola was not guilty of seditious conspiracy because he wasn’t closely tied enough to Tarrio or the group’s leaders — Pezzola took the stand and emphasized that he had only been in the Proud Boys for a month before Jan. 6 and barely knew his co-defendants.

“Another factor was just that he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the porch. And may not have been bright enough to really know about the plan,” Mundell said. “So I said, well, poor guy. He should've listened to his father-in-law, who told him ‘don’t go.’”

Mundell said the jury simply did not buy the defense’s claims that the Proud Boys were only interested in First Amendment-protected protests and to make their voices heard in Washington.

“You don't stop the steal by breaking into the Capitol and over-running the police lines and beating up on and spraying the police,” he said.

He also indicated that a crucial piece of evidence unearthed by an open-source online sleuth late in the Proud Boys trial factored heavily into the jury’s consideration of Rehl’s role in the attack. While Rehl, who took the stand in his own defense, had emphasized repeatedly that he committed no violence, prosecutors displayed a newly discovered video that appeared to show Rehl pepper spraying toward a line of outnumbered police officers at one of the early moments of the riot.

“Rehl really got caught on cross examination after he was adamant that he never sprayed a police officer … On cross that all fell apart when the video came out and it showed that he was spraying towards the cops,” Mundell said.

Mundell also emphasized that the jury considered very little about Trump’s role in Jan. 6, despite one “anti-Trump” juror’s effort to tie the former president to the Proud Boys’ actions. To be sure, Trump was a persistent undercurrent in the case — prosecutors noted that his invocation of the Proud Boys during a September 2020 debate turbocharged the group’s recruitment efforts. And his Dec. 19, 2020 tweet urging supporters to descend on Washington to protest the election results on Jan. 6, 2021, was the moment that jumpstarted the Proud Boys’ seditious conspiracy.

But Mundell said those two episodes were the extent of Trump’s relationship to the case.

“[T]he evidence doesn't show anything that Trump did other than ‘be there, will be wild’ and ‘stand back and stand by,’” he said. “That was his contribution to this case. Other than that, everyone was focused. I think they got a fair trial.”
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[TopHatter]

Just a reminder, a post from March 21st 2021

Evidence in Capitol Attack Most Likely Supports Sedition Charges, Prosecutor Says
“I personally believe the evidence is trending toward that, and probably meets those elements,” said Michael Sherwin, who had led the Justice Department’s inquiry into the riot.

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This is no fantasy...no careless product of wild imagination.

No, my good friends. These indictments I have brought you today...the specific charges listed herein against the individuals...their acts of treason, their ultimate aim of sedition...

These are matters of undeniable fact.

Here we are almost exactly 2 years later.

[TopHatter]

Man gets 14 years in 1/6 case, longest sentence imposed yet


In this image from a Washington Metropolitan Police Department officer's body-worn video camera, released and annotated by the Justice Department in the Government's Sentencing Memorandum, Peter Schwartz circled in red is shown using a canister of pepper spray against officers on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Schwartz on Friday, May 5, 2023, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray as he stormed the U.S. Capitol with his wife.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Kentucky man with a long criminal record was sentenced Friday to a record-setting 14 years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray and a chair as he stormed the U.S. Capitol with his wife.

Peter Schwartz’s prison sentence is the longest so far among hundreds of Capitol riot cases. The judge who sentenced Schwartz also handed down the previous longest sentence — 10 years — to a retired New York Police Department officer who assaulted a police officer outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 24 years and 6 months for Schwartz, a welder.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Schwartz to 14 years and two months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.

Mehta said Schwartz was a “soldier against democracy” who participated in “the kind of mayhem, chaos that had never been seen in the country's history.”

“You are not a political prisoner,” the judge told hm. “You're not somebody who is standing up against injustice or fighting against an autocratic regime.”

Schwartz briefly addressed the judge before learning his sentence, saying, “I do sincerely regret the damage that Jan. 6 has caused to so many people and their lives.”

The judge said he didn't believe Schwartz's statement, noting his lack of remorse.

“You took it upon yourself to try and injure multiple police officers that day,” Mehta said.

Schwartz was armed with a wooden tire knocker when he and his then-wife, Shelly Stallings, joined other rioters in overwhelming a line of police officers on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace, where he threw a folding chair at officers.

“By throwing that chair, Schwartz directly contributed to the fall of the police line that enabled rioters to flood forward and take over the entire terrace,” prosecutor Jocelyn Bond wrote in a court filing.

Schwartz, 49, also armed himself with a police-issued “super soaker” canister of pepper spray and sprayed it at retreating officers. Advancing to a tunnel entrance, Schwartz coordinated with two other rioters, Markus Maly and Jeffrey Brown, to spray an orange liquid toward officers clashing with the mob.

“While the stream of liquid did not directly hit any officer, its effect was to heighten the danger to the officers in that tunnel,” Bond wrote.

Before leaving, Schwartz joined a “heave ho” push against police in the tunnel.

Stallings pleaded guilty last year to riot-related charges and was sentenced last month to two years of incarceration.

Schwartz was tried with co-defendants Maly and Brown. In December, a jury convicted all three of assault charges and other felony offenses.

Mehta sentenced Brown last Friday to four years and six months in prison. Maly is scheduled to be sentenced June 9.

Schwartz’s attorneys requested a prison sentence of four years and six months. They said his actions on Jan. 6 were motivated by a “misunderstanding” about the 2020 presidential election. Then-President Donald Trump and his allies spread baseless conspiracy theories that Democrats stole the election from the Republican incumbent.

“There remain many grifters out there who remain free to continue propagating the ‘great lie’ that Trump won the election, Donald Trump being among the most prominent. Mr. Schwartz is not one of these individuals; he knows he was wrong,” his defense lawyers wrote.

Prosecutors said Schwartz has bragged about his participation in the riot, shown no remorse and claimed that his prosecution was politically motivated. He referred to the Capitol attack as the “opening of a war” in a Facebook post a day after the riot.

“I was there and whether people will acknowledge it or not we are now at war,” Schwartz wrote.

Schwartz has raised over $71,000 from an online campaign entitled “Patriot Pete Political Prisoner in DC.” Prosecutors asked Mehta to order Schwartz to pay a fine equaling the amount raised by his campaign, arguing that he shouldn’t profit from participating in the riot.

Schwartz was on probation when he joined the Jan. 6 riot. His criminal record includes a “jaw-dropping” 38 prior convictions since 1991, “several of which involved assaulting or threatening officers or other authority figures,” Bond wrote.

Schwartz was working as a welder in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, before his arrest in February 2021, but he considers his home to be in Owensboro, Kentucky, according to his attorneys.

More than 100 police officers were injured during the riot. More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to Jan. 6. Nearly 500 of them have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment.

The 10-year prison sentence that Mehta handed down in September to retired NYPD officer Thomas Webster had remained the longest until Friday. Webster had used a metal flagpole to assault an officer and then tackled the same officer as the mob advanced toward the Capitol.
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[Albany Rifles]

Good. And facing a total of 24 years in prison is going to send a message.

[TopHatter]

Proud Boys 1/6 verdict boosts Justice Dept. in Trump probe


President Donald Trump speaks during a rally protesting the electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. The seditious conspiracy convictions of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three lieutenants bolsters the Justice Department’s high-profile wins in its historic prosecution of the Capitol attack. The verdict handed down Thursday could further embolden the Justice Department and special counsel Jack Smith as his team investigates efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to undo President Joe Biden’s victory. Smith’s work is now proceeding rapidly.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio wasn't even in Washington when members of his extremist group, angry over Donald Trump 's election loss, stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Yet federal prosecutors, using his words, won a conviction on the most serious charge levied in the insurrection.

The seditious conspiracy guilty verdicts of Tarrio and three lieutenants handed down Thursday — after a contentious and erratic trial that lasted more than twice as long as expected — bolster the Justice Department's record in its historic prosecution of the Capitol attack. The investigation has now led to convictions against two top extremist group leaders on a legally complex charge that's rarely ever brought and can be difficult to prove.

The verdicts could further embolden the Justice Department and special counsel Jack Smith as they dig into efforts by Trump and his allies to undo President Joe Biden’s victory.

Mostly in private, Smith's work is proceeding apace. Just last week, a federal grand jury — meeting in the same courthouse where the Proud Boys trial was held — heard hours of testimony from former Vice President Mike Pence, who has publicly described a pressure campaign by Trump aimed at getting him to halt Congress' certification of the election results.

In the Proud Boys case, prosecutors secured a conviction by relying on Jan. 6 rhetoric and a legal theory alleging that Tarrio and his lieutenants mobilized a loyal group of foot soldiers — or “tools” — to supply the force necessary to carry out their plot to stop the transfer of power from Trump to Biden on Jan. 20.

Could the Justice Department follow a similar path with Trump? After all, just before the riot erupted he urged his supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight like hell." The House committee that investigated the insurrection recommended Trump be prosecuted for “assisting and providing aid and comfort to an insurrection.”

“Who inspired them to do that? Who directed them to do that? Who was the person telling his followers to ‘fight like hell’? Of course, that’s former President Trump,” said Jimmy Gurulé, a University of Notre Dame law professor. “He’s not silent. He’s not oblivious to what’s going on. He’s leading the charge. He’s encouraging them to act.”

But some experts say the successful prosecution of the Proud Boys may not make it any easier to bring a case against Trump.

“Tarrio wasn’t there, but he was responsible because he was the one who was an organizer and leader,” said Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor now a professor at Loyola Marymount Law School. “People might say ‘Well, wouldn't that apply to Trump?’ It might," she said.

“But you have to again have the very direct evidence that Trump calling people to storm the Capitol, he was calling them to violence. And I’m not sure we have the answer to that yet, although I think the special counsel is getting closer, putting people like Mike Pence in the grand jury,” she added.

Attorney General Merrick Garland alluded to the wider investigation after Tarrio's conviction, declaring, “Our work will continue."

“Today’s verdict makes clear the Justice Department will do everything in its power to defend the American people and American democracy,” Garland said.

Trump loomed large over the monthslong Proud Boys trial at the U.S. Courthouse in Washington, where the Capitol can be seen in the distance from the windows. Lawyers for one of Tarrio’s co-defendants at one point said they wanted to call the former president to the witness stand, although the idea went nowhere.

Prosecutors argued that the Proud Boys saw themselves as “Trump’s army” and were prepared to do whatever it took to keep their preferred leader in power. Messages displayed throughout the trial showed Tarrio warning that the Proud Boys would become “political prisoners” if Biden were to become president. As the riot proceeded, he gloated about his group’s role, writing in one message, “We did this.”

Tarrio’s lawyers, however, sought to use Trump as part of his defense, claiming the former president was to blame and that prosecutors were trying to use Tarrio as a scapegoat for the president — an argument jurors appear to have roundly rejected.

Trump has denied inciting any violence on Jan. 6 and has argued that he was fully permitted by the First Amendment to challenge his loss to Biden.

This was the third seditious conspiracy trial stemming from the riot, which left dozens of police officers injured and sent lawmakers dashing for safety and into hiding. Stewart Rhodes — the founder of the Oath Keepers, another far-right extremist group — was convicted in November, and the Justice Department in a court filing Friday recommended he be sentenced to 25 years in prison. Four other Oath Keepers were convicted in a second trial.

Tarrio was at a hotel in Baltimore when the chaos unfolded on Jan. 6, having been kicked out of the capital city after being arrested two days earlier on allegations that he defaced a Black Lives Matter banner. Law enforcement later said that Tarrio was picked up in part to quell potential violence.

Three Proud Boys members were convicted of the sedition charge alongside him: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs and Zachary Rehl. A fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, was acquitted of seditious conspiracy, but convicted of other serious crimes.

It’s not clear how closely special counsel Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors were tracking the trial or taking stock of the verdicts. Smith has his own team of prosecutors — separate from Justice Department lawyers working on more than 1,000 Jan. 6 cases who are probing efforts by Trump and his allies to subvert the election results.

Since his appointment in November, Smith has cast a broad net in demanding interviews and testimony related to fundraising, Trump's rally that preceded the riot on Jan. 6, and communications between Trump associates and election officials in battleground states. Separately, Smith is investigating the presence of classified documents at Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago estate and Trump's potential efforts to obstruct the government's work to get them back.

In Georgia on Friday, the attorney for eight Republican fake electors who signed a certificate falsely saying Trump had won the state said they had agreed to immunity deals in Georgia’s investigation into Trump’s actions.

As for the Proud Boys, George Washington University law professor Stephen Saltzburg, who used to work in the Justice Department, said he believes Thursday's verdict will have “zero impact” on Smith and his team. There hasn’t been any evidence of communications between high-ranking Trump White House officials and the Proud Boys, he noted.

“If that sort of thing does exist, then it wouldn’t matter what the jury did in this (Proud Boys) case because there would be independent evidence that other people were conspiring,” Saltzburg said. “If there’s not similar evidence involving the president and people around him, then it’s a harder case.”

One of the hallmarks of a conspiracy charge is that prosecutors don't have to allege a defendant took every action themselves, said Randall Eliason, another former federal prosecutor now a GW law professor.

“So someone like Tarrio doesn’t have to actually participate in the riot itself and can still be held accountable,” Eliason said. “The same is true of people in the White House” and anyone else who could reasonably be considered to have been part of the conspiracy without having set foot in the Capitol, he said.

Still, Eliason downplayed the impact the verdict could have on Smith’s charging decisions, noting that it’s hardly a revelation that conspiracies can wrap up a broad range of defendants and not just direct participants.

“I wouldn’t say personally that this verdict is going to embolden him to do something he might otherwise have worried about doing,” he said.
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My takeaway is Tarrio's verdict proves that you didn't have to be at the Capitol Building to be guilty of insurrection against the United States on January 6th.

Which should make Donald Trump shit his Depends.

[TopHatter]

Jan. 6 prosecutors seek 25 years for Oath Keepers’ Rhodes

The Justice Department is seeking 25 years in prison for Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as a violent plot to keep President Joe Biden out of the White House, prosecutors said in court papers filed Friday.

A Washington, D.C., jury convicted Rhodes in November in one of the most consequential cases brought in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters assaulted police officers, smashed windows and temporarily halted Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory.

Prosecutors described the Oath Keepers’ actions as “terrorism,” and told the judge that a harsh sentence is critical to deter future political violence. They wrote that Rhodes believes he has done nothing wrong and “still presents a threat to American democracy and lives.”

“Rhodes used his powers of persuasion and his platform as leader of the Oath Keepers to radicalize more than 20 other American citizens to oppose by force the authority of the government of the United States,” prosecutors wrote in the nearly 200-page court filing. “Those who have studied Rhodes and who know him best suggest that such behavior is completely in character and unlikely to change.”

Jurors found that Rhodes, of Granbury, Texas, plotted an armed rebellion with members of his far-right extremist group to stop the transfer of presidential power from Trump to Biden. In addition to seditious conspiracy, Rhodes was convicted of obstructing Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory. Both charges calls for up to 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors asked the judge to go above the standard sentencing guidelines, arguing the crimes deserve a longer sentence for terrorism because the goal was to influence the government through intimidation or coercion.

Prosecutors wrote that Rhodes, in media interviews behind bars, portrays himself as a victim of a politically motivated prosecution and “continues to invoke the words and deeds of the Founding Fathers in not-so-veiled calls for violent opposition to the government.”

Rhodes is scheduled to be sentenced on May 25. As of Friday evening, Rhodes’ attorneys hadn’t yet filed papers indicating how much time they will ask the judge to impose. They have vowed to appeal his conviction.

Prosecutors are seeking prison sentences ranging from 10 to 21 years for eight other Oath Keepers defendants convicted at trials. The Justice Department asked for 21 years behind bars for Kelly Meggs, the Florida chapter leader convicted of the sedition charge alongside Rhodes.

Meggs’ attorney urged the judge in court papers filed late Friday to sentence him to no more than 28 months, saying his client did not participate in any violence or destruction at the Capitol. Meggs’ lawyer called what happened of Jan. 6 “abhorrent,” but said the events that day “do not reflect Mr. Meggs’s true character, nor his respect for the law.”

“Mr. Meggs undoubtedly accepts responsibility for his actions and has spent every day while detained regretting any involvement he had with the Oath Keepers and the events of January 6,” his attorney wrote.

The sentencing recommendations come a day after jurors in a different case convicted four leaders of another extremist group, the Proud Boys — including former national chairman Enrique Tarrio — of seditious conspiracy. The Proud Boys were accused of a separate plot to forcibly keep Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate and former Army paratrooper, didn’t go inside the Capitol. Taking the witness stand at trial, he insisted there was no plan to attack the Capitol and said the Oath Keepers who did acted on their own. Rhodes said the Oath Keepers’ only mission that day was to provide security for Trump ally Roger Stone and other figures at events before the riot.

Prosecutors built their case around dozens of encrypted messages and other communications in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 that showed Rhodes rallying his followers to fight to defend Trump and warning they might need to “rise up in insurrection” to defeat Biden if Trump didn’t act.

Hundreds of people have been convicted in the riot, but Rhodes and Meggs were the first Jan. 6 defendants convicted at trial of seditious conspiracy. Three other defendants on trial with them were acquitted of seditious conspiracy, but convicted of obstructing Congress. Another four Oath Keepers were convicted of the sedition charge during a second trial.

“These defendants were prepared to fight. Not for their country, but against it. In their own words, they were ‘willing to die’ in a ‘guerilla war’ to achieve their goal of halting the transfer of power after the 2020 Presidential Election,” prosecutors wrote.

Jurors in Rhodes’ case saw video of his followers wearing combat gear and shouldering their way through the crowd in military-style stack formation before forcing their way into the Capitol.

Rhodes spent thousands of dollars on an AR-platform rifle, magazines, mounts, sights and other equipment on his way to Washington ahead of the riot, prosecutors told jurors. Prosecutors said Oath Keepers stashed weapons for “quick reaction force” teams prosecutors said were ready to get weapons into the city quickly if they were needed. The weapons were never deployed.

The trial revealed new details about Rhodes’ efforts to pressure Trump to fight to stay in the White House in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6. Shortly after the election, in a group chat that included Stone, Rhodes wrote, “So will you step up and push Trump to FINALLY take decisive action?”

Another man testified that after the riot, Rhodes tried to persuade him to pass along a message to Trump that urged the president not to give up his fight to hold onto power. The intermediary — a man who told jurors he had an indirect way to reach the president — recorded his meeting with Rhodes and went to the FBI instead of giving the message to Trump. During that meeting, Rhodes said they “should have brought rifles” on Jan. 6.
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[TopHatter]

Inside the Proud Boys Jury
More than a dozen right-wing extremists have now been convicted of seditious conspiracy against the United States for their role in Jan. 6.

With yesterday’s Proud Boys verdicts, 14 right-wing extremists have now been convicted of seditious conspiracy against the United States for their roles in planning and executing the Jan. 6 attack.

Andre Mundell, a 63-year-old retired DC resident, sat on the Proud Boys jury hearing evidence since February. I sat down with Mundell just hours after the verdicts were rendered and jurors were excused. Our conversation has been edited for length.

How quickly was the jury convinced on the seditious conspiracy charges?

The first day we elected a foreman. After that, we all put out our initial impressions of the evidence. We all voted and most people saw the evidence pointed towards seditious conspiracy. By the second day we had pretty much established guilty verdicts on the conspiracy, since that was count number one. First of all, we had to establish that there was a conspiracy then that it was a seditious conspiracy, because that involved the use of force. Not to overthrow the government, but to interfere with the government by use of force.

What evidence convinced you that the Proud Boys had entered into a seditious conspiracy?

It was all the chatter. All the chats. Parler, Telegram…those telegram text messages back and forth. Nott just the chats, but also the private texts. I think that was what it boiled down to. What they had to say prior to Jan. 6 and the fact that they wanted to do so much in secret. And that's why the government couldn't present too much of the evidence that they had already deleted, because it was unrecoverable. So, they didn't they definitely didn't want people to know. They didn't want everybody to know the plan, the Proud Boys, because then I guess it would have gotten out. And they didn't want it to get out.

Did it matter that there were significant amounts of messages deleted?

That factored in for me. It showed an absence of evidence of standing down. No one says, no, don't do this. We're not going to do this. There was none of that. And that was probably because they never said it. And the things that were affirming that they were going to be violent. They just kind of let it happen.

Dominic Pezzola, “Spazzo”, was acquitted on seditious conspiracy. What was the difference there? Why was he acquitted when the others were found guilty?

Well, he wasn't in leadership for one. And he only joined the Proud Boys in November or December of 2020. So he didn't have a whole lot of time before Jan. 6. They have the different tiers you know, level 1 to level 4. Spazz was a 2 or 3 and on a fast track because he was so expressive of being a bad boy. We actually deadlocked on Spazz at first. But we got through that and said not guilty. Another factor was just that he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the porch. And may not have been bright enough to really know about the plan. So I said, well, poor guy. He should've listened to his father-in-law, who told him “don’t go.”

What did you think of these guys in court for all these weeks? What was their demeanor like?

At the end Spazzo took the stand, and really let loose and showed who he really was. He got really hostile towards the prosecutor, saying “this is a show trial” and all of that. So that didn't play well with me. But we didn’t dwell on that so much, because that was kind of expected. (Zachary) Rehl didn't get hostile. He just tried to play Mr. Innocent. And everybody's main argument was that they were there for peaceful protests. They wanted their voices to be heard. They want to stop the steal.

Did you buy that?

Oh, no. You don't stop the steal by breaking into the Capitol and over-running the police lines and beating up on and spraying the police. Rehl really got caught on cross examination after he was adamant that he never sprayed a police officer (with chemicals.) On cross that all fell apart when the video came out and it showed that he was spraying towards the cops.

Did you watch them during the verdict?

Yeah, Rehl cried. But he had cried on the stand. too. And spares had cried on the stand. Enrique Terrio was kind of smug. He had kind of a smile because that's how he plays it. You know, he's the CEO. He was there for the notoriety. He was like an egomaniac to me. He always wanted to be the center of attention. And even though he got arrested on the fourth, he kind of was still calling the shots behind the scenes with those who he wanted to talk to.

Donald Trump famously told the Proud Boys, in September 2020 at the presidential debate, to “stand back and stand by.” That came out in evidence in the trial. How important was that?

It was part of it. You can't single out one thing but the debate kind of got the ball rolling that the Proud Boys need to be part of this. We need to wait for the President to set things up. Then the tweet came (on Dec. 19) and Trump said, “Be there, will be wild.” So they were there and they were wild.

It was reported at one point that a juror complained to the judge that she thought she was being followed. Did you have any experiences during the trial where you felt your safety was in question?

No, not at all. The juror who thought she was being followed, she came in and told the jurors that. The next day she told the judge. They investigated, and it turns out it was a homeless man. I thought she was being a little paranoid.

Did you feel like this was an impartial jury that was focused on the facts of the case and nothing else?

I do. One juror was anti-Trump, and she was hoping to weave him into conspiracies and such. But the evidence doesn't show anything that Trump did other than “be there, will be wild” and “stand back and stand by.” That was his contribution. Other than that, everyone was focused. I think they got a fair trial. And the reason I know that is that I'm now able to look things up and I’m learning all about the sidebars and motions and disputes. And I think we were very clear with the evidence we got.

Do you feel like you contributed something important to the country?

Oh, God. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's heavy. That's part of why I need to decompress.

I think it's huge. It's something that needed to happen. I definitely think it's important because otherwise, somebody might get the idea that this is okay to do again.
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[TopHatter]

Former Navy reservist sentenced to additional 4 years for Jan. 6 riot

A former Navy reservist who the government said expressed admiration for Hitler, among other antisemitic views, was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Prosecutors described Hatchet Speed as an avowed antisemite who posed an increasing threat to the public.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden agreed that Speed’s hateful motivations warranted a longer sentence beyond other rioters who were not accused of specific acts of violence in the Capitol assault.

While Speed was not charged with assault or destruction of government property, prosecutors say he went on a spending spree after Jan. 6, acquiring weapons and ammunition worth thousands of dollars.


This booking photo provided by the Alexandria, Va., Sheriff's Office shows Hatchet Speed. Speed, a former Navy reservist who stormed the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021.

Speed, also a member of the far-right Proud Boys group, was first sentenced last month to three years in prison for possessing unregistered gun accessories.


Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Despite pleas from the defense, Judge McFadden ordered the four years in addition to the previous sentence.

Speed will also be required to serve time on probation and pay upwards of $10,000 in fees to the government.

He wore a dark green, short-sleeve jump suit as he appeared in court Monday and declined to make a statement in his own defense.
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