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Fuck this guy and all his fellow seditionists.
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“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
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Ex-National Guardsman wanted on Jan. 6 charges surrenders after FBI manhunt
A former New Jersey National Guard police sergeant accused of pepper-spraying officers during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack turned himself in to authorities in New Jersey on Friday following a 48-hour manhunt.
Gregory Yetman faces several charges, including felonies such as assaulting officers and obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, as well as some misdemeanor offenses, according to the FBI. Yetman was taken into custody after the FBI on Thursday announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
Amy Thoreson, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Newark office, said that he turned himself in to the Monroe Township Police on Friday morning without incident, adding: “We want to thank the public for all the tips and calls we received.”
A senior law enforcement official told NBC News that Yetman was dirty and unkept when he turned himself in, and that he declined medical attention. Registered weapons were found at his home, the official said. They believe he may have had a plan to flee, since he had previously been questioned about the Jan. 6 attack.
Yetman had fled into a wooded area with railroad tracks near his home in the township of Helmetta on Wednesday, before he surrendered himself to authorities in the area.
Jan. 6 suspects have typically been allowed pretrial release, except in circumstances where authorities had evidence that they posed a threat to the public or were a flight risk.
Because Yetman fled, it is likely that prosecutors will seek pretrial detention, although there were no court filings regarding his case as of Friday morning. Courts were closed for a federal holiday, and Yetman is expected to make his first court appearance in New Jersey on Monday.
Yetman was identified in early 2022 by online sleuths who go by the name “Sedition Hunters,” a group that has aided in the arrests of hundreds of Capitol rioters.
The online sleuths said Yetman was seen unloading a canister of a chemical weapon from behind a police line as officers came under attack on Jan. 6, 2021. That image of Yetman was featured in a wanted poster released by the FBI on Thursday, before he surrendered.
About 1,200 defendants have been arrested in connection with the Capitol attack, and another roughly 1,000 suspects have been identified but not yet arrested.
________“You scare people badly enough, you can get 'em to do anything They'll turn to whoever promises a solution”Comment
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Republican goes on wild rant to push FBI Jan. 6 "ghost buses" conspiracy theory at hearing
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., during a Homeland Security Committee hearing on Wednesday accused the FBI of secret involvement in the January 6 attack.
Higgins during the hearing with FBI Director Christopher Wray cited their exchange from a previous hearing. "I asked you, ‘Did you have confidential human sources dressed as Trump supporters positioned inside the Capitol on January 6, prior to the doors being open?’ You responded. I quote again, ‘I have to be very careful of what I say,’" Higgins recalled, arguing that "we can't get a straight answer" despite a "tremendous amount of evidence."
Higgins pressed Wray again on whether the FBI had "confidential human sources at the Stop the Steal rally on January 6th here in D.C."
“Congressman, as we’ve discussed before, I’m not going to get into where we have or have not used confidential human sources,” Wray replied. Wray began to add to his response before Higgins cut him off repeatedly, saying it was time to "move on."
Wray insisted on being allowed to answer the question but Higgins launched into a quote from an "FBI informant" who allegedly claimed he was instructed to storm the Capitol with the Proud Boys. “Can you confirm that the FBI had that sort of engagement with your own agents embedded into the crowd on January 6th?” Higgins asked.
“If you are asking whether the violence at the Capitol on January 6th was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and or agents, the answer is emphatically not,” Wray said.
Higgins then went on to ask about “ghost buses” filled with alleged informants. “Well, it’s pretty common in law enforcement, it is a vehicle that’s used for secret purposes,” he said. “It’s painted over. There’s two buses in the middle here. There were the first to arrive at Union Station on January 6th, zero-five-hundred. I have all this evidence, I’m showing you the tip of this iceberg.”
Eventually, Higgins was told he’d reached his allotted time. “I note that all the members across the aisle have been granted time, and I object to my question being closed,” the Republican concluded. “This is a very significant hearing, Mr. Chairman. And these busses are nefarious in nature and were filled with FBI informants dressed as Trump supporters deployed onto our Capitol on January 6th and your day is coming Mr. Wray!”
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I guess Ray Epps has outlived his usefulness to the MAGA efforts to deflect responsibility for Jan 6 away from Trump and Cult45. Time to move on to "ghost buses".“You scare people badly enough, you can get 'em to do anything They'll turn to whoever promises a solution”Comment
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‘How Many Are Feds?’ Sen. Mike Lee Pushes Jan. 6 Disinformation
The senator alleged that a man carrying a vape was actually flashing a law enforcement badge
Sen. Mike Lee perpetuated an unfounded conspiracy theory that federal agents or informants were among the rioters on Jan. 6 and that one may have flashed a law enforcement badge during the attack (in reality, it was a vape). In two posts to X (formerly Twitter) over the weekend, the Republican indulged in a MAGA disinformation campaign.
Lee quoted a post from former Jan. 6 committee member Liz Cheney that contained footage of the Capitol attack, writing, “Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times. You made sure we saw that—and nothing else. It’s the other stuff—what you deliberately hid from us—that we find so upsetting. Nice try.”
He then added, “P.S. How many of these guys are feds? (As if you’d ever tell us).”
Then on Saturday, Lee quoted a post from a Republican former West Virginia legislator Derrick Evans who asked if an image from a Jan. 6 video inside the Capitol shows a rioter “flashing a badge?”
“If so, this would prove there were undercover federal agents disguised as MAGA,” Evans wrote.
Lee quoted Evans’ post and wrote, “I can’t wait to ask FBI Director Christopher Wray about this at our next oversight hearing. I predict that, as always, his answers will be 97% information-free.”
You might pause and wonder, is the person behind the account with the handle @BasedMikeLee really a U.S. senator? But it is. Lee confirmed to The Salt Lake Tribune in 2022 that the account is his.
The man pictured with the alleged badge is Trump supporter Kevin Lyons, who is shown in a separate photo carrying a vape in his hand. Twitter appended two fact checks to the tweets, writing that Lyons “is not a police officer and is not holding a badge. He is carrying a vape and a photograph and wallet stolen from Pelosi’s office.”
Even if Lyons were a federal agent, he would certainly be going to great lengths to disguise his affiliation. Lyons is currently serving a four-year prison sentence for his actions in the Capitol, which include stealing a wallet and taking a framed photo of the late Rep. John Lewis from then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office.
Before his sentencing, Lyons told the judge, “I’m an idiot, I realize that. I was stupid. I don’t know what came over me. … I apologize to you, the country and my family.”
Fox News host Maria Bartiromo brought up the conspiracy theory on her show Sunday, asking former speaker Kevin McCarthy about the rumors that federal assets were involved. “Speaker, I want to be real specific,” she said. “There are questions regarding FBI informants that were in Trump clothing around the Capitol on that day, throughout the crowd. Do you have any insights for us regarding their role in those events, the FBI’s role?”
McCarthy said he was not aware of it. “I personally don’t. That’s the committee. I would make sure to look at that and see all that and get more information,” he said. “I know the director of the FBI has been asked this question numerous times. [Republican Rep.] Thomas Massey is the one working on this, and I think he’d have greater insight for you.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday that he intends to release all 44,000 hours of Jan. 6 footage to the public, which would fulfill a vow he made to appease his party’s right-wing while campaigning for the speakership. By Friday afternoon, 90 hours of the footage was posted to the House Administration Committee’s website.
GOP Rep. Clay Higgins asked FBI Director Christopher Wray about the conspiracy theory last week during a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee. Wray has long denied federal agents being involved in the riot or its planning.
“If you’re asking whether the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources and/or agents… the answer is an emphatic no,” Wray said.
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Still trying to deflect January 6th away from Trump and Cult45...Now it's some rando loser with a stolen wallet and a vape.“You scare people badly enough, you can get 'em to do anything They'll turn to whoever promises a solution”Comment
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Boilerplate for Cult45Originally posted by statquo View Post“You scare people badly enough, you can get 'em to do anything They'll turn to whoever promises a solution”Comment
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Again! How many times can they subpoena records that don't exist and call witnesses who don't know anything about an 'covert operation' that never happened?Originally posted by statquo View PostIf you are emotionally invested in 'believing' something is true you have lost the ability to tell if it is true.Comment
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It's like we are in Bulgaria during the Cold War!!!Originally posted by statquo View Post“Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
Mark TwainComment
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Capitol rioter who berated a judge and insulted a prosecutor is sentenced to 3 months in jail
FILE - Rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Frank Rocco Giustino, who skipped court hearings, profanely insulted a prosecutor and berated a federal judge, has been sentenced to three months behind bars for joining the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A New York massage therapist who joined the mob of Trump supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Tuesday to three months in jail, capping a case in which he skipped court hearings, profanely insulted a prosecutor and berated the judge who punished him.
Frank Rocco Giustino pleaded guilty in February to a misdemeanor charge related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. But he was arrested last month after failing to appear in court for an earlier sentencing hearing.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg told Giustino that he seemed to have no remorse for his conduct on Jan. 6 or any respect for the court's authority.
“Your behavior from the moment of the (guilty) plea until sentencing has been about the worst of any January 6th defendant I've had,” the judge said.
Giustino said he condemns the violence at the Capitol and didn't intend to be disrespectful.
“I just want to go home,” said Giustino, who will remain in custody for approximately two more months.
The judge sentenced Giustino to 90 days of imprisonment with credit for the roughly 30 days that he has remained in custody while awaiting sentencing.
Prosecutors recommended a sentence of four months of incarceration. They initially asked for a 21-day sentence, but they sought a longer term of imprisonment after Giustino disrupted a June 23 court hearing with defiant outbursts.
During the June hearing, Giustino derided his case as “an absolute clown show of a prosecution.” He told the judge that he fired his lawyer and wanted to represent himself. He also used language that appeared to comport with the sovereign citizen extremist movement’s belief that the U.S. government is illegitimate.
“We’re not doing any sentencing date," he said, according to a transcript. "Have you guys heard anything that I have said? Have you seen anything that I have filed? This is not a real court. There is not a single judicial officer here presiding on my case.”
The judge told Giustino to act in a “civilized fashion” and said he would issue a warrant for his arrest if he didn’t show up in court for his sentencing.
“Why don’t I issue a warrant for your arrest? I think the U.S. marshal should come after you, not me,” Giustino told the judge, punctuating his rant with expletives directed at a prosecutor.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Collyer said Giustino sent him an email on Sept. 5 in which he referred to his prosecution as the “very definition of terrorism,” said he would appear in court only as a “courtesy” and demanded the dismissal of his case along with an apology.
“The defendant's behavior has been disrespectful and belittling, to put it mildly,” Collyer told the judge.
Giustino pleaded guilty in February to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of six months of incarceration. More than 400 other Jan. 6 rioters have pleaded guilty to the same charge.
Giustino failed to appear in court twice after he pleaded guilty, missing a status conference in June and a sentencing hearing in September. The judge issued a warrant for Giustino's arrest after he skipped his sentencing. He was arrested in Florida in October.
Giustino initially was arrested on Capitol riot charges in January 2022. Before the riot, Giustino frequently posted on Facebook about conspiracy theories that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump, the Republican incumbent.
He took a bus from his home on New York's Long Island to Washington, D.C., to attend Trump's rally near the White House on Jan. 6. He joined the crowd walking to the Capitol, where rioters disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Democrat Joe Biden's electoral victory over Trump.
Giustino entered the Capitol through a door roughly three minutes after other rioters broke it open.
“Before Giustino made the decision to approach the door, he posted on social media that police were using tear gas against him and the other rioters, condescendingly calling law enforcement ‘civil servants,’ an affront to the hundreds of officers injured that day protecting democracy,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Giustino was in the Capitol's Crypt when rioters overwhelmed a line of police officers. He joined other rioters in a chant inside the Rotunda. He spent about 35 minutes in the Capitol before leaving.
Approximately 1,200 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack. Nearly 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted by juries or judges after trials. Over 700 have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds of them getting terms of imprisonment ranging from three days to 22 years.
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Doesn't this dumbass realize which tier of the American justice system he's on? Newsflash, it ain't the same one as Trump's.“You scare people badly enough, you can get 'em to do anything They'll turn to whoever promises a solution”Comment
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Mike Lee Acknowledges Jan. 6 Rioter Was Probably Not A Federal Agent
WASHINGTON ― Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) acknowledged Tuesday that it probably wasn’t a federal agent disguised as a Donald Trump supporter in a picture he posted last week.
The Utah Republican had said he wanted to ask FBI Director Christopher Wray about a claim on social media that new footage from inside the U.S. Capitol as it was under siege on Jan. 6, 2021, showed a man in a MAGA hat flashing a badge to police officers.
The images supposedly bolstered the conspiracy theory that the federal government orchestrated the riot ― until an NBC News reporter identified the man as Kevin Lyons, an Illinois resident who in July was sentenced to four years in prison for his actions that day.
HuffPost caught up with Lee on Tuesday and said that since Lyons was in prison, he was probably not some kind of federal agent.
“Yeah. Sounds right to me,” Lee said.
Lee hasn’t deleted his social media messages about Lyons or recanted his statements, but his remark on Tuesday showed a willingness to acknowledge facts that some other Republicans don’t share.
Several House GOP members, for instance, maintained that an Arizona man named Ray Epps must have been working for the government on Jan. 6 even after Epps pleaded guilty in September to disorderly conduct on restricted grounds.
“If they think that this is going to get me to stop talking about this guy, hell no, it’s not,” Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) told HuffPost.
Epps had encouraged other Trump supporters to storm the Capitol and was arbitrarily singled out as a “fed” by lawmakers looking to deflect blame from the then-president for the attack while Congress met to count the Electoral College vote, which Joe Biden won. The lawmakers echoed dubious amateur video analysis highlighting allegedly suspicious behavior by Epps ― just as Lee did with Lyons, whose “badge” turned out to have been a vaping device.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) earlier this month announced Republicans would release thousands of hours of footage from inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 so that people could see the full truth of what happened. Conspiracy theorists have been having a field day with the new material.
Lee’s spokesperson told NBC News last week that the “American people deserve to be treated like adults regarding the events of January 6th and should be given all available information.” He suggested Tuesday that he had been trying to make a point about the FBI director needing to answer questions in general.
“I got a lot of questions for the FBI director about all sorts of things,” Lee said.
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Thank god they haven't given up on Ray Epps as the go-to guy for their denialism of Jan 6
I'd lose all my faith in Cult45 if that was the case...“You scare people badly enough, you can get 'em to do anything They'll turn to whoever promises a solution”Comment
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Lawsuits against Trump over Jan. 6 riot can move forward, appeals court rules
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawsuits against Donald Trump over the U.S. Capitol riot can move forward, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday, rejecting the former president's bid to dismiss the cases accusing him of inciting the violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit court knocked down Trump's sweeping claims that presidential immunity shields him from liability in the lawsuits brought by Democratic lawmakers and police officers. But the three-judge panel said the 2024 Republican presidential primary frontrunner can continue to fight, as the cases proceed, to try to prove that his actions were taken in his official capacity as president.
Trump has said he can't be sued over the riot that left dozens of police officers injured, arguing that his words during a rally before the storming of the Capitol addressed “matters of public concern” and fall within the scope of absolute presidential immunity.
The decision comes as Trump’s lawyers are arguing he is also immune from prosecution in the separate criminal case brought by special counsel Jack Smith that accuses Trump of illegally plotting to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden. Smith's team has signaled that it will make the case at trial that Trump is responsible for the violence at the Capitol and point to Trump’s continued embrace of the Jan. 6 rioters on the campaign trail to argue that he intended for the chaos that day.
Friday's ruling underscores the challenges facing Trump as he tries to persuade courts, and potentially juries, that the actions he took in the run-up to the riot were part of his official duties as president. The judge presiding over his Capitol riot criminal trial is expected to also reject that claim.
While courts have afforded presidents broad immunity for their official acts, the judges made clear that that protection does not cover just any act or speech undertaken by a president. A president running for a second term, for example, is not carrying out the official duties of the presidency when he is speaking at a rally funded by his reelection campaign or attends a private fundraiser, the appeals court said.
"He is acting as office-seeker, not office-holder— no less than are the persons running against him when they take precisely the same actions in their competing campaigns to attain precisely the same office,” Judge Sri Srinivasan wrote for the court.
But the court said its decision is not necessarily the final word on the issue of presidential immunity, leaving the door open for Trump to keep fighting the issue. And it took pains to note that it was not being asked to evaluate whether Trump was responsible for the riot or should be held to account in court. It also said Trump could still seek to argue that his actions were protected by the First Amendment — a claim he’s also made in his pending criminal case — or covered by other privileges.
“When these cases move forward in the district court, he must be afforded the opportunity to develop his own facts on the immunity question if he desires to show that he took the actions alleged in the complaints in his official capacity as president rather than in his unofficial capacity as a candidate,” the court said.
Trump could ask the full appeals court to take up the matter or go to the U.S. Supreme Court. A lawyer for Trump, Jesse Binnall, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment on the ruling. A Trump campaign spokesperson called the decision “limited, narrow and procedural.”
“The facts fully show that on January 6 President Trump was acting on behalf of the American people, carrying out his duties as president of the United States. Moreover, his admonition that his supporters ‘peacefully and patriotically make (their) voices heard,’ along with a myriad other statements prove that these Democrat Hoaxes are completely meritless,” spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
The lawsuits seek civil damages for harms they say they endured when rioters descended on the Capitol as Congress met to certify Biden's election victory, smashing windows, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police officers and sending lawmakers running into hiding. One of the lawsuits, filed by Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, alleges that Trump directly incited the violence at the Capitol "and then watched approvingly as the building was overrun.”
Two other lawsuits were also filed, one by other House Democrats and another by officers James Blassingame and Sidney Hemby, who were both injured in the riot. Blassingame said Friday that he “couldn't be more committed to pursuing accountability" in the case.
“More than two years later, it is unnerving to hear the same fabrications and dangerous rhetoric that put my life as well as the lives of my fellow officers in danger on January 6, 2021," he said in a statement. He added: "I hope our case will assist with helping put our democracy back on the right track; making it crystal clear that no person, regardless of title or position of stature, is above the rule of law.”
Lawyers in the Justice Department's civil division urged the court earlier this year to let the cases proceed, arguing that a president wouldn't be protected by absolute immunity if his words were found to have been an “incitement of imminent private violence.”
The current appeal was decided by a unanimous three-court panel that included Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee to the bench who authored his own concurring opinion.
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Jan. 6 Defendant Who Fired Gun At Law Enforcement Sentenced To PrisonOriginally posted by TopHatter View Post
A Texas man has been sentenced to two years in federal prison after prosecutors said that he fired multiple rounds at local law enforcement, despite initially agreeing to surrender for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack in Washington.
Nathan Pelham, 41, on Wednesday was sentenced to 24 months, with 76 days of credit for time served, after pleading guilty to possessing a firearm as a felon during the April shooting at his Greenville home.
Pelham was facing four misdemeanor counts for entering the Capitol ― charges that were later reduced as part of a plea deal ― when authorities said he opened fire on law enforcement who were responding to a welfare check at his residence.
Nathan Pelham (center) was sentenced on Wednesday to two years after pleading guilty to possession of a firearm as a felon.
Pelham’s father had called police to report that his son was threatening to kill himself. This threat followed Pelham previously agreeing to surrender on the misdemeanor charges that day.
Responding law enforcement officers reported hearing bullets “whiz” by them outside of his home, said a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
A later search of his property recovered a Smith & Wesson 9 mm pistol and four boxes of ammunition. Police also found “several 9mm sized holes in the walls,” according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
“For their own safety, police left the property that night, and let Pelham sleep off his drinking,” prosecutors said.
More than 24 hours later, Pelham surrendered at a local police station following negotiations with police and his defense attorney, prosecutors said.
This image from U.S. Capitol Police video shows a man identified as Pelham, circled in red, appearing at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.
Pelham agreed to cooperate with FBI agents as part of a plea deal, though prosecutors later said that he was “evasive, and at times dishonest, on both fronts” during the investigation, prompting them to request a “meaningful sentence.”
“Pelham’s lies spanned multiple interviews and years and seem to be part of a pattern of behavior,” they said in a court filing. “Pelham’s endangerment of himself and others in the community, and his refusal to take responsibility suggests that a meaningful sentence is warranted.”
Pelham had an extensive criminal history prior to the 2021 Capitol riot, including for theft, evading arrest, using false identification, burglary, unauthorized use of a vehicle, driving with an invalid license, assault and bail jumping, according to court documents.
“Pelham does not meaningfully respect the law,” prosecutors said. “His standoff with police prior to arrest, and his repeated lies to law enforcement collectively suggest that Pelham will do or say what he believes is necessary for his own advantage.”
Pelham’s attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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So the cops get shot at...and are just like "Ah he's fine, just a little hammered. We'll let him sleep it off and come back later".
I bet Ray Epps made the guy fire on those LEO's outside his house....“You scare people badly enough, you can get 'em to do anything They'll turn to whoever promises a solution”Comment
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Texas man sentenced 2 years in prison for threatening Georgia election workers after 2020 electionOriginally posted by TopHatter View Post
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Texas man who was the first arrest by a Justice Department task force that investigates threats to election workers has been sentenced to two years in prison over posts made following the 2020 election, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.
Chad Christopher Stark, 55, was accused of posting threatening messages on Craigslist about killing government officials in Georgia. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of communicating interstate threats.
Prosecutors say Stark, who is from suburban Austin, urged Georgia residents on social media to “militia up” and called for shooting several unnamed officials and judges. The messages were posted on Jan. 5, 2021, the day before Congress was set to ratify the Electoral College's votes.
“Christopher Stark threatened the lives of multiple election workers in an attempt to prevent them from doing their job,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. "Today’s sentencing demonstrates the FBI’s resolute commitment to securing American elections from any attempts to undermine their integrity.”
A federal public defender for Stark did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
Stark’s arrest was the first by the Justice Department's Election Threats Task Force, which was launched in 2021 amid a rising tide of violent threats against people who count and secure the vote. The threats followed former President Donald Trump making repeated unproven claims that election fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election.
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Jan. 6 rioter asks for early release, says he was ‘manipulated’ by Trump and Fox News
Mitchell Todd Gardner wrote that he and other “hard working red blooded Americans” felt “obligated to act” by the words of “the most powerful man in the world.”
Mitchell Todd Garnder at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
WASHINGTON — A Donald Trump supporter who bashed in a Capitol window, assaulted police officers with pepper spray and urged the mob to “pull the cops out” during the brutal battle at the lower west tunnel on Jan. 6, 2021, is asking a judge to grant him early release, saying he was “manipulated” by the former president and Fox News.
Mitchell Todd Gardner, who was wearing a Trump hat and a “Reagan Bush ’84” sweatshirt during the Capitol attack, yelled “pull the police out,” “pull the cops out,” and “grab their hands and pull them out” during the battle, and then unloaded a fire extinguisher-sized canister of OC spray on officers in the tunnel, according to evidence shown at trial. He then bashed a Capitol window and entered into a suite of Senate “hideaway” offices that were assigned to Republican senators, including one belonging to Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho.
Mitchell Todd Gardner.
Gardner wrote a memo, styled as a “Motion for Compassionate Release and/or Reduction of Sentence,” that was filed on the docket in his criminal case this week. In it, Gardner states that he and “so many other Americans” were “persuaded by then President Donald J. Trump that he had irrefutable evidence that he had been cheated by a ‘rigged election.’”
In his memo, Gardnerwrites that “a large group of hard working red blooded Americans” were influenced by Trump and “felt obligated to act on his behalf” to save the country.
Gardner’s memo cites the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s “2023 Criminal History Amendment,” which went into effect on Nov. 1, in arguing for a sentence reduction, though it is unclear if Gardner would actually be eligible under that amendment. Gardner, representing himself pro se, wrote the memo from the low-security federal prison at Fort Dix in New Jersey, where he’s being held.
Judge Amit P. Mehta, in March 2023, sentenced Gardner to 55 months, or about 4.5 years, in federal prison. With good time and credit for time served, the 36-year-old is currently scheduled for release on July 15, 2025, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons records.
Trump, Gardner wrote, was “the most powerful man in the world” and used his influence “to manipulate others in carrying out his missions while staying above the ‘fray.’” Gardner wrote that he and others felt “it was an obligation or patriotic duty to ensure the saving of the republic.” Jan. 6 rioters thought they were patriots, he wrote.
Now, Gardner says, he realizes “the nature of his crimes against the United States despite having been mislead [sic] to believe that they were acts of patriotism at the time.” Gardner wrote that he will live forever with “a cloud of shame over” his head.
Referring to himself in the third person, as is common in court filings, Gardner said his mind was “skewed by misinformation” and that he went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 “with the mind set of saving the republic from what he considered was some imaginary force that was set to destroy it.”
Gardner said it was “easy for many” to ask how he could have “listened to one man and been so naive,” but said there “was a collective of individuals that were highly prominent that promoted this idea that the government was under attack.” Gardner said he saw those people as “patriotic,” and that he “trusted the information that they were giving was solid.” He said he’s since learned better.
Gardner wrote that had it not been for the disinformation “peddled by powerfully influential people and news outlets such as ‘FOX NEWS’ that encouraged such actions on January 6,” he would be an employed American citizen paying his taxes.
“If these influential individuals had not peddled such fraudulent claims he would have been there for his grandparents that both passed away on this year,” Gardner wrote. “In addition to this he would have been in the lives of his children both physically and financially to support them from home.”
Fox News and the voting machine company Dominion reached a $787.5 million settlement earlier this year, just moments before the case was set to go to a jury. Discovery in that case revealed that several Fox News hosts knew that the claims being spread by Trump and by the network were bogus, and Fox’s Rupert Murdoch acknowledged that some of his hosts had “endorsed” what he called “bulls--- and damaging” conspiracy theories.
Mitchell Todd Gardner at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Gardner told the court that he will never be fooled again.
“The petitioner can assure the court that he would never allow himself to ever again be manipulated in such a manner and intends to spend the rest of his life making a full faith effort to right this wrong and be acknowledged once again as a law abiding citizen,” he wrote.
More than 1,200 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol attack, and more than 400 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration. On Thursday, the FBI arrested David Paul Daniel, a 36-year-old North Carolina man who, federal authorities said, helped lead “a violent push against the barricaded Senate Wing Door and the police officers attempting to hold them closed.”
Trump, the leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate, is currently facing four criminal prosecutions, and his federal Jan. 6-related trial is scheduled to begin in March. That federal indictment, returned by a grand jury in August, alleges that Trump engaged in a conspiracy “to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified.” Trump has pleaded not guilty in all four cases.
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"Gardner wrote that had it not been for the disinformation “peddled by powerfully influential people and news outlets such as ‘FOX NEWS’ that encouraged such actions on January 6,” he would be an employed American citizen paying his taxes."
The party of personal responsibility lol“You scare people badly enough, you can get 'em to do anything They'll turn to whoever promises a solution”Comment
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Ex-Proud Boy and Miami-Dade GOP executive committee member found guilty in Jan. 6 case
Gabriel Garcia, a former member of the Proud Boys who once sat on the Miami-Dade Republican Party Executive Committee, was found guilty on Monday of two felonies related to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Garcia was accused of participating in aggressive confrontations with police on Jan. 6 and aiding other rioters to storm the Capitol. Garcia also recorded himself inside the Capitol during the riot, and at one point posted a video in which he can be heard taunting then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to “come out and play.”
In a bench trial held in Washington, D.C. on Monday, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson found Garcia guilty of civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding — two felonies that carry a combined maximum prison sentence of 25 years, as well as potential financial penalties.
A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for March 28, 2024.
Garcia had pleaded not guilty to the two felony charges, as well as four other charges. Reached by phone on Tuesday morning, Garcia declined to comment on the case.
Garcia, a former U.S. Army captain, was arrested on Jan. 19, 2021, less than two weeks after a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
He is one of several South Florida-based members of the extremist white-nationalist group the Proud Boys to face charges stemming from the Capitol riot. In one of the most notable cases, the group’s former leader Enrique Tarrio, a Miami native, was convicted earlier this year on charges of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Tarrio was convicted alongside three other Proud Boys members of plotting to attack the Capitol in hopes of keeping Trump in power. A fifth defendant was cleared of sedition but was convicted of other felonies.
Garcia has a history in Miami-Dade politics. In addition to his former role on the Miami-Dade GOP’s Executive Committee, he ran an unsuccessful challenge to Florida state Rep. Daniel Perez, who’s slated to become state House speaker next year, in 2020.
After his arrest in 2021, Garcia was released from detention on $100,000 bond. He repeatedly asked the court to remove his GPS ankle monitor, arguing that it embarrassed him around business clients and posed a work safety hazard.
He traveled often in the years since his arrest, but was eventually placed on home detention by Berman Jackson after he attended the annual Conservative Political Action Conference this year without the court authorization.
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bUt hOw cAn a LaTiNo bE a wHiTe nAtIoNaLiSt???“You scare people badly enough, you can get 'em to do anything They'll turn to whoever promises a solution”Comment
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