2021 Trump-Incited Insurrection at Capitol Building

[TopHatter]

Prosecutors: A 'network' of supporters helped fugitives avoid capture after Capitol riot


FILE - Rioters wave flags on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Federal prosecutors say a network of supporters has helped fugitives from Florida avoid capture to face charges stemming from the riot. Prosecutors argued Thursday, March 14, 2024, that a Jan. 6 defendant, Thomas Osborne, is a flight risk because he is close to the family of a brother and sister from Lakeland, Fla. who remained on the run for months after they were charged with storming the Capitol.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Florida man charged with interfering with police during the Jan. 6, 2021, siege at the U.S. Capitol is connected to a “network” of supporters who have helped other Capitol riot defendants avoid capture by the FBI, prosecutors said in a court filing this week.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Thomas Paul Osborne to be released from a Florida jail while he awaits trial on charges that he grabbed a police officer's baton during a mob's attack on the Capitol. Before the judge ruled, a Justice Department prosecutor argued that Osborne poses a risk of fleeing after his Feb. 22 arrest.

Osborne harbored a Jan. 6 defendant, Christopher Worrell, who disappeared last year after he was convicted of assaulting police with pepper spray during the Capitol riot, prosecutors said. They believe Worrell, a member of the Proud Boys extremist group, lived at Osborne's home in Lakeland, Florida, for roughly six weeks while on the run.

Prosecutors also cited Osborne's ties to the family of Jonathan Pollock and Olivia Pollock — a brother and sister from Lakeland who were declared fugitives after getting charged with Capitol riot-related crimes. Osborne traveled to Washington, D.C., with the Pollocks and their parents to attend then-President Donald Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6.

In January 2024, FBI agents arrested the Pollocks and a third fugitive, Joseph Hutchinson, at a ranch in Groveland, Florida. Jonathan Pollock had remained at large for over two years. Olivia Pollock and Hutchinson were on the run for approximately 10 months after tampering with their court-ordered GPS monitoring devices.

Osborne worked at a gun shop operated by a brother of the Pollock siblings and attended the same church and prayer meetings as members of the Pollock family, according to prosecutors.

Federal authorities believe that relatives of the Pollocks helped the siblings avoid capture. Supporters gave them money and supplies and helped them "by coordinating a network of individuals who were willing and able to harbor them,” prosecutors said in a court filing. Authorities haven’t accused Osborne of sheltering the Pollocks but cited his ties to the family as a reason to fear that he could abscond.

“While Osborne may not have a passport or foreign ties,” prosecutors wrote, “the concerns presented by his access to the Pollocks’ network are the same: he has the means to flee and avoid detection by law enforcement.”

Osborne’s lawyers accused prosecutors of engaging in “guilt by association” to argue that he, like the Pollocks and Hutchinson, is a flight risk. Defense attorney Sylvia Irvin said Osborne initially tried to turn himself in to face possible Capitol riot charges in July 2021, a day after Olivia Pollock and Hutchinson initially were arrested.

“He didn’t hide. He didn’t run,” Irvin told the judge.

Osborne is charged with four counts, including a felony charge of civil disorder and three misdemeanors. He pleaded not guilty to the charges on Thursday.

FBI agents found several guns, packed “go-bags” and some of Worrell's belongings when they searched Osborne's home in December 2023.

After his conviction but before his sentencing, Worrell cut his GPS monitor and vanished in August 2023. The FBI arrested him the following month at his girlfriend’s home in Florida, a roughly two-hour drive from where Osborne lived. Worrell ultimately was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

A federal magistrate judge in Tampa, Florida, initially ordered Osborn to remain jailed in pretrial detention. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington, D.C., overruled the magistrate and ordered Osborne to remain confined to a sister's home in Susquehanna Pennsylvania, after his release from jail.

The judge warned Osborne of the consequences if he flees.

“There is no point in running because you're eventually going to get caught,” Mehta said during Thursday's remote hearing. “Running only makes matters worse.”
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[TopHatter]

Conservative influencer helped steal a table used to assault officers on Jan. 6, FBI says
Isabella Deluca, who has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, faces five charges, including theft of government property.

WASHINGTON — A conservative influencer was arrested in California on Jan. 6 charges, including helping to steal a table from a Capitol conference room that the FBI says was used to assault officers just feet away at the lower west tunnel, where some of the most brutal attacks on law enforcement took place.


Isabella Deluca.

Isabella Deluca, a fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump, was arrested in Irvine, California, on Friday, according to court records unsealed on Monday. She faces five charges, including a count of theft of government property.

Deluca, according to the FBI, can be seen "removing, and aiding and abetting other rioters in removing, a table from ST-2M" — an office in the Capitol — "and passing it to rioters outside through another broken window." The table "was subsequently used to assault law enforcements officers guarding the Lower West Terrace Tunnel," the FBI said.

Deluca has racked up hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and was formerly an ambassador for the conservative group Turning Points USA. She says in an online bio that she interned for Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., and for Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. (Zeldin left office in 2023 and lost his New York gubernatorial race in 2022.)


The FBI identified Isabella Deluca in this photo from the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The FBI first received a tip about Deluca just three days after the Capitol attack and interviewed Deluca on Jan. 21, 2021, the day after Joe Biden's inauguration, according to the bureau.

"Fight back or let politicians steal [an] election? Fight back!" Deluca allegedly tweeted on the afternoon of Jan. 6.

Images in the FBI affidavit show Deluca helping to pass the table out of the broken window and show that her fellow Jan. 6 defendant Timothy Desjardins, who was arrested in 2021, picked up a wooden table leg and used that leg to assault officers. (Last year, Dejardins was sentenced to 18 years in prison on state charges, separate from his Jan. 6 charges. Plea negotiations are ongoing in his Jan. 6 case.) Another rioter threw the table top at officers, the FBI said.

In an Instagram comment after the attack, Deluca posted that she got "maced pretty bad about three times" and that she "used milk to get the mace/tear gas out of my eyes."

Deluca later posted she had "mixed feelings" about Jan. 6 and then posted that Trump should declare martial law, according to the FBI.

Deluca did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

More than 1,300 people have been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and prosecutors have secured more than 950 convictions. About 500 people have been sentenced to periods of incarceration that have ranged from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison.
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[TopHatter]

Federal judge sentencing a Jan. 6 rioter worries Trump could spur another attack

WASHINGTON — A federal judge who has overseen numerous criminal cases against Donald Trump supporters who viciously assaulted police officers during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol expressed concern during a sentencing hearing Thursday that the former president could trigger another violent attack in the lead-up to or aftermath of the 2024 presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Rudy Contreras voiced those concerns while sentencing Jeffrey Sabol, a Colorado geophysicist, to 63 months, or more than five years, in federal prison. Sabol had told the FBI that he believed there was no question the election was stolen and that Dominion voting machines had been tampered with. Sabol also told the FBI he was filled with “patriotic rage” on Jan. 6, that a “call to battle was announced” and that he “answered the call because he was a patriot warrior.”

Contreras said that Trump and his allies had “spurred” the attack on the Capitol, saying he was worried that Sabol would respond once again if a similar “call” was issued.

"It doesn't take much imagination to imagine a similar call coming out in the coming months," Contreras said Thursday.

Sabol, who repeatedly assaulted officers at the lower west tunnel during the Capitol attack, was one of a fraction of the Jan. 6 defendants who had been held pretrial, so he's already served the majority of his sentence. He was arrested on Jan. 11, 2021, just five days after the attack. Sabol destroyed his laptop in a microwave oven, dropped his cellphone in a body of water and tried to board a flight to Zurich, Switzerland, prior to his arrest, prosecutors said.

Contreras on Thursday also ordered Sabol to pay $32,165.65 in restitution and serve three years of supervised release.



Jeffrey Sabol, center, seen during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In the lead-up to the Capitol attack, many Trump supporters saw the former president's Dec. 19, 2020 "will be wild" tweet encouraging people to come to Washington on Jan. 6 as a "call to arms." As criminal cases against hundreds of Trump supporters have made their way through federal court, Jan. 6 defendants have said time and time again that they took the actions they did because they believed the former president's baseless lies about the 2020 election.

Some Jan. 6 defendants have said they were duped and manipulated and expressed retroactive embarrassment about their lack of critical thinking skills, with some defendants even calling themselves idiots.

In the court gallery for Sabol’s sentencing was Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Jan. 6 rioter Ashli Babbit, who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer as she jumped through a broken window leading into the House Speaker’s Lobby. Witthoeft attended a vigil for Jan. 6 defendants outside a jail in Washington this week, which was livestreamed, saying that she had spoken with Trump on the phone earlier in the day and that the former president “talked about setting these guys free when he gets in,” a message he asked to be passed along to Jan. 6 defendants.

The former president was supposed to be currently standing trial in connection with his efforts to overturn his election loss. Instead, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Trump's claims of total presidential immunity from criminal charges next month, and it is unclear if he will face trial before Election Day 2024.

Numerous members of the federal judiciary in Washington have indicated that they believe Trump is responsible for the events of Jan. 6. Contreras said at a prior sentencing against a Jan. 6 rioter that Trump and his allies “bear responsibility for what occurred that day.”

Judge Amy Berman Jackson, at a prior Jan. 6 sentencing, said that the Republican Party was "actively shunning the few who think standing up for principle is more important than power and have stepped forward to educate the public and to speak the truth." The threat to democracy, Berman Jackson said, did not evaporate or dissipate just because the 2020 election results were certified.

"The lie that the election was stolen or illegitimate is still being propagated. Indeed, it’s being amplified, not only on extremist social media sites, but on mainstream news outlets," she said. "And worse, it’s become heresy for a member of the former president’s party to say otherwise."

More recently, Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth expressed astonishment that Republican politicians had so readily latched onto "preposterous" claims about the events of Jan. 6 itself. He cited claims that criminals convicted in a court of law or ordered held until trial by federal judges because of their danger to the community or risk of flight were "hostages," a term Trump and his supporters like Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., have used.

“The Court is accustomed to defendants who refuse to accept that they did anything wrong. But in my thirty-seven years on the bench, I cannot recall a time when such meritless justifications of criminal activity have gone mainstream,” Lamberth, who was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan in 1987, said.

“I have been dismayed to see distortions and outright falsehoods seep into the public consciousness,” Lamberth continued. “The Court fears that such destructive, misguided rhetoric could presage further danger to our country.”
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Odd that so many of Trump's Deranged Supporters are blaming Trump for inciting them on Jan 6. I keep waiting for one - just one - of them to blame Ray Epps.

[statquo]

‘Assured failure’: Ex-White House lawyer provides new details of final days of Trump’s 2020 election gambit

Donald Trump’s deputy White House counsel, Pat Philbin, was nervous.

It was just a few days until Jan. 6, 2021, when Congress was slated to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, and Trump had suddenly resuscitated a plan to replace the leadership of the Justice Department with Jeffrey Clark, a little known DOJ official who Trump expected to mount a sweeping nationwide effort to help him remain in power.

So Philbin called Clark, a colleague from their days in private practice dating back to the 1990s and tried to talk him out of it.

“I tried to explain to him that it was a bad idea for multiple reasons,” Philbin recalled Tuesday at a long-delayed disbarment hearing for Clark. “He would be starting down a path of assured failure … If by some miracle somehow, it worked, there’d be riots in every major city in the country and it was not an outcome the country would accept.”

It was Philbin’s first public testimony about the chaotic final days of the Trump presidency since he left the White House. Though Philbin has spoken to both the Jan. 6 select committee and the federal grand jury that indicted Trump for his effort to seize a second term, no transcript or recording of his remarks has even been released.

Philbin’s description of his interactions with Clark shed new light on the frenzied effort by Trump to remake the Justice Department into a tool of his bid to cling to power despite losing the election — a remarkable new account more than three years after a mob of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol in his name. His testimony followed Richard Donoghue, a former acting deputy attorney general.

Together, the two men described a White House that had let down all guardrails, with conspiracy theories about election fraud reaching Trump, who was an eager recipient of even implausible claims of fraud. Clark, too, embraced some of those claims, they said.

Philbin described feeling relief in the first days of January 2021 when he heard that Trump had ditched plans to appoint Clark as acting attorney general. But he quickly learned in discussions with his boss, Pat Cipollone, and two top DOJ officials — acting attorney general Jeff Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue — that the effort had been revived. The men agreed that Philbin should speak to Clark, owing to their decadeslong relationship, and attempt to discern what was happening.

Philbin, who testified for about two hours on Tuesday, described Clark as wildly misinformed about claims of election fraud — countenancing a theory about “smart thermostats” being used to manipulate voting machines — and not sufficiently cognizant of the havoc it would wreak on the country if his plan succeeded. But he said Clark seemed “100 percent sincere” in his beliefs.

“I believe that he felt that he essentially had a duty,” Philbin said. “I think Jeff’s view was that there was a real crisis in the country and that he was being given an opportunity to do something about it.”

When Philbin warned Clark that there would be riots in every major American city if Trump reversed the outcome of the election, Clark responded, “Well, Pat, that’s what the Insurrection Act is for,” Philbin recalled.

Clark, in Philbin’s telling, was referring to a 19th-century federal law that permits the president to use the military to quell civil unrest, an indication that he recognized the grave implications of his efforts. Though it was Philbin’s first time publicly discussing the exchange, the conversation was captured in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump — without naming either Philbin or Clark, though the identities of both speakers were easily discerned. On Tuesday, Philbin was asked to elaborate on this discussion.

“I don’t think I said anything on the phone. I just thought that that showed a lack of judgment,” he said. “Triggering riots in every major city in America, you’ve got to be really sure about what you’re doing and have no alternatives … In my estimation, that was not the sort of situation we were talking about.”

Philbin was the second witness to testify in a disciplinary proceeding that could result in the loss of Clark’s license to practice law. D.C. Bar investigators have charged him with attempting to coerce DOJ leaders to embrace false claims of election fraud in order to pressure state legislators to consider reversing Trump’s defeat in Georgia and other swing states. Trump, fuming at his DOJ leadership for what he contended was a failure to pursue fraud investigations, repeatedly flirted with appointing Clark as their leader but ultimately backed down amid a mass resignation threat.

Clark has since been charged alongside Trump in Georgia for their efforts to overturn the election, and Clark was identified by Smith as a co-conspirator in the Washington, D.C. case.

Philbin said the mass resignation threat that caused Trump to back down from Clark’s appointment was partially his idea. He recalled that a similar mass resignation threat from his days as a lawyer in the George W. Bush administration over warrantless wiretapping had similarly affected policy decisions. So he said he advised Rosen to take the temperature of DOJ leadership about how they would react if Trump appointed Clark as acting attorney general.

Nearly every top DOJ official indicated they would resign, a significant factor in causing Trump to back off his plan.

Philbin said he sought to convey these realities to Clark in a last-ditch phone call before a confrontational Oval Office meeting with Trump and his top advisers.

“We talked about some of the theories of fraud that were around. They’d been debunked and there wasn’t really any there-there,” Philbin said. “If the president made him acting attorney general … people at DOJ would probably resign, there’s going to be just a massive wave of resignations. People weren’t going to be following him to pursue these theories of fraud.”

Philbin said he was among those who would have resigned.

“It was not a course of action that I could countenance,” Philbin said. “I thought there was not a justification for it. It was a sufficiently bad idea and unjustified interference with the completion of the Electoral College count. I wouldn’t want to be there in the White House any longer participating in that.”

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Clark in the process of being dis-barred today too.

[TopHatter]

Man who used megaphone to lead attack on police during Capitol riot gets over 7 years in prison


This image from police body-worn camera video, contained and annotated in the Justice Department's government's sentencing memorandum supporting the sentencing of Taylor James Johnatakis, shows Johnatakis at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. Johnatakis, of Washington state, who used a megaphone to orchestrate a mob’s attack on police officers guarding the U.S. Capitol, was sentenced on Wednesday to more than seven years in prison. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said videos captured Johnatakis playing a leadership role during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Washington state man who used a megaphone to orchestrate a mob’s attack on police officers guarding the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Wednesday to more than seven years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said videos captured Taylor James Johnatakis playing a leadership role during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. Johnatakis led other rioters on a charge against a police line, “barked commands” over his megaphone and shouted step-by-step directions for overpowering officers, the judge said.

“In any angry mob, there are leaders and there are followers. Mr. Johnatakis was a leader. He knew what he was doing that day,” the judge said before sentencing him to seven years and three months behind bars.

Johnatakis, who represented himself with an attorney on standby, has repeatedly expressed rhetoric that appears to be inspired by the anti-government “ sovereign citizen ” movement. He asked the judge questions at his sentencing, including, “Does the record reflect that I repent in my sins?”

Lamberth, who referred to some of Johnatakis' words as “gobbledygook," said, “I'm not answering questions here.”

Prosecutors recommended a nine-year prison sentence for Johnatakis, a self-employed installer of septic systems.

“Johnatakis was not just any rioter; he led, organized, and encouraged the assault of officers at the U.S. Capitol on January 6,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

A jury convicted him of felony charges after a trial last year in Washington, D.C.

Johnatakis, 40, of Kingston, Washington, had a megaphone strapped to his back when he marched to the Capitol from then-President Donald Trump's “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House on Jan. 6.

“It’s over,” he shouted at the crowd of Trump supporters. “Michael Pence has voted against the president. We are down to the nuclear option.”

Johnatakis was one of the first rioters to chase a group of police officers who were retreating up stairs outside the Capitol. He shouted and gestured for other rioters to “pack it in" and prepare to attack.

Johnatakis shouted “Go!” before he and other rioters shoved a metal barricade into a line of police officers. He also grabbed an officer's arm.

“The crime is complete,” Johnatakis posted on social media several hours after he left the Capitol.

He was arrested in February 2021. He has been jailed since November 2023, when jurors convicted him of seven counts, including obstruction of the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress that certified Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory. The jury also convicted him of assault and civil disorder charges.

Justice Department prosecutor Courtney Howard said Johnatakis hasn't expressed any sincere remorse or accepted responsibility for his crimes on Jan. 6.

“He's going so far as to portray himself as a persecuted victim,” she said.

Lamberth said he received over 20 letters from Johnatakis, his relatives and friends. Some of his supporters don't seem to know the full extent of Johnatakis' crimes on Jan. 6, the judge added. He said he would order the clerk of court's office to send all them copies of his prepared remarks during the sentencing hearing.

“There can be no room in our country for this sort of political violence,” Lamberth said.

Last April, Lamberth ordered a psychologist to examine Johnatakis and determine if he was mentally competent to stand trial. The judge ultimately ruled that Johnatakis could understand the proceedings and assist in his defense.

Approximately 1,350 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 800 of them have been sentenced, with roughly two-thirds getting terms of imprisonment ranging from several days to 22 years.
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[Albany Rifles]

EVeryone wants to be a gangsta until it's time to do gangsta shit!


Screw this guy!

[TopHatter]

Neo-Nazi Jan. 6 rioter pleads guilty, admits to stealing police helmet as a 'war trophy'


WASHINGTON — A member of a neo-Nazi group pleaded guilty to Capitol riot charges Thursday, admitting he threw a water bottle at police during the brutal battle at the lower west tunnel and stole a police helmet as a "war trophy" during the Jan. 6 attack.

Richard Zachary Ackerman pleaded guilty to two charges: obstructing law enforcement officers during civil disorder and theft of government property. He had initially faced three additional charges: assault, resist, oppose, impede with a person engaged in performance of official duties; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds; and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds. Those charges will be dismissed under a plea agreement.


Richard Zachary Ackerman at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In the court filing Thursday, Ackerman admitted bragging that he stole a SWAT team officer's helmet, which he labeled a "war trophy." The FBI said it had received a tip that included a photo of a U.S. Capitol Police helmet that included a "New England 131" sticker on it on Jan. 8, 2021, two days after the attack.

An FBI task force officer said "New England131" referred to the "Nationalist Socialist Club 131" and the "White Defense Force" and described NSC-131 as "a neo-Nazi group with small, autonomous regional chapters in the United States and abroad, whose members see themselves as soldiers at war with a hostile, Jewish-controlled system that is deliberately plotting the extinction of the white race."

A confidential FBI human source attended a 2021 meeting with members of NSC-131, where a member known online as "Zach Parker" talked about being at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and said he still had the helmet at his residence, according to the FBI task force officer.


Richard Zachary Ackerman wearing the U.S. Capitol Police helmet.

Ackerman flew to Germany in July 2021 and was subject to a secondary inspection by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to the FBI. Agents who searched his phone said they found conversations in which Ackerman bragged about being at the Capitol. One person he spoke with told him to go home and not to get arrested, saying Ackerman "won't be able to be a Marine" if he was arrested. (Jan. 6 rioters James Mault and Aiden Bilyard joined the military after they took part in the attack, while numerous other rioters were active-duty members of the military when they took part in the riot.)

In 2022, agents obtained a search warrant for Ackerman's residence, spoke with a man who identified himself as Ackerman's father and found a Capitol Police helmet in the fireplace of his basement bedroom, the FBI said.


Richard Zachary Ackerman, right, wearing the U.S. Capitol Police helmet at the Capitol riots in 2021.

Ackerman was first arrested in New Hampshire in June and has been on pretrial release ever since. He will remain on release until at least his sentencing before U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, which is scheduled for July 25.

As NBC News reported, out of more than 1,380 Jan. 6 defendants, just 15 are being held in pretrial detention at the order of a federal judge. All other Jan. 6 rioters behind bars are there because they either admitted in court that they engaged in criminal activity on Jan. 6 or because judges or unanimous juries found them to have committed crimes.

Prosecutors have secured convictions against an estimated 984 defendants so far, and hundreds of additional rioters have been identified by online "sedition hunters" but not yet arrested. Of the roughly 859 defendants who have been sentenced, about 520 have been given at least some period of incarceration, according to the Justice Department, with sentences from a few days behind bars to 22 years in prison.
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I bet Ray Epps convinced him to take that helmet....and the FBI tricked him into joining that neo-Nazi group.

[TopHatter]

The Supreme Court’s Conservatives Just Took Direct Aim at Jack Smith’s Trump Indictment. Will They Go Through With It?


Will the Supreme Court jeopardize the prosecution of more than 350 defendants involved with Jan. 6, including Donald Trump, by gutting the federal statute that prohibits their unlawful conduct? Maybe so. Tuesday’s oral arguments in Fischer v. United States were rough sledding for the government, as the conservative justices lined up to thwap Joe Biden’s Department of Justice for allegedly overreaching in its pursuit of Jan. 6 convictions. Six members of the court took turns wringing their hands over the application of a criminal obstruction law to the rioters, fretting that they faced overly harsh penalties for participating in the violent attack. Unmentioned but lurking in the background was Trump himself, who can wriggle out of two major charges against him with a favorable decision in this case.

There are, no doubt, too many criminal laws whose vague wording gives prosecutors near-limitless leeway to threaten citizens with decades in prison. But this isn’t one of them. Congress wrote a perfectly legible law and the overwhelming majority of judges have had no trouble applying it. It would be all too telling if the Supreme Court decides to pretend the statute is somehow too sweeping or jumbled to use as a tool of accountability for Jan. 6.

Start with the obstruction law itself, known as Section 1552(c), which Congress enacted to close loopholes that Enron exploited to impede probes into its misconduct. The provision is remarkably straightforward—a far cry from the ambiguous, sloppy, or muddled laws that typically flummox the judiciary. It’s a mainstay of the Department of Justice’s “Capitol siege” prosecutions, deployed in about a quarter of all cases. Overall, 350 people face charges under this statute, Trump among them, and the DOJ has used it to secure the convictions of about 150 rioters. It targets anyone who “corruptly … obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” And it clarifies that an official proceeding includes “a proceeding before the Congress.”

The government argues that some rioters attempted to “obstruct” an “official proceeding” by halting the count of electoral votes through “corrupt” means. That includes Joseph Fischer, the defendant in the current case. Fischer, who served as a police officer before Jan. 6, allegedly texted that the protest “might get violent”; that “they should storm the capital and drag all the democrates [sic] into the street and have a mob trial”; and that protesters should “take democratic congress to the gallows,” because they “can’t vote if they can’t breathe..lol.” Video evidence shows Fischer assaulting multiple police officers on the afternoon of Jan. 6 after breaching the Capitol.

Would anyone seriously argue that this person did not attempt to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding? For a time, it seemed not: 14 of the 15 federal judges—all but Judge Carl Nichols in this case—considering the charge in various Jan. 6 cases agreed that it applied to violent rioters bent on stopping the electoral count. So did every judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit except one, Judge Gregory Katsas. Both Nichols and Katsas were appointed by Trump. Their crusade to kneecap the law caught SCOTUS’ attention, and the court decided to intervene despite overwhelming consensus among lower court judges. The Supreme Court’s decision will have major implications for Trump: Two of the four charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith in the former president’s Jan. 6 prosecution revolve around this offense. A ruling that eviscerates the obstruction law would arguably cut out the heart of the indictment.

At least three justices seem ready to do just that. Justice Clarence Thomas—back on the bench after yesterday’s unexplained absence—grilled Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar over the law’s application to Jan. 6. “There have been many violent protests that have interfered with proceedings. Has the government applied this provision to other protests in the past?” Thomas asked, as if to nail the Justice Department for inconsistency and reveal some improper motive for wielding the law against violent insurrectionists. Justice Neil Gorsuch trolled Prelogar by alluding to Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s infamous fire alarm incident. “Would pulling a fire alarm before a vote qualify for 20 years in federal prison?” he asked. Justice Samuel Alito joined in to ask about “protests in the courtroom” when an audience member interrupts the justices and “delays the proceeding for five minutes.”

“For all the protests that have occurred in this court,” Alito noted pointedly, “the Justice Department has not charged any serious offenses, and I don’t think any one of those protestors has been sentenced to even one day in prison.” Why, he wondered, weren’t they charged under the obstruction statute?

Alito, audibly angry, continued: “Yesterday protestors blocked the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and disrupted traffic in San Francisco,” he told Prelogar. “What if something similar to that happened all around the Capitol so … all the bridges from Virginia were blocked, and members from Virginia who needed to appear at a hearing couldn’t get there or were delayed in getting there? Would that be a violation of this provision?”

To be clear, this is trolling: There is simply no comparison between a violent attack on the Capitol and protests that take the form of civil disobedience. And these justices expressed no similar concern about an ongoing red-state effort to persecute peaceful protesters who participate in Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Gorsuch and Alito’s hypotheticals ignore the reality that there are two layers of protection between minor protests and this rather major law. First, the Constitution affords prosecutorial discretion to the executive branch, allowing the Department of Justice to decide when an illegal “protest” is dangerous enough to warrant the use of a criminal law like the obstruction statute. Second, prosecutors must always prove the alleged offense to a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, creating a democratic check on the abusive use of a stringent law to punish a silly crime.

Prelogar highlighted this latter point, explaining that juries have indeed acquitted Jan. 6 defendants of obstruction. If prosecutors ever apply this (or any other) criminal statute to a questionable set of facts, they may always be thwarted by a jury. That is how the system is meant to work.

This kind of behavior from Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito is no surprise at this point. And the liberal justices countered them as best they could. What’s troubling is that the other conservative justices jumped in to join the pile-on. Chief Justice John Roberts insistently pressed Prelogar to prove that the Justice Department has interpreted and enforced the obstruction law consistently in the past. This question ignored the fact that, as Prelogar reminded the court, there has never been any crime like the assault on the Capitol, so the agency had no prior opportunity to apply the law in any similar way.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that the Justice Department didn’t really need this statute because it has other laws at its disposal. “There are six other counts in the indictment here,” he told Prelogar. Why “aren’t those six counts good enough just from the Justice Department’s perspective given that they don’t have any of the hurdles?” Of course, the DOJ brought the obstruction charge specifically because it was more serious than the others; prosecutors felt an obligation to enforce Congress’ strong protections against intrusions on official proceedings, including those in the Capitol. Kavanaugh appears to think the DOJ should have settled for a smattering of lesser charges. Justice Amy Coney Barrett was not so obtuse; she earnestly worried that the statute was too broad and fished around for narrowing constructions. Yet she seemed unsatisfied with the many options Prelogar provided to keep the law limited to the most egregious interruptions of government business.

What all six justices seemed tempted to do was rip up Section 1552(c) because it happens to include another sentence that applies to the destruction of evidence and other official documents. Jan. 6 rioters didn’t destroy evidence, this argument goes, so they can’t be culpable under a law. That reading is untenable, something Prelogar impressively reinforced at every turn on Tuesday, but it may be attractive if a majority wants to defuse this statute before it’s used against Trump in a court of law.

Smith’s indictment of the former president for his participation in Jan. 6 doesn’t entirely hinge on obstruction. It does, however, weave obstruction into both the facts and the legal theory of the case, placing it at the center of a broader criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. If SCOTUS defuses the law now, Smith would have to scrap two of four charges and restructure the entire indictment, making it that much easier for Trump to demand further delay and, eventually, evade a conviction.

The justices know this. They should have been on their best behavior on Tuesday to avoid any glimmer of impropriety. It was already profoundly disturbing that Thomas sat on the case given his wife’s involvement with the attempt to overturn the election. The other justices’ faux concern about overcriminalization of protesters only added to the foul smell emanating from arguments. There’s no telling how Fischer will turn out; maybe the liberal justices will help their colleagues rediscover their better angels behind the scenes. From Tuesday’s vantage point, though, the argument was a bleak reminder of how easy it is for cloistered jurists to wish away the massive stakes of a case like this.
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[Albany Rifles]

Worst court since Taney

[TopHatter]

Trump could have helped response to Jan. 6 riot — but didn’t — per new testimony
Two senior leaders of the D.C. guard at the time of the Capitol attack painted a picture of the boost that never came, according to transcripts reviewed by POLITICO.


Former President Donald Trump never called any military leaders on Jan. 6, per testimony from senior administration officials to the Jan. 6 select committee


Donald Trump could have cleared up confusion and hastened the arrival of National Guard troops to quell the Capitol riot if he’d called Pentagon leaders on Jan. 6, 2021, according to recent closed-door congressional testimony by two former leaders of the D.C. guard.

Michael Brooks, the senior enlisted leader of the D.C. guard at the time of the riot, and Brigadier Gen. Aaron Dean, the adjutant general of the D.C. guard at the time, told House Administration Committee staffers that if Trump had reached out that day — which, by all accounts, he did not — he might have helped cut through the chaos amid a tangle of conflicting advice and miscommunication.

“Could the president have picked up the phone, called the secretary of defense, and said, you know, ‘What’s going on here?’ Our law enforcement is getting overrun, make this happen!’” a committee staffer asked Brooks, according to the transcript of a previously unreported March 14 interview reviewed by POLITICO.

“I assume he could expedite an approval through the Secretary of Defense, through the Secretary of the Army,” Brooks replied.

But Trump never called any military leaders on Jan. 6, per testimony from senior administration officials to the Jan. 6 select committee — a fact that the panel emphasized in its final report that concluded Trump was uniquely responsible for the violent Capitol attack by his supporters. Rather, he was observing the riot on TV and calling allies in his quest to subvert the 2020 election, as outlined by committee witnesses and White House records.

Brooks’ exchange with the committee staffer underscored the reality of Trump’s inaction: “And to your knowledge, did that happen on January 6th?” the staffer continued.

“No,” Brooks said.

Dean, similarly, noted that if Trump had placed a call to Pentagon leaders at 2 p.m. — around the time the Capitol was first breached — and said “go,” the guard would have reached the Capitol sooner than it did that day.

“I think if the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of Defense, or the president had said ‘Go,’ … or a combination thereof had said ‘Go,’ then we would’ve gone and we would’ve been there much faster,” Dean told congressional investigators on March 26.


Rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.

Brooks and Dean are among four witnesses slated to testify Wednesday before a House subcommittee probing security failures that exacerbated the breach of the Capitol. All four were top advisers to William Walker, the commander of the D.C. guard on Jan. 6. Other witnesses include Timothy Nick, who was the aide-de-camp to Walker, and Earl Matthews, a top lawyer for the National Guard at the time. POLITICO reviewed transcripts of closed-door interviews that all four men gave to the Administration Committee over the past five weeks.

The bulk of their testimony focused on deep disagreement between the D.C. guard leadership and the Pentagon about when and whether an order was given to deploy to the Capitol. The witnesses told the Administration Committee that military leaders seemed reluctant to send guard troops to the Capitol until hours after violence had broken out.

Further, they described mixed messages on phone calls with the Pentagon that left them in a holding pattern, lacking clarity about whether they had permission to deploy. All four also indicated they had testified to the Jan. 6 committee in an “informal” capacity, meaning there were no transcripts of their interviews.

And they said they had virtually no contact from Ryan McCarthy, the then-Army secretary, even though he was a key player who was in frequent contact with the D.C. guard in the run-up to Jan. 6.

McCarthy did not respond to a request for comment. He has told the Jan. 6 committee that a call from Trump would not have hastened the National Guard response because he was already moving as quickly as possible.

The testimony is the latest addition to a complicated picture of the military’s response to the violence, which raged for hours on Jan. 6 until the D.C. police and National Guard helped the Capitol Police contain it that evening. The riot select committee found that Trump made no calls to senior leaders of the Justice Department, Pentagon or Department of Homeland Security while the violence raged — nor did he reach out to his vice president, Mike Pence, who was sheltering from the mob at the Capitol.

Rather, Trump watched the riot unfold on TV and made phone calls to lawmakers who he hoped would support his bid to block President Joe Biden’s victory.

The men, whom the panel described as “whistleblowers,” sharply dispute claims by former Pentagon leaders — from McCarthy to then-Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller to former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley — that the National Guard was deployed to the Capitol as quickly as possible on Jan. 6.

Rather, they say, they had no contact from Miller or McCarthy until much later in the day, and they sharply dispute claims that McCarthy authorized the guard’s deployment to the Capitol by 3:04 p.m. on Jan. 6.

That’s the context in which Brooks and Dean suggested that perhaps a phone call from Trump — as conditions at the Capitol were clearly deteriorating — could have cut through the clutter and resulted in a quicker deployment.

Matthews differed from Brooks and Dean on the question of whether Trump’s involvement could have made a difference. Because Trump had already delegated authority to Miller and McCarthy, there was little for him to do, according to Matthews, who told the Administration Committee that it’s not clear whether McCarthy would have heeded his call.



“The president wasn’t going to call us because he’s trusting the chain of command,” Matthews told the Administration panel. He noted that some testimony to the Jan. 6 committee underscored concerns among military leaders that Trump might try using a troop presence at the Capitol for nefarious purposes.

In his testimony to the Jan. 6 committee, McCarthy denied harboring concerns that Trump might misuse the National Guard.

“I mean, in the lead-up to it, [I] did not see anything that would give you the sense he was going to order us to send troops to the Capitol in support of anything untoward,” McCarthy said.

In a statement Matthews issued ahead of his public testimony, he elaborated on his belief.

“The committee knew that even if President Trump had called down personally to the Secretary of the Army, who had effective operational control of the D.C. National Guard, to direct the immediate movement of the Guard, it would have had no impact.”
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I'll take "Shit we already know" for $100: Donald Trump did nothing, nothing whatsoever, for hours, after it became known that his followers had breached the Capitol Building and Congress (and his Vice President) were fleeing for their lives. Except watch the whole thing on TV and enjoying every minute of it.

[Albany Rifles]

I know I've said this before but...

I remember SCREAMING at the TV "WHERE THE FVCK IS THE DC NATIONAL GUARD?!?!?!?!?" several times that afternoon. Even I did not think this asshole would stoop this low...though my radar was up since those fvcks MacGregor & O'Grady were now involved in the SEC DEF office. Hearing this pissed me off even more.

[TopHatter]

I remember SCREAMING at the TV "WHERE THE FVCK IS THE DC NATIONAL GUARD?!?!?!?!?" several times that afternoon.

Well as you know, Nancy Pelosi never called them. So they couldn't show up without her permission. And it wasn't a real insurrection, so what were you getting so steamed about?

[TopHatter]

Charlottesville tiki torch carrier pleads guilty in Jan. 6 riot case


A former Marine who carried a tiki torch ahead of a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., pleaded guilty Friday in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Tyler Bradley Dykes, of Bluffton, S.C., pleaded guilty to two felony counts of assaulting, resisting or impeding officers who were protecting the Capitol. The crime carries a maximum penalty of eight years in prison, a $250,000 fine and up to three years supervised release, according to the plea agreement.

Attorneys for Dykes did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday evening.

Dykes, 26, was arrested in July, on a series of federal charges, including misdemeanors. Prosecutors agreed to request the dismissal of the other counts in the indictment during sentencing as part of his plea agreement, according to court documents.

His sentencing is scheduled for July 19.

According to court documents, Dykes subscribed to a series of public Telegram groups tied to the 2020 presidential election, allegations of voter fraud and events related to the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory ahead of the Jan. 6 riot. One group that he subscribed to, which called for violence and overthrowing the government by force, included a message that referred to a quote attributed to Adolf Hitler, prosecutors said.

Dykes — who previously served a prison sentence following a felony conviction tied to the 2017 torch-lit march in Charlottesville a night before the "United the Right" rally — wore a gray puffer jacket and neck gaiter over his face during the Capitol riot, according to court documents.

Prosecutors said Dykes was among a group of rioters who sought to push their way into the Capitol through the East Rotunda doors. Dykes was also accused of forcibly stealing a U.S. Capitol Police officer’s riot shield and using it to push his way into the Capitol and to impede the police line defending the Capitol once inside.

Among the more than 859 defendants who have been sentenced since the 2021 riot, more than 520 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration ranging from a few days to 22 years in federal prison.
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Dammit when are we gonna get to see some antifa hauled in front of the court for their actions on Jan 6?

[TopHatter]

Jan. 6 rioter with 'I heart TRUMP' hat and a Confederate flag gets prison for assaults on officers


WASHINGTON — A Jan. 6 defendant who brought a Confederate flag to the Capitol and wore an "I ❤️ TRUMP" beanie as he assaulted police officers with chemical spray, partially blinding two of them for hours, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Monday.

Isreal Easterday, 23, was arrested in Florida in December 2022 and was found guilty in October on several counts, including felony charges of civil disorder and assaulting officers.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge James E. Boasberg sentenced Easterday to 30 months in prison as well as 500 hours of community service, along with $2,000 in restitution.

The government sought 151 months — or more than 12.5 years — in federal prison for Easterday, saying his "felonious conduct" was "part of a massive riot that almost succeeded in preventing the certification vote from being carried out, frustrating the peaceful transition of Presidential power, and throwing the United States into a Constitutional crisis."

Prosecutors called the Confederate battle flag — which Easterday brought up to the eastern doors of the U.S. Capitol where Abraham Lincoln's body passed through after his assassination in 1865 — "an established symbol of racism" as well as "a symbol of treason, defiance of the law, and insurrection."

Easterday's defense lawyers said he came to Washington after his uncle "invited him to tag along with a group of fellow Trump supporters." They said Easterday was homeschooled and "everything he knew was filtered through the lens of his parents" when he came to the Capitol. Easterday, they said, "plainly did not fully understand what the Confederate flag signified" and even Googled “what does the rebel flag represent” on the afternoon of Jan. 6.

Prosecutors said Easterday "was part of the mob that first breached the police line on the East side of the Capitol," and that he waved his Confederate flag when he "entered the restricted area, pushed his way through the mob, and climbed up to the top landing" outside the east rotunda doors.

"There, he acquired a can of pepper spray and used it to assault U.S. Capitol Police ('USCP') Officer Joshua Pollitt, who was guarding the East Rotunda Doors, by spraying the chemical irritant directly into Officer Pollitt’s face from just an arm’s length away. Officer Pollitt collapsed moments after Easterday sprayed him, and experienced excruciating pain and partial blindness for hours," prosecutors wrote. "After this attack, Easterday acquired a second can of pepper spray from another rioter and used it to assault a different group of USCP officers guarding the East Rotunda Doors, striking USCP Officer Miguel Acevedo, and causing him to experience excruciating pain and partial blindness for hours, just like Officer Pollitt."

Easterday then breached the building, and pulled other rioters inside, prosecutors said. The next day, "in an effort to hide evidence of his guilt, Easterday wiped photographs, posts, and communications from his Facebook account," they said.

Over 1,387 Capitol attack defendants have been charged, and prosecutors have secured more than 984 convictions. While hundreds of low-level Jan. 6 rioters have received probationary sentences, more than 520 have been sentenced to periods of incarceration ranging from a few days behind bars to 22 years in federal prison. There are only about 15 defendants in pretrial custody, meaning they haven't been convicted of a crime, but a judge determined they are either a threat to the community or a risk of flight.
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[TopHatter]

Guilty-Pleading Jan. 6 Participant Wildly Shows He Learned Nothing From Prison

• Jan. 6 Capitol rioter who livestreamed his actions and pleaded guilty to felony civil disorder, is now running for U.S. House of Representatives in West Virginia.
• Evans, who was sentenced to three months in prison for his role in the insurrection, maintains that he did nothing wrong and denies the existence of separation between church and state.
• Despite pleading guilty to his actions during the Capitol breach, Evans continues to defend his actions as protected by the Constitution and natural God-given rights of free speech.

A Jan. 6 participant who livestreamed his invasion of the U.S. Capitol and pleaded guilty to felony civil disorder told CNN Monday that he “did nothing wrong” on “the most patriotic day” of his life.

Derrick Evans also said, “There’s no separation of church and state. That’s another lie that’s been portrayed by the left.”

What makes the latter statement so noteworthy is that Evans is now running for the U.S. House of Representatives in West Virginia after being forced to resign from the state’s House of Delegates following the attempted coup.

Back then, Evans said he “deeply regret any hurt, pain or embarrassment I may have caused my family, friends, constituents and fellow West Virginians.”

But Evans, sentenced to three months in prison, was an unrepentant zealot when confronted by CNN correspondent Donie O’Sullivan.

Evans accused CNN of painting a “false narrative” of the insurrection, called himself a “political prisoner,” and depicted himself as a peacemaker on that day as his clip of the siege played.

The reporter reminded Evans that he pleaded guilty, but Evans said he was merely trying to avoid a much stiffer sentence for his breaching of the Capitol with a pro-Trump mob intent on overturning the 2020 election.

“What I was doing that day was not only protected by the Constitution, it was protected by those natural God-given rights of free speech,” Evans said.

“But also, of course, there’s a separation between church and state,” O’Sullivan replied.

“No, there’s not,” Evans shot back. “There’s no separation of church and state. That’s another lie that’s been portrayed by the left.”
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