January 6th legal proceedings and investigations megathread

[NewYorkExpress]

So an off-duty DEA agent carried his government issued gun to the riot.

An off-duty special agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency carried his government-issued firearm while attending the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday. Prosecutors say he posed for pictures while flashing his DEA badge and climbed onto the Peace Monument to film himself as he delivered a "monologue."


Mark Ibrahim, of Orange County, California, was arrested Tuesday and charged with four crimes that include making a false statement and carrying a firearm on restricted grounds.

Court documents said Ibrahim entered restricted grounds outside the U.S. Capitol shortly after they'd been breached by the mob, and posted a photo standing next to one of the metal barricades that had recently been pulled apart. Prosecutors also said he sent photos of himself at the Capitol to a group chat on WhatsApp that included at least five other law enforcement officers.


One of the officers participating in the chat wrote, "Question Mark, you are carrying your duty weapon and your badge/creds? I need to know this mark."

Charging documents described Ibrahim as a "probational employee" of the DEA, a federal law enforcement agency within the Department of Justice, and said he had given notice that he planned to resign weeks before the Capitol assault. The DEA did not immediately respond to CBS News' request for comment.

[NewYorkExpress]

Former New York State Senate candidate Daniel Christmann became the latest person to be charged for the riots.

A former New York state Senate candidate is facing four charges in connection to his alleged role in the Jan. 6 riot, CNBC reported.

Daniel Christmann was arrested on Wednesday in Brooklyn and faces charges of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or ground; disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.

According to a federal criminal complaint, videos and screenshots made under Christmann’s Instagram account “dannyforsenate” appeared to show different areas of the Capitol on Jan. 6 when supporters of former President Trump swarmed the building.

Daniel Christmann was the nominee for the New Moderate Party in SD-18, losing to Julia Salazar, and and was a candidate for the Libertarian nomination for President in 2020, losing to Jo Jorgensen.

[NewYorkExpress]

Trump should be indicted for each of these officers's murder.

[NewYorkExpress]

As of the 27th, the January 6th Committee had given fifteen social media companies two weeks to turn over records to the committee.

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 assault on the US Capitol is demanding that 15 social media companies turn over records to lawmakers within the next two weeks, the commission announced on Friday.

"[The committee] is examining the facts, circumstances, and causes of the attack and relating to the peaceful transfer of power, in order to identify and evaluate lessons learned and to recommend corrective laws, policies, procedures, rules, or regulations," said Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, according to a press release.

The commission is seeking records related to misinformation, efforts to overturn the 2020 election, domestic extremism, and foreign influence, including "data, reports, analyses, and communications stretching back to spring of 2020," the release said.

The commission sent essentially identical letters to 15 companies, including Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, Tik-Tok, Reddit, Snapchat, Telegram,
Twitch
, Zello, 4chan, 8kun, Gab, Parler and theDonald.win.


Each company has until September 9 to respond to the records request.

[NewYorkExpress]

Jim Banks is apparently running a shadow January 6, Commission.

During yesterday's House debate on whether to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney highlighted an unexpected new controversy about one of her Republican colleagues, Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana. As The Hill reported:

Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ill.) sent numerous letters claiming to be the ranking member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the committee's Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) revealed Thursday.

Cheney, an actual member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, entered into the record this written correspondence in which Banks identifies himself as the "ranking member" of the panel in official correspondence to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. (For those unfamiliar with the phrasing, a "ranking member" is the top member from the minority party on a committee.)

The problem, of course, is that Banks isn't the ranking member on the Jan. 6 committee. In fact, he's not on the committee at all.

Nevertheless, the Hoosier congressman asked the Interior secretary to provide him with all of the information the cabinet agency is providing to the actual committee members. "Pursuant to the rules of the House of Representatives, the minority party retains rights to the same information that is provided to the majority party," Banks wrote.

The Daily Beast and Politico reported separately that Banks "sent similarly signed letters to many other agencies — the same ones the Capitol riot committee sent its own info requests to."

The Daily Beast's piece added, "The group of federal agencies that Banks has contacted includes the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security — among others. And one of those sources said that recipients also included social media companies, like Facebook, which had also been targets of extensive evidence requests."

[NewYorkExpress]

Trump is arguing in court that the speech that may have triggered the coup attempt on 1/6 was within the scope of his official duties as President.

Donald Trump's lawyer argued in court on Monday that the former president cannot be sued over his fiery speech before the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol because he was acting within the scope of his official presidential duties.

Trump's lawyer, Jesse Binnall, said during a court hearing that Trump was "immune," or shielded, from three lawsuits by Democratic members of Congress and two police officers.

"Executive immunity must be broad," Binnall said.

The lawsuits, filed by plaintiffs including Democratic U.S. representatives Eric Swalwell and Jerry Nadler, argue that Trump is liable for injuries to police and lawmakers.

Looming large in the case is a Supreme Court case from 1982 holding that presidents are immune from lawsuits over their official acts.

During a five-hour court hearing, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in the District of Columbia pressed lawyers for both sides about the limits of this presidential immunity.

Plaintiffs lawyer Joseph Sellers countered that Trump's speech was a campaign event, not an official act and said it was "inconceivable" that the Supreme Court intended to shield presidents from lawsuits over this sort of conduct.

"There is no legitimate role for fomenting an insurrection aimed at Congress," Sellers said.

The Democratic lawmakers have invoked an 1871 law passed to fight the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan that prohibits political intimidation.

The lawsuits charge that the Capitol attack was a direct consequence of Trump's actions, including the speech to thousands of supporters who then stormed the building to try to overturn President Joe Biden's election.

Mehta did not issue a ruling on Monday, saying during the hearing that the litigation raises difficult legal questions.

[NewYorkExpress]

Four more plead guilty, one more sentenced.

[NewYorkExpress]

Stephanie Grisham told the January 6 Committee that Trump was holding secret meetings in the White House ahead of the coup attempt.

The former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack that Donald Trump hosted secret meetings in the White House residence in days before 6 January, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The former senior Trump aide also told House investigators that the details of whether Trump actually intended to march to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse rally would be memorialized in documents provided to the US Secret Service, the sources said.

The select committee’s interview with Grisham, who was Melania Trump’s chief of staff when she resigned on 6 January, was more significant than expected, the sources said, giving the panel new details about the Trump White House and what the former US president was doing before the Capitol attack.

Grisham gave House investigators an overview of the chaotic final weeks in the Trump White House in the days leading up to the Capitol attack, recalling how the former president held off-the-books meetings in the White House residence, the sources said.

The secret meetings were apparently known by only a small number of aides, the sources said. Grisham recounted that they were mostly scheduled by Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and that the former chief usher, Timothy Harleth, would wave participants upstairs, the sources said.

Harleth, the former director of rooms at the Trump International Hotel before moving with the Trumps to the White House in 2017, was once one of the former first family’s most trusted employees, according to a top former White House aide to Melania Trump.

But after Harleth sought to ingratiate himself with the Biden transition team after Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election in order to keep his White House role, Trump and Meadows moved to fire him before Melania Trump stepped in to keep him until Biden’s inauguration.

Grisham told the select committee she was not sure who exactly Trump met with in the White House residence, but provided Harleth’s name and the identities of other Trump aides in the usher’s office who might know of the meetings, the sources said.

[NewYorkExpress]

Trump tore up records which were to be turned over to the January 6 Committee.

Some of the White House records turned over to the House committee investigating the January 6 attack were ripped up by Donald Trump, the National Archives said.

It also emerged on Tuesday that the former president thinks his own vice-president, Mike Pence, should be investigated by the committee, for failing to reject electoral college results on the fateful day.

Documents obtained by the January 6 panel include diaries, schedules, handwritten notes, speeches and remarks. The supreme court rejected Trump’s attempt to stop the National Archives turning them over to Congress.

[NewYorkExpress]

https://twitter.com/JanNWolfe/status/1499204529279180801

Again, if Donald Trump isn't

A: facing Federal Death penalty charges for treason and insurrection
B: Convicted on those Federal Death Penalty Charges for treason and insurrection
C: is subsequently executed for treason and insurrection pursuant to the Federal conviction on those charges.

I will be sorely disappointed in our country's justice system.

[NewYorkExpress]

Documents unveiled in Enrique Tarrio's indictment reveal a plan to storm, occupy the Capitol and six other related buildings.

A document found by federal prosecutors in the possession of a far-right leader contained a detailed plan to surveil and storm government buildings around the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year, people familiar with the document said on Monday.

The document, titled “1776 Returns,” was cited by prosecutors last week in charging the far-right leader, Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the Proud Boys extremist group, with conspiracy. The indictment of Mr. Tarrio described the document in general terms, but the people familiar with it added substantial new details about the scope and complexity of the plan it set out for directing an effort to occupy six House and Senate office buildings and the Supreme Court last Jan. 6.

The document does not specifically mention an attack on the Capitol building itself. But in targeting high-profile government buildings in the immediate area and in the detailed timeline it set out, the plan closely resembles what actually unfolded when the Capitol was stormed by a pro-Trump mob intent on disrupting congressional certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory.

Many questions remain about the document, including who wrote it and how it made its way to Mr. Tarrio, according to prosecutors, on Dec. 30, 2020, as President Donald J. Trump was engaged in a series of overlapping schemes to keep himself in power. The people familiar with the document said other evidence the government has gathered suggests that it may have been provided to Mr. Tarrio by one of his girlfriends at the time.

Prosecutors have not accused Mr. Tarrio of using the document to guide the actions of the Proud Boys who played a central role in the Capitol attack. Nor do the charges against him offer any evidence that he shared the document with his five co-defendants: Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, Charles Donohoe and Dominic Pezzola.

But the document could help explain why prosecutors chose to charge Mr. Tarrio with conspiracy, even though he was not at the Capitol during the attack. And it appears to be the first time that prosecutors have sought to use evidence of a specific written plan to storm and occupy government buildings in their wide-ranging investigation into the attack and what led up to it.

Mr. Tarrio’s lawyer, Nayib Hassan, declined to comment.

Broken into five parts — Infiltrate, Execution, Distract, Occupy and Sit-In — the nine-page document recommends recruiting at least 50 people to enter each of the seven government buildings and advises protesters to appear “unsuspecting” and to “not look tactical,” the people familiar with it said.

After ensuring that crowds at the buildings are “full and ready to go,” the document suggests that “leads and seconds” should enter and open doors for others to go in, “causing trouble” to distract security guards, if necessary.

Should the crowds fail to gain entrance to the buildings quickly, the document suggests pulling fire alarms at nearby stores, hotels and museums to further distract guards or the police, the people said. It then says protesters should occupy the buildings and conduct sit-ins, even recommending slogans for people to chant, like “We the people” and “No Trump, No America.”



The document also makes suggestions for the days leading up to Jan. 6, the people said, advising protesters to “scope out” road closures near the seven target buildings. On the morning of the protest, they added, the document suggests having “scouts” drive around the buildings to look for “roadblocks.”

While much of the document is marked for “internal” use, the people said, it contains a section, known as the “Patriot Plan,” that appears to have been meant for public distribution. This part of the document suggests that crowds begin to gather at the seven buildings at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6, the people familiar with it said. Thirty minutes later, the public part of the plan calls for the crowds to await a “signal from lead” and then to “storm” the buildings.

[NewYorkExpress]

The Republican Chairwoman of Taylor County, Georgia was arrested on March 11 in connection to the attempted coup on 1/6/2021.

One of the Georgians arrested last week on charges of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol riot is a local Republican Party official, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.

Mandy Robinson-Hand and her husband, Charles Hand III, were arrested Friday by the FBI and charged with four misdemeanors related to their alleged entry into the Capitol alongside hundreds of others in the pro-Trump crowd. Robinson-Hand is listed as chairwoman of the Taylor County Republican Party on the website of the Georgia Republican Party and her Facebook page shows she was involved in local politics in the Middle Georgia county.

The evening before her March 11 arrest, Robinson-Hand advertised a political fundraiser for congressional candidate Wayne Johnson on her Facebook page.

[NewYorkExpress]

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1508762244158525442

So, basically, he's obstructing justice again.

[NewYorkExpress]

Most of the House Freedom Caucus was involved in plotting Trump's coup.

Republican members of Congress were heavily involved in calls and meetings with former President Donald Trump and his top aides as they devised a strategy to overturn the election in December 2020, according to new evidence filed in federal court late Friday.

Deposition excerpts filed by the Jan 6. select committee — part of an effort to force former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to appear for an interview — suggest that some of Trump’s top allies in Congress were frequently present in meetings where a handful of strategies to prevent then-President-elect Joe Biden from taking office were discussed, including efforts to replace the leadership of the Justice Department with figures who would sow doubts about the legitimacy of the election.


Lawmakers who attended meetings, in person or by phone, included Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and numerous members of the House Freedom Caucus, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows who provided key testimony about the conversations and meetings Meadows had in December 2020.


The new evidence underscores the expansive cast of elected Republicans who had ultimately enlisted themselves in Trump’s last-ditch effort to cling to power. Members traded theories about ways to push then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly stop Biden’s election, they parried with the White House Counsel’s Office on the boundaries of the law regarding presidential electors and they met directly with Pence’s staff to encourage him to take direct action on Jan. 6, when Congress convened to count electoral votes.

“They felt that he had the authority to — pardon me if my phrasing isn’t correct on this, but — send votes back to the States or the electors back to the States,” Hutchinson recalled.

The disclosure came as part of a Friday evening court filing by the select panel asking a federal court to throw out Meadows’ lawsuit against the committee. In the filing, the select committee revealed that Meadows turned over 2,319 text messages during a brief period of cooperation but withheld more than 1,000, citing various privileges.

“[H]e was not acting as anything like a typical White House Chief of Staff advising the President on official matters of government policy,” House General Counsel Doug Letter wrote. “Mr. Meadows was playing a campaign role, attempting to facilitate a strategy that would have reversed the certified results of the 2020 election.”



The committee indicated that Meadows told Jordan in a text message that he supported efforts to convince Pence to send the election back to the states.

“I have pushed for this. Not sure it is going to happen,” Meadows texted Jordan early in the morning on Jan. 6.

Some of the GOP lawmakers were present in December meetings, Hutchinson recalled, when members of the White House Counsel’s Office raised significant legal doubts about a plan for pro-Trump activists to submit “alternate” electors in states won by Joe Biden.

Others attended a Dec. 21 meeting where Rudy Giuliani, then the president’s personal lawyer, and some associates advocated a plan for Pence to unilaterally refuse to count Biden’s electors and instead send the election back to various GOP-controlled state legislatures to replace Biden’s electors with Trump’s.

[NewYorkExpress]

Marjorie Taylor Greene texted Mark Meadows to get him to press Trump to declare martial law.

Days before Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared in a text to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to press for Donald Trump to overturn his 2020 election defeat by invoking martial law, new messages show.

The message – one of more than 2,000 texts turned over by Meadows to the House select committee investigating January 6 and first reported by CNN – shows that some of Trump’s most ardent allies on Capitol Hill were pressing for Trump to return himself to office even after the Capitol attack.

“In our private chat with only Members several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call Marshall [sic] law,” Greene texted on 17 January. “I just wanted you to tell him. They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next.”

[NewYorkExpress]

Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhoades tried to contact Trump during the Capitol Putsch, according to court documents.

A member of the far-right Oath Keepers group pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the high-level charges of seditious conspiracy and obstructing Congress' certification of the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021.

William Todd Wilson of North Carolina admitted to joining other Oath Keepers, including leader Stewart Rhodes, in planning to use force to halt the peaceful transfer of power from then-President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden.

Wilson is now the third member of the militia group to admit to seditious conspiracy – the most severe charge so far brought against alleged members of the January 6 mob – but he is the first to reveal that Rhodes attempted to contact Trump on the evening of the riot.


As part of Wednesday's plea agreement, Wilson admitted under oath to a Statement of Offense, which is used in criminal proceedings to stipulate the facts of the case that a defendant acknowledges.


"At approximately 5:00 p.m., Wilson, Rhodes, and others left the Capitol grounds and walked together to the Phoenix Hotel," the statement read. "Rhodes then called an individual over speaker phone. Wilson heard, Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power."

[NewYorkExpress]

I'm thinking it's Trump.

[NewYorkExpress]

The Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to Arizona State Senators Karen Fann (R) and Kelly Townsend (R) for their involvement in efforts to overturn Biden's victory in Arizona.   

The Justice Department (DOJ) has issued subpoenas to two Arizona state senators seeking information about interactions they may have had with former President Trump’s lawyers as part of the department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, multiple outlets reported.

Kim Quintero, a spokeswoman for Arizona Senate Republicans, confirmed to multiple outlets that state Senate President Karen Fann (R) and state Sen. Kelly Townsend (R) received subpoenas last week.


Quintero told The Washington Post that Fann and Townsend are cooperating with the subpoenas, and that staff have identified tens of thousands of records potentially relevant to the department’s request.

“They’re requesting text messages and emails from a list of people, which I can’t disclose who those people are, because they told us not to speak with the media about this,” she said.

Quintero, Fann and Townsend did not immediately return requests from The Hill for comment.

The news of the subpoenas was first reported by Arizona political tip sheet The Yellow Report.

[NewYorkExpress]

Andy McCarthy is pretty persuasive that the evidence is lacking to convict Trump of the crime of seditious conspiracy, but more than adequate to support an impeachment and conviction which would have given Congress to impose the penalty of banning Trump from further office.
The piece of evidence that is missing so far is that Trump was involved in planning the breaking and entering into the Capitol building, or was even aware of such plans, much less endorse such plans in advance.


https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/january-6-committees-bid-to-prove-trump-criminally-liable-for-violence-falls-short/

There's a lot of evidence that he was happy about it once it was happening, and a lot of circumstantial evidence that he wanted it to happen in advance. He put all the pieces in place for this to happen, and I don't think that's negated because he didn't explicitly call for a violent break in, or by his throwaway statement that he knew it would be peaceful.

McCarthy does think Trump can be prosecuted for aiding and abetting the intimidation of federal officials and for obstruction of congressional proceedings.

https://www.mediaite.com/podcasts/fox-news-legal-analyst-andrew-mccarthy-believes-trump-will-be-prosecuted/

I know of no evidence that Trump was aware in advance of a plan to break and enter into the Capitol to disrupt proceedings much less assist in developing it or approving it. His inaction or approval after the fact while certainly grounds for impeachment, conviction  and removal from office if still in office, is not a crime.

There's plenty of evidence that Trump knew of such a plan in advance and assisted in drawing up said plan.

[NewYorkExpress]

Pence's Secret Service detail apparently were literally in fear for their lives.

Members of Vice President Mike Pence's Secret Service detail began to fear for their lives during the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol and radioed goodbyes to their families, the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack revealed in a hearing Thursday.

A witness who testified anonymously but was described as a "national security professional" working at the White House the day of the attack explained to House investigators the meaning behind a 2:24 p.m. entry in a chat log from National Security staff tracking developments at the Capitol that stated, "Service at the capitol does not sound good right now."

"The members of the VP detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives," the unidentified witness told the committee in an interview played during the proceeding, adding there was a lot of yelling and "very personal calls" being made over the radio traffic.


"It was disturbing. I don't like talking about it," the security professional continued, "but there were calls to say goodbye to family members and so forth. It was getting – for whatever the reason was on the ground, the VP detail thought that this was about to get very ugly."

[NewYorkExpress]

https://twitter.com/RepElaineLuria/status/1551568001836670976

[NewYorkExpress]

The January 6 Committee and Federal Investigators are going after Alex Jones next

The attorney representing two Sandy Hook parents in the Alex Jones defamation case said Thursday that numerous federal and state investigators, including the House panel investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection, have asked him to hand over text records mistakenly sent to him by the right-wing conspiracy theorist's law firm.

"I am under request from various federal agencies and law enforcement to provide (the records)," Mark Bankston, the plaintiffs' attorney, told Judge Maya Guerra Gamble. "Absent a ruling from you saying you cannot do that ... I intend to do so immediately following this hearing."

"I believe that there is absolutely nothing, nothing, that Mr. Reynal has done to fulfill his obligations to protect his client and prevent me from doing that," he said, referring to Jones' attorney, Andino Reynal.

Sandy Hook family attorney exposes Alex Jones' dishonesty during brutal cross-examination
"I've been asked by the January 6 committee to turn the documents over," Bankston added later.

Bankston declined to specify to CNN which other investigators outside of the House committee expressed interest in obtaining Jones' text records.

Bankston revealed in court on Wednesday that Reynal's firm, in an apparent mishap, sent him two years of cell phone records that included every text message Jones had sent.

[NewYorkExpress]

Apparently Trump only realized his schedule was available to the public a couple of weeks before leaving office.

White House staff began distributing a bizarre statement claiming then-president Donald Trump was spending his days making “many calls” and having “many meetings” in lieu of releasing a detailed daily schedule after Mr Trump discovered the decades-old practice during the final weeks of his term in office, a former press aide to Mr Trump has said.

In testimony before the House January 6 select committee, former Deputy White House Press Secretary Judd Deere told the panel Mr Trump only realised that his staff was providing reporters and other interested parties with a copy of his public event schedule “beginning sometime around mid to late December” in 2020.

[NewYorkExpress]

Trump is being sued for wrongful death in the death of Brian Sicknick

The partner of a US Capitol Police officer who died a day after the 6 January 2021 riot has sued Donald Trump for wrongful death.

The lawsuit filed on Thursday says Mr Trump "intentionally riled up the crowd" that attacked Brian Sicknick.