January 6th legal proceedings and investigations megathread

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https://twitter.com/adegrandpre/status/1415700881178341377?s=19
Pretty lenient. 18 years would be a more suited sentence.

Perhaps, but he now (potentially) has a criminal record, and is on 'the system'.  If anything goes down where he lives, his will be the first door police will knock.  That applies to everyone else who has been charged and sentenced.  

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Worth remembering that Trump's hero, Andrew Jackson, was on the verge of invading South Carolina and hanging every would-be secessionist during the nullification crisis.  And if memory serves me right, he also had a problem with a military with questionable loyalties during that crisis.  

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https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1421992916323606531

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Clearly he has nothing to hide:

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1433116193611829250
At the very least he should be referred to the Justice Department for obstruction of justice, and someone should light Attorney General Merrick Garland's pants on fire and get him moving on it.

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Mike Pence should stop pretending like he is some sort of hero to the non-MAGA crowd when, actually, it belongs to former Vice-President Dan Quayle (of all people):

New details undermine Pence’s supposed ‘hero’ turn on Jan. 6

The reality, we’re now finding out, is far from so neat and tidy. It appears less as though Pence said “enough is enough,” and more as though he really entertained doing Trump’s bidding but found that he had no actual authority to make it happen.

(...) But perhaps Headline 1(a) involves new details about Pence’s fateful decision not to heed Trump’s calls to unilaterally help him stay in office. And it involves a cameo appearance from a man you might not have thought about for some time: Dan Quayle.

So intent was Pence on being Trump’s loyal second-in-command — and potential successor — that he asked confidants if there were ways he could accede to Trump’s demands and avoid certifying the results of the election on Jan. 6. In late December, the authors reveal,

Pence called Dan Quayle, a former vice president and fellow Indiana Republican, for advice.
Quayle was adamant, according to the authors. “Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away,” he said.

But Pence pressed him, the authors write, asking if there were any grounds to pause the certification because of ongoing legal challenges. Quayle was unmoved, and Pence ultimately agreed, according to the book.

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Imagine being so much of a cuck that you can't accept that your cult leader lost an election and you try to overthrow the entire US government instead. Don't these people have jobs to go to, wives to hug and kiss, and children to raise? Do they really want to throw everything away for some megalomaniacal narcissist who couldn't give a single stinky wet shart about them?

I think we all agree that the Russiahoax that Clinton's campaign launched was bad, but what does that have to do with this topic?

No, it wasn't. 

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Better late than never, I suppose:

Capitol-riot defendant calls for Trump to be 'ostracized from any political future' and says January 6 was a 'disgrace'

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Never really thought of Belarus as a haven for asylum-seekers before:

Capitol riot suspect seeking political asylum in Belarus

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Federal prosecutors said Courtright later told investigators that she was looking for a place to charge her phone inside and that she didn’t realize when she first went onto the Senate floor that she was on the Senate floor.

“As she went inside, she claimed that she was focused on turning her phone on and did not pay attention to what was going on around her. She did remember seeing a circle of law enforcement officers, people chanting, people trying to break things, and others telling them not to break things,” they wrote. “According to the defendant, after she entered she started looking for a place to charge her phone.”

Does she think we're stupid? 

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If you were worried about the criminal justice system going easy on the January 6th insurrectionists, fear not my friends:

Capitol rioters hit with severe sentences and sharp reprimands from judges

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The lengths to which Trumpsters will go to overturn a legitimate, and free and fair, election:

Forged election documents in Michigan and Arizona

As Trump's team pushed its discredited voter fraud narrative, the National Archives received forged certificates of ascertainment declaring him and then-Vice President Mike Pence the winners of both Michigan and Arizona and their electors after the 2020 election. Public records requests show the secretaries of state for those states sent those certificates to the Jan. 6 panel, along with correspondence between the National Archives and state officials about the documents.

Spokespeople for the Michigan and Arizona secretaries of state declined to comment on the documents. The offices confirmed that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, both Democrats, and their staff met with the panel in November.

The National Archives sent emails to the Arizona secretary of state on Dec. 11, 2020, passing along the forged certificates “for your awareness” and informing the state officials the Archives would not accept them.

Arizona then took legal action against at least one of the groups who sent in the fake documents, sending a cease and desist letter to a pro-Trump "sovereign citizen" group telling them to stop using the state seal and referring the matter to the state attorney general.

“By affixing the state seal to documents containing false and misleading information about the results of Arizona’s November 3, 2020 General Election, you undermine the confidence in our democratic institutions,” Hobbs wrote to one of the pro-Trump groups.

That group’s leader, Lori Osiecki, had told the Arizona Republic in December 2020 that she decided to send in the certificates after taking part in post-election rallies and after attending a daylong meeting in Phoenix that had included Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

The group that forged the Michigan certification had not used the state seal, and it appears state officials there took no further action after the Archives rejected it.

source

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Virginia's new Republican Attorney General, Jason Miyares, is doing everything he can to undermine the January 6th investigative committee, starting by firing the lawyers who are working for it (who are under his control):

Va.’s new attorney general fires U-Va. counsel who was on leave working as top investigator for Jan. 6 panel

Virginia’s new Republican attorney general has fired the University of Virginia’s counsel, who was on leave from the job to work as the top investigator for the U.S. House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, the attorney and university said.

Tim Heaphy, who had worked at the state’s flagship university for about three years, was among roughly 30 staffers who were let go by Attorney General Jason S. Miyares shortly before he took office a little over a week ago. Democrats have questioned the firings and how they were carried out.

Victoria LaCivita, a Miyares spokeswoman, said the attorney general’s office had also fired the counsel for George Mason University, Brian Walther, saying it is common for an incoming attorney general to appoint counsel that shares its “philosophy and legal approach.”

Both Heaphy and Walther are Democrats.

LaCivita declined to say whether any other counsels at Virginia’s more than three dozen public colleges and universities had been let go.

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I don’t see how that undermines Heaphy’s work for the J6 committee. The AG can’t stop him from continuing to work for them.

The Attorney General received contributions during the campaign from the Republican Attorneys General Association which promoted the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and promoted the January 6th rally that turned into an insurrection.  On top of this backdrop, he just fired Heaphey from his main job, his primary source of income.  It is no coincidence that both lawyers are connected to the January 6th committee.  There will probably be more firings to follow shortly.  

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Trump Organization's accounting firm says 10 years of financial statements are unreliable

Former President Donald Trump's long-time accounting firm informed the Trump Organization last week that it should no longer rely on nearly 10 years' worth of financial statements and that they would no longer be their accountants, citing a conflict of interest.

"We have come to this conclusion based, in part, upon the filings made by the New York Attorney General on January 18, 2022, our own investigation, and information received from internal and external sources," Mazars wrote in a letter to the Trump Organization chief legal officer, advising them to no longer rely on financial statements ending June 2011 through June 2020.

"While we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies, based upon the totality of the circumstances, we believe our advice to you to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appropriate."

The company also advised the Trump Organization to inform any recipients of the statements, such as lenders or insurers, to not rely on the statements.

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When the 'Deep State' itself sympathizes with the January 6th insurrectionists, we have a problem:

‘Many’ Spy Agency Staffers Think Capitol Riot Was ‘Justified,’ Ex-NSA Veteran Says

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https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1520771589960306695

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https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1538509487832711169

Wow. Do we think the Justice Department will now go after him? Now that they seem to have popular backing to?

Perhaps they are waiting until after the hearings are completed.

https://twitter.com/scottwongDC/status/1538877689104408576
I've said the same thing before.  That was a terrible tactical political decision by McCarthy.

Even Trump can see it.  McCarthy could have sabotaged the investigation from the get-go ostensibly in the name of 'bipartisanship', and smothered it before it ever got to this stage.  Oh well, too late now.    

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Even Trump can see it.  McCarthy could have sabotaged the investigation from the get-go ostensibly in the name of 'bipartisanship', and smothered it before it ever got to this stage.  Oh well, too late now.    

Congressional leadership has made no secret of their disdain for Trump.

I'm not sure how capable McCarthy is of playing 4-D chess, but I wonder if he decided to let Pelosi unilaterally call the shots so Dems (plus Cheney and Kinzinger) could do the dirty work of getting Trump out of the picture.

IIRC, McCarthy wanted to appoint Trumpster congressmen like Jim Jordan to the commission last year (I wonder why....).  Pelosi said no dice, so he pulled out of negotiations:

McCarthy pulls all Republicans from January 6 Select Committee after Pelosi rejects two picks

So yes, I think he certainly would have done exactly what I suggested had Pelosi been stupid enough to allow him to.  

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https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1548094289481084935

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https://twitter.com/AccountableGOP/status/1549889767927697408

He seems nice.

Did they know he was unhinged before they interviewed him? 

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Indict him already:

Jan. 6 Panel Members Call On DOJ To Open Criminal Investigation Into Trump

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https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1565637664249888769

This right there is a signal by Trump to his supporters to start forming a paramilitary force modeled on the SA.  If he lets the original January 6 rioters walk free if he becomes President, political violence will become legitimized. 

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So no firm dates set yet:

Jan. 6 Panel to Restart Hearings as House Returns to Work

Members of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol are returning to work to plan a new round of televised hearings expected later this month, hoping to recapture the public’s attention after Congress’s August break.

One focus of the hearings is likely to be the concerns among cabinet officials about then-President Donald Trump’s actions during and after the riot by his supporters, including any discussions about possibly using the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to try to remove him from power. Under the amendment, a majority of the cabinet, with the vice president, can temporarily unseat the president if they find him unable to discharge his duties. (...)

The House panel, which has seven Democrats and two Republicans, hasn’t said when the Jan. 6 hearings will restart or how many there will be. The committee is expected to put out an interim report on its investigation soon, with a final report due before the end of the year. There could be additional hearings later in the year, committee members have said. A spokeswoman for the committee declined to comment.

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They'd better hurry.

The committee is going to be dissolved as soon as Republicans take over the House.

If.  It is not a foregone conclusion anymore.  

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Trumpsters might want to reconsider ganging up on the FBI after reading this:

Chilling Memo To FBI Official Warned Of Sympathy In Bureau For Jan. 6 Rioters
A "sizable percentage of the employee population felt sympathetic to the group that stormed the Capitol,” a person wrote in an email to Paul Abbate.