Tag Archive for: jan 6

Supreme Court Thoroughly Rebukes Biden DOJ For Abusing Law To Go After Trump And His Supporters

The Supreme Court held Friday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) interpreted an obstruction statute too broadly when using it to charge hundreds of defendants for their behavior in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The court sided 6-3 in Fischer v. United States with a defendant who challenged the statute, Section 1512(c)(2), which holds up to 20 years in prison for anyone who “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding.”

“To prove a violation of Section 1512(c)(2), the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or as we earlier explained, other things used in the proceeding, or attempted to do so,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority ruling. “The judgment of the D. C. Circuit is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”

Of the 1,424 defendants charged following Jan. 6, over 350 were charged with “corruptly obstructing, influencing, or impeding an official proceeding,” according to May numbers from the DOJ. Multiple defendants charged under the statute were granted early release in light of the justice’s decision to hear the case.

Joseph Fischer, who was charged under Section 1512(c)(2), argued the DOJ’s use of the statute to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants for obstructing Congress’ certification of the 2020 election was an “unprecedented expansion.”

Fischer noted it was enacted as part of the Corporate Fraud and Accountability Act of 2002 to target crimes of evidence tampering, focusing on “deterring fraud and abuse by corporate executives.”

The lower courts will now have to “assess the sufficiency” of the charge brought against Fischer — and likely hundreds of other defendants indicted under the same statute — in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“The Government’s reading of Section 1512 would intrude on that deliberate arrangement of constitutional authority over federal crimes, giving prosecutors broad discretion to seek a 20- year maximum sentence for acts Congress saw fit to punish only with far shorter terms of imprisonment—for example, three years for harassment under §1512(d)(1), or ten years for threatening a juror under §1503,” Roberts wrote.

The ruling also has implications for special counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case against former President Donald Trump. Two of the charges in the indictment, which alleges Trump employed “knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified,” are related to the statute.

The Supreme Court will also soon rule on Trump’s bid to dismiss the case based on presidential immunity.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined the majority in limiting the statute’s scope.

“Notwithstanding the shocking circumstances involved in this case or the Government’s determination that they warrant prosecution, today, this Court’s task is to determine what conduct is proscribed by the criminal statute that has been invoked as the basis for the obstruction charge at issue here,” Jackson wrote in a concurring opinion. “I join in the Court’s opinion because I agree with the majority that §1512(c)(2) does not reach ‘all forms of obstructive conduct’ and is, instead, ‘limited by the preceding list of criminal violations’ in §1512(c)(1).”

Meanwhile, Justice Amy Coney Barrett penned the dissent, which Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor joined. Barrett wrote that the majority “failed to respect the prerogatives of the political branches.”

“There is no getting around it: Section 1512(c)(2) is an expansive statute,” Barrett wrote. “Yet Congress, not this Court, weighs the ‘pros and cons of whether a statute should sweep broadly or narrowly.’”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

6 Former D.C. Military Officials Testify Trump’s Authority Was Curtailed Ahead of January 6th, 2021

Not a bit surprising to me since Pelosi and Schumer colluded to insure Jan 6th was a setup all way round including: no buildup of Capitol Police, no substantial Capitol Police leadership on site, poor barricades and blocking Trump’s offer for National Guard support.

Pelosi and Schumer are ones who should be indicted on RICO charges not Trump and Trump supporters.


Trump’s Authority as President Was Curtailed Ahead of Jan. 6, Says Former Military Official

Maj. Gen. Walker conveyed a request for assistance at around 1:50 p.m. on Jan. 6 but the Guard was not deployed to the Capitol until about 5:10 p.m.

By Tom Ozimek

Then-President Donald Trump’s authority was “curtailed” by military leaders as it relates to events on Jan. 6 according to Colonel Earl Matthews who spoke to The Daily Mail.

“I think a very plausible argument can be made that through no fault of his own, President Trump’s command authority over both the D.C. National Guard and the U.S. Army itself had been surreptitiously curtailed by the senior leadership of the Army on January 6, 2021,” Col. Matthews, told the publication in an exclusive May 3 interview.

“Army leadership had unreasonably anticipated an ‘unlawful order’ from the President, an order that the President had no plans to issue, and were preemptively seeking to curtail his discretion to issue such an order,” he alleged.

The remarks by Col. Matthews dovetail with the contents of a book written in mid-2021 titled “I Alone Can Fix It” that claims then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, and other military leaders informally planned for different ways to disobey potential orders issued by President Trump that they disagreed with.

The DOD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Col. Matthews’s claims.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Col. Matthews was serving as the top attorney to Maj. Gen. William Walker, who at the time was the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard.

Read the full article.

©2024. Royal A. Brown III. All rights reserved.

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Pentagon’s Special Ops Office Holds Book Talk On ‘Far-Right’ Domestic Terrorism

  • A Department of Defense office overseeing special operations invited two terrorism experts to discuss their new book on far-right terrorism in the U.S., screenshots obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.
  • The invitation appeared to go out via email to “all” staff of SO/LIC, the acronym for the Pentagon’s office overseeing special operations and irregular warfare.
  • “Serious acts of terrorism have erupted from violent American far-right extremists in recent years, including the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,” the book’s synopsis, which was also included in the email, reads.

A Department of Defense (DOD) office invited two experts to discuss their new book on far-right terrorism in the U.S. as part of a new series featuring guest speakers, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

The invitation appeared to go out via email to “all” staff of SO/LIC, the acronym for the Pentagon’s office overseeing special operations and irregular warfare, according to screenshots obtained exclusively by the DCNF. Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and Jacob Ware, a research fellow at CFR, were scheduled Tuesday to present their book, which traces right-wing domestic terrorism through U.S history, including the Ku Klux Klan and groups involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots seeking to reverse the 2020 election. 

“Reminder to please join us at 1200 tomorrow morning via Teams (link below) for this virtual brown bag book talk event — renowned terrorism scholars Dr. Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware. Their new book, God, Guns, and Sedition: Far-Right Terrorism in America was released earlier this month,” the invitation, dated Jan. 29 at 9:51 a.m., reads.

“This is the first of what we hope will be a series of brown bag events featuring internal and external speakers,” it said, and was signed by the “FO Team.”

The reminder included a brief description of the book and links to the author’s biographies in documents on the internal office drive.

“Serious acts of terrorism have erupted from violent American far-right extremists in recent years, including the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol,” the book synopsis, which was also included in the email, read.

“They are the latest flashpoints in a process that has been unfolding for decades, in which vast conspiracy theories and radical ideologies such as white supremacism, racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, and hostility to government converge into a deadly threat to democracy,” it said. “This talk, derived from the speakers’ new book, God, Guns, and Sedition (Columbia Univ. Press) discusses the rise of far-right terrorism in the United States, the impact of U.S. domestic terrorism on our foreign policy and our allies, and policy recommendations to counter far-right terrorism.”

The email did not explain why domestic terrorism, a problem outside of the DOD’s purview, was selected as the topic for the first book talk or who approved it. The DOD didn’t respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Hoffman and Ware have engaged in presentations and other media to promote their recent release, according to a DCNF review.

The Pentagon initiated a stand-down after the Jan. 6 riots and ordered a review of extremism present within the ranks of U.S. military personnel. Fewer than 100 service members were identified as having participated in extremist activities, but the Pentagon’s focus on right-wing views may have worsened a polarization problem.

Despite two years of work, the Pentagon failed to understand domestic extremism and may have inflated the issue, to the possible detriment of cohesion within the ranks, according to a DOD-funded study released in December.

“God, Guns and Terrorism” opens with a description of an anti-government group in 2020 advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government, spurred by former President Donald Trump’s social media incitement, a sample of the book on Amazon.com shows. It then describes the “accelerationist” ideology, which the authors say motivates many right-wing anti-government groups, as a “white power strategy to foment violence and chaos as a means to seize power.”

The two recently co-authored an editorial arguing that far-right threats of violence in support of the MAGA agenda is splintering the Republican party. GOP support for Trump could inspire a repeat of the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, they said.

“The violent far-right extremist movement is neither loyal to the GOP nor concerned about protecting its own candidates or elected officials. It is an anti-government underground fueled by election denialism and driven by the worst authoritarian impulses,” they wrote.

Ware and Hoffman didn’t respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Pentagon’s Efforts To Crack Down On ‘Extremism’ May Have Harmed Military, DOD Study Finds

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Supreme Court Takes Case With Major Implications For Trump, Jan. 6 Defendants

The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to hear a case with major implications for hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, as well as former President Donald Trump’s indictment on charges stemming from alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

In a brief order, the justices agreed to hear a case stemming from Jan. 6 defendant Joseph Fischer’s request to dismiss a charge against him for obstructing an official proceeding. His case provides the Supreme Court an opportunity to rule on the scope of a statute, Section 1512(c)(2), which he argues has been used to charge hundreds of other defendants in an “unprecedented extension of the statute’s reach.”

“Hundreds of cases have been and will be affected by the scope of Section 1512(c)(2), including a case against the former President,” Fischer’s petition notes. “In addition, the use of Section 1512(c)(2) outside evidence impairment crimes is an extraordinary and unprecedented extension of the statute’s reach.”

The statute threatens to levy fines or up to 20 years in prison for anyone who “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding.” Jan. 6 defendants, including Fischer, have been charged under Section 1512(c)(2) for obstructing Congress’s certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

Trump also faces the obstruction charge in his indictment for alleged efforts to interfere with the 2020 election.

Fischer argues that the government seeks to sever the statute “from its legislative, historical, and textual moorings.”

“The D.C. Circuit’s expansion of Section 1512(c)(2) beyond evidence impairment to protests at the seat of government thus conflicts with the interpretations of other courts of appeal limiting the scope of the same statute,” Fischer’s attorneys wrote in a court filing.

Two other defendants, Edward Lang and Garrett Miller, also earlier asked the Supreme Court to dismiss obstruction charges against them.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘You May Have Just Perjured Yourself’: Massie Goes After Garland Over Jan. 6 Statements

Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie suggested Wednesday that Attorney General Merrick Garland may have perjured himself over his statements about Jan. 6.

Massie played a compilation of previous testimony from DOJ, FBI and other agency officials refusing to comment on ongoing investigations into Jan. 6-related incidents. In one instance shown in the clip, Massie asked Garland how many agents were assets of the U.S. government on Jan. 5 and 6 who were “agitating” the crowd to go into the Capitol and how many agents went into the Capitol. Garland refused to answer.

“Peter Navarro was indicted for contempt of Congress — aren’t you in fact in contempt of Congress when you gave us this answer?” Massie said. “This is an answer that’s appropriate at a press conference. It’s not an answer that’s appropriate when we are asking questions … you cannot continue to give us these answers. Aren’t you in fact in contempt of Congress when you refuse to answer?”

Garland invoked the U.S. Constitution, arguing the separation of powers means the executive branch has control over investigations and that out of respect for those involved and due process, he is not obligated to comment on an ongoing probe.

Massie argued Garland was impeding Congress’ ability to conduct oversight.

“Can you answer [my question] now?” Massie asked.

“I don’t know the answer to that question,” Garland said.

“You don’t know how many there were, or there were none?” Massie pressed.

“I don’t know the answer to either of those questions. If there were any, I don’t know how many, or whether there are any.”

“I think you may have just perjured yourself, that you don’t know that there were any?” Massie said. “You wanna say that again? That you don’t know if there were any?”

“I have no personal knowledge of this matter. I think what I said the last time–”

“You’ve had two years to find out, and – by the way, that was in reference to Ray Epps, and yesterday you indicted him, isn’t that a wonderful coincidence?” Massie said, arguing the DOJ is “sending grandmas to prison” and putting people in jail for decades for filming or being present in the Capitol building on Jan. 6, but Epps, who was on video appearing to encourage protesters to enter the Capitol, was charged with a misdemeanor.

“The American public isn’t buying it,” Massie said before yielding his time.

AUTHOR

BRIANNA LYMAN

News and commentary writer.

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Ray Epps Charged With A Felony For His Alleged Role In January 6th Riot

Ray Epps, a man who was filmed encouraging protesters to storm the Capitol building ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, is being charged with a felony for his alleged role in the riot.

Epps was charged Monday with a felony for disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds by the U.S. Attorney’s office for Washington, D.C., according to a court filing uploaded Tuesday.

“On or about January 6, 2021, within the District of Columbia, James Ray Epps Sr. did knowingly, and with intent to impede and disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business and official functions, engage in disorderly and disruptive conduct in and within such proximity to, a restricted building and grounds,” the document reads. Epps is being charged with a single count for violating Title 18, United States Code, Section 1752(a)(2) and could face prison time.

Epps said in a defamation lawsuit filed against Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson that the Department of Justice (DOJ) notified him in May 2023 that he was going to be charged for his alleged role in the Capitol riot.

“Finally, in May 2023, the Department of Justice notified Epps that it would seek to charge him criminally for events on January 6, 2021—two-and-a-half years later,” Epps’ lawsuit states.

Livestream footage from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, appears to show Epps pushing for Trump supporters to storm the Capitol the next day. His apparent role in the Jan. 6th riot and lack of law enforcement scrutiny led to speculation from Carlson and other pundits that Epps was a federal agent.

He has been profiled by the New York Times and CBS’s 60 Minutes because of the speculation surrounding Epps’ role in the Capitol riot. Epps said in his lawsuit that he and his wife were forced to leave their Arizona home because of alleged threats and intimidation.

“I’m probably gonna go to jail for this. Tomorrow, we need to go into the Capitol,” Epps could be heard shouting on the livestream. Epps added that it should be done “peacefully” after protesters around him accused him of being a federal agent.

In his lawsuit, Epps says that his remarks were intended to “prove that he was on their side so that he could deescalate the situation.”

The DOJ has charged more than 1,100 defendants in nearly all 50 states and D.C. 32 months since the Capitol riot, according to an update the DOJ posted on Sept. 6.

AUTHOR

JAMES LYNCH

Investigative reporter. James Lynch can be reached on Twitter @jameslynch32

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REPORT: ‘QAnon Shaman’ Released From Prison Just Weeks After Tucker Carlson’s Video Release

The so-called “QAnon Shaman” has been released from prison and sent to a halfway house just weeks after Daily Caller co-founder and Fox News host Tucker Carlson released footage from the Capitol riot, according to the Daily Mail.

Thirty-five year-old Jacob Chansley was sentenced in 2021 to 41 months in prison followed by another 36 months of supervised release after entering a plea deal for charges of civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building and other non-violent crimes.

Chansley was not accused of assaulting law enforcement or destroying government property, though prosecutors argued he deserved a harsh sentence because he “showed no remorse in the days after the event,” Politico reported.

Chansley’s attorney, Albert S. Watkins, said Thursday that Chansley has been released from prison after serving just 27 months of his 41-month sentence, according to the Daily Mail.

“After serving eleven months in solitary prior to his sentence being imposed, and only 16 months of his sentence thereafter, it is appropriate this gentle and intelligent young man be permitted to move forward with the next stage of what undoubtedly will be a law abiding and enriching life,” Watkins reportedly said.

“I applaud the decision of the US Bureau of Prison in this regard,” Watkins continued, according to DailyMail.

The announcement comes after Carlson aired footage appearing to show officers escorting Chansley through the halls of the Capitol building on Jan. 6. The footage, which Carlson obtained from Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and aired on March 6, shows Chansley walking with two officers, and at one point passing a group of several officers who do not appear to try to stop or arrest Chansley.

Prosecutors rejected Carlson’s argument that video footage undercut claims of criminal conduct by Chansley, saying Carlson left out incriminating parts. 

“The televised footage lacks the context of what occurred before and after the footage,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing related to charges against Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola.

“The televised footage shows Chansley’s movements only from approximately 2:56 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.,” prosecutors continued. “Prior to that time, Chansley had, amongst other acts, breached a police line at 2:09 p.m. with the mob, entered the Capitol less than one minute behind Pezzola during the initial breach of the building, and faced off with members of the U.S. Capitol Police for more than thirty minutes in front of the Senate Chamber doors while elected officials … were fleeing from the chamber.”

AUTHOR

BRIANNA LYMAN

News and commentary writer. Follow Brianna on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Longest J6 Jail Sentence Levied Thus Far Goes To … A Black Guy

A 56-year-old black man was sentenced to five years and three months in prison Tuesday for his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Mark Ponder, a resident of Washington D.C., and former constituent services coordinator for the D.C. city council, pleaded guilty in April to assaulting three police officers with poles. His sentence is tied for the longest jail sentence levied so far against those involved in the riot, which has often been dubbed as “white supremacist” by prominent Democrats and officials.

“The violent, deadly insurrection on the Capitol nine months ago, it was about white supremacy, in my opinion,” President Joe Biden said at an event in October of last year.

“These displays of white supremacy are not new,” Lecia Brooks, chief of staff for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said of the riot. “Now it’s just reached a fever pitch.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Senate the attack was racially motivated.

“The attackers on Jan. 6 included a number … of what we would call militia violent extremism. And we have had some already arrested who we would put in the category of racially motivated violent extremism, white, as well,” Wray said, according to the Washington Post.

Ponder struck officers with a pole, before law enforcement tackled him to the ground. A voice can be heard on video of the incident saying, “You gonna have to kill me today. You gonna have to kill me.”

“When our country is being attacked with, like we are, we have a right to fight … that is what the Second Amendment was built on,” Ponder told law enforcement, according to his statement of offense.

“Ponder’s criminal conduct — arming himself during a riot, assaulting a police officer, re-arming himself after his first weapon broke, assaulting two additional police officers, encouraging the crowd to attack police, and returning to the Capitol after express instructions to leave—demonstrates a profound disrespect for the law generally,” Justice Department attorney Michael J. Romano wrote in Ponder’s sentencing memo.

“Unfortunately, he got caught up in the riotous atmosphere of the crowd and erroneously perceived the police as standing in the way of the crowd’s desire to protest the election results,” Ponder’s attorney Joseph R. Conte, said in a sentencing memo.

Robert S. Palmer of Largo, Florida, was also sentenced to five years and three months in prison in December, according to the Washington Post.

Ponder was arrested on March 17, 2021.

AUTHOR

SARAH WEAVER

Staff writer.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.