2020 Election Fallout Part 16: Public Hearings Are Underway

[fraurosena]

 

[Howl]

A tweeter cited an (unattributed) poll that saw erosion of support for Trump among older Republicans who watched the hearings. 

Also, a few anecdotal reports of people whose older/elderly Republican relatives were shocked by what they saw during the  hearings and are getting an understanding that J6 was a coup, and are connecting the dots on Trump doing nothing for hours. 

Another thing that makes the J6 hearings effective for older people? The hallmark of the hearings is decorum; the committee is serious as a damned heart attack about the information it is presenting, there's an element of gravitas and statehood.

I really liked Rep. Elaine Luria and was glad for her presence  at the most recent hearing.  She seems like a nice but very competent middle aged lady, but here's what she did prior to her political career:  she's a Naval Academy graduate who "served two decades in the Navy, retiring at the rank of Commander. Rep. Luria served at sea on six ships as a nuclear-trained Surface Warfare Officer, deployed to the Middle East and Western Pacific, and culminated her Navy career by commanding a combat-ready unit of 400 sailors."

Pelosi wisely blocked Jim Jordan from the committee.  Jordan (R-Clown Car) is tasked with performative disruption in hearings. 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

2 hours ago, Howl said:

A tweeter cited an (unattributed) poll that saw erosion of support for Trump among older Republicans who watched the hearings. 

Also, a few anecdotal reports of people whose older/elderly Republican relatives were shocked by what they saw during the  hearings and are getting an understanding that J6 was a coup, and are connecting the dots on Trump doing nothing for hours. 

Another thing that makes the J6 hearings effective for older people? The hallmark of the hearings is decorum; the committee is serious as a damned heart attack about the information it is presenting, there's an element of gravitas and statehood.

I truly hope the tide is turning. A couple of the Trumpers in my life have seen the light but most are denying actual proof. But I hold onto the thought that votes seem to be coming from R to either independent or D, not the reverse, but we have to get out and vote AND get others out to so the same!! 

[GreyhoundFan]

From the Washington Post: "Justice Dept. investigating Trump’s actions in Jan. 6 criminal probe"

Quote

The Justice Department is investigating President Donald Trump’s actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury — including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence — have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers, and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021; his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election; and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers about fake electors and sending electors back to the states, the people said. Some of the questions focused directly on the extent of Trump’s involvement in the fake-elector effort led by his outside lawyers, including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, these people said.

In addition, Justice Department investigators in April received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, according to two people familiar with the matter. That effort is another indicator of how expansive the Jan. 6 probe had become, well before the high-profile, televised House hearings in June and July on the subject.

The Washington Post and other news organizations have previously written that the Justice Department is examining the conduct of Eastman, Giuliani and others in Trump’s orbit. But the degree of prosecutors’ interest in Trump’s actions has not been previously reported, nor has the review of senior Trump aides’ phone records.

A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Justice Department spokesman and a lawyer for Meadows both declined to comment.

The revelations raise the stakes of an already politically fraught probe involving a former president, still central to his party’s fortunes, who has survived previous investigations and two impeachments. Long before the Jan. 6 investigation, Trump spent years railing against the Justice Department and the FBI; the investigation moving closer to him will probably intensify that antagonism.

Federal criminal investigations are by design opaque, and probes involving political figures are among the most closely held secrets at the Justice Department. Many end without criminal charges. The lack of observable investigative activity involving Trump and his White House for more than a year after the Jan. 6 attack has fueled criticism, particularly from the left, that the Justice Department is not pursuing the case aggressively enough.

In trying to understand how and why Trump partisans and lawyers sought to change the outcome of the election, one person familiar with the probe said, investigators also want to understand, at a minimum, what Trump told his lawyers and senior officials to do. Any investigation surrounding the effort to undo the results of the election must navigate complex issues of First Amendment-protected political activity and when or whether a person’s speech could become part of an alleged conspiracy in support of a coup.

Many elements of the sprawling Jan. 6 criminal investigation have remained under wraps. But in recent weeks the public pace of the work has increased, with a fresh round of subpoenas, search warrants and interviews. Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, and lawyer, Greg Jacob, appeared before the grand jury in downtown Washington in recent days, according to the people familiar with the investigation. Both men declined to comment.

The Justice Department efforts are separate from the inquiry underway by the House committee, which has sought to portray Trump as responsible for inciting the Capitol riot and for being derelict in his duty for refusing to stop it. Both Short and Jacob have testified before the committee, telling lawmakers that Pence resisted Trump’s attempts to enlist him in the cause.

Unlike the Justice Department, the House panel does not have the power to launch criminal investigations or charge anyone with wrongdoing.

The Justice Department probe began amid the smoke, blood and chaos at the Capitol and has led to criminal charges against more than 840 individuals, expanding to include an examination of events that occurred elsewhere in the days and weeks before the attack — including at the White House, in state capitols and at a D.C. hotel.

There are two principal tracks of the investigation that could ultimately lead to additional scrutiny of Trump, two people familiar with the situation said, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The first centers on seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct a government proceeding, the type of charges already filed against individuals who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and on two leaders of far-right groups, Stewart Rhodes and Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who did not breach the Capitol but were allegedly involved in planning the day’s events.

The second involves potential fraud associated with the false-electors scheme or with pressure Trump and his allies allegedly put on the Justice Department and others to falsely claim that the election was rigged and votes were fraudulently cast.

Recent subpoenas obtained by The Post show that two Arizona state legislators were ordered to turn over communications with “any member, employee, or agent of Donald J. Trump or any organization advocating in favor of the 2020 re-election of Donald J. Trump, including ‘Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.’ ”

No former president has ever been charged with a crime in the country’s history. In cases when investigators found evidence suggesting a president engaged in criminal conduct, as with Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton, investigators and successive administrations concluded it was better to grant immunity or forgo prosecution. One goal was to avoid appearing to use government power to punish political enemies and assure the tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has vowed that the Jan. 6 investigation will follow the facts wherever they lead and said that no one is exempt or above scrutiny, while refusing to divulge information outside of court filings.

Garland told NBC News in a Tuesday interview that the department pursues justice “without fear or favor. We intend to hold everyone, anyone, who was criminally responsible for the events surrounding January 6th, for any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable — that’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.”

The Jan. 6 investigation is by some measures the largest ever undertaken by the Justice Department. While investigators in nearly every part of the country have been involved, the lion’s share of the work is being done by three offices: the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia, and the criminal and national security divisions at department headquarters.

In the probe’s first year, prosecutors focused largely on the people who breached the Capitol, some of them violently, charging hundreds with interfering with or assaulting police or obstructing an official proceeding.

This year, the fake-elector scheme has become a major focus of the Justice Department inquiry. After Trump lost the election, lawyers and others close to him urged GOP officials in key states to submit alternate and illegitimate slates of electors to reject the results of the state vote totals. Those would-be electors were aided in their effort by Trump campaign officials and Giuliani, who said publicly that the rival slates were necessary and appropriate, and has been described as overseeing the strategy.

Last month, federal agents fanned out in multiple states to serve grand jury subpoenas, execute search warrants and interview witnesses — a significant escalation of overt investigative activity. As part of that effort, agents searched Eastman’s electronic devices, and conducted a search at the home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who enthusiastically embraced some of Trump’s last-ditch efforts to stop Biden from becoming president. Many of those who received subpoenas were told specifically to turn over their communications with Giuliani.

The Justice Department inspector general is also an important player in the investigation, as it examines Clark’s role as a department official in allegedly furthering the efforts.

In a call on Dec. 27, 2020, witnesses have said, Trump told acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen that he wanted his Justice Department to say there was significant election fraud, and said he was poised to oust Rosen and replace him with Clark, who was willing to make that assertion.

Rosen told Trump that the Justice Department could not “flip a switch and change the election,” according to notes of the conversation cited by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“I don’t expect you to do that,” Trump responded, according to the notes. “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

The president urged Rosen to “just have a press conference.” Rosen refused. “We don’t see that,” he told Trump. “We’re not going to have a press conference.”

 

[Howl]

I'm about 15/85  on Garland bringing Trump up on charges; I don't think he'll do it.  Mueller had so much on Trump, obstruction of justice wrapped up with a bow, and Garland let it all go. The Stormy payoff allowed to lapse as time limits expired?  Michael Cohen went to prison over the Stormy payoff while Trump had all the hamberders he wanted?  

FFS, Trump bragged about firing Comey to get out from under Russia Russia Russia. Trump's crime-ing was blatant, in our faces. 

And SDNY/Alvin Bragg dropping Trump Org investigations, leading the two lead prosecutors to resign ? WTAF? 

Louis de Joy, who fucked with the election by destroying mail sorting machines to block mail in ballots,  is still the postmaster and has anyone seen Trump's tax returns? 

I think Biden is going a great job, but his inability to ditch de Joy, his appointing Garland when he could have had someone like Sally Yates...those are a few things I fault him for. 

Personally I think the Republicans are putting Trump in the rear-view mirror, because he's becoming more of a liability as a loose cannon on deck, and tee-ing up DeSantis. 

Trump will remain the godfather of the party, but DeSantis promotes the same fucked up MAGA politics and policies as Trump in a more articulate, reliable, younger, smarter longer-lasting package. 

 

Edited July 27, 2022 by Howl

[CTRLZero]

I found this link in a Washington Post summation of pending and completed legal cases against the January 6 insurrectionists.   I was surprised that there are still 350 unidentified rioters.  There is an additional link within the link below that goes to videos of the people the FBI is still looking for.

DOJ recap of arrests and request for public help in identifying attackers

[GreyhoundFan]

More missing texts: "Jan. 6 texts missing for Trump Homeland Security’s Wolf and Cuccinelli"

Quote

Text messages for President Donald Trump’s acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are missing for a key period leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to four people briefed on the matter and internal emails.

This discovery of missing records for the senior-most Homeland Security officials, which has not been previously reported, increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack.

It comes as both congressional and criminal investigators at the Justice Department seek to piece together an effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election, which culminated in a pro-Trump rally that became a violent riot in the halls of Congress.

The Department of Homeland Security notified the agency’s inspector general in late February that Wolf’s and Cuccinelli’s texts were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, according to an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight and shared with The Washington Post.

The office of the department’s undersecretary of management also told the government watchdog that the text messages for its boss, Undersecretary Randolph “Tex” Alles, the former Secret Service director, were also no longer available due to a previously planned phone reset.

The Office of Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari did not press the department leadership at that time to explain why they did not preserve these records, nor seek ways to recover the lost data, according to the four people briefed on the watchdog’s actions. Cuffari also failed to alert Congress to the potential destruction of government records.

The revelation comes on the heels of the discovery that text messages of Secret Service agents — critical firsthand witnesses to the events leading up to Jan. 6 — were deleted more than a year ago and may never be recovered.

The news of their missing records set off a firestorm because the texts could have corroborated the account of a former White House aide describing the president’s state of mind on Jan. 6. In one case, the aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, said a top official told her that Trump had tried to attack a senior Secret Service agent who refused to take the president to the Capitol with his supporters marching there.

In a nearly identical scenario to that of the DHS leaders’ texts, the Secret Service alerted Cuffari’s office seven months ago, in December 2021, that the agency had deleted thousands of agents’ and employees’ text messages in an agencywide reset of government phones. Cuffari’s office did not notify Congress until mid-July, despite multiple congressional committees’ pending requests for these records.

The telephone and text communications of Wolf and Cuccinelli in the days leading up to Jan. 6 could have shed considerable light on Trump’s actions and plans. In the weeks before the attack on the Capitol, Trump had been pressuring both men to help him claim the 2020 election results were rigged and even to seize voting machines in key swing states to try to “re-run” the election.

“It is extremely troubling that the issue of deleted text messages related to the January 6 attack on the Capitol is not limited to the Secret Service, but also includes Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, who were running DHS at the time,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a statement.

“It appears the DHS Inspector General has known about these deleted texts for months but failed to notify Congress,” Thompson said. “If the Inspector General had informed Congress, we may have been able to get better records from Senior administration officials regarding one of the most tragic days in our democracy’s history.”

Neither Cuccinelli nor Wolf responded to requests for comment. DHS’s Office of Inspector General did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

On Twitter, Wolf wrote: “I complied with all data retention laws and returned all my equipment fully loaded to the Department. Full stop. DHS has all my texts, emails, phone logs, schedules, etc. Any issues with missing data needs to be addressed to DHS.”

The discovery of missing records for the top officials running the Department of Homeland Security during the final days of the Trump administration raises new questions about what could have been learned, and about what other text messages and evidence the department and other agencies may have erased, in apparent violation of the Federal Records Act.

Wolf and Cuccinelli remained at DHS as Trump openly challenged the 2020 election results, even though the agency led efforts to help state and local governments safeguard the integrity of the election results.

Starting in late December, numerous DHS intelligence units across the country were warning of extremely worrisome chatter in white nationalist and pro-Trump social media platforms that were promoting coming armed to Trump’s Jan. 6 rally and using violence to block Joe Biden from becoming president.

In late December, Trump railed in a Cabinet meeting that his secretaries were failing to properly help him investigate fraud that had corruptly “given” the election to Biden, but cited unsubstantiated claims. Trump fired Christopher Krebs as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in a tweet after Krebs countered Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud, and he complained that Wolf should have moved faster to force Krebs out.

On New Year’s Eve of 2020, Trump also called Cuccinelli to pressure him to seize voting machines in swing states and help him block the peaceful transfer of power. Trump falsely told him that the acting attorney general had just said that it was Cuccinelli’s job to seize voting machines “and you’re not doing your job.”

Cuccinelli was in Washington on the day of the attack and toured the Capitol that night to survey the damage. Wolf was on an official trip to the Middle East.

After the Capitol attack, several lawmakers called for hearings into why DHS had failed to anticipate the threat Trump supporters posed to Congress on the day lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence planned to certify the election results.

Wolf resigned five days after the attack on the Capitol, citing “recent events” as well as legal rulings questioning his legitimacy to continue leading the department as an acting secretary for 14 months.

“Effective 11:59 p.m. today, I am stepping down as your Acting Secretary,” Wolf wrote in a message to the department. “I am saddened to take this step, as it was my intention to serve the Department until the end of this Administration.”

In an interview days later with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, the departing acting secretary said Trump bore some responsibility for the events of Jan. 6.

“I was disappointed that the president didn’t speak out sooner on that. I think he had a role to do that. I think, unfortunately, the administration lost a little bit of the moral high ground on this issue by not coming out sooner on it,” he said of Trump not swiftly condemning the violence.

A Government Accountability Office report in 2020 found that Wolf and Cuccinelli were ineligible to serve in their positions because their appointments had not followed the proper order of succession, an issue the GAO referred to the DHS Office of Inspector General.

Unlike Trump, Wolf did not dispute the election results and said DHS was preparing for the “orderly and smooth transition to President-elect Biden’s DHS team.”

“Welcome them, educate them, and learn from them,” Wolf said then. “They are your leaders for the next four years — a time which undoubtedly will be full of challenges and opportunities to show the American public the value of DHS and why it is worth the investment.”

Wolf had emerged as Trump’s favorite DHS chief, the president’s fourth pick for the job in just four years in office. Trump promoted his first secretary, John Kelly, to be his White House chief of staff, then pushed Kelly out of that job for not complying with his orders. He fired Kelly’s successor, Kirstjen Nielsen, for balking at some of Trump’s demands for how to handle immigrants crossing the border, which Nielsen knew were illegal.

The third secretary, Nielsen’s successor, Kevin McAleenan, grew frustrated by the way Trump tried to politicize the department during his reelection effort and departed after just seven months. Then Trump named Wolf as his acting secretary and found that the fourth time was a charm. Wolf repeatedly touted Trump’s immigration record as stellar and deployed department personnel to tamp down Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Ore., to help promote Trump’s law-and-order message to voters.

Trump appointed Cuccinelli to key DHS roles after seeing him defend his immigration agenda on television.

Trump allies still believe Wolf served him well. Wolf is among those mentioned this month in an Axios article as someone whom Trump could ask to return to government service if Trump successfully runs for president in 2024.

I'm not surprised about Cuccinelli. He's a sleazy and nasty piece of work.

[WiseGirl]

[Coconut Flan]

Some how they missed one of the basic survival pieces of Civil Service culture.  Never put anything controversial/potentially illegal  in text, email, or on paper or where it can be recorded.  Deniability is key.  

[formergothardite]

1 hour ago, Coconut Flan said:

Some how they missed one of the basic survival pieces of Civil Service culture.  Never put anything controversial/potentially illegal  in text, email, or on paper or where it can be recorded.  Deniability is key.  

They must have been extremely confident that the plot to take over the government was going to work. 

[Ozlsn]

13 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

Some how they missed one of the basic survival pieces of Civil Service culture.  Never put anything controversial/potentially illegal  in text, email, or on paper or where it can be recorded.  Deniability is key.  

And if you have conversations do it in person somewhere private, not on work phones or mobiles. Much harder to trace with metadata.

[Howl]

On 7/30/2022 at 7:49 AM, Coconut Flan said:

Some how they missed one of the basic survival pieces of Civil Service culture.  Never put anything controversial/potentially illegal  in text, email, or on paper or where it can be recorded.  Deniability is key.  

At least some subset of people possibly went to burner phones because they knew they were actively involved in trying to subvert the peaceful transfer of power + sedition. 

[GreyhoundFan]

The prosecution asked for 15 years... "First Jan. 6 defendant convicted at trial sentenced to more than 7 years"

Quote

The first U.S. Capitol riot defendant convicted at trial was sentenced to more than seven years in prison Monday, the longest punishment handed down to date in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.

Guy Reffitt, a recruiter for the right-wing Texas Three Percenters movement, was convicted March 8 of five felony offenses, including obstruction of Congress as it met to certify the 2020 election result, interfering with police and carrying a firearm to a riot, and threatening his teenage son, who turned him in to the FBI. Prosecutors said Reffitt led a mob while armed at the Capitol and asked a judge to sentence him to 15 years after applying a terrorism sentencing penalty.

U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich condemned Reffitt’s conduct in handing down an 87 month sentence, saying at a five-hour hearing that his views espousing political violence were “absurd,” “delusional” and “way outside of the mainstream.”

“He is in a class of his own so far as I’m aware in terms of what he was doing there that day, and what he claimed what he was there to do,” Friedrich said.

Reffitt has proclaimed himself a “patriot” and a “martyr” in diatribes from prison, the judge noted. She said he was seeking to legitimize efforts by himself and others to foment a rebellion against so-called government tyranny, “believing he was going to forcibly remove legislatures and install a new government that will be approved by judges and the Constitution.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing. And to this day, he has not disavowed these comments,” Friedrich said.

The judge said that in a democracy, people vote their conscience in an election booth, not through violence.

The defense for Reffitt, a 49-year-old former oil industry rig manager, asked for a below-guidelines sentence of two years in prison. Attorney F. Clinton Broden said his client committed no violence and has no criminal history, yet prosecutors sought far more time for him than for defendants who have pleaded guilty to assaulting police, accusing the government of retaliating against Reffitt for going to trial.

“It makes a mockery of the criminal justice system, the Sixth Amendment right to trial, and the victims assaulted by [others] to argue that Mr. Reffitt should be given a sentence greater than" the others, Broden told the court. “I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out why they are seeking an enhancement in this case.”

But Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jeffrey Nestler and Risa Berkower said Reffitt’s conduct was exceptional.

Reffitt “played a central role” at the head of a vigilante mob that challenged and overran police at a key choke point, a stairway leading up from the Lower West Terrace, before the initial breach of windows near the Capitol’s Senate Wing Doors at 2:13 p.m., prosecutors said. After the riot, Reffitt warned his son and 16-year-old daughter that “if you turn me in, you’re a traitor, and traitors get shot,” his son testified at the trial.

Conventional sentencing rules are of “inadequate scope” to account for the range of Reffitt’s obstruction, witness tampering and weapon offenses, prosecutors wrote in a 58-page sentencing memo.

“We do believe what he was doing that day was terrorism. We do believe he is a domestic terrorist,” Nestler said.

“Reffitt sought not just to stop Congress, but also to physically attack, remove, and replace the legislators who were serving in Congress,” prosecutors wrote.

They called his conduct “a quintessential example of an intent to both influence and retaliate against government conduct through intimidation or coercion” and said it reflected the statutory definition of terrorist violence that is subject to harsher punishment.

Reffitt recorded himself at a rally led by President Donald Trump at the Ellipse saying he was ready to drag lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy A. Pelosi (D-Calif.), and then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “out kicking and screaming,” with “her [Pelosi’s] head hitting every step on the way down.”

A jury found that Reffitt traveled to D.C. from his home in Wylie, Tex., with an AR-style rifle and semiautomatic .40-caliber handgun and repeatedly stated his intention to come armed with a handgun and plastic handcuffs to drag lawmakers out of the building. After returning home from Washington, he threatened his children to ensure they did not to turn him in to authorities.

However Friedrich refused to apply the discretionary terrorism sentencing enhancement, agreeing with the defense that prosecutors had not asked judges to do so for other defendants who like Reffitt had made “extremely disturbing” statements, but who unlike him committed violence.

Still, the judge said Reffitt took on a “self-appointed leadership role” outside the Capitol, encouraging and waving on a crowd behind him as he confronted police while carrying a handgun and megaphone. Reffitt was also wearing bulletproof body armor, a helmet, and had plastic flex-cuffs, Friedrich said.

Friedrich said the fact that Reffitt was armed made his case “very different from all others prosecuted to date,” heightening the risk of serious injury to police “who courageously defended the Capitol, as well as to everyone else present that day.”

“Patriots honor and respect the rule of law,” the judge added, rebuking Reffitt. “There are plenty of people who feel that democracy isn’t working for them. There are unfortunately a lot in the United States right now who feel that way. But in a democracy, the answer to that frustration is not rebellion.”

The request by the U.S. attorney’s office in D.C., which is overseeing prosecutions of roughly 840 Capitol siege defendants federally charged so far, was not binding on Friedrich, who had gone below prosecutors’ recommendation in 22 of 24 Jan. 6 sentencings to date.

The longest sentence in a Jan. 6 case so far was 63 months, given to a Florida man who pleaded guilty to attacking police with a fire extinguisher and wooden plank and a D.C. man who assaulted three officers and shattered a riot shield with a pole.

By comparison, Friedrich has sentenced only three defendants who have pleaded guilty to felonies so far, the longest to 27 months in prison, also for attacking police.

Friedrich’s sentence of Reffitt fell at the bottom of the 87 month to 108 month prison term called for under advisory federal guidelines for his conduct, the judge said.

Still prosecutors hoped her final judgment would send a clear signal to the roughly 330 defendants still awaiting trial on felony charges and who may still be considering whether to accept a plea deal or gamble before a jury. About 70 people have pleaded guilty, and nine, including Reffitt, have been convicted at trial.

Reffitt left home at 15, moved in with his older sister and began working as a KFC dishwasher after enduring years of physical abuse from his father, Broden wrote in his client’s defense. After becoming a father himself, Broden said, Reffitt was devoted to his children and to creating safe spaces for others.

Reffitt, his attorney said, was a self-made man who took his family abroad while he worked in places including Malaysia in charge of operations worth tens of millions of dollars, but was financially and emotionally devastated after a downturn in the oil and gas industry. He lost his job in November 2019, only a few months before the pandemic swept the United States.

Reffitt’s daughters noticed that “his mental health was declining” over that period, Broden wrote. Reffitt fell “down the rabbit hole of political news and online banter,” wrote one of his daughters, and he fell under the sway of Donald Trump “constantly feeding polarizing racial thought.”

“I could really see how my father[’]s ego and personality fell to his knees when President Trump spoke, you could tell he listened to Trump’s words as if he was really truly speaking to him,” one of Reffitt’s daughters wrote the judge in seeking leniency.

In a rambling personal statement before the judge, Reffitt apologized to the three officers he confronted, to the court, lawmakers, congressional staff, and all who were affected by his actions.

“I really hate what I did,” Reffitt said. “In 2020 I was a little crazy...I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Reffitt said that going forward he’ll “have nothing to do with politics.”

Friedrich said she hoped Reffitt meant what he said, but warned he would remain under court supervision for three years after completing his prison term if he engaged in future criminal conduct.

Reffitt started a security business and joined the Three Percenters in Texas. The right-wing anti-government group is named after the myth that only 3 percent of colonists fought in the American Revolution against the British.

In a letter to the judge, Reffitt outlined a string of family traumas since 2020 including medical and mental health emergencies and pleaded for leniency for the sake of his family.

“My regrets for what has happened is insurmountable. There’s not a day go by that I don’t regret how much this has affected [my wife and children],” Reffitt wrote. “Yes, what is happening to my family is all my fault, I would like to fix it, please. … I simply ask for a chance to prove myself again.”

In a letter to the court read by prosecutors, Reffitt’s son Jackson Reffitt, said he supported prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation, so long as his father could benefit from rehabilitation and counseling in prison.

But one of his daughters asked the judge for leniency, saying Trump, not her father was ultimately responsible for what happened Jan. 6.

“My father’s name wasn’t on the flags that everyone was carrying there that day … There was another man’s name,” Peyton Reffitt added in person in court Monday, “He was not the leader.”

One of the Capitol Police officers who confronted the defendant, Shauni Kerkhof, said Reffitt “intended to harm members of Congress and to stop the certification of the electoral mob” after pushing past officers who “swore an oath to protect the Congress and the American people.”

Kerkhof said Reffitt’s writings justifying his actions made her “sick.”

“His actions weren’t the actions of a patriot. They were actions of a domestic terrorist. He was intent on harming fellow Americans and our democratic processes himself. This was a man who threatened his own children if they turned him in,” Kerkhof told the court.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"W.Va. politician who apologized for Jan. 6 now writing defiant book"

Quote

A former state lawmaker who six weeks ago apologized to a federal judge for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack is now writing a book for a right-wing publisher claiming he has been mistreated.

Derrick Evans, who was sentenced in June to three months in prison after pleading guilty to felony civil disorder, said in a statement that he had been “slandered” and wanted “to share my story with the world.”

The terms of the deal are confidential, a spokesperson for Defiance Press said.

Evans filmed himself entering the Capitol building and urging others to do the same, while yelling at police officers who tried to control the mob. At his sentencing, he told Senior U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth he felt daily regret for getting “caught up in a moment which led to me breaking the law.”

But Evans has since repeatedly downplayed the violence and destruction and his own role in the riot, as prosecutors noted in a letter to the court. In a radio interview aired the day after his sentencing, Evans said he was “never going to have regrets when it comes to standing up and doing what’s right.”

He has since described himself as a “political prisoner” and expressed a desire to run for office again. Evans was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 2020 and resigned after his arrest last year. Before that, he was known as a confrontational antiabortion activist who would film staff and patients going into West Virginia clinics.

“While Evans’s sentence has already been imposed and the government is not here seeking its modification, the speed and degree of Evans’s about face warrants this notice, for the record and for the Court’s edification,” prosecutor Kathryn E. Fifield wrote in the June 30 filing.

Other Jan. 6 participants have made similarly contradictory statements about their actions. The first woman sentenced for illegally entering the Capitol, Anna Morgan-Lloyd, apologized profusely in court; the next day Fox News aired an interview with her minimizing the attack. Lamberth and other federal judges have since expressed skepticism that the remorse displayed by defendants in these cases is genuine.

Lamberth, who had given Morgan-Lloyd probation said in one filing that his “hopes have been … dashed” and subsequently imposed jail time on multiple rioters who pleaded guilty to the same crime.

At a sentencing for another rioter in front of a different judge, Morgan-Lloyd’s defense attorney said the Indiana grandmother had been “played” by Fox News and had written to Lamberth reaffirming her contrition.

Court records show that when Evans met with the FBI, he falsely claimed that police let the rioters into the building and that he was only wearing a helmet to protect himself from antifascists, assertions refuted by his own video. But prosecutors said that they believed his remorse in those same interviews to be sincere. He also told authorities he did not take the campaign to keep President Biden from power seriously; he has since contended that the election was stolen and that federal agents let rioters into the Capitol.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C. declined to comment. An attorney for Evans was not available for comment.

At Evans’s June 22 sentencing, Lamberth said he was sympathetic to the father of four but would have ordered twice as much time in prison had prosecutors requested it.

“You were egging people on and you were encouraging. It’s not like you walked through the building,” Lamberth said. “I have to send a message. I don’t want another riot after the next election.”

 

[Ozlsn]

10 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

sympathetic to the father of four but would have ordered twice as much time in prison had prosecutors requested it.

Curious - how much leeway do judges have in these cases? Are they bound by what the prosecutor requests? 

[GreyhoundFan]

More under spoiler:

Spoiler

 

[Ozlsn]

They do know the hearings aired nationally and could be streamed internationally, right? As an argument against jurors in DC being potentially biased "the hearings were on TV!" has got to be one of the weakest.

[GreyhoundFan]

49 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

They do know the hearings aired nationally and could be streamed internationally, right? As an argument against jurors in DC being potentially biased "the hearings were on TV!" has got to be one of the weakest.

Many of them are terrified of DC juries because DC is hugely Democratic and is made up of a large percentage of minorities. Also, many DC residents are government employees; the fact that the insurrectionists were happy to overrun a government building while armed hits home.

[WiseGirl]

some of the comments are interesting amd alarming. 

 

[WiseGirl]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Oh Rufus, please have these subpoenas indicate that there will be actual consequences for TFG and his minions:

 

[Ozlsn]

On 8/3/2022 at 8:52 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

Many of them are terrified of DC juries because DC is hugely Democratic and is made up of a large percentage of minorities. Also, many DC residents are government employees; the fact that the insurrectionists were happy to overrun a government building while armed hits home.

Hm, maybe they should have committed crimes in areas that would be more sympathetic to them. They could rob their local gas station, or hold the town council hostage. I'm sure their juries would see it their way.  Also I hope they all have the book thrown at them.

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

10 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Oh Rufus, please have these subpoenas indicate that there will be actual consequences for TFG and his minions:

 

Am I wrong to wonder if Melania is watching it all closely like a villain in a really bad movie, waiting for him to either keel over from the stress/obesity/bad diet/lack of exercise or to be arrested while gleefully tapping her fingers together like Mr. Burns in the Simpsons? I just hope that when he is arrested or dies everything is such a mess that all his money and assets get tied up in court because of all his shady dealings and that the Ivan’s spawn and Melania are screwed but that Marla, who seemed wise enough to keep Tiffany away from Trump and the three older shits, can somehow take in Barron and along with Tiffany help get him on as close to a normal path as possible. I can’t believe I am holding Marla Maples up as some kind of good mother/maternal figure but as options go, she is probably that kid’s best chance at some level of normalcy. 

[WiseGirl]

Go Liz. "Cheney — who is vice chair of the House select committee investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — says she'll be concerned if the DOJ does not charge the former president."

For once I agree with her.

https://people.com/politics/liz-cheney-wants-donald-trump-prosecuted-for-january-6/

[Ozlsn]

I agree with her, but I also want a very close look at who funded and was pulling Trump's strings. Take a hard look at who has been working towards finding and enabling a puppet for years, and pull them up to testify. Trump I think is starting to realise that for the first time in his life (probably) he's the patsy - and maybe he'll sing.