What are they hiding? What are they afraid of? If it was all a peaceful tourist visit?
So far, more than 650 people have been charged with crimes in connection with the violent demonstrations that delayed that vote. Many were charged with obstructing a federal procedure and for knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building. Documents and testimony could show whether White House officials and members of Congress encouraged or supported those actions, congressional staffers said.
White House documents requested by the panel are identified by National Archives personnel and then sent to Biden and Trump lawyers. The first tranche was sent out Aug. 31, according to a person familiar with the transfer.
Trump has 30 days following the delivery of the documents to decide whether to object to their release, according to the statute. Even if he opposes turning them over, the Biden White House has decision-making authority and can release them, over Trump’s objections, after an additional 60 days has elapsed. Trump’s remaining option would be to go to court to try to halt the release, legal advisers said.
So if there is actual credible information is these documents, why, would they not be used?
Because they have to wait 60 days after the 30 days post date of delivery to POOTWH's lawyers for review. August 31, October 1st, December 30th or 31st, we should be able to see/hear about the documents, barring legal challenges. Happy New Year POOTWH and complicit Cons. Great fodder for the campaign season that will begin in earnest in 2022.
What are they hiding? What are they afraid of? If it was all a peaceful tourist visit?
So far, more than 650 people have been charged with crimes in connection with the violent demonstrations that delayed that vote. Many were charged with obstructing a federal procedure and for knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building. Documents and testimony could show whether White House officials and members of Congress encouraged or supported those actions, congressional staffers said.
White House documents requested by the panel are identified by National Archives personnel and then sent to Biden and Trump lawyers. The first tranche was sent out Aug. 31, according to a person familiar with the transfer.
Trump has 30 days following the delivery of the documents to decide whether to object to their release, according to the statute. Even if he opposes turning them over, the Biden White House has decision-making authority and can release them, over Trump’s objections, after an additional 60 days has elapsed. Trump’s remaining option would be to go to court to try to halt the release, legal advisers said.
So if there is actual credible information is these documents, why, would they not be used?
Because they have to wait 60 days after the 30 days post date of delivery to POOTWH's lawyers for review. August 31, October 1st, December 30th or 31st, we should be able to see/hear about the documents, barring legal challenges. Happy New Year POOTWH and complicit Cons. Great fodder for the campaign season that will begin in earnest in 2022.
Just drags the process on...
Hey at least it's a Christmas present or New Years gift for prosecution.
What are they hiding? What are they afraid of? If it was all a peaceful tourist visit?
So far, more than 650 people have been charged with crimes in connection with the violent demonstrations that delayed that vote. Many were charged with obstructing a federal procedure and for knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building. Documents and testimony could show whether White House officials and members of Congress encouraged or supported those actions, congressional staffers said.
White House documents requested by the panel are identified by National Archives personnel and then sent to Biden and Trump lawyers. The first tranche was sent out Aug. 31, according to a person familiar with the transfer.
Trump has 30 days following the delivery of the documents to decide whether to object to their release, according to the statute. Even if he opposes turning them over, the Biden White House has decision-making authority and can release them, over Trump’s objections, after an additional 60 days has elapsed. Trump’s remaining option would be to go to court to try to halt the release, legal advisers said.
So if there is actual credible information is these documents, why, would they not be used?
Because they have to wait 60 days after the 30 days post date of delivery to POOTWH's lawyers for review. August 31, October 1st, December 30th or 31st, we should be able to see/hear about the documents, barring legal challenges. Happy New Year POOTWH and complicit Cons. Great fodder for the campaign season that will begin in earnest in 2022.
Just drags the process on...
Hey at least it's a Christmas present or New Years gift for prosecution.
It is the process. Biden didn't come up with it and he's respecting it. Imagine that?
Among Those Who Marched Into the Capitol on Jan. 6: An F.B.I. Informant https://nyti.ms/3i4zfcy
Among Those Who Marched Into the Capitol on Jan. 6: An F.B.I. Informant
A member of the far-right Proud Boys texted his F.B.I. handler during the assault, but maintained the group had no plan in advance to enter the Capitol and disrupt the election certification.
As scores of Proud Boys made their way, chanting and shouting, toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, one member of the far-right group was busy texting a real-time account of the march.
The recipient was his F.B.I. handler.
In the middle of an unfolding melee that shook a pillar of American democracy — the peaceful transfer of power — the bureau had an informant in the crowd, providing an inside glimpse of the action, according to confidential records obtained by The New York Times. In the informant’s version of events, the Proud Boys, famous for their street fights, were largely following a pro-Trump mob consumed by a herd mentality rather than carrying out any type of preplanned attack.
After meeting his fellow Proud Boys at the Washington Monument that morning, the informant described his path to the Capitol grounds where he saw barriers knocked down and Trump supporters streaming into the building, the records show. At one point, his handler appeared not to grasp that the building had been breached, the records show, and asked the informant to keep him in the loop — especially if there was any violence.
The use of informants always presents law enforcement officials with difficult judgments about the credibility and completeness of the information they provide. In this case, the records obtained by The Times do not directly address whether the informant was in a good position to know about plans developed for Jan. 6 by the leadership of the Proud Boys, why he was cooperating, whether he could have missed indications of a plot or whether he could have deliberately misled the government.
But the records, and information from two people familiar with the matter, suggest that federal law enforcement had a far greater visibility into the assault on the Capitol, even as it was taking place, than was previously known.
At the same time, the new information is likely to complicate the government’s efforts to prove the high-profile conspiracy charges it has brought against several members of the Proud Boys.
On Jan. 6, and for months after, the records show, the informant, who was affiliated with a Midwest chapter of the Proud Boys, denied that the group intended to use violence that day. In lengthy interviews, the records say, he also denied that the extremist organization planned in advance to storm the Capitol. The informant’s identity was not disclosed in the records.
The records describing the informant’s account of Jan. 6 — excerpts from his interviews and communications with the F.B.I. before, during and after the riot — dovetail with assertions made by defense lawyers who have argued that even though several Proud Boys broke into the Capitol, the group did not arrive in Washington with a preset plot to storm the building.
They also raise new questions about the performance of the F.B.I. in tracking the threat from far-right groups like the Proud Boys.
The records — provided to The Times on the condition that they not be directly quoted — show the F.B.I. was investigating at least two other participants in the rally on Jan. 6 and asked the informant to make contact with them, suggesting that they might be Proud Boys.
Moreover, the records indicate that F.B.I. officials in Washington were alerted in advance of the attack that the informant was traveling to the Capitol with several other Proud Boys.
The F.B.I. also had an additional informant with ties to another Proud Boys chapter that took part in the sacking of the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter, raising questions about the quality of the bureau’s informants and what sorts of questions they were being asked by their handlers before Jan. 6.
Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, acknowledged to Congress in March that the F.B.I. was studying the quality of the intelligence it had gathered about Jan. 6.
“Anytime there’s an attack, especially one that’s this horrific, that strikes right at the heart of our system of government, right at the time the transfer of power is being discussed, you can be darn tootin’ that we are focused very, very hard on how can we get better sources, better information, better analysis so that we can make sure that something like what happened on Jan. 6th never happens again,” he said during the congressional hearing.
In a statement, the F.B.I. said that intelligence gathering was central to its mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.
“While the F.B.I.’s standard practice is not to discuss its sources and methods, it is important to understand that sources provide valuable information regarding criminal activity and national security matters,” the bureau said.
The new information was revealed at a time when misinformation continues to circulate among far-right commentators and websites accusing the F.B.I. of having used informants or agents to stage the attack on Jan. 6. But if anything, the records appear to show that the informant’s F.B.I. handler was slow to grasp the gravity of what was happening that day. And the records show that the informant traveled to Washington at his own volition, not at the request of the F.B.I.
The question of whether extremist groups like the Proud Boys conspired in advance of Jan. 6 to organize the worst assault on the Capitol in more than 200 years is one of the most important avenues of inquiry being pursued by the authorities. But the records describing the informant are only one piece of a much larger puzzle that includes other information about the group.
The informant, who started working with the F.B.I. in July 2020, appears to have been close to several other members of his Proud Boys chapter, including some who have been charged in the attack. But it is not clear from the records obtained by The Times how well he knew the group’s top leaders or whether he was in the best position to learn about potential plans to storm the Capitol.
As more and more Proud Boys have been arrested in connection with the attack, the group has been increasingly plunged into an atmosphere of suspicion about the presence of informants in their ranks.
Mr. Tarrio was not at the Capitol on Jan. 6, having been ordered by a local judge to stay away from Washington after his arrest days earlier on charges of illegally possessing ammunition magazines and burning a Black Lives Matter banner after a pro-Trump rally in December. He is currently serving a five-month sentence on the charges.
Prosecutors have filed conspiracy charges against 15 members of the Proud Boys in four separate but interlocking cases, and they are some of the most prominent allegations levied in more than 600 cases brought in connection with the Capitol attack.
In seeking to prove that the Proud Boys planned the assault in advance then worked together on Jan. 6 to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College vote, prosecutors have claimed in court papers that their leaders raised money to bring people to Washington; gathered equipment like protective vests and multichannel radios; and ordered subordinates to avoid wearing their typical black-and-yellow polo shirts in favor of more ordinary clothes.
The F.B.I. has also collected incendiary social media posts and recordings of podcasts in which prominent Proud Boys members embrace a kind of revolutionary zeal after President Donald J. Trump’s loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr., with some suggesting that “traitors” should be shot or that civil war was on the horizon.
As part of their investigation, federal agents ultimately obtained thousands of private group chats sent among dozens of Proud Boys on the messaging app Telegram. In one of the chats, written the night before the riot, a Proud Boys leader told his troops to be decentralized and use good judgment, adding, “Cops are the primary threat.”
But statements from the informant appear to counter the government’s assertion that the Proud Boys organized for an offensive assault on the Capitol intended to stop the peaceful transition from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden.
On the eve of the attack, the records show, the informant said that the group had no plans to engage in violence the next day except to defend itself from potential assaults from leftist activists — a narrative the Proud Boys have often used to excuse their own violent behavior.
Then, during an interview in April, the informant again told his handlers that Proud Boys leaders gave explicit orders to maintain a defensive posture on Jan. 6. At another point in the interview, he said that he never heard any discussion that day about stopping the Electoral College process.
The records show that, after driving to Washington and checking into an Airbnb in Virginia on Jan. 5, the informant spent most of Jan. 6 with other Proud Boys, including some who have been charged in the attack. While the informant mentioned seeing Proud Boys leaders that day, like Ethan Nordean, who has also been charged, there is no indication that he was directly involved with any Proud Boys in leadership positions.
In a detailed account of his activities contained in the records, the informant, who was part of a group chat of other Proud Boys, described meeting up with scores of men from chapters around the country at 10 a.m. on Jan. 6 at the Washington Monument and eventually marching to the Capitol. He said that when he arrived, throngs of people were already streaming past the first barrier outside the building, which, he later learned, was taken down by one of his Proud Boy acquaintances and a young woman with him.
The records say that the informant entered the Capitol after debating whether to do so with his compatriots. He then told his handlers, according to the records, that after police officers informed him that someone — possibly the pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt — had been shot inside the building, he left through a window. The records say that he hurt no one and broke nothing.
According to the records, the informant first began to tell the F.B.I. what he knew about Jan. 6 in late December after a pro-Trump rally in Washington that month turned violent. He showed his handlers screenshots of an online chat board known to be popular among Trump supporters indicating that some so-called normal conservatives were planning to bring weapons to Washington in January, the records show.
But the records contain no indication that the informant was aware of a possible plot by Proud Boys leaders to purposefully instigate those normal Trump supporters — or what members of the group refer to as “normies” — on Jan. 6.
According to court papers in one case, a Proud Boys leader from Philadelphia wrote on the group’s Telegram channel on the morning of Jan. 6, “I want to see thousands of normies burn that city to ash today.”
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Risky business: Some Capitol riot defendants forgo lawyers
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER
2 hours ago
Some of the defendants charged in the storming of the U.S. Capitol are turning away defense lawyers and electing to represent themselves, undeterred by their lack of legal training or repeated warnings from judges.
That choice already has led to some curious legal maneuvers and awkward exchanges in court.
A New York man charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection wants to bill the government for working on his own case. A Pennsylvania restaurant owner is trying to defend herself from jail. A judge told another New Yorker that he may have incriminated himself during courtroom arguments.
The right to self-representation is a bedrock principle of the Constitution. But a longtime judge cited an old adage in advising a former California police chief that he would have “a fool for a client” if he represented himself.
And Michael Magner, a New Orleans criminal defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor, observed, “Just because you have a constitutional right to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s smart.”
The decision by at least five defendants to defend themselves is bound to create a host of challenges, particularly for those behind bars. They risk getting themselves in more legal trouble if they say the wrong thing in court. They have to sift through the mountain of evidence investigators have collected in the attack. And the strategy is already testing judges’ ability to maintain control of their courtrooms.
“I would never represent myself if I were charged with a crime,” U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth told Alan Hostetter before allowing him to handle his own defense against riot charges. The judge warned the ex-police chief that he has never seen anyone successfully represent himself since his appointment to the bench in 1987.
Hostetter was arrested in June along with five other men on charges that they conspired to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. The indictment links four of Hostetter's co-defendants to the Three Percenters, a wing of the militia movement.
Hostetter, who began teaching yoga after more than 20 years as an officer, told Lamberth that the “corruption of this investigation” is one reason he wants to represent himself. His finances also were a factor.
“I believe that it's a governmental strategy and tactic that if they can't convict you, they at least want to bankrupt and destroy you,” Hostetter said.
Another defendant representing himself, Brandon Fellows of upstate New York, recently unsuccessfully petitioned U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden to release him from jail.
Video shows Fellows, who was photographed wearing a fake orange beard during the riot, with his feet propped on a table in the office of Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. Fellows was locked up this summer for missing a mental health evaluation appointment and harassing a probation officer.
Fellows took the stand to argue for his release, brushing aside warnings from the judge that he could open himself to perjury charges if he testified.
In doing so, Fellows may have compounded his legal troubles.
Fellows told McFadden that he used what he described as a “loophole" he had read about online to disqualify a different judge overseeing an unrelated case in New York. Fellows said he listed a phone number for that judge's wife as his own number in court records to make it appear that he knows the woman.
Fellows said he also asked the public defender who represented him before he rebuffed counsel in the riot case if he should try to get McFadden replaced by contacting the judge's family, but the lawyer warned him that would get him arrested.
In denying Fellows' bid for release, McFadden told Fellows that he admitted to likely obstructing justice in the New York case and considering it in his riot case.
McFadden, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, also jailed self-represented defendant Pauline Bauer last month for failing to comply with court orders to cooperate with probation officers during her pretrial release.
Bauer was arrested in May along with a friend who joined her at the Capitol. Video from a police officer’s body camera captured Bauer saying to bring out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to be hanged, the FBI says.
Bauer, who owns a restaurant in rural Kane, Pennsylvania, has repeatedly interrupted the judge during hearings. She also has argued in vain that the court doesn’t have any jurisdiction over her, expressing an ideology that appears to comport with the “sovereign citizens” extremist movement.
During a July 19 hearing, Bauer told McFadden that she doesn’t want “any lawyering from the bench.” When the judge denied her request to dismiss her charges, she asked, “On what terms?”
“You don’t get to demand terms from me,” replied McFadden. McFadden appointed lawyers to serve as standby counsel for Fellows and Bauer and assist at the defendants' request.
After U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled last month that Eric Bochene can represent himself, the upstate New York man submitted a “fee schedule” in which he appeared to be attempting to create a structure for him to collect fees for working on his own case.
The filing indicates he wants to charge up to $250,000 for spending two hours in court if he feels he is appearing “under protest and duress” and $50,000 if he is there voluntarily. A “forced giving of bodily fluids” carries a $5 million charge under Bochene's billing schedule.
The judge denied the request, noting that Bochene hasn't been ordered to take any actions requiring payment. “Furthermore, to the extent Defendant is seeking payment for appearing in Court, that argument lacks merit,” said the judge's terse order.
A fifth riot defendant, Brian Christopher Mock, began representing himself last month after having an assistant federal public defender as his attorney, court records indicate. A tipster told the FBI that Mock bragged about assaulting police officers and destroying property at the Capitol after he returned home to Minnesota.
It can be a challenge for judges to maintain their composure and control of their courtrooms when a defendant isn’t represented by a lawyer.
“The court will often wind up bending over backwards to make sure that people don’t make their situations worse by wanting to be their own Perry Mason,” Magner said.
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We were taking Route 6 through Pennsylvania to visit my father back when he was still alive (~20 years ago), and we stopped at a diner in Kane. We got the hairy eyeball as soon as we walked through the door, and decided maybe we had better get the fuck out of Kane. I'm pretty sure that I still have the old road atlas on which my wife simply wrote the word "No!" over the town of Kane.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
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did anybody watch the hbo documentary on the jan 6 attack last night? they had people on there still to this day saying it was not trump supporters who did it.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
did anybody watch the hbo documentary on the jan 6 attack last night? they had people on there still to this day saying it was not trump supporters who did it.
The head of intelligence at D.C.’s homeland security office was growing desperate. For days, Donell HarvinDonell HarvinAs the head of intelligence at D.C.'s homeland security office, Harvin led a team that spotted warnings that extremists planned to descend on the Capitol and disrupt the electoral count. and his team had spotted increasing signs that supporters of President Donald Trump were planning violence when Congress metto formalize the electoral college vote, but federal law enforcement agencies did not seem to share his sense of urgency. On Saturday, Jan. 2, he picked up the phone and called his counterpart in San Francisco, waking Mike Sena before dawn.
Sena listened with alarm. The Northern California intelligence office he commanded had also been inundated with political threats flagged by social media companies, several involving plans to disrupt the joint session.
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For 187 harrowing minutes, the president watched his supporters attack the Capitol — and resisted pleas to stop them.
President Donald Trump had just returned to the White House from his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6 when he retired to his private dining room just off the Oval Office, flipped on the massive flat-screen television and took in the show. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, thousands of his supporters were wearing his red caps, waving his blue flags and chanting his name.
Live television news coverage showed the horror accelerating minute by minute after 1:10 p.m., when Trump had called on his followers to march on the U.S. Capitol. The pro-Trump rioters toppled security barricades. They bludgeoned police. They scaled granite walls. And then they smashed windows and doors to breach the hallowed building that has stood for more than two centuries as the seat of American democracy.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
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another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Threats and disinformation spread across the country in the wake of the Capitol siege, shaking the underpinnings of American democracy.
On the day after, the right side of Capt. Carneysha MendozaCapt. Carneysha MendozaA 19-year veteran of the Capitol Police, Mendoza led officers battling rioters in the Rotunda of the Capitol on Jan. 6.’s face burned painfully where pepper spray and other chemicals had seeped into her pores. She could still picture the enraged faces of those who had attacked her and her colleagues under the Capitol dome. Some had worn fatigues like the ones Mendoza donned as an Army soldier stationed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
That day, the United States had weathered a faceless attack orchestrated covertly from beyond the country’s borders. This time, Mendoza had faced a very different enemy: fellow Americans, many of them wrapped in red, white and blue, inflamed by a sitting president.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
That’s part of the difference between the two parties. Democrats hold their own accountable, feel no sense of urgency when it comes to these issues, won’t dare lie or exaggerate for the parties benefit, don’t know what issues to support for the most votes, and loyalty to their party means nothing, like the progressives holding up the infrastructure bill, it only made the republicans who voted yes appear to be better people than their own party members.
Republicans, stick together, lie, deny, evade, never waiver from the playbook then do it all over again.
all i am saying is john brown was executed less than 2 months after trying to take over an arsenal at harper's ferry in attempt in incite a slave revolt in the south.
these people tried to overthrow the damned government and most of them have not even been arrested yet. and many of those that have been are halfway through their prison sentences.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Yeah...those subpoenas are about as valuable as Green Bay Packers stock.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
I’m not an expert so this is just a guess that the more they issue the better the chance that one or more feel they’ve got too much lose. I could see a mom of young children breaking, but like I said I don’t know anything about the law just my common sense answer.
Comments
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Hey at least it's a Christmas present or New Years gift for prosecution.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Among Those Who Marched Into the Capitol on Jan. 6: An F.B.I. Informant
A member of the far-right Proud Boys texted his F.B.I. handler during the assault, but maintained the group had no plan in advance to enter the Capitol and disrupt the election certification.
By Alan Feuer and Adam Goldman
As scores of Proud Boys made their way, chanting and shouting, toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, one member of the far-right group was busy texting a real-time account of the march.
The recipient was his F.B.I. handler.
In the middle of an unfolding melee that shook a pillar of American democracy — the peaceful transfer of power — the bureau had an informant in the crowd, providing an inside glimpse of the action, according to confidential records obtained by The New York Times. In the informant’s version of events, the Proud Boys, famous for their street fights, were largely following a pro-Trump mob consumed by a herd mentality rather than carrying out any type of preplanned attack.
After meeting his fellow Proud Boys at the Washington Monument that morning, the informant described his path to the Capitol grounds where he saw barriers knocked down and Trump supporters streaming into the building, the records show. At one point, his handler appeared not to grasp that the building had been breached, the records show, and asked the informant to keep him in the loop — especially if there was any violence.
The use of informants always presents law enforcement officials with difficult judgments about the credibility and completeness of the information they provide. In this case, the records obtained by The Times do not directly address whether the informant was in a good position to know about plans developed for Jan. 6 by the leadership of the Proud Boys, why he was cooperating, whether he could have missed indications of a plot or whether he could have deliberately misled the government.
But the records, and information from two people familiar with the matter, suggest that federal law enforcement had a far greater visibility into the assault on the Capitol, even as it was taking place, than was previously known.
At the same time, the new information is likely to complicate the government’s efforts to prove the high-profile conspiracy charges it has brought against several members of the Proud Boys.
On Jan. 6, and for months after, the records show, the informant, who was affiliated with a Midwest chapter of the Proud Boys, denied that the group intended to use violence that day. In lengthy interviews, the records say, he also denied that the extremist organization planned in advance to storm the Capitol. The informant’s identity was not disclosed in the records.
The records describing the informant’s account of Jan. 6 — excerpts from his interviews and communications with the F.B.I. before, during and after the riot — dovetail with assertions made by defense lawyers who have argued that even though several Proud Boys broke into the Capitol, the group did not arrive in Washington with a preset plot to storm the building.
They also raise new questions about the performance of the F.B.I. in tracking the threat from far-right groups like the Proud Boys.
The records — provided to The Times on the condition that they not be directly quoted — show the F.B.I. was investigating at least two other participants in the rally on Jan. 6 and asked the informant to make contact with them, suggesting that they might be Proud Boys.
Moreover, the records indicate that F.B.I. officials in Washington were alerted in advance of the attack that the informant was traveling to the Capitol with several other Proud Boys.
The F.B.I. also had an additional informant with ties to another Proud Boys chapter that took part in the sacking of the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter, raising questions about the quality of the bureau’s informants and what sorts of questions they were being asked by their handlers before Jan. 6.
Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, acknowledged to Congress in March that the F.B.I. was studying the quality of the intelligence it had gathered about Jan. 6.
“Anytime there’s an attack, especially one that’s this horrific, that strikes right at the heart of our system of government, right at the time the transfer of power is being discussed, you can be darn tootin’ that we are focused very, very hard on how can we get better sources, better information, better analysis so that we can make sure that something like what happened on Jan. 6th never happens again,” he said during the congressional hearing.
In a statement, the F.B.I. said that intelligence gathering was central to its mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution.
“While the F.B.I.’s standard practice is not to discuss its sources and methods, it is important to understand that sources provide valuable information regarding criminal activity and national security matters,” the bureau said.
The new information was revealed at a time when misinformation continues to circulate among far-right commentators and websites accusing the F.B.I. of having used informants or agents to stage the attack on Jan. 6. But if anything, the records appear to show that the informant’s F.B.I. handler was slow to grasp the gravity of what was happening that day. And the records show that the informant traveled to Washington at his own volition, not at the request of the F.B.I.
The question of whether extremist groups like the Proud Boys conspired in advance of Jan. 6 to organize the worst assault on the Capitol in more than 200 years is one of the most important avenues of inquiry being pursued by the authorities. But the records describing the informant are only one piece of a much larger puzzle that includes other information about the group.
The informant, who started working with the F.B.I. in July 2020, appears to have been close to several other members of his Proud Boys chapter, including some who have been charged in the attack. But it is not clear from the records obtained by The Times how well he knew the group’s top leaders or whether he was in the best position to learn about potential plans to storm the Capitol.
As more and more Proud Boys have been arrested in connection with the attack, the group has been increasingly plunged into an atmosphere of suspicion about the presence of informants in their ranks.
The dark mood started three weeks after the riot when it suddenly emerged that Enrique Tarrio, the group’s leader, had himself worked as an F.B.I. informant well before he joined the Proud Boys.
Mr. Tarrio was not at the Capitol on Jan. 6, having been ordered by a local judge to stay away from Washington after his arrest days earlier on charges of illegally possessing ammunition magazines and burning a Black Lives Matter banner after a pro-Trump rally in December. He is currently serving a five-month sentence on the charges.
Prosecutors have filed conspiracy charges against 15 members of the Proud Boys in four separate but interlocking cases, and they are some of the most prominent allegations levied in more than 600 cases brought in connection with the Capitol attack.
In seeking to prove that the Proud Boys planned the assault in advance then worked together on Jan. 6 to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College vote, prosecutors have claimed in court papers that their leaders raised money to bring people to Washington; gathered equipment like protective vests and multichannel radios; and ordered subordinates to avoid wearing their typical black-and-yellow polo shirts in favor of more ordinary clothes.
The F.B.I. has also collected incendiary social media posts and recordings of podcasts in which prominent Proud Boys members embrace a kind of revolutionary zeal after President Donald J. Trump’s loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr., with some suggesting that “traitors” should be shot or that civil war was on the horizon.
As part of their investigation, federal agents ultimately obtained thousands of private group chats sent among dozens of Proud Boys on the messaging app Telegram. In one of the chats, written the night before the riot, a Proud Boys leader told his troops to be decentralized and use good judgment, adding, “Cops are the primary threat.”
But statements from the informant appear to counter the government’s assertion that the Proud Boys organized for an offensive assault on the Capitol intended to stop the peaceful transition from Mr. Trump to Mr. Biden.
On the eve of the attack, the records show, the informant said that the group had no plans to engage in violence the next day except to defend itself from potential assaults from leftist activists — a narrative the Proud Boys have often used to excuse their own violent behavior.
Then, during an interview in April, the informant again told his handlers that Proud Boys leaders gave explicit orders to maintain a defensive posture on Jan. 6. At another point in the interview, he said that he never heard any discussion that day about stopping the Electoral College process.
The records show that, after driving to Washington and checking into an Airbnb in Virginia on Jan. 5, the informant spent most of Jan. 6 with other Proud Boys, including some who have been charged in the attack. While the informant mentioned seeing Proud Boys leaders that day, like Ethan Nordean, who has also been charged, there is no indication that he was directly involved with any Proud Boys in leadership positions.
In a detailed account of his activities contained in the records, the informant, who was part of a group chat of other Proud Boys, described meeting up with scores of men from chapters around the country at 10 a.m. on Jan. 6 at the Washington Monument and eventually marching to the Capitol. He said that when he arrived, throngs of people were already streaming past the first barrier outside the building, which, he later learned, was taken down by one of his Proud Boy acquaintances and a young woman with him.
The records say that the informant entered the Capitol after debating whether to do so with his compatriots. He then told his handlers, according to the records, that after police officers informed him that someone — possibly the pro-Trump rioter Ashli Babbitt — had been shot inside the building, he left through a window. The records say that he hurt no one and broke nothing.
According to the records, the informant first began to tell the F.B.I. what he knew about Jan. 6 in late December after a pro-Trump rally in Washington that month turned violent. He showed his handlers screenshots of an online chat board known to be popular among Trump supporters indicating that some so-called normal conservatives were planning to bring weapons to Washington in January, the records show.
But the records contain no indication that the informant was aware of a possible plot by Proud Boys leaders to purposefully instigate those normal Trump supporters — or what members of the group refer to as “normies” — on Jan. 6.
According to court papers in one case, a Proud Boys leader from Philadelphia wrote on the group’s Telegram channel on the morning of Jan. 6, “I want to see thousands of normies burn that city to ash today.”
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
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Some of the defendants charged in the storming of the U.S. Capitol are turning away defense lawyers and electing to represent themselves, undeterred by their lack of legal training or repeated warnings from judges.
That choice already has led to some curious legal maneuvers and awkward exchanges in court.
A New York man charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection wants to bill the government for working on his own case. A Pennsylvania restaurant owner is trying to defend herself from jail. A judge told another New Yorker that he may have incriminated himself during courtroom arguments.
The right to self-representation is a bedrock principle of the Constitution. But a longtime judge cited an old adage in advising a former California police chief that he would have “a fool for a client” if he represented himself.
And Michael Magner, a New Orleans criminal defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor, observed, “Just because you have a constitutional right to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s smart.”
The decision by at least five defendants to defend themselves is bound to create a host of challenges, particularly for those behind bars. They risk getting themselves in more legal trouble if they say the wrong thing in court. They have to sift through the mountain of evidence investigators have collected in the attack. And the strategy is already testing judges’ ability to maintain control of their courtrooms.
“I would never represent myself if I were charged with a crime,” U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth told Alan Hostetter before allowing him to handle his own defense against riot charges. The judge warned the ex-police chief that he has never seen anyone successfully represent himself since his appointment to the bench in 1987.
Hostetter was arrested in June along with five other men on charges that they conspired to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. The indictment links four of Hostetter's co-defendants to the Three Percenters, a wing of the militia movement.
Hostetter, who began teaching yoga after more than 20 years as an officer, told Lamberth that the “corruption of this investigation” is one reason he wants to represent himself. His finances also were a factor.
“I believe that it's a governmental strategy and tactic that if they can't convict you, they at least want to bankrupt and destroy you,” Hostetter said.
Another defendant representing himself, Brandon Fellows of upstate New York, recently unsuccessfully petitioned U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden to release him from jail.
Video shows Fellows, who was photographed wearing a fake orange beard during the riot, with his feet propped on a table in the office of Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. Fellows was locked up this summer for missing a mental health evaluation appointment and harassing a probation officer.
Fellows took the stand to argue for his release, brushing aside warnings from the judge that he could open himself to perjury charges if he testified.
In doing so, Fellows may have compounded his legal troubles.
Fellows told McFadden that he used what he described as a “loophole" he had read about online to disqualify a different judge overseeing an unrelated case in New York. Fellows said he listed a phone number for that judge's wife as his own number in court records to make it appear that he knows the woman.
Fellows said he also asked the public defender who represented him before he rebuffed counsel in the riot case if he should try to get McFadden replaced by contacting the judge's family, but the lawyer warned him that would get him arrested.
In denying Fellows' bid for release, McFadden told Fellows that he admitted to likely obstructing justice in the New York case and considering it in his riot case.
McFadden, who was nominated by President Donald Trump, also jailed self-represented defendant Pauline Bauer last month for failing to comply with court orders to cooperate with probation officers during her pretrial release.
Bauer was arrested in May along with a friend who joined her at the Capitol. Video from a police officer’s body camera captured Bauer saying to bring out House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to be hanged, the FBI says.
Bauer, who owns a restaurant in rural Kane, Pennsylvania, has repeatedly interrupted the judge during hearings. She also has argued in vain that the court doesn’t have any jurisdiction over her, expressing an ideology that appears to comport with the “sovereign citizens” extremist movement.
During a July 19 hearing, Bauer told McFadden that she doesn’t want “any lawyering from the bench.” When the judge denied her request to dismiss her charges, she asked, “On what terms?”
“You don’t get to demand terms from me,” replied McFadden. McFadden appointed lawyers to serve as standby counsel for Fellows and Bauer and assist at the defendants' request.
After U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled last month that Eric Bochene can represent himself, the upstate New York man submitted a “fee schedule” in which he appeared to be attempting to create a structure for him to collect fees for working on his own case.
The filing indicates he wants to charge up to $250,000 for spending two hours in court if he feels he is appearing “under protest and duress” and $50,000 if he is there voluntarily. A “forced giving of bodily fluids” carries a $5 million charge under Bochene's billing schedule.
The judge denied the request, noting that Bochene hasn't been ordered to take any actions requiring payment. “Furthermore, to the extent Defendant is seeking payment for appearing in Court, that argument lacks merit,” said the judge's terse order.
A fifth riot defendant, Brian Christopher Mock, began representing himself last month after having an assistant federal public defender as his attorney, court records indicate. A tipster told the FBI that Mock bragged about assaulting police officers and destroying property at the Capitol after he returned home to Minnesota.
More than 640 people have been charged in the riot. Several cases already have been resolved with sentencing ranging from probation to jail terms of less than a year. Some defendants charged with the most serious offenses — including conspiracy cases against extremist group members — could face years in prison if convicted.
It can be a challenge for judges to maintain their composure and control of their courtrooms when a defendant isn’t represented by a lawyer.
“The court will often wind up bending over backwards to make sure that people don’t make their situations worse by wanting to be their own Perry Mason,” Magner said.
continues....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Wonder if was the domestic terrorist's eatery?
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
at the front is still considered tail yes? he gets all his budget can handle in lotion....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
www.headstonesband.com
RED FLAGS
As Trump propelled his supporters
to Washington, law enforcement
agencies failed to heed mounting
warnings about violence on Jan.
The head of intelligence at D.C.’s homeland security office was growing desperate. For days, Donell Harvin
Donell HarvinAs the head of intelligence at D.C.'s homeland security office, Harvin led a team that spotted warnings that extremists planned to descend on the Capitol and disrupt the electoral count. and his team had spotted increasing signs that supporters of President Donald Trump were planning violence when Congress met to formalize the electoral college vote, but federal law enforcement agencies did not seem to share his sense of urgency. On Saturday, Jan. 2, he picked up the phone and called his counterpart in San Francisco, waking Mike Sena before dawn.
Sena listened with alarm. The Northern California intelligence office he commanded had also been inundated with political threats flagged by social media companies, several involving plans to disrupt the joint session.
continues....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/warnings-jan-6-insurrection/
BLOODSHED
For 187 harrowing minutes, the
president watched his
supporters attack the Capitol —
and resisted pleas to stop them.
President Donald Trump had just returned to the White House from his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6 when he retired to his private dining room just off the Oval Office, flipped on the massive flat-screen television and took in the show. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, thousands of his supporters were wearing his red caps, waving his blue flags and chanting his name.
Live television news coverage showed the horror accelerating minute by minute after 1:10 p.m., when Trump had called on his followers to march on the U.S. Capitol. The pro-Trump rioters toppled security barricades. They bludgeoned police. They scaled granite walls. And then they smashed windows and doors to breach the hallowed building that has stood for more than two centuries as the seat of American democracy.
continues....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
CONTAGION
Threats and disinformation
spread across the country in
the wake of the Capitol siege,
shaking the underpinnings
of American democracy.
On the day after, the right side of Capt. Carneysha Mendoza
Capt. Carneysha MendozaA 19-year veteran of the Capitol Police, Mendoza led officers battling rioters in the Rotunda of the Capitol on Jan. 6.’s face burned painfully where pepper spray and other chemicals had seeped into her pores. She could still picture the enraged faces of those who had attacked her and her colleagues under the Capitol dome. Some had worn fatigues like the ones Mendoza donned as an Army soldier stationed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
That day, the United States had weathered a faceless attack orchestrated covertly from beyond the country’s borders. This time, Mendoza had faced a very different enemy: fellow Americans, many of them wrapped in red, white and blue, inflamed by a sitting president.
continues.....
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Jan. 6 accused rioter seeks asylum in Belarus | TheHill
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
dems are going to delay delay delay and lose in the mid terms and then all of this is going to be swept under the rug.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
The Golden Age is 2 months away. And guess what….. you’re gonna love it! (teskeinc 11.19.24)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Wrigley; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
2024: Noblesville, Wrigley, Wrigley, Ohana, Ohana
these people tried to overthrow the damned government and most of them have not even been arrested yet. and many of those that have been are halfway through their prison sentences.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin