1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

Girlfriend of police officer who died after Jan. 6 says Trump 'needs to be in prison' for sparking Capitol riot



The girlfriend of the Capitol Police officer who died after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 is speaking out, saying that former President Donald Trump should serve prison time for his alleged role in sparking the riot.

Speaking to PBS News Hour, Sandra Garza, who was in a relationship with Officer Brian D. Sicknick, said she wants to see justice for Sicknick, who suffered two strokes just hours after rioters attacked him with chemical spray. He was 42. The medical examiner ruled his death to be from natural causes.

“I hold Donald Trump 100 percent responsible for what happened on January 6 and all of the people that have enabled him, enabled him that day, and continue to enable him now,” said Garza.

“Personally, for me, I think he needs to be in prison. That is what I think," she said after referring to Trump as a horrible person.

Watch the video below:
https://www.rawstory.com/sandra-garza-2656216456/



Jan. 6 committee already has a smoking gun to force changes to election law: columnist



The House select committee may already have enough evidence to push changes to the Electoral Count Act, which would undercut one of Donald Trump's arguments and possibly lead to penalties against him.

The twice-impeached one-term president's attorneys have argued the Jan. 6 investigation lacks a legitimate legislative purpose, but Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent argued that Rep. Liz Cheney has shown the panel has the "smoking gun" evidence they need to make changes to protect the electoral process.

"For weeks, Rep. Liz Cheney has hinted that the House select committee examining Jan. 6 might urge the Justice Department to consider prosecuting Donald Trump," Sargent wrote. "The grounds for this criminal referral might be that Trump obstructed the 'official proceeding' in which Congress counts presidential electors."

The Wyoming Republican says Trump stood by for more than two hours watching his supporters violently attack law enforcement as they tried to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden's election win, and Cheney accused the former president of inciting that crowd and ignored pleas from his family, White House staffers, lawmakers and media allies to call them off.

"Some comments from Cheney herself — and clarification I’ve now obtained from a Cheney spokesman — shed new light on where this is going," Sargent revealed. "The short version: It’s likely the committee will explore recommending changes to federal law to further clarify that obstructing the electoral count in Congress is a crime subject to stiff penalties."

Trump's failure was a "dereliction of duty," Cheney has publicly stated, and her spokesman made clear what legislative steps the committee was considering to hold him accountable and protect future elections.

“The committee will explore whether to make changes to current law to hold a future president accountable,” he told Sargent, without elaborating. “That’s part of the legislative purpose of the committee.”

The panel hasn't established, based on publicly known evidence, that Trump believed the violence would help him remain in power and that prevented him from intervening, but Sargent believes they will recommend changes to the law to make disrupting the electoral count a federal crime and introduce stiffer penalties.

"It will be interesting to see if Republicans will support strengthening the criminal code against disruption of the electoral count, and whether a certain pair of Democratic senators will support ending the filibuster to pass such a safeguard," Sargent wrote. "We may soon get answers to those questions. And they probably won’t be to our liking."

https://www.rawstory.com/electoral-county-act/


Merrick Garland should reveal any Jan. 6 probe of Trump to restore 'public confidence': MSNBC analyst



Attorney General Merrick Garland should use his planned speech about Jan. 6 on Wednesday to indicate that his office is investigating all responsible parties, including former President Donald Trump, according to former acting U.S. solicitor general Neal Katyal.

Katyal said he's been "very patient" with Garland, adding that no one was "more meticulous" or "more careful" as a judge.

"But I'm getting worried," Katyal said. "Nobody's asking Merrick Garland to get up in his speech tomorrow and announce indictments against Donald Trump and his pals. Merrick Garland is the attorney general; he is not Santa Claus. But we are all hoping for some reassurance from him that he's investigating all leads and all people who may be responsible. So that's what I want to hear tomorrow, and right now we've heard really crickets."

Katyal added that while Garland's Department of Justice has secured convictions against 275 "rank-and-file" Capitol rioters, there has been nothing but silence about "higher-ups." He said there are two main possibilities.

"One is that Garland is too scared of his shadow and he's doing nothing," Katyal said. "Or the other is that he's got a secret investigation, and we just don't know about it. And it's rare to think an investigation of this magnitude could be kept secret, but I suppose it's possible. The thing that concerns me is that the governing documents here, the U.S. Attorneys' Manuals, do say that when the public confidence requires an announcement of an investigation, it can be done, so we've heard silence in the teeth of what the U.S. Attorney's Manual says, and that to me is concerning."

Watch the full interview below:

[Rick Plant]

REVEALED: Jan. 6 committee has info on Trump aides discussing use of 25th Amendment to remove him



In its letter requesting Fox News host Sean Hannity's testimony on Tuesday, the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection referenced efforts to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove former president Donald Trump from office.

According to the letter, Hannity sent chief of staff Mark Meadows a text message on Jan. 6 "relating to a potential effort by members of President Trump’s cabinet to remove him from office under the 25th Amendment."

"As you may recall, Secretaries DeVos and Chao both resigned following the President’s conduct on January 6th, as did members of the President’s White House staff," the committee wrote to Hannity. "We would like to question you regarding any conversations you had with Mr. Meadows or others about any effort to remove the President under the 25th Amendment."

CNN reporter Jamie Gangel addressed the letter's references to the 25th Amendment on Tuesday night.

"There is nothing that was put in this letter by accident, and that was mentioned very far down," Gangel said. "There was not a text (message) associated with it, but the words '25th Amendment' were repeated. And my understanding is that there is — we don't know, they didn't reveal texts there — but it appears the committee has information about conversations that were going on at the highest level about the 25th Amendment. And just to remind our audience ... we heard reporting that maybe some people in the cabinet thought Trump should be removed from office. The fact that the committee may have information about that will also speak, once again, to Trump's state of mind."

Watch below.:

[Rick Plant]

Three more cops sue Trump for inciting MAGA riots that left them with 'physical and emotional injuries'



Three more police officers are suing former President Donald Trump for the "physical and emotional injuries" they suffered as a result of the riots he incited at the United States Capitol building last year.

Politico reports that Capitol Officer Marcus Moore, who has spent the last decade on the force, filed a lawsuit in which he described "the intense terror of the day as he moved from his post at the Madison Building to the East Side of the Capitol and eventually into the House chamber, helping evacuate lawmakers to safety."

Moore is seeking damages against Trump, whom he says incited a riot that left him suffering from tinnitus, a condition that produces frequent ringing in a person's ear.

In a separate lawsuit filed against Trump, D.C. Metropolitan Police Officers Bobby Tabron and Dedevine Carter described "suffering physical assaults with poles, pepper spray and other projectiles, in addition to hand-to-hand violence," while also "seeking compensatory damages for their injuries," writes Politico.

Trump has sought to downplay the violence that his supporters inflicted upon police at the Capitol, and even falsely claimed that the MAGA rioters were "hugging and kissing" police who were guarding the building, when in reality they were beating them with blunt objects and attacking them with bear spray.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/04/police-officer-lawsuits-capitol-riot-trump-526491


FBI nabs Capitol rioter who said he was ‘involved with helping Lin Wood and Sidney Powell’



Atlanta home contractor Matthew Jay Webler said that Jan. 6, 2021, was his best birthday ever. Now he's been charged for partaking in the riot at the U.S. Capitol, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

Court records show that Webler was recorded by multiple security cameras wearing a bright yellow jacket and a QAnon flag as cape, making him easy to spot.

In one selfie video he took inside the Capitol, he says, “It’s my birthday, and it’s the best one ever.” The video, which he posted to Facebook, is among other social media posts used as evidence by authorities.

“Biden called Jan 6 the worst domestic terror attack in our history. Here’s some of my footage,” Webler posted to Facebook in April after dozens of Capitol rioters had already been arrested. “Can you find the terror?”

'I have been involved with helping Lin Wood and Sidney Powell try find all the information that we can,” Webler said in the video published Dec. 28, 2020. He also claimed that he conducted overnight surveillance on what he said was a “official election warehouse.”

Webler has a criminal history which includes two prison terms in Georgia and totalling more than six years for charges related to burglary, aggravated assault and auto theft, and other crimes.

He faces four misdemeanor charges related to the Capitol riot, each carrying up to a year in prison.

https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-rioter-matthew-jay-webler/

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 6 investigator reveals how Sean Hannity has landed in House probe's crosshairs



A member of the House select committee explained why Fox News host Sean Hannity has landed in the Jan. 6 investigation's crosshairs.

Congressional investigators have obtained text messages suggesting that Hannity was aware of and deeply concerned about Donald Trump's plans for the day Joe Biden would be certified as the 2020 election winner, and Rep. Jamie Raskin told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" why the panel has asked for the conservative broadcaster's voluntary cooperation in their probe.

"Sean Hannity is being, has become a figure of interest because he's a fact witness, obviously, to the planning that preceded both the attempt at a political coup on Jan. 6 and also, apparently, organizing for the insurrection," Raskin said. "Based on the evidence of the texts we've seen, it looks like he was very concerned about what was going to happen, and we just want to try to reconstruct the chronology of his involvement."

Raskin dismissed First Amendment concerns about Hannity's broadcast statements, saying investigators were only interested in his private communications with White House officials before and during the insurrection.

"Obviously, he is not a figure of interest because of whatever he may have said publicly, and we were clear it has nothing to do with any of his public pronouncements," Raskin said. "It all has to do with his role as a fact witness and player in these events."

The texts show Hannity was extremely concerned about the violence playing out at the U.S. Capitol and tried to urge Trump to call off his supporters, and they also show that he had advance knowledge of what might unfold on that day.

"That's why we want to bring him in, in order to get a statement in his own voice, but those are the bread crumbs we received, that he was concerned about where things were going," Raskin said. "Obviously, the president and his team were escalating their attacks on Mike Pence, their attacks on the election and the propagation of the 'Big Lie' in the days in advance. so anybody on the inside who was privy to their conversations, obviously, would have known about where they were headed in terms of both the inside attack on Pence, the attempt to destroy Joe Biden's majority in the Electoral College vote, but also the eliciting of violence and insurrectionary movement in the streets."

[Rick Plant]

REVEALED: Louie Gohmert's violent rhetoric was flagged by Capitol police 3 days before insurrection



Three days before the Jan. 6 insurrection, Capitol police intelligence analysts warned of potential danger stemming from comments made by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).

The warning was part of a Special Event Assessment dated Jan. 3, 2021 — analyzing threats associated with Congress' impending vote on the certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6.

Politico's Betsy Woodruff Swan, who obtained a copy of the Special Event Assessment, reported Wednesday: "The Jan. 3 assessment noted that Gohmert had sued to try to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results. The assessment added that a federal judge had thrown out Gohmert’s suit."

Capitol police analysts wrote in the intelligence assessment: “In an interview Friday evening on pro-Trump news network Newsmax, Representative Gohmert claimed that letting the will of the voters stand would ‘mean the end of our republic, the end of the experiment in self-government. Representative Gohmert then seemed to encourage violence as a means to this end. ‘But bottom line is, the court is saying, ‘We’re not going to touch this. You have no remedy – basically, in effect, the ruling would be that you gotta go to the streets and be as violent as Antifa and BLM.’”

Later in the report, Capitol police intelligence analysts noted that the White House was actively helping to plan a rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6. And they warned that Trump supporters' "sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent."

At the time, Gohmert issued a statement claiming he had “not encouraged and unequivocally do not advocate for violence.”

A.J. Swinson, a spokesperson for Gohmert, alleged Wednesday that the intelligence assessment had taken the congressman's remarks out of context.

“Therefore, such an out of context statement promotes fake news, promotes injustice, and fails to note his ongoing advocacy as a former judge and appellate court Chief Justice," Swinson told Politico. "The institutions created to resolve disputes MUST have the courage to resolve the disputes they were created to resolve so our system can function peaceably.”

Appearing on MSNBC shortly after her story broke, Woodruff Swan said the intelligence assessment also raised concerns about white supremacists and people with weapons endangering lawmakers and law enforcement officers on Jan. 6.

"The problem with comments like this is that not every person hearing them is the most sophisticated news consumer," Woodruff Swan said of Gohmert. "When you have lawmakers making comments along the line of 'you've got to go out into the streets and be violent,' that's the kind of thing that worries people who are in the intelligence space, and it worried people in the Capitol police department just three days before this extraordinarily violent attack on the Capitol."

https://www.rawstory.com/louie-gohmert-2656239114/

[Rick Plant]

The right wing media is the cause for all the damage done in the United States today. For decades, they fueled the anger, racism, and hate that allowed the right wing base to become a deranged cult paving the way for Criminal Donald and these violent MAGA right wing extremists in Congress to have power. This same right wing media which is spreading outright COVID and vaccine lies to keep this pandemic going which is killing off their own supporters.

MAGA rioter's mother begs for leniency: His 'anger issues' were fueled by Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones



On Wednesday, CBS News' Scott MacFarlane, the key correspondent covering the January 6 trials, reported that the mother of Jack Kostolsky -- an Allentown, Pennsylvania man who pleaded guilty to unlawful picketing at the Capitol -- is begging the judge to show mercy — arguing that his mind was poisoned by far-right conspiracy theories.

"Somewhere along the way while in his 20's and living at his father's, Jackson became inspired by the far-right media," wrote his mother, noting that both she and his father are Democrats. "He was very influenced by Rush Limbaugh and, sadly, Alex Jones and his conspiracy theories. It seemed to fuel his anger issues. He believes everything Alex Jones has to say. Jack is what I believe to be a victim of the media."

Mother of Jan 6 defendant Jack Kostolsky of Allentown, PA writes judge seeking leniency at his sentencing Tuesday  (Unlawful picketing plea)

She writes, "He was very influenced by Rush Limbaugh and sadly Alex Jones & his conspiracy theories. It seemed to fuel his anger issues"



Jones, who has been deplatformed from most social media, is infamous for spreading violent antigovernment paranoia through his Infowars webcast, most notably the idea that the Sandy Hook mass shooting was staged with child actors — a claim that ultimately led to a devastating defamation suit.

A number of Capitol rioters have sought to defend their behavior by arguing that former President Donald Trump, or right-wing media personalities, convinced them to take action, although judges have broadly rejected these defenses.

https://www.rawstory.com/capitol-riot-sentences-2656229144/

[Rick Plant]

Mike Lindell becomes latest target of Jan. 6 probe — but he's fighting a subpoena for his phone records



MyPIllow CEO Mike Lindell says he's fighting a subpoena for his phone records from the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.

“I wasn’t there on January 6th and yes they did subpoena my phone records but we filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the January 6th committee and Verizon to completely invalidate this corrupt subpoena,” Lindell told CNBC on Wednesday.

Lindell say he filed the complaint in federal court in Minneapolis on Wednesday, on the eve for the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot.

"He said he received a notice from Verizon about the subpoena no more than 10 days ago and that he was informed the committee wanted his phone records from November through early January," CNBC reports. "Lindell is the latest Trump ally who is trying to use the legal system to block the release of his phone records. Former Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn, who was previously pardoned by the then-commander-in-chief after pleading guilty to federal charges, sued the committee after it subpoenaed his records. Former White House advisor Sebastian Gorka also filed a lawsuit in a similar effort."

Although Lindell denies any involvement in the Capitol insurrection, CNBC notes that multiple people have said the MyPillow CEO met with other Trump allies at the former president's DC hotel on Jan. 5, 2021.

Lindell also sponsored the Women for America First bus tour, which culminated in Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally on the Ellipse prior to the insurrection. And he has admitted to staying in touch with Trump's Stop the Steal attorneys, including Sidney Powell, after the election.

"Lindell was pictured leaving the White House days after the attack on the Capitol," CNBC reports. "The papers carried by Lindell partially read 'martial law if necessary.'”

https://www.rawstory.com/mike-lindell-2656237917/

[Rick Plant]

Fox News has a big Jan. 6 problem



Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the Capitol insurrection and attempted coup of the U.S. government by former president Donald Trump. There was a time not long ago when everything about that sentence would have made us laugh at the sheer absurdity of it. Nobody's laughing now.

Trump was apparently persuaded by his advisers to cancel his scheduled press conference for Jan. 6 after seeing that he would not get live coverage on all the networks to spread the Big Lie and excuse the violent mob that stormed the capitol a year ago vowing to hang Vice President Mike Pence. He promised to deliver that message to his loyal followers at a rally next weekend instead, drawing a huge sigh of relief from most Republican officials in Washington who just want to keep a low profile and put the unpleasantness behind them.

Unfortunately for them, however, it's not going away.

Trump will be talking about this for the rest of his life and the January 6th committee is revving up for several months of public hearings. Even some MAGA Republicans on Capitol Hill are determined to try to muddy the waters by dusting off their Benghazi playbook and holding their own "investigation" into why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was derelict in her duties by allowing hundreds of rabid Trump-voting fanatics to breach the Capitol that day.

On Tuesday, committee chairs, Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Liz Cheney R-Wy., released a letter they sent to Fox News host Sean Hannity in which they revealed that they had many text messages from him to high-level members of the White House staff in the run-up to January 6th. They ostensibly want Hannity to cooperate with the committee, but I doubt that there is any expectation that he will. This seemed more likely to be a notice to anyone who ever texted people in the White House during this period that the committee probably has them and intends to make them public. And it will almost certainly cause more dissension in Trumpworld. Meadows is already on thin ice. Now Hannity's backchannel "concerns", as Thompson and Cheney put it, about what Trump and his cronies were up to before and after January 6th leave him at odds with the president, who very likely had no idea that Hannity was pressing his staff to stop him from doing what he did.

Hannity's lawyer issued a statement saying they were examining the letter and had First Amendment concerns. However, his texts indicate that he was acting as an adviser to the president and comparing what he said privately to what he was saying on the air at the time, it's quite clear that he wasn't acting as any kind of journalist. It will be interesting to see if his bosses at Fox News have a problem with one of their stars brazenly lying to their audience. (Yeah, never mind. They won't.)

The committee homed in on just the period between December 31 and January 20th when Trump finally left office. They mention a text to Meadows in which Hannity said:

"We can't lose the entire WH counsels office. I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told. After the 6 th. He should announce will lead the nationwide effort to reform voting integrity. Go to Fl and watch Joe mess up daily. Stay engaged. When he speaks people will listen."

It's impossible to know for sure what he meant by "January 6th happening the way he is being told" but according to a number of accounts this was when Trump's henchmen were hatching their plot to have Republicans in Congress object to the electoral count and have Pence throw the election to the House of Representatives where Trump would win despite losing through legitimate means. In other words, the coup was being planned. And apparently, the White House counsel's office knew it was illegal and was threatening to quit en masse over it, or at least that's the suspicion based upon what Hannity was texting.

Hannity was obviously very much in the loop inside the upper echelons of the White House and knew all about the discussions to put the heat on Pence. On January 5th he wrote to Meadows "Pence pressure, WH counsel will leave." On the night before the insurrection he wrote, "I'm very worried about the next 48 hours" which prompted the committee to ask, "why?" — which is a very good question. Surely he couldn't have foreseen the violent insurrection. But was Hannity worried that the entire administration would resign? Massive protests? It would be very interesting to know, although I doubt we ever will.

The letter suggests there are other texts which indicate that Hannity spoke with Trump personally that night as well as others. I have a sneaking suspicion that he didn't express his "concerns" quite as openly with Trump. Nobody does that. No, this was Hannity wringing his hands with the chief of staff and others in the White House while he put on a happy face with Trump and his MAGA-crazed audience.

After Trump's egregious performance on that day, which will live in infamy, and in the days after, Hannity once more proved that he was anything but a member of the press when he texted Meadows and Trump sycophant Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, worried about what Trump might do before the inauguration:

"Guys, we have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days. He can't mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I'm not sure what is left to do or say, and I don't like not knowing if it's truly understood. Ideas?"

Trump responded to that on Thursday night, telling Kaitlin Collins of CNN, "I disagree with Sean on that statement and the facts are proving me right." Actually, they are not.

As I said, I don't think Hannity will cooperate and there's no doubt that there will be much shrieking and caterwauling about the freedom of the press and Hannity's sources being revealed. But Meadows is the one who turned over the texts and Hannity never reported any of this. In fact, this was what he was sharing with his audience which he was clutching his pearls behind the scenes:

Hannity privately on 1/5: "I'm very worried about the next 48 hours"

Hannity on Fox on 1/5: "Big day tomorrow, big crowds" and "this all kicks off in the morning tomorrow"

The Committee is seeking information from Sean Hannity.

Chair @BennieGThompson and Vice Chair @RepLizCheney request Hannity answer questions about matters including communications between Hannity and the former President, Mark Meadows, and others in the days surrounding Jan 6th.





Every day we hear new evidence about the attempted coup and insurrection of January 6th and there's every reason to believe that the next few months will offer even more. It is simply astonishing that this happened in America in 2021. But even more astonishing than that is the fact that after all that (and everything that came before) Donald Trump is still the most popular and influential Republican in the country and is overwhelmingly favored to win the nomination for president in 2024. The man plotted a coup and incited a violent insurrection and he didn't lose any voters. No wonder he just keeps spewing the Big Lie. It works. And I have no doubt that Sean Hannity will be at his side helping him do it.

IN OTHER NEWS: Watch what Sean Hannity was saying publicly while texting Trump allies in private.