1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

Former GOP staffer suggests Fox doesn't deserve White House press access if they'll ignore Jan 6 hearings



On MSNBC Tuesday, former Republican Party spokesman Kurt Bardella tore into Fox News for refusing to carry coverage of the upcoming January 6 hearings in Congress.

Fox has said that coverage of the hearings will be relegated to its business channel, leaving its primetime lineup on its main channel in regular programming.

"This is the most ... troubling and disturbing news story ever," said anchor Joy Reid. "To not cover it seems negligent, but there are studies that show that if even Fox viewers, as read in and in the bubble as they are, when they watch non-Fox coverage when they are made to sit down and watch other coverage, they do develop a broader view."

"Well, this is why, Joy," said Bardella. "I think it's time that we reach the point where we stop treating Fox like a news outlet at all, because it's clearly not. They are making the conscious decision to commit journalistic malpractice by ignoring the biggest story right now, the biggest story perhaps in our — in our entire country's history actually, when you look at where this is all going. This is a major pivotal inflection point in the fight to salvage democracy, and they are choosing not to cover it. That's not the action of a responsible news outlet. Not the action of a journalist or reporter. That's the action of a propaganda vehicle for a political party that's determined to play a substantial role in undermining democracy as we know it."

Bardella took it further, suggesting that Fox News doesn't deserve to have White House press passes.

"Why these people are allowed to have a White House press briefing access, why they are allowed to have a press credential to cover the U.S. Capitol, I have no idea," said Bardella. "I know this. If al-Qaeda created a media outlet, we wouldn't give them a hard pass to cover our government. Why in the world would we allow the people who are egging on, fomenting and defending insurrectionists to have that type of access? They shouldn't."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

Revealed: Nearly every Proud Boy indicted for seditious conspiracy is a military veteran

On Tuesday, Axios reported that nearly all of the Proud Boys indicted for seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, are military veterans.

"Four out of five members of the Proud Boys right-wing extremist group who were indicted on sedition charges previously served in the military," reported Herb Scribner. "The indicted members include an Army veteran with a Purple Heart, two marines and a sailor recruit." Military.com was first to report the connections.

"The charges against the Proud Boys allege the group's members were among hundreds of Trump supporters who gathered to riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6," the report continued. "The Proud Boys members 'directed, mobilized and led members of the crowd onto the Capitol grounds and into the Capitol,' the Department of Justice said in a statement. The group also worked to dismantle barricades, destroy property, breach the Capitol building and assault law enforcement officers, the DOJ said."

The Proud Boys are a self-described "Western Chauvinist" group with ties to white supremacists, notorious for their street brawling behavior.

Prior to the conspiracy indictment, several Proud Boys were already facing a number of other charges, including lead figure Enrique Tarrio.

This comes after another far-right extremist group, the paramilitary Oath Keepers, also saw seditious conspiracy charges for several of its leaders.

https://www.axios.com/2022/06/07/proud-boys-military-indicted-jan-6-capitol-riot

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 3 Oval Office meeting to be highlighted in Jan. 6 hearings -- and may feature ​Trump senior staffer



The upcoming select committee prime-time hearings could feature two senior staffers to Donald Trump who were participants in a key Oval Office on the Sunday before the attempted coup.

"The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is in active discussions with former White House counsel Pat Cipollone regarding a potential public appearance in one of their upcoming hearings, according to sources familiar with the matter," ABC News reported Tuesday. "Cipollone was one of the few aides who was with then-President Donald Trump in the West Wing on Jan. 6. ABC News previously reported that in the days following the attack on the Capitol, he advised Trump that Trump could potentially face civil liability in connection with his role encouraging supporters to march on the Capitol."

Former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin has also had an informal interview with the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"The committee hopes to secure Cipollone's public testimony on a panel with Rosen and his then-deputy Richard Donoghue, along with one of DOJ's former top attorneys, Steve Engel, sources said. Both Rosen and Donoghue have received formal invitations from the committee to appear," ABC News reported. "Both Cipollone and Philbin were part of a Jan. 3 Oval Office meeting where Trump insisted on replacing [acting Attorney General Jeffey Rosen with Trump loyalist Jeffrey Clark, who had vowed to use the Department of Justice to investigate the election."

At the meeting, Trump reportedly said, "One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren't going to do anything to overturn the election."

There was a lot that reportedly went on during the Sunday afternoon meeting.

"The officials in that meeting also debated a proposal by Clark to send a letter to state officials in Georgia urging officials in the state to investigate unfounded claims of fraud with an eye toward overturning President Joe Biden's victory in the state," ABC News reported. "According to Donoghue, Cipollone and Philbin made it clear to Trump that they would resign if Clark were installed, with Cipollone describing the Georgia letter as a 'murder-suicide pact' that would 'damage anyone and anything that it touches,' according to a Senate committee report released last year that detailed instances where Trump and his allies sought to use the DOJ to overturn the election."

Read the full report:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/top-trump-white-house-lawyer-active-talks-jan/story?id=85246792

[Rick Plant]

Legal expert: New evidence shows Capitol rioters 'carefully coordinating and organizing' the Jan. 6 attack

On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade discussed the implications of a newly released video showing Capitol rioters planning in an underground parking structure the day before the attack.

Specifically, she argued that the video reveals the extent of organization and scheming that went into the assault.

"I think this debunks the arguments we have been hearing this was ordinary tourists, or a crowd that got out of hand or overly enthusiastic in their plans that day," said McQuade. "At least some of these people were carefully coordinating and organizing, and I think that rings true in the Oath Keepers and now Proud Boys indictment for seditious conspiracy. The next level is whether or not there was someone organizing above them to provide funding and other things. That's what's important about these things, getting to the bottom of those organized efforts."

The topic then turned to former President Donald Trump's role in the attack.

"Barbara, does it matter the then-president told the group we just saw there, to stand by, if he lost the election?" said anchor Ari Melber.

"I think that there is certainly an argument to be made that that was a call to action," said McQuade. "I don't know that that alone is enough to implicate him criminally. I think he would say, I was just exercising my First Amendment rights, but I also think it's something that terrorism experts refer to as, which is I'm going say immigrant in the public domain and hope somebody picks up on it and acts on it. It's the same way ISIS radicalizers get people to take up arms in America against westerners who are not part of the ISIS ideal. It's the same principle. But tying him criminally on that alone is probably not enough. I think you'd want more evidence when was involved in a cleaner organization."

Watch below:

[Rick Plant]

Judge orders new batch of John Eastman emails turned over -- including evidence of another crime



A federal judge ordered a new batch of John Eastman's emails released that includes evidence of another potential crime.

U.S. District Court Judge David Carter ordered the conservative attorney to disclose 159 documents, including emails and papers related to meetings he held with a secretive group supporting Donald Trump, to the House select committee just days before its first public hearing on the Jan.6 insurrection, reported Politico.

“The Select Committee has a substantial interest in these three meetings because the presentations furthered a critical objective of the January 6 plan: to have contested states certify alternate slates of electors for President Trump,” Carter ruled. “Dr. Eastman’s actions in these few weeks indicate that his and President Trump’s pressure campaign to stop the electoral count did not end with Vice President Pence — it targeted every tier of federal and state elected officials. Convincing state legislatures to certify competing electors was essential to stop the count and ensure President Trump’s reelection.”

Five documents include the agenda for a Dec. 9, 2020, meeting where a member of Congress discussed a plan to challenge Joe Biden's electors in the House of Representatives, and Carter identified a single email from Dec. 22, 2020, from an unidentified attorney as evidence of a potential crime.

“Because the attorney concluded that a negative court ruling would ‘tank the January 6 strategy,’ he encouraged the legal team to avoid the courts,” Carter found.

“This email cemented the direction of the January 6 plan,” Carter added. “The Trump legal team chose not to seek recourse in court — instead, they forged ahead with a political campaign to disrupt the electoral count. Lawyers are free not to bring cases; they are not free to evade judicial review to overturn a democratic election. Accordingly, this portion of the email is subject to the crime-fraud exception and must be disclosed.”

Other documents include several communications directly from the former president, including a photo with a handwritten note from Trump about the size of his campaign rallies, and two were sent from Trump's executive assistant seeking advice for framing his public statements about sending alternate slates of electors to Congress.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/07/judge-eastman-emails-jan-6-committee-00037999

[Rick Plant]

Here are the most critical findings so far by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack



The first public hearings of the House Select Committee will air on Thursday in prime time and they'll not only ask witnesses to testify about their experiences, but they'll also review all of the evidence they've collected from text messages, documents and over 1,000 witnesses.

Thus far, the evidence gathered by the committee has shown that Trump had a lot of help in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election -- below we'll go through some of the most shocking evidence the committee has gathered so far.

1.) Trump's campaign encouraged "alternate" electors in a bid to deny Biden the White House.

One way Trump sough to cling to power was a scheme encouraged by his own campaign to create a series of phony "alternate" electors in key swing states who would back him instead of President Joe Biden.

Monday night it was revealed that emails revealed that a Trump campaign staffer told fraudulent Georgia electors to stay quiet in their efforts to stop the legitimate electors from being counted in the state. The email from the Trump staffer walked the supporters through the process, although it's unclear if this aide was acting on his own or simply following orders.

One little-known Trump aide appeared before the committee at least twice to reveal that the White House Counsel’s office made it clear to Meadows and Giuliani that fake electors would be illegal. The dates of the meeting are important because it makes it clear that Meadows and Giuliani knew it was illegal but the Trump campaign attempted to push the fake electors anyway.

2.) Testimony indicates Trump approved of violent threats issued against Vice President Mike Pence.

Another shocking allegation is the claim made by a former aide to Mark Meadows that Trump apparently expressed approval at his supporters who were calling for Mike Pence's hanging.

"Mr. Meadows, according to an account provided to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, then told the colleagues that Mr. Trump had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hanged," the New York Times reported last month, citing testimony from a Meadows aide.

3.) Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was a central play in the scheme to keep Trump in power.

Messages published by CBS News and the Washington Post revealed Ginni Thomas was far more involved with the attempt to overthrow the election than previously known. Since then, other White House staffers have come forward with tales of Mrs. Thomas trying to assert her authority over the staff in the West Wing and push QAnon conspiracy theories.

Thomas's involvement is particularly notable because her husband, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was the sole vote to oppose the release of text messages and documents from Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows.

4.) Fox News hosts were intimately involved in the Trump campaign's strategy and messaging during and after the campaign.

Fox News has decided against airing primetime January 6th hearings, even though Fox News host Sean Hannity in late 2020 was taking directions from White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on how to help the president stay in office.

At one point, Hannity tweeted to Meadows, "[North Carolina] gonna be ok?"

Meadows replied back, "Stress every vote matters. Get out and vote. On radio."

"Yes sir," replied Hannity. "On it."

Hannity wasn't the only one. Laura Ingraham, for instance, was found to have frantically texted Meadows on January 6th in an attempt to get him to convince Trump to call off the rioters.

“Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home,” Ingraham told Meadows. “This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”

“Please get him on tv. Destroying everything you have accomplished," her colleague, Brian Kilmeade wrote.

“Can he make a statement?” Hannity asked on Jan. 6. “Ask people to leave the Capitol.”

5.) Trump allies made a push to use the military to seize voting machines.

Another shocking finding was that Trump allies pushed the president to seize voting machines that they blamed for purportedly stealing the election. Both Michael Flynn and lawyer Sidney Powell met with Trump, according to Axios, asking that Trump appoint a special counsel to investigate the election.

Politico revealed that the two crafted an executive order for Trump to sign that would give the Defense secretary 60 days to craft an assessment. The DOD could then keep Trump in power until at least Feb. 2021.

More findings will be revealed in the coming days -- the first hearing begins June 9th at 8 p.m. EST on Thursday.

https://www.rawstory.com/january-6-shocking-findings/

[Rick Plant]

Inaugural January 6 hearing to track activities of Proud Boys during Capitol attack

The House select committee investigating the insurrection will examine several crucial stages in the lead up to the first breach of the Capitol



The House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack is scheduled to hold its inaugural hearing on Thursday and according to the running order obtained by the Guardian, the panel will track the activities of the far-right Proud Boys group before and during the insurrection.

At the start of the hearing, the panel’s chairman Bennie Thompson and vice-chair Liz Cheney will make a series of opening arguments before outlining a general roadmap of how each of the six Watergate-style hearings are expected to unfold.

For the second hour, Thompson and Cheney will hand control of the hearing to Tim Heaphy, the chief investigative counsel for the select committee, who will lead the questioning of two witnesses and walk through the key moments of the Capitol attack.

The select committee is expected to start the questioning with testimony from Nick Quested, a British documentary film-maker who was embedded with the far-right Proud Boys group in the days and weeks leading up to January 6 and caught their activities on camera.

Quested, appearing pursuant to a subpoena, is likely to deliver his own opening remarks and testify about how the Proud Boys planned their January 6 operation in detail in the weeks before the Capitol attack, narrating and analysing the footage that he recorded.

By examining several crucial stages in the lead up to the first breach of the Capitol by the pro-Trump mob – such as the march to the Capitol from the Ellipse and a short stop at the Statue of Peace at the foot of Capitol Hill – the panel will show how the attack came to pass.

The select committee is then expected to focus on the moment that Joseph Biggs, a member of the Proud Boys charged with seditious conspiracy on Monday, had a brief exchange with a man in the crowd near the statue just before the march morphed into the Capitol attack.

Biggs’ exchange with that man, Ryan Samsel, is widely seen as the tipping point that precipitated the riot. Samsel, who has been charged with attacking police, then walks up alone to the barricade and confronts US Capitol Police officers before pushing it over.

The select committee will illustrate Quested’s testimony about how that incident unfolded by playing footage leading up to that moment and a photo Quested took of the moment that Samsel is about to confront and then push past the officers.

Heaphy is expected at that point to have the second witness, US Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards, testify about her recollections of those key minutes during which she was assaulted by another man who had been speaking with the Proud Boy member.

The testimony by Edwards, who was the first officer injured in the attack, is expected to be harrowing. Edwards, the New York Times reported, was knocked backwards into concrete steps by the surging pro-Trump mob that overturned the bike rack-like barricade on to her.

Heaphy is expected to return to Quested to have him analyse other moments that he caught on camera as the Proud Boys led the charge up to the inaugural platform elected for Biden’s swearing-in weeks later, and then smashed a window in order to enter the Capitol.

But in a notable omission, the select committee is not expected to use Quested’s footage of Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, meeting with Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, at a secret rendezvous the night before.

The justice department has cited that meeting, which took place in an underground parking garage near the Capitol, in seditious conspiracy indictments against Tarrio, Rhodes, and other members of both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups.

Quested is considered the star witness in the select committee’s inaugural hearing, which will be covered live by most of the major US cable news networks, including MSNBC, CNN, CBS and ABC. Fox News will have its top-rated host Tucker Carlson deliver counter-programming.

The Emmy award-winning documentary film-maker spent much of the post 2020 election period filming Tarrio and the Proud Boys – with their permission – and has testified multiple times to the panel in closed-door depositions.

Quested had accompanied the Proud Boys to a number of pro-Trump rallies in Washington DC in November and December 2020, and was with the Proud Boys as some of its members stormed the Capitol. He also filmed Tarrio’s reaction to the riot later on January 6 in Baltimore, MD.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/08/inaugural-january-6-hearing-to-track-activities-of-proud-boys-during-capitol-attack

[Rick Plant]

What you might learn from the Jan. 6 hearings -- according to ​journalists ​who covered the Capitol riot



In an interview published this in The New Yorker, journalists Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz talked about their reporting on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and what to expect from the House Committee tasked with investigating it.

Bernstein was asked her writing that says “polls show that the proportion of Americans who believe that violent attacks against the government can be justified is rising," saying that one thing that has fueled violent conspiracism is the COVID-19 pandemic. One thing she sees as parallel between right-wing extremists and terror groups in the Middle East are individuals who have few resources to deal with social stressors being subject to radicalization. "...the pandemic made people lose their bearings and increasingly open to online misinformation and disinformation," Bernstein said.

Bernstein went to describe some misunderstandings Americans may have in regards to the Capitol riot.

"For example, there were quite a few Trump allies who conveyed some version, after the election, of, 'This is Trump just dealing with the drama of losing.' But we now know that Trump tried to block the peaceful transfer of power, including by trying to get the Justice Department to investigate 'fraud' and to stop the electoral-vote count; trying to change the vote count in Georgia; trying to influence state elected officials to reject the results; pondering having D.H.S. and/or the Department of Defense seize voting machines, etc. So that’s one misunderstanding: that this was anything less than an almost-coup," Bernstein said.

Another thing Americans may not realize, according to Bernstein, is that the threat of right-wing extremists carrying out attacks in the government didn't end with the Capitol riot. "As our reporting shows, January 6th was the beginning of a consolidation of extremist views," she said. "As John Cohen, the former acting chief of intelligence for the D.H.S., told us for our story, 'I am really f***ing concerned about where we are.'"

Marritz said that she's doubtful the Jan. 6 hearings will significantly move the opinions of Republicans.

"Everyone has pretty much settled on the story they believe about why this happened and what it means," Marritz said, adding that the committee's work "is the only holistic, official government report we’re likely to get about the riot."

"It’s different from the 9/11 Commission in lots of ways, but, similarly, the committee has the opportunity to set down a record through testimony and documents," Marritz said. "I will watch it closely as a journalist, and just as a citizen, because I want to understand the causes of this colossal failure."

Read the full interview over at The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/newsletter/the-daily/what-we-still-need-to-learn-about-january-6th