1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

'Cover-up as well as a crime': Legal experts respond to bombshell top Trump officials' phones were wiped after J6



Legal experts are quickly weighing in on the bombshell news that the cell phones of top Trump administration officials at the Pentagon were wiped after the January 6 insurrection.

“The Defense Department wiped the phones of top departing DOD and Army officials at the end of the Trump administration, deleting any texts from key witnesses to events surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to court filings,” states CNN, which was first to report the latest development in destruction of possible January 6 insurrection evidence.

The discovery of the wipe, and that records from the time surrounding the insurrection were lost, was made after the watchdog group American Oversight filed a Freedom of Information request against the Defense Dept. and the U.S. Army. By law all those records were required to be preserved.

The phones of former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller (photo), former chief of staff Kash Patel, and former Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy appear to have been wiped. CNN notes the individuals themselves do not appear to have executed the action.

The news that vital information and federal government records were not retained after one of the biggest criminal conspiracies in the nation’s history comes on the heels of the news that “many” text messages from U.S. Secret Service agents and officials from around the time of the insurrection were also destroyed after January 6.

“Cover-up as well as crime,” wrote Georgetown Law School professor of law Heidi Li Feldman in response to the CNN report.

“Intentional destruction of government records, including text messages, is a crime,” noted former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter, who served during the George W. Bush administration. “Destruction of government records in the midst of a law enforcement investigation is obstruction of justice.Somebody should be going to the slammer for this.”

Joyce Vance, a former U.S. Attorney, now a law professor and legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, pointed to the timing of certain events.

“DOD wiped the phones of top departing officials as the Trump administration ended, deleting texts from key witnesses to 1-6, per court filings. Trump replaced the Secy of Defense & 3 top officials at DOD with loyalists AFTER he lost the election.”

“OK, Secret Service phones were wiped. So were those of Homeland Security. Now reportedly the same with the Pentagon. Anyone want to explain what was going on here?”

Jeff Sharlet, author of “The Family,” an investigation into power brokers of the far Christian right, asked: “Is it possible that all these J6 texts were deleted by coincidence. Sure, anything’s possible. Doesn’t matter: at this point any good faith observer has to err on the side of caution and proceed as if there’s a coverup.”

“So yes, there is a pretty massive coverup going on,” declared Abdallah Fayyad, a Boston Globe opinion writer.

“I’ve seen enough,” wrote YES! Magazine senior editor Chris Winters. “This is all part of the attempted cover-up of Trump’s attempted coup. There’s no “accidental” purge of texts. Subpoena, indict, convict.”

Talking Points Memo founder and Editor Josh Marshall served up a sarcastic observation: “Guess what!?!? Trump DOD officials somehow also got in on the secret service phone reboot.”Several noted journalists are also strongly suggesting this is evidence of a coverup.

“I’m picking up subtle hints that there may have been a wide-ranging coverup,” Brian Beutler, editor-in-chief of Crooked Media noted, apparently sarcastically.NBC News presidential historian Michael Beschloss sums up the events: "OK, Secret Service phones were wiped.  So were those of Homeland Security.  Now reportedly the same with the Pentagon. Anyone want to explain what was going on here?"

Read More Here: https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/02/politics/defense-department-missing-january-6-texts/index.html

[Rick Plant]

'Not a mere accident': Justice Department must investigate wiped Trump texts, former prosecutor says

On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti weighed in on the new information that Pentagon phones containing potential January 6 evidence were wiped — which comes amid new investigations into similar deletions of data by the Secret Service.

The data deletions, Mariotti told anchor Ari Melber, are beginning to look like something intentional. The Justice Department should step in and investigate, he said.

"Talking about the missing text issue, I really think there is increasing concern that this was not just an accident, there was malfeasance here," Mariotti said. "First of all, we just heard reports today, Ari, that there was — there were missing texts from the Pentagon, so this wasn't just potentially deleted texts or inadvertent — by the Department of Homeland Security or another agency with missing texts from key Trump officials missing from January 6th."

"I think the time has come for the Justice Department to have its own investigation into this matter," Mariotti added. "This is, I think, a great subject for a potential criminal referral from Congress, even before the January 6th Committee investigation is over."

"And the watchdogs?" asked Melber, referring to doubts from members of Congress about the impartiality of the Homeland Security inspector general, who was appointed by former president Donald Trump.

"I think that, you know, that is something that really the Justice Department should take a look at," said Mariotti. "There's that old saying, who watches the watchers?"

"I think the question here is, look, we don't want to necessarily have a situation and set a precedent that Congress is going to force out every [investigator] they disagree with," he continued. "But there's a concern here because those texts were something that the OIG was aware of and take steps to follow that, and now there's an open criminal investigation of those missing texts. You have to wonder exactly what's going on there."

Watch:

[Joe Elliott]

A promise Joe Biden should break

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/02/fire-dhs-inspector-general-cuffari/

When he was a presidential candidate, Joe Biden pledged — after President Donald Trump fired four government watchdogs in six weeks — that he wouldn’t remove any inspectors general if he were elected to replace Trump. President Biden needs to break that promise. Leaving bad watchdogs in place can be as detrimental as retaliating against them for conducting oversight.

Joseph Cuffari, inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, has an extensive and documented pattern of failing to credibly oversee the department. The most recent example: Cuffari’s top aides actually shut down his own investigative team’s efforts to recover texts from around the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol from department phones back in February.

This comes on top of revelations that Cuffari failed to tell Congress for months that such text messages from Secret Service and former DHS leaders Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli are missing.

Cuffari’s failure to disclose this information in a timely way has set back efforts to fully understand how and why the riot on Jan. 6 happened — including DHS’s failure to issue specific intelligence warnings that the Capitol would be attacked.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), who chair the House committees on oversight and homeland security, respectively, have called for Cuffari to step aside from this investigation because of his poor handling of it.

And Cuffari’s failures extend far beyond the Secret Service text messages. The Department of Homeland Security needs a credible watchdog — and as long as Cuffari stays in his job, it will not have one.

The list of Cuffari’s failures to aggressively oversee his department is long and serious. He quashed reviews proposed by his own staff into the Secret Service’s involvement in the controversial use of force in Lafayette Square in June 2020, and into the Secret Service’s compliance with covid protocols. Both proposed reviews might have shed negative light on then-President Trump, who appointed Cuffari to his role.

For more than a year, Cuffari failed to inform agency leadership about rampant reported sexual misconduct within DHS. His team worked to scrub data that put the department’s disciplinary decisions in a poor light from a draft report that remains unreleased. The draft report found that more than 10,000 employees said they experienced sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, roughly 1 in 3 who responded to a survey.

In another report, Cuffari directed the removal of findings showing that 30 DHS law enforcement agents carry government-issued guns even though DHS has confirmed they violently abused their domestic partners. His reason: He didn’t want to engage in “second-guessing DHS disciplinary decisions without full facts,” according to an email he wrote.

Cuffari has balked at taking necessary actions that an independent watchdog would take. He questioned why his staff would need to interview the then-acting DHS secretary (who had been head of Customs and Border Protection) in a review examining what agency leaders knew about a controversial Facebook group filled with racist and sexist messages by current and former Border Patrol employees. Similarly, Cuffari’s top aides restricted how long rank-and-file watchdog staff could interview Wolf and Cuccinelli in a whistleblower retaliation investigation.

Removing an inspector general is a serious decision. The success of an inspector general’s office is dependent on the office’s independence and its ability to investigate and expose abuse without fear of retribution. But there must be consequences when an inspector general fails to conduct rigorous oversight and report severe problems.

The White House should not tolerate watchdogs who fail to hold their agencies accountable for egregious misconduct, and whose evasiveness and failure to take responsibility serve as a promise they will continue to do so. By failing to remove Cuffari for his significant failings as inspector general, the president is allowing a vital federal department, one with the profound power to affect civil liberties, to go without a credible watchdog.

Biden has more than enough evidence to remove Cuffari, and he is the only person with the power to do so.

My own hope? Cuffari is convicted of Obstruction of Justice. And others as well.

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 6 committee preparing subpoenas for Alex Jones emails and text messages accidentally leaked to Sandy Hook lawyer

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol hopes to obtain text messages and emails from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, according to Rolling Stone.

Mark Bankston, the lawyer for the Sandy Hook parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, revealed in court Wednesday morning that Alex Jones' lawyer accidentally sent text message and emails to him

These were texts and emails that were supposed to be part of the discovery process in the early stages of the case, but Jones maintained that he'd turned over everything.

Within hours, the January 6 committee was at work on a subpoena to obtain the information, Rolling Stone reported.

Citing a "source familiar with the matter," the magazine said that the House committee is at work to request the data from the plaintiff's attorneys to aid in the ongoing investigation. Jones has appeared at times in videos shown by the committee over the course of the past several months.

The information was given to Bankston because Jones' lawyer "did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or protected in any way and as of two days ago it fell free and clear into my possession," he said in court. “That is how I know you lied to me.”

AFP

[Rick Plant]

Revelation at Alex Jones’ trial may have big implications for DOJ J6 investigation  — here's how



Eight years to the day after the fatal Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, 2020 presidential electors gathered in state capitols across America and confirmed Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in the electoral college 306 to 232. Now a right-wing conspiracy theory that the mass shooting is a hoax may have a major impact on the investigation into the unsuccessful attempt to overturn the election.

Following the massacre, far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones falsely claimed that the gun massacre was and the devastated victims seen on TV were actors.

He was successfully sued by Sandy Hook families and is currently on trial in Texas before a jury determines the monetary amount the victims will be awarded. On Wednesday, the case took a bizarre turn.

"The legal team representing Infowars founder Alex Jones inadvertently sent the contents of his cellphone to a lawyer representing the parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting, the parents’ lawyer said in court Wednesday," The Washington Post reported. "The apparent blunder, revealed by attorney Mark Bankston as Jones was on the stand in the damages phase of his defamation trial, unearthed previously undisclosed texts about the massacre and financial information about Infowars. Bankston, who represents Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis, told the far-right conspiracy theorist that his attorneys had 'messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of your entire cellphone.'"

Jones was not just involved in pushing the Sandy Hook conspiracy theories, but was also a prominent supporter of Trump's "big lie" of election fraud.

In November, the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol subpoenaed Jones.

"Alex Jones reportedly helped organize the rally at the Ellipse on January 6th that immediately preceded the attack on the Capitol, including by facilitating a donation to provide what he described as 'eighty percent' of the funding," the select committee said.

"Mr. Jones spoke at the January 5th rally on Freedom Plaza that was sponsored by the Eighty Percent Coalition. Mr. Jones has stated that he was told by the White House that he was to lead a march from the January 6th Ellipse rally to the Capitol, where President Trump would meet the group and speak," the select committee said. "Mr. Jones has repeatedly promoted unsupported allegations of election fraud, including encouraging individuals to attend the Ellipse rally on January 6th and implying he had knowledge about the plans of the former President with respect to the rally."

While the select committee has failed to obtain Jan. 6 text messages that were deleted by the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security and Pentagon, every text message has both a sender and recipient and the select committee is already preparing subpoenas for the contents of Jones' phone.

Former Mike Pence advisor Olivia Troye said, "The Alex Jones text messages are apparently the ONLY set of texts that weren't somehow deleted..."

Read More Here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/03/alex-jones-sandy-hook-phone/

[Rick Plant]

Trump-installed DHS Inspector General was already on probation for 'unethical conduct': report

Joseph Cuffari the Dept. of Homeland Security Inspector General who neglected to timely inform Congress of losses of data on cell phones of Secret Service agents and DHS officials during the lead up to and the day of the 2021 insurrection was the subject of a report that found he violated ethics guidelines.

Cuffari "previously was accused of misleading Justice Department investigators and running 'afoul' of ethics regulations while he was a federal agent in charge of a DOJ inspector general field office in Tucson, according to a newly disclosed government report," The Washington Post reports Wednesday evening.

In that report "investigators said they did 'not believe' Joseph V. Cuffari’s explanation for why he failed to inform his supervisors — against federal rules — about his testimony in a lawsuit brought by a federal prisoner."

The authors of the report said, “We concluded Cuffari’s actions violated the IG manual’s prohibition on unethical conduct,” the Post states. Though never publicly released, the report "also noted that he may have violated guidelines by using his government email to lobby for a position as inspector general for the Arizona National Guard, among other issues."

There are now questions about Cuffari's vetting after being nominated by then-President Donald Trump to "one of the most important oversight jobs in government, experts said, and about his suitability to lead a staff of 750 auditors and investigators with oversight of an agency with a workforce of 240,000 and a $50 billion budget."

In addition to the wiped Secret Service cell phones, many are alarmed by news top Trump Dept. of Homeland Security officials and Pentagon officials' phones were also wiped after January 6.

The former Director of the United States Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, on Wednesday afternoon called for Cuffari to be terminated.

"President Biden, fire this corrupt DHS inspector general. Cuffari must go!" tweeted Shaub, now a Senior Ethics Fellow at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO).

On Monday, Politico reported Cuffari sent an email to his staff calling the criticism "meritless."

"Cuffari didn’t specify which criticisms were, in his view, without merit," Politico added. "But two hours after he sent his note, a pair of House committee chairs blasted out a letter saying they’d obtained evidence showing Cuffari’s office 'may have secretly abandoned efforts to collect text messages from the Secret Service more than a year ago.'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/03/homeland-security-joseph-cuffari-watchdog-report/

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 6 Committee Poised to Receive InfoWars’ Alex Jones Cell Records After Lawyer Flub

The bombshell admission that Jones’ lawyer accidentally released a trove of texts, photos and other records could produce a windfall for the Jan. 6 committee.



The House Jan. 6 committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol requested access to two years’ worth of digital records from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ cellphone on Thursday, according to an attorney representing parents who sued Jones over claims he made about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The attorney, Mark Bankston, said the committee requested the information after he revealed in court on Wednesday that Jones’ lawyer had mistakenly emailed him the last two years’ worth of texts from Jones’ phone, which include, among other things, “intimate messages with Roger Stone,” Trump’s former political adviser.

"I am under request from various federal agencies and law enforcement to provide that phone,” Bankston told Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble. “Absent a ruling from you saying, 'You cannot do that, Mr. Bankston,' I intend to do so."

The judge said the House committee could subpoena the contents of Jones' phone, denied a motion from Jones’ attorney for a mistrial and said she wouldn't seal the entire phone.

"They know about them,” Gamble said. “They know they exist. They know you have them. I think they're going there either way."

Jones, who owns the far-right website Infowars, is facing a jury in Austin in the first of three defamation trials to determine how much money he should pay the families of children killed in the 2012 school shooting after claiming for years on his show that it was a hoax created by gun control advocates and that the grieving families of the 20 children and six adults killed were actors.

The bombshell admission that Jones’ attorney accidently sent Bankston a trove of likely never-before publicly examined texts, photos and other records could produce a windfall for the Jan. 6 committee, which is in the process of holding a series of public hearings aimed at investigating former President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.

The select committee, which has already assembled a mass of damning evidence and testimony, held its eighth hearing last month focusing on the messages and videos of right-wing activists, including Jones, who advertised Jan. 6 on Infowars as a day that would be “one of the most historic events in American history."

The committee subpoenaed Jones in November 2021, requesting documents and records related to his involvement with organizing and promoting the rally at the Ellipse and the march to the Capitol, as well as his role as a megaphone for the former president’s claims of election fraud.

Jones later said on his show that he exercised his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent “almost 100 times” when the committee deposed him in January.

Access to two years’ worth of cellphone records could change all that. The Jan. 6 committee has yet to schedule its next hearing as the House is in recess for the month of August.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-08-04/jan-6-committee-poised-to-receive-infowars-alex-jones-cell-records-after-lawyer-flub

[Rick Plant]

Trial set for Sept 28 in Capitol breach case of Russell Alford

And as you'll see ... the defense wants prosecutors and witnesses to be "precluded" from using some "terminology" at trial.