1/6 Insurrection Investigation

[Rick Plant]

Kyle Young of Iowa pleads guilty in US Capitol riot case. Young was among those accused of assault on DC officer Michael Fanone.  Feds add this about Young:  “While in the tunnel area beneath the archway, he held a strobe light toward the police line and pushed forward.”

Justice Dept says Fanone was “wearing uniform, marked helmet & tactical vest was assaulted while he was in the mob by rioters, including Young. Young held the officer’s left wrist & pulled the officer’s arm away from his body. The MPD officer was then swept further in the crowd”

Iowan Kyle Young pleads guilty to assaulting D.C. police officer during U.S. Capitol riot



An Iowa man faces up to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting a police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Kyle Young had faced more than a dozen federal charges in connection with the Capitol riot, many in connection with an assault on D.C. Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone. On Thursday, Young agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of assaulting, resisting or impeding an officer.

A resident of the western Dallas County town of Redfield, Young was one of the first Iowans to be charged for taking part in the Capitol riot. That number grew to eight this week with the arrest of Chad Heathcote of Adel, who was charged with disorderly conduct and entering a restricted building.

What did Kyle Young do at the Capitol?

Unlike other Iowans facing charges, it's not clear if Young ever actually entered the Capitol. According to previous court documents, Young went to the Capitol with his 16-year-old son and was involved in heavy fighting with police on the Capitol's lower west terrace. It was there that the rioters seized Fanone, part of a line of officers defending a tunnel leading into the building, and dragged him into the mob.

He later testified before Congress that “as I was swarmed by a violent mob, they ripped off my badge, they grabbed and stripped me of my radio, they seized a munition that was secured to my body. They began to beat me with their fists and what felt like hard metal objects."

The rioters repeatedly shocked him with his own stun gun, causing him to suffer a heart attack and "significant and painful injuries," said prosecutor Cara Gardner. Fanone later identified Young as one of his assailants and said he was "100% sure" that at one point, Young put his hand on his holstered service weapon, threatening to kill him with his own gun.

Robbery charges Young faced for attempting to take Fanone's gun will be dismissed under his deal with prosecutors.

When Judge Amy Berman Jackson inquired Thursday, Gardner said prosecutors do not intend to pursue the allegation further.

"We haven’t made that determination (that Young didn't try to take the gun), but we have agreed that will not be part of the conduct we argue at sentencing," Gardner said.

The charge Young pleaded guilty to covers other conduct: that he used a strobe light and stick to menace or distract officers defending the tunnel, that he threw a heavy speaker toward the police line, striking and injuring another rioter, and that he grabbed Fanone's arm held it away from his body while other rioters assaulted the officer.

During the hearing, Young told the judge he agreed with the state's account of what he had done.

Sentencing set for August; up to eight years possible

Under the law, the maximum sentence for the crime Young pleaded to is eight years. Federal sentencing guidelines are likely to suggest a prison term ranging up to 6 1/2 years, or up to the full eight years if Jackson rules that an enhancement is appropriate because Fanone was restrained at the time of the attack.

If the final guideline maximum is less than eight years, prosecutors have indicated they intend to request an upward enhancement under a law governing conduct "calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion."

Young is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 25 in Washington, D.C. He has been detained since his arrest in April 2021, and will receive credit for the time already served.

He is the second Iowan to plead guilty to taking part in the attack. Daryl Johnson of St. Ansgar, who travelled to the Capitol with his son Daniel of Austin, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to civil disorder in January, and is scheduled to be sentenced in June. The cases against the six other Iowans remain pending.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2022/05/05/kyle-young-iowa-pleads-guilty-jan-6-us-capitol-riot-assault-officer/9643695002/

[Rick Plant]

QAnon Shaman wants to withdraw guilty plea -- but faces 'extremely high' burden of proof to succeed



The Arizona man who proclaimed himself the “QAnon Shaman” while parading around inside the U.S. Capitol during the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection is attempting to get his plea deal thrown out.

Jacob Chansley, who instantly became one of the most recognizable figures in the riot because of his horned headdress and bare-chested display of body art, has hired two new attorneys and plans on petitioning the court to take the unusual step of letting him withdraw his plea of guilty to the felony count of obstruction of an official proceeding, according to WUSA9.

U.S. District June Royce Lamberth sentenced Chansley in November to 41 months in prison, at the time the longest sentence any defendant had received for participating in the riot.

"Less than two weeks after sentencing, though, attorneys John Pierce and William Shipley notified the court they would be replacing Watkins to pursue an appeal," according to the WUSA9 report. Pierce is a career civil attorney who briefly represented acquitted Kenosha, WI, shooter Kyle Rittenhouse. Shipley served for more than 20 years as a federal prosecutor. The two represent dozens of Jan. 6 defendants.

Shipley confirmed that they now intend to abandon the appeal and instead will try to convince Lamberth to allow Chansley's case to go back "square one."

“The remedy – IF successful – would be to vacate his conviction, and he would be back in the District Court as if he never pled guilty,” Shipley said.

Their argument is that Chansley received ineffective counsel from veteran Missouri attorney Albert Watkins leading up to the plea deal. But according to the non-profit Innocence Project the standard of proof for that gambit places an "extremely high burden" on defendants and almost never succeeds.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/national/capitol-riots/qanon-shaman-drops-direct-appeal-will-try-to-have-plea-agreement-thrown-out-jacob-chansley-albert-watkins-john-pierce-william-shipley-arizona-horns/65-9d079f86-54bf-463e-a153-2e0fbafedfa1

[Rick Plant]

In his request for release from pretrial detention, accused Proud Boys Jan 6 conspirator Enrique Tarrio uses the phrase "entry on the Capitol"... when referring to the US Capitol siege.

[Rick Plant]

Judge tells MAGA rioter who stormed Capitol dressed in caveman costume to leave his 'fantasy world'



Aaron Mostofsky, who rioted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, is pleading for leniency as he faces a sentence within the range of 10-16 months, POLITICO's Kyle Cheney reports.

Cheney reports that the federal judge presiding over the case believed that Mostofsky was remorseful and that his actions on Jan. 6 were out of character.

"Almost as if this were a play, a performance, dressed up as a caveman...as if this were some fantasy game.," the judge said. "I hope you'll leave some of this fantasy world behind."

Mostofsky -- who is the son of Steven Mostofsky, a state court judge in Brooklyn -- was ultimately sentenced to eight months in prison.

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1522609960701595649

[Rick Plant]

Jan 6th committee asks judge to quickly release 3,000 key John Eastman documents

According to a report from Politico, the Jan 6th select committee looking into the Capitol insurrection has asked a judge to expedite the release of 3,000 specific documents belonging to attorney John Eastman related to their investigation.

The committee, which has been battling with the attorney who wrote a memo on how to overturn the 2020 presidential election, has already received thousands of pages of documents but there are an estimated 20,000 still under review.

With public hearings planned in June, Politico reports that there are 3,000 documents in particular that investigators want access to as they narrow the evidence they want before going public with their findings.

According to Politico's Kyle Cheney, "The select committee will drop its efforts to obtain another 14,000 pages and indefinitely postpone its request for any others, House General Counsel Doug Letter said in a court filing late Friday," adding, "The panel’s decision to drop its objections to the vast majority of Eastman’s attorney-client privilege claims follows Eastman’s own decision to relent on more than 15,000 pages of records, which he provided to the select committee on Monday. Those documents helped inform the committee’s decision to narrow the fight."

As House General Counsel Doug Letter wrote, "The Select Committee’s need for the documents at issue has only become more significant in light of its review of the documents produced … and as the Select Committee prepares to present the conclusions of its investigation to the public through hearings, scheduled to begin in June 2022, and forthcoming reports."

Politico's Cheney wrote, "The battle over these 3,000 pages marks the culmination of one of the two most significant legal odysseys the committee has undertaken, " adding, "Now, the select committee is asking [U.S. District Court Judge David] Carter to review 2,945 of those pages for immediate release. If Eastman objects, the panel has laid out a rapid-fire schedule to resolve the dispute by the end of May, leaving time to review and analyze the documents before the panel launches its public hearings."

[B)You can read more here:[/b] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/07/jan-6-committee-narrows-legal-fight-against-eastman-as-hearings-approach-00030884

[Rick Plant]

Notorious rioter who chased Capitol cop Goodman has cooperated with Jan 6th committee

According to a report from Politico, one of the Capitol insurrectionists filmed leading a mob chasing Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman on Jan 6th has been cooperating with the House committee investigating the insurrection incited by former president Donald Trump.

Greg Rubenacker, who is facing 46 months in prison after being hit with ten counts including three felonies, has admitted working with investigators even without a plea deal.

According to the report, in a filing asking for leniency from Judge Beryl Howell, lawyers for Rubenacker revealed their client "spent 'several hours' interviewing with Jan. 6 select committee investigators, although he doesn’t indicate when."

Politico reports that the indicted man "says this is one of several ways he has taken responsibility and shown remorse for his conduct. His attorney is asking Howell to sentence him to a year of home confinement."

Footage of Goodman leading the mob up the stairs and away from lawmakers fleeing for their lives made him a national hero, with the video also providing investigators with suspects to target.

Politico reports prosecutors believe, "Rubenacker deserves much harsher punishment, noting that he exhibited aggressive and violent behavior toward Goodman and other officers. He joined a line of rioters pushing against police as they attempted to clear the rotunda, and he ultimately swung a water bottle that hit an officer in the helmet, according to photos and videos of the attack," adding, "Rubenacker was also among a group of defendants who smoked marijuana inside the Capitol during the breach, and he posted a video of himself smiling and saying, 'Smoke out the Capitol, baby!'"

Making their case, prosecutors told the court, "When officers formed a line to force rioters out, Rubenacker escalated in response: he swung a water bottle at one officer’s head and threw liquid at other officers who were engaging with a rioter. Only after an officer sprayed chemical-irritant spray in Rubenacker’s face did he finally leave the Capitol, over one hour after he initially breached the building.”

You can read more here: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/07/jan-6-capitol-defendant-chased-officer-goodman-cooperate-committee-00030875

[Rick Plant]

Jan. 6 panel sidesteps Trump allies to get crucial testimony on insurrection: 'We know so much more'

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riots has gotten around stonewalling by Donald Trump's inner circle by turning to their aides and deputies.

Some of the panel's most significant findings have come from staffers who were present or briefed on top-level meetings, including Mark Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson and Jeffery Clark adviser Ken Klukowski, who have helped congressional investigators understand how the former president tried to overturn his election loss, reported Politico.

“We are definitely taking advantage of the fact that most senior-level people in Washington depend on a lot of young associates and subordinates to get anything done,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a member of the select committee. “A lot of these people still have their ethics intact and don’t want to squander the rest of their careers for other people’s mistakes and corruption.”

Hutchinson, in particular, has given the panel hundreds of pages of testimony that has given the panel deep insight into phone calls Meadows arranged and identified numerous Republican lawmakers who participated in those meetings, and she told investigators that the White House counsel's office pushed back on conspiracy theories promoted by members of Congress and Trump allies.

“Almost all, if not all, meetings Mr. Trump had, I had insight on,” Hutchinson told the panel.

Hutchinson has given the committee details about Meadows' activities on Jan. 6, and another aide, Ben Williamson, told investigators when the White House became aware of the violence taking place at the U.S. Capitol, and that cooperation has allowed the panel to whittle down the questions it wants the former White House chief of staff to answer.

“We know so much more than we did then,” said Doug Letter, the House's top lawyer, during a hearing on Meadows' lawsuit to block the committee's subpoena.

Read more here: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/09/jan-6-panel-donald-trump-allies-00030781

[Rick Plant]

Oath Keepers giving vital evidence to Jan. 6 committee -- and are even handing over their phones

Leaders of the far-right extremist Oath Keepers group have been handing over phones and digital files and doing interviews with the FBI, detailing how they worked to help former President Donald Trump in his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

CNN reports that Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer working with the Oath Keepers, has met several times with the FBI and turned over multiple phones.

"I've done interviews. I've done everything. I'm helping them," SoRelle told the network about her cooperation with investigators.

She does not represent any Oath Keepers in their criminal proceedings.

"Investigators also have learned about encrypted messages on the app Signal leading up to January 6, in which the Oath Keepers were messaging high-profile, right-wing political organizers, according to four people familiar with its existence," according to CNN.

She declined to say more about what she's shared with investigators, but court filings have revealed there was a virtual meeting a week after the 2020 election when Oath Keepers talk about heading to Washington, DC. SoRelle briefed the group about the Trump campaign's legal fight.

In court last week, prosecutors also disclosed that the Oath Keepers' leader, Stewart Rhodes, and other militia members gathered at a D.C. hotel and placed a call over speakerphone to an unidentified individual, where he "repeatedly implore[d] the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power."

When the person on the other end refused to connect him to Trump, Rhodes said, "I just want to fight."

Lee Bright, a defense lawyer for Rhodes, said this about speculation regarding the direction of the Justice Department's investigation: "I think it's self-evident that they are continuing to work their way up the food chain to get to who their grand prize is."

Read more here: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/09/politics/oath-keepers-january-6-election-fraud-trump/index.html