Do These Seditious Conspiracy Convictions Prove the Capitol Riot 'Was Not Spontaneous'?
A jury convicted members of the Proud Boys without evidence of an explicit plot, let alone one that most of the rioters were trying to execute.
A federal jury yesterday convicted four Proud Boys of participating in a seditious conspiracy aimed at keeping Donald Trump in office after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. Those verdicts, former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut argues in an MSNBC opinion piece, show that the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol was "an organized, violent uprising meant to overturn the 2020 election." According to Aftergut, "It's now established beyond a reasonable doubt that the Capitol siege was not spontaneous, but rather a planned assault by force on our democracy."
There are a couple of problems with that characterization. First, the prosecutors in this case, who relied heavily on questionable inferences, never showed that the defendants explicitly planned to disrupt congressional certification of Biden's victory. Second, it seems clear that most of the Trump supporters who participated in the riot did act spontaneously, a point that Aftergut glides over.
Seditious conspiracy is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. As relevant here, it occurs when two or more people conspire to "oppose by force" the authority of the U.S. government or "by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States."
The Proud Boys have a long history of street violence, and they were outraged by Trump's defeat. Members of the group played a conspicuous role in confrontations with police and in breaching the Capitol on the day of the riot. But that does not necessarily mean those acts of violence and vandalism resulted from a seditious plot.
Federal investigators obtained a "vast amount of evidence," including "more than 500,000 encrypted text messages," The New York Times notes. But they "never found a smoking gun that conclusively showed the Proud Boys plotted to help President Donald J. Trump remain in office."
The star prosecution witness was Jeremy Bertino, a former Proud Boy who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy. The Times notes that he "repeatedly told investigators that the Proud Boys never had an explicit plan to stop the election certification and that he himself never fully expected violence to erupt on Jan. 6."
During the trial, Bertino partly repudiated those statements, saying he was trying to "protect myself and protect everyone else from getting in any trouble." He nevertheless reiterated that he had no knowledge of a plan to disrupt the electoral vote count. Rather, he inferred from "cumulative conversations" with other Proud Boys that the group would use violence toward that end.
"It was common knowledge that if everything else failed, there was no other option than to go into a civil war, a revolution," Bertino said. "This was a common topic of conversation in all of the chats I was in." According to his testimony, the Times says, "There were no explicit orders to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6," but "members of the group felt there was an implicit agreement to band together that day and to take the lead in stopping Mr. Biden from entering the White House."
Prosecutors sought to bolster their case by presenting videos of violent behavior during the riot by Proud Boys who were only tenuously connected to the defendants. The defense strenuously objected to that evidence, saying the government's argument amounted to "guilt by association." The Times describes it as "a novel legal strategy" that portrayed the Proud Boys in the videos and other rioters unaffiliated with the group as "tools" of the defendants' implicit conspiracy.
In the end, the jury accepted that argument, convicting former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who did not participate in the riot or attend the rally that preceded it, of seditious conspiracy. They also found Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl guilty of seditious conspiracy while acquitting Dominic Pezzola of that charge.
All five defendants were found guilty of conspiring to interfere with congressional duties, a felony punishable by up to six years in prison. All but Pezzola were convicted of conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
In addition to the conspiracy counts, all five defendants were found guilty of actually obstructing an official proceeding, which is subject to the same penalties as conspiring to do so, plus civil disorder charges and destruction of government property. Pezzola was convicted of assaulting, resisting, or impeding police officers and robbery of government property.
The overlapping conspiracy verdicts, which by themselves entail maximum penalties totaling 46 years, present a bit of a puzzle. If Pezzola conspired to interfere with Congress as it ratified Biden's victory, didn't he also conspire to disrupt an official proceeding? And if he participated in a plot to stop legislators from executing their duties under the Electoral Count Act, that seems pretty close to the seditious conspiracy charge, which alleged a plan to "prevent, hinder, or delay" the execution of that law.
Similarly, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes was convicted last November of seditious conspiracy, but he was simultaneously acquitted of conspiring to disrupt an official proceeding and conspiring to interfere with legislators' duties. The seditious conspiracy in which Rhodes participated evidently did not involve the Capitol riot itself, although one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
Leaving aside the "novel legal strategy" that prosecutors used in the Proud Boys case, seditious conspiracy charges are inherently amorphous. On its face, the statute could apply to any protest that includes violence if the government alleges that the organizers intended that result and aimed to interfere with "the execution of any law of the United States." That leaves prosecutors with broad discretion that invites politically motivated charges.
In prosecuting members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, the Justice Department had a strong incentive to charge seditious conspiracy as a way of demonstrating its seriousness and affixing specific blame for the riot. Attorney General Merrick Garland yesterday emphasized the importance of that particular charge.
"The evidence presented at trial detailed the extent of the violence at the Capitol on January 6th and the central role these defendants played in setting into motion the unlawful events of that day," Garland said in a press release. "We have now secured the convictions of leaders of both the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers for seditious conspiracy—specifically conspiring to oppose by force the lawful transfer of presidential power. The Justice Department will never stop working to defend the democracy to which all Americans are entitled."
Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. likewise declared that "today's verdict demonstrates the Department's commitment to protecting our institutions of government and holding those who seek to attack them accountable." Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen joined Garland in stressing the importance of debunking the idea that the Capitol riot was unplanned. "This trial pulled back the curtain on a premeditated violent attempt to prevent the peaceful transition of power in America," he said. "The seriousness of today's convictions bring[s] accountability to defendants who attacked our democracy on January 6."
The Justice Department's take, of course, fits the narrative favored by Democrats who reflexively describe the Capitol riot as an "insurrection." But that term implies a level of planning and organization that does not fit the chaotic reality of what happened that day.
This brings us back to Aftergut, who thinks the seditious conspiracy convictions conclusively prove that the riot "was not spontaneous." But even if you think the Proud Boys deliberately acted as agitators as part of an "implicit" plan to violently subvert democracy, most of the people who entered the Capitol grounds and the building itself that day seemed to be acting in the heat of the moment, driven by Trump's stolen election fantasy.
Aftergut implicitly admits as much. "The Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and allied groups were the catalysts for the violence," he says. "The Proud Boys and other groups provoked other, already angry attendees to become the Jan. 6 mob."
But for the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and "other groups," Aftergut seems to be arguing, there would have been no "Jan. 6 mob." That counterfactual supposition seems highly doubtful, especially since Aftergut concedes that the protesters were "already angry." But even in this telling, those angry Trump supporters by and large acted emotionally and impulsively.
Aftergut also exaggerates the extent of the violence, inviting us to assume that the rioters shown in the prosecution's videos were typical of the crowd. "Federal prosecutors have now convicted nearly 500 defendants ['more than 600,' per the DOJ press release] for their roles in the Capitol violence," he says. Yet the Capitol riot defendants generally have not been charged with violent crimes.
Of the 1,000 or so defendants who had been charged as of early March, the Times reported, 326 had been charged with "assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees." That group included 106 people who had been "charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer."
In other words, roughly two-thirds of the protesters who had been arrested were charged with nonviolent misdemeanors such as "entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds," "disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds," "disorderly conduct in a Capitol building," and "parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building." And since the FBI prioritized the most serious and readily provable cases, the nonviolent portion of the entire group probably was larger.
I am not saying those protesters did not break the law or that their crimes do not merit prosecution. But it is highly misleading to suggest that all, or even most, of the January 6 defendants participated in "the Capitol violence," let alone that they did so with the deliberation and intent that the word insurrection suggests.
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DC citizens should be proud of joining Salem circa 1692 in the annals of rock-solid jurisprudence.
I’m actually a bit shocked sullum sees the issue with this conviction. Wonder how Mike and Sarc will react to it.
Stupidly and dishonest.y no doubt. And in Sarc’s case, also drunkenly (it is the first Friday after the beginning of the month. He’s got to blow that welfare check on booze.)
GOOD
Man. Even bots are tired of sarc.
They’re evolving!
Charges of sedition used against those exercising their right to free speech against a corrupt government. They won’t be the last.
This has been coming for years. For all recorded history the elite have manufactured and maintained the human culture of censorship and propaganda to solidify their entitlements of wealth and power.
The internet and social media happened too fast for their decentralized selfish interests to coordinate a response and maintain the illusion of free speech. It is the equivalent of their pandemic.
You will be masked UNLESS we force our government to recognize that the internet aka social media is a public place, our town square, where our freedom of speech is GUARANTEED constitutionally.
The is the ONLY solution at this point.
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Exercising their freedom speech doesn’t include smashing windows, beating cops with their own shields, and trying to stop democracy from occurring,
You keep believing they’re the victims. They aren’t, they’re the bad guys.
Less than 25% of those facing charges committed an act of violence or vandalism you statist shit.
Unlike your BLM riots with judges giving no jail time for crimes up to arson.
Who cares if “only 25%” of them were–as you unwittingly now admit–violent criminals?
What kind of defence is that?
I see shrike has no ability for logic. Being a statist and all.
It has always been a discussion against those who committed violent acts and those who didn’t shrike.
But in your defense of one party government you applaud political prosecution.
“Who cares if “only 25%” of them were–as you unwittingly now admit–violent criminals?…”
Pick them cherries, steaming pile of lefty shit! Tell us how many have been charged with any violent acta at all, or STFU.
Thank god you figured out how to drag BLM into the conversation. I was beginning to doubt the power of What-Aboutism.
“Thank god you figured out how to drag BLM into the conversation. I was beginning to doubt the power of What-Aboutism.”
Well, thank goodness a steaming pile of shit like you would drag a strawman into the discussion.
Make your family proud and your dog happy: Fuck off and die, Further, make me happy: Mark your grave so I know where to piss.
“freedom speech doesn’t include smashing windows, beating cops with their own shields”
Hi Shrike, you fucking Nazi propagandist.
Does your fascist ass want to tell us how many people charged in relation to J6 were also charged with vandalism and assaulting an officer?
The answer might wreck the narrative you’re peddling so I’m guessing that you won’t.
“and trying to stop democracy from occurring”
I bet $100 that you had a hard-on when rioters attacked the Senators during the Supreme Court confirmation, or the attack on the White House in August 2020, and I’ll bet another $100 you squirted buckets when your pals attacked the Capitol and set DC and five other cities alight during Trump’s inauguration.
But I’ll bet a $1000 that your hypocritical, mendacious ass doesn’t consider those occasions “trying to stop democracy from occurring”.
You’re such a fucking Nazi.
Of the just over 1000 charged regarding Jan6th.
339 Charged with “assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees”
10 charged with assaulting media – not sure how much overlap.
61 charged with destruction of federal property and, as best I can tell, 48 for theft of federal property.
Are you saying that everyone was charged appropriately to the maximum extent of the law, or at some point it was just piling on?
BTW, I’ll take that $1200
Although I was outraged by the “Morse v. Frederick” supreme court case. “Bong hits for Jesus” – because, in part, the slogan advocated for illegal drug use, it was not protected speech.
Ouch! Conservative court indeed.
“BTW, I’ll take that $1200”
You should be so lucky, steaming pile of lefty shit. Fuck off and die.
“Exercising their freedom speech doesn’t include smashing windows, beating cops with their own shields, and trying to stop democracy from occurring,..”
Obviously, freedom of speech does include the right to show the world that you are full of shit, as this asshole does here.
You mean like in Montana?
Exercising their freedom speech doesn’t include smashing windows, beating cops with their own shields, and trying to stop democracy from occurring,
It does when you’re a leftist or BLM.
You can annex parts of the country and declare leftist law.
You’re even allowed to burn people alive.
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If the “insurrectionists” had just robbed a liquor store and shot a couple of innocent bystanders during their escape, a D.C. jury would have found them not guilty.
Only if they were the right color
Are you saying traveling thousands of miles to a city where you are the minority color and your political views clash with the majority of the residence – you maybe shouldn’t break the law because its not gonna be a good day in court?
You don’t say!
Are you saying the law is highly variable, steaming pile of lefty shit? It sure looks that way. Eat shit and die; make your family proud, and you dog happy, but please mark your grave so I know where to take a shit .
“Are you saying traveling thousands of miles to a city where you are the minority color and your political views clash with the majority of the residence – you maybe shouldn’t break the law because its not gonna be a good day in court?
You don’t say!”
NATION OF LAWS!!!
The same people who think Putin is Evil Incarnate – this is how Putin’s Russia works
Absent Cotton Mather’s Salem example, Gavih McInnes might never have brandished his samurai sword in front of the Manhattan Republican Club and ordered the Proud Boys to beat up any Antifa Junior League girls too short to outrun them.
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Imagine all the charges that could be hung on HRC if prosecutors had known that pre-emptive destruction of possible evidence would be seen by a jury as proof of a criminal conspiracy.
Also, still seems odd that the ONE GUY on camera telling people to enter the Capitol gets a “Wow, I gujess that was a bad idea” smack on the wrist.
The one guy was a glowworm.
The only guy for whom there’s actual evidence of incitement gets defended by the Democrats and the J6 committee, and is given a hagiography by Sixty Minutes. Meanwhile, a kangaroo court convicts others without any evidence presented.
This is so fucking scary.
The democrats need to go. Now. If anyone has a realistic alternative, please state it. I see none.
What’s realistic about “the democrats need to go”?
It’s the only realistic path to save the republic, and keep our constitution. Do you have an alternative?
Do you have a realistic plan to make the Democrats “go”?
Americans live in a dictatorship.
Yeah, odd. Odd enough to warrant all the right-wing conspiracy theories built around it — no, not nearly odd enough.
Yeah, it is, because you democrats don’t care about railroading you’re political enemies. It’s the “But Trump!” exception to the rule of law your kind engage in.
Which conspiracy? Be specific. DoJ has now admitted to over 40 cops and CIs in the area. Many on camera cheering it on.
So be specific for once Mike.
Don’t forget that something like half the leadership of the Proud Boys were reporting to the Feds the whole time the “conspiracy” was being hatched.
Between this trial and the Sussman trial (where a jury which included 9 registered dems and 6 HRC campaign donors found a DNC lawyer “not guilty” of lying when he claimed that he wasn’t representing any interested party while he billed the campaign for the time spent delivering false Russiagate “evidence” to the FBI), it’s hard to imagine any basis for the idea that any remotely politicized case can get a fair trial with a DC jury.
Lest we forget Mr. Both Sides true nature.
The White Knight
January.6.2021 at 5:07 pm
It is now crystal clear Trump is monster. If you still support him, you are a bad person. There is no ambiguity, no wiggle room anymore.
Mike. How do you feel laughing and cheering the seditious convictions to see the magazine you simp for question those very charges? Does it make you feel like a true libertarian? Or are you starting to realize you’re what everyone here calls you? Do you simp harder for the left or this magazine?
Both times I was close to being seated on a DC jury, the prosecution used one of their strikes on me. I’m certain that it had nothing whatsoever to do with my being a white, college educated, gainfully employed guy who put a necktie on for jury duty.
Next time wear a rainbow flag shirt and drool all over yourself.
They’ll make you the foreman.
Tell them you’re a regular donor to the DNC and DCCC and you can wear a top hat, monocle, bow tie and tails for all they care.
“Seditious conspiracy is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. As relevant here, it occurs when two or more people conspire to “oppose by force” the authority of the U.S. government or “by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.”
Gotta love that the powers that be decided that what the Founding Fathers did against the British was so horrible that it needed to be codified that you can’t do it again in the Land of the Free.
Missing from Sullums actual decent attack against the convictions is the number of CIs and the prosecution planting a key document by having a CI mail him a document of a “plan” that Tarrio never was proven to have even read.
Show us in the trial transcripts where the ‘plan’ was introduced. Surely there was a chain of custody.
Oh, BTW, CI means member of the Proud Boys who was flipped into becoming a spy for the government. It doesn’t mean undercover agent.
“…Oh, BTW, CI means member of the Proud Boys who was flipped into becoming a spy for the government. It doesn’t mean undercover agent.”
Assertions from steaming piles of lefty shit =/= evidence or argument. Eat shit and die; make your family proud, and you dog happy, but please mark your grave so I know where to take a shit .
You’re correct that CIs aren’t agents, but there’s plenty of history of FBI “Informants” (under direction from their handlers) steering, advancing, and even creating the “conspiracies” that the Feds would later take credit for “foiling”.
It would seem like one of the key differences with this case is that for some reason the Feds never stepped in to “break up the plot”. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to anyone at the Beareau that Congressional leaders who run the Capitol PD wouldn’t take FBI warnings seriously enough to beef up security around the building that day? I could only half imagine that Pelosi would have the stones to risk allowing the building to be breached as a pretense to ratchet up the “war on domestic terrorism”. Hard to think it’s a total coincidence that the RESTRICT act came up onto the media radar so close to the date of this particular trial.
At least 40 informants and agents in the crowd, many of them embedded with the proud boys or oath keepers are also worth noting. And this wasn’t even disclosed until during the trial.
Gosh, why not?
You would have joined the SS, Red Guard, or any other group of people advocating for political authoritarianism.
The sumbitch will lick your boots clean!
Because then people might question why the government was conspiring to “overthrow the government”?
Here’s the Vice interview with one of the jurors.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/epvxqw/enrique-tarrio-proud-boys-jury
“Andre Mundell, a 63-year-old retired DC resident, sat on the Proud Boys jury hearing evidence since February. I sat down with Mundell just hours after the verdicts were rendered and jurors were excused. Our conversation has been edited for length.
How quickly was the jury convinced on the seditious conspiracy charges?
The first day we elected a foreman. After that, we all put out our initial impressions of the evidence. We all voted and most people saw the evidence pointed towards seditious conspiracy. By the second day we had pretty much established guilty verdicts on the conspiracy, since that was count number one. First of all, we had to establish that there was a conspiracy then that it was a seditious conspiracy, because that involved the use of force. Not to overthrow the government, but to interfere with the government by use of force.
What evidence convinced you that the Proud Boys had entered into a seditious conspiracy?
It was all the chatter. All the chats. Parler, Telegram…those telegram text messages back and forth. Nott just the chats, but also the private texts. I think that was what it boiled down to. What they had to say prior to Jan. 6 and the fact that they wanted to do so much in secret. And that’s why the government couldn’t present too much of the evidence that they had already deleted, because it was unrecoverable. So, they didn’t they definitely didn’t want people to know. They didn’t want everybody to know the plan, the Proud Boys, because then I guess it would have gotten out. And they didn’t want it to get out.
Did it matter that there were significant amounts of messages deleted?
That factored in for me. It showed an absence of evidence of standing down. No one says, no, don’t do this. We’re not going to do this. There was none of that. And that was probably because they never said it. And the things that were affirming that they were going to be violent. They just kind of let it happen. “
This trial and it’s jury were bullshit.
Absence of evidence is proof of evidence. Good work liberal jury person. Not dangerous at all.
I got the impression that he doesn’t understand why all these ex-Navy-SEAL-multi-millionaire-married-to-Swedish-underwear-model entrepreneurs would take the time out of their busy days to storm the Capitol as well.
The absence of wood chippers is evidence that they wanted to put democracy through a wood chipper too.
It’s been many years since I’ve met a democrat that wouldn’t violate the constitution without hesitation if it meant them getting what they want. Democrats don’t believe in rule of law. They believe in mob rule of democrats.
Uhm, we are talking about a Republican mob on Jan 6th. So they were supposed to get a pass?
No. But there is no justification for holding these people for over two years without bail. Especially since most of them were charged with ‘parading’. And the evidence in the Proud Boys case was flimsy, but Andre Mundell did his Party duty and was ready to convict on day one. Which is typical of a political prosecution in DC.
“Uhm, we are talking about a Republican mob on Jan 6th. So they were supposed to get a pass?”
Uhm, as a steaming pile of lefty shit, would you care to define your terms, asshole?
This interview should be grounds for a new trial, outside of DC. And I’m guessing that Juror Mundell is retired at 63 from the Civil a service and is also a loyal democrat.
The fix was in from the start.
and is also a loyal democrat
Living in DC is evidence of being a loyal democrat.
It indicates a high probability. According to GOP records, the Republican mayoral candidate in 2022 got less than 6% of the vote. This guy is also retired at age 63. Given the large number of Civil Service workers, and that they retire early, that increases the likelihood.
Do ya really think they would let any non democrats on these juries? And is there ANYONE involved in these cases, outside of the defense, that isn’t a democrat?
“Living in DC is evidence of being a loyal democrat.”
Add “The Hunger Games” to the list of dystopian novels that they’re using as How To guides.
Andrew Wilkow frequently says that if the de o rats ever disposed of the Electoral College, the US would quickly evolve into a Hunger Gamestocracy. With eight or so cities controlling what happens to everyone else.
Moral of the story, if you are even slightly right-wing, never go to a Democrat run city.
How does the supposed “lost evidence” relate to the 7 irs hard drive failures?
So the absence of evidence is evidence. Uhhhhhhh…
The shoot witnesses, don’t they?
Imagine if the PB leadership realizes that half of what they deleted was actually the FBI CIs within their ranks repeatedly driving the advance of the plot or marginalizing anyone expressing any doubts about the whole idea.
maybe this will ultimately lead to groups starting to keep meticulous records in order to be able to prove that whatever was being done was instigated by the infiltrators tied to or run by law enforcement.
Aftergut, Garland, Polite?
The writers for this story need to come up with more believable character names.
The Proud Boys have a long history of street violence
Six years vs. a history traceable to Weimar Germany. “Long history”, LMAO.
Can anyone point to when they instigated violence?
Every time they showed up anywhere that Antifa wanted to protest, duh!
Does anyone currently involved with “antifa” even know what Wiemar Germany was? Most of them don’t even really understand what Fascism is, or they’d have been surrounding the FBI and DHS buildings since relatively early in the publication of the “twitter files” reports.
Or they’d be picketing themselves since using violence and threats to silence opposing voices is half of what Fascism is about (and 70% of what “antifa” seems to spend their time doing).
lol nope. This conviction and the prosecutioni are entirely about punishing your political enemies and nothing to do with reality, facts, or “justice”
Well, there does seem to be evidence that it was not spontaneous. The real question is just which government agency was Ray Epps working for and to what extent where there others like him involved.
Yeah, it clearly was premeditated, the real question being on the part of who, because there’s not a lot of evidence it was on the part of the people who actually got arrested.
The doj
You do understand it was Trump’s DOJ right?
Keep telling yourself that all of those unelected bureaucrats that have served under 5 or 6 presidents are loyal to any of them.
“You do understand it was Trump’s DOJ right?”
You do understand that you
Are.
Full.
Of.
Shit.
Right?
The DOJ (which includes the FBI) that seemed to be against Trump before, during and after the Trump presidency? How was it Trump’s DOJ?
Seriously. I think that Trump’s 6th Jan “Stop the Steal” rally should not have been held. Nixon had more reason to believe there were funny business in the 1960 election, but he did not hold a protest ralley Jan 1961. Clinton and Kerry questioned the results in their elections but only filed lawsuits. They did not hold protest ralleys to “stop the steal” as they saw it. Trump was way out of line holding his 6th Jan “Stop The Steal” protest rally.
But to claim the DOJ was Trump’s DOJ 2016–2021? Come on.
Weird how you just skipped over Gore.
Weird how you just skipped over the rioting the day after Trump got elected –said rioting that continued, at some place in the US, nearly everyday until Biden was installed as the puppet of the coup.
Lots of fifth column democrats throughout the federal government. The treason and sedition was epic.
Just because a jury says something, doesn’t mean it is so.
Does anyone think OJ didn’t butcher his ex, and her friend, just because a jury said he didn’t.
tarrio has been a ci for over a decade according to every major news publication in existence … strange to see the gov’t turn on one of its own 🙂
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-proudboys-leader-exclusive/exclusive-proud-boys-leader-was-prolific-informer-for-law-enforcement-idUSKBN29W1PE
https://apnews.com/article/proud-boys-government-informant-dc84086d78b688bc585f874452d2b481
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/27/nyregion/proud-boys-informant-enrique-tarrio.html
But have any real news agencies that aren’t in the tank for democrats or the left in general corroborated that? All these news outlets also insisted Trump was a Russian spy and all kinds of other since discredited bullshit.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55846696
Oh yeah, they’re going to rip him up. When democrats get a win and fuck someone over, it reminds me of that part of”The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” where Asian surrenders himself to save the traitor kid, with the Witch and the evil creatures torture Asian before killing him. Calling evilly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrMpRtCLeAM
I used the clip from the 2979 animated film. Much more over the top. Which fits the democrats better.
‘1979’
“the nonviolent portion of the entire group probably was larger.”
So a mostly peaceful protest?
No, it wuz an iNsurrEction!!!!1!!
Hey, shitbag! How many are charged with any violence at all? Numbers or STFU.
Considering there were tens of thousands protesting and hundreds that actually entered the building without breaking anything or hurting anyone, yes it was mostly peaceful.
I’m assuming “lets meet up here at 3 PM to stir up trouble” or “We have to take the country back” type of chatter is not evidence of sedition.
I can’t help but notice the silence from “criminal justice reform” groups, who undisturbed by the precedent being set in this case. If leftist activists break into the capitol to stage sit ins to prevent a vote, are they now guilty of sedition?
Legal experts will carve it out as an exception using the “but Trump” argument that the law and due process don’t apply to Trump or anything Trump adjacent
If I developed this into a lecture series with an available syllabus, I wonder if I can it accredited so I. Can teach it to democrat law students at Marxist law schools. They could pay me $400-600k per year as a special guest professor, amd I could publish books based on it. I’ll bet those heifers in The View’, CNN, MSNBC, etc would have me on. Hell, I could probably get good money for a long term guest column at NYT, WaPo, etc..
I’ll bet I could get ChatGTP to do most of the writing for me too.
Based on the evidence of several seditious insurrections at various other capitols, no.
Really? look at the tranny fags that storm legislatures and get praised
Oh well
I’m sure at least some of these folks actions warranted some form of prosecution. But the political persecution aspect cannot be overlooked, nor can the dangerous precedent it sets be exaggerated. OTOH, it kinda makes me wish Trump DOJ had hunted down thousands of the antifa and BLM rioters and nailed them to the wall too.
Ah, so it’s not really the “lining people up against a wall” part that bothers you…
It’s the solitary confinement, no bail, threats of 20 years… you know the authoritarian political aspects of it shrike.
In NYC the DoJ argued for under a year for 2 lawyers who fire bombed a car.
You’re engaging boot-licking ,slimy pile of lefty shit; don’t waste your time.
https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1654557943478513664?t=JJzjJKsRbz6-HTwX9YlDZg&s=19
Hoping this is my last thread of the day but I can’t pass up dissecting this batshit interview with a Proud Boys juror
Not only did they quickly convict on seditious conspiracy, this juror thought deleted messages were evidence of guilt—except the messages were probably…
removed by DOJ due to unknown number of FBI informants and other conspiracy “tools,” unidentified and/or uncharged participants, in numerous chats.
Some genius-level thinking there!
Cell service was down everywhere in DC especially near Capitol. Nordean didn’t have his phone on all day but sure, they should’ve texted each other to “stand down” or something. So that makes them seditionists, cool story, juror.
In a last-minute dirty trick, DOJ sprung on Zack Rehl a video allegedly showing Rehl spraying a cop with pepper spray. The video did not definitively ID Rehl–DOJ never charged him with assaulting police. But hey, who needs facts and evidence before a DC jury? Not this guy!
Based on jury profile, nearly all were anti-Trump or at least Democrats.
And this juror wanted to make DAMN SURE another “insurrection” never happens again!
(Recall one juror had BLM yard sign, foreman was a BLM sympathizer.)
[Banana] republic
[Cites]
https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1654509806105894912?t=AvBMEx9pAWMNisfQW9sZAw&s=19
I want to walk through jury instructions on seditious conspiracy to demonstrate the vagueness of the charge and how easy it is to prove.
Just look at (2)–this could apply to essentially any political protest on the federal level.
[Cite]
So agreeing to a “conspiracy” (I’ll get to that laughable definition in a moment) to interfere in the execution of federal law is “seditious” but oh btw it’s not necessary for DOJ to prove that the accused knew which law they conspired to break
There are not enough LOLs in the world for this.
One prosecutor told Proud Boys jury that a “wink and a nod” constitutes agreement to a conspiracy.
Now do you see the low bar to indict Trump?
But it says “by force!” Here’s DOJs burden of proof.
Basically none.
Further, what “force” was used when no one brought a weapon, no one assaulted police, and some (Nordean) walked through an open door WITH POLICE RIGHT THERE.
Further, Enrique Tarrio was in Baltimore on Jan 6
Consider how this would apply to nearly every protest in Washington, especially climate demonstrations and Kavanaugh confirmation process.
This is conspiracy to obstruct Congress.
[Cites]
cry more
Quit fucking sockpuppeting Shrike.
Eat shit and die, asshole.
Fuck off nardz; your assholic reliance on twitter is an embarrassment. Since you refuse to grow up, just fuck off and die.
Wait, if I’m reading this correctly (And it’s Reason, so that might be the problem), Tarrio was convicted of Destruction of Government Property despite not being present?
Yeah, can’t see any avenues for appeal here. 100% airtight.
You’re reading it properly. Banana republic justice.
You might want to read up a bit on inchoate crimes, and in particular, criminal liability for the acts of your co-conspirators.
I see you are for arresting everyone involved with BLM. Good to see you being consistent.
You might want to eat shit and die, asshole.
Making sure election results are accurate before certifying them is a threat to democracy.
Is that a euphemism for threatening to lynch the VP?
Did you drag that strawman all the way from home, or find it on the way? Got any believable cite for your assholish claim, steaming pile of lefty shit?
Just wait till mid 2025 when the Supreme Court rules, in a 9 to 6 decision, that any effort to verify the identity of a voter constitutes “Jim Eagle” (worse than Jim Crow) and is unconstitutional. They will also rule that all states must allow for same-day registration and voting from home via a service provided by CrowdStrike. Voters will also be given the option of printing out their ballots at home using their own equipment, or using equipment provided by helpful door-to-door volunteers paid for by a “non-partisan” NGO funded by George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg.
Anyone questioning this setup will be guilty of anti-Semitism and seditious conspiracy. One consequence of this conviction will be disenfranchisement; seditious conspiracy will be the only crime where this penalty is imposed. In the Soviet Gulag, murderers and thieves were seen as regime partners and received special privileges; political prisoners (58s…convicted of violating Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code) were considered more dangerous than violent criminals.
DC votes 96% Democratic. These are not fair trials, but Stalinesque show trials. Everyone of them should have had a change of venue to a purple area. How do you get a jury of your peers from people that hate you? Same with the Sussman trial, he was never going to be convicted in DC no matter how much evidence was shown.
No politically connected trial should ever be held in DC. No Democrat/liberal will be convicted in one, no Republican/conservative will ever be exonerated in one. We are seeing that also in New York with Trump. Even Alan Dershowitz, a life long die hard liberal, constitutional scholar and fair person said if this was anyone but Trump, the charges and civil trial would have been thrown out before they even started.
Well, you could always consider committing your “politically connected” crimes somewhere more “friendly”, like Florida?
“Well, you could always consider committing your “politically connected” crimes somewhere more “friendly”, like Florida?”
Well, as a steaming pile of lefty shit, you could consider that the nation is supposedly a nation of law, rather than a nation governed by steaming piles of lefty shit like you.
Fuck off and die, asshole.
Yup. Sussman gets acquitted and a jury member says his lies did not really matter. Try telling that to General Flynn.
Here is a quote from a news report about the Sussmann verdict:
In the wake of former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann being acquitted of lying to the FBI, comments from the jury foreperson in the trial are catching people’s attention on social media.
“Personally, I don’t think it should have been prosecuted because I think we have better time or resources to use or spend to other things that affect the nation as a whole than a possible lie to the FBI. We could spend that time more wisely,” said the foreperson of the jury in Sussmann’s case, according to Politico.
“The government had the job of proving beyond a reasonable doubt,” added the foreperson, who declined to give her name. “We broke it down…as a jury. It didn’t pan out in the government’s favor.”
Sussmann, who worked for the Clinton campaign, allegedly told the FBI he was only approaching them with dirt on the Trump campaign in 2016 as a concerned citizen and not as a paid political operative. Special prosecutors claimed that in doing so, Sussmann lied.
https://wpde.com/news/nation-world/jury-foreperson-claims-sussmann-case-was-waste-of-time-following-not-guilty-verdict
Frankly, I hope the DC prosecutors focus all their time going after political crimes and let robberies, burglaries, and murders go on without interruption. Let them suffer the consequences of their foolishness. Let DC residents drown in their own tears.
The only thing these “convictions” are evidence of is the end of justice as a meaningful concept in this country.
Does anyone know specifics about how the government got 600 encrypted texts for evidence? Were they able to crack an encrypted text app?
Confidential informants. Over 10 involved with the PB. 40 admitted to for all of J6.
Wasn’t a member of the defense team a ci for the FBI?
“…First, the prosecutors in this case, who relied heavily on questionable inferences, never showed that the defendants explicitly planned to disrupt congressional certification of Biden’s victory…”
Let’s amble on a bit more, and assume they did not only plan to do so, but managed to disrupt the proceedings. So what?
So it takes half an hour to remove them from the floor and confirm Biden as POTUS. Meh.
Further, that ‘victory’ was in no small part aided by government agents actively ‘managing’ the news; a far, far worse offense against democracy, which seems to be acceptable to many.
This is such bullsh*t. I can’t believe this is our country and that mainstream journalists are going along with it. I will never stopped being shocked at what has happened to the Left, and now, to go to war against their own citizens after everything we saw in the Summer of 2020 — is horrifying.
Ray Epps is caught multiple times on video LITERALLY COMMITTING conspiracy and yet, not charged. Um okay. Let’s get transparency on the FBI’s involvement here.
I hope you are the REAL Sasha Stone. I love that podcast.
Posting a comment in this thread criticizing the DOJ is a step in furtherance of a seditious conspiracy. How long will it be before membership in the GOP is conclusive evidence of participation in a seditious conspiracy? I am sure that a typical jury empaneled in the District of Columbia (soon to be the State of Columbia) will gladly convict any non-Democrat of whatever crime the DOJ dreams up.
Of course, if you are a Democrat or a fire bombing “Progressive” you can never be guilty of anything.
Next: The Comstock Massacre was just plain, pious, cross-burning Khristians protecting Louisiana from servile insurrection, carbetbaggers, scalawags and stolen elections on Easter 1873, just like the Supreme Court decided. Nuthin to see, folks…
Next: The Comstock Massacre was just plain, pious, cross-burning Democrats protecting Louisiana from servile insurrection, carbetbaggers, scalawags and stolen elections on Easter 1873, just like the Supreme Court decided. Nuthin to see, folks…
Y’all seem to always leave that part out.
Especially when you’re defending other Democrats doing similar things.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
This is what you asked for, Sullum.
Isn’t it amazing how much show of “force” tossing a fire extinguisher can contain… Welcome to the USA Gestapo Police… Your party affiliation *IS* the crime.
>>I am not saying those protesters did not break the law or that their crimes do not merit prosecution. But it is highly misleading to suggest that all, or even most, of the January 6 defendants participated in “the Capitol violence,”<>On its face, the statute could apply to any protest that includes violence if the government alleges that the organizers intended that result and aimed to interfere with “the execution of any law of the United States.”<<
First, BS
Second, they did no such thing, the charged traitors as traitors, so your fears are unfounded
Opposing the government is NOT a crime in THIS country. If you’re an American, which I doubt, you are the traitor.
In 2000, the certified results in Florida had George W. Bush ahead of Al Gore by 537 votes. When Bush v. Gore was decided by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision on Dec. 12, 2000, it effectively ended the dispute over whether the multiple problems in Florida’s election procedures demanded further examination. Congress certified the results, and Bush was sworn in as the 43rd President.
All of that occurred without violent breaches of security at the Capitol building or anywhere else in D.C. that forced members of Congress to hide or barricade themselves in. Plenty of Democrats felt that the election had been “stolen”, but no one, certainly not Al Gore himself, suggested continuing to “fight” once the Supreme Court ruled against him.
It is always worth remembering that the U.S. had a presidential election come down to 537 votes in one disputed state and still transferred power peacefully. That should have set the precedent for all time what level of evidence of error or fraud should have been required to do more than speak and grumble about the result after all appeals were heard. That power was not transferred peacefully when at least 3 states decided by >10,000 votes would have needed to flip to change the result, where no recounts or audits performed under existing law offered any hope of that happening, and no court cases advanced that offered any hope of further proceedings to do more, puts the fault for that failure entirely on those that performed violent acts and that talked ‘civil war’ or ‘revolution’ or ‘1776’.
All of that occurred without violent breaches of security
It did?
How old are you?
Oh, I see, you added ‘at the Capitol’.
Clever.
How was it at the Supreme Court? How was it at ballot counting stations in Florida?
And it was Republicans screaming that the election was being stolen. Not Democrats. Because the Democrat controlled Florida Supreme Court was letting them do whatever they wanted.
It took the USSC to stop that.
That’s what Bush v Gore was –the GOP trying to get the FLASC to stop the endless recounting to try to manufacture more Gore votes.
How was it at the Supreme Court? How was it at ballot counting stations in Florida?
If you remember something I don’t, feel free to remind us.
My main point was that the SCOTUS ruling really did settle things. There was no one pretending otherwise. Whatever residual anger on the Democrat side existed went nowhere. (If it matters to you, I was living in Florida and did not vote for either Bush or Gore. I didn’t have a strong preference either way in the outcome.)
And it was Republicans screaming that the election was being stolen. Not Democrats. Because the Democrat controlled Florida Supreme Court was letting them do whatever they wanted.
There were enough issues with how the election was run and covered in the media to doubt the legitimacy of a 537 vote Bush victory. (Premature calling of Florida for Bush while polls were still open in the Panhandle that was in the Central Time Zone, the butterfly ballots, the infamous “hanging chads”, and so on…) If the “Democrat controlled Florida Supreme Court” was out of line, it’s a good thing the Republican controlled U.S. Supreme Court was there to put a stop top it, right? I mean, they could have taken their equal protection argument seriously and ordered recounts across the whole state with uniform standards, but, nah. That would take too long and there needed to be finality in time for statutory and constitutional deadlines. Deadlines which most Republicans didn’t seem to care about anymore for the 2020 election.
Respect for the process of holding elections and honoring the outcome anyway in the face of uncertainty hasn’t been the Republican M.O. here. It has become standard among Republicans to respect the outcome of a close election only when they win. In truth, it doesn’t even need to be that close before some will start screaming fraud if they lose.
He ducked multiple attempts to be served a subpoena in this case, and the judge refused to allow subpoena by publication. So the defense was denied the opportunity to question a potentially relevant witness.