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The Trump Insurrection: How Donald J. Trump and the right incited insurrection and sedition and attempted a coup d'etat - Page 2
Videos of the riot and violent attack against the 117th United States Congress and the sacking of the United States Capitol.
Trump will be the only president to be impeached twice.
Story by David Covucci

Federal prosecutors indicted former President Donald Trump today for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, charging him with conspiring to defraud the U.S., conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiring against rights. Trump fans, as has become their new playbook, have immediately gone after the judge in the trial: Tanya Chutkan.

A special prosecutor has been investigating Trump's role in the Capitol riot and the effort to deny the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. “Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power,” the indictment says, highlighting that Trump knew his claims about having won the election were false and nonetheless proceeded in his efforts to deny the will of the American people.

The indictment notes that even in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Trump continued to pressure congresspeople to overturn the election. The charges come after years-long investigations by the FBI, Congress, and a special prosecutor, all of which have tried to prove Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy to stay in power.
Story by By MARY CLARE JALONICK, BRIAN SLODYSKO and MEG KINNARD, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal indictment of Donald Trump on Tuesday marks the first time that the former president has been formally held accountable for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. And it adds new details to what was already known about his actions, and those of his key allies, in the weeks leading up to the violent Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.

The newest charges — Trump's third criminal indictment this year — include conspiracy to defraud the United States government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, the congressional certification of President Joe Biden's victory. It describes how Trump repeatedly told supporters and others that he had won the election, despite knowing that was false, and how he tried to persuade state officials, his own vice president and finally Congress to overturn the legitimate results.
Story by Bart Jansen, USA TODAY

Kelly Ruh, a 2020 Republican elector for then-President Donald Trump, said she was "pissed." She had scheduled a day off from her accounting job to do her political duty and help secure her state of Wisconsin for the president. But the popular vote didn't add up for him, so she didn't understand why her party insisted on dragging her to the state Capitol in an attempt to make him the winner. “I was not expecting to prevail in the courts and was obviously pissed that I would be using a personal day off to go and complete that process,” Ruh, who was then a DePere city council member, told congressional investigators.

Ruh was among several dozen Republican electors for Trump across the country who didn’t see themselves as criminals, as gleaned from thousands of pages of congressional testimony, hearings and court records. In many cases, the electors were state party leaders, lawyers and political activists. They unabashedly took pictures of themselves and tweeted out the results of their meetings – despite warnings from Trump campaign aides to avoid the press. Several participants groused about the futility of meeting, but acquiesced to keep Trump’s legal options open.
Story by Khaleda Rahman

One of the people charged with acting as a fake elector for former president Donald Trump in Michigan has said she was "duped."

Michigan's attorney general Dana Nessel announced felony charges against 16 Republicans "for their role in the alleged false electors scheme" last week, accusing them of submitting false certificates that portrayed them as legitimate electors in the 2020 election which saw Joe Biden win the presidency.

Nessel, a Democrat, said all 16 people would face eight criminal charges, including forgery, conspiracy to commit election law forgery, and uttering and publishing. The top charges carry a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Story by Brandon Gage

United States Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) on Sunday reminded the public that the events involving former President Donald Trump and his associates on and around January 6th, 2021 constituted "a very carefully orchestrated and choreographed plot to overthrow the election" and that "nothing spontaneous or out of control about" what went down that day. Raskin's remarks came as he was urging the American people to avoid downplaying the criminal nature of what occurred.

"Trump and his followers would invite us to believe that all of this was some kind of spontaneous eruption at a rally that just got a little bit out of control," Raskin said on The Katie Phang Show. "No. This was a very clear concerted plot that took place over many weeks to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election."
Story by Jamie Frevele

Jacob Chansley aka the QAnon Shaman was rejected in his bid to have his conviction dismissed related to his participation in the January 6 insurrection, but the judge didn’t have strong words for only Chansley — Tucker Carlson called out too.

Chansley completed his sentence after being convicted of obstruction of Congress and was released early, but wanted the conviction dismissed based on footage of the insurrection that was shown on Fox News by former host Tucker Carlson before he was fired. Chansley claimed that the video “undermines his conviction” and was “duplicative of police body-camera footage he was given months before he decided to plead guilty.”
Story by Piyush Arora

WASHINGTON, DC: After 16 Republicans were charged over the "false elector" conspiracy, there have been mounting calls for officials to investigate Virginia "Ginni" Thomas for allegedly attempting to rig the 2020 election result. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced on Tuesday, July 18 that the 16 individuals were each charged with eight felonies for allegedly trying to thwart the will of voters in the 2020 presidential election.

The 66-year-old wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has also been under fire for her actions in the wake of the last election. At that time, Thomas allegedly sent text messages to Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff for Donald Trump, encouraging him to work to overturn Biden's victory and keep Trump in office. Additionally, she was also accused of sending emails to several lawmakers and Arizona election officials, arguing that it was their "constitutional duty" to pick a "clean slate" of electors who would be willing to proclaim Trump the winner in the Grand Canyon State in 2020.
BY JOEY CAPPELLETTI

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan’s attorney general filed felony charges Tuesday against 16 Republicans who acted as fake electors for then-President Donald Trump in 2020, accusing them of submitting false certificates confirming they were legitimate electors despite Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced Tuesday that all 16 people would face eight criminal charges, including forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery, which range from a potential five to 14 years in prison each.

The group includes the head of the Republican National Committee’s chapter in Michigan, Kathy Berden, as well as the former co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Meshawn Maddock, and Shelby Township Clerk Stan Grot.
MSNBC

The DOJ ramps up its probe into Trump’s fake elector plot. CNN reporting that a former top campaign official, "Mike Roman is cooperating with prosecutors from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team". It comes amid reporting Rudy Giuliani also met with Smith. National Security lawyer Bradley Moss joins Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber to discuss the development.
Story by Haley Gunn

A woman convicted for her role in the January 6 insurrection fired back at Donald Trump after he tried to use her story for political gain, RadarOnline.comhas learned. Idaho grandmother Pamela Hemphill, 70, was convicted for participating in the Capitol riot that aimed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Trump's favor.

After Trump posted about Hemphill's conviction on Truth Social, she clapped back at the embattled GOP frontrunner and told him to "Stop The Spin." Hemphill's exchange with Trump began on Monday after the ex-president reshared a post on Truth Social that compared the grandmother's charges to Hunter Biden.

"AMERICAN JUSTICE: 69-Year-Old Grandma with Cancer Given More Prison Time for Walking Inside US Capitol than Hunter Biden for Sharing Classified Documents with Foreign Regimes and Multi-Million Dollar Bribery Schemes. THE GATEWAY PUNDIT," read the original post. Trump endorsed his share by quoting the post, "Horrible!"
Story by Brad Reed

Awoman who stormed the Capitol on former President Donald Trump's behalf is now repentant for her actions -- and she now thinks the former president is the leader of a "cult." In an interview with The Daily Beast, 70-year-old Idaho resident Pamela Hemphill said she was horrified when Trump recently used her case to argue that Capitol rioters faced unfair prosecutions.

Although she was once a dedicated MAGA devotee, she now says that she regrets getting sucked into the former president's orbit. “You don’t see it as a cult when you’re in it,” she said. “You don’t recognize it.” Hemphill would go on to spend 60 days in prison for breaking into the Capitol, but it wasn't until she returned home to her family that she received an intervention that pulled her out of total dedication to the former president.

"[My family was] telling me, ‘Pam, you’re in a cult. You really need to get out of that… We really care about you, but this is a cult. You’re trapped in a cult,’" she said. After his, she tells The Daily Beast that she started to see more of Trump's flaws.
Story by Jamie Frevele

While supporters of former president Donald Trump have accused the FBI of being politically motivated when they indicted Trump on 37 charges, The Washington Post reports that the same agency initially delayed their investigation into Trump’s role in January 6 and the attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election.

Since the indictment against Trump was unsealed, right-wing critics have lambasted the FBI, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Attorney General Merrick Garland for exercising a “two-tiered” justice system that unfairly targeted a Republican presidential candidate. But according to the Post, the same players delayed investigating Trump for his alleged role in the January 6 insurrection and a scheme to stop President Joe Biden from being certified as the president by Congress. Post reporters Carol D. Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis write:
'It was dumb to follow him': MAGA rioter throws fellow Oath Keeper under the bus at sentencing
Brad Reed

David Moerschel, a member of the Oath Keepers who was convicted of seditious conspiracy earlier this year, admitted that he made a mistake in deciding to join the militia to storm the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

As reported by Politico's Kyle Cheney, Moerschel said during a sentencing hearing that he regrets getting mixed up with Kelly Meggs, the leader of the Florida Oath Keepers who was sentenced last month to more than a decade in jail after also being convicted on seditious conspiracy charges.

"I don't mean anything bad about Kelly Meggs, but he was a used car salesman," Moerschel told the court, according to Cheney. "It was dumb to follow that guy."

Cheney also notes that Moerschel was a neuroscientist by trade before he got himself involved in trying to block the peaceful transfer of power in the name of former President Donald Trump, who prior to getting involved in politics was the host of "Celebrity Apprentice."
CBS TEXAS

On Thursday, Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, received an 18-year prison sentence for orchestrating an extensive conspiracy aimed at maintaining then-President Donald Trump in office following his defeat in the 2020 election.
By Robert Legare

Oath Keepers defendant Jessica Watkins — a military veteran from Ohio who founded a militia in the area — was sentenced Friday to 8 and a half years in prison for her role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. Last year, a jury convicted Watkins of numerous felony counts including obstructing Congress and interfering with police, but acquitted her of the most severe seditious conspiracy count after she admitted to much of her actions during the riot and disputed any seditious conduct from the stand.

Delivering a prewritten, emotionally raw expression of remorse in court today, Watkins told Judge Amit Mehta — who on Thursday sentenced Stewart Rhodes to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy — that she was sorry for her actions on Jan. 6. "My actions and my behaviors that fateful day were wrong and as I now understand, criminal," Watkins said through tears, later saying she was "ashamed" of her conduct. When she testified at trial, Watkins called herself "another idiot" inside the Capitol building, a part of the mob, and alluded to that testimony on Friday.
Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix

Jeremy Brown, a self-described Oath Keepers member and lauded 20-year U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, was sentenced on Friday in Tampa to more than seven years in federal prison on weapons charges related to a federal investigation into his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 riot in the U.S. Capitol.

The 48-year old Brown was found guilty in December by a federal jury on six of 10 counts related to possessing illegally registered guns, explosives, and a classified Defense Department document.

Brown is one of more than 950 people who have been charged in connection with the attack at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.

However, January 6 was never mentioned during his six-day trial last year, despite the fact that it was his arrest on accusations of trespassing near the U.S. Capitol and engaging in disorderly conduct, both federal misdemeanors, that led to the federal trial in Tampa.
Story by Adam Rawnsley

Jeffrey Clark and Michael Flynn were leading figures in Donald Trump’s efforts to carry out a coup d’etat in 2020 and 2021. The result was mob violence, deaths at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., an array of criminal investigations and lawsuits, and what one former senior Trump aide went on the record to call “the worst day for the Republican Party since Lincoln’s assassination.”

In any other era, scandals like that would be enough to send those men off into immediate political retirement. But this isn’t one of those eras.
Story by Brad Reed

Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes is facing a prison sentence of up to 25 years for his role in inciting the violent attack on the United States Capitol building, but he thinks he deserves leniency for his years of running an "all-volunteer" organization.

As flagged by NBC News' Ryan Reilly, Rhodes argued in a court filing that a prison sentence of time served would be adequate for his conviction of seditious conspiracy last year.

The filing starts off by noting Rhodes' past military service where he was honorably discharged from the United States Army, as well as his post-military academic achievements.

However, the filing then went into less convention territory by touting Rhodes' founding of a militia that is best known for its plot to violently storm the Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
Story by ALANNA DURKIN RICHER

The Justice Department is seeking 25 years in prison for Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder convicted of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors described as a violent plot to keep President Biden out of the White House, prosecutors said in court papers filed Friday.

A Washington, D.C., jury convicted Rhodes in November in one of the most consequential cases brought in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, when a mob of then-President Trump's supporters assaulted police officers, smashed windows and temporarily halted Congress’ certification of Biden’s victory.

Prosecutors described the Oath Keepers' actions as “terrorism," and told the judge that a harsh sentence is critical to deter future political violence. They wrote that Rhodes believes he has done nothing wrong and “still presents a threat to American democracy and lives."
Story by MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

AKentucky man with a long criminal record was sentenced Friday to more than 14 years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray and a chair as he stormed the U.S. Capitol with his wife.

Peter Schwartz’s prison sentence is the longest so far among hundreds of Capitol riot cases. The judge who sentenced Schwartz also handed down the previous longest sentence — 10 years — to a retired New York Police Department officer who assaulted a police officer outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of 24 years and six months for Schwartz, a welder.
By Robert Legare

Washington — The one-time president of the far-right Proud Boys group Enrique Tarrio and three subordinates were convicted of numerous felonies including seditious conspiracy for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

A federal jury in Washington, D.C. found Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Joseph Biggs guilty of conspiring to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden and using force and prior planning to hinder the 2020 presidential election certification.

There was no verdict for Dominic Pezzola on the most serious charge, seditious conspiracy, and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. After the reading of the partial verdict, Judge Timothy Kelly sent the jury back to deliberate on these charges and several other felonies that they did not come to verdict on.

All five were found guilty of several other felonies, including obstructing an official proceeding; obstructing Congress; conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging duties; obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder and aiding and abetting and destruction of government property. But Tarrio, who arrested on Jan. 4, 2021, and not at the Capitol, was found not guilty of assaulting officers. Only Pezzola was found guilty of that charge. They now likely face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Story by Ella Lee, USA TODAY

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three lieutenants on Thursday were found guilty of entering a seditious conspiracy against the U.S. government which culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack.

Prosecutors painted Tarrio as the leader of the plot, despite not physically being in D.C. that day. Tarrio's Jan. 4, 2021 arrest and the stabbing of several Proud Boys at a December 2020 protest turned members of the group against D.C. law enforcement and served as motivators to stop the election certification, the government claimed.

But Tarrio's attorneys argued that the Miami Proud Boy is the government's scapegoat for the Capitol attack. The true culprit of Jan. 6, they said, was former President Donald Trump.
Story by Katelyn Polantz

Former Vice President Mike Pence testified on Thursday to a federal grand jury investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election and the actions of then-President Donald Trump and others, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The testimony marks a momentous juncture in the criminal investigation and the first time in modern history a vice president has been compelled to testify about the president he served beside.

Former Vice President Mike Pence testified on Thursday to a federal grand jury investigating the aftermath of the 2020 election and the actions of then-President Donald Trump and others, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The testimony marks a momentous juncture in the criminal investigation and the first time in modern history a vice president has been compelled to testify about the president he served beside.
Story by Sarah K. Burris

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington, D.C. snapped at one of the lawyers of the Proud Boys in court Monday. Lawfare editor Roger Parloff has spent the last 61 days live-tweeting 61 days live-tweeting what he observes in the trial that isn't being streamed to the public, only the audio has been available at times.

The top five members of the Proud Boys that are appearing in court face "a ten-count indictment, the government alleges that five Proud Boy defendants ... conspired to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force," Parloff explained in January when the trial began. The men are former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Dominic Pezzola. Monday marked closing statements from the lawyers and theoretically should be the final day of the trial, and the next steps are the jury's decision.
Story by Jennifer Bowers Bahneyo

A man whose television was continuously tuned to Fox News, and who knew “next to nothing” about the 2020 election, has been sentenced to seven years in federal prison for his part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Patrick McCaughey III participated in “some of the worst violence inside the lower west tunnel,” crushing an officer with a police shield, NBC News reported Friday. The prosecutor had asked for a hefty 15-year sentence, which would have been the longest term given to a Capitol rioter. The judge in the case, Trevor McFadden, is a Trump appointee.

McCaughey’s sister wrote a letter to the court explaining that her brother had been “radicalized” by their father, who only played “Fox News and Turner Classic Movies” in their home. She wrote that McCaughey’s “entire livelihood depended on having a good relationship with my father.” “I believe my father’s dedication to ignoring all issues that did not interest him, and his tendency to cut out those who disagreed with him forced my brother to adapt to his interests once again and therefore, radicalize himself too,” she wrote.
Story by Maya Boddie

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffarti has filed a lawsuit against the leaders of an ongoing probe into the agency's top watchdog's alleged role in "missing Secret Service text messages from the Jan. 6" insurrection, The Washington Post reports.

The two-year investigation, according to The Post, "has paralyzed" Cuffarti's office," leaving him "alienated from the watchdog community," and has even sparked "calls for President Joe Biden to fire him."

The news outlet reports: "The president has signaled that he intends to stay out of the process until the panel from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) completes its work. When a federal watchdog is accused of misconduct and the organization decides that it warrants attention, another inspector general is assigned to investigate, under a system set up by Congress."
Story by By Kyle Cheney

Prosecutors are seeking nearly 16 years in prison for Patrick McCaughey, a Jan. 6 defendant who pinned a police officer in a Capitol doorway amid some of the most chaotic moments of violence that day.

The Justice Department called for the sentence — which would be more than five years longer than the longest sentence handed down in any Jan. 6 case — to reflect what it called McCaughey’s “heinous” conduct, some of the most egregious of any Jan. 6 defendant.

“McCaughey taunted police officers at the West Front bike racks and joined the mob that threw its weight against the beleaguered line of officers guarding the Capitol,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kimberly Paschall wrote in the 45-page sentencing memo. “McCaughey used a deadly and dangerous weapon against Officer Hodges, where he spent over two minutes using his body weight to crush the officer in the doorframe.”
Story by Spencer Hsu

The Proud Boys leader who learned of his upcoming arrest from a D.C. police lieutenant days before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol was in regular contact with the officer over the prior 15 months, according to evidence entered in federal court this week.

Enrique Tarrio, then chairman of the far-right extremist group, repeatedly shared outlines of members’ plans in D.C. and elsewhere at the request of Shane Lamond, a 22-year veteran of the D.C. police department, according to text exchanges read by Tarrio’s defense in his trial on seditious conspiracy charges with four other Proud Boys leaders.
Story by By Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein

Hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants facing obstruction charges — one of the most commonly charged felonies against those who breached the building or confronted police that day — are suddenly in limbo, following a divided appeals court ruling Friday.

The three-judge panel spared the Justice Department an immediate disaster by agreeing to permit three challenged Jan. 6 obstruction cases to continue. But the judges — one liberal and two conservatives — all raised serious questions about whether other Jan. 6 obstruction cases might face legitimate challenges.

At the heart of the conflict is how to measure whether Jan. 6 rioters acted with “corrupt intent,” a central element in the crime of obstructing an official proceeding. The judges noted that the requirement of “corrupt intent” was meant to avoid inadvertently criminalizing traditional protest or lobbying activities that have been a feature of civic engagement throughout American history. Any decision on the meaning of corrupt intent would have to separate those legitimate activities from potential criminal conduct.
Story by Tommy Christopher

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was stunned by a motion in the $1.6 billion Dominion defamation suit that he says is tantamount to an admission of blame by Fox News for the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

On Friday morning’s edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the host was commenting on the Republican overreach exemplified by Tennessee’s expulsion of two Black lawmakers that he says is fueled in part by things the base hears on Fox News.

Scarborough then went on a tangent about a motion from Fox News to exclude testimony about Jan. 6 on the grounds that “any reference to the Capitol riot will only unfairly prejudice the jury against Fox, inflame passions, prevent a fair trial, and taint any resulting verdict”:
Story by Lisa Rein

A nearly two-year investigation into allegations of misconduct by the Department of Homeland Security’s chief watchdog expanded this week to include his role in missing Secret Service text messages from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

On Monday, investigators demanded records related to the deleted texts from the Office of Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, an appointee of President Donald Trump whose office shut down an inquiry into the Secret Service messages last year amid the House’s probe of the insurrection.
Katelyn Polantz Paula Reid Zachary Cohen Devan Cole
By Katelyn Polantz, Paula Reid, Zachary Cohen, Devan Cole and Tierney Sneed, CNN

CNN — A federal judge has decided that former Vice President Mike Pence must testify to a grand jury about conversations he had with Donald Trump leading up to January 6, 2021, according to multiple sources familiar with a recent federal court ruling.

But the judge said – in a ruling that remains under seal – that Pence can still decline to answer questions related to his actions on January 6 itself, when he was serving as president of the Senate for the certification of the 2020 presidential election, according to one of the sources.

The ruling from chief judge James Boasberg of the US District Court in Washington, DC, is a major win for special counsel Jack Smith, who is spearheading the Justice Department investigation. Pence still has the ability to appeal.

The former vice president said his team is “evaluating the court’s decision,” telling Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren in an interview Tuesday that “the requirements of my testimony going forward are a subject of our review right now, and I’ll have more to say about that in the days ahead.”
Story by Daniel Barnes and Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — Four members of the Oath Keepers were convicted of conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on Monday, as a judge ordered jurors to continue deliberating the most serious counts against two additional defendants.

Sandra Parker, Laura Steele, Connie Meggs and William Isaacs were found guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The jury found Michael Greene, another member of the Oath Keepers, not guilty of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, but was still debating whether he was guilty of aiding or abetting the obstruction of an official proceeding. Bennie Parker was found not guilty of aiding or abetting, but the jury was still deliberating the conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding charge.

All six members of the far-right group were found guilty of the charge of entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds. Both Parker and Greene may only ultimately be convicted of that charge.
Story by insider@insider.com (John L. Dorman)

A judge sentenced an Air Force veteran — who entered the Senate chamber during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol dressed in body armor and carrying zip-tie handcuffs — to two years in prison on Friday. Larry R. Brock, a 55-year-old retired lieutenant colonel, joined other rioters on the Senate floor only minutes after security rushed then-Vice President Mike Pence out of the chamber and a mob, upset over then-President Donald Trump's 2020 loss to now-President Joe Biden, had breached the building.

A court found Brock, who lives in Galveston, Texas, guilty on six charges in November, including the obstruction of an official proceeding, which is a felony. In his explanation of the sentence, US District Judge John Bates described Brock's behavior in harsh terms. "It's really pretty astounding coming from a former high-ranked military officer. It's astounding and atrocious," the judge said.

The judge lowered the federal sentencing range from 57 to 71 months to 24 to 30 months given the dynamics of this particular case, including Brock's military service and the lack of a prior criminal record. But the judge said he also took into account the extreme rhetoric found on Brock's Facebook posts, which were read aloud in court, when determining the sentence.
Story by By Kyle Cheney

Atop lieutenant of the Proud Boys’ chairman, Enrique Tarrio, described on Wednesday a growing desperation among the group’s leaders as Jan. 6, 2021, approached and then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results sputtered.

That’s when the group’s thoughts turned to “all-out revolution,” according to Jeremy Bertino, the Justice Department’s star witness in the seditious conspiracy trial of Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders, who are charged with orchestrating a violent attempt to derail the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden.
Story by By GABE STERN and RIO YAMAT, Associated Press/Report for America

LAS VEGAS (AP) — New transcripts of closed-door testimony to the Jan. 6 House committee show Donald Trump and his allies had a direct hand in the Nevada Republican Party’s scheme to send a phony electoral certificate to Congress in 2020 in a last-ditch attempt to keep the former president in power. The documents made public Wednesday evening included interviews with state party leader Michael McDonald and Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid in February. Both men served as fake electors in Carson City on Dec. 14, 2020.

That day, six Nevada GOP members signed certificates falsely stating that Trump won Nevada in 2020 and sent them to Congress and the National Archives, where they were ultimately ignored. The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is digging into the role that these fake electors in key battleground states had in Trump’s attempt to cling to power after his 2020 defeat. McDonald and DeGraffenreid invoked Fifth Amendment protection hundreds of times in their separate interviews with the Jan. 6 committee, refusing to answer questions about their involvement and the extent to which Trump's top allies had helped in orchestrating the plot.
By Max Matza & Nadine Yousif | BBC News

A jury found Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes guilty of the rare charge of seditious conspiracy following a two-month trial. He plotted an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Mr Biden, prosecutors said. Four more were on trial with him related to the 2021 Capitol riots. Three of the group - Jessica Watkins, Kelly Meggs and Kenneth Harrelson - went inside the building during the attack. Meggs was also found guilty of seditious conspiracy on Tuesday. Both Rhodes and Meggs now face a maximum 20-year sentence on the charges.

Harrelson, Watkins and a fifth member, Thomas Caldwell - were found not guilty of seditious conspiracy. All five of the group members were found guilty of obstruction of an official proceeding. Rhodes, who prosecutors say acted as a "battlefield general" during the riots, was also found guilty of tampering with documents or proceedings. He was acquitted of two other conspiracy counts. The verdict comes after three full days of jury deliberation.
Brad Reed

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th Capitol riots on Thursday showed how former President Donald Trump and his allies plotted for months to simply declare victory on election night regardless of the actual results. CNN political analyst John Avlon broke down the committee's timeline on Friday and said it made a "truly damning" case against the former president. "This was laying out a fact pattern truly damning to the extent the president and his allies were telegraphing an intent to declare victory well before the election," he said.

"We know that Brad Parscale was talking about plans that were in discussion to have the ex-president declare victory as early as July. We've seen Roger Stone saying we'll declare victory regardless of the results. Steve Bannon, we heard him in October saying that was Trump's plan. And then yesterday we saw an email from Tom Fitton to senior members of the White House, basically proposing talking points for the former president saying, 'We had an election today and I won.'" Avlon went on to explain that this was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to Trump's plan to stay in power no matter what.
By Holmes Lybrand and Hannah Rabinowitz

CNN — A veteran and member of the Oath Keepers testified Wednesday that the far-right group amassed more weapons outside Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, than he had seen since his days in the military. Terry Cummings told the jury during the second week of the historic seditious conspiracy trial that he traveled to Washington with several members of a group from Florida, bringing his own AR-15 rifle and ammunition box to contribute to the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) allegedly established by the group in a hotel outside the city. “I have not seen that many weapons in one location since I was in the military,” Cummings, who showed his rifle and ammunition to the jury during his testimony, said.

Cummings, 66, testified he traveled to DC with one of the defendants, Kenneth Harrelson, and was instructed by another defendant, Kelly Meggs, to take weapons up to a hotel room in Virginia where the group was allegedly staging the QRF. When asked what his intention was in bringing the AR-15, Cummings testified that “it would potentially be used, not as an offensive situation, but more as a show of force,” adding that “there had been ongoing riots throughout the country, and it was to be used with the other Oath Keeper members just to have (a) presence.”
By David Edwards | Raw Story

D.C. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell on Wednesday sentenced five members of a Texas family for their roles in the Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence parents Dawn and Thomas Munn to one month in prison. A sentence of 21 days in jail was recommended for the couple's three adult children. In court on Wednesday, Howell stopped short of prison time for the children, according to CBS correspondent Scott MacFarlane. Kristi Munn received 3 years probation with home detention. Josh Munn and Kayli Munn also received three years probation but avoided home detention. At one point, Howell called the Jan. 6 attacks a "catastrophic security breach of the US Capitol" despite the family's plea deal for unlawful parading.
By Sky Palma | Raw Story

Two retired Indiana police officers have been named in a leak connected to the Oath Keepers militia group, WLFI reports. The group Distributed Denial of Open Secrets leaked about 5 gigabytes of data from the servers of the far-right group. As WLFI points out, the unidentified former officers haven't been arrested or charged.

"Greetings: I am a retired police Sergeant, Lafayette Police Department, 27 years. I want to become a member [of the Oath Keepers]. Checking to see if there is a chapter in Indiana," read a 2021 email from one of the retired Lafayette Police Department officers. The email was sent less than four months after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Another retired LPD officer is listed as an Oath Keepers member in a leaked membership log, where he says in his bio, "I gave an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America in the Unites States Army and the Lafayette Police Dept., I will defend that oath with my very last breath. I'm a Christian man with an allegiance to GOD and Country."
By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The defense team in the Capitol riot trial of the Oath Keepers leader is relying on an unusual strategy with Donald Trump at the center. Lawyers for Stewart Rhodes, founder of the extremist group, are poised to argue that jurors cannot find him guilty of seditious conspiracy because all the actions he took before the siege on Jan. 6, 2021, were in preparation for orders he anticipated from the then-president — orders that never came.

Rhodes and four associates are accused of plotting for weeks to stop the transfer of presidential power from the Republican incumbent to Democrat Joe Biden, culminating with Oath Keepers in battle gear storming the Capitol alongside hundreds of other Trump supporters. Opening statements in the trial are set to begin Monday. Rhodes intends to take the stand to argue he believed Trump was going to invoke the Insurrection Act to call up a militia to support him, his lawyers have said. Trump didn't do that, but Rhodes' team says that what prosecutors allege was an illegal conspiracy was "actually lobbying and preparation for the President to utilize" the law.
By Brad Reed | Raw Story

A supporter of former President Donald Trump found himself being confronted by an acquaintance during a CNN interview in an Ohio diner. CNN went to the diner to take the temperature of voters in a key swing district ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. During the segment, an Ohio man named Joe Clements told the network that he would be supporting Republican and one-time QAnon promoter J.R. Majewski due to his endorsement from former President Donald Trump. However, a man named Steve Santo, who was siting across the table from Clements, didn't have such a favorable opinion about the former president, and he didn't hold back in slamming him over the January 6th Capitol riots. "He tried to overthrow our government!" Santo said. "That's the bottom line -- and you guys can't see it!"
salarshani@businessinsider.com (Sarah Al-Arshani)

Senate Intelligence chair Mark Warner said it's "stunning" that 21 years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, "the attack on the symbol of our democracy" hadn't come from foreign threats but from within the US. "I remember, as most Americans do, where they were on 9/11. I was in the middle of a political campaign and suddenly, the differences with my opponent seem very small in comparison and our country came together. And in many ways, we defeated the terrorists because of the resilience of the American public because of our intelligence community, and we are safer, better prepared," Warner told CBS's "Face the Nation" host Margaret Brennan. "The stunning thing to me is here we are 20 years later, and the attack on the symbol of our democracy was not coming from terrorists, but it came from literally insurgents attacking the Capitol on January 6th," he added.
Giovana Gelhoren

Cuoy Griffin, an Otero County, New Mexico, commissioner and founder of Cowboys for Trump, has been removed from office and disqualified from any future public office positions due to his involvement in the Jan. 6 capitol riots. The decision was made final on Tuesday by New Mexico Judge Francis Matthew, court documents reveal. The ruling was the result of a lawsuit in which plaintiffs urged for Griffin's removal under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The section states that "No person shall hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as an officer of the United States, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same."
WSLS 10

Robertson was sentenced to 87 months in prison and will get credit for the 12 months that he has already served. He will also be under 36 months of unsupervised release.
Molly Beck and Lawrence Andrea, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

WASHINGTON – After initially claiming to be "basically unaware" of an effort by his staff to get fake presidential elector documents to Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Thursday he coordinated with a Wisconsin attorney to pass along such information and alleged a Pennsylvania congressman brought slates of fake electors to his office — a claim that was immediately disputed. Evidence presented this week by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol showed Johnson's chief of staff tried to deliver the two states' lists of fake presidential electors for former President Donald Trump to Pence on the morning of the U.S. Capitol insurrection but was rebuffed by Pence's aide. Johnson initially told reporters last week he did not know where the documents came from and that his staff sought to forward it to Pence.
Travis Gettys

Right-wing extremists charged in the U.S. Capitol riot threatened to "gas" lawmakers in tunnels where Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) led a tour the previous day. The Georgia Republican led a group of 15 individuals later identified by police as constituents on a tour of the Capitol complex, where one participant took photos of hallways, staircases and tunnels, and that same man was shown on video from Jan. 6 shouting threats against individual Democratic lawmakers. “We’re coming to take you out and pull you out by your hairs," the man says, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). "When I get done with you, you’re going to need a shine on top of that bald head." Conspiracy charges filed shortly after the riot showed a group of three Oath Keepers were particularly interested in lawmakers' movements in the tunnels underneath the Capitol complex, and one of them, Thomas Edward Caldwell, allegedly received a Facebook message about them.
By Brad Reed | Raw Story

A man who went on a tour of the Capitol with Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) on January 5th, 2021 was caught on camera outside the Capitol the next day threatening lawmakers. Punchbowl News reports that the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riots "has video of this person taking part in the Loudermilk tour on Jan. 5, as well as documentary footage of the same man outside the Capitol on Jan. 6." The person in question, who has not been identified, has interviewed with the Jan. 6 Committee and has not been charged with any wrongdoing related to the riots. Additionally, Capitol Police said this week they have no evidence that Loudermilk was leading a reconnaissance tour of would-be rioters to show them the layout of the building.
The New York Times

Enrique Tarrio, the former chairman of the Proud Boys, and four other members of the far-right group were indicted on Monday for seditious conspiracy for their roles in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 of last year, some of the most serious criminal charges to be brought in the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation of the assault. The sedition charges came in an amended indictment that was unsealed in Federal District Court in Washington. The men had already been charged in an earlier indictment filed in March with conspiring to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which took place during a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. The new indictment marked the second time a far-right group has been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. In January, Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was arrested and charged along with 10 others with the same crime. The charge of seditious conspiracy — which can be difficult to prove and carries particular legal weight as well as political overtones — requires prosecutors to show that at least two people agreed to use force to overthrow government authority or delay the execution of a U.S. law. It carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
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