Category: Capitol Insurrection

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Capitol Insurrection Donald Trump Elections January 6 The Trump Adminstration

A Torn-Up Note May Wind Up Being The Key To Proving Trump’s Guilt For January 6

A note that former president Donald Trump angrily ripped up in the days before the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection is likely to be the key piece of evidence that will prove Trump’s guilt in the plot to illegally overturn the 2020 election, according to former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.

The torn-up note features prominently in a new book from ABC News journalist Jonathan Karl, Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party, and it confirms previous testimony presented to the House Select Committee that investigated Jan. 6.

Karl’s book was discussed on “Deadline: White House” Monday, and the issue of the note, in which top Army leaders said the military could not get involved in election issues, led Weissmann to note, “That note gets ripped up into pieces so no one could find it.”

Weissmann also explained why the note is so important in proving Trump’s role in the Capitol insurrection.

“As much of you think of it as a military organization with a hierarchy, they are also trained they do not violate the Constitution. And when there’s an invalid order, they cannot follow it because the Constitution comes first.

“So, to me, this is right to the heart of Donald Trump brushing up against one guardrail.”

Additionally, Weissmann said other evidence also points to how Trump and his top aides were planning to subvert the will of the voters in 2020.

“I have always been fascinated by the fact you had had the Defense Department and [Gen. Mark] Milley, with a lot going on behind the scenes, pushing back because you can’t engage in a coup without military backing. And the fact that Kash Patel was there, a figure with no military expertise whatsoever, and was installed there, to me, is always this unwritten story about what was happening.”

Should a man who wanted to turn the United States into a dictatorship be allowed near the White House again? No. And that’s why his prosecution and eventual conviction for that crime is so important if this country and our representative democracy are to survive.

 

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Capitol Insurrection Crime GOP

Eric Swalwell Draws A Direct Line Between Jim Jordan’s Sex Scandal And His Actions On Jan. 6

For years, scandal has surrounded Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who has yet to fully explain why when he was an assistant coach on the Ohio State University wrestling team in the mid-1990s he failed to report that sexual abuse of young athletes was being committed by the team doctor, Richard Strauss. Strauss killed himself in 2005 and is believed to have abused at least 177 students from 1979 to 1996.

And now Jordan is at the center of yet another scandal, and this one could well cost him his political career and result in him being charged with crimes against the United States for his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

 

One of Jordan’s colleagues, Rep. Eric Swalwell, says there’s a connection between the Ohio Republican’s actions at Ohio State and his alleged coordination with members of the Trump administration who attempted to orchestrate a coup on the 6th of January.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Swalwell noted:

“I’m not a Harvard lawyer. But the way that he has talked about his involvement certainly makes him look — the way that he is now moonwalk-ing away from responsibilities as to why — probably makes him complicit. This is an incident of workplace violence. Let us just step back. In any workplace — if this has happened. If you worked with contact with someone who is responsible for the workplace violence. If you did nothing wrong and you had nothing to do with it. You would raise your hand and say, let me help make this safer.”

Swalwell then added that Jordan’s refusal to speak to the House 1/6 Select Committee without being subpoenaed is the same sort of thing he did at Ohio State:

“The fact that he does not want to cooperate, I think, puts him in the category of the people who had some knowledge of what Trump wanted to do. And, by the way, Lawrence, this guy has priors. This is not the first time he has been accused of witnessing a crime and not wanting to report it or help investigators.”

 

Jim Jordan allegedly enabled the actions of sexual predator even though he could have reported what he knew and protected other students. And now he’s an enabler of a plot to overthrow the elected government of the United States. Both are disgusting and abhorrent, and it’s time that Jordan paid for his refusal to speak when others were in danger.

 

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Capitol Insurrection January 6 WTF?!

Jan. 6 Rioter Tells Judge He Only Showed Up At Capitol To Increase His Social Media Engagement

Ryan Zink is a resident of Arizona who showed up at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 and allegedly played a role in the events of that horrific day.

How do we know Zink was at the Capitol on Jan. 6? Because he was stupid enough to film himself charging towards the building and then post the videos on social media for others to see.

Including, of course, the FBI and other federal investigators.

During his testimony, Kyle Cheney of Politico reports, Zink attempted to defend his actions by claiming he was merely trying to boost is social media engagement.

However, such a defense is seriously undercut by statements Zink made that day, including:

  • “We’re storming the Capitol!”
  • “They can’t stop us!”

Here’s what else Cheney shared about Zink’s testimony.

Ryan Zink, a Jan. 6 defendant charged with obstruction, is on the stand in his ongoing trial. His dad ran against Ruben Gallego in the 2022 election and is running for the open seat in 2024.

The younger Zink testified that he was apolitical, disgusted by the violence he witnessed and tried to help cops that day. Videos of him charging toward the Capitol (and up the steps) while yelling “we’re storming the Capitol,” among other things, were just for clicks, he says.

In 5 videos Zink — who was with his father that day — yells “they can’t stop us” while surging with the crowd. “We’re in the doors,” he yells while the crowd breached (though he didn’t go in) His explanation today: “I’m embellishing my activity here to try to retain viewership”

NOTABLY Zink tried to subpoena Speaker McCarthy, Rep. Jim Jordan and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Last week, House lawyers sharply (and successfully) rejected the effort, saying the subpoena was improper and sought irrelevant info.

Since he was merely trying to get more views on Facebook, maybe Zink can get Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to pay his legal bills or send him some money for his prison commissary account if and when he’s found guilty and incarcerated.

He might not want to hold his breath waiting for that to happen.

 

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Capitol Insurrection Donald Trump Eric Trump January 6

Eric Trump May Have Incriminated His Dad With Videotaped Remarks On The Jan. 6 Attack

Alex Holder is a British documentary filmmaker who spoke with members of failed, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump’s family during the 2020 campaign — including in the days leading up to the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol — and portions of his upcoming film, “Unprecedented,” were subpoenaed by the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol insurrection.

According to The Independent, which spoke with Holder, ex-president Trump’s son, Eric, seemed to indicate that the family believed violence was a viable response to what they thought had been a stolen election:

“When I asked Eric about the potential danger of sort of rhetoric and the sort of the belligerence, he felt that it was … fair game in that it … was sort of the equivalent on the other side of the political discourse, or he felt that it was the right thing to do … because the election was stolen.”

Holder also revealed that he wasn’t surprised when the rioting began at the Capitol because of all the anger and vitriol that had been spewed by the former president from the moment it became clear he had lost the election in a landslide to President Joe Biden:

“The idea of violence, to me, seemed likely because of the fact that when you tell 75 million people that their vote didn’t count, and the person that’s telling you that is not just the guy you voted for, but also the incumbent President of the United States, the chance of violence was always there.”

Eric’s remarks are especially troublesome for his father, who has repeatedly insisted that he never thought anyone would storm the Capitol and that he was merely calling for a peaceful protest on the day thousands of his supporters broke into the seat of government with chants of “Hang Mike Pence” and open calls to find and kill key Democrats, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Eric Trump has made his father’s already perilous legal situation much worse.

 

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Capitol Insurrection Crime Donald Trump January 6

Trump Attorney Demands Jan. 6 Case Against His Client Be Moved From Washington, DC To West Virginia

According to attorney John Lauro, who is representing disgraced ex-president Donald Trump, now that his client has been indicted for his role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election by Special Counsel Jack Smith in Washington, D.C., the only way the former president can receive a fair trial is if the location for court proceedings is moved from the nation’s capitol to West Virginia.

Lauro made his remarks today during an appearance on CBS, claiming that Trump was being charged for words he said and that are protected under the First Amendment.

“This is the first time that political speech has been criminalized in the history of the United States. It’s the first time where a current president is using the criminal process to attack a former president on policy issue. We are in a constitutional abyss right now. We’ve never seen this … the president wants his day in court. Most importantly, he wants to get to the truth, which we will do in this case.”

The federal indictment handed down Tuesday charged the failed one-term former president with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.

Asked if Trump would be asking for a change of venue, Lauro replied, “Absolutely” When asked where he thought would be a more fitting locale for the trial, the attorney responded, “There’s certainly West Virginia.”

Why West Virginia? Lauro said because it’s “close by.”

What are the chances of such a change in the location of Trump’s trial? Such a request is “doomed to lose” according to former federal prosecutor Elie Honig.

Honig was a guest on CNN’s “The Lead With Jake Tapper,” and he said while such a motion might make sense for Trump’s legal team, it won’t go far.

“I fully understand why Donald Trump wants to get out of the District of Columbia as Mr. Lauro said, Donald Trump got 5.4 percent of the vote there in 2020. By the way, he got 68 percent of the vote in West Virginia,” he said.

“But in order to succeed on this motion…, one option is if DOJ agrees. They’re not going to agree. So then you have to go to the judge, the judge can move the case to a different venue. One if it’s more convenient, this would be wildly inconvenient to move this from D.C. to West Virginia, or two, if it’s necessary to ensure the fairness of the trial.”

Honig added, “But the judge will say, ‘look, we have jury selection processes. Donald Trump, as the defendant, will have the right to strike, to get rid of many jurors, and I the judge will instruct jurors that they are to put aside their political beliefs,’ so I think any such motion – I get why Trump will make it – it’s doomed to lose.”

Doomed to lose. Just like almost everything Trump has ever attempted in his life.