Tag: Capitol Insurrection

Categories
Capitol Insurrection January 6

Capitol Rioter Attempts To Suck Up To Judge And Gets His A*s Handed To Him

John Cameron thought he had the perfect way to curry favor with the federal judge who was about to hand down a sentence for his role in the January 6 Capitol riots.

But the judge, according to The Washington Post, was not impressed:

“Can you guess who my favorite president is?” asked the man about to be sentenced for his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Senior Judge Thomas F. Hogan did not respond. So John Cameron, a real estate agent from the Seattle area, answered his own question. “Ronald Reagan,” he said during the hearing Monday, suggesting the judge might agree. Hogan was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by Reagan 40 years ago.

Cameron, 55, went on to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which Reagan made part of Flag Day ceremonies that same year.

Judge Hogan began asking Cameron questions about what he’d done on Jan. 6:

How, he asked, could Cameron claim to have seen no violence or clear sign he could not enter the Capitol during the riot? Did he not hear murderous chants and blaring alarms, smell tear gas, see people climbing up scaffolding and through windows? Did he think, as he said on Facebook, that it was all “fun”? And if so, was he withdrawing his plea to a misdemeanor charge?

Cameron sheepishly replied:

“No. I picketed within the Capitol, and that was illegal. … I would never do it again.”

The judge then let Cameron know exactly what he thought about yahoos who decided to break into the Capitol building and call for former Vice President Mike Pence to be hung:

“I keep hearing from Jan. 6 defendants, ‘We’re being prosecuted,’ like it’s a surprise, or ‘We’re being persecuted,’ like it’s unfair. I do not understand that psychology. What irritates me most is that all of you are claiming you’re patriots; you’re not patriots when you attack the Capitol of the United States.”

Cameron was sentenced to three years probation and 30 days of intermittent confinement, along with a $1,000 fine and $500 restitution.

Before he left the courtroom, Cameron also got this warning from Judge Hogan:

“If you had pleaded to a felony, I would just put you in jail for a long time. The court at least hopes that in this three-year period, you don’t engage in any such conduct again.”

Categories
Capitol Insurrection Crime Donald Trump January 6

Grand Jury Subpoena Proves Trump Is ‘The Target’ Of A Criminal Probe Into January 6

A grand jury subpoena issued to former Trump administration attorney Eric Herschmann requesting documents and testimony is proof that ex-president Donald Trump is now “the target” of a federal criminal probe into the January 6 Capitol insurrection, according to a prosecutor who spent decades putting white collar criminals behind bars.

Politico broke news of the subpoena, with reporter Betsy Woodruff Swan noting:

Herschmann represented Donald Trump in the former president’s first impeachment trial and later joined the White House as a senior adviser. He did not work in the White House counsel’s office, but did provide Trump with legal advice. Because of that responsibility, there will likely be litigation over the scope of the subpoena and over how executive and attorney-client privileges may limit Herschmann’s ability to comply.

Herschmann is a key figure who was witness to many of the happenings inside the Trump administration prior to and after the Capitol was attacked on Jan. 6:

During the tumultuous final weeks of Trump’s term, Herschmann clashed with other aides and advisers who pushed the defeated president to fight the election results. He was also present for many of the most consequential meetings in that period of time. Among them was a high-stakes meeting where most of the Trump Justice Department’s top brass threatened to resign rather than work under a colleague who wanted to advance spurious claims of widespread voter fraud.

Herschmann also sparred with Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn when they urged Trump to have the military seize voting machines. The Jan. 6 select committee has aired numerous portions of his testimony to their panel, which is blunt and sometimes darkly amusing.

The Politico report prompted a response from Andrew Weissmann, who spent 20 years at the Justice Department and was one of the key investigators for Special Counsel Robert Mueller during the Russia investigation. Weissmmann weighed in on Twitter in reference to Swan’s article:

“No question now that Trump is the target of the federal 1/6 probe. And correct move here: Lock people into the GJ.”

The key words in Weissmann’s tweet are “the target” because it means that prosecutors and the grand jury they have impaneled believe Trump is the prime suspect who is under investigation and most likely to be indicted if the evidence supports such a move. In other words, the ex-president is the reason the grand jury is meeting in the first place and the focus of their attention.

All of this comes three weeks after the FBI served a search warrant at the former president’s residence at Mar-a-Lago. That warrant was to gather evidence which may support other indictments of Trump for violating the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice.

Just when Donald thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they did.

 

Categories
Capitol Insurrection GOP January 6

Stephen Colbert Has A Hilarious New Nickname For Josh Hawley – And It’s Absolutely Perfect

The five days since last Thursday’s public hearing of the House Select Committee investigating January 6 have been especially bad ones for Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who was exposed as a coward by the panel when it aired new video of him running away from rioters like a little boy who thinks he’s just seen the boogeyman.

That scene took place just hours after Hawley had given a raised fist salute to protesters as he entered the Capitol on Jan. 6.

As you’d expect, reaction to the video of Hawley, especially when compared to his tough guy salute, has set off plenty of laughter on social media.

And now Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show,” has joined the mockery, giving Hawley a nickname that will likely stick with him for the remainder of his life and help assure he is never elected president, despite his reported ambitions to run for the White House in 2024.

HuffPost reports:

“This weekend, at the right-wing Turning Point USA Summit, we heard from Missouri senator and star of the new film ‘Fascist Gump’ Josh Hawley,” Colbert said Monday.

Colbert then played a clip of Hawley’s speech at the summit in which he proclaimed:

“I just want to say to all of those liberals out there and the liberal media, just in case you haven’t gotten the message yet: I do not regret it. And I am not backing down. I’m not going to apologize. I’m not going to cower. I’m not going to run from you.”

That led Colbert to counter:

“Yeah. He is never going to run from his enemies. In fact, here he is on January 6 bravely moonwalking into danger.”

 

Categories
Capitol Insurrection Congress GOP January 6

Liz Cheney Claps Back At Tom Cotton After He Slams Jan. 6 Hearings – But Admits He Hasn’t Watched Them

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) made Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) look like a complete fool after he criticized the hearings being conducted by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

Cotton appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Monday and slammed the hearings, Mediaite reports:

“It was clear in Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to seat Jim Jordan and Jim Banks as Republican members of that committee, a break with precedent going back to the beginning of the House of Representatives in the 18th Century. And I think what you’ve seen over the last few weeks is why Anglo-American jurisprudence going back centuries has found that adversarial inquiry, cross-examination is the best way to get at the truth.”

Cotton later confessed that he hadn’t actually watched the hearings, but had merely seen “a snippet here or there on the news.”

“I will confess that I did not watch that hearing, and I have not watched any of the hearings, so I’ve not seen any of them out of the context that I see a snippet here or there on the news.”

It’s kind of hard to accurately gauge the fairness or probative value of a congressional hearing if you haven’t seen any of it, and that’s exactly what Cheney reminded Cotton on Twitter, where she absolutely destroyed him:

It should be interesting to see if Cotton attempts a retort to Cheney. If he has even a shred of a brain, he won’t. Then again, he’s already proven that he isn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

 

Categories
Capitol Insurrection Crime January 6

January 6 Rioter Arrested After He Called The FBI Hotline To ‘Clear His Name’

Samuel Fontanez Rodriguez thought he had a brilliant way to clear himself of what he did on January 6, 2021: He’d call the FBI hotline, give them only part of his name, and be off the hook for his crimes.

Instead, Rodriguez is now facing a charge of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, along with several other offenses.

However, it was the incredibly stupid move of calling to “clear his name,” according to Lehigh Valley Live:

According to the criminal complaint, Fontanez Rodriguez on Jan. 22, 2021, called the FBI National Threat Operations Center “to clear his name surrounding the events at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.”

He purportedly said he was in the area of the Capitol from about 2:05 to 2:22 p.m. before catching an Uber about 2:43 p.m. The caller initially identified himself as Samuel Fontanez and was subsequently identified as Samuel Fontanez Rodriguez, according to court records filed by investigators who followed up on the initial call with an interview with the suspect March 19, 2021.

Of course, no one ever said that Trump supporters that the domestic terrorists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 are very bright. After all, these geniuses actually though they could carry off a coup with bear spray, zip ties, and flag poles as weapons. Oh, and they also were under the impression that Congress would refuse to certify the election if they wreaked enough havoc. Instead, they’re now being sent to prison and Joe Biden is president because he overwhelmingly won the 2020 election.