Tag: January 6 Select Committee

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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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Crime Donald Trump Social Media

Trump Demands Members Of 1/6 Committee Be Arrested After Judge Sets His Trial Date For March

After learning that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan had set his election conspiracy trial date for March 4, 2024 — which is just a day before the Super Tuesday GOP primaries — disgraced and multiply indicted former president Donald Trump raged on his failing Truth Social site, even going to far as to insist that the entire House Select Committee on January 6 should be arrested and charged with crimes.

In setting the date, Judge Chutkan noted:

During a hearing on Monday, Chutkan heard arguments from Trump’s lawyers and federal prosecutors about when the case could be set for trial. Special counsel Jack Smith proposed that the trial start in January, with jury selection beginning in December of this year, while Trump’s team said the trial should be pushed back until April 2026, after the presidential election.

“These proposals are obviously very far apart,” Chutkan said Monday. “Neither of them is acceptable.”

Chutkan said that Trump will have to prioritize the trial and that she wouldn’t change the trial schedule based upon another defendant’s professional obligations, say, for a professional athlete.

Trump responded:

“Deranged Jack Smith & his team of Thugs, who were caught going to the White House just prior to Indicting the 45th President of the United States (an absolute No No!), have been working on this Witch Hunt for almost 3 years, but decided to bring it smack in the middle of Crooked Joe Biden’s Political Opponent’s campaign against him. Election Interference! Today a biased, Trump Hating Judge gave me only a two month extension, just what our corrupt government wanted, SUPER TUESDAY. I will APPEAL!”

The failed ex-president then added:

“Page 2: How do you have an Indictment that is based almost entirely on the findings of the January 6th Unselect Committee of Marxists, Fascists, and Political Hacks, when these same lowlifes, who have been caught lying for years about Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, FISA, the Fake Dossier, & much more, purposely & Illegally DESTROYED & DELETED all of the Evidence, Findings, & Proof of the January 6th Committee? When will Deranged Jack Smith Criminally Charge the Committee?”

Despite Trump’s insistence that he will appeal the trial date set by the judge, it’s unlikely he’ll win a favorable ruling. Federal judges are given tremendous latitude to run their courtrooms and trials heard in them the way they want. Even the Supreme Court isn’t likely to hear such an appeal, if only because they don’t want to be seen as literally interfering in a pending trial.

 

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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

‘Tantalizing Comment’ In Jan. 6 Report Suggests Two Key Witnesses Have Flipped On Trump

Now that legal experts have had a few weeks to comb over the executive summary of a report from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, they’re finding new information that suggests at least two “huge” witnesses from the Trump administration are cooperating with investigators.

MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann has read through the executive summary and found something that immediately caught his attention, as he explained.

“There is a very tantalizing comment in the executive summary. It’s hard to call it that because it’s 160 pages, but in that executive summary there’s a reference to why the Department of Justice may not have sought to charge (former White House Chief of Staff) Mark Meadows and (Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications) Dan Scavino with contempt.”

Weissmann continued:

“If you recall, they were both referred by the committee to the Department of Justice for contempt failing to comply with a subpoena, and one of the things the report says, is it sort of speculates, but odd that it says it may be that they’re already cooperating, and with Mark Meadows, that would be huge. I mean, he is in the place to know everything so, obviously, if not cooperating already, there is a ton of pressure that is going to be put on him.”

The former federal prosecutor, who worked on the staff of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, concluded:

“I think department prosecutors will look at this release of documents, not so much for the Trump information, but for underlings who may be able to be charged and flipped. So, you know, [Secret Service agent] Tony Ornato would be one of them, but they’re going to look very, very closely for any information that could help them charge people with either making a false statement or perjury or obstruction of justice to see if they can get them to be cooperating witnesses.”

If indeed Meadows and Scavino are cooperating in order to avoid being criminally charged, Donald Trump is absolutely screwed.

Here’s the video from MSNBC:

 

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Capitol Insurrection Crime Donald Trump January 6

Former Prosecutor: This Criminal Charge Is The Most Likely To Lead To A Conviction Of Trump

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol will meet Monday and is expected to make criminal referrals to the Department of Justice on three felony accounts against one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump, according to reports.

  • 18 U.S.C. 2383, insurrection
  • 18 U.S.C. 1512(c), obstruction of an official proceeding
  • 18 U.S.C. 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States government.

Which of those charges is most likely to lead to a successful conviction of Trump? That was the question posed to former U.S. Attorneys Joyce Vance and Barbara McQuade Sunday morning on MSNBC.

Vance noted that while getting a conviction against an ex-president will be a challenge, one of the three charges is easiest to prove.

“Prosecutors have to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and it is not a situation where the tie goes to the runner.”

Having made that point clear, Vance added:

“This sort of charge that you’re talking about, which is the midpoint here interference with an official proceeding, seems like the sort of charge that prosecutors might be far more likely to believe they could convict beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Vance also explained her reasoning:

“Because so much of Trump’s conduct was public, so much of it is on videotape. There are so many conversations leading up to January sixth, including the entirety of his perpetuation of the big lie. There is an entire trajectory of evidence here that could be used.”

Prosecutors can expect a relatively predictable defense from Trump, Vance concluded:

“That doesn’t mean it is important to say that Trump would be without defenses, and again we’ve all talked exhaustively about the fact that Trump would point to his sincere and legitimate belief that he had won the election and that there was fraud and prosecutors would still have to overcome that. But it seems to be less heavy of a lift on the insurrection charge on the evidence here.”