Trump loyalists in Congress to challenge Electoral College results in Jan. 6 joint session (Update: Insurrectionists storm Congress)(And now what?) (1 Viewer)

[superchuck500]

I guess it's time to start a thread for this. We know that at least 140 members of Congress have pledged to join the objection. Under federal law, if at least one member of each house (HOR and Senate) objects, each house will adjourn the joint session for their own session (limited at two hours) to take up the objection. If both houses pass a resolution objecting to the EC result, further action can take place. If both houses do not (i.e. if one or neither passes a resolution), the objection is powerless and the college result is certified.

Clearly this is political theater as we know such a resolution will not pass the House, and there's good reason to think it wouldn't pass the Senate either (with or without the two senators from Georgia). The January 6 joint session is traditionally a ceremonial one. This one will not be.

Many traditional pillars of Republican support have condemned the plan as futile and damaging. Certainly the Trump loyalists don't care - and many are likely doing it for fundraising purposes or to carry weight with the fraction of their constituencies that think this is a good idea.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32717.pdf

 

[MT15]

While all this other crap is going on, DOJ just keeps rolling putting insurrectionists in jail. If this is the lady I am thinking of, she did a whole lot more than “break a window”. She was instructing people where to go and encouraging them to go to the floor.

 

[MT15]

Also saw this today:

 

[DaveXA]

Also saw this today:

Would love to see that. The longer, the better.

 

[Optimus Prime]

from last year

 

[MT15]

I had no idea about this guy:

 

[MT15]

More info from Michigan:

 

[Optimus Prime]

…….At the federal level, the special counsel Jack Smith and his team brought charges against Trump and his allies over their attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, which include the fake elector scheme. Several states have confirmed they are cooperating with Smith’s investigation, and news reports have indicated Smith offered limited immunity to some fake electors for their testimony.

Since the scheme had no precedent, some states and experts have struggled to figure out which laws may have been broken, and whether the charges should be state or federal. In some states, the fake electors also face civil lawsuits. Here’s where they stand.

Arizona​

The former Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich, a Republican, never publicly confirmed any investigation into the state’s fake electors, which included high-profile far-right figures such as the state senator Jake Hoffman and the former Arizona GOP chair Kelli Ward. The state actually saw two separate sets of fake electors.

His successor, the Democrat Kris Mayes, told the Guardian earlier this year that her office is investigating the fake electors, but has not provided any details of the investigation so far. On a recent Arizona Republic podcast episode, Mayes said she could not say much about the contours of the investigation, but that her office was taking it “very seriously” and that it was a “very important investigation”…….

Nevada​

Nevada’s top prosecutor has said his office would not bring charges against the six people who signed on as fake electors there in 2020. The state’s Democratic attorney general, Aaron Ford, said current state laws did not address this kind of situation, “to the dismay of some, and I’m sure, to the delight of others”.

The Democratic state senator Skip Daly attempted to solve that problem, and the state legislature passed a bill that would have made it a felony for people to serve as false electors, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Ford had endorsed the bill.

But the Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, vetoed the bill, saying the penalties were too harsh, though he said he believed those who undermine elections should face “strict punishments”.

New Mexico​

The former New Mexico attorney general Hector Balderas started an investigation into the five Republicans who signed as false electors there, then referred the matter to federal prosecutors, according to Source New Mexico.

The office of the current attorney general, Raúl Torrez, confirmed there was an active state investigation into the fake electors to see if they violated state law, but details about the case have been scant. Torrez’s office said it would work with Jack Smith to get any evidence related to a state inquiry, according to KOAT Action News.…..

Pennsylvania​

The 20 fake electors in Pennsylvania are unlikely to face any criminal charges because of how they worded the documents they signed. The documents say the false electoral votes would only be considered valid if the courts deemed the slate to be the “duly elected and qualified electors” for Pennsylvania.

Governor Josh Shapiro, then the state’s Democratic attorney general, said the hedged language would spare the false electors from a criminal investigation by his office. His successor as attorney general, Michelle Henry, told Votebeatthat the office’s position remained that charges were not warranted.

“Though their rhetoric and policy were intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy, based on our initial review, our office does not believe this meets the legal standards for forgery,” Shapiro said in 2022.

Wisconsin​

The Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, has not said whether his office is investigating the state’s 10 fake electors for potential state law violations, though a civil lawsuit against the alternate slate is moving forward. Kaul has said he supports the federal investigation and that he expects to see “further developments” in that case.

Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, said in August he wanted to see the Wisconsin fake electors “held accountable” via prosecution.

“What those ten fake electors did was wrong,” Evers wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “People have to be held accountable for that, and I hope to hell somebody does.”……

Trump fake elector scheme: where do seven states’ investigations stand?

Several states are investigating the scheme created by Trump allies to cast fake electoral votes in 2020 election

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

For one rioter at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, wearing a Caterpillar hoodie proved a bad fashion choice.

Admittedly, with an American flag-patterned cap and some shades, the garment helped shield his identity as he manhandled a police officer. Yet it came back to haunt him.

Investigators used an app and facial-recognition technology to zero in and eventually got their man: Logan Barnhart, a construction worker in Michigan with a passion for fitness. His résumé included bodybuilding and modeling for romance novel covers. While hitting a punching bag in a workout video, he wore some familiar attire: a Caterpillar sweatshirt. Cue the Dragnet music.

There was something else remarkable about this investigation: the sleuths were ordinary Americans, part of a spontaneously formed citizen network volunteering their time to track down Capitol rioters.

Now their story is shared in a book that takes its name from the movement, Sedition Hunters: How January 6 Broke the Justice System, by Ryan J Reilly, an NBC News justice reporter.

“They were really just random Americans who got together and decided they wanted to do something about what happened on January 6,” Reilly says.

Those random Americans did not just identify Barnhart. They sought and found other rioters who stormed the Capitol after Donald Trump refused to accept his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and invited supporters to rally in Washington on the day Congress was to certify the results.

Now, one of the Sedition Hunters, Forrest Rogers, is using his talents to siphon out misinformation of a different sort – as a journalist reporting on the conflict between Israel and Hamas for Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a newspaper based in Zurich.

In the wake of January 6, the citizen sleuths proved invaluable to the FBI, which Reilly describes as reeling from the fallout of the riots and overwhelmed by the subsequent federal investigation, the largest in American history, as an initial estimate of 800 rioters entering the Capitol ballooned to more than 3,000.

While the FBI approached the task with antiquated technology, the Sedition Hunters had all the latest tools, including the app that helped catch Barnhart, which was designed in a garage by one particular sleuth, known only as Alex in Reilly’s book. Many others did such critical work.

Like Alex, “Joan” used an article of clothing to pin down a suspect. In her case, it was a blue-and-white sweatshirt from a school in her home town, Hershey, Pennsylvania, worn by a Capitol window-smasher. Its wearer had also been seen inside but all she had was a nickname: “Zeeker.” Joan searched the school’s Facebook page. Zeeker turned out to be Leo Brent Bozell IV, scion of a conservative dynasty………

Sedition Hunters: how ordinary Americans helped track down the Capitol rioters

In his new book, Ryan J Reilly of NBC tells how the FBI got a much-needed helping hand from a band of citizen sleuths

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Just out of curiosity, if a lawyer quits due to non payment and is no longer someone’s attorney does attorney client privilege still apply?

I assume that it would
==============================
A trio of top Donald Trump allies who have racked up huge legal expenses to defend themselves from either criminal charges, convictions or defamation lawsuits have lost key lawyers for failing to pay six- and seven-figure bills in a sign of the huge legal problems they face.

The hefty legal bills of ex-Trump advisor Steve Bannon, former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, underscore the scale of the criminal and civil charges that ensnare them.

Welcome to the escalating legal and financial headaches plaguing three of the former US president’s top loyalists who pushed various false claims about his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden that helped provide cover for Trump’s election falsehoods.

The list of legal woes is long.

Bannon has a court appeal slated for November over his criminal conviction last year and pending four-month jail sentence for obstructing Congress by spurning a subpoena from the House panel that was probing the January 6 insurrection.

Bannon also faces a trial next May in New York related to state fraud, conspiracy and money laundering charges that he bilked donors in a Mexican wall project, dubbed “We Build the Wall.”

Meanwhile, Giuliani was charged in August with 13 criminal counts in Georgia by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis who also charged Trump and 17 others as part of a conspiracy to thwart Trump’s 2020 loss there. Pressures on Giuliani escalated in October when three other ex-Trump lawyers he worked with in varying ways agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with prosecutors.

Further, Lindell is fighting $2bn defamation lawsuits by electronic voting machine firms he has claimed helped rig the 2020 against Trump, which have cost him millions of dollars in legal fees owed to a Minneapolis law firm.

In October, the law firm formally asked a court to allow it to withdraw from representing Lindell in these cases, citing millions of dollars it was owed.

On another legal front, a top lawyer for Bannon and Giuliani has ditched them and filed big claims for monies owed. Robert Costello and his firm, which has represented both Giuliani and Bannon, have filed separate claims against the duo, respectively, for $1.4m and $480,000.

A court judgement has been issued against Bannon for the $480,000, which he’s fighting with the help of lawyer Harlan Protass. It’s unclear when and how much Giuliani may pay Costello and his firm. But a legal source familiar with Giuliani’s seven-figure debt faults Trump not Giuliani for the unpaid bill, claiming that Trump at a meeting with Costello and Giuliani earlier this year in Florida said he would “take care of” Giuliani’s legal bill.……

Top Trump allies facing charges lose lawyers after failing to pay legal bills

Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani and Mike Lindell who pushed various false claims about 2020 election face six- and seven-figure bills

www.theguardian.com

 

[fooferdoggie]

Just out of curiosity, if a lawyer quits due to non payment and is no longer someone’s attorney does attorney client privilege still apply?

they all take trumps lawyers paying method and it does not work. Now trump is stuck with about 5 looser lawyers facing a huge amount f charges. Now these other losers are in the same boat. it's so funny and pathetic.

 

[Optimus Prime]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon on Thursday appealed his criminal conviction for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Bannon’s attorney argued he didn’t ignore the subpoena, but was trying to avoid running afoul of executive privilege objections Trump had raised.

“Mr. Bannon acted in the only way he understood from his lawyer that he was permitted to behave,” attorney David Schoen said, adding that Bannon was wrongly blocked from making that argument at trial.

Prosecutors, though, said Bannon was no longer working at the White House during the runup to Jan. 6 and refused to work with the committee to determine if there were questions he could answer. “Stephen Bannon deliberately chose not so comply in any way with lawful congressional subpoena,” said prosecutor Elizabeth Danello.


The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit took the case under consideration.….

Trump ally Steve Bannon appeals conviction in Jan. 6 committee contempt case

Former President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Steve Bannon has appealed his criminal conviction for defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S.

apnews.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

Shaman for Congress?
=================

PHOENIX (AP) — Jacob Chansley, the spear-carrying rioter whose horned fur hat, bare chest and face paint made him one of the more recognizable figures in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, apparently aspires to be a member of Congress.

Online paperwork shows the 35-year-old Chansley filed a candidate statement of interest Thursday, indicating he wants to run as a Libertarian in next year’s election for Arizona’s 8th Congressional District seat.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko, a 64-year-old Republican representing the district since 2018, announced last month that she won’t seek re-election. Her term officially ends in January 2025.

Chansley pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding in connection with the Capitol insurrection…..

Capitol rioter plans 2024 run as a Libertarian candidate in Arizona's 8th congressional district

One of the more recognizable figures in the U.S. Capitol riot apparently wants to run for Congress. Online paperwork shows 35-year-old Jacob Chansley filed a candidate statement of interest Thursday, indicating he wants to run as a Libertarian next year in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District race.

apnews.com

 

[bdb13]

I'm shifting this conversation over to this thread as to not further muck up the Russia/Ukraine thread.

Is there any evidence that anyone including Trump, Republicans in Congress or anyone in the government coordinated January 6th with the Oath Keepers or any other of the rioters?

I am not exactly sure as to answer to this without doing some research (I think there are possible/probable connections with at least Stone and Bannon in both the periphery of Trump and the Oath Keepers/others connecting it but again I would have to do research) but I also do not believe that answer is particularly relevant even if it's all a hard no.

Did Trump lose the 2020 election indisputably? The answer is yes. Once the courts spoke and once the electoral college finalized its results in December it was legally over and the Biden administration was legally set to take power in January 2021.

Was Trump attempting to stay in office even after the courts had spoken and electoral college had finalized its results? Yes. Definitively yes.

Indisputably he was attempting to do so and that is what's most relevant. The fact that everything they could come up with to try was ultimately fatally flawed does not speak to the authenticity of their attempts but rather to the legitimacy of the system and the patriotism of individuals working within it in rebuffing the attempts.

I'll repost what I posted about January 6th a while back on the conservative board:

Regarding the first question, although more information will become available over time, it seems unlikely that NATO members would seriously view the incident as a coup attempt. For one thing, as Jonathan Tepperman noted in Foreign Policy, there is no evidence of coordination with the military that defines successful modern coups. In addition, President Donald Trump and his erstwhile political allies seemed nearly as surprised as everyone else by what transpired. They maintained radio silence as the event unfolded, making no effort to control or craft a narrative justifying the violence taking place. There was no equivalent of the Bolshevik occupation of the Central Telegraph Office in 1917, for example. Finally, in a country the size of the United States, a serious coup attempt would require the conspirators to take simultaneous measures to retain control of regions outside the nation’s capital. Again, there is zero evidence for any of this, as America’s allies are certainly well aware.

Do U.S. Allies Think the Capitol Siege was an Attempted Coup?

Worries about American democracy will be used to justify a series of policies that Washington views as geopolitically risky, but which allies see as granting them strategic flexibility or economic benefits.

nationalinterest.org

Foreign Policy’s editor-at-large Jonathan Tepperman spoke to Naunihal Singh, a professor at the Naval War College and the author of Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups.

Jonathan Tepperman: What’s the right term for what’s happening in Washington right now? Given President Donald Trump’s clear but indirect incitement, does it qualify as a coup or an autogolpe, or is it sedition? And why does it matter what we call it?

Naunihal Singh: This is not a military coup because that would involve the president using the military or the Secret Service or some armed branch of the government to get his way. Nor would I argue that it is what some people have called a civilian coup or an executive coup. Even autogolpes involve the threat of military force.

Why This Wasn’t a Coup

Here’s the right language for what’s happening in Washington—and why the terminology matters.

foreignpolicy.com

So I cannot read the entire second article but it appears to me that that article was actually written on the afternoon of January 6th well prior to the depth of the attempts by the Trump administration to stay in power were revealed. The other article is from January 11th and the same thing applies except it additionally does not properly take into account that other nations were not terribly concerned about it not because it wasn't a real coup attempt but because of the strength of our system. Again, everything they tried was fatally flawed.. but they WERE trying. The Shoe Bomber's attempt at pulling off an act of terrorism was fatally flawed but that doesn't mean it was not an authentic attempt at taking down the plane.

The storming of the Capital didn't fit the criteria for a military, executive, or civilian coup as well as an autoglopes. There wasn't any coordination between the people storming the Capital and any parts of the government.

A violent mob inside the Capital couldn't be a coup on it's own. They weren't going to set up their own government and they had no institutional support and no configuration of power.

The storming of the Capitol was only one element of the attempted coup and proof of coordination between government officials and any particular insurrectionist(s) is unnecessary in deeming what occurred in totality to have been an attempted coup. The storming of the Capitol was an element of the attempted coup but it is not the coup in totality. It's the most visual and violent aspect of it for sure, but like I said, it was only an element of it.

It's clear that the severe violence and storming of the Capitol would not have occurred if Trump had called off the dogs and accepted defeat. Full stop, it would not have happened. However it did happen and Trump's words and actions leading up to that day led some of his supporters to actively take it upon themselves to do what they felt was their part in attempting to prevent the Biden administration from taking office on January 20th. Those individuals were led to believe by Trump that Biden was "illegally" set to take office and that it was their duty to him and their country to do what they could to help him retain what was rightfully his (and theirs).

Trump refused to accept defeat and continued to try and stay in power beyond any reasonable expectation and there is evidence to indicate that - even as the Capitol was overrun with his supporters - he was actively at that moment attempting to see if he could find an opening in the situation for him to stay in power all while the lives of police officers and politicians were being endangered due to his reckless and horrific actions.

And so, given that Trump had absolutely no legitimate claim to remaining in power beyond January 20th and given that he attempted to do so through the time of the storming of the Capitol as his supporters were beating the shirt out of police officers on his behalf and attempting to get at the politicians who were "screwing" him and them out of what they felt was rightfully theirs in an attempt to keep him in power.. again I ask, how should I feel towards the individuals who continue to support Trump even with all of this having occurred as a result of his attempt to stay in power?

 

[bdb13]

Ah cool. I found an article from that same site and not requiring a subscription that recognized what occurred that day as a coup.. it was too soon after still to fully understand the depth of the attempt in conjunction with the behind the scenes work of Trump and his conspirators but it talks about the elements that make the storming of the Capitol on January 6th in and of itself an attempted coup by his supporters:

The Capitol Invasion Was a Coup From Below

Trump borrowed from the playbook of his favorite dictator, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, by inciting a mob to launch an insurrection.

foreignpolicy.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday he plans to publicly release thousands of hours of footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, making good on a promise he made to far-right members of his party when he was campaigning for the job.

“This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations, and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials,” Johnson said in a statement.

The newly elected speaker said the first tranche of security footage, around 90 hours, will be released on a public committee website Friday, with the rest of the 44,000 hours expected to be posted over the next several months. In the meantime, a public viewing room will also be set up in the Capitol for viewing the footage.

For the last several months, the GOP-led House Administration Committee has made the video available by appointment only to members of the media, criminal defendants and a limited number of other people. The video shows some of the fighting up close and gives a bird’s eye view of the Capitol complex — one that visitors rarely see — as hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building, violently attacking police officers and breaking in through windows and doors.

By expanding this access to the general public, Johnson is fulfilling one of the pledges he made last month to the most conservative members of his party, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who orchestrated the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Both Gaetz and Trump — who is currently running for reelection as he faces federal charges for his role in the Jan. 6 attack — applauded Johnson’s decision.


In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump congratulated the speaker “for having the courage and fortitude” to release the footage.


The move by Johnson will grant the general public a stunning level of access to sensitive and explicit Jan. 6 security footage, which many critics have warned could endanger the safety of staff and members in the Capitol complex if it gets into the wrong hands. The hours of footage detail not only the shocking assault rioters made on U.S. Capitol Police as they breached the building but also how the rioters accessed the building and the routes lawmakers used to flee to safety.…….

Speaker Johnson says he'll make 44,000 hours of Jan. 6 footage available to the general public

House Speaker Mike Johnson says he plans to publicly release hours of footage from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Johnson said the first tranche of security footage, around 90 hours, will be released on a public committee website Friday.

apnews.com

 

[Bigdaddysaints]

do they think this footage will somehow make them look better?
they'll find a few people who tried to help and go all in on them with a look look...

 

[bdb13]

do they think this footage will somehow make them look better?
they'll find a few people who tried to help and go all in on them with a look look...

Of course. What they should be showing is the video of the cop who is ripped away from his partners by the crowd and who's begging for his life and trying to humanize himself by talking about his kids which finally gets a person or two to find their conscience to help him.

forking evil and fork any of the madrefrockers who don't have the decency to call a spade a spade here.

 

[MT15]

There is a whole group of citizens who will be eager to scrutinize these tapes to identify more insurrectionists. They’ve been extremely helpful to the DOJ and FBI up until now only relying on footage that was made public. Sedition Hunters will hopefully help get more of these idiots arrested.