Capitol Insurrection Report

An update on some developments as the focus shifts away from individual criminal defendants in the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and towards the figures at the center of the scheme to overturn the election victory of Joe Biden, as we look ahead to the public hearings scheduled for June 9th, now less than a month away. Some notes on latest developments, to include information requests from three additional members of Congress as well as new emails from John Eastman, this time sourced via a FOIA request made to his university email address at the University of Colorado. The rest of the episode then turns to the question of how the narrative that Democrats will inevitably lose the upcoming midterm elections is factually incorrect, defeatist and dangerous to electoral democracy in the US, as it will certainly be used by the Trumpist movement to amplify their fraudulent claims of fraud in if that Democrats do well in the midterms. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000180-b081-d3ee-a392-b19b26750000 https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/03/the-changing-political-geography-of-covid-19-over-the-last-two-years/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/15/public-expresses-mixed-views-of-u-s-response-to-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/

A summary and review of the discovery documents submitted by Oath Keeper Ed Vallejo in his effort to win release from pretrial detention. New revelations in the discovery material are reviewed in the context of the well-publicized "Marshall Law" text from Marjorie Taylor Greene to Mark Meadows, which demonstrates a common thread of similar elements in the overall case against the plot to install Trump in the White House for a second term, despite his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. This discovery material is also directly relevant to the case of Todd Wilson, the third Oath Keeper to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding, whose charges include the bombshell revelation that Elmer Rhodes was communicating with Donald Trump through an intermediary, and that Rhodes attempted to communicate directly with Trump at 5:00 pm on January 6th. Apologies for the length of this episode, it's recommended that you listen in multiple sessions. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21643428-file_8746 https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-920d-d65f-a77e-fbad182f0000 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/defense-secretaries-letter-warning-trump-signed-days/story?id=75036788 https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/JCS%20Message%20to%20the%20Joint%20Force%20JAN%2012%2021.pdf https://enrahj.medium.com/ CORRECTION: I reportef that the person who described the "pods" scheme in the transcript from the Oath Keepers call on November 9th was Kelly Meggs. I had actually known there was an error in the charging documents, because Meggs was referred to using feminine pronouns, but had assumed this was the only error. In fact, the actual speaker was Kellye SoRelle, the General Counsel for the Oath Keepers. The government has corrected the error in subsequent court documents, and I regret any confusion this error may have caused.

Description and analysis of the latest developments in the investigation of the January sixth attack on the US Capitol, to include: guilty verdict against Thomas Robertson, the first acquittal of a January 6th defendant, contempt referrals against Navarro and Scavino, the reported claim that the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack now has sufficient evidence to issue a criminal referral for Donald Trump, the claim that there's a split on the Committee on that question, new material related to the Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case, new evidence demonstrating links between attackers and rally organizers, texts from Senator Mike Lee demonstrating his willingness to overlook the Constitution and overturn the 2020 presidential election, new testimony from persons closely connected to Trump before the Select Committee, the story of federal law enforcement officers who allegedly accepted free apartments from men posing as federal law enforcement, and a new effort by Alex Jones to negotiate a deal in exchange for cooperation. In the latter half of the show, I'll analyze three recent change of venue motions by January sixth defendants seeking to move their cases away from DC. https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/10/liz-cheney-disputes-report-january-6-panel-split-trump-criminal-referral https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/us/politics/jan-6-trump-criminal-referral.html https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/28/capitol-attack-panel-militia-groups-oath-keepers-proud-boys https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:741ee8b3-b090-3c60-85cc-6163bc568189

Topics include the testimony before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, the release of over 100 emails by John Eastman to the Committee, and the usual update on the progress of the criminal proceedings against members of the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6th, 2021. The main topic of the episode is the bombshell revelation that the Department of Justice has been actually taking action to hold rally organizers accountable, that a grand jury has been operating in DC for several weeks, according to reporting by the Washington Post. Finally, this is tied back in with the idea that links between organizers of the rally and individuals who attacked democracy on January sixth is a smoking gun in the overall progression of the January sixth investigation.

Mainly focusing on a series of bizarre text messages sent from Ginni Thomas to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows between 11/5/20 & 1/10/21. Also updates on the conviction of Guy Reffitt, the failure of the DOJ to properly issue charges against one Texas paramilitary gang president, the detention of Enrique Tarrio, the second Proud Boys superceding indictment, the parking garage meeting between Tarrio, Rhodes and others, Manafort's attempt to travel to Dubai on a revoked passport, and the revelation that a 15-page error-ridden report on Dominion Voting Systems, previously thought to have been authored by volunteer Trump attorney Kathrine Friess was actually a cut-and-paste job by Joanna Miller, a young former intern who was promoted ahead of her competency to a job as a "senior" aide to Peter Navarro.

A close reading of Judge Mehta's 112-page decision finding that Donald Trump does not have absolute immunity in the January 6th Attack, and how this ruling contains valuable information pointing towards criminal prosecution of alleged conspirators. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59292668/66/thompson-v-trump/

Examining the latest developments in the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, the brief filed by the Committee in the appeal of the Eastman privilege case, suicidality in the criminal justice system, the latest subpoenas from the Committee, and the backstory of the war in Ukraine as it relates to Trump.

We catch up on some of the bad news as this phase of the fallout from the Capitol Insurrection moves forward, including Senate Minority Leader McConnell's criticism of "legitimate political discourse" messaging being applied to the Insurrection by the RNC, the discovery of 15 boxes of material taken to Mar-A-Lago by Trump in violation of the Presidential Records Act, disclosures regarding Trump's regular habit of destroying government documents, the news that the accounting firm employed by the Trump Organization disavows the statements of financial condition they produced on behalf of the Trump Organization, and the ruling that Donald Trump and two of his children must give sworn depositions in a civil brought in New York sometime in the next 21 days. In the last half of the show, I'll examine the motion Rhodes' attorneys, James Bright and Phillip Linder, have brought before Judge Amit Mehta in DC seeking Rhodes' release from pretrial detention.

Continuing the examination of the folk ideology created by Elmer Stewart Rhodes and posted on the website for his nationwide paramilitary gang, examining how the pretense of nonpartisanship and libertarianism faded away over time to focus increasingly on a reactionary agonal politics that defines domestic political opponents as existential threats to be fought with political violence in an increasingly apocalyptic and milliniarian account of politics as a secularized eschatology.

The seditious conspiracy charges against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and 10 other members of his paramilitary gang prompt an examination of Rhodes’s redefinition of politics in founding the group, particularly how he defines politics as a potentially armed struggle against a domestic political enemy, an ideologically defined "other" that would have been recognizable to Frankfurt School political scientist and critic of Nazism Franz Neumann. Other topics include the latest news from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, a "Presidential Findings" memo that appears to outline a plot to unconstitutionally use the military to install Trump as a dictator, an information request issued to Ivanka Trump, and much more. https://january6th.house.gov/sites/democrats.january6th.house.gov/files/2022-1-20.BGT%20Letter%20to%20Ivanka%20Trump%20-%20Cover%20Letter%20and%20Enclosures_Redacted%202.pdf https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017e-920d-d65f-a77e-fbad182f0000 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21190289-rhodesdetrlgmjedtx012622?s=01 https://youtu.be/SqGRqqY7NdY