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Justice Dept. expands Jan. 6 probe to look at rally prep, financing
Source: Washington Post
The criminal investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has expanded to examine the preparations for the rally that preceded the riot, as the Justice Department aims to determine the full extent of any conspiracy to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory, according to people familiar with the matter. In the past two months, a federal grand jury in Washington has issued subpoena requests to some officials in former president Donald Trump’s orbit who assisted in planning, funding and executing the Jan. 6 rally, said the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The development shows the degree to which the Justice Department investigation — which already involves more defendants than any other criminal prosecution in the nation’s history — has moved further beyond the storming of the Capitol to examine events preceding the attack. The events of Jan. 6, 2021, are a legally fraught puzzle for federal investigators. Prosecutors and FBI agents must distinguish between constitutionally protected First Amendment activity, such as speech and assembly, and the alleged conspiracy to obstruct Congress or other potential crimes connected to fundraising and organizing leading up to Jan. 6.
The task is also complicated by the proximity of those two very different types of activities — speech and violence — that occurred within hours of each other and less than a mile apart. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington declined to comment. The morning of Jan. 6, thousands of people from all over the country gathered at the Ellipse, behind the White House, to rally behind the false premise that Trump had won the 2020 presidential election. The outgoing president began speaking to the crowd around noon and called on attendees to march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Capitol. By 12:30, hundreds of people began to gather near Congress. At approximately 1 p.m., the barricaded security perimeter of the Capitol complex was breached, and people flooded toward the building.
The mob stormed forward, with rioters striking officers, smashing windows, and pushing their way into legislative offices. Lawmakers fled to safety, delaying the official count of Joe Biden’s electoral victory for hours until order could be restored. More than 100 police officers were injured, many of them seriously. Prosecutors so far have charged more than 770 people with crimes, and the FBI is seeking information to identify hundreds of additional suspects, including a person who planted pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican party headquarters the night before.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/30/jan-6-fbi-subpoena-justice/
31 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Here is the running tally and status (to date) - https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases
That whole ambiguous Fitzpatrick affair was nebulous at best.
This incident has already generated "seditious conspiracy" charges which have a good chance to succeed based on the last time it was used and made it through to a conviction.
and they ignored them and then it ended up getting tied up in the courts?
Case in point was the McGahn mess that finally got some kind of testimony agreement in place years later after it was bogged down in the federal courts -
House Democrats and White House Reach Deal Over Testimony by Ex-Trump Aide
By Charlie Savage
Published May 11, 2021 Updated June 4, 2021
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration and House Democrats have reached a tentative deal to allow President Donald J. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to testify before Congress about Mr. Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Russia inquiry, according to a court filing late Tuesday. The deal appears likely to avert a definitive court precedent that would draw a clear line in ambiguous areas: the scope and limits of Congress’s constitutional power to compel testimony for its oversight responsibilities, and a president’s constitutional power to keep secret conversations with a White House lawyer.
An appeals court had been set to hear arguments on the case next week, but lawyers for the Justice Department, which has been defending Mr. McGahn since 2019 against a House subpoena seeking to compel his testimony, and for the House of Representatives asked the court in a joint letter to drop that plan as mooted by the deal.
“The Committee on the Judiciary and the executive branch have reached an agreement in principle on an accommodation and anticipate filing, as soon as possible, a joint motion asking the court to remove this case from the May 19, 2021, oral argument calendar in order to allow the parties to implement the accommodation,” the letter said. What to do about the subpoena case, which President Biden inherited from the Trump administration, has been a rare locus of institutional disagreement among Democrats in the two branches.
Lawyers in the Biden White House have been hesitant about establishing a precedent that Republicans might someday use to force them to testify about their own internal matters. House Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been determined to push forward after frustration that the Trump administration’s uncompromising approach and litigation strategy ran out the clock, preventing any testimony by Mr. McGahn before the 2020 presidential election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/us/politics/mcgahn-testimony.html
By Charlie Savage
Published May 11, 2021 Updated June 4, 2021
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration and House Democrats have reached a tentative deal to allow President Donald J. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to testify before Congress about Mr. Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Russia inquiry, according to a court filing late Tuesday. The deal appears likely to avert a definitive court precedent that would draw a clear line in ambiguous areas: the scope and limits of Congress’s constitutional power to compel testimony for its oversight responsibilities, and a president’s constitutional power to keep secret conversations with a White House lawyer.
An appeals court had been set to hear arguments on the case next week, but lawyers for the Justice Department, which has been defending Mr. McGahn since 2019 against a House subpoena seeking to compel his testimony, and for the House of Representatives asked the court in a joint letter to drop that plan as mooted by the deal.
“The Committee on the Judiciary and the executive branch have reached an agreement in principle on an accommodation and anticipate filing, as soon as possible, a joint motion asking the court to remove this case from the May 19, 2021, oral argument calendar in order to allow the parties to implement the accommodation,” the letter said. What to do about the subpoena case, which President Biden inherited from the Trump administration, has been a rare locus of institutional disagreement among Democrats in the two branches.
Lawyers in the Biden White House have been hesitant about establishing a precedent that Republicans might someday use to force them to testify about their own internal matters. House Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been determined to push forward after frustration that the Trump administration’s uncompromising approach and litigation strategy ran out the clock, preventing any testimony by Mr. McGahn before the 2020 presidential election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/us/politics/mcgahn-testimony.html
And Bannon's trial is set for this coming July 18, 2022 .
But in the meantime, this happened a few weeks ago -
Judge orders Justice Department to turn over certain internal documents to Bannon
By Tierney Sneed and Sara Murray, CNN
Updated 4:10 PM ET, Wed March 16, 2022
(CNN)A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to turn over certain internal documents that may relate to its decision to prosecute Steve Bannon, the former adviser to Donald Trump who has been charged with contempt of Congress after his failure to comply with a House committee subpoena. While it's not clear whether the documents covered by the order exist or what role they could play in Bannon's case, he is one of several witnesses sought by the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection who have raised arguments about executive privilege and whether it relieves them from their obligation to cooperate in the probe. epending on what DOJ ultimately produced under the new order -- issued Wednesday by US District Judge Carl Nichols -- it could offer insight into how the Justice Department views cases like Bannon's and how it sees his case as different from other scenarios where current or former government officials have not complied with congressional subpoenas.
Specifically, Nichols ordered that the department produce to Bannon statements or writings reflecting official Justice Department policy -- public or not public -- if such writings relate to prosecuting or not prosecuting a government official or former government official who raised executive privilege claims as a defense of immunity, or similar issues. Lawmakers have referred another recalcitrant witness, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, for prosecution -- though he has not been charged -- and lawmakers have signaled others may face legal jeopardy if they do not comply with congressional subpoenas related to January 6. Trump has repeatedly tried to shield from the House information from his time in the White House, but when tested in court so far, he has been unsuccessful.
Nichols rejected Wednesday several other requests Bannon made for more discovery, and the judge took only intermediary steps in how he was addressing an issue the Bannon team has raised about the Justice Department's efforts to obtain the phone and email records of one of Bannon's attorneys. Nichols' partial grant for Bannon's request for internal DOJ records came after he asked several questions at the hearing about an opinion that had been issued by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel -- which gives legal advice to the executive branch -- that said close advisers to the president are immune from congressional subpoenas for testimony where the president has asserted executive privilege.
Nichols said that OLC opinions, or a position of an entire division or litigative group, are the kind of writings covered by the production order he issued Wednesday. In explaining why Bannon did not believe he was obligated to comply with the subpoena, Bannon's legal team has pointed to Trump's indications that he would seek to shield certain evidence the House committee was seeking on executive privilege claims. Members of the January 6 panel noted that Bannon was not a White House adviser during the period they were investigating. Bannon's case, brought after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee, offers an important test of the powers of government as Congress tries to force consequences for witnesses who do not comply with subpoenas.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/16/politics/bannon-lawyer-justice-department-hearing/index.html
By Tierney Sneed and Sara Murray, CNN
Updated 4:10 PM ET, Wed March 16, 2022
(CNN)A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to turn over certain internal documents that may relate to its decision to prosecute Steve Bannon, the former adviser to Donald Trump who has been charged with contempt of Congress after his failure to comply with a House committee subpoena. While it's not clear whether the documents covered by the order exist or what role they could play in Bannon's case, he is one of several witnesses sought by the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection who have raised arguments about executive privilege and whether it relieves them from their obligation to cooperate in the probe. epending on what DOJ ultimately produced under the new order -- issued Wednesday by US District Judge Carl Nichols -- it could offer insight into how the Justice Department views cases like Bannon's and how it sees his case as different from other scenarios where current or former government officials have not complied with congressional subpoenas.
Specifically, Nichols ordered that the department produce to Bannon statements or writings reflecting official Justice Department policy -- public or not public -- if such writings relate to prosecuting or not prosecuting a government official or former government official who raised executive privilege claims as a defense of immunity, or similar issues. Lawmakers have referred another recalcitrant witness, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, for prosecution -- though he has not been charged -- and lawmakers have signaled others may face legal jeopardy if they do not comply with congressional subpoenas related to January 6. Trump has repeatedly tried to shield from the House information from his time in the White House, but when tested in court so far, he has been unsuccessful.
Nichols rejected Wednesday several other requests Bannon made for more discovery, and the judge took only intermediary steps in how he was addressing an issue the Bannon team has raised about the Justice Department's efforts to obtain the phone and email records of one of Bannon's attorneys. Nichols' partial grant for Bannon's request for internal DOJ records came after he asked several questions at the hearing about an opinion that had been issued by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel -- which gives legal advice to the executive branch -- that said close advisers to the president are immune from congressional subpoenas for testimony where the president has asserted executive privilege.
Nichols said that OLC opinions, or a position of an entire division or litigative group, are the kind of writings covered by the production order he issued Wednesday. In explaining why Bannon did not believe he was obligated to comply with the subpoena, Bannon's legal team has pointed to Trump's indications that he would seek to shield certain evidence the House committee was seeking on executive privilege claims. Members of the January 6 panel noted that Bannon was not a White House adviser during the period they were investigating. Bannon's case, brought after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee, offers an important test of the powers of government as Congress tries to force consequences for witnesses who do not comply with subpoenas.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/16/politics/bannon-lawyer-justice-department-hearing/index.html
I know that DU wants to have a "dictator-style justice system" like was done with black folk - rounding them up and hanging them from a tree - a practice that after 100 fucking years of trying, was finally ruled illegal and signed into law by President Biden yesterday -
Biden signs bill making lynching a federal hate crime into law
By Kate Sullivan and Maegan Vazquez, CNN
Updated 12:57 AM ET, Wed March 30, 2023
President Joe Biden signs into law H.R. 55, the "Emmett Till Antilynching Act" in the Rose Garden of at the White House Washington, DC, on March 29, 2022.
(CNN) President Joe Biden signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes lynching a federal hate crime, acknowledging how racial violence has left a lasting scar on the nation and asserting that these crimes are not a relic of a bygone era.
At a White House Rose Garden signing ceremony, the President didn't hold back in describing the history of racial violence experienced by Black Americans and its continued impact. e said, "Lynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone ... belongs in America, not everyone is created equal. Terror, to systematically undermine hard-fought civil rights. Terror, not just in the dark of the night but in broad daylight. Innocent men, women and children hung by nooses in trees, bodies burned and drowned and castrated."
"Their crimes? Trying to vote. Trying to go to school. Trying to own a business or preach the gospel. False accusations of murder, arson and robbery. Simply being Black," he continued. The bill Biden signed into law, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act of 2022, is named after a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago who was brutally murdered by a group of White men in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a White woman in 1955. His murder sparked national outrage and was a catalyst for the emerging civil rights movement. Lynching was a terror tactic used against Black Americans, particularly in the racially segregated South. According to Tuskegee University, which collects records on lynchings, 4,743 people were lynched from 1882 to 1968 and 3,446 of them were Black.
(snip)
Advocates have been trying to pass federal anti-lynching legislation for more than a century. Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois, who introduced the bill signed into law on Tuesday, also introduced a similar version of his current bill in 2019. The following year, the House passed that bill but Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, held it up over concerns that it was overly broad. Paul announced his support for the latest version of the bill earlier this month. And when Vice President Kamala Harris was a senator, she and New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott introduced a bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime. The Senate approved the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act in late 2018, but the legislation didn't make it through the House of Representatives.
During the signing ceremony, Harris noted that since anti-lynching legislation was first introduced in Congress in 1900, "anti-lynching legislation has been introduced to the United States Congress more than 200 times." "Lynching is not a relic of the past. Racial acts of terror still occur in our nation. And when they do, we must all have the courage to name them and hold the perpetrators to account," she added. he ceremony was attended my a wide array of advocates, administration officials and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, Biden thanked stakeholders "for never giving up."
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/29/politics/biden-emmett-till-antilynching-act/index.html
By Kate Sullivan and Maegan Vazquez, CNN
Updated 12:57 AM ET, Wed March 30, 2023
President Joe Biden signs into law H.R. 55, the "Emmett Till Antilynching Act" in the Rose Garden of at the White House Washington, DC, on March 29, 2022.
(CNN) President Joe Biden signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes lynching a federal hate crime, acknowledging how racial violence has left a lasting scar on the nation and asserting that these crimes are not a relic of a bygone era.
At a White House Rose Garden signing ceremony, the President didn't hold back in describing the history of racial violence experienced by Black Americans and its continued impact. e said, "Lynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone ... belongs in America, not everyone is created equal. Terror, to systematically undermine hard-fought civil rights. Terror, not just in the dark of the night but in broad daylight. Innocent men, women and children hung by nooses in trees, bodies burned and drowned and castrated."
"Their crimes? Trying to vote. Trying to go to school. Trying to own a business or preach the gospel. False accusations of murder, arson and robbery. Simply being Black," he continued. The bill Biden signed into law, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act of 2022, is named after a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago who was brutally murdered by a group of White men in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a White woman in 1955. His murder sparked national outrage and was a catalyst for the emerging civil rights movement. Lynching was a terror tactic used against Black Americans, particularly in the racially segregated South. According to Tuskegee University, which collects records on lynchings, 4,743 people were lynched from 1882 to 1968 and 3,446 of them were Black.
(snip)
Advocates have been trying to pass federal anti-lynching legislation for more than a century. Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois, who introduced the bill signed into law on Tuesday, also introduced a similar version of his current bill in 2019. The following year, the House passed that bill but Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, held it up over concerns that it was overly broad. Paul announced his support for the latest version of the bill earlier this month. And when Vice President Kamala Harris was a senator, she and New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott introduced a bill that would make lynching a federal hate crime. The Senate approved the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act in late 2018, but the legislation didn't make it through the House of Representatives.
During the signing ceremony, Harris noted that since anti-lynching legislation was first introduced in Congress in 1900, "anti-lynching legislation has been introduced to the United States Congress more than 200 times." "Lynching is not a relic of the past. Racial acts of terror still occur in our nation. And when they do, we must all have the courage to name them and hold the perpetrators to account," she added. he ceremony was attended my a wide array of advocates, administration officials and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, Biden thanked stakeholders "for never giving up."
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/29/politics/biden-emmett-till-antilynching-act/index.html
But that type of thing shouldn't be how America operates. And unfortunately, DU is spending too much fucking time arguing and fussing over multi-millionaire entertainers to actually do some searches on status of what is going on.
Posted here - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2896683
Posted here - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2896675
Here is the running tally and status (to date) - https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/capitol-breach-cases
That whole ambiguous Fitzpatrick affair was nebulous at best.
This incident has already generated "seditious conspiracy" charges which have a good chance to succeed based on the last time it was used and made it through to a conviction.
That whole ambiguous Fitzpatrick affair was nebulous at best.
This incident has already generated "seditious conspiracy" charges which have a good chance to succeed based on the last time it was used and made it through to a conviction.
And the part that you ignored in my reply - https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=2896735
Case in point was the McGahn mess that finally got some kind of testimony agreement in place years later after it was bogged down in the federal courts -
And Bannon's trial is set for this coming July 18, 2022 .
But in the meantime, this happened a few weeks ago -
House Democrats and White House Reach Deal Over Testimony by Ex-Trump Aide
By Charlie Savage
Published May 11, 2021 Updated June 4, 2021
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration and House Democrats have reached a tentative deal to allow President Donald J. Trump’s former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to testify before Congress about Mr. Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Russia inquiry, according to a court filing late Tuesday. The deal appears likely to avert a definitive court precedent that would draw a clear line in ambiguous areas: the scope and limits of Congress’s constitutional power to compel testimony for its oversight responsibilities, and a president’s constitutional power to keep secret conversations with a White House lawyer.
An appeals court had been set to hear arguments on the case next week, but lawyers for the Justice Department, which has been defending Mr. McGahn since 2019 against a House subpoena seeking to compel his testimony, and for the House of Representatives asked the court in a joint letter to drop that plan as mooted by the deal.
“The Committee on the Judiciary and the executive branch have reached an agreement in principle on an accommodation and anticipate filing, as soon as possible, a joint motion asking the court to remove this case from the May 19, 2021, oral argument calendar in order to allow the parties to implement the accommodation,” the letter said. What to do about the subpoena case, which President Biden inherited from the Trump administration, has been a rare locus of institutional disagreement among Democrats in the two branches.
Lawyers in the Biden White House have been hesitant about establishing a precedent that Republicans might someday use to force them to testify about their own internal matters. House Democrats under Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been determined to push forward after frustration that the Trump administration’s uncompromising approach and litigation strategy ran out the clock, preventing any testimony by Mr. McGahn before the 2020 presidential election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/us/politics/mcgahn-testimony.html
And Bannon's trial is set for this coming July 18, 2022 .
But in the meantime, this happened a few weeks ago -
Judge orders Justice Department to turn over certain internal documents to Bannon
By Tierney Sneed and Sara Murray, CNN
Updated 4:10 PM ET, Wed March 16, 2022
(CNN)A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to turn over certain internal documents that may relate to its decision to prosecute Steve Bannon, the former adviser to Donald Trump who has been charged with contempt of Congress after his failure to comply with a House committee subpoena. While it's not clear whether the documents covered by the order exist or what role they could play in Bannon's case, he is one of several witnesses sought by the committee investigating the January 6 insurrection who have raised arguments about executive privilege and whether it relieves them from their obligation to cooperate in the probe. epending on what DOJ ultimately produced under the new order -- issued Wednesday by US District Judge Carl Nichols -- it could offer insight into how the Justice Department views cases like Bannon's and how it sees his case as different from other scenarios where current or former government officials have not complied with congressional subpoenas.
Specifically, Nichols ordered that the department produce to Bannon statements or writings reflecting official Justice Department policy -- public or not public -- if such writings relate to prosecuting or not prosecuting a government official or former government official who raised executive privilege claims as a defense of immunity, or similar issues. Lawmakers have referred another recalcitrant witness, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, for prosecution -- though he has not been charged -- and lawmakers have signaled others may face legal jeopardy if they do not comply with congressional subpoenas related to January 6. Trump has repeatedly tried to shield from the House information from his time in the White House, but when tested in court so far, he has been unsuccessful.
Nichols rejected Wednesday several other requests Bannon made for more discovery, and the judge took only intermediary steps in how he was addressing an issue the Bannon team has raised about the Justice Department's efforts to obtain the phone and email records of one of Bannon's attorneys. Nichols' partial grant for Bannon's request for internal DOJ records came after he asked several questions at the hearing about an opinion that had been issued by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel -- which gives legal advice to the executive branch -- that said close advisers to the president are immune from congressional subpoenas for testimony where the president has asserted executive privilege.
Nichols said that OLC opinions, or a position of an entire division or litigative group, are the kind of writings covered by the production order he issued Wednesday. In explaining why Bannon did not believe he was obligated to comply with the subpoena, Bannon's legal team has pointed to Trump's indications that he would seek to shield certain evidence the House committee was seeking on executive privilege claims. Members of the January 6 panel noted that Bannon was not a White House adviser during the period they were investigating. Bannon's case, brought after he failed to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee, offers an important test of the powers of government as Congress tries to force consequences for witnesses who do not comply with subpoenas.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/16/politics/bannon-lawyer-justice-department-hearing/index.html
I read it right here. 
