Tag: Trump insurrectionist mob stormed the Capitol

Sen. Ron Johnson plays down Capitol riots: ‘This didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me’

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As a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol last month, rioters battered police with a multitude of weapons: metal flagpoles, baseball bats, wrenches and clubs. Many soaked police in caustic bear spray. One officer died in the Jan. 6 melee along with four civilians.

But Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Monday argued that it’s wrong to describe the group as “armed” and accused Democrats of “selectively” editing videos to exaggerate the threat posed by a mob that came within feet of Vice President Mike Pence and other elected officials.

“This didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me,” Johnson said on WISN. “When you hear the word ‘armed,’ don’t you think of firearms? Here’s the questions I would have liked to ask: How many firearms were confiscated? How many shots were fired?” Continue reading.

Man who wore horns, hat apologizes for storming Capitol

PHOENIX — An Arizona man who participated in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol while sporting face paint, no shirt and a furry hat with horns said he regrets storming the building, apologized for causing fear in others and expressed disappointment with former President Donald Trump.

In a statement released late Monday through his attorney, defendant Jacob Chansley said he has re-evaluated his life since being jailed for over a month on charges stemming from the Jan. 6 riot and realizes he shouldn’t have entered the Capitol building. Chansley, who previously said Trump inspired him to be in Washington that day, said Trump “let a lot of peaceful people down.”

Chansley said he’s coming to terms with events leading to the riot and asked people to “be patient with me and other peaceful people who, like me, are having a very difficult time piecing together all that happened to us, around us, and by us. We are good people who care deeply about our country.” Continue reading.

The feds say he’s an extremist leader who directed rioters. He also had top-secret clearance and worked for the FBI, attorney says.

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Navy veteran Thomas Edward Caldwell led a band of the Oath Keepers extremist group to Washington on Jan. 6 to storm the U.S. Capitol, federal prosecutors allege, helping to mastermind a violent plot to stop lawmakers from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

But Caldwell’s attorney, Thomas K. Plofchan, says he isn’t just a retired lieutenant commander. Caldwell also had a top-secret security clearance and served as a section chief for the FBI after leaving the armed forces in 2009, Plofchan said.

Those details were revealed in a motion filed Monday asking a judge to release Caldwell from custody, citing his long military career and ability to pass vetting for the high-security clearance. His attorney also said that Caldwell has disabilities from his military service that would have prevented him from storming the Capitol. Continue reading.

Five takeaways from Trump impeachment trial briefs

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Congressional Democrats and lawyers for former President Trump released competing briefs Tuesday outlining their legal strategies for next week’s Senate impeachment trial over Trump’s role in inciting a violent mob to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6.

The 80-page brief from House Democrats lays blame for the deadly siege directly at Trump’s feet, saying he intentionally “whipped [the crowd] into a frenzy.” The former president’s new legal team, which was formed on Sunday night, filed a 14-page response arguing the trial is unconstitutional and that Trump’s rhetoric did not inspire the riot.

Here are five takeaways from the rival briefs. Continue reading.

AOC explains why Republicans can’t just tell her to forget about the insurrection and move on

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she was told that trauma victims should “tell their stories” as a part of their healing. And that is what she did Monday night in the most compelling, heartbreaking and infuriating 60 minutes available on any screen, at any time this week. The New York congresswoman initiated a live stream on Instagram and, against a plain white wall and with little fanfare, recounted what had happened to her during the violent invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

She talked about flattening herself behind her bathroom door as someone entered her office, screaming, “Where is she? Where is she?” It turned out to be a police officer, but until she learned that, “I thought I was going to die.”

She talked about eventually escaping to the office of Rep. Katie Porter (Calif.), where the two Democratic congresswomen rifled through staffers’ gym bags, searching for sneakers they could change into in case they needed to jump out a window or run. About how they debated what to do if they had to flee again, wondering: “Are some offices safer than others, because they have white-sounding names or male-sounding names?” Continue reading.

Trump lawyers call impeachment trial unconstitutional in laying out defense

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Lawyers representing former President Trump on Tuesday detailed the defense they’ll lay out at next week’s impeachment trial, arguing that it is unconstitutional to impeach a former president and that Trump’s speech did not directly lead to the deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6.

The defense brief argues that Trump’s speech before a group of supporters, some of whom later sacked the Capitol, was protected under the First Amendment. And it accuses Democrats of depriving Trump of due process by rushing impeachment through the House.

“It is denied that the 45th president of the United States ever engaged in a violation of his oath of office,” the defense attorneys wrote. “To the contrary, at all times Donald J. Trump fully and faithfully executed his duties as the president of the United States and at all times acted to the best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States while never engaging in any high crimes or misdemeanors.” Continue reading.

The Boogaloo Bois have guns and military training. Now they want to overthrow the government

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Hours after the attack on the Capitol ended, a group calling itself the Last Sons of Liberty posted a brief video to Parler, the social media platform, that appeared to show members of the organization directly participating in the uprising. Footage showed someone with a shaky smartphone charging past the metal barricades surrounding the building. Other clips show rioters physically battling with baton-wielding police on the white marble steps just outside the Capitol.

Before Parler went offline — its operations halted at least temporarily when Amazon refused to continue to host the network — the Last Sons posted numerous statements indicating that group members had joined the mob that swarmed the Capitol and had no regrets about the chaos and violence that unfolded on Jan. 6. The Last Sons also did some quick math: The government had suffered only one fatality, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, who was reportedly bludgeoned in the head with a fire extinguisher. But the rioters had lost four people, including Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran who was shot by an officer as she tried to storm the building.

In a series of posts, the Last Sons said her death should be “avenged” and appeared to call for the murder of three more cops. Continue reading.

Impeachment managers say Trump conduct demands conviction

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House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a thorough outline of their legal case against former President Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, arguing that he incited the mob attack and bears direct responsibility for the deadly violence that followed.

The Democrats’ 80-page trial brief describes Trump as unmistakably and singularly responsible for the events at the U.S. Capitol and states that his conduct “requires” that he be convicted and barred from holding office again.

“President Trump’s conduct must be declared unacceptable in the clearest and most unequivocal terms. This is not a partisan matter. His actions directly threatened the very foundation on which all other political debates and disagreements unfold,” the brief states. “They also threatened the constitutional system that protects the fundamental freedoms we cherish.” Continue reading.

Trump’s actions described as ‘a betrayal of historic proportions’ in trial brief filed by House impeachment managers

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House Democrats made their case to convict former president Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in a sweeping impeachment brief filed with the Senate on Tuesday, accusing Trump of jeopardizing the foundations of American democracy by whipping his supporters into a “frenzy” for the sole purpose of retaining his hold on the presidency.

In the brief, the House’s nine impeachment managers made an impassioned case that Trump was “singularly responsible” for the mayhem, accusing him of “a betrayal of historic proportions.” They argued that he is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, the threshold for conviction laid out in the Constitution, primarily because he used the powers of his office to advance his personal political interests at the expense of the nation.

To bolster their case, the managers turned to the words and actions of the country’s founders, citing lofty passages from the Federalist Papers and contrasting Trump’s efforts to stay in office despite his electoral loss with George Washington’s insistence upon relinquishing the presidency after two terms in the interest of preserving democracy. Continue reading.

A Harvard professor argues the Trump mob’s siege fits the Framers’ ‘paradigmatic case of treason’

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Former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial is set to begin next week, and senators will be asked to decide whether or not he committed “incitement to insurrection.” While Trump has previously been accused by various commenters of “treason” on multiple fronts, in uses of the term usually dismissed by experts, the charge of treason has been largely absent from the debate around the Capitol attack. But in a recent piece of The New Yorker., Harvard University law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen, discussing Trump’s impeachment and the events of Jan. 6, argued that the term may be more apt than ever.

Gerson cited the work of Carlton F. W. Larson, a law professor at the University of California at Davis, who has argued that there are many unethical acts and impeachable offenses that don’t qualify as treason. Certain corners have frequently accused Trump of “treason” in the Russia investigation, the Ukraine impeachment, and other matters, but Larson has been reticent to apply that label as a technical, legal, and historical matter.

Gersen wrote: “But the insurrection of Jan. 6 changed his answer, at least with regard to Trump’s followers who attacked the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress’ certification of the election.” Continue reading.