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      Lawmaker who gave tours of Capitol will lead inquiry of January 6 panel

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      Lawmaker who gave tours of Capitol will lead inquiry of January 6 panelGeorgia Republican Barry Loudermilk denied giving tours related to the January 6 riots until video was releasedBarry Loudermilk, the Republican representative from Georgia who has been accused of giving tours of the Capitol building days before the January 6 insurrection, will lead a new House committee that will investigate the Democratic-controlled January 6 select committee.George Santos a ‘bludgeoning tool’ for Democrats, New York Republican saysRead moreOn Tuesday, Loudermilk criticized the select committee, saying: “The J6 committee chose to ignore the facts and pursue a particular political narrative. I will not do this.”“As chairman of the subcommittee on oversight, I’m focused on finding out what really happened on J6 to ensure it never happens again.”Loudermilk is expected to focus on what he considers “security failure” that led up to the riots two years ago, CNN reports.In an interview with the outlet, Loudermilk said: “I’m spending some time over there getting my hands wrapped around what we have. We’re going to be looking at what happened in the Capitol. What happened leading up to it? How did we have such a security failure?”“The January 6 committee, they didn’t take that approach. That should have been something that they looked it. I think they looked more on the political side of it,” he said.The launch of the new committee comes a week after Republicans established a portal to collect tips from the public regarding the events connected to the riots.Last year, the Democratic-led January 6 select committee released video footage revealing Loudermilk showing a group of individuals around House office buildings on an unofficial tour at a time when official tours were banned due to Covid-19. The video showed a man who took photos of the various tunnel entrances and the Capitol police checkpoints.According to the select committee, some of the individuals on the tour went on to attend the Save America rally on Capitol Hill on 6 January, where then president Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol.Loudermilk has previously denied that he led a tour that was related to the January 6 riots. The Republican congressman then said that he only gave a tour to families with young children before saying that he gave a tour to about 16 people.In a letter addressed to Loudermilk by the January 6 select committee, chairman and Mississippi Democratic representative Bennie Thompson wrote: “Individuals on the tour photographed and recorded areas of the complex not typically of interest to tourists.”“The January 5, 2021 tour raises concerns about their activity and intent,” it added.Earlier this week, Fox News host Tucker Carlson released exclusive January 6 security footage provided to him by House speaker Kevin McCarthy during a segment in which he minimized the gravity of the riots.“The footage does not show an insurrection or a riot in progress,” the conservative host said. “Instead it shows police escorting people through the building, including the now infamous ‘QAnon Shaman’.”“More than 44,000 hours of surveillance footage from in and around the Capitol have been withheld from the public, and once you see the video, you’ll understand why. Taken as a whole, the video does not support the claim that January 6 was an insurrection. In fact, it demolishes that claim,” Carlson added, without airing footage of the more incriminating moments during the riots in which protesters and police fought violently.TopicsRepublicansJanuary 6 hearingsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsWashington DCnewsReuse this content More

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      Special counsel seeks to compel Mike Pence to testify about January 6

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      Special counsel seeks to compel Mike Pence to testify about January 6Compulsion motion against former vice-president marks pre-emptive move to rebut executive privilege arguments, sources sayThe special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election issued a motion to compel testimony from Mike Pence in recent days – after the Trump legal team sought to block his appearance on executive privilege grounds, sources familiar with the matter said.The compulsion motion against Pence marks a pre-emptive move by the special counsel to rebut the executive privilege arguments before Pence had even made an appearance before the federal grand jury in Washington DC pursuant to a subpoena issued last month, the sources said.While Pence has suggested he would contest the subpoena, the Guardian has previously reported that is understood to involve him at least appearing before the grand jury and asserting the so-called speech or debate protection for congressional officials to specific questions.The Trump special counsel Jack Smith, however, appears to have issued the motion to compel – earlier reported by CBS News – not in response to Pence’s expected actions, but in response to a recent executive privilege motion filed in the case by Trump’s legal team seeking to stop Pence testifying in the investigation.Trump’s legal team has reflexively filed executive privilege motions to stop multiple top former Trump White House officials from testifying in the criminal investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack.That has led to protracted litigation with federal prosecutors before the chief US judge in the District of Columbia, Beryl Howell. The executive privilege fight with Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short took at least four months – that is thought to have delayed parts of the investigation.Howell, who has generally ruled in favor of the government on executive privilege disputes, even if they do take months to resolve, is slated to step down on 16 March. She will be replaced as the chief judge by James Boasberg, who previously oversaw the secret foreign surveillance court.The Pence subpoena is more complicated than other legal battles over executive privilege because there are two privilege assertions at play: Pence’s own expected speech or debate assertions, as well as the standard executive privilege fight by the Trump legal team as intervenors in the case.Whether the special counsel filed the motion to compel in response to the Trump legal team, in order to deal with the privilege issues sequentially – executive privilege is also generally a weaker protection than the speech or debate clause – was not clear, and a spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.TopicsMike PenceDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Lawyers who enabled Trump in election plot face heightened risk of charges

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      Lawyers who enabled Trump in election plot face heightened risk of charges House panel refers John Eastman, Jeff Clark, Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro to DoJ for offering Trump bogus legal coverFour lawyers who gave Donald Trump erroneous legal advice that aided his drive to overturn the 2020 US election now face heightened prospects of criminal charges after a House panel released an exhaustive report on the January 6 insurrection, and referred the lawyers for possible prosecution to the justice department, say ex-federal prosecutors.Brazil’s failed coup is the poison flower of the Trump-Bolsonaro symbiosisRead moreJohn Eastman, Jeff Clark, Rudy Giuliani and Kenneth Chesebro played overlapping roles, offering Trump bogus legal cover that included promoting a fake electors ploy to replace electors Joe Biden won with ones for Trump, in an effort to block Congress from certifying Biden on 6 January.The lawyers’ actions and schemes were cited in an 845-page report last month by the House select committee investing the events of 6 January, and in the referrals to the justice department, for giving various types of legal support to Trump that enabled parts of his attempted coup.The report accused Trump of criminally engaging in “a multi-part conspiracy”, and cited four criminal offenses: making false statements, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and aiding or comforting insurrection, all of which were referred to the DoJ for prosecution.The specific referrals to the DoJ differ somewhat for the four lawyers. All of them were referred for conspiring to defraud the United States. Except for Giuliani, the other three were referred for conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, a reference to Congress certifying Biden’s win on 6 January.Several legal schemes devised by the lawyers to further Trump’s botched coup were detailed in the referrals and in the panel’s exhaustive report. For instance, Eastman, a law professor in California, authored a “coup memo” that suggested avenues the former vice-president Mike Pence could take to help Trump reverse his election loss, including unilaterally throwing out certain state electoral college votes.Along with Giuliani, Eastman also addressed the “Stop the Steal” rally immediately before the Capitol attack, where he floated a baseless conspiracy theory about “secret folders” in voting machines that helped cast votes for Democrats.The panel’s report and referrals noted, too, that Clark, who was acting head of the DoJ’s civil division, “stands out as a participant in the conspiracy” to defraud the United States. The report cited evidence that Clark drafted a letter with false information urging some state officials to name new slates of electors, as part of a plan that involved Trump installing Clark as acting attorney general at the DoJ.Last summer, Clark and Eastman had their cellphones seized by federal agents, in an early indication of the serious scrutiny prosecutors were affording them.Giuliani, who served as Trump’s personal attorney and pushed his false claims about widespread election fraud, was subpoenaed by the US attorney in DC in November to testify and provide documents about his payments from Trump and his campaign, according to a Reuters report this week.Although the House panel’s referrals to the DoJ are only recommendations and do not require filing charges against the lawyers, former prosecutors said the extensive evidence that they conspired with Trump to stop Biden from taking office could help spur DoJ legal action against them.“The corrupt involvement of lawyers in various aspects of the January 6 insurrection is surely one of the low points in the history of the legal profession in America,” said former DoJ inspector general Michael Bromwich.“From filing bogus lawsuits, to trying to hijack the justice department, to devising the fake electors scheme – lawyers were at the center of the illegitimate attempts to keep Donald Trump in power. Any lawyer who cares about the reputation of the profession should be disgusted at their behavior, and hope they will be held accountable by the very legal system they abused.”Other former prosecutors offered scathing views about Trump’s legal loyalists.“While professional status often shields lawyers from criminal liability, I would expect prosecutors to use it as a sword here: this crew knew congressional procedures and concocted an attack on the weak spots, drawing in many others who knew far less,” said Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a professor at Columbia law school.“While there may be prudential reasons not to make Trump a criminal defendant, those don’t argue against charging this group with a conspiracy to defraud the United States. The broad title of that offense doesn’t often capture the conduct of defendants charged with it, but it certainly does here, And a full factual presentation of this conspiracy might also reveal Trump’s own role.”Similarly, Michael Zeldin, an ex-DoJ prosecutor, said: “The Jan 6 committee’s referrals to the DoJ regarding the role Trump-aligned attorneys played in the run-up to the assault on the Capitol laid out a compelling case.”“[The] DoJ now has to test that evidence against a standard of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to determine whether indictments are warranted,” he added.Eastman and the other lawyers accused in the House panel’s referrals to DoJ have all denied improper conduct. But well before the panel’s referrals and report, evidence was mounting about the sizable roles Eastman and the other lawyers played in promoting Trump’s conspiracy to block Biden from taking office.Federal judge David Carter last March in a key ruling involving Eastman, stated that Trump “more likely than not” broke the law in his weeks-long drive to stop Biden from taking office.“Dr Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” Carter wrote in a civil case that led to an order for Eastman to release over 100 emails he had withheld from the House panel.The panel last year also heard stunning testimony from Greg Jacob, Mike Pence’s counsel. Jacob testified that Eastman acknowledged to him that he was aware that his efforts to get Pence to reject Biden’s winning electoral college count would violate the Electoral Count Act, and that Trump, too, was informed it would be unlawful for Pence to block Biden’s certification.Clark’s role in trying to help Trump promote false claims of election fraud also prompted strong condemnation at a House panel hearing last year. Former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue was scathing in recounting Trump’s efforts to replace the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, with Clark in late December 2020, to increase pressure on state legislators to reject Biden electors by pushing baseless charges of widespread fraud.Donoghue testified that he warned Trump at a bizarre 3 January White House meeting that drew Rosen, Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and other top lawyers. Elevating Clark to be acting AG would spark mass resignations, and Clark would be “left leading a graveyard”, at the DoJ, Donoghue saidCipollone, who testified before a federal grand jury last fall, also threatened to resign if Trump replaced Rosen with Clark.Former Georgia US attorney Michael Moore said he believes the panel assembled a “substantial” case against some of Trump’s leading lawyer loyalists, who “were actually involved in an unprecedented and unlawful effort to overturn the election, providing fallacious legal arguments as part of the conspiracy”.“A lawyer who tells his client how to crack open the vault is just as guilty as the robber who enters the bank,” Moore added.Still, Richman cautioned that DoJ prosecutors face challenges before charging any of the lawyers.“I suspect prosecutors would want to more clearly nail down the degree to which these lawyers were truly aware that their theories lacked the slightest factual support or legal basis. It helps, but may not be enough, that many around them were saying that.”Regardless of whether or not the DoJ charges some of the lawyers, they all should suffer professionally for scheming with Trump, Bromwich stressed.“Although it’s not yet clear which of the lawyers can be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal prosecutions, they all should become outcasts in their chosen profession, and at a minimum never practice law again.”TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      House Republicans move to defang ethics office investigating its members

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      House Republicans move to defang ethics office investigating its membersIncoming majority also created new special subcommittee to investigate justice department and intelligence agencies House Republicans moved to pre-emptively kill any investigations against its members as it curtailed the power of an independent ethics office just as it was weighing whether to open inquiries into lawmakers who defied subpoenas issued by the House January 6 select committee last year.Fears over lax security in Republican-controlled House two years after Capitol attackRead moreThe incoming Republican majority also paved the way for a new special subcommittee with a wide mandate to investigate the US justice department and intelligence agencies, which could include reviewing the criminal probes into Donald Trump and a Republican congressman caught up in the Capitol attack inquiry.The measures took effect as House Republicans narrowly passed the new rules package that included the changes for the next Congress, 220-213, setting the stage for politically charged fights with the Biden administration over access to classified materials and details of criminal investigations.Seeking to protect itself, the rules package first undercut the ability of the office of congressional ethics (OCE) to function, with changes that struck at its principal vulnerabilities to defang its investigative powers for at least the next two years, according to sources familiar with its operation.The changes to the OCE are twofold: reintroducing term limits for members of the bipartisan board, which would force out three of four Democratic-appointed members, and restricting its ability to hire professional staff in the first 30 days of the new congressional session.The issue with the changes, the Guardian previously reported, is that the OCE requires board approval to open new investigations, while new hires are typically approved by the board. The term limits would mean Democrats need to find new board members, which can take months – far longer than the 30 day hiring period.In essence, the changes mean that by the time the OCE has a board, it may have run out of time to hire staff, leaving it with one counsel to do possible investigations into the new House speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Republican lawmakers who defied January 6 select committee subpoenas.There would also only be that one counsel to investigate Republican congressman George Santos, who lied about his past during his election campaign; the OCE has the power to retrospectively examine violations of federal election law that arise during congressional election campaigns.Once an OCE investigation is complete, the body can refer the matter to the full House ethics committee, which conducts its own inquiry. Crucially, however, even if the ethics committee dismisses a case, it is required to release the full OCE report, creating a deterrent for lawmakers.Meanwhile, as House Republicans moved to shield themselves from potential ethics investigations, they expanded their own investigative ability through the adoption of the rules package that allows for the creation of the special subcommittee to probe the justice department and intelligence agencies.The text of the resolution creating the subcommittee – scheduled for a vote on Tuesday – on “the weaponization of the federal government” authorizes it to investigate any part of the federal government, including “ongoing criminal investigations”, which Republicans have indicated could extend to probes against Trump.The subcommittee will have subpoena power and receive materials provided to the House intelligence committee, meaning if the intelligence community were to ever give a briefing on the classified documents the FBI seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the panel would obtain that, too.And while the subcommittee will have its own chairman, it remains part of the House judiciary committee led by Jim Jordan, who maintains the ability to issue subpoenas on behalf of the panel and ultimately inherit all of its materials whenever it is dissolved, according to the resolution text.Whether Jordan and the special subcommittee will ever receive materials from the justice department about active criminal investigations in practice remains unclear.The department has long refused to provide to Congress confidential grand jury material, information that could compromise criminal investigations, and deliberative communications such as internal prosecution memos because of the risk of political interference in charging decisions.As the department explained in a letter to the House rules committee chair John Linder in 2000, its position has also been upheld by the supreme court in Nixon v United States (1974) that recognized making such materials public could have an improper “chilling effect”.Particularly with respect to cases involving Trump, current and former officials said the current justice department would likely adopt the same position as the Linder letter, which concluded: “The Department’s longstanding policy is to decline to provide congressional committees with access to open law enforcement files.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsnewsReuse this content More

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      Will Donald Trump finally face criminal charges for January 6? | podcast

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      After interviewing 1,000 witnesses and compiling an 800-page report, the inquiry into the assault on the Capitol is complete. But what will it mean for Donald Trump in 2023 – and his presidential bid?

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      After 18 months, the inquiry looking into what happened on 6 January 2021 when a violent mob forced its way into the Capitol – is finally at an end. The committee released a damning report, more than 800 pages in length, and recommended that Donald Trump face four criminal charges. But will he? Hugo Lowell is a reporter in the Guardian’s Washington bureau and he told Hannah Moore what the committee set out to uncover and why its conclusion was so damning for the former president. Yet with the committee having no powers to press criminal proceedings, is it likely he will face charges for the events that happened two years ago? And what effect will it have on his presidential bid? More

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      Republican says he ‘fears for the future’ if Trump is not charged over Jan 6 riot

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      Republican says he ‘fears for the future’ if Trump is not charged over Jan 6 riotAdam Kinzinger said in an interview the former president should be charged with conspiracy over the insurrection Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said in an interview on Sunday that he believes the Department of Justice “will do the right thing” and bring criminal charges against Donald Trump for his role in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.“I think he will be charged, and I frankly think he should be,” Kinzinger told CNN’s State of Union political talk show on Sunday morning.Last month, the House select committee investigating the attack, on which Kinzinger sits, voted to refer the former president to the justice department on charges of obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to make a false statement and “incite”, “assist” or “aid or comfort” an insurrection.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreThe recommendations relate to the former US president’s role in encouraging the insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington DC as thousands of his extremist supporters sought to prevent the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election.“If he is not guilty of a crime, then I frankly fear for the future of this country because now every future president can say, ‘Hey, here’s the bar.’ And the bar is, do everything you can to stay in power,” Kinzinger said.Kinzinger was one of two Republicans on the Democratic-led January 6 select committee, which wrapped up its investigation prior to dissolving and the new Congress beginning on Tuesday, when Republicans will assume the majority in the House following last November’s midterm elections.Kinzinger led one of the committee’s sessions last June that focussed on pressure allegedly placed on the justice department by Trump or his allies as he strove to persuade them to overturn his 2020 defeat by falsely claiming the election was blighted by widespread fraud.He has represented Illinois in the House of Representatives since 2011 and was speaking following the last sessions held by the committee and on the eve of his departure from Congress.Kinzinger also slammed Republican leaders for maintaining Trump’s influence on the US political landscape, by playing down the significance of the Capitol attack and Trump’s incitement of the riot, and often backing Trump’s lies about elections being rigged in favor of Democrats.He blamed powerful House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, who is currently battling to become the new speaker of the House, as the reason the former president remains such a force in politics.“He is the reason Donald Trump is still a factor,” Kinzinger said. “He is the reason that some of the crazy elements of the House still exist.”McCarthy, he said, had visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Florida residence shortly after the January 6 insurrection. That show of mutual support at a pivotal moment “resurrected” Trump’s relevance in politics, strengthening the right. In McCarthy making the trip, he said, Republicans went from not knowing what to do about Trump to “begrudgingly” defending him.“Donald Trump should consider Kevin McCarthy his best friend because Donald Trump is alive today politically because of Kevin McCarthy,” Kinzinger added.He noted that Senate then-majority leader Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans failed to convict Trump during his historic second impeachment for inciting insurrection. “The Republican party is not the future of this country unless it corrects,” he said. “If you think of a successful America in 20 years, that’s not going to be an America based on what Marjorie Taylor Greene wants or … some of these radicals want,” he added, referring to the far-right Georgia congresswoman, who is sympathetic to the QAnon conspiracy theory, and her ilk.As the 2024 presidential election gradually takes shape, Kinzinger said he was fearful for American democracy, given that “maybe a third of the country” believes the last election was stolen from Trump.The congressman said it was not his intention to run for the Republican presidential nomination. But he conceded that it would be “fun” to run against Trump, who in November declared his 2024 candidacy.“He stands up and just lies. He tells untruths. People love it because it’s entertaining but eventually people have a concern for their country. So, no, my intention is not to run in 2024. But it would be fun,” he said.TopicsRepublicansUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Donald Trump’s tax returns to be made public by US House panel on Friday

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      Donald Trump’s tax returns to be made public by US House panel on FridayThe House ways and means committee confirmed that the former president’s tax records from 2015 to 2021 will be released Donald Trump’s redacted tax returns will be made public on Friday after a powerful congressional committee voted last week to release them.A spokesperson for the US House of Representatives ways and means committee confirmed the timing of the release in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.The Democratic-controlled committee obtained the returns last month as part of an investigation into Trump’s taxes, after a lengthy court battle that ended with the US supreme court ruling in the committee’s favor.The move is set to ignite a political firestorm in the US, where the former president’s taxes have long been a contentious matter. Trump broke with decades of presidential precedent by refusing to release his tax returns when he ran for office in 2016, and has fought to keep them under wraps.The New York Times previously released extensive portions of Trump’s tax returns as part of a major investigation that showed how the real estate mogul and reality TV star had suffered serious losses and engaged in extensive tax avoidance.The committee released a report into its findings last week, which said the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) broke its own rules by not auditing Trump for three of the four years of his presidency.The findings raised stark questions about Trump’s insistence that he could not publicly release his tax returns – as other presidents routinely have done to give people a glimpse into their livelihoods – because he said his filings were under an ongoing IRS review. The committee’s report also highlighted shortcomings at the IRS, which has been criticized for auditing lower-income people more often than the rich.House committee votes to release Trump’s tax returns to the publicRead moreThe documents to be released on Friday are expected to include Trump’s tax returns filed between 2015 and 2021, the years he ran for and served as president. It would be the first formal release of his financial records from his time in office.A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment.Trump’s tax returns were not released alongside last week’s report because they contain sensitive information that had to be redacted before publication, committee members said.Democrats on the committee said that making the returns public was necessary to understanding the context of its report, which also included proposed legislation that would mandate the IRS to audit presidents.Trump was the first presidential candidate in decades not to release his tax returns during either of his campaigns for president. He also bragged during a presidential debate that year that he was “smart” because he paid no federal taxes.Democrats on the committee had only a few weeks to decide how to handle the returns once they got them, before Republicans retake control of the US House in January after winning a narrow margin of victory in November’s midterm elections.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsDonald TrumpJanuary 6 hearingsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Highest-profile January 6 trial begins with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio

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      Highest-profile January 6 trial begins with Proud Boys leader Enrique TarrioChairman of militia group and four others are charged with seditious conspiracy related to Capitol insurrection The January 6 committee investigating the attack on the Capitol may have issued its huge final report, but the wheels of the justice system in the US are grinding on and one of the most high-profile trials emerging from the insurrection is about to begin in earnest.Jury selection began last week with the seditious conspiracy trial against ex-Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four others involved in the far-right, often violent militia group.From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearingsRead moreTarrio and his co-defendants in the Washington DC federal court trial – Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Dominic Pezzola and Proud Boy organizer Joe Biggs – are charged with seditious conspiracy and other counts related to the attack that delayed congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, injured dozens of police officers and is linked to multiple deaths. They have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.A fifth man charged in this case, Charles Donohoe, pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to attack the Capitol. Under Donohoe’s plea deal, he agreed to cooperate against his co-defendants. Approximately 900 people have now been arrested in the Capitol attack, with prosecutors securing convictions against hundreds.The start of the trial comes amid a wider reckoning with those responsible for the January 6 attack.Several hours after jury selection started on Monday in the Proud Boys trial, the House committee probing the deadly insurrection issued some of its findings – and made a criminal referral against Trump to the US Department of Justice, recommending charges. The trial also comes several weeks after two leaders of the Oath Keepers – another far-right group – were found guilty of seditious conspiracy for their involvement in the insurrection.Federal prosecutors allege that Nordean, Biggs, Rehl and Pezzola were among the 100 Proud Boys who convened alongside the Washington Monument at 10am on 6 January. They met around the time that Trump was addressing thousands of supporters in a park called the Ellipse.These soon-to-be rioters in that group then made their way to the Capitol. Around 1pm, one of them broke through police, spurring the violence that would consume Capitol Hill, court documents allege.Nordean, Rehl, Biggs and Pezzola allegedly led the mob and were among the first people to push past police. Biggs allegedly recorded a video where he observed the mob and said: “We’ve taken the Capitol,” per court documents.Tarrio was not in Washington DC during the insurrection, as he had been arrested two days prior for allegedly vandalizing a Black Lives Matter sign at a historical Black church during a December 2020 demonstration. Prosecutors contend that Tarrio was among the leaders of this conspiracy to thwart election certification.Several days before the riot, Tarrio posted about “revolution” on social media, prosecutors said in court papers. In an encrypted messaging group which prosecutors maintain was created by Tarrio, one member purportedly said: “Time to stack those bodies in front of Capitol Hill,” per the Associated Press.Despite being arrested several days prior, Tarrio heralded the rioters’ attack, writing “don’t [expletive] leave” on social media and later posting “we did this…” prosecutors said.While there appears to be extensive evidence against these men, much of which has long been in the public record, prosecutors must show more than their in-person or social media presence that day to prove seditious conspiracy.“They’re going to have to show an agreement between two people or more, they’re going to have to show a common scheme or a common plan,” said Los Angeles criminal defense and appellate attorney Matthew Barhoma, founder of Barhoma Law.“Showing up on January 6 at the same time doesn’t mean that a conspiracy indeed existed. They’re going to have to go a little bit beyond that to show there is a common agreement – basically a smoking gun in the sense that they intended to overthrow the government,” he added. “They’re going to have to show that they wanted to act in a common plan in furtherance of that plan to overthrow the government or to delay or hinder the United States government.”‘These are conditions ripe for political violence’: how close is the US to civil war?Read moreThat said, “seditious conspiracy is actually in some ways, much easier to prove than regular criminal conspiracy,” explained longtime attorney Ron Kuby, a longtime criminal defense attorney with a focus on civil rights.“Seditious conspiracy is the only conspiracy that does not require proof of an overt act on the part of participants,” Kuby said. “Generally speaking, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more people to do something unlawful, and in all other conspiracy cases, at least one of the participants has to take a substantial step toward that unlawful purpose.”“Here, it’s really a sidenote, footnote, endnote and asterisk. They don’t have to prove an overt act, what they they have to prove there was an agreement to oppose the lawful authority of the United States of America by force.“There’s a tsunami of evidence, both in terms of what was said among the participants, which the FBI has obtained and decrypted as well as what they did, which is all well-documented on video.”Although evidence appears to abound, one possible defense strategy would be to portray the alleged plotters as buffoons. “These guys were angry knuckleheads but you know, they’re not planning to overthrow the government,” Kuby said of this possible approach.It’s unclear whether these Proud Boys members would go along with that, even if this could help their cases.“The natural impulse of every defense lawyer is to portray their clients in a fashion which is most likely to result in acquittal, but that’s not necessarily the way most defendants want to be portrayed,” Kuby said. “The Proud Boys may not want to be portrayed as loud-mouthed knuckleheads who were just egging each other on to say dumber and dumber things because they’re not that bright.”Tarrio’s attorneys have contended that he didn’t tell or encourage anyone to storm the Capitol or act violently, while Nordean’s lawyer alleged that justice department prosecutors were singling him out because of his political beliefs, the AP reported.In an email to the Guardian, Tarrio’s attorney, Nayib Hassan, said: “Mr Tarrio is looking forward to the start of the trial. We look forward to making our presentation of the evidence and acquitting Mr Tarrio of the governments allegations.”Rehl’s lawyer reportedly wanted the judge to dismiss the indictment on First amendment grounds, claiming the charges were rooted in free speech issues. Asked for comment, Biggs’s attorney, Norm Pattis, said in an email: “We look forward to the presentation of evidence in this case. We stand by his plea of not guilty.”TopicsUS Capitol attackJanuary 6 hearingsLaw (US)The far rightUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More