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      Fox News faces another defamation lawsuit involving Tucker Carlson

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      Fox News was hit with a defamation lawsuit on Wednesday by Trump supporter Ray Epps after former host Tucker Carlson repeatedly called Epps an undercover FBI agent who orchestrated the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.Carlson said Epps, an Arizona resident and former marine, “helped stage-manage the insurrection” – a conspiracy he broadcast in nearly 20 episodes.Carlson also told viewers that Epps was recorded urging the mob to enter the Capitol building, but that he never entered himself.Epps’s lawsuit, which was filed in Delaware, comes months after the conservative network’s parent organization settled a defamation lawsuit for $787.5m with Dominion Voting Systems for spreading falsehoods about the outcome of the 2020 election.Epps claims he and his wife, Robyn, have received death threats and that their lives were ruined because of Carlson’s conspiracies.The lawsuit reads: “As Fox recently learned in its litigation against Dominion Voting Systems, its lies have consequences.”The lawsuit describes Epps as a “loyal Fox viewer and Trump supporter” and refuted the notion he was a federal agent.Before the lawsuit, Epps’s lawyer Michael Teter sent Fox News a cease-and-desist letter, demanding an on-air apology and retraction of the conspiracy theory. Teter said the network did not respond to the letter.Legal experts noted earlier this week that while Epps will have to prove that Carlson’s claims damaged his reputation, he presents a strong argument and therefore likely has standing.David D Lin of the Lewis & Lin LLC law firm said he believes “there is a lot of potential risk here to Fox and they need to take the claims very seriously,” before adding that Carlson could be personally liable if the suit included him.Epps could face charges himself for his role in the January 6 insurrection. He was questioned by the House January 6 committee, though the investigation is still ongoing. More

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      Fox News may face lawsuit over Tucker Carlson’s January 6 conspiracy theory

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      Experts say conservative network Fox News could face a “a fairly strong” lawsuit from a man who Tucker Carlson repeatedly accused of working as a government agent and carrying out the January 6 insurrection.Carlson, who was fired from the network in April, repeatedly alleged that Ray Epps was a secret government agent who coordinated the January 6 riots, the New York Times reported.Epps, a Trump supporter and former marine, has been at the center of a far-right conspiracy theory after an article by a rightwing website argued that he was spared from criminal charges because of his covert role.Carlson and other rightwing figures, including members of Congress, have latched onto the false theory that Epps was a government agent involved in whipping up the January 6 attack.In almost 20 episodes of his talkshow, Carlson reiterated the conspiracy theory that Epps was an undercover operative who “helped stage-manage the insurrection”.Carlson repeatedly argued that Epps was recorded on camera urging others to enter the Capitol, but never entered the building himself.In one 10-minute video posted to YouTube, Carlson claimed that it was “highly strange” that Epps hadn’t been arrested and alluded that the Times’ coverage on Epps was attempting to “cover something up”.Epps has been questioned by the January 6 committee, and could still face charges as the investigation continues, the Times reported. He and his wife have received death threats and fled from their home in Arizona, fearing for their safety, according to the Associated Press.Michael Teter, a lawyer representing Epps, sent Fox News network a cease-and-desist letter, demanding an on-air apology and a retraction of the conspiracy theory, the Times reported.Teter told the Times that Fox did not respond to their suit, and a lawsuit is being prepared against the network.Experts have said that Epps’ potential case against Fox News could have standing and become a real issue for the conservative news network.David D Lin, an attorney at Lewis and Lin LLC Internet Law Counsel, told the Guardian that Epps’ lawsuit against Fox could be viable and present a potential issue for the network.“I think there is a lot of potential risk here to Fox and they need to take the claims very seriously,” said Lin to the Guardian, adding that Carlson could be personally liable depending on if the lawsuit includes him.Siddartha Rao, a lawyer at Romano Law PLLC, called the potential suit “a fairly strong claim”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Based on the facts that have been reported, I think it’s gonna look like Tucker Carlson at least recklessly disregarded the truth when he made his statements about Mr Epps,” said Rao, adding that Epps will have to demonstrate how his reputation has been damaged by the theories.Rao noted that given that Epps did attend the January 6 riots, the focus of his legal team may be on Carlson’s conspiracy theory of Epps’ being a federal agent.Unlike Dominion, which is a business, Epps is a private individual who will have to meet a lower standard for defamation suits compared to a public figure or government official, said Lin.“In a sense, it could be much easier for him to pursue a defamation claim against Fox News,” said Lin, adding that Epps needs to prove the statements made on Fox are false and caused damage to his reputation and financial damage.Lin added that if a lawsuit moves forward, Fox News could argue that statements made about Epps were an opinion or that the claims would be regarded as obviously false to listeners.Rao noted that while the lawsuit will likely be against Fox, Carlson could face consequences as an individual, depending on his arrangement with Fox.“There might be claims from Fox to come out against Carlson,” said Rao, given that the alleged defamation happened during his show.Fox News and Tucker Carlson could not be reached by the Guardian for an immediate comment. More

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      Man accused of attacking Capitol officer as January 6 arrests pile up

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      Americans continue to be arrested on suspicion of taking part in the Capitol attack, two and half years after the January 6 insurrection by supporters of Donald Trump.Court documents on Monday showed that a Michigan man accused of attacking a police officer with a flagpole during the insurrection was arrested in Florida last Friday, a day after an armed man also wanted for the rioting was arrested near Barack Obama’s Washington home. Another man suspected of violence at the Capitol was arrested in Maryland last month.Latest filings show that Jeremy Rodgers, 28, was arrested last Friday in Orlando and faces felony and misdemeanor charges, including assaulting a federal officer with a weapon.Prosecutors say surveillance video shows Rodgers carrying a blue flag on his way to the Capitol and using it to strike a Capitol police officer on the helmet and then swinging the flagpole in the direction of officers, during the swarming of the seat of the US Congress.He is accused of joining with thousands of other Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol in a deadly insurrection that sought, ultimately unsuccessfully, to halt the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 election, at the urging of the defeated president.Rodgers was among a crowd pushing through police lines outside the entrance to the chamber of the House of Representatives, investigators said. After another scuffle with police, Rodgers paraded through the Capitol rotunda waving his flag before leaving, officials said.Last Thursday, a man armed with explosive materials and weapons, and also wanted for crimes related to the Capitol attack insurrection was arrested in the Washington neighborhood where Obama lives, law enforcement officials said.Taylor Taranto, 37, was chased by Secret Service agents before being apprehended, and had an open warrant on charges related to the 2021 insurrection, two law enforcement officials said, and also had made social media threats against a public figure.Meanwhile, on 13 June, Adam Obest, 42, of Thurmont, Maryland, was arrested and charged with crimes including assaulting an officer with a dangerous weapon on January 6, 2021, after reviews of police body camera footage, federal prosecutors announced. He and his wife had attended Trump’s rally shortly beforehand.More than 1,000 people in total have been arrested, across almost all states, for January 6-related crimes. More

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      Armed man wanted for role in Capitol attack arrested near Obama’s house

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      A man armed with explosive materials and weapons, and wanted for crimes related to the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, was arrested late on Thursday in the Washington DC neighborhood where the former US president Barack Obama lives, law enforcement officials said.Taylor Taranto, 37, was spotted by law enforcement officials a few blocks from the former president’s home and fled, though he was chased by Secret Service agents. Taranto has an open warrant on charges related to the insurrection, two law enforcement officials said. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing case and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.They said Taranto also had made social media threats against a public figure. He was found with weapons and materials to create an explosive device, though one had not been built, one of the officials said.No one was injured. It was not clear whether the Obamas were at their home at the time of the arrest.Washington’s Metropolitan police department arrested Taranto on charges of being a fugitive from justice. The explosives team swept Taranto’s van and said there were no threats to the public.Taranto was a US navy veteran and a webmaster for the Republican party in Franklin county, in Washington state, according to the Tri-City Herald newspaper. He told the newspaper in an interview last year that he was volunteering for the Republican party.It was not clear what, exactly, Taranto is accused of doing in the 2021 riot, where supporters of then president Donald Trump smashed their way into the Capitol, beat police officers and pursued leading politicians, while also invading a congressional chamber in a vain effort to overturn Trump’s defeat at the 2020 presidential election before Joe Biden’s victory being certified by Congress.More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol attack. More than 600 of them have pleaded guilty, while approximately 100 others have been convicted after trials decided by judges or juries. More than 550 riot defendants have been sentenced, with over half imprisoned. More

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      US intelligence ignored warnings of violence ahead of Capitol attack

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      A new report detailing intelligence failures leading up to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol said government agencies responsible for anticipating trouble downplayed the threat even as the building was being stormed, in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.The 105-page report, issued by Democrats on the Senate homeland security committee, said intelligence personnel at the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies ignored warnings of violence in December 2020.Such officials then blamed each other for failing to prevent the attack that ensued, which left more than 140 police officers injured and led to several deaths.The US government has won hundreds of convictions against the rioters, with some getting long prison sentences.“These agencies failed to sound the alarm and share critical intelligence information that could have helped law enforcement better prepare for the events” of January 6, said Gary Peters of Michigan, the Democratic chair of the committee issuing the report, titled Planned in Plain Sight, A Review of the Intelligence Failures in Advance of 6 January 2021.Republicans on the committee did not respond to requests for comment.Last summer, a House of Representatives select committee held hearings, following a long investigation, that concluded the then president, Donald Trump, repeatedly ignored top aides’ findings that there was no significant fraud in the 2020 presidential election, which he lost.Trump continues to falsely insist he won that contest and was the victim of election fraud. Hours before the riot, Trump delivered a fiery speech to supporters, urging them to march to the Capitol as the House and Senate met to certify Biden’s win.Trump is now the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination. He and some Republican rivals have pledged to grant or consider granting pardons to rioters.The Senate committee found that in December 2020, the FBI received information that the far-right Proud Boys extremist group planned to be in Washington “to literally kill people”.On 3-4 January 2021, the report says, intelligence agencies knew of multiple postings on social media calling for armed violence and storming the Capitol. Yet “as late as 8.57am on January 6 a senior watch officer at the DHS National Operations Center wrote “there is no indication of civil disobedience”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBy 2.58pm, the report noted, with a riot declared and the Capitol in formal lockdown, the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis noted online “chatter” calling for more violence but said “at this time no credible information to pass on has been established”.In summer 2020, demonstrations were staged in several US cities after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer. The Senate report notes that the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis was criticized then for “over-collecting intelligence on American citizens”, resulting “in a ‘pendulum swing’ after which analysts were hesitant to report open-source intelligence they were seeing in the lead-up to January 6”.The report concluded there was a “clear need … for a re-evaluation of the federal government’s domestic intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination processes”. More

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      January 6 rioter who attacked police officer with stun gun jailed for 12 years

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      A California man who drove a stun gun into the police officer Michael Fanone’s neck during one of the most violent clashes of the January 6 riot was sentenced on Wednesday to more than 12 years in prison.Daniel “DJ” Rodriguez yelled, “Trump won!” as he was led out of the courtroom where the US district judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced him to 12 years and seven months behind bars for his role in the attack on Congress.Only two other January 6 defendants have received longer prison terms after hundreds of sentencings for Capitol riot cases.The judge said Rodriguez, 40, was “a one-man army of hate, attacking police and destroying property” at the Capitol.“You showed up in DC spoiling for a fight,” Jackson said. “You can’t blame what you did once you got there on anyone but yourself.”A body camera worn by Fanone captured the Metropolitan police officer screaming after Rodriguez shocked him with a stun gun while he was surrounded by a mob.Another rioter had dragged Fanone into the crowd outside a tunnel on the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol, where police were guarding an entrance. Other rioters began beating Fanone, who lost consciousness and suffered a heart attack after Rodriguez pressed the stun gun against his neck and repeatedly shocked him.Fanone addressed the judge before she imposed the sentence. The former officer described how the January 6 attack prematurely ended his law enforcement career and turned him into a target for Trump supporters who cling to the lie that Democrats stole the 2020 election.Fanone left the courtroom in the middle of Rodriguez’s statement to the judge. He did not miss an apology from Rodriguez, who has been jailed for more than two years and will get credit for time served.“I’m hopeful that Michael Fanone will be OK some day,” Rodriguez said. “It sounds like he’s in a great deal of pain.”Fanone said he left the courtroom because he didn’t care to hear his assailant’s “rambling, incoherent” statement.“Nothing he could have said to me today would have made any difference whatsoever,” he said.Prosecutors recommended a 14-year prison sentence for Rodriguez, who pleaded guilty in February to charges including assaulting Fanone. They also sought a fine of nearly $100,000 to offset the cost of Fanone’s medical bills and medical leave.Fanone has written a book and testified in front of a House committee that investigated the insurrection, which disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Joe Biden’s victory.“Rodriguez’s criminal conduct on January 6 was the epitome of disrespect for the law; he battled with law enforcement at the US Capitol for hours, nearly costing one officer his life, in order to stop the official proceeding happening inside,” prosecutors wrote.Rodriguez pleaded guilty to four felony charges including conspiracy and assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon. He entered the guilty plea about two weeks before his trial was scheduled to start.On January 6, Rodriguez attended Donald Trump’s “Save America” rally before joining rioters who attacked police.“Rodriguez made his way to the front of the line of rioters battling the officers, yelling into his bullhorn at the beleaguered line,” prosecutors wrote.Rodriguez deployed a fire extinguisher and shoved a wooden pole at police before another rioter, Kyle Young, handed him what appeared to be a stun gun.Fanone was at the front of the police line when another rioter, Albuquerque Cosper Head, wrapped his arm around the officer’s neck and dragged him on to the terrace steps, then restrained Fanone while other rioters attacked him. Rodriguez shocked Fanone below the left ear of his helmet.Fanone managed to retreat and collapsed before he was taken to a hospital.Rodriguez entered the building and smashed a window with a pole before leaving Capitol grounds.Head was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to an assault charge.Young also was sentenced to more than seven years. Young grabbed Fanone by the wrist while others yelled, “Kill him!” and “Get his gun!”During an interview with FBI agents after his March 2021 arrest, Rodriguez said he had believed he was doing the “right thing” and that he had been prepared to die to “save the country”. He cried as he spoke to the agents, saying he was “stupid” and ashamed of his actions.In the days leading up to January 6, Rodriguez spewed violent rhetoric in a Telegram group chat called “PATRIOTS 45 MAGA Gang”.“There will be blood. Welcome to the revolution,” Rodriguez wrote a day before the riot.Rodriguez’s attorneys said he idolized Trump, seeing the the former president “as the father he wished he had”, as they sought a prison sentence of five years and five months.The same judge who sentenced Rodriguez convicted a co-defendant, Edward Badalian, of three riot-related charges and acquitted him of a fourth after a trial without a jury. Jackson is scheduled to sentence Badalian on 21 July.More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the January 6 riot. More than 700 have pleaded guilty or been convicted. Approximately 550 have been sentenced, more than half receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 18 years. More

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      The Guardian view on Trump and political violence: more than words | Editorial

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      Like Joe Biden’s ascent to the White House, Donald Trump’s indictment for unlawfully holding classified documents and obstructing justice offers a partial answer to one great question of American politics: can the country’s institutions contain his excesses?The backlash that the indictment has prompted highlights another: what happens when they do? When the Democrat defeated him, Mr Trump’s armed supporters stormed the Capitol to prevent the transfer of power, assaulting police officers and chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. Within minutes of his indictment last week, threats and even calls for civil war were surging on social media platforms used by his supporters.The violent rhetoric doesn’t just come from the grassroots. The Arizona Republican Kari Lake announced that “to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me … Most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA [National Rifle Association].” Mr Trump himself previously warned of “death and destruction” if he were indicted in a separate case, over hush money payments.His bluster at such times is intended to deter action against him – despite the extraordinary case put forward in the indictment, including the now-familiar photo of boxes stacked in a bathroom. It is critical to avoid hysteria or fatalism about the threats facing US democracy. It is true that the direst prognostications did not come to pass after the 2020 election.Nonetheless, last year, research found that more than two in five Americans think a civil war is at least somewhat likely within the next decade. The number who think violence would be justified to restore Mr Trump to the White House has fallen since last year, but still stands at 12 million. An increasingly divided country is also increasingly well armed, with almost 400m privately held guns; their owners are disproportionately white, male and Republican. According to one study, almost 3% of adults, or 7.5 million people, bought a firearm for the first time between January 2019 and April 2021.A slew of analysts have warned that the US could be heading towards widespread political violence. Prof Barbara Walter notes in her book How Civil Wars Start that two conditions are key: ethnic factionalism and anocracy – when a country is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic. She believes that the US has the first, and remains close to the second, even if the short-term threat has ebbed somewhat since 2021. Others have pulled back from warnings of civil war, but think major civil disruption is entirely plausible.No one foresees a straight confrontation between forces as in the 1860s, let alone a geographic split. What some experts fear is a guerrilla-style asymmetric conflict waged by a decentralised movement, with small groups or lone attackers targeting minority targets such as synagogues or gay clubs, civilians more broadly, infrastructure, or figures such as Democratic politicians, judges and election officials. Trumpism would be best understood not as the animating principle of such a conflict, but as a catalyst. People would not be fighting for Mr Trump so much as fighting because they believed he spoke for them. And if not him, another figurehead might yet emerge.No violence broke out at the indictment hearing in Miami, as some had feared. Key figures on the extreme right are now locked up: more than 1,000 people have been charged with offences relating to January 6, and hundreds of those imprisoned. Others reportedly feel that Mr Trump has abandoned them. Nonetheless, the growth of threats and political violence in recent years is undeniable. That the language of Mr Trump and his enablers makes these more likely is surely, by now, beyond doubt.
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      Ex-NSA employee sentenced to two weeks for US Capitol attack

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      A former National Security Agency employee was sentenced to two weeks imprisonment for storming the US Capitol on January 6, with associates described by authorities as fellow followers of a white nationalist movement.Paul Lovley, 24, lived in Halethorpe, Maryland, and was an NSA information technology specialist before the riot on 6 January 2021, prosecutors said.On Tuesday US district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Lovley to 14 days behind bars, to be served over seven weekends, and three years of probation, a spokesperson for the US attorney for the District of Columbia said.Lovley pleaded guilty in February to parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum six-month sentence.He was charged with four other men who prosecutors described as “members” of America First, a group led by the antisemitic internet personality Nicholas Fuentes, whose followers often call themselves “Groypers” or members of a “Groyper Army”.Joseph Brody, Thomas Carey, Jon Lizak and Gabriel Chase were the other men charged. The five, all in their early 20s, gathered at Lovley’s Maryland home on 5 January 2021 then went to Washington to attended Donald Trump’s “Save America” rally, at which the then president advanced his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.After other rioters breached the Capitol, the five men entered the building through the Senate wing, joined the mob in pushing past police officers and went into a conference room for the office of the then House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, prosecutors said. Brody broke off from the group and entered the Senate chamber while Lovley and the others remained outside.After leaving the Capitol, Brody lifted a metal barricade and appeared to use it to obstruct or assault an officer, prosecutors said. Before leaving Capitol grounds, the group went to an area where rioters destroyed and looted media equipment.“I am certain that I would not have even shown up if I had known that the day was going to turn into what it did beforehand,” Lovley wrote in a letter to the judge.Carey, Lizak and Chase pleaded guilty to the same misdemeanor offense. Last Tuesday, Kollar-Kotelly sentenced Carey to three years of probation and 14 days of jail time. Chase is scheduled to be sentenced in July. A sentencing hearing for Lizak is set for October. Charges against Brody have not been resolved.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Tuesday, David Walls-Kaufman, a 66-year-old DC-based chiropractor was sentenced to two months in jail by another US district judge, Jia M Cobb, for the same misdemeanor offense, the Washington Post reported.Walls-Kaufman faces a wrongful-death civil lawsuit filed by Erin Smith, the widow of the Capitol officer Jeffrey Smith. The lawsuit accuses Walls-Kaufman of assaulting Smith, who later killed himself.According to the Post, the suit says video footage shows Walls-Kaufman beating Smith with his own baton, resulting in a traumatic brain injury that eventually led to Smith’s suicide.More than 530 people have been sentenced for crimes related to January 6 and more than 1,000 arrests have been made. More