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      US court skeptical of bid to access congressman’s phone in January 6 inquiry

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      US court skeptical of bid to access congressman’s phone in January 6 inquiryAt issue is whether a protection afforded by the constitution applies to ‘informal’ fact-finding by members of CongressA federal appeals court appeared skeptical on Thursday of the justice department’s interpretation of US Congress members’ immunity from criminal investigations and whether it allowed federal prosecutors to access House Republican Scott Perry’s phone contents in the January 6 investigation.The department seized Perry’s phone in the criminal investigation last year and was granted access to its contents by a lower court, until Perry appealed the decision on the grounds that the speech or debate clause protections barred prosecutors from seeing his messages.January 6 insurrection has proved an obsession for Fox News’s Tucker CarlsonRead moreTwo of the three DC circuit judges appeared unconvinced about the justice department’s reading of the clause – the constitutional provision that shields congressional officials from legal proceedings – though it was unclear whether that would lead to them ruling against prosecutors.The court did not issue a ruling from the bench during the partly unsealed hearing, but the judge’s decision could have far-reaching implications for witnesses like Perry and even Mike Pence in the January 6 investigation, as well as the constitutional power and scope of the protection itself.The two Trump-appointed judges, Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao, indicated they could rule in two ways: that messages with people outside Congress are not confidential at all, or that Perry could not be prosecuted or questioned about the messages, but that prosecutors could gain access to them.The supreme court has ruled in several instances on the speech or debate clause. While the exact nature of the protection remains vague, it has generally found the protection to be “absolute” as long as the conduct came in furtherance of legislative activity.At issue is whether Perry’s communications with third parties as he sought to assist Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results – and in particular, “informal” fact-finding – could be classified as legislative activity that would fall under the speech or debate clause.Perry’s main lawyer, John Rowley, argued that the congressman was protected from being forced to give up roughly 2,200 messages on his phone to prosecutors because they amounted to legislative work as he prepared for the 6 January certification and possible election reform legislation.But the justice department’s lawyer John Pellettieri disputed Rowley’s broad reading of the clause and argued that such “informal” fact-finding that had not been authorized by Congress as an institution meant Perry was acting unilaterally and therefore beyond the scope of the protection.Katsas and Rao sharply quizzed the justice department on its position that only committee-authorized investigations were protected under the speech or debate clause, and how any other fact-finding could not be a legislative activity.Katsas ran the department through various scenarios, including whether a recording of a call made by a member of Congress to a third party that they would use to inform how they voted on specific legislation would be protected – to which the department replied that it would not.“So a member who is not on a committee has no fact-finding ability?” Rao asked.Katsas added that he found it “odd” that “a member working to educate himself or herself” on how to vote would not be covered by the protection.The justice department argued in response that the conduct had to be “integral” to actual “legislative procedures” to be protected, and warned that the speech or debate clause would otherwise include anything members of Congress did so long as they claimed it was legislative work.The department also suggested that the conduct had to be “bona fide” legislative work – which prompted a response from Katsas that judges were not supposed to consider the motive and the behind-the-scenes decision-making of members of Congress.At the end of the hearing, Perry’s lawyer Rowley added that the department’s narrow interpretation of the speech or debate clause – that it had to be authorized and integral to actual legislative procedure – would mean the minority in Congress would have no protection in researching legislation.The hearing also revealed the previously sealed ruling by the chief US judge for the District of Columbia, Beryl Howell, in December that Perry was appealing: Howell had decided that Perry’s fact-finding messages were not protected because they were not part of a formal congressional investigation.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS constitution and civil libertiesUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 insurrection has proved an obsession for Fox News’s Tucker Carlson

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      AnalysisJanuary 6 insurrection has proved an obsession for Fox News’s Tucker CarlsonAdam GabbattWhatever the TV host claims the footage from Kevin McCarthy shows will be worth taking with a generous pinch of saltIn the two years since the US Capitol attack, Tucker Carlson has described the violent assault on American democracy connected to the deaths of nine people as “vandalism” and a “forgettably minor” outbreak of “mob violence”.Kevin McCarthy denounced for giving January 6 tapes to Fox News hostRead moreThe Fox News host has said the attack on Congress by supporters of Donald Trump, which has prompted more than 900 arrests, was a “false flag” operation, part of alleged persecution of conservatives by shady government forces. Carlson even devoted much of a conspiracy-laden TV series to undermining the severity of the attack.It is not difficult to imagine, then, what Carlson might do with the 44,000 hours of Capitol surveillance footage from January 6 handed to him exclusively by Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker. In fact Carlson gave an indication on his show on Monday night.“Our producers, some of our smartest producers, have been looking at this stuff and trying to figure out what it means and how it contradicts or not the story we’ve been told for more than two years,” Carlson said.He added: “We think already in some ways that it does contradict that story.”The January 6 insurrection has proved an obsession for Carlson.He has devoted countless hours of his nightly show to defending the paticipants, belittling politicians who investigated the attack, and advancing conspiracy theories.In Patriot Purge, a documentary that ran on the Fox Nation streaming service in November 2021, Carlson led a multipronged attack against the accepted version of what happened on January 6.Across the three-part series, which attempted to downplay what actually took place while passing off any violence as not the fault of Trump supporters, Carlson dabbled in conspiracy theories and gave a clue as to what we can expect once his producers are done with the Capitol footage.Carlson used Patriot Purge to claim, without evidence, that the insurrection was actually an FBI-led operation intended to “purge” Trump voters in a “new war on terror”.He hosted guests who claimed, without evidence, that antifascist activists were seen “changing clothes” into “Trump gear” before the attack began. This claim was overlaid, Media Matters reported, with a clip of a man putting on a sweatshirt. It’s likely Carlson will fish out similar clips over the coming weeks.The Fox News host has also repeatedly said police were to blame for hundreds of people illegally entering the Capitol.“Why did authorities open the doors of the Capitol to rioters and let them walk in, usher them in the doors?” Carlson said last year. “That’s utterly bizarre. You saw that live. No one’s ever explained it.”No one has ever explained it because, according to multiple fact checks, it didn’t happen. Whether that will stop Carlson plucking footage to support the lie remains to be seen.Whatever happens, it seems unlikely Carlson’s analysis will produce findings similar to those of the bipartisan House committee which investigated the attack.The committee, which conducted more than a thousand interviews and reviewed much of the footage Carlson has now been given, found that Trump was “was directly responsible for summoning what became a violent mob”, and that the attack was part of an orchestrated “scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Fox News did not respond to a request for comment about Carlson’s access to the January 6 footage.Democrats, as might be expected, responded furiously, a wave of party grandees suggesting McCarthy had made the move to appease the far-right of the Republican party which opposed his bid to be speaker.As targets of many of the January 6 rioters, Democrats are also worried for their safety in future. Jamie Raskin, the Marylander who served on the January 6 committee, called McCarthy’s move an “ethical collapse”.“What security precautions were taken to keep this from becoming a roadmap for 2024 insurrection?” Raskin asked on Twitter.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said the footage would “allow those who want to commit another attack to learn how Congress is safeguarded”.“By handpicking Tucker Carlson, Speaker McCarthy laid bare that this sham is simply about pandering to Maga election deniers, not the truth,” Schumer wrote in a letter to his colleagues.“If the past is any indication, Tucker Carlson will select only clips that he can use to twist the facts to sow doubt of what happened on January 6 and feed into the propaganda he’s already put on Fox News’ air, which based on recent reports he may not even believe himself.”That was a reference to a batch of Carlson’s text messages made public as part of a $1.6bn defamation lawsuit against Fox News from Dominion Voting Systems, which appeared to show the host’s private views do not always match what he says on air.How Dominion Voting Systems filing proves Fox News was ‘deliberately lying’Read moreIn one text following the 2020 election Carlson described Trump, who he spent hours praising on his show, as a “demonic force” good at “destroying things.“He’s the undisputed world champion of that,” Carlson wrote. “He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”Other Carlson messages described Sidney Powell, an attorney who claimed Dominion machines flipped votes from Trump to Joe Biden, as “a lunatic”, while conceding “there wasn’t enough fraud to change the outcome” of the election.In all, it suggests that whatever Carlson and his team now dig out of the January 6 security footage, and whatever Carlson claims that footage shows, will be worth taking with a generous pinch of salt.TopicsUS Capitol attackFox NewsUS politicsRepublicansThe far rightanalysisReuse this content More

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      Kevin McCarthy denounced for giving January 6 tapes to Fox News host

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      Kevin McCarthy denounced for giving January 6 tapes to Fox News hostRepublican House speaker says he promised to release footage of deadly attack as Democrats denounce release to Tucker CarlsonTop Democrats in Washington cried foul after Kevin McCarthy, the new Republican House speaker, released more than 40,000 hours of surveillance footage from the January 6 US Capitol attack to Tucker Carlson, the far-right Fox News host who has consistently downplayed the deadly riot.The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, told colleagues McCarthy’s decision “poses grave security risks” and “needlessly expos[es] the Capitol complex to one of the worst … risks since 9/11”.Democrats condemn McCarthy for handing Capitol attack footage to Tucker Carlson – live Read moreBut McCarthy told the New York Times he had “promised” to release the footage, apparently as part of dealmaking with which he clinched the speakership after far-right rebels forced him through 15 nominating votes.“I was asked in the press about these tapes,” McCarthy added, “and I said they do belong to the American public. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment.”McCarthy said he wanted to give Carlson “exclusive” access to the footage, but could release it to other outlets later.Carlson, a prominent voice in far-right media, has claimed the insurrection was a “false flag” attack and generally tried to downplay it without offering evidence. He told the Times he was taking the footage released by McCarthy “very seriously” and had a large team reviewing it.Nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides, have been linked to the attack on Congress by Trump supporters seeking to block certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, fueled by Trump’s lie about widespread electoral fraud.Trump was impeached for inciting the attack but acquitted when enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal. He continues to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. The US Department of Justice is investigating January 6 but has not yet acted on criminal referrals regarding Trump made last year by a House committee.A possible Republican challenger to Trump, his former vice-president, Mike Pence, is expected to fight a grand jury subpoena as part of the justice department’s January 6 investigation.Pence would be a key witness, offering unique insight into conversations with Trump and the efforts to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election, a process over which Pence ultimately presided.Pence was at a December 2021 meeting at the White House with Republican lawmakers who discussed objections to Biden’s win. Pence also spoke to Trump one-on-one on 6 January, when Trump was imploring him to unlawfully reject electoral college votes for Biden at the joint session of Congress.Those two interactions are of particular investigative interest to the justice department-appointed special counsel, Jack Smith, as his office examines whether Trump sought to unlawfully obstruct certification and defrauded the US by seeking to overturn the 2020 election.However, experts in constitutional law this week told the Guardian that Pence had a good chance of success in his attempt to avoid having to testify by citing the speech or debate clause, the constitutional provision that protects congressional officials from legal proceedings related to their work.On Wednesday, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, followed Schumer in protesting McCarthy’s decision to release January 6 footage to Carlson and Fox News.“The apparent transfer of video footage represents an egregious security breach that endangers the hardworking women and men of the United States Capitol police, who valiantly defended our democracy with their lives at risk on that fateful day,” the New York congressman said.Jeffries noted that the House January 6 committee, a panel consisting of seven Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans which operated in the last Congress but disbanded when Republicans took control of the chamber, had enjoyed access to the footage McCarthy has now released.The January 6 committee, Jeffries said, was “able to diligently review [the footage] … with numerous protocols in place to protect the safety of the members, police officers and staff who were targeted during the violent insurrection.“There is no indication that these same precautionary measures have been taken in connection with the transmission [to Carlson] of the video footage at issue.“Unfortunately, the apparent disclosure of sensitive video material is yet another example of the grave threat to the security of the American people represented by the extreme Maga Republican majority” – a reference to Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America great again”.In his letter to colleagues, Schumer said the footage showed where cameras are located in the Capitol and other details of security arrangements.The New York senator added: “Giving someone as disingenuous as Tucker Carlson exclusive access to this type of sensitive information is a grave mistake by Speaker McCarthy that will only embolden supporters of the big lie [about voter fraud and the 2020 election] and weaken faith in our democracy.”TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansUS politicsKevin McCarthyDonald TrumpFox NewsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump responds to interviews with grand jury foreperson: ‘This Georgia case is ridiculous’

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      Trump responds to interviews with grand jury foreperson: ‘This Georgia case is ridiculous’Former president, under investigation for his election subversion attempts, criticizes jury foreperson for ‘doing a media tour’Donald Trump responded to interviews given by the foreperson of the Georgia grand jury which investigated his election subversion attempts by ridiculing the woman and claiming to be the victim of his political enemies.‘A big freaking deal’: the grand jury that investigated Trump election pressureRead more“This Georgia case is ridiculous,” the former president wrote on his Truth Social platform, claiming “a strictly political continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time”.It has been widely reported that lawyers for possible Republican targets in the investigation are preparing to seek dismissal of the case based on the foreperson’s comments.Running for the Republican presidential nomination, Trump remains in wide-ranging legal jeopardy over election subversion including inciting the January 6 attack on Congress, his financial affairs including a hush money payment to a porn star, the retention of classified documents and an accusation of rape, which he denies.The district attorney of Fulton county, Fani Willis, requested the grand jury to investigate Trump’s attempts to overturn his 2020 defeat in Georgia by Joe Biden, the first Republican loss there in a presidential election since 1992.Portions of the grand jury report have been released but indictments have not yet followed.The jury foreperson, Emily Kohrs, was authorized to speak to the media but not to discuss deliberations.Many observers said she went too far, dropping broad hints about indictments and discussing interactions with witnesses.Speaking to CNN, she said it would be a “good assumption” that more than a dozen people would be indicted.Kohrs, 30, told the New York Times it was “not rocket science” to work out if Trump indictments were among those recommended.Speaking to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and told Trump had claimed “total exoneration” through the jury’s report, Kohrs “rolled her eyes” and “burst out laughing”.Trump wrote: “Now you have an extremely energetic young woman, the (get this!) ‘foreperson’ of the racist DA’s special grand jury, going around and doing a media tour revealing, incredibly, the grand jury’s inner workings and thoughts.”Willis, a Democrat, is African American. Claiming she was presiding over “an illegal kangaroo court”, Trump also claimed to have done nothing in Georgia but make “two perfect phone calls”.The grand jury investigated election subversion efforts including a call to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump asked the Republican elections official to “find” enough votes for him to beat Biden. Alternate elector schemes and state-house machinations were also scutinised.On Wednesday, amid reports that lawyers were preparing to seek dismissal of the case because of Kohrs’ comments in the media, observers including the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman pointed out that Kohrs led a fact-finding grand jury, meaning a separate panel would deal with any indictments.But Haberman also told CNN: “I’ve covered courts on and off for the last 20 years, more than that. I’ve never heard of a grand jury foreperson speaking this way … I’ve never seen anything like it.“If I’m the prosecutor, I’m not sure that I want this media tour taking place, because I’m confident that Donald Trump’s lawyers are going to use this, just based on what I [am] hearing … to try to argue that this is prejudicial in terms of what she is saying.”TopicsDonald TrumpGeorgiaUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner subpoenaed in January 6 investigation – report

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      Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner subpoenaed in January 6 investigation – reportSpecial counsel looking into Trump’s efforts to overturn 2020 election subpoenas former president’s daughter and son-in-law Former US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump have been subpoenaed by the special counsel Jack Smith to testify before a federal grand jury regarding the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources.Merrick Garland, the attorney general, appointed Smith in November last year to take over two investigations involving Trump, who is running for president in 2024.The first investigation involves Trump’s handling of highly sensitive classified documents he retained at his Florida resort after leaving the White House in January 2021.The second investigation is looking at efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election’s results, including a plot to submit phony slates of electors to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.Earlier this month, media outlets reported that the former US vice-president Mike Pence, the former national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, were subpoenaed by Smith in his investigations.Grand juries in Washington have been hearing testimony in recent months for both investigations from former top Trump administration officials.Smith’s office and Kushner did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. Ivanka Trump could not immediately be reached for comment.TopicsDonald TrumpJared KushnerIvanka TrumpUS politicsUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Alarms raised as McCarthy gives Tucker Carlson access to January 6 footage

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      Alarms raised as McCarthy gives Tucker Carlson access to January 6 footageDemocrats condemn House speaker’s move and warn Capitol security could be endangered if Fox News host airs footageThousands of hours of surveillance footage from the January 6 attack on the US Capitol are being made available to the Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a stunning level of access granted by the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, that Democrats condemned as a “grave” breach of security.‘A big freaking deal’: the grand jury that investigated Trump election pressureRead moreThe hard-right host said his team was spending the week at the Capitol, preparing to reveal their findings.Granting exclusive access to January 6 security footage to such a deeply partisan figure is a highly unusual move, seen by some critics as essentially outsourcing House oversight to a TV personality who has promoted conspiracy theories about the attack.“It’s a shocking development that brings in both political concerns but even more importantly, security concerns,” said Dan Goldman, a New York Democrat who was a chief counsel during Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial.Many critics warned that Capitol security could be endangered if Carlson aired security footage that details how rioters accessed the building and routes lawmakers used to flee to safety. A sharply partisan retelling of the Capitol attack could accelerate a dangerous rewriting of the history of January 6, when Trump encouraged supporters to attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election.“It is not lost on anyone that the one person that the speaker decides to give hours and hours of sensitive secret surveillance footage is the person who peddled a bogus documentary trying to debunk responsibility for the January 6 riot from Donald Trump onto others,” Goldman said.“Kevin McCarthy has turned over the security of the Capitol to Tucker Carlson and that’s a scary thought.”McCarthy’s office declined to confirm the arrangement, first reported by Axios.Images and videos from the Capitol attack have been widely circulated by documentarians, news organizations and rioters themselves. But officials have held back much of the surveillance video that offers a detailed view of the grisly scene and brutal beatings of police.The House committee investigating the January 6 attack worked with US Capitol police to review and release segments of the footage as part of public hearings last year.The chief of Capitol police, Tom Manger, said only: “When congressional leadership or congressional oversight committees ask for things like this, we must give it to them.”House Democrats planned to convene on Wednesday for a private call to hear from Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who chaired the January 6 committee, and others. The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, called McCarthy’s decision an “egregious security breach”.“Unfortunately, the apparent disclosure of sensitive video material is yet another example of the grave threat to the security of the American people represented by the extreme Maga Republican majority,” the New Yorker told House colleagues.Zoe Lofgren of California, the former chair of the House administration committee and a member of the January 6 panel, said: “It’s really a road map to people who might want to attack the Capitol again. It would be of huge assistance to them.”Carlson, who produced a documentary suggesting the federal government used the Capitol attack as a pretext to persecute conservatives, confirmed that his team was reviewing the footage.“We believe we have secured the right to see whatever we want to see,” Carlson said on his show on Monday.It’s not clear what protocols Carlson and his team are using to view the material, but he said “access is unfettered”.The January 6 committee, which was disbanded once Republicans took the House, created a secure room for staff to examine more than 14,000 hours of footage. The process took months, according to a person familiar with the investigation.Any clip the committee wanted to use had to be approved by Capitol police. If police had an objection, the committee would engage in negotiations to redact any content that could potentially endanger the force or its protection of the Capitol.Capitol police reported an increase in threats to member safety over the last several years. The number of possible threats against members of Congress rose from about 4,000 in 2017 to more than 9,600 in 2021, then declined last year to 7,501.Republicans said McCarthy’s decision was part of his commitment to create a more transparent House and engage in oversight, as Republicans launch investigations touching many aspects of government.“I support Speaker McCarthy’s decision,” said Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, the House administration committee chair.Hard-right figures cheered. “For all of you that doubted we would release the tapes. Here you go!” tweeted Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, now close to McCarthy.Rodney Davis, a former Illinois Republican, said if the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter, the film-maker Alexandra Pelosi, was able to film on January 6 and release her footage, McCarthy should be able to grant Carlson access.Others said the two situations are not comparable, as countless hours of footage have been released from many sources.“I think we should remember that the January 6 attack happened in broad daylight,” said Sandeep Prasanna, a former investigative counsel on the January 6 committee.“My concern is that I don’t see how releasing thousands of hours of footage to one handpicked controversial media figure could ever produce the same factual and careful analysis that the committee produced over that year and a half.”TopicsUS Capitol attackFox NewsKevin McCarthyHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US officer fed details to far-right leader before Capitol attack, messages show

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      US officer fed details to far-right leader before Capitol attack, messages showWashington court sees string of messages from Shane Lamond to Proud Boys’ Enrique Tarrio in weeks before deadly 2021 riot A police officer frequently provided Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio with internal information about law enforcement operations in the weeks before other members of the far-right group stormed the US Capitol, according to messages shown at the trial of Tarrio and four associates.January 6 rioter who used stun gun on officer Michael Fanone pleads guiltyRead moreIn court in Washington DC on Wednesday, a federal prosecutor showed jurors a string of messages that Shane Lamond, a Metropolitan police lieutenant, exchanged with Tarrio in the run-up to the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021. Lamond, an intelligence officer, was responsible for monitoring groups like the Proud Boys.On 6 January, supporters of Donald Trump stormed Congress in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including suicides among law enforcementLess than three weeks before the riot, Lamond warned Tarrio that the FBI and Secret Service were “all spun up” over talk on an Infowars internet show that the Proud Boys planned to dress as Biden supporters on inauguration day.A justice department prosecutor, Conor Mulroe, asked a government witness, the FBI special agent Peter Dubrowski, how common it was for law enforcement to disclose internal information in that fashion.“I’ve never heard of it,” Dubrowski said.Tarrio was arrested in Washington two days before the Capitol attack and charged with burning a Black Lives Matter banner taken from a historic Black church in December 2020. He was released and was not in Washington on 6 January.In a message to Tarrio on 25 December 2020, Lamond said Metropolitan police investigators had asked him to identify Tarrio from a photograph. He warned Tarrio that police might be seeking a warrant for his arrest.On the day of his arrest, Tarrio posted a message to other Proud Boys leaders that said: “The warrant was just signed.”Before trial, Tarrio’s attorneys said Lamond’s testimony would be crucial, supporting Tarrio’s claims he was looking to avoid violence.In court, Mulroe said Lamond asserted his fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Tarrio’s attorneys have accused prosecutors of bullying Lamond into keeping quiet by warning the officer he could be charged with obstructing the investigation into Tarrio, a Miami resident who was the national chairman of the Proud Boys. Prosecutors deny that claim.Tarrio’s attorney Sabino Jauregui said other messages showed that Tarrio cooperated with police and provided useful information. Jauregui said prosecutors “dragged [Lamond’s] name through the mud” and falsely insinuated he is a “dirty cop” who had an inappropriate relationship with Tarrio.“That was their theme over and over again,” Jauregui told the presiding US district judge, Timothy Kelly.Lamond was placed on administrative leave in February 2022, according to Mark Schamel, an attorney who said Lamond aided in Tarrio’s arrest for burning the banner. On Wednesday, Schamel said Lamond’s job required him to communicate with protesting groups and his conduct “was appropriate and always focused on the protection of the citizens of Washington DC”.“At no time did Lt Lamond ever assist or support the hateful and divisive agenda of any of the various groups that came to DC to protest,” Schamel said. “More importantly, Lt Lamond is a decorated official who does not condone the hateful rhetoric or the illegal conduct on January 6 and was only communicating with these individuals because the mission required it.”Tarrio and four lieutenants are charged with seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors say was a plot to stop the peaceful transfer of power.Proud Boys members describe the group as a politically incorrect men’s club for “western chauvinists”. They often brawl with antifascist activists.In a message to Tarrio on 18 December 2020, Lamond said other investigators had asked if the Proud Boys were racist. The officer said he told them the group had Black and Latino members, “so [it was] not a racist thing”.“It’s not being investigated by the FBI, though. Just us,” Lamond added.“Awesome,” Tarrio replied.In another exchange, Lamond asked Tarrio if he called in a tip claiming responsibility for the banner burning.“I did more than that,” Tarrio said. “It’s on my social media.”In a message to Tarrio on 11 December 2020, Lamond told him about the whereabouts of antifascist activists. The officer asked Tarrio if he should share that information with uniformed officers or keep it to himself.Two days later, Tarrio asked Lamond what the police department’s “general consensus” was about the Proud Boys.“That’s too complicated for a text answer,” Lamond replied. “That’s an in-person conversation over a beer.”TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 rioter who used stun gun on officer Michael Fanone pleads guilty

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      January 6 rioter who used stun gun on officer Michael Fanone pleads guiltyDaniel Rodriguez, 40, from California, admitted his part in violent assault of then Metropolitan police officer A California man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to using a stun gun to attack Michael Fanone, the Washington DC police officer who was seriously injured while trying to defend the US Capitol from Donald Trump’s supporters on 6 January 2021.‘Devoid of shame’: January 6 cop Michael Fanone on Trump’s Republican partyRead moreDaniel Rodriguez, 40, of Fontana, admitted to taking part in the violent assault on Fanone, now a former Metropolitan police officer, after another rioter dragged Fanone into a crowd outside a tunnel where police were trying to beat back the mob.Fanone, who lost consciousness and suffered a heart attack, was heard on camera screaming he had kids, in a desperate appeal for his life, as rioters beat him.Rodriguez’s guilty plea came about two weeks before jury selection in his trial in federal court in Washington. He pleaded guilty to four felony charges including conspiracy and assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon.An email seeking comment was sent to his lawyers. He was scheduled to be sentenced in May. Federal sentencing guidelines call for about seven to 10 years in prison.Rodriguez admitted in an FBI interview in March 2021 that he drove a stun gun into Fanone’s neck. Rodriguez told agents he believed that he was doing the “right thing” and had been prepared to die to “save the country”. He cried as he spoke, saying he was “stupid” and ashamed of his actions.Rodriguez’s attorneys tried to stop prosecutors using his FBI interview at trial, arguing that the agents used “psychologically coercive tactics”.Authorities say Rodriguez and others were part of a Telegram group chat called “PATRIOTS 45 MAGA Gang” in the run-up to January 6, in which they advocated violence and discussed Trump’s claim of a stolen election.In a post on 29 December 2020, Rodriguez wrote: “Congress can hang. I’ll do it. Please let us get these people dear God.”At the Capitol, Rodriguez was part of the mob that pushed into the tunnel, prosecutors said. Inside, another rioter handed him the stun gun he would apply to Fanone’s neck. After assaulting Fanone, Rodriguez entered the Capitol through a broken window. Later, he texted his friends: “Tased the fuck out of the blue.”Others charged with assaulting Fanone include Albuquerque Cosper Head, who wrapped his arms round Fanone’s neck and dragged him into the crowd. Head restrained Fanone while others attacked him. Head was sentenced in October to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to assault.Fanone said at Head’s sentencing he suffered a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury, injuries that cost him his police career. He has written a book about his experience and testified before the House January 6 committee.January 6 rioter with Confederate flag sentenced to three yearsRead moreAnother man, Kyle Young, who helped in the assault, was sentenced in September to seven years and two months in prison. Young grabbed Fanone by the wrist while others yelled “Kill him!” and “Get his gun!”The sentences handed to Fanone’s attackers are among the longest handed down in relation to January 6.Nearly 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes. More than 500 have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. Approximately 400 have been sentenced, with more than half given prison sentences ranging from seven days to 10 years.The House January 6 committee made four criminal referrals to the Department of Justice regarding Trump’s incitement of the attack. Federal investigations continue.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS crimeUS policingnewsReuse this content More