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      FBI searches for two Capitol attack defendants who have gone missing

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      FBI searches for two Capitol attack defendants who have gone missingJoseph Hutchinson and Olivia Pollock, whose brother is also a January 6 defendant, had ankle monitors that were removed or alteredThe FBI is searching for a Florida woman who was supposed to stand trial on Monday on charges stemming from the January 6 Capitol attack as well as another riot defendant who has also gone missing, officials said.A federal judge in Washington issued bench warrants for the arrest of Olivia Pollock and Joseph Hutchinson III last week after the court was notified that they had tampered with or removed the ankle monitors that track their location, said Joe Boland, a supervisory special agent with the FBI’s Lakeland, Florida, office.US Capitol rioter pleads guilty to stealing badge from beaten officerRead moreBoland said the FBI has recovered one of the defendants’ ankle monitors after they removed it, but declined to say whether it was Pollock’s or Hutchinson’s. As of Monday afternoon, the FBI had not located either of them, he said.Olivia Pollock, of Lakeland, is the sister of another January 6 defendant, Jonathan Pollock, who has been on the lam for months. The FBI has offered a reward of up to $30,000 in exchange for information leading to his arrest and conviction. He is accused of assaulting multiple police officers during the riot.Olivia Pollock and Hutchinson were initially arrested in 2021 and charged in a five-person indictment with assaulting law enforcement and other crimes. Hutchinson is representing himself at trial, and an attorney appointed to assist him as standby counsel declined to comment on Monday.Olivia Pollock’s lawyer, Elita Amato, said on Monday that her client “had been diligently assisting in her defense for her upcoming trial prior to her disappearance”.Authorities encouraged anyone with information about their whereabouts to contact the FBI.Olivia Pollock, who was wearing a ballistic plate-carrier vest during the riot, is accused of elbowing an officer in the chest and trying to strip the officer’s baton away during the melee. Jonathan Pollock is accused of thrusting a riot shield into an officer’s face and throat, pulling an officer down steps and punching others.Authorities say Hutchinson pulled back a fence that allowed other rioters to swarm police trying to defend the Capitol, punched an officer and grabbed the sleeve of another before throwing the officer out of his way.Hutchinson, who now lives in Georgia, was scheduled to face trial in August. The judge on Monday rescheduled Olivia Pollock’s trial for August as well.Also on Monday, a Colorado man pleaded guilty to using a chemical spray to attack police officers who were trying to hold off the mob.Robert Gieswein, of Woodland Park, Colorado, is scheduled to be sentenced on 9 June. Estimated sentencing guidelines for Gieswein recommend a prison sentence ranging from three years and five months to four years and three months, according to his plea agreement.Gieswein was wearing a helmet, flak jacket and goggles and carrying a baseball bat when he stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021. He marched to the building from the Washington monument with members of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group.Gieswein repeatedly sprayed an “aerosol irritant” at police officers, pushed against a line of police and was one of the first rioters to enter the Capitol, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea to assault charges.Federal authorities have said Gieswein appeared to be an adherent of the Three Percenters militia movement and ran a private paramilitary training group called the Woodland Wild Dogs.Nearly 1,000 people have been charged so far in the riot. Sentences have ranged from probation for people who pleaded guilty to misdemeanor crimes to 10 years in prison for a retired New York police department officer who used a metal flagpole to assault an officer.TopicsUS Capitol attackThe far rightFloridaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US Capitol rioter pleads guilty to stealing badge from beaten officer

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      US Capitol rioter pleads guilty to stealing badge from beaten officerThomas Sibick pleads guilty to assault and theft charges for role in attack on the Washington DC police officer Michael FanoneA New York man has pleaded guilty to stealing a badge and radio from a police officer who was brutally beaten as rioters pulled him into the mob that attacked the US Capitol in Washington over two years ago, court record show.Thomas Sibick pleaded guilty on Friday to assault and theft charges for his role in the attack on the District of Columbia’s Metropolitan police department officer Michael Fanone during the January 6, 2021, insurrection when extremist supporters of then-president Donald Trump tried, unsuccessfully, to force Congress not to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory over him.US district judge Amy Berman Jackson is scheduled to sentence Sibick on July 28. She allowed Sibick to remain free on bond until that hearing.Estimated sentencing guidelines call for Sibick to receive a prison sentence ranging from a low of two years and nine months to a high of nearly six years, according to his plea agreement.Rioters relentlessly kicked, punched, grabbed and shocked Fanone with a stun gun after pulling him away from other officers who were guarding a tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s lower west terrace. Another rioter threatened to take Fanone’s gun and kill him.Fanone’s body camera captured Sibick removing the officer’s badge and radio from his tactical vest during the mob’s attack, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea.Others in the crowd escorted Fanone back to the police line. Before FBI agents showed him the body camera video, Sibick initially denied assaulting Fanone and claimed that he tried in vain to pull the officer away from his attackers.Sibick said he buried Fanone’s badge in his backyard after returning home to Buffalo, New York. He returned the badge, but Fanone’s radio hasn’t been recovered.Other rioters have been charged with attacking Fanone, who was badly injured, lost consciousness and was taken to hospital.Albuquerque Cosper Head, a Tennessee man who dragged Fanone into the crowd, was sentenced in October 2022 to seven years and six month in prison. During Head’s sentencing, Fanone said the attack gave him a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury and ultimately cost him his career.Kyle Young, an Iowa man who grabbed Fanone by the wrist and handed a stun gun to another rioter who used it on the officer, was sentenced in September 2022 to seven years and two months in prison.A California man, Daniel Rodriguez, pleaded guilty in February to using a stun gun on Fanone during the attack. Rodriguez is scheduled to be sentenced on May 16.Approximately 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the riot on January 6. More than 500 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. Approximately 400 have been sentenced, with over half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Singin’ the coups: Donald Trump releases single with January 6 prisoners

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      Singin’ the coups: Donald Trump releases single with January 6 prisonersFormer president drops charity song on streaming sites recorded with men imprisoned for their role in attack on US CapitolDonald Trump has released a charity single, recorded with a choir of men held in a Washington DC prison for their parts in the deadly January 6 insurrection he incited.Trump’s war with DeSantis heats up with details of 2024 battle planRead moreOn Friday, Justice for All by Donald J Trump and the J6 Prison Choir was available on streaming platforms including Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.The move is the latest in a growing trend by Trump and others on the far right of US politics to embrace the January 6 attack on the Capitol as a political cause and portray many of those who carried it out as protesters being persecuted by the state.Forbes, which first reported the song’s production, said a video would debut on a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, the far-right activist and alleged fraudster who was Trump’s campaign chair and White House strategist.Over an ambient backing, the song features Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, interspersed with a male voice choir singing The Star-Spangled Banner. The song lasts for about two and a half minutes and ends with a chant of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” Forbes said it was “produced by a major recording artist who was not identified”.Robert Maguire, research director for the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said: “I have never been more repulsed by the mere existence of a song than one sung by a president who tried to do a coup and a literal ‘choir’ of insurrectionists who tried to help him.”Barb McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former US attorney, called the song “a disinformation tactic right out of the authoritarian playbook”.Trump, she said, was seeking to “wrap lies in patriotism”.On 6 January 2021, Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to block certification of Joe Biden’s election win. A mob then attacked the US Capitol, sending lawmakers including Mike Pence, Trump’s vice-president, running for their lives.The riot only delayed the certification process but it is now linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides.More than 1,000 people have been charged. Hundreds have been convicted, some with seditious conspiracy, and hundreds remain wanted by the FBI.Trump was impeached for inciting the insurrection but acquitted when enough Senate Republicans stayed loyal.The House January 6 committee made four criminal referrals regarding Trump to the Department of Justice, which continues to investigate.That is just one source of legal jeopardy for Trump, who also faces investigations of his financial affairs, a hush money payment to a porn star, his election subversion and his retention of classified records, as well as a defamation suit from a writer who accuses him of rape, an allegation he denies.Running for president again, Trump dominates polling regarding the Republican field.Forbes said Trump’s January 6-themed song was intended to raise money for the families of those imprisoned. It also said the project would not “benefit families of people who assaulted a police officer”.Citing “a person with knowledge of the project”, Forbes said the choir consisted of about 20 inmates at the Washington DC jail who were recorded over a jailhouse phone. Some such inmates reportedly sing the national anthem each night.Trump did not comment.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attacknewsReuse this content More

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      Trump not entitled to immunity from civil suits over Capitol attack, says DoJ

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      Trump not entitled to immunity from civil suits over Capitol attack, says DoJJustice department said ex-president could be held liable for physical and psychological harm suffered during January 6 Donald Trump does not have absolute immunity from civil suits seeking damages over his alleged incitement of the January 6 Capitol attack, the US justice department said in a court filing that could have profound implications for complaints against the former president.In an amicus brief in a case brought by two US Capitol police officers and joined by 11 House Democrats, the justice department said Trump could be held liable for physical and psychological harm suffered during the attack despite his attempts to seek blanket protections.Pence declines to support Trump if he’s 2024 nominee: ‘I’m confident we’ll have better choices’Read more“Speaking to the public on matters of public concern is a traditional function of the presidency,” read the 32-page brief to the US court of appeals for the DC circuit. “But that traditional function is one of public communication. It does not include incitement of imminent private violence.”The justice department stressed that it was not weighing in on whether the lawsuit had made a plausible argument that Trump’s speech immediately before the January 6 attack incited thousands of his supporters to storm the Capitol in an effort to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win.But the department said that because actual incitement of imminent private violence – the key legal standard – would not be protected by presidential immunity, the appeals court should reject his contention that he had absolute immunity from civil litigation.“No part of a president’s official responsibilities includes the incitement of imminent private violence,” the brief said. “By definition, such conduct plainly falls outside the president’s constitutional and statutory duties.”The justice department opinion comes after the appeals court asked the government to offer its position while it considered whether Trump was acting within the confines of the office of the presidency when he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” and march on the Capitol.The sensitivity of the case – the potential impact on other civil suits against Trump that could have implications for presidential immunity – meant the department took several months and made two requests for a month’s extension before finalising its response.In siding against Trump’s position that he enjoyed “categorical immunity”, the justice department said it agreed with a lower-court ruling that the first amendment to the constitution did not allow Trump to evade liability in the January 6 suit.The lawsuit was filed under a statute, enacted after the civil war in response to Ku Klux Klan insurrections across the south to stop Black people voting, which allows for damages when force or intimidation are used to prevent government officials carrying out their duties.The amicus brief comes as the justice department controversially continues to defend Trump’s claim of absolute immunity in a defamation case brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, who accuses Trump of raping her in New York in the mid-1990s. Trump has said “it never happened” and said Carroll is not his “type”.Responding to that case, the department argued that while Trump’s comments were not appropriate, they came when he was president. Responding to a reporter’s question about the allegation, the department said part of a president’s responsibility was “to be responsive to the media and public”.TopicsUS newsDonald TrumpUS justice systemLaw (US)US Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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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