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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of powerThe justice department has alleged that Oath Keepers leadership called the president’s confidant to allow them to use force Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia group leader charged with seditious conspiracy over the January 6 attack on the Capitol, tried to get a Donald Trump confidant to ask the former US president to allow his group to forcibly stop the peaceful transfer of power, the justice department has alleged in court papers.Capitol attack committee requests cooperation from key Republican trioRead moreThe previously unknown phone call with the unidentified individual appears to indicate the Oath Keepers had contacts with at least one person close enough to Trump that Rhodes believed the individual would be a good person to consult with his request.Once the Oath Keepers finished storming the Capitol, Rhodes gathered the Oath Keepers leadership around 5pm and walked down a few blocks to the Phoenix Park hotel in Washington DC, the justice department said on Wednesday in a statement of offense against Oath Keepers member William Wilson.The group then huddled in a private suite, the justice department said, where Rhodes called an unidentified person on speakerphone and pressed the person to get Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power after the Capitol attack had failed to do so.“Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,” the document said. “This individual denied Rhodes’s request to speak directly with President Trump.”The extraordinary phone call indicates that Rhodes believed two important points: first, that he was close enough to the Trump confidant that he could openly discuss such a request, and second, that the confidant was close enough to Trump to be able to pass on the message.Rhodes and his attorney were not immediately able to be reached for comment.The previously unknown phone call surfaced on Wednesday in charging documents against Wilson, the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Oath Keepers, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding as part of a plea agreement.The statement of offense said that Wilson was involved in efforts to prepare for January 6 with the national leadership of the Oath Keepers, and how Rhodes added Wilson to the “DC OP: Jan 6 21” group chat on the encrypted Signal messaging app.“Rhodes, Wilson, and co-conspirators used this Signal group chat and others to plan for January 6, 2021,” the justice department said.On the morning of the Capitol attack, Rhodes confirmed on the group chat that they had several well equipped QRFs outside DC – a reference to quick reaction forces, that the government said it believes were on standby to deploy to the Capitol with guns and ammunition.Around 2.34pm, the justice department said, Wilson stormed into the Capitol through the upper West Terrace doors as one of the first co-conspirators to breach the building, and by 2.38pm, was helping to pry open the doors to the rotunda from the inside.The seditious conspiracy charge against Wilson is the latest in a string of recent such indictments. In January, Rhodes and 10 other Oath Keepers were charged with seditious conspiracy – an offense that carries up to 20 years in federal prison.As part of the criminal investigation into January 6, the justice department is also examining connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, another militia group, having obtained text messages showing the two groups were in touch before the Capitol attack.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack also believes the Capitol attack included a coordinated assault perpetrated by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, the Guardian first reported last month.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS justice systemnewsReuse this content More

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop transfer of power

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      Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop transfer of powerJustice department alleges Oath Keepers’ Stewart Rhodes called unidentified presidential confidant on January 6 to make request Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia group leader charged with seditious conspiracy over the January 6 attack on the Capitol, asked an intermediary to get Donald Trump to allow his group to forcibly stop the transfer of power, the justice department has alleged in court papers.The previously unknown phone call with the unidentified individual appears to indicate the Oath Keepers had contacts with at least one person close enough to Trump that Rhodes believed the individual would be a good person to consult with his request.Capitol attack committee requests cooperation from key Republican trioRead moreOnce the Oath Keepers finished storming the Capitol, Rhodes gathered the Oath Keepers leadership at about 5pm and walked down a few blocks to the Phoenix Park hotel in Washington, the justice department said on Wednesday in a statement of offense against Oath Keepers member William Wilson.The group then huddled in a private suite, the justice department said, where Rhodes called an unidentified person on speakerphone and pressed the person to get Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power after the Capitol attack had failed to do so.“Wilson heard Rhodes repeatedly implore the individual to tell President Trump to call upon groups like the Oath Keepers to forcibly oppose the transfer of power,” the document said. “This individual denied Rhodes’ request to speak directly with President Trump.”The extraordinary phone call indicates that Rhodes believed two important points: first, that he was close enough to the Trump confidant that he could openly discuss such a request, and second, that the confidant was close enough to Trump to be able to pass on the message.James Lee Bright, a lawyer for Rhodes, told the Guardian that he was uncertain about who his client called or whether the call took place.The previously unknown phone call surfaced on Wednesday in charging documents against Wilson, the leader of the North Carolina chapter of the Oath Keepers, who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding as part of a plea agreement.The statement of offense said that Wilson was involved in efforts to prepare for January 6 with the national leadership of the Oath Keepers, and how Rhodes added Wilson to the “DC OP: Jan 6 21” group chat on the encrypted Signal messaging app.“Rhodes, Wilson, and co-conspirators used this Signal group chat and others to plan for January 6, 2021,” the justice department said.On the morning of the Capitol attack, Rhodes confirmed on the group chat that they had several well equipped QRFs outside DC – a reference to quick reaction forces, that the government said it believes were on standby to deploy to the Capitol with guns and ammunition.At about 2.34pm, the justice department said, Wilson stormed into the Capitol through the upper West Terrace doors as one of the first co-conspirators to breach the building, and by 2.38pm, was helping to pry open the doors to the rotunda from the inside.The seditious conspiracy charge against Wilson – an offense that carries up to 20 years in federal prison – is the latest in a string of recent such indictments to members of the Oath Keepers. Wilson is cooperating with the the justice department in its criminal investigation into January 6.As part of the criminal investigation into January 6, the justice department is also examining connections between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, another militia group, having obtained text messages showing the two groups were in touch before the Capitol attack.The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack also believes the Capitol attack included a coordinated assault perpetrated by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, the Guardian first reported last month.TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS justice systemnewsReuse this content More

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      Ed Buck, wealthy political activist and donor, sentenced to 30 years in prison

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      Ed Buck, wealthy political activist and donor, sentenced to 30 years in prisonThe Democratic donor was found guilty on charges that he injected gay men with drugs in exchange for sex, leading to two deaths The wealthy political activist and Democratic donor Ed Buck was sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges that he supplied and personally injected gay men with methamphetamine in exchange for sex, leading to two deaths and multiple other overdoses.Buck, 67, was found guilty in July by a federal jury on all nine counts, including having a drug house, distributing methamphetamine and enticing men to travel for prostitution.Thursday’s sentencing closes a long saga, involving Buck, who prosecutors say used his wealth and influence to prey on and exploit mostly vulnerable Black men for “party and play” encounters at his West Hollywood apartment. The encounters involved Buck paying men to use drugs, injecting large amounts and performing sex acts on them. Officials said Buck would inject methamphetamine with or without the men’s consent and sometimes when they were unconscious.US teen overdose deaths double in three years amid fentanyl crisisRead more“Buck used his money and privilege to exploit the wealth and power imbalances between himself and his victims, who were unhoused, destitute, and/or struggling with addiction,” said Chelsea Norell, an assistant US attorney, in a court filing. “He spent thousands of dollars on drugs and party and play sessions that destroyed lives and bred insidious addictions.”Gemmel Moore, 26, fatally overdosed at Buck’s West Hollywood apartment in July 2017. A second man, Timothy Dean, 55, died nearly two years later in 2019 from a fatal overdose of methamphetamine at Buck’s home. It wasn’t until a third man overdosed twice at the apartmentthat Buck was arrested and charged. All three men were Black.Relatives and activists had pushed for Buck’s arrest since Moore died. They have said Buck escaped criminal charges for years because of his wealth, political ties and race.Buck, who was nicknamed “Doctor Kevorkian”, had at least 10 victims and would sometimes drug them while they were unconscious, according to court filings. One victim said he was “unable to move” after Buck injected him with a tranquilizer. He added that later when Buck wanted him to leave his home, Buck “became frustrated and obtained a power saw from a closet, turned it on, and approached [the] victim with it”.Prosecutors urged the judge to sentence Buck to life in prison, saying that he used “human beings as playthings, destroying their lives merely to appease his own sexual gratification”. Buck’s attorneys sought a 10-year sentence, rather than “relegating him to death in prison”. They asked the judge to consider Buck’s drug addiction, which they said he developed because of a medical condition, and the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his father and several priests.LaTisha Nixon, Moore’s mother, said in a letter to the court that she hoped Buck would receive the maximum sentence. Nixon, a certified nursing assistant, said she could not comfort her son the way she has for countless dying people.“All I can think about is how my son died naked on a mattress with no love around him,” Nixon said. “No one to hold his hand or tell him good things.”Buck asked for leniency before he was sentenced, telling the court: “I ask that the court take a look at my life in total,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times, rather than “the horrible caricature the government painted me as: a meth-fueled axe killer”.Buck, a wealthy white man who was active in gay causes and animal rights issues has given more than $500,000, mostly to Democratic politicians and causes since 2000.Black LGBTQ+ activists in California had been advocating for years for Buck to be brought to justice and accused police of ignoring their concerns and allowing Buck to continue hurting people. Buck continued to prey on gay men after Moore’s death, even complaining about the investigation to Dean, who would later die in his home.“Buck’s lack of remorse is aptly captured in one image: as he was hiding out in a hotel, evading arrest for Gemmel Moore’s death, he was injecting Dane Brown, another young Black man, with back-to-back slams of methamphetamine,” Norell said.Brown, who was homeless, moved into Buck’s apartment, where Buck frequently injected him with meth, often several times a day. He was hospitalized in September 2019 after Buck shot him up three times with back-to-back doses, putting five times the meth in his system that Moore and Dean had when they died, prosecutors said.Brown returned to Buck’s home weeks later where Buck again injected him with an overdose of methamphetamine, and refused to help him, he said.“Brown sat on the couch, resigned to the same fate as Moore and Dean, when he heard his deceased mother cry out to him, ‘Get up, Dane,’” Norell said.He escaped Buck’s home and made it to a nearby gas station, where he called for help and was taken to a hospital. His harrowing account of being revived twice finally led to Buck’s arrest.TopicsUS crimeLGBT rightsUS politicsUS justice systemDrugsnewsReuse this content More

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      National Archives reportedly asks DoJ to investigate Trump document handling

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      National Archives reportedly asks DoJ to investigate Trump document handlingRequest follows reports of Trump tearing up documents and sending boxes of files to Mar-a-Lago property The National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) has asked the justice department to investigate whether the former US president Donald Trump violated federal law in the handling of documents, the Washington Post has reported. The Associated Press was unable to independently confirm the report.The referral followed several Washington Post stories chronicling how Trump dealt with documents, including tearing them up. In one report, confirmed by the archives, the agency arranged the transport of 15 boxes of documents from the Mar-a-Lago property in Florida after Trump’s representatives discovered them and notified the archives.The Washington Post says the referral is asking the justice department to investigate whether Trump violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all presidential records of an administration be turned over to the National Archives when a president leaves office.The archives did not return multiple messages seeking comment. The justice department declined to comment. In a statement, Trump said: “Following collaborative and respectful discussions, the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) arranged for the transport of boxes that contained presidential records in compliance with the Presidential Records Act” from Mar-a-Lago that will one day become part of the Donald J Trump presidential library.The media’s “characterisation of my relationship with Nara is fake news. It was exactly the opposite. It was a great honour to work with Nara to help formally preserve the Trump legacy,” said Trump.The archive acknowledged this week that Trump representatives had been cooperating with Nara and had located records “that had not been transferred to the National Archives at the end of the Trump administration”. Nara arranged for them to be transported to Washington. “Nara officials did not visit or raid the Mar-a-Lago property,” the agency said.Nara said the former president’s representatives are continuing to search for additional records that belong to the archives.In a separate statement, David S Ferriero, the archivist of the United States, said: “Whether through the creation of adequate and proper documentation, sound records management practices, the preservation of records, or the timely transfer of them to the National Archives at the end of an administration, there should be no question as to need for both diligence and vigilance. Records matter.”Supreme court rejects Trump bid to shield documents from January 6 panelRead moreThe issue of presidential records, the Trump administration and the archives has been central to the investigation by the House committee investigating the insurrection on 6 January that sought to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Trump tried to withhold White House documents in a dispute that rose to the supreme court.In an 8-1 ruling last month, the court let stand a lower court ruling that said the archives could turn over documents, which include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes dealing with 6 January from the files of the former chief of staff Mark Meadows. At the time, the House committee agreed to defer its attempt to retrieve some documents, at the request of the Biden administration.A referral for potential criminal prosecution from a federal agency or from Congress does not mean the justice department is likely to bring charges or that it will even investigate the matter.Questions about Trump’s handling of records date back to 2018, when Politico reported that Trump aides, fearing he might violate the law, routinely pieced together documents with tape because of his habit of tearing them up.TopicsDonald TrumpUS supreme courtUS justice systemNational ArchivesLaw (US)US politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Stewart Rhodes: how his arrest signals a new chapter in January 6 inquiry

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      Stewart Rhodes: how his arrest signals a new chapter in January 6 inquiryOath Keepers leader is one of the most high-profile arrests yet in the year-long investigation into the insurrection The arrest this week of Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers militia, marks one of the most significant moments thus far in the federal investigation into the January 6 Capitol attack.Rhodes, along with ten other associates, is charged with seditious conspiracy for plotting to violently overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election – the first sedition charges prosecutors have brought related to the insurrection.Rhodes is the one of the most high-profile arrests yet in the year-long investigation into the insurrection, which has charged more than 700 people and counting with crimes related to the attack. Many of these cases have involved minor charges and the majority of suspects have received light sentences, but the sedition charges facing militia members could carry up to 20 years in prison and signal a shift towards more complex cases targeting organized extremist groups.Guns, ammo … even a boat: how Oath Keepers plotted an armed coupRead moreThe conspiracy charges against Rhodes and other Oath Keepers members, as well as separate conspiracy to obstruct Congress cases involving Oath Keepers and Proud Boys extremists, are additionally significant because they may reveal the extent of planning that went into the attack. What level of prior coordination and plotting pro-Trump groups conducted prior to January 6 remains a key question, and one that is set to become a focal point of trials in the coming months.“We’ve had such a good unfolding and narrative of what folks on the ground were doing, but we’ve not yet had a definitive narrative emerge about the people in power behind it and who was organizing it,” said Melissa Ryan, CEO of CARD Strategies, a consulting firm that researches online extremism and disinformation.“Between what we see over the next few months from the justice department and whatever comes out of the select congressional investigation, hopefully a story is going to start to emerge.”Who are Rhodes and the Oath Keepers?Rhodes has been a prominent figure in the far-right for over a decade. Easily distinguishable by his dark eyepatch – the result of dropping a loaded handgun and shooting himself in the left eye during his 20s, according to an Atlantic investigation – Rhodes positioned himself at the forefront of the anti-government militia movement amid its resurgence after the 2008 election of Barack Obama.A former Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate, Rhodes announced the creation of the Oath Keepers at a 2009 rally on the site of a Revolutionary War battle. The group, which Rhodes marketed towards former and current law enforcement and military personnel, claimed to stand for defending the constitution and advocated for disobeying certain laws such as gun control legislation. Rhodes was careful to create a broad appeal for the organization, initially trying to distance it from more openly violent extremism and claiming that it wasn’t officially a militia.But the Oath Keepers soon became a leading group in the anti-government extremist militia movement, growing to thousands of members across the country. It became a visible presence at anti-government and anti-gun control rallies, while promoting far-right conspiracies about a totalitarian New World Order. Rhodes frequently told his followers that the US was entering a state of civil war and to arm themselves, a claim that became more frequent during the nationwide protests against racism and police killings in 2020. The Oath Keepers also became ardent supporters of Donald Trump and gained a foothold in the modern Republican party, including providing security for Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone one day before the Capitol attack.In September of 2021, hackers released a membership list for the Oath Keepers that revealed the extent that the group had become embedded in state institutions. Its members included dozens of law enforcement, armed forces members and elected officials – some of whom used their government emails when signing up for the militia.“The Oath Keepers have just been building more and more political power within the GOP, taking positions at the local level, running for office,” Ryan said. “You have state senators who identify proudly as Oath Keepers. I would not be surprised if they had a member of Congress in the next couple cycles.”A shift in the investigationThe charges against the Oath Keepers are some of the most serious to date in the investigation, alleging a well-armed plot to undermine the democratic elections. Investigators also lay out a series of events that contradict the dominant narrative of January 6 among rightwing media figures and many Republican politicians, who have claimed the attack was a mostly peaceful political protest and pushed conspiracy theories that leftists or government agents were behind any violence.The charging documents involving Rhodes and ten associates accused of seditious conspiracy portray a group intent on overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election and willing to use violence to achieve their goals. Prosecutors allege the Oath Keepers conducted extensive planning and coordination, with encrypted messages between the members discussing government overthrow prior to the attack and making plans to form “quick reaction force” teams to move into the Capitol area with firearms.“They coordinated travel across the country to enter Washington DC, equipped themselves with a variety of weapons, donned combat and tactical gear, and were prepared to answer Rhodes’s call to take up arms,” the court documents state.In the weeks leading up to the attack, Rhodes allegedly spent more than $20,000 on weapons and tactical equipment, including on night vision goggles, a shotgun and cases of ammunition. Court documents state that on the morning of the insurrection, Rhodes suggested to other Oath Keepers in an encrypted group chat that armed quick reaction force teams were standing by. (As part of a plea deal last year, one Oath Keeper admitted to stashing an M4 rifle at a Comfort Inn hotel just outside the Capitol.)“We will have several well equipped QRF’s outside DC,” Rhodes texted the Oath Keepers’ group chat.Federal investigators had been circling Rhodes for some time, filing court papers in March that alleged he was in direct communication with Oath Keepers involved in the Capitol attack and then several months later using a warrant to seize his cell phone. Rhodes stated last year that, against the advice of his legal counsel, he sat for a three-hour interview with federal agents to discuss the role that he and the Oath Keepers played in the attack. He continually claimed that he had done nothing wrong.“I may go to jail soon, not for anything I actually did, but for made-up crimes,” Rhodes said in March of last year at a speech in Texas.None of the government’s conspiracy cases related to the Capitol attack have gone to trial yet, and researchers say sedition charges can be hard to prove. The government has charged a number of militia members with seditious conspiracy in the past only for those defendants to go free after the cases went to trial. In the late 1980s, a jury acquitted 13 white supremacists who prosecutors had charged with seditious conspiracy involving a plot to kill a federal judge and overthrow the government. More recently, nine Michigan militia members were acquitted in 2012 after authorities charged them with plotting to start an armed uprising against the government.It also remains unclear what Rhodes’ arrest and the charges facing numerous Oath Keepers means for the extremist organization as a whole. Since the insurrection, some members of the group have advocated for further engagement in local government and political activism. Meanwhile, researchers say they have benefited from a Republican whitewashing of the Capitol attack that has allowed them to continue operating with a degree of impunity.“A lot of us assumed that they would be weakened by January 6,” Ryan said. “It seems like the opposite has happened.”TopicsThe far rightUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS crimeUS justice systemfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Justice prevailed in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers. In America, that’s a shock | Moustafa Bayoumi

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      Justice prevailed in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers. In America, that’s a shockMoustafa BayoumiThe jury reached the right verdict – even as the criminal justice system did everything it could to exonerate the three men It’s shocking that Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan were found guilty of murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia. Yet the shock doesn’t stem out of any miscarriage of justice. On the contrary, the jury in Glynn county deliberated and reached the correct decision. Stalking an innocent Black man, chasing him, cornering him, and then killing him must come with criminal consequences in this country, and each of the three murderers now faces the possibility of a life sentence.But the shock is that justice was served in a case where it seemed the criminal justice system and substantial portions of media coverage were doing all they could to exonerate these men. In fact, everything about this case illustrates how difficult it is to get justice for Black people in this country, starting with how often Fox News and other media outlets referred to the case as “the Arbery trial”, as if Ahmaud Arbery were the perpetrator here and not the victim.Kyle Rittenhouse wasn’t convicted because, in America, white reasoning rules | Michael HarriotRead moreThe facts of the case have never been in dispute, and yet they were also often distorted or ignored to aid the defense. The McMichaels claimed they were trying to make a citizen’s arrest of Arbery, an avid athlete who had been out jogging a mere three miles from his home that day. Father and son McMichael found Arbery suspicious, they told police, because there had been “several break-ins in the neighborhood”. This statement has been repeated so often in the last year that it has assumed the status of fact.And yet, according to the local Brunswick News, there had been just one burglary reported to county police between 1 January and 23 February 2020, the day of Arbery’s murder. That singular incident referred to property taken from a Satilla Shores vehicle – Travis McMichael’s truck. (McMichael reported a theft because, after he left his truck unlocked, his gun had been taken, he said at trial.) While surveillance video also captured an unidentified white couple possibly taking some property belonging to Larry English, a man building a home in the area, English testified that nothing had been stolen from the construction site of his second home, where Arbery stopped directly before being chased by the McMichaels. And during the trial, we heard that in all of 2019, there had been only four reported car break-ins. So, yeah, hardly a runaway crime spree.Then why did it keep getting reported this way?There’s more, of course. It took almost three months for the Georgia bureau of investigation, which took over the case, to arrest Travis and Gregory McMichael. (Bryan was arrested months later.) The elder McMichael had been a police officer and investigator for the district attorney’s office. The favoritism shown the men ran deep, so deep that the Brunswick district attorney, Jackie Johnson, who first oversaw the case, was later indicted on charges of violating her oath as a public officer and obstructing a police officer, as she was accused of “showing favor and affection to Greg McMichael during the investigation”, according to the indictment.Like Johnson, the next prosecutor, George E Barnhill, was also forced to recuse himself from the case. His son had previously worked with McMichael in what again was a clear conflict of interest. Barnhill wrote a letter to the police department explaining his recusal. “It appears Travis McMichael, Greg McMichael, and Bryan William [sic] were following, in ‘hot pursuit’, a burglary suspect, with solid first-hand probable cause, in their neighborhood,” he wrote. We now know just how completely and utterly false this account of events was. By the time the trial began, jury selection was also looking highly problematic. The population of Glynn county is over a quarter Black, and yet the seated jury for the trial was overwhelmingly white, with only one Black juror selected. Even the judge acknowledged the appearance of “intentional discrimination” in this outcome, as defense attorneys struck virtually every Black potential juror from serving on the jury.Defense attorneys also used every tool at their disposal to dehumanize Ahmaud Arbery. Laura Hogue, lawyer for Greg McMichael, characterized Arbery as a “recurring night-time intruder” whose presence was “frightening and unsettling”, as if adopting every stereotype of “the dangerous young Black man” she could find. It got even worse when she told the jury that Arbery had “long, dirty toenails”.What a morally bankrupt and shameless statement, but such are the lengths that this system will go to preserve its ill-gotten power. Any honest student of the history of this country will recognize what was happening in this case and in this trial. On display was nothing short of an American fear in all its guises.First, there is the irrational and racist fear of Black people that has motivated so much white vigilantism. It’s no mere coincidence that Georgia’s (now-defunct) self-defense statute dates to the civil war era. As Carol Anderson, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and many others have shown, the violence at the heart of the American system begins with a fundamental fear of Black and Indigenous people.Then there’s the establishment’s fear that its power will be exposed for what it too often is, a precarious system that serves and protects not the public but its own interests through its prejudices and favoritisms. And finally, there’s the fear that those who don’t look like us will stand in judgment. Thus a system of power built on racial hierarchy will seek its own self-preservation.The good news, heard in the courtroom, is that the rest of us are not afraid. The mostly white jury was not afraid to return the proper verdict. The assistant district attorney Linda Dunikoski was not afraid (and was completely convincing) in her prosecution. The attorney S Lee Merritt was fearless and eloquent in his advocacy for justice. But the bravest, most fearless, most admirable person in this saga has to be Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s mother.It’s hard to believe that justice would have prevailed here were it not for Cooper-Jones’ indefatigable efforts to push and challenge prosecutors like Johnson and Barnhill and the whole damn system at every turn. She pushed Georgia’s legislature to pass a hate crimes bill. She filed the federal lawsuit against the men now convicted of killing her son. She even met with the then president Donald Trump to discuss police reform.Cooper-Jones is a real hero, both for her son and in the fight for a truly just society. She was willing and able to fight a system that, if the past be a guide, was more than willing to exonerate itself.But here’s the problem: what happens when there is no Cooper-Jones? Why should our rights depend on grieving mothers fighting for the rights of their murdered children? What kind of justice system is that?I’m thankful that people like Wanda Cooper-Jones exist, but what we really need is more than that. We need a justice system that isn’t afraid of power. We need a justice system that isn’t afraid of doing what’s right. What we really need is a justice system that doesn’t depend on grieving mothers at all.
      Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror. He is Professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York
      TopicsAhmaud ArberyOpinionUS justice systemGeorgiaRaceUS politicscommentReuse this content More

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      House investigates possible shadow operation in Trump justice department

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      Top Democrats in the House are investigating whether Trump justice department officials ran an unlawful shadow operation to target political enemies of the former president to hunt down leaks of classified information, according to a source familiar with the matter.The House judiciary committee chairman, Jerry Nadler, is centering his investigation on the apparent violation of internal policies by the justice department, when it issued subpoenas against Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell in 2018.The use of subpoenas to secretly seize data from the two Democrats on the House intelligence committee – and fierce critics of Donald Trump – would ordinarily require authorization from the highest levels of the justice department and notably, the attorney general.But with the former Trump attorneys general Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions denying any knowledge of the subpoenas, Democrats are focused on whether rogue officials abused the vast power of the federal government to target Trump’s perceived political opponents, the source said.That kind of shadow operation – reminiscent of the shadow foreign policy in Ukraine that led to Trump’s first impeachment – would be significant because it could render the subpoenas unlawful, the source said.And if the subpoenas were issued without proper authorization from the attorney general level, it could also leave the officials involved in the effort open to prosecution for false operating with the imprimatur of law enforcement.The sharpening contours of the House judiciary committee’s investigation into the Trump justice department reflects Democrats’ determination to uncover potential politicization at the department.Current and former justice department officials have described the subpoenas as part of a fact-gathering effort that ensnared Schiff and Swalwell because they had been in contact with congressional aides suspected of leaking classified information.As the justice department investigated leaks, they obtained records of House intelligence committee staffers, as well as the records of their contacts. Schiff and Swalwell were not the target of the investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported.But Democrats are also concerned about the denials from Barr and Sessions and are set to look at whether they made publicly misleading representations to obfuscate the extent of their involvement.The two former attorneys general appeared to issue very carefully worded denials, the source said, which raised the prospect that they may have been at least aware of the leak inquiries into Schiff and Swalwell.Barr said in an interview with Politico that while he was attorney general, he was “not aware of any congressman’s records being sought in a leak case”, while Sessions also told associates he was never briefed on the subpoenas.In examining the denials, Democrats could demand testimony from Barr and Sessions, as well as other Trump justice department officials. Nadler told the Guardian he would also consider deposing the former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.But the committee is not expected to issue subpoenas for their testimony for some time, in large part because Democrats and counsel on the committee are not yet certain what information they need to compel.The committee took its first step in trying to establish what testimony it needed for its investigation last week, when Nadler sent a lengthy document request to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, and demanded a briefing before 25 June.Democrats on the House judiciary committee are not likely to receive a briefing until next month, the source said. But the House inquiry is sure to be the most potent investigation into the data seizure after Republicans vowed to stymie a parallel inquiry in the Senate.Although justice department investigations into leaks of classified information are routine, the use of subpoenas to seize data belonging to the accounts of sitting members of Congress with gag orders to keep their existence secret remain near-unprecedented.Justice department investigators gained access to, among others, the records of Schiff, then the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee and now its chairman, Swalwell and the family members of lawmakers and aides. More

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      US Capitol attack: first defendant in 6 January riot expected to be sentenced

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      Three years of probation, 40 hours of community service and $500.That is the punishment federal prosecutors have requested for the first Capitol rioter expected to be sentenced in court, Anna Morgan-Lloyd, a 49-year-old Donald Trump supporter from Indiana.“Best day ever. We stormed the capitol building,” Morgan-Lloyd wrote on Facebook on 6 January, prosecutors said. She added that she and her friend “were in the first 50 people in”, authorities said.With nearly 500 people already arrested and charged for their roles in the 6 January attack, the sentencing of Morgan-Lloyd, a grandmother from a small town in Indiana with no known connections to extremist groups, will be the first indication of what kinds of sentences federal judges may impose on the hundreds of people who invaded the Capitol during the official certification of Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election.While some members of extremist groups are facing more serious conspiracy charges for allegedly planning the violence at the Capitol in advance, and others are facing charges for assaulting law enforcement officers, many defendants, like Morgan-Lloyd, are facing only misdemeanor charges.Morgan-Lloyd has agreed to plead guilty to a single misdemeanor charge of “parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building,” which carries a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment, and is scheduled to be sentenced by a federal judge on Wednesday afternoon.In a sentencing memo, federal prosecutors said Morgan-Lloyd and her friend Donna Sue Bissey were inside one hallway of the Capitol for a little over 10 minutes, that she did not engage in any acts of violence or destroy any government property, and that she did not appear to have planned her actions in advance or coordinated with any extremist groups.In a letter to the court, prosecutors said, the 49-year-old took responsibility for her actions, and wrote, “At first it didn’t dawn on me, but later I realized that if every person like me, who wasn’t violent, was removed from that crowd, the ones who were violent may have lost the nerve to do what they did.”Because she had no previous criminal record, Morgan-Lloyd quickly confessed to her participation and cooperated with law enforcement, and later expressed regret for what she had done, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo, they believed it was appropriate to request no prison time for Morgan-Lloyd, only an extended period of probation, community service, and a $500 restitution payment towards the nearly $1.5m in damages the Capitol building sustained during the invasion.“I think she’s learned a lot,” Morgan-Lloyd’s attorney, Heather Shaner, told the Guardian. “This has been a trauma for her, and she knows it was a trauma for the United States of America that people did what they did, and she would never do it again.”Shaner said that her client was “from a very small town and has had very limited life exposure”, and that she believed that many of the people who participated in the Capitol riots were “were uninformed or misinformed”.“She’s a very fine woman, and I hope she gets probation,” Shaner said.Prosecutors wrote that Morgan-Lloyd spent “approximately two days” incarcerated after she was initially arrested in February and that the time inside the criminal justice system was likely “eye-opening” and a deterrent to any future criminal behavior.The conditions of her probation should include barring her owning firearms, prosecutors requested.Unlike most federal defendants, who typically remain in detention before trial, the vast majority of people charged in the Capitol riots have already been released, a Guardian analysis found. The stark contrast in pretrial detention rates has prompted questions about whether the predominantly white Capitol defendants were getting different treatment from prosecutors and judges than most federal defendants, who are Black and Latino. More