Tag Archives: Capitol Riots

NBC News reports: The breakthrough in the FBI investigation started inside a Joann Fabric and Crafts store. Last weekend, a clothing designer was standing in the checkout line waiting to purchase a needle for his sewing machine when his buddy saw something funny on his phone. It was a tweet from the FBI featuring two striking images of the 537th …

The Washington Post reports: U.S. prosecutors on Friday asked a federal judge to sentence Oath Keepers founder and leader Stewart Rhodes to 25 years in prison and eight of his followers to at least 10 years behind bars starting later this month, in the first punishments to be handed down to far-right extremist group members convicted of seditious conspiracy in …

The Associated Press reports: A Kentucky man with a long criminal record was sentenced Friday to a record-setting 14 years in prison for attacking police officers with pepper spray as he stormed the U.S. Capitol with his wife. Peter Schwartz’s prison sentence is the longest so far among hundreds of Capitol riot cases. The judge who sentenced Schwartz also handed …

NBC News reports: A jury has reached a partial verdict for at least some of the defendants in the five members of the far-right Proud Boys organization who are facing charges of seditious conspiracy in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly said from the bench Thursday. Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, …

The Washington Post reports: Most nights at 9 p.m., defendants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol flicker the lights in their D.C. jail cells to signal to supporters outside that it’s time to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” together. The recital has become a sacred ritual for a subset of Donald Trump’s movement devoted to heroizing the …

CNN reports: Special counsel Jack Smith sat in on the federal grand jury proceeding while former Vice President Mike Pence testified for more than five hours last week, three sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. Smith and Pence interacted while Pence was at the courthouse, and one source described the interaction as respectful. Smith’s appearance is the first known …

The New York Times reports: Federal prosecutors have charged a former F.B.I. agent with illegally entering the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot and said he had called police officers Nazis as he encouraged a mob of Trump loyalists to kill them. The former agent, Jared L. Wise, was arrested on Monday and faces four misdemeanor counts, including disrupting the …

CNN reports: The FBI on Tuesday arrested a Florida man accused of setting off an “explosive device” in the US Capitol tunnel during the attack on January 6, 2021. In one of the most violent scenes of the Capitol riot, a line of police officers protected an entrance to the building against violent rioters who used poles, bats, fists, stolen …

NBC News reports: A California man who used stolen police pepper spray against officers battling a mob during the Jan. 6 attack was sentenced to more than four years in prison Friday, prosecutors said. Jeffrey Scott Brown, 56, was sentenced to 54 months in prison, or 4½ years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement. Brown, of Santa Ana, …

Mediaite reports: Liz Cheney is incensed after Donald Trump publicly hugged a Jan. 6 rioter in New Hampshire Thursday, and she warned the GOP that they are “endorsing his conduct.” Cheney retweeted NBC’s Vaughn Hilliard, who wrote, “To note: This J6 Defendant who was embraced by Trump last night is a member of Negative48 & when I interviewed her last …

NBC News reports: Former President Donald Trump embraced a Jan. 6 defendant at a diner during a campaign stop Thursday night, calling the woman, who served prison time for her actions during the Capitol attack and wants former Vice President Mike Pence executed for treason, “terrific.” Larson-Olson said she believes that the members of Congress who voted to certify Biden’s …

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump on Thursday praised and embraced a woman convicted of defying police orders on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021. “Listen, you just hang in there,” Trump told the woman, Micki Larson-Olson, who was found guilty on a misdemeanor charge of resisting police efforts to clear the grounds after the insurrection …

The Daily Beast reports: A bullhorn-wielding Pennsylvania woman breached the U.S. Capitol with her husband on Jan. 6, took selfies in Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office, then kicked a cop in the groin on her way out, according to a federal complaint unsealed Thursday. Jeanette Mangia, 44, and Joseph Pastucci, 49, were arrested by FBI agents in New Cumberland on …

NBC News reports: Former Vice President Mike Pence appeared Thursday before the federal grand jury convened as part of the special counsel investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and remain in power, according to a source familiar with the matter. The testimony is a significant development in the special counsel’s probe, as Pence …

The Associated Press reports: The jury will begin deliberating Wednesday to decide whether the onetime Proud Boys national chairman and four co-defendants are guilty of seditious conspiracy for what prosecutors allege was a desperate plot to keep President Donald Trump in the White House after the Republican lost the 2020 election. Prosecutors in Washington have shown jurors hundreds of messages …

The Associated Press reports: A federal jury in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to begin hearing closing arguments on Monday after more than three months of testimony in the seditious conspiracy case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants. The Justice Department has already secured seditious conspiracy convictions against the founder and members of another far-right extremist …

“I’m grateful that the court recognized that there are specific constitutional protections unique to the vice president, when you’re serving in your role as president of the Senate. I thought it was important to make that challenge. For the first time in history, a federal court acknowledged that that provision of the Constitution applies to the vice president. “We’ll obey …

Agence France-Presse reports: Fox Corporation chief executive Lachlan Murdoch on Friday dropped a high-profile defamation case against an Australian website that accused his family’s conservative media empire of fueling the 2021 US Capitol riots. Lawyers for the Crikey website said that Murdoch, the eldest son of billionaire Rupert Murdoch, had abruptly “discontinued his defamation case” eight months into legal proceedings. …

NBC News reports: A Texas man facing charges in the Jan. 6 riot opened fire last week on sheriff’s deputies who had gone to his home to check on him ahead of his scheduled surrender to the FBI, according to new criminal complaint. Nathan Donald Pelham of Greenville, who initially faced four misdemeanor charges tied to the insurrection, now faces …

UPI reports: A California man who participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was found guilty of obstruction and assaulting, impeding, or interfering with law-enforcement officers, the Justice Department said Wednesday. Sean Michael McHugh, 35, of Auburn, Calif., was captured on video and audio assaulting multiple Capitol Police officers. He used a canister of bear spray on several officers and …