Tag: Jan

Jan. 6 defendant fired on deputies ahead of expected arrest, court records show

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Now, Pelham is facing a felony charge that could result in years of jail time for allegedly firing a 9mm pistol in the direction of deputies.
The sheriff’s deputies indicated that when they arrived at his house, Pelham sent his young daughter outside before he began firing gunshots.
“After putting the child in the patrol car, Deputy J.W. heard gunshots coming from inside the residence,” according to the newly revealed charging documents. “Deputy J.W. reported that the gunshots were spread out in time and that they were not towards the HCSO personnel. Deputy J.W. moved his patrol car away from the front of the residence for additional safety.”
The deputy who first said he shielded Pelham’s daughter arrived at about 8:40 p.m. An hour later, according to the filings, Pelham’s father arrived on the scene and another shot was fired.
“[T]he bullet from this gunshot came in so close proximity to myself that I could hear the distinct whistling sound as the bullet traveled by me and then strike a metal object to my right side,” one of the deputies, identified only as J.W., reported.
An FBI agent arrived on the scene at about 10:40 p.m. to help put Pelham under arrest. He said he heard another six to seven gunshots fired.
The court documents indicate that Pelham has a 2003 Texas felony conviction, which barred him from being in possession of a firearm.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 21, 2023
Anatomy of a smashed window: Pezzola tells his Jan. 6 story

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“I should’ve stopped. I should’ve turned and went home,” he continued. “For some reason I felt I didn’t have total control of my actions.“
Pezzola took the stand Wednesday to fend off charges that he and four Proud Boys leaders plotted to forcefully derail the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. The seditious conspiracy charges he and his four codefendants face are the gravest leveled by prosecutors in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack.
Prosecutors are expected to cross-examine Pezzola Thursday and are sure to challenge many of the claims he made.
Pezzola is expected to be the final witness in a trial that has stretched more than four months and been marked by interminable delays, intense legal quarrels and high stakes testimony from cooperating witnesses and defendants. Alongside Pezzola, prosecutors have charged Proud Boys leaders Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs and Zachary Rehl with joining the alleged seditious conspiracy.
Pezzola’s testimony, like the riot itself, was chaotic. He described feeling in mortal danger from police crowd-control measures, the resolve to face down the “enemy” that he drew from his military training, an intensifying fear that he might not live to see his wife and daughters, fury at police for lobbing flashbangs in the area of women in the crowd and an “autopilot” that he said took over just before he smashed the window.
Pezzola told jurors he had no inkling of any plan to topple the government and was irritated at his Proud Boys allies for diverting the group away from Trump’s speech that morning for a march to the Capitol. But when he arrived, he nevertheless made his way toward the front of the gathering mob — a decision he attributed to “car crash syndrome.”
“Why I moved over there was basically out of curiosity,” he said.
That’s when the rubber bullets started raining down, Pezzola said, including one that cut through the cheek of rioter Joshua Black, spraying blood all over the ground at the front of the police line. Though Pezzola said he considered the crowd to have been passive at that moment, video of the scene shows skirmishes along the police line, which officers positioned on a nearby overhang were witnessing with a birds eye view.

“It felt like being under sniper fire,” Pezzola said, adding, “In my mind, this is pretty much what I felt like combat would be like, being shot at by the enemy.”
Pezzola, who was right behind Black, said the barrage of less-lethal munitions aimed at the crowd infuriated him and he attempted to engage officers in an argument about the appropriate use of force. He also lunged to grab a shield from a nearby Capitol Police officer — which he said was meant for self-protection — but came away empty-handed. Eventually, the swell of the crowd knocked him down, he said, and in the chaos, he observed another rioter wrest a shield from the same officer, and Pezzola managed to grab the loose shield for himself.
Pezzola’s lawyer, Steve Metcalf, repeatedly asked Pezzola why he didn’t just turn around and leave amid the chaos. He said he refused to leave the Capitol grounds even after police began firing rubber bullets in his direction because his “military training” had conditioned him to “keep your eye on where the threat is coming from.”
“I’m pissed off Steve, that’s all I can really say,” Pezzola said. “The adrenaline is so high at that point. You’re on autopilot. I guess I’m just programmed to charge toward danger.”
Pezzola later added that he was particularly infuriated when he saw munitions landing in the crowd near women, and he repeatedly asked his lawyer to pause video of those moments so he could highlight women who were visible in the crowd to the jurors.
Pezzola would take the shield back to fellow members of the Proud Boys and pose for a picture before returning to the front of the mob, surging to the foot of the Capitol and destroying a window leading to the Senate wing of the building. That breach, which prosecutors have described as the first time the Capitol was breached by hostile actors since the war of 1812, came at the precise minute the Senate shut down its effort to certify the results of the election.
Pezzola said that when he got inside, he had no plan and no knowledge of the Capitol’s layout, so he basically wandered around and followed the crowd while taking pictures and videos. POLITICO recently identified footage of Pezzola encountering the evacuation of Sen. Chuck Grassley, who had been presiding over the Senate just moments before.
He would soon shoot a celebratory selfie video that prosecutors view as a key piece of evidence in the case. “Victory smoke in the Capitol, boys. This is fucking awesome,” he said in the video while smoking a cigar. “I knew we could take this motherfucker over [if we] just tried hard enough.” Pezzola told jurors he took the video because he wanted to say something “profound” on a day he believed would be “historic.”
Moments later, Pezzola joined the portion of the mob that chased Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman to the edge of the Senate chamber, where a standoff ensued. All told, Pezzola said he was inside the building for about 20 minutes, and he handed the shield back to a police officer as he exited.
Asked by Metcalf to characterize his actions, Pezzola called it, “A bad reaction to a bad situation.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 20, 2023
Proud Boy who helped ignite Capitol breach tells jury he got “caught up” in Jan. 6 chaos

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Pezzola would subsequently enter the Capitol — arriving at the precise moment that Sen. Chuck Grassley, then the third in line to the presidency, was being evacuated. And he would record a video celebrating the breach of the Capitol that has been a key piece of evidence for prosecutors in the seditious conspiracy trial against Pezzola and four Proud Boys leaders: Enrique Tarrio, Joe Biggs, Ethan Nordean and Zachary Rehl.
In addition to seditious conspiracy, the five men are charged with attempting to obstruct Congress’ proceedings that day and aiding in the destruction of government property.
Pezzola used the early portion of his testimony to separate himself from the group’s leadership.
“The craziest damn thing is I never even knew these guys before I met them at the courthouse,” Pezzola said.
Pezzola’s turn on the stand is a climactic moment for the trial, and potentially the last before the four-month-long trial goes to the jury. Prosecutors have portrayed the Proud Boys as a sinister force on Jan. 6, plotting to do whatever they could to disrupt the transfer of power from Trump — who they viewed as an ally — to President Joe Biden. Trump’s call for a “wild” protest in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 was the moment the group’s leaders decided to take measures to help Trump disrupt the incoming Biden presidency, prosecutors have alleged.
The group also took a sharp turn against police in mid-December 2020, when four members of the Proud Boys were stabbed outside a bar following a pro-Trump event and the alleged perpetrator was not apprehended, prosecutors contended.
The case relied heavily on thousands of Telegram messages sent among members of the group describing their intentions and coordinating rallies and protests related to the election results. They also showed ample video of the group’s movements in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6. The government’s key witness in the case, Proud Boy leader Jeremy Bertino, testified that he knew the group’s goal was to derail the transfer of power, even though there were no explicit plans relayed to the group’s broader membership.
The defense has contended that the group’s role has been inflated, that they’re more akin to a drinking club whose members use a lot of hyperbole and overheated language that they didn’t intend to back up.

Pezzola’s testimony — expected to last at least deep into Wednesday — continued in that vein. He said he viewed the Proud Boys as a forum for camaraderie and brotherhood, not a force for violence. He said that on Jan. 6, he never had any inkling of a plan or conspiracy to stop Congress from convening to count electoral votes.
He acknowledged trespassing and crossing police lines at least twice. And he admitted that he shattered “one pane of glass” of the Senate window. But after that, he said, he “wandered around lost with no idea where I was going, took some pictures.”
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#Proud #Boy #helped #ignite #Capitol #breach #tells #jury #caught #Jan #chaos
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 19, 2023
‘Cheese-eating rat’: Defense lawyers seethe after DOJ pushes witness to identify more Jan. 6 perpetrators

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Recognizing Sumrall’s prominence within the Jan. 6 community, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jordan Konig pressed the witness to identify others who went into the Capitol but had not yet been charged — raising the prospect that a truthful answer might incriminate his acquaintances or associates. After initially beginning to answer the question, Sumrall appeared to grow agitated.
Alberts’ attorney Roger Roots quickly objected, prompting U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper to recess the trial and debate the issue. After jurors left the room, Cooper professed to being blindsided by the line of questioning, calling it “unorthodox” and a “fairly unique situation.” He asked prosecutors to give him a heads-up next time if they planned to go that route.
Roots fumed that the line of questioning was a bid by prosecutors to turn Sumrall into a “cheese-eating rat” and “a snitch on the stand.” He accused prosecutors of “pretending they’re the FBI” and attempting to humiliate Sumrall in front of the jury.
“This is so outrageous,” Roots said.
Konig said Sumrall’s refusal to answer the question spoke to his credibility as a defense witness — proving that he was unwilling to testify in any way that would be harmful to a Jan. 6 defendant. His “ties to the Jan. 6 community,” Konig said, are proof of his bias that jurors should be permitted to consider.
He also cited two recent criminal tax cases in which prosecutors were permitted to cross-examine witnesses. In a 2019 case in Colorado, a federal judge ordered a defendant to respond to prosecutors’ request that he identify other people who refused to pay their taxes. The same year, in a federal criminal tax case in Nevada, prosecutors asked the defendant to identify other tax scofflaws — including one who happened to be in the room at the time of the testimony.
Cooper, though, did not permit prosecutors to go as far. He said he would permit Sumrall to decline to answer the question and would not order him to name names. Prosecutors agreed this was an acceptable outcome because jurors would still see that Sumrall had refused to identify people who might be implicated in Jan. 6 wrongdoing. When the jury returned, Cooper informed them of his decision.
Alberts called Sumrall in part because Sumrall was on Capitol grounds Jan. 6 filming the events. The defense contended that Sumrall’s video showed the thin police presence as pro-Trump protesters arrived at the Capitol and ultimately surged past several layers of barricades.

During their cross-examination, prosecutors highlighted Sumrall’s extensive commentary in support of Jan. 6 defendants, his help in fundraising for the legal defense of some of the most notorious perpetrators on that day — including one of Roots’ other clients, Dominic Pezzola, who is facing seditious conspiracy charges in a trial two floors away — and his sympathy for the “cause” that Jan. 6 rioters espoused that day.
They also emphasized that Sumrall had claimed “99 percent” of Jan. 6 defendants should not have been charged.
Sumrall was the final defense witness in the case, which now heads to closing arguments and jury deliberations.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 18, 2023
Gun-carrying Jan. 6 defendant takes turn on the witness stand

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Minutes later, the police line collapsed and Alberts rushed with the crowd to the foot of the Capitol. There, he confronted police officers, calling them “domestic terrorists” for refusing to permit Trump supporters to “overthrow the government,” which he characterized as a patriotic duty. He meandered the exterior of the building for hours before hurling more invective — and a water bottle — at officers trying to clear the mob from the Capitol’s Upper West Terrace plaza.
“It was wrong,” Alberts acknowledged in federal District Court in D.C. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
And as he told a jury on Monday, the entire time he was at the Capitol, he was armed with a concealed firearm and 25 rounds of ammunition, including hollow-point bullets.
It was a remarkable turn on the witness stand for Alberts, whose story remains relatively unknown despite his prolonged and notable role in the arc of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The early drive up the west side stairs of the Capitol by Alberts, Reffitt and others led to a lengthy standoff with the police. Other rioters — those who would ultimately smash their way into the building — used that standoff to amass underneath nearby scaffolding meant for Joe Biden’s inaugural stage. Within minutes, they would make their charge through police lines and into the building.
Few rioters spent the amount of time Alberts did at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Although he didn’t go inside, he remained in sensitive locations where police struggled to contain the crowd — and he repeatedly ratcheted up tension between the crowd and the officers.
And equally few rioters have attempted to tell their story to a jury under oath, particularly in a case with an extraordinary amount of video evidence documenting Alberts’ alleged crimes. Jurors are expected to get the case on Tuesday or Wednesday, with a verdict likely later this week.
To hear Alberts tell it, his entire day on Jan. 6 was a hapless accident — a mix of bad timing, attempts at heroic intervention to protect pro-Trump protesters and a rising fury at police for overzealous crowd-control tactics.
Alberts said he had intended to listen to Trump’s speech but became distracted by an unattended backpack, which he helped remove to a safe distance from the crowd. (The backpack, prosecutors would later elicit, contained nothing dangerous.) From there, Alberts said, he saw other protesters streaming toward the Capitol and decided to follow suit. When he arrived, he witnessed at least one member of the crowd experience a medical episode and helped police keep the sidewalk clear to permit the man to be evacuated from the scene.

Alberts said his alarm over this episode heightened his concern when he arrived at the base of the west side steps of the Capitol and saw police firing less-lethal munitions at the crowd. In his view, he said, their actions were unjustified and he decided he would climb the stairs toward the police line to help shield other members of the crowd from the police.
“Somebody had to put a stop to it,” he testified on Monday, adding that he was willing to ”take damage to prevent more people from getting harmed or hurt.”
On his way up the stairs, Alberts encountered Reffitt, who was doubled over after being sprayed by police. (Last year, Reffitt became the first Jan. 6 defendant to go before a jury, which found him guilty of numerous felony counts. He’s currently serving a sentence of seven and a half years.)
Alberts said he became instantly fixated on Reffitt and concerned that the man might fall off the elevated railing he was perched on. Though he tried to get Reffitt to descend the staircase to safety, Reffitt continued to urge the crowd onward, Alberts recalled, saying Reffitt shouted, “Forward!” Suddenly, Alberts said, someone placed the large wooden pallet at his feet.
Alberts said he picked it up to “dispose of” the object, but was met with a hail of crowd-control munitions, so instead he used it as a shield to protect himself as he advanced toward the firing officers.
Alberts described his rhetoric toward police that day as “hyperbolic” and ill-advised, informed more by his fury at the officers’ treatment of the crowd than a desire to topple the government.
“I was angry,” Alberts said.
But prosecutors pressed him repeatedly to explain why, if his actions were as innocent as he described, he lingered on Capitol grounds for hours after it became clear that police had wanted him to leave.
Prosecutors appeared stunned by Alberts’ explanations for his protracted presence at the Capitol. Alberts repeatedly said he was there to make his voice heard, and insisted that the police were trying to stifle the protests happening outside the building. He said he never intended to resist or obstruct police activity or the session of Congress that was happening inside the Capitol.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Jordan Konig pressed him on why he ignored so many obvious signs that officers were trying to get him and other rioters to leave. And Konig reminded jurors over and over again that concealed on Alberts’ right side was a handgun. Notably, Reffitt was convicted last year for crimes that included carrying a handgun on Capitol grounds — meaning two of the first rioters to square off with police had concealed firearms.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 18, 2023
House points to Jan. 6 committee in defending GOP’s right to subpoena ex-Bragg aide

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Bragg’s lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, seeks a court order preventing the House from enforcing the subpoena. An initial hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
As precedent for courts rejecting recent challenges to congressional subpoenas in recent months, the House’s brief cites the Jan. 6 committee’s litigation against four people: John Eastman, a top architect of the former president’s bid to overturn the 2020 election; Katherine Friess, a lawyer working with Trump ally Rudy Giuliani; Kelli Ward, the chair of the Arizona GOP; and Mark Meadows, former Trump chief of staff.
Pomerantz, a former assistant DA, resigned from Bragg’s office in February 2022 amid frustration at the DA’s apparent reluctance to bring a case against Trump. Pomerantz has since written a book — The People vs. Donald Trump — that describes his work on that case and offers his unvarnished views about Trump himself.
Though the court fight is laden with the Judiciary Committee’s charged political rhetoric related to Trump’s indictment in New York, it’s also a reminder that courts are generally reluctant to stand in the way of congressional subpoenas, especially in politically sensitive matters.
While Congress has some narrow limits on its investigative powers, courts generally defer to lawmakers’ broad authority to investigate anything with a conceivable “legislative purpose.” Bragg has contended that no such purpose exists behind the Judiciary panel’s bid to subpoena Pomerantz and delve into the decision-making behind Bragg’s indictment of Trump earlier this month.
The Judiciary panel, chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), also specifically argues that Bragg’s lawsuit to block the Pomerantz subpoena is barred by the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause. That provision gives lawmakers formidable protection against attempted lawsuits by outside actors over their official work.
The Judiciary panel has contended that it wants to study the ramifications of a local criminal indictment on a former president, for both its security implications and its potential chilling effect on officeholders. Bragg’s office countered by describing that purpose as a pretense to undermine a state-level criminal probe, arguing that Congress has no jurisdiction in the area.
On Monday, Jordan’s Judiciary Committee also sought to undermine Bragg’s credibility by questioning his criminal justice policies during a “field hearing” in Manhattan. For four hours, Republicans heard testimony from victims of violent crime — including a formerly incarcerated bodega clerk and the mother of a homicide victim — who accused Bragg of failing to address their needs. Democrats at the hearing, however, claimed Jordan and his counterparts were there to do “the bidding of Donald Trump,” as Rep. Jerry Nadler put it.

During the proceeding, several Republicans, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), echoed Trump’s criticism of Bragg as having been funded by billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, an effort Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) decried as anti-Semitic.
In its court filing in the Bragg lawsuit, the Judiciary Committee repeatedly emphasized that Pomerantz’s willingness to share internal details of the Bragg office’s Trump probe in his book undercut any potential privilege claims he might make against a subpoena. Bragg, the committee noted, didn’t take legal action to block Pomerantz’s book or his subsequent media interviews about it.
The House committee also rejected Bragg’s efforts to bolster his opposition to the subpoena by citing another Trump-related matter — the Democratic push to obtain the former president’s financial records from an accounting firm.
That 2017 Democratic effort led to a Supreme Court case that described some limits on congressional efforts to obtain the personal information of a sitting president. But the House argues that the ruling has no relevance to the DA’s bid to stop a former subordinate from testifying.
For his part, Pomerantz indicated Monday that he backs Bragg’s effort to block the subpoena. He argued in a declaration filed with the court that he has no relevant knowledge to share with the committee, since he left the office long before Bragg decided to indict Trump.
He added that he’s in an “impossible position” thanks to the competing demands of Bragg’s office — which has instructed Pomerantz not to testify — and Jordan’s threat to enforce the subpoena.
“If I refuse to provide information to the Committee, I risk being held in contempt of Congress and referred to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution,” Pomerantz said in a. “If, on the other hand, I defy the District Attorney’s instructions and answer questions, I face possible legal or ethical consequences, including criminal prosecution.”
Erica Orden contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 17, 2023
‘Like an animal’: Jan. 6 defendant who pinned officer in tunnel is sentenced to 7.5 years

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“I wish I had better control of myself,” he said, calling his behavior “less like a citizen and more like an animal.”
McCaughey pinned Hodges in a Capitol doorway for more than two minutes while another rioter ripped off the officer’s gas mask, stole his baton and struck him with it. It became a symbol of the barbaric violence that unfolded in the Capitol’s lower West Terrace tunnel, famous before that day as the corridor through which presidents-elect emerge to take their oath of office.
McCaughey was at the “vanguard” of that violent section of the mob, McFadden noted, and arrived there only after spending 20 minutes taunting police before their line collapsed and they were forced to retreat into the tunnel. McCaughey became “a poster child of all that was dangerous and appalling” about Jan. 6, McFadden said.
McFadden found McCaughey guilty in September after a bench trial on three charges of assaulting or impeding police officers, obstructing Congress’ proceedings and participating in a civil disorder, among several other charges. He was tried alongside two other defendants who were nearby in the tunnel.
Despite the extraordinary aspects of McCaughey’s case, in some ways he cut a familiar profile for Jan. 6 defendants: He had no prior criminal record and was seen as a positive member of his Connecticut community prior to the 2020 election. Afterward, amid Trump’s false claims about the results, McCaugehy traveled down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, many amplified by Fox News and other Trump-aligned media outlets.
In McCaughey’s case, there was also the role of his father, whom family members described as a pernicious influence on him — encouraging his beliefs that the election was stolen.
McCaughey’s father accompanied his son to Washington but became separated from him before the assaults, McCaughey’s defense attorney, Dennis Boyle, said.
Hodges also addressed McFadden prior to sentencing, describing the daily trauma he still experiences as a result of the assaults he suffered on Jan. 6. He urged McFadden to reject claims by McCaughey and others of being simply “caught up in the moment.” But he also described McCaughey as a “foot soldier” in a larger effort by those seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

McCaughey’s sentence mirrors two handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson to rioters who assaulted D.C. Police officer Michael Fanone. Both men — Albuquerque Head and Kyle Young — were sentenced to just over seven years in prison for their crimes, which were also committed by the lower West Terrace tunnel. It also matches the sentence of Guy Reffitt, a Texas militia member who carried a gun at the Capitol and engaged in a lengthy standoff with police that helped rioters amass at the foot of the building.
The lengthiest Jan. 6 sentence to date belongs to Thomas Webster, a former NYPD cop who was convicted by a jury of a brutal assault against a police officer defending the line at the Capitol. U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Webster to 10 years in prison, a steep sentence but one that fell more than 90 months shy of the Justice Department’s recommendation.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 14, 2023
Capitol Police officer who sought to protect Jan. 6 rioter sentenced to home incarceration

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Still, Jackson said Riley’s lengthy career — unblemished before Jan. 6 — his lack of criminal history and the consequences he already suffered, from his forced retirement to the loss of his department-issued dog, justified the sentence of home confinement. Prosecutors had initially sought a sentence of 27 months in prison for Riley’s conduct, saying his status as a police officer exacerbated the seriousness of his actions.
It’s the close of a complicated and wrenching chapter in the arc of Jan. 6 prosecutions. Riley was convicted last year of obstruction of justice for deleting his Facebook messages. The jury deadlocked on a second obstruction charge related to his contact with Hiles.
Riley’s arrest in October 2021 followed intense, but so far unsupported, concerns among members of Congress that some Capitol Police officers may have sympathized with and even assisted the Jan. 6 mob at the Capitol.
Riley is the only officer who has faced charges stemming from his actions following the Jan. 6 attack. There’s no evidence he assisted the mob on Jan. 6 — and in fact the evidence suggests he acted “honorably” in responding to the riot, Jackson emphasized.
Jackson said it was not entirely clear why Riley chose to aid Hiles — and not any other rioter — but said he seemed enamored of Hiles, whom he didn’t know personally before Jan. 6 but who shared a passion for fishing. Riley and Hiles were active in the same social media groups for fishing enthusiasts, and Riley noticed Jan. 7 that Hiles had posted about being inside the Capitol.
He soon struck up a Facebook conversation with Hiles and urged him to delete parts of his posts that mentioned he went inside the building. Investigators, Riley noted, would be searching for and arresting anyone who went inside. Riley maintained contact with Hiles for nearly two weeks, even after he was arrested Jan. 19, 2021. After Hiles told Riley that the FBI seemed interested in their contact, Riley deleted his own communications with Hiles and sent Hiles a concocted excuse to cut off contact.
“Talk about a complete lie,” Jackson said.
The case drew sharply polarized reactions from Riley’s family, friends and colleagues. He retired from the Capitol Police within months of the charges and indicated in court Thursday that many of his former colleagues had cut off contact with him. Aquilino Gonell, a Capitol Police officer who was assaulted by members of the mob Jan. 6 and has become an outspoken advocate for prosecuting members of the mob, called him a “turncoat.”

But Jackson also acknowledged that Riley had a history of heroism on the Capitol Police force, on multiple occasions saving the lives of fellow officers or providing aid amid crisis. He saved the life of a fellow officer who was knocked unconscious during a 2011 blizzard and had stopped breezing. He was also one of the first to respond to a vehicle attack against officers in April 2021 — three months after the Jan. 6 attack — and provided aid to a downed officer, Billy Evans, who later died of his injuries.
Complicating the matter further, Riley is suffering from an undisclosed autoimmune illness that requires complicated treatments, details of which were disclosed to Jackson under seal. She acknowledged the illness in her sentencing and emphasized that he was permitted to leave his home for medical reasons.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 13, 2023
Trump appeals order for Pence to testify in Jan. 6 probe

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Under the Constitution, Pence as vice president also served as president of the Senate, entitling him to some measure of congressional immunity, Boasberg found. Although Pence and his allies felt that the ruling didn’t extend far enough, Pence opted not to appeal the decision.
Trump’s executive privilege challenges to Justice Department subpoenas have not fared well in a series of secret court proceedings that have played out in recent months. He lost bids before Boasberg’s predecessor as chief, Beryl Howell, to prevent Pence’s aides from testifying in the inquiry, and he recently lost a similar bid to prevent his own top White House advisers from appearing for compelled testimony.
A Trump spokesman confirmed the appeal in a statement blasting the Justice Department’s handling of the special counsel investigations.
“The DOJ is continuously stepping far outside the standard norms in attempting to destroy the long accepted, long held, Constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege,” said Trump spokesman Steven Cheung. “The Special Counsel is conducting a witch-hunt where the government has sought to violate every Constitutional norm, including the safeguards that protect a President’s ability to confer with his Vice President on matters of the security of the United States.”
The appeal is one of more than 10 secret proceedings that have governed Smith’s expansive inquiries into Trump’s bid to subvert the election, as well as his handling of highly sensitive national security secrets found at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office. Grand jury proceedings typically play out in secret, a requirement of law and precedent, but the breadth and magnitude of these probes have led to extraordinary rulings that are reshaping the boundaries of the separation of powers, all outside of public view.
The appeals court’s secret docket reflects that Trump’s appeal was lodged Monday morning after a March 27 ruling by Boasberg in a grand jury matter — a date that coincides with Boasberg’s order for Pence to testify. Trump has not yet filed for an emergency expedited effort to block Boasberg’s ruling, but he has taken that step in several other cases to no avail.
It’s unclear when Pence is expected to testify, but typically judges set precise deadlines for compliance that may drive the timing of various filings and challenges.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 10, 2023
Prosecutors seek lengthiest Jan. 6 sentence yet for rioter who pinned officer in Capitol doorway

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McCaughey’s restraint of D.C. Police Officer Daniel Hodges in a Capitol doorway is one of the most recognizable and horrifying images of the violence that day. McCaughey’s restraint of Hodges lasted more than two minutes while other rioters disarmed the officer, removed his gas mask and ignored his screams or help. Images of McCaughey face-to-face with Hodges became a symbol of the brutality of the Jan. 6 riot. It occurred in the Capitol’s lower west terrace tunnel, where many of the most violent confrontations that day took place.
“The defendant’s actions on January 6 show an absolute disregard for the rule of law coupled with a willingness to incite and engage in violence,” Paschall wrote. “The nature and circumstances of this defendant’s crimes weigh heavily towards a significant term of incarceration.”
U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden convicted McCaughey of nine charges — including three counts of assaulting police and obstruction of Congress’ Jan. 6 proceedings — at a bench trial in September 2022. He has characterized McCaughey’s actions as particularly horrific, even compared to other rioters who participated in some of the same violent attacks. But McFadden has also repeatedly rejected prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations, often disagreeing with their calculations and proposed enhancements. Prosecutors indicated in their sentencing memo that they anticipate him disagreeing with them once again.
Still, DOJ’s recommendation is the second-steepest it has made in any Jan. 6 case so far, trailing only the 17.5-year sentence it recommended for Thomas Webster, a former New York Police Department officer who brutally assaulted an officer on the front lines of the riot. Webster is currently serving a 10-year sentence, the longest of any handed down to a Jan. 6 defendant so far, issued by U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta. Mehta viewed Webster’s conduct as particularly egregious and also concluded that Webster lied on the stand when he testified about it.
The recommendation for McCaughey surpasses the 15-year sentence the Justice Department recommended for Guy Reffitt, the first Jan. 6 rioter convicted by a jury. Reffitt, a militia member, planned for violence with associates ahead of Jan. 6, carried a firearm and engaged with police in a lengthy standoff that enabled the mob to start amassing at the base of the Capitol. Ultimately, the judge in his case, U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, sentenced Reffitt to just over seven years in prison.
Prosecutors say McCaughey, like Webster, was dishonest when he testified in his own trial last year. In addition to his lack of candor on the stand, prosecutors say McCaughey’s recommended sentence was influenced by the brutality of his attack against Hodges and a second officer, Henry Foulds — who McCaughey struck with a riot shield as the officer tried to close the doors to the tunnel.
McCaughey, for his part, is arguing for a sentence of a year in prison, contending that his crimes on Jan. 6 were an “aberration” in an otherwise law-abiding life.
“Although his conduct is indeed serious, it represents the only legal transgression this hard-working person has ever committed,” his attorney, Dennis Boyle wrote in a 25-page sentencing memo. “It is also significant to note that his actions were not motivated by any desire for personal financial gain or any other type of benefit. Rather, his actions, which he himself admits were reprehensible, were motivated by a misunderstanding as to the facts surrounding the 2020 election.”

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 8, 2023