Judge orders Rep. Scott Perry to disclose 1,600 messages to federal prosecutors - PENNSYLVANIA RETIRED US ARMY NATIONAL GUARD BRIGADIER GENERAL

 

CONSPIRING TO OVERTHROW AN ELECTION BASED ON LIES & PROMOTING THE JAN 6 CAPITOL RIOT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED 

REPUBLICAN LIES NEED TO BE REVEALED

LET'S STOP PRETENDING! 

PENNSYLVANIA RETIRED US ARMY NATIONAL GUARD BRIGADIER GENERAL

SCOTT PERRY TOOK AN OATH THAT HE BETRAYED! 

Judge orders Rep. Scott Perry to disclose 1,600 messages to federal prosecutors

The records could help fill crucial gaps in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of Trump’s election interference.

By KYLE CHENEY

12/19/2023 10:46 PM EST

• A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Rep. Scott Perry must disclose to federal prosecutors more than 1,600 emails, text messages and other communications related to the investigation into Donald Trump and his allies’ bid to subvert the 2020 election.

Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg concluded that the vast majority of the messages Perry exchanged — some with other members of Congress, some with members of the Trump administration and some with allies outside of government — could not be shielded from prosecutors by Perry’s constitutional protections as a member of Congress.

Rather, Boasberg concluded, the 1,659 exchanges had little to do with Perry’s job as a legislator and therefore were not subject to the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause, which prohibits prosecutors and courts from prying into the official business of Congress.

The records in question could help fill crucial gaps in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation. An inadvertently disclosed court document obtained last month by POLITICO revealed key aspects of the messages Perry had sought to shield from Smith’s team, including exchanges with Trump’s alleged co-conspirators in the effort to disrupt the transfer of power. The messages showed Perry as a crucial go-between for Trump and his allies on key aspects of their effort in the final frantic weeks of Trump’s presidency.

An attorney for Perry said he has not yet determined whether he will appeal Boasberg’s ruling.

The FBI seized Perry’s phone in August 2022 in connection with its investigation into former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, a key Trump ally in his bid to prevent the transfer of power. Perry introduced Trump to Clark in the final weeks of his presidency and pressed Trump to elevate Clark to the top of the Justice Department. Trump came close to appointing Clark acting attorney general — part of a last-ditch plan to use the Justice Department to raise doubts about the outcome of the election — before a mass resignation threat by DOJ and White House officials led Trump to back down.

Boasberg’s order largely endorses a ruling made nearly a year ago by his predecessor, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who found that Perry was required to disclose 2,055 communications he had attempted to shield, with only about 200 others protected from prosecutors. Howell ruled that Perry’s “informal” efforts to probe election fraud were not covered by the “speech or debate” clause because he was not authorized by any House committee to conduct the investigation.

Howell also ruled that many of Perry’s contacts with members of the Trump administration could not be shielded because he was seeking to influence the executive branch and pursuing political ends rather than legislative ones. In other communications, he was seeking to influence the Pennsylvania state legislature.

Perry appealed Howell’s ruling in January, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals quickly halted her decision, considering the matter for another eight months before ruling that Howell had gone too far. Instead, the circuit ordered Boasberg — who by then had succeeded Howell as chief of the Washington, D.C. district court — to review all 2,055 emails Perry was attempting to shield and decide whether they could be disclosed.

Boasberg ultimately agreed that nearly all of Howell’s initial determinations were correct. While some of Perry’s contacts with executive branch officials or outside allies related to his legitimate work as a legislator, the vast majority, he determined, were “non-legislative” communications that could not be shielded from investigators.

Boasberg also said messages Perry exchanged about efforts to urge Vice President Mike Pence to resolve disputes about electoral votes were too tangential to Perry’s own legislative duties to qualify for protection. Pence ultimately concluded he did not have the power to determine whether particular slates of electoral votes were valid.

Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/scott-perry-ordered-to-disclose-messages-trump-00132623

New evidence of Republican guilt in 1/6 emerges

 

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Tell Congress to expel the Congressmen who tried to get Trump pardons for their role in Jan 6th!

During the first explosive hearing on the January 6th attack, the committee revealed that several Republican Congressmen, including notorious "Big Lie" proponent Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), pre-emptively sought pardons from President Trump before he left office for their role in the horrifying attempt to overthrow our democratically elected government. "Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6th to seek a presidential pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election," said Rep. Liz Cheney during the hearing. Kick out the Congressmen who tried to get pardons from Trump for January 6th! Who these other Congressmen are is still unclear but they will doubtlessly be unmasked over the course of these hearings. They must be held accountable! Why would they need a pardon? There is no greater evidence of guilt than the desperate urge to beg for absolution before one's crimes are brought to light and before justice had the opportunity to be served. These Congressmen are traitors to the American people and a disgrace to the offices they hold. They must be expelled from office and indicted for their crimes against this great nation. Expel the Congressmen who tried to get pardoned for their role in Jan 6th! SIGN NOW RightWingAccountability.com

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RSN: FOCUS: Laurence H. Tribe and Dennis Aftergut | Attorney General Merrick Garland Should Appoint a Special Counsel to Investigate Trump

 

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FOCUS: Laurence H. Tribe and Dennis Aftergut | Attorney General Merrick Garland Should Appoint a Special Counsel to Investigate Trump
Laurence H. Tribe and Dennis Aftergut, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The time has come for Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Donald Trump."

The time has come for Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Donald Trump. That step offers the best way to reassure the country that no one is above the law, justice is nonpartisan and fears of political fallout will not determine the decision on whether to bring charges.

Several recent developments have brought us to this moment. On March 2, the House select committee investigating the Capitol siege alleged in a federal court filing that it had amassed evidence that Trump illegally schemed to stop the lawful transfer of power to Joe Biden.

The next day, we learned that Oath Keepers member Joshua James was cooperating with prosecutors as part of a guilty plea for obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and for seditious conspiracy culminating in the Jan. 6 attack.

And last month, a federal district court ruled that two Capitol police officers and 11 members of Congress had alleged facts in a civil suit against Trump that, if proven, would support holding him civilly liable for inciting the Jan. 6 siege.

These events raise public expectations and heighten the political pressure on the Justice Department. On one side are those counseling Garland to refrain from acting against Trump lest the attorney general be accused of engaging in a partisan vendetta. On the other are those, including us, who believe that Trump’s alleged role in a conspiracy intended to interfere with congressional duty is so unprecedented that ordinarily close legal questions bend in favor of taking action to protect the rule of law.

The Justice Department’s special counsel regulations offer a way to resolve these tensions. They give the attorney general authority to appoint an esteemed lawyer to investigate a matter involving “extraordinary circumstances” under which it is “in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.”

The Justice Department adopted the current regulations in 1999, in the wake of the Whitewater investigation into then-President Bill Clinton and after the independent counsel statute had expired.

The regulations state that only “a lawyer with a reputation for integrity and impartial decisionmaking, and with appropriate experience” may be appointed. He or she must “be selected from outside the United States Government.” Appointing such a person would serve the public interest by providing a crucial layer of independence and nonpartisanship in the resulting investigation.

Garland should name a strong attorney of unassailable experience and impeccable reputation, modeling Leon Jaworski, who was appointed in 1973 to investigate Watergate after President Richard Nixon fired independent prosecutor Archibald Cox.

The regulations are designed, as a Congressional Research Service report explained, to strike a balance between “the competing goals of independence and accountability.”

On the matter of independence, the attorney general may reject a special counsel’s proposed recommendations for specific actions only when they are “inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices” and has to explain that decision to Congress.

Importantly, the president can’t fire a special counsel. The attorney general may take that step, but only for misconduct, conflict of interest or other “good cause.”

On the accountability side, the special counsel is subject to all Justice Department rules, which expressly require all attorneys, including any special counsel, to follow department guidelines about when to bring prosecutions and notify the attorney general of “major developments in significant investigations and litigation,” such as the filing of criminal charges.

Far from implying any expectation about the investigation’s result, appointing a special counsel helps ensure an objective outcome.

Some might object that appointing a special counsel would delay the process. But there are past special counsels who have moved expeditiously, and this one can as well.

Another objection is that a special counsel might range too broadly. The regulations, however, give the attorney general the responsibility to limit a special counsel’s jurisdiction, providing a “specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated.”

Finally, some may say that this is too important to give to anyone other than the attorney general. But even those with faith in Garland’s independence from President Biden must recognize the inevitable charges of partisanship if an official appointed directly by the president investigates and decides whether to prosecute a former and potentially future rival of Biden’s for the presidency.

A special counsel is warranted. Indeed, it is imperative.

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Special Coverage: Ukraine, A Historic Resistance
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06/10/2021

‘Traitors Need To Be Executed’: ‘Stop The Steal’ Organizer Indicted In Jan. 6 Conspiracy Case

Alan Hostetter, a police chief turned yogi, was indicted along with Three Percenter extremists in a conspiracy to attack the Capitol.

By Ryan J. Reilly

Alan Hostetter was “in the middle of nowhere in Arkansas” when he hit the record button. It was late November, a few weeks after what the former police chief and more recent Orange County yoga instructor called the “stolen” 2020 election.

Hostetter, who founded a group called the American Phoenix Project in the spring of 2020 to oppose government restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was on his way to D.C. for the “Million MAGA March” in support of then-President Donald Trump. He had some thoughts he wanted to record “for posterity.”

YOUTUBE

Alan Hostetter speaks at an event last month.

In the darkened interior of his vehicle, he went on a “little bit of a rant.” He regurgitated the unfounded mass voter fraud conspiracy theories he had read on the internet and heard from Trump, the ones that law enforcement officials were worried would get someone killed. Ballot dumps! Computer algorithms! It was all being revealed, he said. “The charade is about to end,” he said, and people would end up in jail.

Then it was time for executions.

“Some people, at the highest levels, need to be made an example of: an execution or two or three,” Hostetter told his audience. “Tyrants and traitors need to be executed as an example so nobody pulls this shit again.”

The 56-year-old Hostetter and five other men from the Orange County area ― Russell Taylor, 40, Erik Warner, 45, Felipe Martinez, 47, Derek Kinnison, 39, and Ronald Mele, 51 ― were accused of entering into a conspiracy to “corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede the Congressional proceeding at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

The 20-page indictment is the first conspiracy indictment involving multiple defendants the government says are affiliated with the Three Percenters, the right-wing group that derives its name from the (mistaken) belief that just three percent of colonialists stood up against the British during the American Revolution. 

The indictment alleges that, along with about 30 others, the men coordinated their actions in a Telegram chat that Taylor created and named “The California Patriots-DC Brigade,” intended for “able bodied individuals” headed to D.C. on Jan. 6.

“Many of us have not met before and we are all ready and willing to fight,” Taylor wrote in the description, the feds said. “We will come together for this moment that we are called upon.”

In one message to the group, Taylor wrote that they wanted “to be on the front steps and be one of the first ones to breach the doors!”

TWITTER

Alan Hostetter, left, and Russ Taylor, right, were among the six men indicted in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

The men’s indictment was unsealed five months after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. Federal authorities are closing in on 500 arrests in connection with the insurrection; 300 additional suspects have their photos featured on the FBI’s Capitol wanted page, and there are an untold number of other solid cases against Capitol suspects within the FBI’s database of hundreds of thousands of tips received from the public.

The feds estimated that about 2,000 people were involved in the Capitol breach. New federal charges continue to roll in on a near-daily basis, and there are plenty more arrests in the works. 

Hostetter and Taylor weren’t exactly incognito, and they received media attention in the weeks after the attack. Radley Balko of The Washington Post reported on Hostetter and his past in January, and days later, David Corn of Mother Jones reported on Hostetter’s call for the execution of Trump’s enemies at a rally in California on Dec. 12. But the new indictment wraps up an even larger crew of California “patriots” who plotted their attack on the U.S. Capitol ahead of time.

The indictment is welcome news to some of the online investigators who have been tracking Hostetter’s crew for months, even before the Capitol riot.

Katie, a woman from California who was part of a small group that tracked the American Phoenix Project before the attack, started digging through Jan. 6 footage when Taylor popped up in the background of a video of Simone Gold, another Jan. 6 defendant from California.

Gold, like the latest set of California defendants, operated in the same fervently pro-Trump circles as Daniel Rodriguez, who electroshocked D.C. police officer Mike Fanone during the Capitol attack. Rodriguez associated with the Three Percenters and attended right-wing events in Huntington Beach, where Hostetter gave a speech suggesting executing Trump’s enemies. HuffPost reported on Rodriguez’s identity in late February, and he was arrested in late March.

Katie told HuffPost she went down the rabbit hole and began working to find any footage they could of members of the group on Jan. 6. While the indictment doesn’t cite the work of Katie’s Twitter group directly, it seems to builds off of their findings.

What the indictment doesn’t mention is this: As Twitter users chronicled his actions, Hostetter wrote them eerie, borderline-threatening tweets. “I know your name,” he wrote in one February Twitter reply to a Twitter investigator who wrote that they’d “love to chat sometime” about how Hostetter’s crew carried bags and weapons to the Capitol.

“We will be chatting soon enough, trust me,” Hostetter replied. “My team is zeroing in,” he wrote in another tweet to Katie. “Just wait until the script is flipped.”

Katie said surfacing the group’s actions was important even if it has caused some stress.

“We did this because the public needed to know,” Katie said before joking, “I’ve always been nosey by nature, but I never thought it would lead to this.”

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Russ Taylor, right, flips off cops at the Capitol.

On the eve of the Capitol attack, Taylor spoke at a Virginia Women for Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol as part of an American Phoenix Project panel. He called himself a “free American” and said he would “fight” and “bleed” before allowing freedom to be taken. 

“These anti-Americans have made the fatal mistake,” Taylor said. “They have brought out the patriots’ fury onto these streets and they did so without knowing that we will not return to our peaceful way of life until this election is made right, our freedoms are restored, and America is preserved.”

The next day, the indictment alleges, the men made good on their rhetoric. Warner entered the building through a broken window. Taylor and Hostetter joined the mob pushing through the police line, with Taylor warning officers it was their “last chance” to “move back.”

Martinez and Kinnison made their way to the Upper West Terrace of the Capitol Building too, while Mele shot a selfie video.

“We stormed the Capitol,” Mele said.

TASOS KATOPODIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Russ Taylor (middle, in MAGA hat) on the west side of the Capitol during the attack. Another likely defendant, wearing a similar patch, appears on the right.

Taylor later bragged about his exploits in the Telegram chat. “I was pushing through traitors all day today. WE STORMED THE CAPITOL! Freedom was fully demonstrated today!” 

On Instagram, Hostetter called the attack the “shot heard round the world” and the “2021 version of 1776.” He noted that war lasted eight years. “We are just getting started,” he wrote. 

LINK