Capitol Riot Investigation Thread

[malchior]

I don't think it's worse but I think McConnell is now locked into maximizing his chances to get the Senate back in 2022. He probably calculates accurately that sinking the commission now reduces the damage next year. It's all political math to him. I think McConnell's strategy is to keep delivering defeats or compromises that weaken Biden and just chip, chip, chip away at his support. And I think it very could work. McConnell is no idiot and he knows the Democrats are just that inept and too weak to stop him.

[Isgrimnur]

If there’s anything that’s as good as money in the bank, it’s Mitch McConnell’s word.

[Defiant]

One idea I've heard, for when the Republicans prevent the Senate for voting for this, is to have Biden create a commission, by executive order, headed by Bush and Obama (and have them picking the rest of the commission members).

[El Guapo]

One idea I've heard, for when the Republicans prevent the Senate for voting for this, is to have Biden create a commission, by executive order, headed by Bush and Obama (and have them picking the rest of the commission members).

Oh man, they could have a televised draft for the Commission members. Worth it just to see Marco Rubio trying to push his way to the front and then skulk away when nobody picks him.

[malchior]

Down goes the commission. McConnell wins again. I'm sick of it. The Democrats have to act.

[malchior]

One idea I've heard, for when the Republicans prevent the Senate for voting for this, is to have Biden create a commission, by executive order, headed by Bush and Obama (and have them picking the rest of the commission members).

I've heard this one too. I saw a couple of Constitutional lawsplainers saying that no law would give them any sort of subpoena power. Compliance or testimony would be purely voluntary and they'd only be able to use evidence gathered by agencies which might have policy/rules/court rulings that impact their availability.

[Holman]

Can't Pelosi now just go it alone and Benghazi the shit out of this?

[Octavious]

It's the Dems they won't do anything. Nor do I think they actually want to.

[Smoove_B]

Can't Pelosi now just go it alone and Benghazi the shit out of this?

She might. But then the GOP gets to rail on how it's a political witch hunt as they go on the offensive. And enough Democrats will wring their hands and shuffle their feet to make it seems like there's division in the ranks- which the media will report as DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY.

The only thing the GOP can do is stall and delay and as long as Manchin in the Senate allows them to, why should they do anything else?

[Holman]

Ashli Babbit was shot when she rushed a capitol police officer who warned her against entering the building.

Congressman Gosar is (obscenely) quoting lyrics about MLK Jr here.

He has also enthusiastically attended and addressed white-nationalist political events.

This is his response to the Senate failing to approve an investigation into the events of January 6.

[Jaymann]

And here I thought he was quoting Bono.

[Smoove_B]

This is his response to the Senate failing to approve an investigation into the events of January 6.

Which should really help remove any doubt they're fully in support of the next attempt. Maybe even helping it if they can.

That woman died wearing a Trump flag like a cape. The idea that he's elevating her status is both disgusting and disturbing.

[msteelers]

I'm still seeing Trump flags all over my neighborhood. And yesterday I saw a bumpersticker of the classic Gadsden "Don't Tread on Me" flag, that had been changed to say "Don't Tread on Trump".

I found that incredibly chilling.

[Holman]

And here I thought he was quoting Bono.

?

He is. "Pride (in the Name of Love)" is about King.

[Holman]

This is his response to the Senate failing to approve an investigation into the events of January 6.

Which should really help remove any doubt they're fully in support of the next attempt. Maybe even helping it if they can.

That woman died wearing a Trump flag like a cape. The idea that he's elevating her status is both disgusting and disturbing.

She's their Horst Wessel.

[Kraken]

I trust the Senate to do the right thing next time. Because next time liberals will be the ones bringing torches and pitchforks when the House refuses to certify Biden or Harris in '24.

[Zaxxon]

[Grifman]

Pelosi has the power to create a house "select committee" with subpoena power and also the power to grant immunity In exchange for testimony. In addition she has 35 Republican House members she can pick from so that she can make the committee bi-partisan. Of course, potential witnesses can go to court and try to fight the subpoenas (which they will inevitably lose) but that will on drag things out into the mid term elections so that only benefits the Democrats. This is what she ought to do.

[YellowKing]

You would think, since the January 6 protestors were all ANTIFA and BLM supporters trying to make Trump supporters look bad, that the GOP would be falling all over themselves to investigate it.

It's yet another example that they don't believe the horseshit they're spewing.

[malchior]

Of course they don't believe it. They know what they are doing. It is why danger levels are off the chart right now. There is no disguising their motives anymore and yet we still have people with the power to do something about it either downplaying it or lying to themselves about it. All around it's inexcusable.

As to people worrying that Pelosi's potential select committee (which she absolutely should do) is partisan looking thing...so be it. It happens to be the only viable option. The downside is that every Republican witness is going to stonewall and ignore subpoenas and tie it up in court hoping for the inevitable 2022 turnaround. That's a real risk so they need to move as fast as they can while they still have some time. They also know that will be the GOP gameplan. The opportunity arises to turn that against the GOP. The GOP wanted this done by end of the year to avoid polluting the mid-terms. Sounds like they know what the weakness is there. Attack it.

They need to figure out a way to spin that political hay into gold. Delay might be a great way to keep this alive to make the mid-terms a referendum on the continuation of a democracy in the United States. Every obstructionist Republican, every court case, every delay they need to expose, explain and use against the GOP over the next 18 months to keep the House. Or this experiment might be over.

[Holman]

The Benghazi investigations destroyed Hillary Clinton (whose approval was at 65% when the shitshow began), and they didn't even have the benefit of any truth or treason behind them.

[Carpet_pissr]

I think a lot of people including innn bc leadership positions, are in a “it couldn’t happen here!” state of denial.

Much like family members interviewed after a violent tragedy are in shock and disbelief.

It’s something that happens in other places, not (never) here.

[malchior]

Actual NY Times headline - Democrats failed to get enough votes for an independent inquiry into the Jan. 6 riot.

The article itself is mostly fine in that -- only the NY Times can write impending doom impassively way -- but that headline? What the actual fuck?

[Smoove_B]

I was close with my guess - suggesting the headlines would be DEMOCRATS IN DISARRAY.

I really don't know if we should collectively pin our hopes on Pelosi pulling us out of this nosedive with the creation of a House-backed committee. It almost feels like there could be another gang of tourists that try to violently barge into the Capitol over the 7/4 weekend ("for freedom") and people would be standing around saying, "How did this happen? How did we miss that this was going to occur?"

Feeling low.

[Jaymann]

Misunderstandings were made.

[YellowKing]

As to people worrying that Pelosi's potential select committee (which she absolutely should do) is partisan looking thing...so be it.

Exactly. Who the fuck cares at this point if it looks partisan? The GOP gave up any pretense of "not looking partisan" eons ago. The Democrats have to get out of this "but what will the neighbors think?" mindset.

[Smoove_B]

It matters in the sense that it continues to whip the extremist GOP members (and their associates into a frenzy). The GOP absolutely wants Pelosi or Biden to create a special committee so they can rail against it and fuel their attempts to regain control in 2022 and 2024.

That's what's so insane about all this - every action feeds the insanity.

[Pyperkub]

It matters in the sense that it continues to whip the extremist GOP members (and their associates into a frenzy). The GOP absolutely wants Pelosi or Biden to create a special committee so they can rail against it and fuel their attempts to regain control in 2022 and 2024.

That's what's so insane about all this - every action feeds the insanity.

Pssst. The GOP is doing that anyways.

[LordMortis]

As to people worrying that Pelosi's potential select committee (which she absolutely should do) is partisan looking thing...so be it.

Exactly. Who the fuck cares at this point if it looks partisan? The GOP gave up any pretense of "not looking partisan" eons ago. The Democrats have to get out of this "but what will the neighbors think?" mindset.

There were political GOP ads on CNBC this morning with the calming music and the "We need to just all get along and move the country forward" message... Not about anything in particular, just in general. There was some sort of general vague insinuation that partisan politics is all a creation of democrats while the republicans have been trying to govern. I almost had to drop everything to listen but I didn't.

[Little Raven]

Exactly. Who the fuck cares at this point if it looks partisan?

It matters based on what you want to accomplish.

Do you just want to rile up your base, and convince them that the other side is bad bad bad and must never be trusted again? Benghazi the hell out of it. Nobody on the right will care, since (to them) it will be perfectly obvious that it's a partisan witch-hunt with no basis in reality, though they will mock it at every opportunity. But we can get at least 2 (maybe 4!) years of breathless articles in Slate about how terrible the GOP is. We might even get NPR and the Times to pay attention for a few months, but they will get bored of it pretty quickly once they realize it's sound and fury signifying nothing.

If you actually want it to change anything, then you need buy in from both sides - which we're not going to get.

[malchior]

Trump's accounts at FB and Insta are back online. You can't make this shit up.

Edit: Facebook says this isn't true (it might be a technical error).

Edit 2: A lot of the tweets about this got deleted but apparently the posts were never taken down and stories started flying this evening.

[malchior]

WaPo op ed by George Conway

Republican senators have managed to outdo themselves in cowardice — which is quite a feat.

Last week’s Senate vote blocking a national commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol was even more appalling than either of the Senate’s impeachment trial acquittals of former president Donald Trump.

With few exceptions, Senate Republicans shirked their duties at both trials, despite the oaths they took to defend the Constitution, and, in an impeachment trial, to “do impartial justice.” These derelictions were especially apparent in the first impeachment trial. Faced with overwhelming evidence that Trump had used his official powers to try to coerce a foreign nation into aiding his reelection campaign, all but one Republican (Utah’s Mitt Romney) voted to acquit him, even as the senators refused to call witnesses.

They betrayed their oaths again in February, when 43 of the 50 Republican senators voted to acquit Trump of inciting the insurrection, even though he had largely committed his high crime openly, on television and Twitter, and even though the senators themselves were among the victims.

They acquitted him even though they surely recognized, as their own leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), blisteringly said on the floor on Feb. 13 after voting to acquit, that Trump had engaged in a “disgraceful — disgraceful — dereliction of duty." Rather than “do his job,” McConnell said, Trump “watched television happily — happily — as the chaos unfolded,” hoping “to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.”

Trump breached his duties in both cases, and Senate Republicans thus failed to carry out theirs. But at least then the senators had excuses, however feeble.

With the first impeachment, they faced the momentous decision of whether to remove a president from office — something that has never been done. You can’t blame anyone for feeling trepidation at such a prospect.

The second time around, most claimed they couldn’t convict a former president, even though he had been impeached while in office for acts committed while in office. Constitutional text and history refute that proposition, but you could at least understand one underlying motivation: The usual sanction for an impeachment conviction is removal. Trump was already gone, posed no further threat of committing official abuse, had just lost an election by 7 million votes and stood as unpopular as ever. So, at least the theory went, why bother convicting him just to formally disqualify him from ever holding federal offices to which he’d never be elected?

Those may not have been great excuses, but at least the Republicans had them.

There was no excuse — none — for what they did last week.

They weren’t being asked to remove anyone from office; they weren’t being asked to pass judgment of any sort. They were merely being asked to allow a bipartisan commission to look into what happened on, and led to, Jan. 6.

Even worse: They actually weren’t voting on whether to create a commission; they were voting on cloture — on whether even to allow a vote on the issue. Using the filibuster, a Republican minority refused to allow a majority (which would have included seven Republicans) to hold that vote.

And they did so out of raw political fear, this time without fig leaves. McConnell’s own leadership colleague, minority whip Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), actually admitted that Republicans feared that the commission’s findings “could be weaponized politically and drug into next year,” a midterm election year.

As for McConnell, he pulled out all the stops. Virtually echoing British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s notorious call to partisanship in the decisive 1940 parliamentary debate over his handling of Nazi aggression — “I have friends in the House” — McConnell shamelessly asked his colleagues to kill the commission bill as “a personal favor” to him.

With that, the Republicans’ policy of appeasing Trump prevailed once again. But if Republicans are worried about what would happen if the public learned more of the truth about Jan. 6, they have only themselves to blame.

... snip ...

[LawBeefaroni]

I wouldn't say it's cowardice. The GOP are brash, arrogant, venal, self-serving criminals. The Dems are the cowards watching them tear the nation down while mumbling, "Stop? Please stop or something?"

[malchior]

Heck they can't figure out a way to serve a lawsuit from one Congressman to another Congressman.

Months to serve a lawsuit to a man in the same building? He never leaves his office? He never has dinner out in public? He is never in his home Congressional office?

Republican Rep. Mo Brooks is avoiding a lawsuit from his Democratic colleague Rep. Eric Swalwell that seeks to hold him accountable for the January 6 Capitol insurrection -- so much so that Swalwell's attorneys hired a private investigator to find him.

The detail comes in a court filing Wednesday in which Swalwell's attorneys describe difficulty in serving Brooks with the lawsuit. CNN has reached out to Brooks' office for comment.

Federal Judge Amit Mehta, after learning of Swalwell's inability to serve Brooks with the lawsuit, gave the Democrat's legal team another 60 days to get to Brooks with their formal notification. The judge, however, won't allow the US Marshals to deliver the lawsuit to the Republican congressman "due to separation of powers concerns," Mehta wrote, after Swalwell asked for the US Marshals Service's help.

After Swalwell -- a California Democrat -- sued in March, his attorneys tried to reach the Alabama Republican through calls to the congressman's office and by sending a letter to formally provide him notice he had been sued, a necessary step in this type of court proceeding.
When they couldn't get the lawsuit to Brooks, the Swalwell legal team hired a private investigator to find him -- only to be hampered in April and May partly by the visitor lockdowns around the US Capitol complex, which were put in place for Congress' protection after the siege, according to their filing Wednesday.

"Counsel spoke to two different staff members on two separate occasions, and each time was promised a return call that never came," Swalwell's attorneys wrote on Wednesday.

Following the Swalwell team's calls, they emailed, too. "Neither Brooks nor any member of his staff has responded to his request," their filing said.
"Plaintiff had to engage the services of a private investigator to attempt to serve Brooks personally -- a difficult feat under normal circumstances that has been complicated further in the wake of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol that Defendants incited," Swalwell's court filing continued. "Plaintiff's investigator has spent many hours over many days in April and May at locations in multiple jurisdictions attempting to locate and serve Brooks, to no avail."

[LawBeefaroni]

FFS.


He had a speaking engagement yesterday.

[Carpet_pissr]

FFS.


He had a speaking engagement yesterday.

How much did you pay a P.I. to find that tweet?

[LawBeefaroni]

FFS.


He had a speaking engagement yesterday.

How much did you pay a P.I. to find that tweet?

More than $1 but less than Niffers on the Tracks paid for the shout out.

[Isgrimnur]

Seeing as it's Niffer’s at the Tracks, they should get a discount.

[Isgrimnur]

CNN

Federal prosecutors say Sean McHugh of Auburn, California, fought with police as they fended off the massive mob of Trump supporters outside the Capitol on January 6. During the scuffle, McHugh was recorded by police body-worn cameras heckling the officers with a megaphone.

According to prosecutors' description of the footage, McHugh allegedly shouted, "You guys like protecting pedophiles?" "you're protecting communists," "I'd be shaking in your little s--t boots too," and, "there is a Second Amendment behind us, what are you going to do then?"
...
McHugh was convicted in 2010 on a state charge of unlawful sex with a minor, according to California court records reviewed by CNN and lawyers involved in McHugh's cases. McHugh was sentenced to 240 days in jail -- though he served less -- and got four years of probation.

There was DNA evidence that connected McHugh to the girl, former prosecutor Todd Kuhnen told CNN. The victim was 14 years old and McHugh was 23 when the crime occurred, Kuhnen said. The victim also alleged that she was intoxicated when the incident occurred.
...
At the time of the riot, McHugh was on probation for misdemeanor convictions for driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license, according to federal court documents.

McHugh has a long rap sheet of misdemeanor convictions, including multiple DUIs and trespassing offenses, according to Negin and a CNN review of California state court records. He is one of many rioters with criminal records, and he is one of a few rioters who were on probation or parole for other unrelated crimes when they went to the Capitol on January 6.

[Unagi]

When Republicans send their patriots to the Capitol, they are not sending their best.