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More Released J6 Tapes Show Police Escorting and Fist-Bumping Protesters at the Capitol

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | NOVEMBER 20, 2023

More footage from the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, further contradicts the left-wing narrative that the day’s events constituted a “violent insurrection” wherein democracy itself was placed in jeopardy at the hands of virulent demonstrators.

Last week, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana began releasing tapes containing more than 40,000 hours of footage from the Capitol, which were buried for three years while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and lawmakers on the partisan Jan. 6 Committee worked to dramatize the riot with prime-time show trials.

“When I ran for Speaker, I promised to make accessible to the American people the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill security taken on January 6, 2021. Truth and transparency are critical,” Johnson said in a statement. “This decision will provide millions of Americans, criminal defendants, public interest organizations and the media an ability to see for themselves what happened that day, rather than having to rely upon the interpretation of a small group of government officials.”

With a bulk of the footage made available by Friday, the rest of the tapes will be made public on a rolling basis. Cameras captured demonstrators peacefully marching through the halls of the Capitol while police officers stood by.

Jan 6 defendants have long argued that the initial entrants were peaceably escorted into the building by Capitol Police, and therefore had no reasonable expectation that their conduct was unlawful

This video, suppressed for almost 3 years, confirms itpic.twitter.com/F24MAf0mXS
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) November 18, 2023

In another clip, a Capitol police officer is seen removing restraints on one demonstrator after walking him down a hallway out of sight from the crowd — before another officer bizarrely congratulates him with a fist bump.

I don’t think Capitol Police would take restraints off of a protester, FIST BUMP him, and then let him go if this were an actual “insurrection”

pic.twitter.com/sR2N0lKvG7
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 17, 2023

The footage corroborates what was shared by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in March before his abrupt exit from the network. Johnson’s Republican predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, gave Carlson’s producers access to the footage that had been kept under seal by the Democrat majority.

“That video,” Carlson said, “tells a very different story about what happened on Jan. 6.”

[READ: Everything You Need To Know About Tucker Carlson’s J6 Tapes]

The tapes aired by Carlson showed Jacob Chansley, the infamous “QAnon Shaman,” being escorted by police around the complex; revealed deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick “healthy and vigorous” after allegedly being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher; and unearthed new contradictions in Ray Epps’ testimony. The tapes also exposed outright fabrications by the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, which was established by House Speaker Pelosi ostensibly to probe the Capitol turmoil while concealing her own failures.

Democrat Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chaired the partisan Select Committee, bizarrely conceded that over the course of the panel’s two-year investigation, lawmakers never reviewed the blockbuster footage that was later published by Fox News.

“I’m not actually aware of any member of the committee who had access,” Thompson said. “We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video.”

Former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, meanwhile, who was vice chair of the Select Committee before an overwhelming primary defeat by Rep. Harriet Hageman, tried to downplay Friday’s release by resharing some of the panel’s carefully selected footage of the mob.

“Here’s some January 6th video for you,” she wrote on X, previously known as Twitter.

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, whom Cheney’s Soviet-style committee sought to frame as a collaborator in an apparent insurrection, pushed back on Cheney’s narrative.

“Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times. You made sure we saw that — and nothing else,” Lee wrote on X. “It’s the other stuff — what you deliberately hid from us — that we find so upsetting.”

Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times.

You made sure we saw that—and nothing else.

It’s the other stuff—what you deliberately hid from us—that we find so upsetting.

Nice try.

P.S. How many of these guys are feds? (As if you’d ever tell us). https://t.co/FryO0VdLdP
— Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) November 18, 2023

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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Operation Deplorable: A Who’s Who Of The ‘Get Trump’ Crusade

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | NOVEMBER 03, 2023

Author Tristan Justice profile

TRISTAN JUSTICE

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The 2024 Republican presidential front-runner is faced with 91 state and federal charges one year from Election Day. After a series of failed attempts to capture the criminal conviction of Donald Trump, Democrats have charged their primary political opponent with nearly 100 crimes to thwart the former president’s triumphant return to the Oval Office. Here’s a “who’s who” of the key players in the Democrats’ latest crusade to achieve the top item on their policy agenda.

Alvin Bragg

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was the first prosecutor to land the coveted indictment of Democrats’ Public Enemy No. 1. In April, the New York prosecutor unveiled a 34-count indictment against Trump, carrying a maximum 136-year prison sentence. The charges stem from 2016 hush-money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a case prosecutors previously declined to pursue.

The Manhattan charges, however, marked the fulfillment of a campaign promise Bragg made two years ago to prosecute the former president. Prosecuting Trump was apparently the top issue of his platform in 2021.

“Bragg often reminded voters on the campaign trail that he helped sue the Trump administration ‘more than a hundred times’ as a deputy in the New York state attorney general’s office,” Reuters reported that year.

The 50-year-old prosecutor’s own supporters pointed to his ability to pursue Trump in court as a reason to back him. The New York Times reported on Bragg’s endorsement from a former U.S. attorney in July 2021.

“Preet Bharara, a former United States attorney in Manhattan who supervised Mr. Bragg and endorsed his candidacy, said Mr. Bragg had varied experience as a prosecutor, and that his work on white-collar crime and public corruption cases could come into play in the investigation into Mr. Trump,” the Times read.

Bragg was also promoted to his current office with financial support from left-wing billionaire financier George Soros. The super PAC backed by Soros, Color of Change, pledged to bankroll Bragg’s campaign with a seven-figure sum in the spring of 2021. Soon after the cash infusion, the committee pulled back $500,000 of the donation when Bragg faced allegations of sexual misconduct of his own.

Bragg’s record in New York, meanwhile, has been one of unleashed crime while prosecutors pursue politicized investigations against the most popular Republican in the country. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last year, Soros admitted to backing candidates who promised to be soft on crime, branded as “reform prosecutors.” Bragg has held up to the pledge by prioritizing Trump instead of dangerous criminals. According to The New York Times, major crime spiked 22 percent during Bragg’s first year in office.

Letitia James

While Bragg pursues criminal charges against the former president, New York Attorney General Letitia James has Trump in civil court on allegations of fraud. In September last year, the attorney general filed a $250 million fraud suit with the state Supreme Court in Manhattan, accusing the former president of inflating corporate assets to obtain financial benefits.

“We found that Mr. Trump, his children, and the corporation used more than 200 false asset valuations over a 10-year period,” said James at a press conference.

James, 65, won in a partial summary judgment a year later, and in October, the trial began after the judge found the Trump family, including Trump himself, liable for fraud. The judge in the case ordered the termination of Trump’s New York business license and will now examine charges by James to determine additional penalties. In October, an appeals court put a hold on the judge’s mandate to dissolve Trump’s business in the state.

The aggressive effort against the Trump family’s New York business empire marks another campaign promise fulfilled by the state attorney general. Similar to Bragg, James ran for office in 2018 on a platform to prosecute the president. When first campaigning for the statewide job five years ago, James railed against the Republican president as “illegitimate” and an “embarrassment.”

“NY Attorney General Letitia James has a long history of fighting Trump and other powerful targets,” headlined an Associated Press profile of James in September.

“Letitia James fixated on Donald Trump as she campaigned for New York attorney general, branding the then-president a ‘con man’ and ‘carnival barker’ and pledging to shine a ‘bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings,’” the AP reported. “Five years later, James is on the verge of disrupting Trump’s real estate empire.”

James was reelected last fall just more than a month after she unveiled the $250 million lawsuit against the Trump family. Now James is on the cusp of capturing Trump’s corporate exile from the Empire State.

Arthur Engoron

The state-friendly judge presiding over James’ civil lawsuit against Trump is a Democrat who held the former president in contempt last year over subpoena violations. Arthur Engoron is a judge in the New York Supreme Court’s 1st Judicial District who ran unopposed for the seat in the 2015 general election.

In September, Judge Engoron devalued the former president’s Mar-a-Lago Florida estate from between $426 million and $612 million, as estimated by the Trumps, to a mere $18 and $28 million.

[READ: N.Y. Judge Cherry-Picks Lowball Mar-a-Lago Appraisal To Find Trump Guilty Of Inflating Property Values]

The stunning devaluation stands in contrast to smaller properties at Palm Beach, which sold for far more. Rush Limbaugh’s former residence, for example, sold for $155 million despite a $51 million appraisal. Mar-a-Lago, meanwhile, is the only property at Palm Beach to face the waterfront on both the ocean and the waterway.

Last month, Engoron also implemented a gag order to prevent Trump from even speaking out against the accusations against him. Trump was fined twice over violations of the gag order for a combined $15,000.

Jack Smith

Jack Smith, 54, a veteran prosecutor with years spent at the Justice Department, was appointed last November to lead two of the federal efforts seeking Trump’s conviction. Now special counsel in a pair of cases prosecuting Democrats’ top political opponent, Smith was previously head of the DOJ public integrity unit from 2010 to 2015. Among his most notable cases was the prosecution of former Virginia Republican Gov. Robert McDonnell, whom the Supreme Court exonerated of a bribery conviction in 2016. Smith was also involved in the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax scandal targeting conservative nonprofits.

Now Smith is spearheading the federal government’s criminal efforts against Trump regarding classified documents and the events related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. In June, Trump was indicted with 37 counts of mishandling classified information, with three more charges handed down in the case about two months later. Smith indicted Trump with an additional four charges in a separate case this summer over objections to electoral certification, such as Democrats have made for decades.

Tanya Chutkan

Smith’s team at the Justice Department could not have landed a more friendly judge in the government’s Jan. 6 case against Trump than U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan. An activist judge with an obvious animus against the former president and his supporters, the Obama appointee was assigned to preside over the politically fraught Jan. 6 case after building a reputation as “a tough punisher of Capitol rioters.”

“Other judges typically have handed down sentences that are more lenient than those requested by prosecutors,” the AP reported. “Chutkan, however, has matched or exceeded prosecutors’ recommendations in 19 of her 38 sentences. In four of those cases, prosecutors weren’t seeking any jail time at all.”

When Trump complained the federal charges against him amounted to election interference by the DOJ, Chutkan shrugged off the accusations, saying, “That’s how it has to be.” Chutkan previously condemned comparisons between the Capitol turmoil and the far-left riots that characterized the summer of 2020 in other rulings of pro-Trump demonstrators. The fiery riots, she claimed, were actually “the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights.” Chutkan said comparisons between the two “ignore[] a very real danger that the Jan. 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy.”

In September, Chutkan predictably denied Trump’s request to recuse herself from the Jan. 6 trial. In October, Chutkan handed down another gag order to prevent the president from speaking publicly and openly about the case. On Nov. 1, Chutkan handed down an order allowing Smith’s team to conceal evidence from Trump’s attorneys that the DOJ has identified as “classified.”

Fani Willis

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia upset a six-term incumbent when she defeated her former boss, Paul Howard, three years ago. Willis, who beat Howard in the primary runoff, carried the general election unopposed after no Republicans qualified for the November contest.

Willis’ investigation of Trump and the former president’s campaign team was one of her first acts in office and will define her legacy. In August, the DA for Fulton County, which covers most of Atlanta, charged Trump with 13 counts related to the former president’s efforts to protest aspects of the 2020 election. The Georgia prosecutor also indicted 18 Trump allies, several of whom have taken plea deals. Trump adviser Jeffrey Clark, however, filed a motion on Oct. 31 to dismiss the “massive and grotesque abuse of prosecutorial power.”

A September report from The Federalist revealed Willis possesses evidence exonerating Georgia’s alternate electors but continues to pursue criminal convictions anyway.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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7 Revelations From Ex-Capitol Police Chief That Explode Democrats’ Jan. 6 Narrative

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | AUGUST 11, 2023

TRISTAN JUSTICE

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Ex-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund is determined to set the record straight on what happened at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot more than two years ago.

After writing a book that challenged the groupthink of corporate media and the partisan Jan. 6 Committee, Sund sat down for an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. According to Carlson, the interview with Sund was scheduled to air on the network April 24, the same day Fox News announced the anchor’s termination. (Another already-taped interview, with a Federalist senior contributor, was also stifled). Fox News refused to release the footage of Sund’s conversation with Carlson, so the pair recorded another sit-down published on Twitter Thursday.

“[Sund] knew more about what happened than virtually anyone else in the United States,” Carlson said. “Yet congressional investigators weren’t interested in talking to him. The media, not interested in talking to him. But we were.”

Ep. 15 Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund reveals what really happened on January 6th. Our Fox News interview with him never aired, so we invited him back. pic.twitter.com/opDlu4QGlp
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 10, 2023

1. DHS, FBI Hid Intelligence From Capitol Police

Sund went on to make explosive allegations of federal misconduct related to the Capitol chaos that raised more questions than answers about how and why the complex was left vulnerable. The Capitol Police, Sund said, were left in the dark about a cascade of intelligence gathered by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security that warned about the rally turning violent.

The intelligence that Capitol Police gathered, Sund said, indicated a level of political activity similar to previous rallies that featured “limited skirmishes” with counter-protesters.

“Coming into it,” Sund said, Capitol Police received “absolutely zero” of the “intelligence that we know now existed talking about attacking the Capitol, killing my police officers, attacking members of Congress, and killing members of Congress.”

“None of that was included in the intelligence coming up,” Sund said. “We now know FBI, DHS was swimming in that intelligence. We also know now that the military seemed to have some very concerning intelligence as well. “

“None of the intelligence,” Sund said, was shared with the Capitol Police chief.

“I’ve done many national security events and this was handled differently,” Sund added. “No intelligence, no [Joint Intelligence Bulletin], no coordination, no discussion in advance.”

2. Milley Wanted to Shut Down D.C. Ahead Of Jan. 6

Military officials were so concerned about the intelligence that warned of an explosive riot that the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, considered preemptively shutting down the city.

“Acting Secretary of Defense [Christopher] Miller and General Milley had both discussed locking down the city of Washington D.C. because they were so worried about violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Sund said.

According to Sund, the two Pentagon leaders discussed even revoking permits on Capitol Hill out of concern for violence.

“You know who issues the permits on Capitol Hill for demonstrations?” Sund said. “I do. You know who wasn’t told? Me.”

On Jan. 4, however, Miller signed a memo “restricting the National Guard from carrying the various weapons, any weapons, any civil disobedience equipment that would be utilized for the very demonstrations or violence he sees coming.”

3. Congressional Leadership Denied National Guard Requests Before and During Riot

Despite federal intelligence warning of mass upheaval amid the joint session of Congress, Sund explained how he was denied preemptive deployment of the National Guard twice in the days leading up to the riot. On Jan. 3, 2021, Sund sought approval from congressional leadership for guard deployment as was still required by law.

“I was denied twice because of optics and because the intelligence didn’t support us,” Sund said. “I was denied by Paul Irving, House sergeant-at-arms, and also Mike Stenger, Senate sergeant-at-arms.”

Irving served under the direction of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Stenger reported to GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The former Capitol Police chief said he was forced to beg for National Guard assistance as the turmoil escalated. While the riot grew, Sund said he called House Sergeant-at-Arms Irving to demand reinforcements from the nearby Guard troops.

“I’m told by Paul Irving, ‘I’m gonna run it up the chain, I’ll get back to you,’” Sund said. “His chain would be up to Nancy Pelosi. He didn’t have to do that but he wouldn’t give me authorization.”

Irving was allowed to authorize the deployment without Pelosi’s approval in the event of an emergency, Sund said. The former speaker’s office co nfirmed to The New York Times that Pelosi herself was asked to dispatch the National Guard.

Sund said Stenger was called next, who in turn said, “Let’s wait to hear what we hear from Paul [Irving].”

“For the next 71 minutes I make 32 calls,” Sund said, with no help from congressional leadership.

4. Secret Service Turned Over One Text to J6 Committee

While Sund made dozens of calls from the Capitol command center, the first agency to come to the police chief’s assistance was the Secret Service.

“One of the first people to offer assistance was United States Secret Service,” Sund said. “By law, I shouldn’t have requested their assistance … until I had approval. But I’m looking at my men and women having their asses handed to them and my first thought was ‘f-ck it, I will take whatever discipline there is. Send me whatever you got.’”

“That was the one text Secret Service turned over,” Sund added.

The agency had apparently deleted text messages from Jan. 5-6, 2021, that were subpoenaed by the House select committee probing the riot last summer. The only message turned over was Sund’s out-of-order request for support.

5. New Jersey State Police Arrived to Help Before National Guard

While Sund was begging congressional leaders to greenlight assistance from the National Guard, New Jersey State Police were on their way to reinforce Capitol Police.

The 150 to 180 National Guard troops who were “within eyesight” of the Capitol, Sund told Carlson, were put in vehicles and driven around the complex back to the D.C. Armory. Instead, Sund received the evening troops, who didn’t arrive on the scene until 6 p.m. By that point, according to Sund, the Capitol was under control.

“While I’m begging for assistance,” Sund said, “the Pentagon sent in resources to generals’ houses to protect their homes but not me.”

By the time the National Guard finally showed up, Sund noted, “New Jersey State Police [had] beat them to the Capitol.”

National Guardsmen were then positioned in front of the Capitol to take “pictures for military magazines” as “heroes” of Jan. 6.

6. Sund Wasn’t Told About Federal Informants Present at the Capitol

In the fall of 2021, The New York Times confirmed the presence of at least one federal informant at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot after the paper dismissed such claims as a conspiracy theory. The former Capitol police chief, however, was kept in the dark on undercover operations with “no idea” how many were in the crowd. The Justice Department had even deployed special commandos with “shoot to kill authority” at the Capitol, according to Newsweek.

“Not to share that in the intelligence,” Sund said, “that’s concerning.”

7. Lawmakers Didn’t Want Sund to Testify

In the aftermath of the Capitol riot, lawmakers began to schedule hearings on the security failures while the fever grew to launch a snap impeachment of the outgoing president.

“I fought to testify,” Sund said, but “they didn’t want me to testify in the Senate hearing.”

The hearing in the upper chamber was initially limited to current Capitol employees. Sund was excluded from the lineup because he was immediately dismissed from his job as chief of police after the riot. Irving and Stenger would have also initially been excluded. The trio of security officers eventually testified in the upper chamber after Trump’s acquittal in February 2021, with Sund the only one to appear in person.

Meanwhile Pelosi, who was in charge of the Capitol as speaker of the House, was “off limits” to investigation — leaving open questions such as whether the speaker was briefed on the potential for violence from other agencies. The House speaker even blocked Republican access to relevant documents ignored by the Democrats’ Jan. 6 Committee.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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Republicans Investigating J6 Committee Suggest Dems Destroyed Evidence In Apparent Cover Up

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | AUGUST 10, 2023

In November, the leader of the incoming House Republican majority, Kevin McCarthy, sent a letter to the Select Committee on Jan. 6 reminding lawmakers they were required to “preserve all records” related to the panel’s work. Nine months later, however, Republicans in charge of investigating the committee’s work say the probe failed to comply with House rules.

GOP Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk, who became the target of the since-disbanded committee’s salacious attacks last summer, is leading the Republican probe into the Jan. 6 Committee as chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight for the Committee on House Administration. Loudermilk told Fox News on Tuesday his team has struggled to locate the leftover material required to review the Select Committee’s work under Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. The partisan probe spent 18 months prosecuting political opponents and was complete with Soviet-style show trials presented with fabricated evidence while lawmakers sought to portray the Capitol riot as a “deadly insurrection.”

“Nothing was indexed. There was no table of contents index. Usually when you conduct this level of investigation, you use a database system and everything is digitized, indexed. We got nothing like that,” Loudermilk said. “So it took us a long time going through it and one thing I started realizing is we don’t have anything much at all from the Blue Team.”

The “Blue Team” refers to the investigative staff on the committee in charge of probing the Capitol security failures, all of which point to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After then-Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson aired footage undermining central narratives of the Jan. 6 Committee in March, Chairman Thompson admitted the Select Committee didn’t actually review Capitol surveillance video.

[READ: Everything You Need To Know About Tucker Carlson’s J6 Tapes]

“We’ve got lots of depositions, we’ve got lots of subpoenas, we’ve got video and other documents provided through subpoenas by individuals,” Loudermilk told Fox. “But we’re not seeing anything from the Blue Team as far as reports on the investigation they did looking into the actual breach itself.”

“What we also realized we didn’t have was the videos of all the depositions,” said the congressman.

Fox News reported on a series of exchanges between Thompson and Loudermilk, the latter of whom was defamed by the committee as giving “reconnaissance” tours of the Capitol on the eve of the riot. The Jan. 6 tapes aired by Carlson, however, show the Georgia Republican was giving a routine tour of the complex to constituents.

Loudermilk told Fox News his committee was only given 2.5 terabytes of data, contrary to Thompson’s initial claim the Select Committee handed over 4. A letter from the former chairman of the Democrats’ probe this summer conceded the Select Committee failed to maintain records that the probe was required to preserve.

“Consistent with guidance from the Office of the Clerk and other authorities, the Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative activities,” Thompson wrote.

“He’s saying they decided they didn’t have to,” Loudermilk told Fox News. “The more we go in the more we’re realizing that there’s things that we don’t have. We don’t have anything about security failures at the Capitol, we don’t have the videos of the depositions.”

McCarthy sent the letter demanding records preservation after reporting from The Washington Post raised concerns that the Select Committee was prepared to omit key details of the investigation.

“It is imperative that all information collected be preserved not just for institutional prerogatives but for transparency to the American people,” McCarthy wrote last fall. “The American people have a right to know that the allegations you have made are supported by the facts and to be able to view the transcripts with an eye towards encouraged enforcement of 18 USC 1001.”

California Republican Congressman Darrell Issa threatened members who served on the Jan. 6 Committee with censure over the destruction of records.

“The ones that are still in Congress might very well face a censure for what they participated in,” Issa said.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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New FBI Whistleblower Says Deputy Director Threatened Agents Uncomfortable with J6 Investigations

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JUNE 23, 2023

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An independent nonprofit government watchdog that specializes in whistleblower protection sent letters to Congress and the Department of Justice (DOJ) this week with more evidence of misconduct by FBI leadership.

On Thursday, Empower Oversight submitted an affidavit of a new FBI whistleblower who came forward with allegations of improper intimidation by FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate. The whistleblower claimed that shortly after Abbate’s appointment in February 2021, Abbate threatened agency employees concerned about the bureau’s overblown response to the Jan. 6 Capitol demonstrations that same year. During a secure video conference, said the unnamed employee, Abbate called on agency staff with concerns about the bureau’s approach to the Jan. 6 riot to meet with the deputy director personally so he could, in the whistleblower’s words, “set them straight.”

“I have witnessed hundreds of Director [Secure Video Teleconference]s and have never seen a direct threat like that any other time,” the whistleblower said in the affidavit. “It was chilling and personal, communicating clearly that there would be consequences for anyone that questioned his direction.”

In May, House lawmakers on the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government heard from several other FBI whistleblowers who made similar claims about the conduct of agency leadership. Former FBI Special Agent Steve Friend, who filed for whistleblower protection in August, told the committee he raised concerns over the FBI’s reaction to the Capitol riot, which he thought “could have undermined potentially righteous prosecutions and may have been part of an effort to inflate the FBI’s statistics on domestic extremism.”

“I also voiced concerns that the FBI’s use of SWAT and large-scale arrest operations to apprehend suspects who were accused of nonviolent crimes and misdemeanors, represented by counsel, and who pledged to cooperate with the federal authorities in the event of criminal charges created an unnecessary risk to FBI personnel and public safety,” Friend said. “At each level of my chain of command, leadership cautioned that despite my exemplary work performance, whistleblowing placed my otherwise bright future with the FBI at risk.”

Garret O’Boyle, another former FBI special agent who filed for whistleblower protection, told lawmakers how he moved his family “halfway across the country” before the FBI suspended him for speaking out.

“They allowed us to sell my family’s home. They ordered me to report to the new unit when our youngest daughter was only two weeks old. Then, on my first day on the new assignment, they suspended me; rendering my family homeless and refused to release our household goods, including our clothes, for weeks,” O’Boyle said.

House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, led by Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, have sought testimony from at least 16 FBI employees to probe agency misconduct related to whistleblower retaliation.

Empower Oversight made clear in a Thursday press release that “while the affiant doesn’t know and isn’t associated with Empower Oversight’s other FBI clients, the affidavit is relevant to FBI whistleblower cases that are currently under inspector general review.” According to the affidavit, Abbate’s threat goes against the bureau’s training for new employees who are taken for a tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to learn about the lessons for law enforcement.

“The message was this: when orders or policies are wrong, when we are told to do things that violate core values and principles, we must have the courage to ask difficult questions and raise objections. We should be able to do that without fear of being crushed,” the whistleblower said. “The Deputy Director’s threats sent the opposite message: Dissent will not be tolerated. If you question my response to January 6, I don’t want you in my FBI.”

“Abbate’s threat to employees was witnessed by numerous other FBI employees and constitutes evidence of intent to retaliate against any dissent,” said Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt. “This evidence can be independently corroborated by dozens, if not hundreds, of other FBI employees if congressional committees and the Justice Department Inspector General would investigate and document the results.”

The FBI has spent years stonewalling congressional oversight into agency conduct surrounding the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. In May, Jordan re-upped demands for an FBI briefing over the two pipe bombs planted at the RNC and DNC. The FBI, according to former FBI Agent Kyle Seraphin in an interview with The Washington Times, knows what car the suspect used but hasn’t pursued the individual in question.

[READ: Think The FBI Deserves The Benefit Of The Doubt? This Laundry List Of Corruption Should Make You Think Again]

The pipe bombs, Seraphin added, were found inoperable.

The FBI has also refused to answer Republican lawmakers’ questions about the extent of the agency’s involvement at the Capitol on the day of the riot. Three months after The New York Times ran the headline, “No, there is no evidence that the F.B.I. organized the Jan. 6 Capitol riot,” the paper followed up with another in September 2021: “Among Those Who Marched Into the Capitol on Jan. 6: An F.B.I. Informant.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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Top Democrat On J6 Committee: We Actually Didn’t Review Any Of The Surveillance Video

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MARCH 09, 2023

After Fox News host Tucker Carlson aired Capitol surveillance footage this week exposing yet more falsehood from the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 and leaving Democrats and their media allies irate, the committee chair on Wednesday said the panel never actually analyzed the crucial footage.

On Monday’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Fox News aired the footage of the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, undermining the select committee’s narrative of a “deadly insurrection.” Given access to the video by Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Carlson’s team reviewed over 40,000 hours of footage, which offered proof the committee manipulated audio and video to dramatize the riot for its made-for-TV hearings in an election year.

But in a Wednesday night statement to CNN, select committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., claimed the panel never analyzed the blockbuster footage Fox News aired this week.

“I’m not actually aware of any member of the committee who had access,” Thompson said. “We had a team of employees who kind of went through the video.”

Hiring investigators who “kind of went through the video” doesn’t sound like a very thorough investigation.

However, Thompson’s admission that his committee lacked due diligence makes no sense. Since when do lawmakers have no access to the same material as their own staffers? Did none of the nine panel members view the footage that was played for the cameras? Does Thompson not know who had access to the tapes? Was it just the former television executives they hired to produce their show trials? Either Thompson is lying and knows exactly who had access, or he handed the key to Vice Chair Liz Cheney and had nothing to do with it while the committee leaked exclusives to CNN.

Thompson’s office did not immediately respond to The Federalist’s inquiries.

The committee clearly had access to the footage Carlson aired this week that contradicted the panel’s key narratives. After all, members of the committee endlessly bragged about how many documents, more than 35,000, investigators reviewed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who used the committee to dodge responsibility for her own failure to secure the Capitol, just refused to make the tapes public — and after Carlson’s revelations, it’s clear why.

Carlson’s program showed that the man who became the face of the “insurrection,” known as the “QAnon Shaman,” was given VIP treatment by police. The tapes showed since-deceased Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick walking around “vigorously” after altercations with protesters who had allegedly murdered him. The footage also showed that mysterious rioter Ray Epps lied to congressional investigators about his whereabouts the day of the riot, yet the committee protected the “insurrectionist.”

On Monday, Carlson announced his team discovered proof that Democrats on Pelosi’s probe came across the same footage Fox made public.

“We can be sure because the footage contains an electronic bookmark that is still archived in the Capitol’s computer system,” said Carlson. “That means that investigators working for the Democratic Party saw this tape. They saw it, but they refused to release the tape to the public.”

Committee staffers even used some of the footage to show Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., allegedly fleeing the Capitol. All Carlson did was extend the footage a few seconds longer than what was televised in the committee’s show-trial hearings, and it became clear Hawley departed the Capitol along with other members of Congress. The clip published by the committee was always demonstrably dishonest.

[WATCH: J6 Tapes Part 1, Part 2, Part 3]

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.

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Whistleblower: FBI Targeted Innocent Rally-Goers Just for Being in D.C. On Jan. 6

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 07, 2023

man in D.C. on Jan. 6 holding a voter fraud sign and wearing a red maga hat — The FBI’s D.C. field office treated Americans exercising their right to free speech as suspected criminals, with no evidence to do so.

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The FBI’s D.C. field office directed the Boston office to open investigations into more than 100 Americans who had attended the Jan. 6 rally despite having no evidence those individuals had committed any crime, according to whistleblower testimony reviewed by The Federalist. This represents the second attempt by the D.C. field office to sic the FBI on innocent Americans — in this case, people who were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech.

The D.C. field office pressured Boston’s FBI office to open criminal investigations into some 140 people who took buses from Massachusetts to D.C. on Jan. 6, according to testimony from George Hill, a whistleblower and recently retired FBI supervisory intelligence analyst, reviewed by The Federalist. The D.C. field office applied this pressure, Hill said, even though it had no evidence that any of those travelers had entered restricted areas of the Capitol.

Hill, a military veteran and former longtime FBI and NSA analyst, had previously identified himself as one of several whistleblowers cooperating with House Judiciary Committee investigators when he spoke with Just the News’ John Solomon last month. The Federalist’s review of Hill’s testimony confirmed the details he told Solomon and exposed more troubling information.

According to Hill’s testimony, after rioters entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the D.C. field office, which was leading the investigation, presented the Boston office “definitive evidence” that two individuals within its jurisdiction had entered restricted areas of the Capitol. Boston opened investigations into those two individuals.

In his deposition testimony to congressional investigators, Hill explained that because those two people had arranged for buses to take rally-goers to Washington, the D.C. field office told the Boston office to open investigations into all 140 of the passengers.

According to the whistleblower, a Boston supervisory special agent, or SSA, told the D.C. field office, “Happy to do it. Show us where they were inside the Capitol, and we’ll look into it.”

But the D.C. field office said it couldn’t do that unless it knew the exact time and location in the Capitol where the individuals were located, according to Hill’s testimony. Then when Boston asked for access to the 11,000 hours of video to allow its own agents to review the footage themselves to assess whether to launch an investigation into any of the rally-goers, the D.C. field office refused to share the video, Hill’s testimony revealed. The bureau claimed the footage might reveal undercover agents or confidential human sources, according to the whistleblower.

Yet the D.C. field office persisted in its demand for Boston to open investigations into everyone on the bus, threatening to call the special agent in charge of the field office if the lower-level agent refused. The supervisory special agent remained firm, however. As Hill explained, the SSA told the D.C. field office that those 140 people “were going to a political rally, which is First Amendment protected activity.”

This move by the bureau represents its second such attempt — just from Hill’s testimony — to target innocent Americans. As The Federalist reported on Monday, Hill also told the House Judiciary Committee that the D.C. field office pressured local FBI field offices to open investigations on innocent, gun-owning Americans based on data mining that Bank of America voluntarily provided to the bureau.

According to The Federalist’s review of the testimony, Hill said the Bank of America list included people who used its credit or debit cards in D.C., or the surrounding Maryland and Virginia areas, on Jan. 5, 6, or 7, 2021. Furthermore, people who had ever (through Jan. 6, 2021) used a Bank of America product to purchase a firearm were elevated to the top of the list.

In both instances, Boston’s special agent in charge, Joseph Bonavolonta, withstood the outside pressure — something Hill commended in his testimony.

While Bonavolonta and the Boston office refused to investigate Americans based solely on their First Amendment activities or credit card receipts placing them in the greater-D.C. area, it is unclear whether other field offices launched investigations based on the D.C. office’s pressure. A source familiar with Hill’s testimony confirmed that Hill did not know the answer to that question either.

Open-source reporting, however, reveals that in at least one instance, the FBI questioned an individual who organized buses for rally-goers — apparently without any evidence of potentially illegal conduct. In January of 2021, FBI agents appeared at Jim Worthington’s suburban Philadelphia home to quiz him about the events of Jan. 6, 2021. Worthington was not home at the time but later spoke with investigators over the course of two hours, confirming he had been in D.C. for the rally and had “helped bring busloads of people to the event,” but had “never went to the Capitol.”

Given that Worthington, who also led the People4Trump PAC, never entered the Capitol, one must wonder what legitimate basis the FBI claimed it had to target him.

Or had the D.C. field office pressured the Philadelphia field office to open an investigation into Worthington? And what about the some-200 people who traveled to D.C. on the buses Worthington arranged? Did the local field office open investigations into those people? And what about the other 50-plus field offices? Did they also target individuals based on their First Amendment-protected activities? With stories of buses from across America traveling to D.C. for the Jan. 6 rally, it is a definite possibility.

While it’s long been known that the House’s Jan. 6 Committee and the legacy media pushed a narrative that conflated the rally-goers and the rioters, the whistleblower’s allegations now suggest the FBI’s D.C. field office also treated Americans exercising their right to free speech as suspected criminals, without any evidentiary basis to do so.

Mollie Hemingway contributed to this report.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Ginni Thomas Transcript from J6 Panel Reveals Witch Hunt Operation Without a Witch

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | DECEMBER 30, 2022

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The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 released the transcript of the probe’s interview with conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas Friday, revealing why she wasn’t mentioned once in the panel’s more than 800-page final report. Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had nothing of consequence to offer her inquisitors — whether it be about the Capitol riot, efforts to overturn the 2020 election, or her husband’s work on the high bench — despite attempts by the panel and its corporate media allies to malign and bully her and her family.

In September, Thomas appeared before lawmakers to justify her choice as a private citizen with political opinions to petition her own government in the aftermath of the last presidential contest. Text messages published by the committee between Thomas and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in March revealed the longtime activist pressing the administration to “stand firm” in its challenges against the final result.

“You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice,” Thomas wrote as news organizations began to call the race for President Joe Biden. “The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

Publicizing her private messages had its intended effect: tar the Thomas name and even provoke left-wing calls to impeach the sitting justice. Several Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded Justice Thomas recuse himself from relevant cases to the 2020 election, resign altogether, or face impeachment because his wife is politically active. But out of the 29 messages between Meadows and Ginni — among more than 2,300 text messages recovered from Meadows’ trove of data handed to the committee — not one, according to The Washington Post, included a direct reference to Justice Thomas. And Ginni made that clear to the panel.

“Regarding the 2020 election, I did not speak with him at all about the details of my volunteer campaign activities,” Ginni said. “And I did not speak with him at all about the details of my post-election activities, which were minimal, in any event. I am certain I never spoke with him about any of the legal challenges to the 2020 election, as I was not involved with those challenges in any way.”

While dispelling myths about alleged collusion with her husband, Ginni did not back down from her conviction, shared by millions of Americans, that the 2020 election was conducted unfairly with irregularities that warranted challenges. When pressed by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the panel, on the avenues to contest an election result, Ginni brought up Democrats’ challenges to every presidential election won by Republicans since the start of this century.

“Democrats have done that in many instances — 2000, 2004, 2016,” Ginni said. “It seemed like there were a lot of people who claimed President Trump was illegitimate for 4 years and tried to undermine his administration.”

In 2017, Democrats objected to electoral votes from more states than Republicans did last year.

“As she told the Committee, Mrs. Thomas had significant concerns about potential fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election, and her minimal activity was focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated,” Mark Paoletta, Ginni’s attorney, told The Federalist in an exclusive statement. “Beyond that, she played no role in any events following the 2020 election. She also condemned the violence on January 6, which was reflected in one of her texts to Mark Meadows at the time. In short, the Committee discovered nothing new because there was nothing to discover.”

Despite the committee’s decision to thrust Ginni into the spotlight of the Jan. 6 investigation over her messages to Meadows, her name was never mentioned in a single one of the committee’s show trial hearings.

At the conclusion of Ginni’s deposition, the committee asked whether there was anything Ginni would like to add. Ginni responded by condemning political violence on all sides and reminding lawmakers of her security concerns after Democrat Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded justices “pay the price” for decisions that run counter to his leftist wishes.

“Violence on both sides is abhorrent, and the more you guys focus on just one side, it can do significant damage to our country,” Ginni said. “And, certainly, I’m living with Senator Schumer having said some things on the steps of the Supreme Court that unleashed a lot of things that have us living with Marshals right now.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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EXCLUSIVE: Republicans Demand DOJ Release J6 Surveillance And Police Body Cam Footage

Reported by GABE KAMINSKY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER | July 14, 2022

Capitol Hill Prepares Ahead Of Full House Vote On Impeachment Articles This Week — **Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)**

House Republicans are demanding the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) release body and surveillance camera footage as well any other footage in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman first requested the information from the DOJ in October 2021. Now, they are re-upping their inquiry, asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to release the information since their constituents have a “growing concern” with the DOJ’s “apparent failure” to do so.

“Many Americans question why their government, and the Department in particular, has been so selective in its release of footage,” the lawmakers said in their letter. “We believe all Americans, including Members of Congress, the media, and the public at-large, should be able to view footage from January 6th that the Department has in its possession.”

The committee investigating Jan. 6 has publicized some degree of unaired footage during its ongoing hearings. The Republicans want to know “what percentage of body camera, surveillance camera, and any other footage related to the events surrounding January 6th” in the DOJ’s possession has actually been made public.

Most of the 14,000 hours of surveillance footage from Jan. 6 has not been made public, Buzzfeed News reported in August 2021. It is unclear how things have changed roughly one year later. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Rodney Davis Demands Answers From Legislative Branch Agencies On Their Work For Jan. 6 Committee)

“From every camera on the Capitol grounds – including body and fixed surveillance cameras – every second of footage from January 6, 2021 ought to be in the public domain by now,” Norman told the DCNF. “It is baffling to me why the Attorney General has failed to make the entirety of footage available, especially while the Select Committee is cherry-picking clips to suit its narrative.”

TOPSHOT – Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the US Capitol in Washington D.C on January 6, 2021. – Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

While lawyers and defendants charged in the Capitol riot have gained access to watch related surveillance footage, the footage is given under protective orders, which does not allow the parties to release it, Buzzfeed News reported. The Capitol Police’s chief lawyer said in a March 2021 affidavit that members of Congress can watch Jan. 6 footage on a case-by-base basis under the supervision of a police employee.

“The disclosure of any footage from these cameras is strictly limited and subject to a policy that regulates the release of footage,” said the lawyer.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

“It continues to be our hope that all Americans have faith in our systems of government, including our criminal justice and judicial system,” wrote the Republicans in their letter, setting an August 4 deadline. “For this reason, it is imperative that the Department adequately respond to our requests in timely manner.”

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https://www.scribd.com/embeds/582572129/content?start_page=1&view_mode=scroll&access_key=key-iop1DrAY2Mw62YKn0cRL

07-14-22_Follow Up Letter t… by Gabe Kaminsky

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Jan. 6 Committee Avoids Probing Security Failures as Hearing Finally Covers Capitol Riot

REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JULY 13, 2022

Why is the Jan. 6 committee soliciting testimony from former D.C. government employees instead of the Capitol Police Intelligence Unit?

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The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 finally devoted a major portion of a hearing in its summer show trial series to the violence at the Capitol. After again re-establishing that members of the Trump White House were divided over the Republican president’s challenges to the 2020 election, lawmakers spent the second half of Tuesday’s hearing on the turmoil from more than 18 months ago.

“We settle our differences at the ballot box,” Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said during his opening of proceedings in which a fellow panel member, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-M.d., led the questioning of two repentant rioters who illegally entered the Capitol. Just five years ago, Raskin spearheaded efforts to overturn the 2016 election results as one of his first actions in Congress, objecting to the certification over made-up narratives of Trump-Russia collusion.

Over the course of Tuesday’s hearing, lawmakers sought to paint former President Donald Trump as guilty of coordinating an assault on the Capitol, which began well before he had finished his speech at the White House. At one point, the panel featured an unsent tweet from the president urging supporters to “March to the Capitol,” as incriminating evidence. The post loses its shock value, however, when one acknowledges that Trump said plainly to those gathered at the Ellipse to head toward the Capitol and protest “peacefully.” Quite the bombshell.

Jan. 6 cmte showing a drafted, unsent Trump tweet promoting his address at the Ellipse and a subsequent “March to the Capitol” pic.twitter.com/AOocxQc0hW
— Mica Soellner (@MicaSoellnerDC) July 12, 2022

“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” Trump said.

For all its redundancy in its desperate attempt to smear political dissidents as violent “insurrectionists” ahead of the fall midterms, the Jan. 6 Committee’s latest hearing offered the most information yet about the telegraphing and public planning in the run-up to the Capitol riot. The proceedings, on the other hand, came complete not with testimony from senior officials in charge of Capitol security, but instead from an anonymous Twitter employee and former D.C. Chief of Homeland Security and Intelligence Donell Harvin.

In a pre-recorded clip played during the hearing, Harvin told lawmakers his division received information “suggesting that some very, very violent individuals were organizing to come to D.C. and not only were they organizing to come to D.C., but these groups, these nonaligned groups, were aligning. All the red flags went up at that point.”
“When you have armed militia collaborating with white supremacy groups collaborating with conspiracy theory groups online all towards a common goal, you start seeing what we call in terrorism, ‘a blended ideology,’” Harvin added. “And that’s a very, very bad sign.”

Harvin said groups went beyond casual chatter and began coordinating specifics.

The committee’s anonymous Twitter employee, meanwhile, testified that the company was concerned about the potential for violence on Jan. 6.

“I don’t know that I slept that night [Jan. 5, 2021] to be honest with you,” the employee said. “I was on pins and needles, because again, for months, I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that, if we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die.”

Twitter fostered the same type of user riot planning that Silicon Valley tech giants cited to justify their collective purge of rival app Parler from their online services shortly after the riot.

Tuesday’s testimony raised more questions than answers and reinforced existing questions about the Capitol security failures under the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who six times turned down requests for the deployment of the National Guard, according to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

Why didn’t Pelosi’s House Sergeant at Arms approve requests for National Guard assistance? According to The Washington Post, “Harvin’s team set up a call with analysts at the Capitol Police.” Why did the U.S. Capitol Police Intelligence Unit “not warn its officers or law enforcement partners of the gravity of the threat” as outlined by a Senate report last summer? Why didn’t the Jan. 6 Committee ask Harvin about the Capitol Police’s failure to heed his warnings? And why is the committee soliciting testimony from former D.C. government employees instead of the Capitol Police Intelligence Unit? We all know the answer to the last two.

Devoid of opposition, the committee is operating for the sole purpose of expunging its political enemies from public life, and that means doing everything in its power to present a curated narrative. Panel member Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., admitted that much on CNN on Sunday when she said on national television that the committee was uninterested in corroborating blockbuster claims left unverified at best.

“We never call in witnesses to corroborate other witnesses or to give their reaction to other witnesses,” Lofgren said.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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The Attacks on Clarence and Ginni Thomas Are Merely Latest in a Decades-Long Smear Campaign

REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MARCH 30, 2022

Not only are the attacks on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni purely political, they’re deeply hypocritical.

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While claiming its aggressive collection of confidential information on private citizens is “narrowly tailored” and without a nefarious purpose, Democrats on the Jan. 6 Committee selectively leaked communications of a private citizen to smear political opponents.

Last week, CNN and the Washington Post published text messages between Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, who goes by “Ginni,” and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows exchanged in the days leading up to and on the day of the Capitol riot.

“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Ginni reportedly urged Meadows days after the 2020 contest when news organizations began to call the race for former Vice President Joe Biden. “You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

Out of the 29 of more than 2,300 text messages released from Meadows’ vast trove of data handed to the Select Committee, not one, the Washington Post conceded, included a direct reference to the sitting justice as the weaponized probe sought to dox a private citizen for petitioning her government.

“The messages, which do not directly reference Justice Thomas or the Supreme Court, show for the first time how Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election results,” the Post reported with the paper adopting Pelosi committee’s framing to indict private political views as a blockbuster scandal.

While the committee has made an open point to prosecute those who publicly sought to cast doubt on the fairness of the 2020 election results, the committee’s targeting of Ginni Thomas for privately petitioning government officials on her own marks further escalation of the probe’s assault on civil liberties, and makes Thomas case all the more unique.

CNN reported Monday the committee will now seek an interview with Ginni, who has become the latest to be dragged before lawmakers for exercising dissident views, even in private. But the probe’s latest request is just as much targeted at Ginni, a long-time conservative activist who has never concealed her activism, as it is her husband.

The left’s racist disdain for Justice Thomas has never been a well-kept secret by a virulent left frustrated by the mere existence of a black conservative, let alone one on the high bench. Attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record on lenient sentencing for child sex crimes are cruel and racist. Baseless criticism of Justice Thomas is warranted, however, for his political heresy, starting with his own confirmation process three decades ago.

Publication of the text messages provoked immediate calls for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from any cases related to the Jan. 6 investigation for the crime of his wife’s public political views raising concerns over an election with record mail-in voting and last-minute rule changes. New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez even demanded Justice Thomas resign or face impeachment.

As outlined Tuesday in The Federalist by former Thomas Law Clerk Wendy Long, however, judges are never asked to recuse themselves over political views, whether their own or their spouse’s.

“Leftists in Congress and the media hyperventilate over every tidbit showing that Justice Thomas’s wife, Ginni, is involved in national conservative politics – most recently, that she pushed for integrity in the 2020 election,” Long wrote. “This isn’t news, and it has nothing to do with Justice Thomas’s ability to be a fair and impartial jurist.”

Instead, Long explained judicial recusal is about “mainly financial, legal, personal, or professional interests of the Justice or a family member.” Not personal politics. The strategy of the modern left, however, has been to intimidate the courts into submission to extremist and anti-Constitution politics. Consider the last three nomination battles: Justice Brett Kavanaugh was slandered as a serial gang rapist, Amy Coney Barrett was depicted as a character in The Handmaid’s Tale, and Stephen Breyer was pressured to retire while Democrats were in power to replace him.

Not only are the attacks on Thomas purely political, they’re hypocritical. Will Democrats calling on Justice Thomas to refrain from his official duties as a jurist similarly demand a probe into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi leveraging her position in Congress to rake in millions? Will journalists married to people in power recuse themselves from coverage on any issues their spouses conduct even minor work on? Probably not. It’s all theater.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Corporate Media’s Jan. 6 Anniversary Coverage Is All About Silencing Republicans

Reported BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | JANUARY 04, 2022

Alengthy New York Times editorial over the weekend has set the stage for this week’s Jan. 6 anniversary coverage. “Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now,” declare the Times editors, warning that Republican lawmakers in 41 states “have been trying to advance the goals of the Jan. 6 rioters — not by breaking laws but by making them.”

The argument itself, that tweaking state election law is somehow a subversion of democracy, is absurd and incredibly lazy. But it’s important to note, if only because it will serve as the baseline narrative for the entire corporate media’s Jan. 6 coverage this week. Their message — they will all have more or less the same message — is simple: all Republicans are insurrectionists, the GOP is the enemy of the people, and the only way to preserve American democracy is to ensure that only Democrats can win elections.

To make this case, the Times’ editors had to stage a kind of linguistic insurrection. Lawful, constitutional efforts by elected representatives to change state election laws amount, in the Times’ telling, to a “bloodless, legalized” insurrection that “that no police officer can arrest and that no prosecutor can try in court.”

That’s no different than saying “speech is violence.” It’s nonsensical. By definition, there’s no such thing as a “bloodless, legalized” insurrection, any more than there could be a “mostly peaceful” riot. That said, the Times editors are wrong about one thing: state laws, including state election laws, can and often are challenged in court.

But the nonsense here serves a purpose. If the Jan. 6 riot can be conflated with perfectly valid GOP-led efforts to shore up state election rules, then perhaps those efforts can be wholly undermined, regardless of what voters in red states want. The irony is that it isn’t GOP lawmakers trying “to wrest control of electoral votes from their own people,” as the Times editors charge; it’s the Democrats and their media allies.

Consider that last year, 44 states enacted some 285 bills related to elections. In blue states, those bills tended to loosen certain election rules and requirements, especially for mail-in and absentee ballots. That makes sense given that Democrats tend to vote by mail-in ballot far more often than Republicans. Making mail-in and absentee voting easier is merely a way to boost Democratic votes in any given state. It’s simple.

By contrast, Republican-led states tended to pass laws limiting or more strictly defining the rules for mail-in and absentee voting, on the theory that absentee balloting is inherently less secure and more susceptible to fraud, especially when paired, as it often is, with practices like ballot-harvesting.

Republican lawmakers’ motivation here was to prevent a repeat of the free-for-all of the 2020 election, which saw a raft of last-minute changes to mail-in and absentee voting rules, justified on account of the pandemic. Many Republicans rightly felt that judges who overruled state legislatures and re-wrote state elections laws by fiat (as happened in Pennsylvania), undermined the integrity of the election.

By passing such reforms, Republican lawmakers were responding to actions taken by Democrats, unelected public health officials, and Democrat-friendly judges to overhaul state election rules ahead of 2020. If you wanted to be disingenuous about it, you could argue that Democrats staged a “bloodless, legalized” insurrection before the 2020 election even took place.

That’s why the Times and the rest of the corporate press want so badly to talk about Jan. 6 instead of getting into the nitty gritty of what these Republican-passed election reforms actually do. You’ll notice the media always describe these laws as “restricting voter access,” even when they do no such thing. The entire conversation is a bit of legerdemain, nothing more. That’s why you’ll never read a piece in the corporate press about how Georgia’s new election law, which President Joe Biden called “Jim Crow on steroids,” actually makes voting easier than it is in Biden’s home state of Delaware.

Remember that when you read breathless remembrances of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol this week. Yes, the riot was bad and should have been put down with overwhelming force — just as the riots all throughout the summer and fall of 2020 should have been.

But the actions of a relatively small group of rioters that day have absolutely nothing to do with the perfectly valid efforts of GOP lawmakers to ensure that election rules are not changed at the last minute by unelected judges or public health officials. Equating the two, pretending they share a common cause and motivation, is a way to discredit the valid arguments of Republicans, smear them as “insurrectionists,” and eventually justify efforts to silence them.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Texas Monthly, The Guardian, First Things, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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Democrats To Americans: If You Disagree With Us, You’re An Insurrectionist

Reported By Jonathan S. Tobin | NOVEMBER 1, 2021

For Democrats, Groundhog Day came nearly a month early this year. For them, like the character in the classic Bill Murray comedy, every day is Jan. 6. For them, every challenge to leftist orthodoxy, whether in the form of Biden administration policy or local school boards attempting to impose critical race theory, unreasonable COVID precautions, or transgender policies, is another day of insurrection.

They see insurrectionists everywhere. They see them in the media, where they demand that Fox News be canceled or demonetized because of its Trumpist heresies and refusal to treat a Capitol riot — in which the only person killed was an unarmed protester gunned down in cold blood by a police officer — as a new Civil War. They see them in Congress, where anyone who challenged the 2020 results or resists the Democrats’ bills to ban voter ID laws and make permanent pandemic-based election changes that removed guardrails against cheating are seeking to steal not just the 2020 election but the ones yet to be held in 2022 and 2024. They also see insurrectionists in state capitals, where legislatures that have passed voter integrity bills that seek to prevent future fraud without taking away anyone’s right to vote as not merely advocates of a new “Jim Crow” but the moral equivalent of the Confederates who fired on Fort Sumter to save slavery.

When Everyone Is an Insurrectionist

It also explains why U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland isn’t backing down on his outrageous effort to treat school board protests as an insurrectionist terrorist conspiracy. Despite heated questioning from furious Republican senators last Wednesday, he wouldn’t concede that his directive to the FBI and the rest of the Department of Justice to investigate school board critics around the country was based on a lie. He denied that he was targeting the free speech of parents who have protested decisions by school boards on curricula and other policies. That Garland would stand by the rash directive was all the more curious because the hearing came after the National School Boards Association (NSBA) had apologized for the letter that began this shocking episode.

Garland’s doubling down at the hearing about the need for the government to crack down on opponents does make sense. Or at least it does when placed in the context of his party’s current political obsession.

For nine months the Biden administration, its congressional allies, and its media cheerleaders have treated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot as not merely a disgraceful episode but an “insurrection” and “attempted coup” that represented an ongoing threat to the government rather than just a mob that ran amuck. At this point, it’s clear the Biden team has come to view any dissent from leftist dictums — be they national or local — as not merely unwelcome criticism but the work of Trumpist insurrectionists who must be put down rather than tolerated.

Democrats are determined to go on running against former President Donald Trump and his “deplorable” band of insurrectionists indefinitely. But they have been dismayed by the turn of events in Virginia, where resistance against the radical takeover of the schools by angry parents has transformed the gubernatorial race in what the left assumed was a securely blue state. So it was hardly surprising that the administration would seek to brand those citizens outraged by what was being done to their children as just another outbreak of the same insurrection they have been inveighing against all year.

Cornered by Republican senators, Garland asserted that his memo had not ordered investigations of angry parents as “domestic terrorists.” Yet his memo characterized criticisms of officials at public meetings as “harassment, intimidation and threats of violence.” In it, he stated plainly that Department of Justice would use its authority to “identify,” “discourage” and “prosecute” these alleged threats while maintaining “coordination and partnership with local enforcement.”

Even more disingenuously, he denied that the letter from the NSBA, which had been coordinated with the White House had prompted his directive. It labeled people like a Loudoun County parent whose daughter was allegedly raped by a boy in a girl’s bathroom then covered up by the school district as “domestic terrorists.”

‘Terrorists’ Have No Rights

Garland’s willingness to jump into that mess was predictable. Tellingly, earlier this month even after the truth had come out about the alleged rape and its coverup, Loudoun County Democratic Party Chair Lissa Savaglio called the parents “Republican insurrectionists.”

Republicans asked Garland about why the attempt to intimidate Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema into going along Biden’s spending spree when she was followed, harangued, and filmed in a bathroom wasn’t as worthy of investigation as incidents in which school board members were yelled at. Similarly, the invasion of the Department of the Interior earlier this month by a leftist mob demanding Biden adopt even more radical environmental policies didn’t make it onto his radar screen.

Nor is Garland or the mainstream media willing to admit that the hundreds of Black Lives Matter “mostly peaceful” riots in cities around the nation in the summer of 2020 were far more of a threat to public order and government authority than the misguided people who illegally entered the Capitol on Jan.6. But if we have learned anything in the last year, it should be this: Democrats will never stop talking about the insurrection.

In part, that’s because they actually believe their political foes don’t deserve constitutional rights. As we saw with their reaction to the fatal police shooting of Capitol protester Ashli Babbit and the treatment of those facing prosecution over their illegal behavior on Jan. 6, they believe insurrectionists have no rights, including those that guarantee due process.

Democrats also understand that labeling conservatives as domestic terrorists is key to their political survival as Biden’s presidency unravels in the face of domestic problems like the southern border crisis, the supply chain disaster, and feckless conduct abroad. Running on Biden’s record or defending efforts to impose woke ideology on children isn’t likely to bring them success. That means they will go on labeling anyone who questions their ideological hobby horses as Trumpist “traitors” so long as they think it will help them rally their voters to turn out and preserve their power.

Jonathan S. Tobin is a senior contributor to The Federalist, editor in chief of JNS.org, and a columnist for the New York Post. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.

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Law Firms That Raced To Defend Terrorists In Gitmo Leave Jan. 6 Defendants Out To Dry

Reported By Allison Schuster | OCTOBER 26, 2021

At least 50 high-powered law firms that went out of their way to defend foreign terrorists in Guantanamo Bay free of charge are nowhere to be found as hundreds of American citizens languish in prison for charges related to entering the U.S. Capitol building during the January 6 riot.

When foreign terrorists, including the accused mastermind who helped plan the 9/11 attack, were being held in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, law firms from across the country volunteered to represent them pro bono. Now, nearly 600 Americans face an intense legal battle over their participation in the events of January 6, and these same firms are leaving them defenseless. Not one of the legal firms that assisted Gitmo terrorists have helped any of those charged with ties to January 6.

In 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union went so far as to create an entire group of lawyers ready to defend Gitmo detainees under the John Adams Project, to show their dedication to ensuring all have a top-notch defense.

John Adams, whose patriotism was proven in his instrumental legal role in helping found the American republic, defended British soldiers after the Boston Massacre in an American courtroom. Although undoubtedly a revolutionary hero, Adams felt convicted that the judicial system cannot be just if everyone doesn’t receive a quality defense. With popular opinion so staunchly against the soldiers, Adams risked his reputation to uphold this principle.

Attorney Steve Schaefer explained to me that a strong legal defense for all accused of crimes is necessary, as it is the only way to reveal the truth of what occurred before the court. If the facts don’t come to light, the American justice system is in jeopardy, as people are at the will of an arbitrary power. Schaefer said, that causes Americans to lose trust in the American experiment, so the importance of quality representation prior to adjudication in court can’t be overstated.

“It’s indispensable to have to have a strong advocacy on behalf of criminal defendants — even if the allegations are unsavory — because our entire process hinges on a protection of the citizen and that the government has to meet the highest burden, which is beyond a reasonable doubt, in order to convict them of a crime,” Schaefer said.

Without a strong criminal defense, the government can take away individual rights without a clear demonstration of the guilt of the accused. The firms who trumpeted the right to a strong defense for everyone charged in the American legal system when it came to Guantanamo Bay are well aware of the need for a competent defense for citizens today, yet they have not allocated any resources to an equal defense for some accused of crimes.

The law firm Wilmer and Hale told The New York Times in 2008 that establishing a proper defense for Gitmo detainees “was about as important as anything we could take on.”

Despite widespread allegations of prosecutorial zealotry and differing standards of prosecution for the January 6 rioters compared to the thousands of rioters across the nation in 2020 who besieged the White House, federal courthouses, police precincts, national symbols, and small businesses, no similar defense fund or coordination has been provided for those charged in the January 6 riot.

Julie Kelly, a reporter covering dozens of January 6 defendants since their cases began, said the majority of those who have been charged have no prior experience navigating the legal system. Few have been charged with any crime before in their lives and now must rely on government-provided public defenders because they can’t afford anyone else.

“We have a Gitmo in Washington D.C.,” Kelly told me. “We have a prison that has been used solely to house and detain men arrested and charged — not convicted, just charged with offenses — related to January 6.”

Some of the nonviolent defendants were so misinformed by the FBI that they thought they were being questioned to help them find violent offenders, all while the FBI was gathering evidence against those being questioned, she said.

“These people are being treated in court as domestic terrorists. Dozens of them are held under pre-trial detention orders, which means they don’t even have a chance to make bail,” Kelly noted. “They are considered too dangerous to be let out of jail, awaiting trials which won’t start until the middle of next year at the earliest.”

Capitol rioter Paul Hodgkins’ prosecutor referred to him as a domestic terrorist in his sentencing, and FBI Director Christopher Wray has designated January 6 an act of domestic terrorism. Many who didn’t even know they were doing anything wrong, entering the Capitol as police opened doors for them, face detrimental charges threatening to turn them into convicted felons, revoking their right to vote and to own a gun for the rest of their lives.

While corporate media and other establishment institutions have long encouraged pro-bono legal representation of those held at Gitmo, they have discouraged it for those charged in the January 6 riot. Media and political figures argue those charged in the riot were violent insurrectionists seeking to overthrow the government. However, not a single person at the riot has been charged with inciting insurrection. They have instead been charged with obstruction of an official proceeding, which is the felony charge that the government is adding to mostly misdemeanor cases of trespassing.

The vast majority of those charged with ties to January 6 carried no weapons, harmed no one, vandalized nothing, and stole nothing, according to Kelly. Most walked through the capitol against no resistance at 2:40 p.m., took a selfie, and were out by 3 p.m. These defendants are also being tried in front of a jury in Washington, D.C., a city where more than 92 percent of the voters voted to elect Joe Biden last November.

Civil liberties advocates say the treatment of January 6 defendants reveals an alarming threat to American jurisprudence. Some blame intimidation from well-funded leftist groups for the lack of a competent defense. Lawyers who do exert effort in providing such a defense have been harrassed.

According to NPR, attorney Nabeel Kibria represented one of the first defendants in the investigation to plead guilty, after which point Kibria began facing attacks and death threats 48 hours after her client’s plea deal “from people … who you would think were on a whole different spectrum than what the Bustles [a married couple on trial] are in terms of political ideology or the people of the January 6 riots.”

Firms that consider themselves advocates for the least among us fail to uphold their convictions by abandoning people like Hodgkins. The system of justice that exists in this country, outlined in the Constitution in no uncertain terms, requires a strong defense.

“It is extremely frustrating and heartbreaking to see the Beltway’s legal and judicial system so heavily stacked against these people who have no means to defend themselves,” Kelly said. “And you have no lawyers on the right willing to step up and take these cases either pro bono, or even low bono, to help these people.”

One thing is clear: Those on the left put a lot of work into defending Afghan terrorists a decade ago, touting the need for providing a quality legal defense to those who were least likely to have quality, willing representation. Now, in the hour of need for Americans charged with much lesser crimes than mass murder, the same firms remain silent.

Allison Schuster is a research assistant for Hillsdale College in DC and a 2021 Hillsdale graduate, as well as a former intern for The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter @allisonshoestor.

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Capitol Rioter Sentenced To 8 Months In Prison In First Felony Case

Reported by ANDREW TRUNSKY, POLITICAL REPORTER for DailyCaller.com | July 19, 2021

Congress Holds Joint Session To Ratify 2020 Presidential Election — (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

A Florida man who breached the Senate floor on Jan. 6 while carrying a Trump flag was the first Capitol rioter sentenced with a felony offense.

Prosecutors are seeking a minimum 18-month sentence for Paul Allard Hodgkins. In a July 14 court filing, they alleged that he, “like each rioter, contributed to the collective threat to democracy” as they forced lawmakers, reporters, staff and Vice President Mike Pence into hiding as they convened to certify President Joe Biden’s victory.

He was sentenced to eight months in prison.

Video footage described in the report shows Hodgkins, 38, sporting a Trump T-shirt and flag on the Senate floor. At one point he took a selfie with the self-described shaman, who is also awaiting trial for participating in the riot.

Rioters enter the Senate Chamber on January 6. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Lawyers for Hodgkins had argued that the court of public opinion was enough punishment to avoid a prison sentence.

“Whatever punishment this court may provide will pale in comparison to the scarlet letter Mr. Hodgkins will wear for the rest of his life,” his lawyer, Patrick N. Leduc, wrote in a filing on July 12.

That filing likens Hodgkins’ actions to those of Anna Lloyd Morgan, a 49-year-old from Indiana who was the first of hundreds to be sentenced. She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in June and was given three years of probation.

Hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol as Congress sought to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Though Hodgkins was never accused of assaulting anyone or damaging property, prosecutors noted that when he boarded a bus from Tampa, Florida, to D.C. he had rope, protective goggles and latex gloves, and said that demonstrated that he was prepared for violence.

Prosecutors also said, however, that Hodgkins deserved leniency for immediately coming forward and pleading guilty to his obstruction charge, which carries a maximum sentence of two decades. But they noted that “time and time again, rather than turn around and retreat, he pressed forward.”

“When a mob is prepared to attack the Capitol to prevent elected officials from both parties from performing their constitutional and statutory duty, democracy is in trouble,” Federal District Judge Randolph Moss said Monday. “The damage that they caused that day is way beyond the delays that day. It is a damage that will persist in this country for decades.”

Leduc argued in his filing that Hodgkins was “a man who for just one hour on one day lost his bearings” and “made a fateful decision to follow the crowd.” It also noted former President Abraham Lincoln’s attempt to reconcile immediately after the Civil War.

“The court has a chance to emulate Lincoln,” Leduc wrote.

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Biden Calls Voting Integrity Bills Greatest Threat ‘Since The Civil War,’ Compares Jan. 6 Rioters To Confederates

Reported by JORDAN LANCASTER, REPORTER | July 13, 2021

Biden Philadelphia speech — Screenshot/Washington Post via Grabien

President Joe Biden repeated a talking point that called Republicans’ election reform bills the greatest threat to democracy “since the Civil War” and compared Jan. 6 rioters to Confederate soldiers during a Tuesday speech.

Biden spoke at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia Tuesday afternoon. He called GOP election integrity efforts “an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty” and “an assault on who we are.” The president referred to his oath of office, where he swore to protect the country against both foreign and domestic threats.

“Bullies and merchants of fear, peddlers of lies, are threatening the very foundation of our country,” Biden told the crowd. “The assault on free and fair elections is not just a threat. Literally – I’ve said it before – we’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole.”

He also compared Jan. 6 rioters to Confederate soldiers.

“Confederates, back then, never breached the Capitol, as insurrectionists did on January 6,” the president said.

“Has anyone in the White actually read the Voter Law in Texas?“

Biden’s comments echo those of White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who also compared Republican election reform efforts to the Civil War during Monday’s press conference.

After polls revealed that around 75% of Republicans questioned the outcome of the 2020 election, state Republican legislatures and governors introduced legislation attempting to reform voting laws and restore trust in the election process. The process has been politically fraught and, in each state, often garnered national media attention.

Most recently, a group of Democratic lawmakers from Texas — one of the states attempting to pass election reforms — fled the state to prevent Texas Republicans from reaching the two-thirds quorum necessary to pass legislation.

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Tucker Carlson: Bank Of America ‘Sharing Private Information’ Without Customer Consent To Help Feds Hunt ‘Extremists’

Reported by BRANDON GILLESPIE, MEDIA REPORTER | February 04, 2021

Tucker Carlson (Screenshot/Fox News)

Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed Thursday that Bank of America has been working with the federal government to “actively, but secretly” hunt extremists by sharing private information “without the knowledge or the consent of its customers.”

Carlson said on his broadcast of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that he exclusively obtained the evidence of Bank of America’s activities and described how the bank was assisting federal investigators in their investigation following the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

“This show has obtained, exclusively, evidence that Bank of America, the second largest bank in the country with more than 60 million customers, is actively, but secretly, engaged in the hunt for extremists in cooperation with the government,” Carlson said. “Bank of America is, without the knowledge or the consent of its customers, sharing private information with federal law enforcement agencies. Bank of America, effectively, is acting as an intelligence agency. But they are not telling you about it.”

Carlson went on to detail the transaction data requests from the federal investigators and noted that the profile was “remarkably broad,” but that the bank identified 211 customers who fit all of the data points. He then stated that the bank turned over the transaction data of those customers without notifying them. “Federal investigators then interviewed at least one of these unsuspecting people. And that person, we learned, hadn’t done anything wrong and in the end was cleared,” he said.

“Imagine if you were that person? The FBI hauls you in for questioning in a terror investigation. Not because you have done anything suspicious. You haven’t,” Carlson continued. “You bought plane tickets and visited your country’s capital. You thought you could do that. You thought it was your country. Now they are sweating you because your bank, which you trust with your most private information, information of everything you buy, has ratted you out to the feds without telling you, without your knowledge.”

Carlson then stated that his team asked Bank of America about the actions and said “they confirmed it actually happened by not denying it.” He read the bank’s statement in full, which claimed that they had “responsibilities under federal law to cooperate with law enforcement inquiries in full compliance with the law.”

“But that’s not true. Bank of America did have a choice. The bank could have resisted turning over information on its innocent customers to federal investigators. But Bank of America did not do that,” Carlson claimed.

He went on to say that his team spoke to “a number of lawyers” who said that what the bank allegedly did might not be legal and could be challenged in court.

“The question is, legally, what constitutes information that may be relevant to a possible crime? Buying a muffin in Washington, D.C. on January 5th? Does that make you a potential domestic extremist? According to Bank of America, yes, yes, it does,” Carlson concluded.

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First Lady Melania Trump Breaks Silence On Capitol Riot

Reported by MARY MARGARET OLOHAN, SOCIAL ISSUES REPORTER | January 11, 2021

(Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

First Lady Melania Trump broke her silence Monday after the Capitol riot, condemning violence and urging Americans to “listen to one another, focus on what unites us, and rise above what divides us.”

Rioters supporting President Donald Trump stormed the United States capitol Wednesday, committing acts of vandalism and postponing the certification process as members of Congress were forced to evacuate the building. Melania Trump did not comment on these events until Monday when she issued a statement that began by emphasizing how the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on American lifestyles.

“I am disappointed and disheartened with what happened last week,” she said. “I find it shameful that surrounding these tragic events there has been salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me – from people who are looking to be relevant and have an agenda. This time is solely about healing our country and its citizens. It should not be used for personal gain.”

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

The First Lady said that her heart “goes out to” those who died during the riots, naming Air Force Veteran Ashli Babbit, who was shot by a police officer in the United States Capitol, as well as Benjamin Philips, Kevin Greeson, Rosanne Boyland, and Capitol Police Officers, Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood.

“I pray for their families comfort and strength during this difficult time,” she said. (RELATED: Twitter Follows Trump Suspension With Massive ‘Purge’ Of Conservative Accounts)

“I implore people to stop the violence, never make assumptions based on the color of a person’s skin or use differing political ideologies as a basis for aggression and viciousness,” she said. “We must listen to one another, focus on what unites us, and rise above what divides us.”

Melania Trump said it is “inspiring” to see so many Americans show “passion and enthusiasm in participating in an election,” but urged Americans not to “allow that passion to turn to violence.”

“It has been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your First Lady,” she said, nodding to her upcoming departure from the White House. “I want to thank the millions of Americans who supported my husband and me over the past 4 years and shown the incredible impact of the American spirit. I am grateful to you all for letting me serve you on platforms which are dear to me.”

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‘Did You Listen To The President’s Speech?’: Trey Gowdy Throws Question Back At Fox News Anchor, Says He’s ‘Not Real Sure’ What Republican Party Stands For

Reported by DAVID KRAYDEN, OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF | January 07, 2021

Fox News host Sandra Smith talks to former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) about Wednesday’s Capitol Hill riot

Former Republican South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy said Thursday that he’s “not real sure anymore” what the Republican Party “stands for” as he blamed President Donald Trump for the Capitol riot Wednesday.

“If you really wanted to ask me a tough question, ask me what the Republican Party stands for,” Gowdy told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”

“It used to be law and order, it used to be things I could rattle off for you. I’m not real sure anymore.” (RELATED: Jonathan Turley Says Removing Trump With The 25th Amendment Is ‘Extremely Unlikely’ But ‘Can Happen’)

Gowdy said he did not know what role, if any, Trump would continue to play in the Republican Party but suggested the president incited the riot.

“Did you listen to the president’s speech yesterday?” Gowdy asked Fox News host Sandra Smith.

“Then you tell me. Who said that? Who said go fight? Who blamed Mike Pence and blamed Republicans and said the election was stolen?” Gowdy asked.

Gowdy joins other prominent Republicans who have chastised Trump for the destruction and violence. There have been calls to impeach Trump after rioters stormed the Capitol building, bringing chaos and violence to the Electoral College vote certification proceedings.

Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie suggested Trump was to blame for the riots by encouraging his supporters to reject the results of the 2020 presidential election. Republican Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney claimed Trump “lit the flame” of the riot.

Gowdy said people should not blame the police for not reacting swiftly enough to the threat.

“I don’t know how reasonably foreseeable it should be for cops that tens of thousands of people are going to be told to go fight, that an election was stolen from them, to go fight, to blame [Vice President] Mike Pence … and other Republicans,” he said. (RELATED: ‘I’m Distraught’: Freshman GOP Rep Nancy Mace Says Trump’s Legacy Has Been ‘Wiped Out’)

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: Police officers in riot gear walks towards the U.S. Capitol as protesters enter the building on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Police officers in riot gear walks towards the U.S. Capitol as protesters enter the building on Jan. 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation’s capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Gowdy said he did not want to speculate if Trump was determined to start a riot.

“I can’t tell you what was on the president’s mind. I can tell you that he said ‘let’s march together to the capitol,’” Gowdy continued. “So I don’t blame the cops when tens of thousands of people are told an election was stolen from them and then they decide to scale the walls of the people’s house. I don’t blame the cops for that. I blame the people who did it.”

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Posts tagged ‘capitol riot’

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | NOVEMBER 20, 2023

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BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | NOVEMBER 03, 2023

Alvin Bragg

Letitia James

Arthur Engoron

Jack Smith

Tanya Chutkan

Fani Willis

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BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | AUGUST 11, 2023

1. DHS, FBI Hid Intelligence From Capitol Police

2. Milley Wanted to Shut Down D.C. Ahead Of Jan. 6

3. Congressional Leadership Denied National Guard Requests Before and During Riot

4. Secret Service Turned Over One Text to J6 Committee

5. New Jersey State Police Arrived to Help Before National Guard

6. Sund Wasn’t Told About Federal Informants Present at the Capitol

7. Lawmakers Didn’t Want Sund to Testify

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BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | AUGUST 10, 2023

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BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JUNE 23, 2023

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BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MARCH 09, 2023

[WATCH: J6 Tapes Part 1, Part 2, Part 3]

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BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 07, 2023

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BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | DECEMBER 30, 2022

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Reported by GABE KAMINSKY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER | July 14, 2022

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REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JULY 13, 2022

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REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MARCH 30, 2022

While claiming its aggressive collection of confidential information on private citizens is “narrowly tailored” and without a nefarious purpose, Democrats on the Jan. 6 Committee selectively leaked communications of a private citizen to smear political opponents.

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Reported BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | JANUARY 04, 2022

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Texas Monthly, The Guardian, First Things, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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Reported By Jonathan S. Tobin | NOVEMBER 1, 2021

When Everyone Is an Insurrectionist

‘Terrorists’ Have No Rights

Jonathan S. Tobin is a senior contributor to The Federalist, editor in chief of JNS.org, and a columnist for the New York Post. Follow him on Twitter at @jonathans_tobin.

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Reported By Allison Schuster | OCTOBER 26, 2021

Allison Schuster is a research assistant for Hillsdale College in DC and a 2021 Hillsdale graduate, as well as a former intern for The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter @allisonshoestor.

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Reported by ANDREW TRUNSKY, POLITICAL REPORTER for DailyCaller.com | July 19, 2021

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Reported by JORDAN LANCASTER, REPORTER | July 13, 2021

“Has anyone in the White actually read the Voter Law in Texas?“

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First Lady Melania Trump broke her silence Monday after the Capitol riot, condemning violence and urging Americans to “listen to one another, focus on what unites us, and rise above what divides us.”

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