A Marine Corps officer was arrested Thursday over his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, making him the first active-duty service member charged over the Capitol attack.
The Justice Department said in a statement that Maj. Christopher Warnagiris, 40, “violently entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, after pushing through a line of police officers guarding the East Rotunda doors.”
He then allegedly used his body to prop a door open to allow more people to rush into the Capitol. Continue reading.
Former Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller said Wednesday that Donald Trump was interested in the deployment of the National Guard during their Jan. 3 discussion.
When Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) questioned, “did you tell the president about the mayor’s requests or did President Trump ask if there were requests?”
“He asked if there were requests,” said Miller. Continue reading.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board is offering a critical assessment of House Republicans’ vote to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) from leadership, warning the move will not nix the party’s problems ahead of the 2022 primary election.
In fact, the board ward the GOP could face deeper consequences in the long term for its failure to address the real problem: the haunting existence of former President Donald Trump, a political nightmare which the publication describes as Trump’s “purgatory.”
In an effort to stay in the former president’s good graces, Republican lawmakers voted in favor of stripping Cheney of her leadership role. But the Wall Street Journal warns that ousting Cheney won’t make lawmakers look better in the eyes of Republican voters. Continue reading.
One of the biggest revelations this month was in the court decision by federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who ruled that former Attorney General Bill Barr lied to Congress, the court and the country when he claimed that the Justice Department had done an investigation into whether it could charge Donald Trump. Not only was there no investigation or collaboration with deputies and prosecutors, it was Barr’s decision, followed by the falsification of documents to justify it after the fact.
Those documents are slated to become public by Monday if the new Justice Department doesn’t fight the case. That comes as Democrats got former White House Counsel Don McGahn to agree to testify about what he told special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia investigation that resulted in so many examples of obstruction of justice in part two of Mueller’s report.
Judge Jackson “has already told us what her review of that document and of the Justice Department’s actions around that time indicate about the process that was followed in terms of deciding whether or not Trump would be criminally charged,” said Maddow. “What she’s told us already in her ruling is that the Justice Department didn’t substantively consider potential criminal charges against former President Trump, despite the evidence that was laid out against him.” Continue reading.
Former Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn is expected to answer questions “as soon as possible” in a closed session with House lawmakers about former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, according to an agreement outlined in court filings Wednesday night.
McGahn will appear before the House Judiciary Committee after House Democrats sued to enforce a 2019 subpoena for his testimony about whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice in Mueller’s Russia investigation.
The agreement, negotiated by President Biden’s Justice Department and House lawyers, is intended to end the long-running litigation over McGahn’s testimony that the Trump administration had blocked. But it leaves unresolved the question of whether a congressional committee can compel the testimony of a close presidential adviser. Continue reading.
Servicemembers and veterans make for prized recruits for extremist organizations
In the late 1980s, Chuck Leek was an aviation electrician stationed at Naval Base San Diego, home of the Pacific Fleet. There, he worked on electrical systems that ran through Navy helicopters. He says he was a “full-on skinhead.”
Leek, now 54, has cut ties with the white supremacist movement and works to bring others out of it. While in the military in California, Leek and two other neo-Nazis he met while in training formed a skinhead gang, rented a house together and began working to recruit other active-duty servicemembers.
Military commanders largely looked the other way. Continue reading.
Law enforcement officials in Donald Trump’s new hometown are preparing for the possibility of the former president getting indicted.
Officials in Palm Beach County, Florida, have taken part in planning sessions in case Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance secures an indictment against Trump while he’s at his Mar-A-Lago residence — and working out what might happen if Gov. Ron DeSantis invokes an obscure state law to protect his fellow Republican, two high-ranking county officials told Politico Playbook.
“The statute leaves room for interpretation that the governor has the power to order a review and potentially not comply with the extradition notice,” said Joe Abruzzo, circuit court clerk for Palm Beach County. Continue reading.
A former prosecutor believes there is a good indication former President Donald Trump will be facing consequences for his actions in the very near future.
According to HuffPost, Glenn Kirschner, who worked as a prosecutor for the District of Columbia’s U.S. attorney’s office for more than 20 years, recently weighed in on the investigation into the former president and a number of his close allies.
While he acknowledged that the wheels of the justice system tend to turn slow, Kirschner noted that there are indications that the case is about to gain momentum. Kirschner, now a legal analyst for MSNBC, discussed Lisa Monaco and her new role as deputy attorney general. Shortly after her confirmation back in April, she began working on the case. Continue reading.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is facing a fierce fact-check from journalists after making another revisionist claim about his party’s response to the 2020 election.
On Wednesday, May 12, McCarthy spoke to reporters after attending a meeting with President Joe Biden. While speaking to reporters, the California lawmaker said, “I don’t think anybody is questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. I think that is all over with. We’re sitting here with the president today.”
The perplexing comment quickly caught the attention of reporters who jumped at the opportunity to fact-check McCarthy for his inaccurate claims. On May 7, former President Donald Trump called the election the “Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020” in a message to his supporters. Continue reading.
Republican after Republican on Wednesday repeatedly sought to downplay the violence of the Jan. 6 insurrection, with one Georgia lawmaker likening the mobs overwhelming Capitol Police and vandalizing Capitol offices to a “normal tourist visit.”
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) made the tourist comment, saying that calling what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6 an insurrection “is a boldfaced lie.”
“Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the stanchions and ropes taking videos and pictures,” the first-term lawmaker said. “You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from Jan. 6, you’d think it was a normal tourist visit.” Continue reading.
