Tarrio was convicted of “seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct the counting of electoral votes…reports Asian Lite News
Enrique Tarrio, the former National Chairman of the far-right group Proud Boys, was sentenced to 22 years in jail for his role in the January 6, 2021, riot on the US Capitol.
Tarrio was convicted of “seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct the counting of electoral votes” during the transfer of power of the White House following the 2020 elections, Xinhua news agency reported.
In that counting by the US Congress, Democrat Joe Biden won 306 votes versus 232 for then the Republican incumbent, Donald Trump.
The sentence is the longest given to anyone involved in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
“The jury didn’t convict anyone for engaging in politics, they convicted Tarrio and others of engaging in seditious conspiracy,” District Judge Timothy Kelly said on Tuesday.
Before being sentenced, Tarrio apologised for the “pain and suffering” stemmed from the Capitol riot, and vowed to have “nothing to do with politics, groups, activism or rallies”.
“This trial has shown me how wrong I was,” he said.
“My client is a misguided patriot. That’s what my client is…he thought he was saving this country, saving this republic,” said Tarrio’s lawyer Sabino Jauregui on Tuesday.
Tarrio is the last of five Proud Boys defendants to be sentenced. According to the indictment, on January 6, 2021, the defendants directed, mobilised, and led members of the crowd onto the Capitol grounds and into the Capitol, leading to the dismantling of metal barricades, destruction of property, and assaults on law enforcement.
Although Tarrio is not accused of physically taking part in the breach of the Capitol, the indictment accused him of leading the advance planning and remaining in contact with other members of the Proud Boys during their breach of the Capitol.
Tarrio was arrested on January 4, 2021, on a warrant charging him in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia with the destruction of property in December 2020, burning of a ‘Black Lives Matter’ banner. He was released on January 5, 2021. As a condition of his release, he was ordered by the court to stay out of Washington, D.C.
Thousands of demonstrators surrounded the US Capitol building to dispute the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021. Five deaths have been linked by authorities to the mayhem. Four officers who responded to the attack reportedly died by suicide within the next several months.
While prosecutors had demanded for 25 years, this is the longest prison sentence yet given to a Capitol rioter….reports Asian Lite News
Stewart Rhodes, founder of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison over his role in the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot.
While prosecutors had demanded for 25 years, this is the longest prison sentence yet given to a Capitol rioter.
Along with Rhodes, who was convicted on charges of seditious conspiracy and other crimes, a second Oath Keepers member, Kelly Meggs was also sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Thursday’s sentences are the first handed down in over a decade for seditious conspiracy in the US.
“What we absolutely cannot have is a group of citizens who — because they did not like the outcome of an election, who did not believe the law was followed as it should be — foment revolution,” CNN quoted District Judge Amit Mehta as saying before handing down the sentence.
“That is what you did. I dare say, Mr. Rhodes — and I never have said this to anyone I have sentenced — you pose an ongoing threat and peril to our democracy and the fabric of this country.
“I dare say we all now hold our collective breaths when an election is approaching. Will we have another January 6 again? That remains to be seen,” he added
Judge Mehta said Rhodes, the 58-year-old former US Army paratrooper and Yale-educated lawyer, expressed no remorse and continues to be a threat.
“A seditious conspiracy, when you take those two concepts and put it together, is among the most serious crimes an American can commit. It is an offence against the government to use force. It is an offence against the people of our country.”
Earlier on Thursday, Mehta ruled that Rhodes’ actions amounted to domestic terrorism.
“He was the one giving the orders. He was the one organising the teams that day. He was the reason they were in fact in Washington D.C. Oath Keepers wouldn’t have been there but for Stewart Rhodes, I don’t think anyone contends otherwise. He was the one who gave the order to go, and they went.”
At the hearing, Rhodes claimed he was a “political prisoner” and insisted that the Oath Keepers were standing in opposition to people “who are destroying our country”, the BBC reported.
Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers in 2009. He began a campaign to reject the results of the election two days after the November 2020 vote, while ballots were still being counted.
Armed members of the anti-government group showed up at a number of protests and standoffs, and eventually became staunch supporters of former US President Donald Trump.
Dozens were present at the riot.
In January this year, four other Oath Keepers were convicted of seditious conspiracy and four members of the far-right Proud Boys were convicted on the charge earlier this month.
In total, more than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the riot, and more than half have pleaded guilty to crimes including assault, theft, weapons charges, trespassing and obstructing an official proceeding.
Around 80 have been found guilty following a trial, according to the US Justice Department.
US Senate failed to get the support of 17 Republicans to have the 2/3rd majority required to convict former US President Donald Trump, a report by Ashok Nilakantan
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced her plans to establish a 9/11 style independent commission outside the Congress to probe the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hills insurrection, even as bipartisan Senators voted 57-43 to impeach the former president, but failed to get the support of 17 Republicans to have the 2/3rd majority required to convict Trump.
Trump was free to go on impeachment in the second vote of the senate.
Even as Trump got this reprieve with his ‘Trumpification’ of the Republican party, Pelosi announced plans for Congress to establish an outside and independent commission to investigate “the facts and causes” related to the attack on the US Capitol last year.
In a letter to her Democratic colleagues on Monday, the California Democrat said the commission will be modelled on the commission established after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
President Joe Biden responded to the Senate’s acquittal of Trump by reminding Americans that truth must be defended, saying the impeachment of the former President was a stark illustration of the danger posed to democracy by lies, misinformation and extremism.
And Biden said that although Trump was acquitted, his actions in the lead-up to the Jan 6 riots were not “in dispute”.
“This sad chapter in our history has reminded us that democracy is fragile. That it must always be defended. That we must be ever vigilant. That violence and extremism has no place in America. And that each of us has a duty and responsibility as Americans, and especially as leaders, to defend the truth and to defeat the lies,” Biden said in a statement.
Biden’s statement was preceded by Pelosi noting the recent work of retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who has “been assessing our security needs by reviewing what happened on January 6 and how we must ensure that it does not happen again”.
“As we prepare for the Commission, it is also clear from General Honore’s interim reporting that we must put forth a supplemental appropriation to provide for the safety of Members and the security of the Capitol,” Pelosi wrote.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Photo_Instagram via IANS)
Such a move will require legislation and will likely tee up partisan difficulties, NPR WNYC quoted her as saying.
Her letter to colleagues came several hours after four House Republicans sent a letter to Pelosi suggesting she may be responsible for the delay in the deployment of National Guard troops ahead of and during the insurrection.
The letter did not mention Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who on January 6 was still the Senate majority leader and would have also had a say in the Capitol’s security posture.
“Many important questions about your responsibility for the security of the Capitol remain unanswered,” the letter read.
Drew Hammill, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, called the Republicans’ letter a “transparently partisan attempt to lay blame on the Speaker”.
“The Speaker has and will continue to take action to ensure accountability and enhance the security of the Capitol,” he said in a statement.
“Following the insurrection, the House Sergeant at Arms, the Senate Sergeant at Arms and the Chief of the Capitol Police were removed from their positions. It is the job of the Capitol Police Board, on which these three individuals sat, to properly plan and prepare for security threats facing the US Capitol.”
Senator Chris Coons, a close ally of President Biden, told ABC’s ‘This Week’ that he supports a September 11-style commission to probe further into the events leading up to the attack.
“There’s still more evidence that the American people need and deserve to hear,” the Delaware Democrat said.
“The 9/11-style commission is the way to make sure that we secure the Capitol going forward, and that we lay bare the record of just how responsible and abjectly and violating of his constitutional oath President Trump really was.”
Following the January 6 attack, heightened security measures were deployed around the complex, including the requirement of members to walk through metal detectors and various forms of fencing secured around the Capitol’s perimeter.
Trump, facing conviction and impeachment in the Senate committee probing the Capitol insurrection, escaped impeachment as the Senate voted 57-43 to acquit former him during his second impeachment trial.
Even though the yearlong hearings by the Senate committee gathered mounting evidence to convict Trump, it had no legal powers to do so as it’s only a fact-finding commission that can recommend a trial.
That’s why Pelosi has quickly moved to appoint a 9/11 style commission that’s independent of Congress and from the outside to find the causes of the riots. Trump is up against the wall again.
Seven GOP Senators voted with Democrats — the most bipartisan impeachment vote in US history — but fell short of the 17 needed to convict the former Ppresident, according to CNBC news. .
Of those seven Republicans, two are retiring and only one — Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski — faces her state’s voters in the next election cycle in 2022.
Following Trump’s second acquittal in an impeachment trial, House Democratic managers are defending their decision not to forge ahead with seeking witnesses to help make their case.
Members on both sides of the aisle were anticipating a surprise Senate vote to allow witnesses threatened to upend the speedy trial. But after a two-hour break, the House managers relented, and they and Trump’s defence team reached a deal that would prevent them from going down the prolonged path of seeking to add witnesses to the trial.
Instead, they allowed a statement released by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, in which she relayed a conversation she said the House GOP leader had with Trump, to be entered into the trial record.
The House impeachment managers defended that choice, arguing that continuing the trial with witnesses wouldn’t have been strategically advantageous.
“We have no regrets,” lead House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin, told NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’.
“We left it totally out there on the floor of the Senate, and every Senator knew exactly what happened. We could have had a thousand witnesses but that could not have overcome the kinds of silly arguments that people like McConnell and Capito were hanging their hats on,” he added.
Senator Stacey Plaskett was vitriolic in saying the Trump trial needed “More Senators with spines, not more witnesses”.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell West Virginia GOP Senator Shelley Moore Capito both cited constitutional concerns in their decision to vote to acquit Trump.
The Senate vote raises further questions about Trump’s role in the Republican Party going forward. In a statement after the verdict, Trump said: “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to ‘Make America Great Again’ has only just begun.”
Senator Lindsey Graham, an ally of the former President, told Fox News that he had spoken with Trump, and that he’s eager to help the GOP win the House and Senate back in 2022.
But Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, who was one of the seven Republicans who broke ranks with their party in voting to convict the trump, told ABC’s ‘This Week’ that Trump’s “force wanes” in the GOP.
Cassidy is facing backlash in Louisiana over his vote, including the state GOP voting to unanimously censure him. But he said people want to hold their leaders accountable and that’s what his vote to convict was based on.
File photo shows US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confronting then President Donald Trump at a reportedly explosive White House meeting. In the image, leading Democrat Pelosi is standing up at a large table, surrounded by male Congressional leaders and top military officials, pointing her finger towards the President, who is seated opposite her and appears stunned.
“I have the privilege of having the facts before me, and being able to spend several days deeply going into those facts. As these facts become more and more out there, if you will, and folks have a chance to look for themselves, more folks will move to where I was,” he explained.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell excoriated Trump for his actions on the day of the attack on the US Capitol, calling them a “disgraceful dereliction of duty”.
But he said ultimately he did not vote to convict the former President because of constitutional concerns. “There’s no question, none, that President Trump was practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said shortly after the 57-43 Senate vote that ended in the former President’s acquittal.
The court said the transfer of the records could begin in 14 days, before which Trump is allowed to ask the Supreme Court to intervene in the case, reports Asian Lite News
A US federal appeals court has ruled to reject former President Donald Trump’s bid to block the National Archives from turning over his administration’s records to a House panel investigating the January 6 Capitol riot.
On Thursday, the three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected the arguments by the former President’s lawyers that their client could assert executive privilege to prevent the current administration from sharing the Trump White House’s documents with the House Select Committee to Investigate the attack, reports Xinhua news agency.
“The central question in this case is whether, despite the exceptional and imperative circumstances underlying the Committee’s request and President (Joe) Biden’s decision, a federal court can, at the former President’s behest, override President Biden’s decision not to invoke privilege and prevent his release to Congress of documents in his possession that he deems to be needed for a critical legislative inquiry,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote in a 68-page opinion for the panel.
“On the record before us, former President Trump has provided no basis for this court to override President Biden’s judgment and the agreement and accommodations worked out between the Political Branches over these documents.
“Both Branches agree that there is a unique legislative need for these documents and that they are directly relevant to the Committee’s inquiry into an attack on the Legislative Branch and its constitutional role in the peaceful transfer of power,” the opinion added.
Supporters of then U.S. President Donald Trump gather near the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States, Jan. 6, 2021. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)
The court said the transfer of the records could begin in 14 days, before which Trump is allowed to ask the Supreme Court to intervene in the case.
Immediately following the ruling, the Trump team vowed to appeal it.
“Regardless of today’s decision by the appeals court, this case was always destined for the Supreme Court. President Trump’s duty to defend the Constitution and the Office of the Presidency continues, and he will keep fighting for every American and every future Administration,” said Liz Harrington, the former President’s spokesperson.
Trump in October sued the House committee and the National Archives to stop the Biden administration from allowing the release of his White House’s documents related to the insurrection on Capitol Hill.
Biden, in his capacity as the incumbent president, had denied Trump of his executive privilege covering the information requested, saying his predecessor’s effort to stonewall the congressional investigation was neither in the best interest of the US nor justified.
Trump’s suit, however, was quickly tossed out by Judge Tanya Chutkan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia (DDC). He then appealed the judge’s decision in the D.C. Circuit, which fast tracked the case.
The National Archives, which is the custodian of the records at issue, said in an October filing in the DDC that the records Trump wanted to keep from lawmakers totalled over 770 pages, including files related to Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff; Stephen Miller, Trump’s former senior adviser; and Patrick Philbin, his former deputy counsel.
Trump is also objecting to the release of the White House Daily Diary — which details a President’s movements, phone calls, trips, briefings, meetings and activities — as well as logs showing phone calls to Trump and to Vice President Mike Pence concerning events on January 6, according to the filing.
Trump has also asserted executive privilege over records containing proposed talking points for Kayleigh McEnany, his former press secretary; a handwritten note concerning January 6; a draft text of a presidential speech for the “Save America” rally that preceded the mob attack; and a draft executive order on the topic of election integrity, the filing said.
Resolute throughout the legal fight, Trump has instructed other key investigatees targeted by the select committee to cite the executive privilege and not cooperate with the probe.
The former President’s one-time chief strategist, Steve Bannon, did accordingly and, as a result, is now being criminally prosecuted for contempt of Congress.
Meadows also did what he was told by his former boss and is now facing the same criminal contempt referral from Congress to the Justice Department.
