The First Mike Flynn-Inspired Insurrectionist Sentenced to 44 Months in Prison
In his (successful) letter to John Bates asking for leniency, QAnoner Nicholas Languerand attributed his involvement in the dangerous cult to prominent people, most notably Mike Flynn.
During this time, I was introduced to what has been dubbed “QAnon.” I cannot deny my involvement with this group or the profound impact it has had on my life. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of misinformation related to the beliefs and motives of this group within the public discourse. In regards to my case, I believe the most important aspect of this controversial topic is the fact that those individuals were consistently encouraged by highly respected members of society such as President Trump, Lt General Michael Flynn, General Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell, and Lt General Thomas McInerny.
[snip]
There is absolutely no doubt, and I have every intention of showing to the court, that these individuals promoted and in effect facilitated and took responsibility for what I call the Q information network. The evidence of this is substantial to say the least. I think it is only fair that the court and Americans at home understand that this phenomenon went on for 4 years and culminated in the “Stop the Steal” movement between November 2020 and Janaury 6th 2021. It is also important to understand that it was lead [sic] by retired senior military intelligence officers who attained one of the highest possible statuses within the U.S. military.
Languerand pled guilty to assaulting cops, throwing a large orange bollard and some sticks at the officers in the Tunnel on January 6, then stealing a riot shield.
Languerand invoked that Lieutenant General again today at his sentencing. Bates, showing the same deference to other white January 6 defendants he has in the past, gave him a below guidelines sentence, 44 months.
Whatever excuses he made for himself, the key one is that Languerand believes Flynn and others mobilized his best motivations and turned it to violent effect on January 6.
Languerand will not the be the last January 6 defendant who attributes his radicalization to Mike Flynn. But he is the most serious defendant thus far who will spend three years of his life paying for the actions he says Flynn inspired him to take.
The eventual question is how much time that Flynn and his fellow travellers will spend in jail for inciting their ersatz followers.
Hopefully not a BS “below guidelines sentence.”
It is amazing how many people here are suddenly federal sentencing experts. Most all of the sentences I have seen are actually within guidelines. But, hey, it is easy to rail about all the “BS below guidelines sentences”.
This is nothing. Wait until a football game comes on the tv and see how many people show up who suddenly know more than an NFL coach. You won’t believe it!
No, I am not an expert.
Just my hope.
I know I’m just screaming into the wind here, but please assess the sentences in the context of the larger world of what sentences people receive for their misdeeds. This dumb dumb got caught up in a stupid ideology then got caught up in a mob at the Capitol, leading him to mixing it up with the cops. Yes, he’s a bad person. But he didn’t kill anyone and he was not a planner or instigator of the event. He was a useful idiot in a larger scheme.
He got 44 months in a Federal Prison and is post-prison life is pretty much ruined. I think that’s more than enough punishment for what he did, and I write this as someone who is completely disgusted with what all these people did.
Did you even bother to read the indictment against Languerand? That’s a rhetorical question, I can tell from your question.
He was charged with:
18 USC 231 (a)(3) Civil Disorder — fined and/or up to 3 years or both
18 USC 111 (a)(1), (b) Assaulting, Resisting, or Impeading Certain Officers Using a Dangerous Weapon — fined and/or up to 8 years or both
and (b) Enhancement penalty — fined and/or up to 20 years or both
18 USC 1752 (a)(1), (b)(1)(A) Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon — fined and/or up to 10 years or both
18 USC 1752 (a)(2) Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon
18 USC 1752 (a)(4) Engaging in Physical Violence in a Restricted Building or Grounds with a Deadly or Dangerous Weapon
40 USC 5104 (e)(2)(D) Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building
40 USC 5104 (e)(2)(F) Act of Physical Violence in the Capitol Grounds or Buildings
I only looked up the possible sentences for the first four charges because I’m not going to waste more time on your slacking off.
He cooperated and pleaded down to 18 USC 111 (a)(1), (b) only out of all the charges in the indictment.
This guy received a goddamned slap on the hands for a violent attack on the Capitol Building and its police force.
Meh. Again, I don’t like these people and I think a small percentage of them were insurrectionists trying to overthrow the government, but a plastic orange bollard and some sticks are now “deadly weapons”? My comment stands – dude got hyped up by Trump then the mob, mixed it up with the cops, and is now going to jail for 42 months at a Federal facility, and it probably will be medium security. That’s plenty for trespassing and throwing some stuff at cops. All those charges are classic Federal overcharging.
No, you are completely full of shit. And, apparently, either have not read the indictments or are incapable of understanding them. So meh right back at you.
“I don’t like these people” — well, fortunately in a nation of laws, the laws don’t care what you think or feel. The facts were presented and the law applied to those facts. Prosecution provided evidence of the accused using weapons, about which I suggest you take the time to look up the legal definition.
As for federal overcharging: yeah, there’s excess, but it’s not this white guy who deliberately and violently entered the Capitol Building to disrupt government proceedings. It’s not this guy who could have received 20 or more years and much steeper fines and instead received a sentence of months.
If you can’t do the homework necessary for a reasoned discussion here like reading the charging documents and looking up legal terminology, don’t pipe up. And if you’re here — so far for a mere 59 comments — to advocate for insurrectionists, you’ve come to the wrong goddamned neighborhood.
ADDER: “a plastic orange bollard and some sticks are now ‘deadly weapons’” applied by Languerand — just a harmless right-wing rave at a pop-up disco.
![[photos via WMBF, Myrtle Beach SC]](https://cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/AEUMB2LYEBECBEOWC2HILWFU3A.png)
You choose to exclude ‘intent’. What would the ‘what now moment’ have been, if they achieved their insurrection”?
Why are there soft sentences? Treason, insurrection, these are irredeemable crimes. The highest level of atrocities possible against your country. Contrast with a demised member of the military who gave the ultimate – this is the opposite of being a patriot.
Please. Your first mistake is tossing treason in your argument. We have been through this ad nauseum at this site, that treason has a specific legal meaning based in traditional kinetic warfare. So far none of the persons arrested to date should have been charged with treason though they may be traitors to the Constitution and nation.
Your second mistake is assuming the sentences so far don’t meet federal guidelines or that their charges weren’t negotiated down in exchange for cooperation which may provide leverage on much higher-level perpetrators. Jesus Christ, don’t get bmaz started on this.
Your third mistake is acting as if this is somebody else’s failure. If YOU think these charges are too light, YOU can contact your representative and senators and tell them that the U.S. Code needs to be adjusted and why, being prepared to tell them which parts of the code and sentences are insufficient in your opinion. If this is to remain a democracy, a government of, by, and for the people, which derives its legitimacy from our consent, then we citizens need to take a more active role — and not one heaving bollards at the Capitol or bashing law enforcement with bats.
Heh, what Rayne said. Also, you clearly have not been reading here, else you would not step into such lame rabbit holes.
“But he is the most serious defendant thus far who will spend three years of his life paying for the actions he says Flynn inspired him to take.”
While Trump plays golf and dines at his luxury resort.
I’d think there would be more anger and resentment.
One wonders whether their time spent will be used to observe how DJT and his minions left them behind and perhaps find a way to return the favor (like Michael Cohen has).
“While Trump plays golf and dines at his luxury resort.”
That and just about everything else on other people’s money.
Absolutely, the best golf is free golf.
>I’d think there would be more anger and resentment.
The whole Trump phenomenon is so inconsistent with the expected reactions of victims of conmen who realize they’ve been had. You’d expect rage in even a typical Trump voter, much less one who is now face 44 months in prison. I just don’t understand it.
Way to nail it obsessed. There is a very long line of people who have been conned by Dipsh!t Donny. These people have publicly made their experiences with DonTheCon very well known. Yet, he keeps getting away with the next conjob with the next group of putative victims – over and over, again and again! For some effen unknown reason, his Teflon keeps working unlike my 30 year old Teflon pots which no longer have an effective anti-stick coating. When will the American people say enough – regardless of what any DOJ or AG does? The American people as a whole need to decide to stop being a victim like Trump and start being an active participant in their own survival. 2 cents.
In my anecdotal circle of acquaintances, not a single person has changed his or her opinion of Trump. Most thought he was a joke in the 90s and even more of a joke when he came down the elevator, and then a really scary joke, but the ones who voted for him have yet to so much as budge. It’s infuriatingly unfathomable. It’s hard to imagine a more obvious blowhard and conman. Reagan and Gingrich at least had some conman chops but Trump appears to be as transparent a buffoon as Homer Simpson or Archie Bunker. Maybe it’s the old “the bigger the lie the more likely they’ll believe it” syndrome. I’m holding out some hope that they’ll finally start to turn if the 1/6 committee really knocks it out of the park with their primetime connect-the-dots narrative, but after an endless string of “this time he’s finally done” moments, my confidence is low. Eventually his diet, morbid obesity and covid damage will catch up with him, but I don’t know if reality ever will. Plus, Dick Cheney’s still alive at 80 and was looking pretty good on the 1/6 anniversary. I guess rich people medical care must be pretty amazing. It’s gotta help to have a great doctor on retainer checking every organ and for every early warning symptom very regularly.
I see the scientology comment below. Now those guys are really skilled conmen. I fell under the sway of EST (same idea) at one point. Hell, NYT had me thinking Saddam probably had WMD (and I definitely got mad after that con was revealed!) It’s not that hard to get totally conned, but to be conned by the likes of Donald Trump requires some special strain of gullibility and we have an epidemic of it.
Xactly! It’s why the only real truth is that we can only be better than than the prior version ourselves (which religion and conmen prey upon) but it’s up to us to be our own keeper. So many debase themselves to a conman or charlatan is likely bc they lack integrity and they know it and don’t change even when confronted with actual facts. On a happy note, my dad voted for Trump (’16) and was a pretty hardcore supporter for years until he finally came to the realization (’19) and told me why he stopped – “he’s full of bullsh!t”
There are 10s if not 100s of millions in the US that think covid, which can kill them or maim them for the rest of their lives, is BS and each one of them probably can convince at least another person, even have them drink Lysol.
Same with climate change.
Then there’s religion and to some god-like DJT.
When the truth cannot be determined people will swallow large helpings of falsehoods which is as it always has been. This time there is a perniciousness about it, politicians and influencers are willing to sacrifice their own constituents and incredibly, their own constituents are willing to die on the vine for them. The numbers are low enough so that people have a reasonable probability so far of not getting it or if they do they survive it being either asymptomatic to mild. It’s certainly not like the 14th century in Europe where the Black Death was estimated to have killed one third to one half of everyone then living in Europe. Incidentally, there are roughly 2000 cases a year of the plague today, however modern medicine contains it.
Psyops is not a conspiracy theory. It is a constantly developing skill set by the military and the IC.
My guess is that you will find an outline of Q in the manual.
They are good at it.
The media played a HUGE role in helping Trump to become president. As Mary Trump said in her first book the NY area media chose to ignore Trump’s blatant corruption, instead portraying him as a colorful, brash, wealthy celebrity.
Callow journalists ignored the few serious reporters who were doing deep dives into Trump’s business dealings. For example the Village Voice’s late, great Wayne Barrett started reporting on this early in Trump’s career. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Cay Johnston covered Trump’s casinos. The information was easily available but most of the MSM decided to have fun covering this blatant crook.
But when the media most aided and abetted Trump’s rise to ultimate power was in the run up to the 2016 general election. Harvard’s Shorenstein Center did an in-depth post-election analysis of that media coverage. That analysis found that during the run up to the primaries Trump got much more coverage than was warranted given his low poll numbers and “….that coverage was overwhelmingly positive. In contrast the coverage of Hillary was overwhelmingly negative.” This was coverage by the mainstream “liberal” media, not just the right wing media.
https://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news-coverage-2016-trump-clinton-sanders/
I have a parent who is deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep into tfg (loitered outside trump tower I the *1980s* hoping to meet him) and was also and still is into est/The Forum. So much wilful imposition of an alternate reality.
There were 42 or so op-eds in NYTimes in the lead to the Iraq War, 41 were in favor of war, one was neutral, Iraq was the seminal event for me severing all ties with a Republican Party that had lost it’s ever-loving mind. Later NYTimes would run articles in which WMD in Iraq was debunked, but that was around 2010 and Bush 2 had already blown up the ME and way too late for it to be of any value other than to the people who had told them that was the truth before the invasion.
Because it’s not just about Trump. It’s about the promise his kind of leadership offers them which is a continuation of white supremacy. They can’t say that because many of them can’t articulate the underlying promise. Those who can are obvious and we revile them for it, but Trumpists struggle to frame what it is they expect of Trump as anything beyond “Make America Great Again” (a white supremacist country) or “America First” (a long-time fascist concept about which many Trumpists do not know the history).
Their inarticulation also stems from having been conditioned and radicalized by their preferred media, like Fox News and Newsmax; they can point to these outlets and say, “That, what they said.” Because they’re generally authoritarian personalities, they don’t exercise critical thinking to examine what these media authority figures tell them, let alone what Trump tells them.
We’re not ready for the descent in maelstrom as Trump continues his mental decomposition due to age, dementia, and long-term drug abuse which be distorted in all media.
Because at scale there’s no clear lost-all-their-money-and-got-ghosted moment of lightning clarity.
Their psychology is therefore more consistent with victims of abuse and cult members.
The documentary film series Can’t Get You Out of My Head (Adam Curtis, BBC, 2021) examines how radical movements shift and evolve as they get co-opted and exploited by pro status-quo forces. There’s relevant stuff in there about the cultural and psychological features of these mass movements.
Good reminder to watch those again.
Plus everything Rayne said about the racial animus dimension involved. It bodes shitty.
I don’t think we’re looking at co-opted movements. Going back and looking at Michael Flynn’s rambling speech to Young Americans for Freedom a week after the 2016 election and there are hints this was slowly built to fit the situation.
Who better to help build an effective “movement” than a guy with a background dealing with insurgencies and intelligence?
There’s been a very well researched program series on BBC Radio 4, outlining the progress of the Q Anon conspiracy. Tracing its roots right back to Bill Clinton’s early rise in politics.
It’s a mind-boggeling listen, if you are able to access it.
“The Coming Storm”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001324r/episodes/player
from Lady Bette and the Murder of Mr Thynne by NA Pickford
London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 2014
ISBN 978-0-297-87085-2:
(page 68) “Among the women the hot topic of the day [summer 1671] was how young children were disappearing, spirited away to be killed for their blood, which was supposedly being transported to France to be used to cure the French King of a leprosy. There were mothers who were so terrified at the rumors that they had taken to keeping their children at home from school. It was typical of the insidious manner in which fears about secret Catholic conspiracies and diabolical witchcraft had become commingled.”
The fundamental story behind Q-Anon has been going the rounds for a looong, looong time. It’s a variation of the old “blood libel” against Jews.
If you want to know the reality of child abuse among the sons and daughters of the elite, try reading Great Is the Truth: Secrecy, Scandal, and the Quest for Justice at the Horace Mann School by Amos Kamil and Sean Elder. Horace Mann was Billy Barr’s alma mater and the sexual abuse there was going on when he attended (although he is not implicated). His father, Donald Barr, was the headmaster at the Dalton School and brought Jeffrey Epstein into that school which, evidently, began Epstein’s crime career.
The worst aspect of Q-Anon et alia, in my view, is that they have trivialized the reality of sexual abuse in this country. It’s not Hollywood stars and billionaires drinking the blood of babies (Norman Spinrad should sue for such a travesty of his sf novel Bug Jack Barron) but the admired teacher, the friendly doctor, the caring coach, the kind clergyman/woman who are abusing the children. And, judging from what I read, a disproportionate number of them seem to be religious Rightists and Republicans.
‘It’s not Hollywood stars and billionaires drinking the blood of babies (Norman Spinrad should sue for such a travesty of his sf novel Bug Jack Barron) but the admired teacher, the friendly doctor, the caring coach, the kind clergyman/woman who are abusing the children. And, judging from what I read, a disproportionate number of them seem to be religious Rightists and Republicans.’
I think you have it exactly right GMOKE that’s what I read also.
What really disturbs and puzzles me is that the media seems disinterested in investigating how long Mike Flynn has been an extremist and Putin ally. The man was head of our Defense Intelligency Agency under Obama so he was privy to all kinds of top secrets so I would think the media would want to know if he was as much a right wing fanatic and Putin lover then. Has he always been an extremist? If not how did he become so wacky and more important how did he rise to such a high level? Did the military cover for him?
Seems like that would be a much more important topic than what kind of boss Kamal Harris is.
What really disturbs and puzzles me is that Flynn’s brother probably lied to the Committee and is commanding general of United States Army Pacific, and has not been at least for now given a desk job in the canteen.
It’s kind of nuts because Flynn was known widely before he joined Trump’s 2016 campaign for his “Flynn facts” — a snarky reference to his use and dispersion of less-than-truthful material.
Made him the perfect target for co-option and compromise by foreign agents.
Great link to the “Flynn facts” story, thanks.
“I’ve asked Flynn directly about this claim; he has told me that he doesn’t have any proof—it’s just something he feels was true.”
…….how prescient was that?
“Gut level” feelings are great if they come from genuine intuition. Otherwise, they’re just psychosis under another name.
Just like how Trump’s net worth fluctuates based on how he’s feeling about it.
This equation is made all the more complex when we add that, after all the proven lies, false promises, and openly anti-American actions of his followers have no affect on loyalty to Trump, his claiming the vaccine works is enough to turn some against him. It’s as though they love him for lying and for being obstinately wrong and will withdraw that love if he acts in any way decent. There is much humbling research about human behavior and how very unconscious are our choices, but I still think psychology does not have all the answers to the disturbing phenomenon of djt.
Rayne is right about Trump’s being the candidate of the white supremacist. Not only did he espouse it, but he made it acceptable–even laudable–again. And, as we know, he took steps that have set the political part of the civil rights movement back decades.
But there’s another dynamic involved as well. There are so many people who may not be white supremacists, but who fell, hook, line, and sinker, for his cons. Two factors are working in those people’s brains that keep them from reacting rationally to the whole con game–ego and denial.
Ego: I can’t let anyone know [how badly] I was taken in.
Denial: It wasn’t THAT bad!
And our own “I told you so” games will not help those people accept reality.
I expect this guy has a lot of anger and resentment that he was duped. The quoted statement is in a narrow document likely coached by his attorney, to make it clear to a specific judge, that he soberly accepts responsibility and admits guilt. I may not help his plea for leniency to be seen as a guy who is always angry. He certainly acted in anger on Jan 6, leading to bad decisions, that led to his arrest and the guilty plea.
It is interesting that he highlights the role of the two generals in getting him to believe in the Q rubbish. This is one of several threads in the highly effective Q mobilization, another being the communist pedophile cabal, that somehow animated a neighbor lady and many of the rioters.
We currently have no indictment of middle level Q people or a Q conspiracy indictment, to show a prosecutor theory in progress. Whether the Q thing was designed from the start to exercise this influence, or it was a convenient already viral thing that could be steered by a different entity, it looks designed to me, trying various messaging to see what stokes outrage, in a synthetic virality (A/B testing with metrics). General Flynn has military intelligence leadership experience in disinformation campaigns, and saw how he could contribute to the plan by steering the crazy viral thing, n ways useful for a larger plan.
If the Q movement was part of a larger conspiracy, this may be mapped by a number of viral posts, written by specific persons, with performance monitored by a team of analysts, who could tell what is working., and design the next messaging. When it was time to mobilize to come to DC, and the messaging was refined, the influencers could flood the zone. Riled up Q people figured out how to get to DC.
Prosecutors have a lot of seized phones, rioter debriefs, fruits of subpoenas, and legal scrapings of the platforms. Smart people could analyze the massive dataset, map networks and influencers, and perhaps identify authors,within the chaotic din. It is a theory.
“… it looks designed to me, trying various messaging to see what stokes outrage …”
AIUI: There were multiple discrete parties who would gain significant money if their mutation of the Q message went viral. Similar to the evolution of biological species which can from some perspectives looked “designed by a higher power”.
(This doesn’t refute your theory of there being higher Q designer/s creating, feeding and steering this evolutionary system.)
Sound point. Perhaps a better statement of my notion is that for someone in Q world to be prosecuted for conspiracy to obstruct, prosecutors would have to show conscious design and testing of messages to get people to DC, knowing there would be violence. Everything on the Internet was created by a person (or a bot created by a person), even though it seems to be this anonymous organic swirl of colorful entertainment.
A speculation about evidence of prosecutable conspiracy, presented as messaging among the theoretical conspirators.
Person 1: hey the boss thinks we can use the Q community to increase enthusiastic support for the stolen election idea
Person 2: yeah I been poking around the community and it is already there. I’ll put our talking points into some colorful memes, and see if they spread.
A couple weeks later:
Person 2: wow, all the massages we created took off, a couple bigger than the others and we have identified a dozen key influencers who can take any message and explode across the space.
Person 1: super cool! Here are some fresh talking points, and the boss wants more American flags in the art. Might build some bots to amplify the useful influencers.
Person 2: bots already in place. Some of the targeted influencers are giddy and bragging about their increased influence, and some are monetizing it.
Person 1: outstanding! Talk to person 3 who can steer money in support of the monetizing influencers.
December 2020
Person 1: all hands on deck! Boss wants massive crowds for a Jan 6 rally in DC. Figure out how to get these folks off their couches and their butts to DC. Get the poor ones fundraising to rent cars, buy gas, and reserve AirBNBs; we are figuring out how to quietly push money into this. Reinforce the party’s bus chartering plan.
Person 2: OK. I got a question about the new talking points. Seems to be a call to violence.
Person 1: Uh, give me a call. We need to handle this part with some care.
This is an illustrative fiction, but is pretty much the same kind of disinformation campaign coordination that the Mueller investigation found in the 2016 campaign, run by Russian entities, and he was able to put chats like this in his report, leading to prosecutions of named Russians.
The Q thing’s appeal is that it seems a random pile of crazy ideas across many platforms, where anyone can contribute, and each new post is crazier than the last, building on viral notions, that spread across the platforms. A conspiracy to obstruct the proceeding would not have to build the platforms or communities, just provide content to help them grow, steer the messaging, and later mobilize specific real world action for Jan 6.
Again, my scenario is only plausible speculation, not allegation or fact. If something like this happened, and someone like Person 2 spoke to the FBI, there might eventually be a conspiracy prosecution about the Q thing that shows how a conspiracy specifically animated disparate people like Jensen, Langeurand, Chansley and others.
Old guy rambles.
I’d bet that things like what you present happened. Would be strengthening for troubled liberal democracies if such conspirators are indicted.
When I see how many people who destroyed their lives for Donald Trump, I recall the Scientology documentary. I watched with disbelief that people would humiliate and denigrate themselves for the approval of David Miscavige. Why?
Please watch http://www.thebrainwashingofmydad.com for a parallel understanding of how it happens
It seems he was “inspired” by a lot of things:
“Nick started experimenting with different drugs and dating a 20-year-old woman
named Lindsay. He was 15. ”
Give them good PR, give them what they want to hear and get a reduced sentence.
Eh, that is not in the least how federal sentencing goes.
On the one hand, three-plus years in a nasty federal prison is real time. (Even the minimum-security joints are not very nice.) And assaulting cops is a real crime. On the other hand, by our savage American penological standards, it’s a love tap. So I’m not sure what to think …
ISIS was incubated in Iraqi prisons, to obviously potent effect. When it comes to that kind of zeal, I think religion and ideology are virtually indistinguishable.
I fear these justifiable incarcerations will create new threats.
Federal prisons may be nasty but, so I’ve been told, they are much better than state prisons. The minimum security Federal prisons have been called “Club Fed” by some.
I have been in most all of the relevant types of prisons. It used to be a lot easier to actually not just enter but get a badge pass and be escorted to your client’s pod/building. That is almost impossible now. As a rule, yes Fed prisons are better. That is not a perfect rule, but a fair one. For people that have never been to a facility described as a “Club Fed”, no, they are absolutely not fun and games. Any prison means you are locked up and controlled, none are at all that cushy.
For those insurrectionists who have been in the DC federal jail, any federal correctional institution but Super Max will be a step up. But one fact remains for all federal institutions–they are lock-ups. No matter how regimented or relaxed, no matter the degree of phone access, or the liberality of visit rules (or lack thereof), if you’re there, you’re locked up. You can’t run to town to see what’s going on if you’re bored. You can’t go see an old friend, or your dad or mom, just because you’ve been thinking about them. And someone besides you is making the rules.
RHODES detained pending trial.
https://twitter.com/joshgerstein/status/1486480411286982661
6:25 PM · Jan 26, 2022
I’m a little relieved by this. It looked for a while like the judge might let him out.
He will likely try to have that reconsidered once in DC, but doubt it will be changed. Hint to future criminal defendants, when your ex-wife shows up as a witness to excoriate you, that is not a good thing.
And, as the ex-wife pointed out later on Twitter, hiring a backhoe operator to dig escape tunnels in the yard of your rental home might later prejudice the judge against your cause.
Yeah, the ex was simply damning by what I can see. The abuse of children, paranoia, razor wire, etc are pretty bad. There was no way that guy was not going to be detained. And hard to see how that is going to be changed upon any motion to reconsider in DC. I have been a little critical of some of the government’s detention actions, but this mope truly deserves it.
The question, raised by his atty, of why the government let him run around for so long is a decent one though.
When you can’t convince a judge in Texas that you’re not a threat … (he typed, sitting in a DFW suburb)
And this was a Plano judge, no less! I wonder how close she is to Ken Paxton’s fraud case.
About 90 miles
[p3] “Defendant reports that he is currently in a relationship with Kellye SoRelle. According to Pretrial Services, numerous attempts to contact Ms. SoRelle for verification purposes were unsuccessful.”
And living together since May 2020.
Maybe, maybe not! She denied it to Ken Bensinger.
https://twitter.com/kenbensinger/status/1486496070989332485
7:27 PM · Jan 26, 2022
If shown not to be true, wouldn’t that be trying the patience of the judge, to say the very least?
Rhodes may be using very loose definitions of “relationship” and “reside in.”
Seems like maybe it has tried the patience of the judge?
Footnote 6.
Marcy, you snipped out the very nice list of names that Languerand says were the second tier of this:
Maybe it’s because I’m sitting out here next to Kansas, but seeing Mike Pompeo’s name of this list is rather something. He has delusions of running for the GOP presidential nomination (assuming Trump declines to run), and this kind of letter would be rather helpful to anyone running against him.
Moving on, following the end of that blockquote above, the letter goes on:
Sounds very much like Trump’s words about the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, doesn’t it?
On the other hand, Languerand also said this: “I . . . felt that I had finally found a community where I belonged and was valued. I rediscovered my Christian faith and felt like I was learning a great deal about myself and the world around me.” I shudder to think of what he means by “Christian faith” if it led him to take part in this insurrection.
One of the biggest frauds of all these people is claiming they are Christians. They would spit on the real Jesus if he was in their presence. They are filled with hate. And they aren’t victims, they are willing dupes. Most of them would die before they would admit they are wrong.
Real Jesus would be crucified by these so called Christians for loving the poor more than the rich, for feeding the hungry and taking care of the least of us, as he asked people to do. They’ve changed the Golden Rule to “Treat me the way I demand to be treated.” Guarantee that will piss off any real Jesus that comes this way.
“Sounds very much like Trump’s words about the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, doesn’t it?”
By “Christian faith” a huge chunk of what they mean is overt antisemitism.
Trump was explicitly courting this in the past month with his ridiculously underreported comments about Jews running the NY Times and Congress, and how US Jews were betraying Israel, in reference to apocalyptic evangelist ideas about Israel.
More and more of the hard right — people with direct involvement in the GOP, not incidental fringe players — are embracing explicit, violent antisemitism. But the press hates making the connection. The NY Times has refused to even cover what Trump said about them.
Robert Kennedy’s freakshow claims that anti-Covid measures were somehow worse than the Holocaust were no accident — antisemitism runs rampant through the antivax movement, and claims minimizing the Holocaust have been central to deniers since the very first days. He knew exactly what he was doing.
The GOP is embracing virulent, dangerous antisemitism, and the press is too deeply compromised to raise the alarm. It’s a frightening situation.
Look at the pictures of Jesus they use: a blue-eyed blond.
I’ve always wondered about that blue-eyed blond.
How many people in the Middle East are blue-eyed blond?
Madison defined a faction as “A number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”
The Republican Party is becoming an ethic/religious faction.
The anti-semitism, the white supremacy and faux Christianity being described imo is the platform republicans haven’t been willing to announce out loud.
What makes my stomach drop is wondering if this explains the unbearable and unexpected silence of so many people I once had some degree of respect for.
A segment of the evangelical Christian base also speaks of the “sons of Ham”, meaning Black people. That is another bid chunk besides anti-Semitism and an ironic one given Ham was descended from Noah who you’d think would be a good-guy to their way of thinking.
Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and guess which one was the “white” guy.
There once was a man called The Donald…
Who groped and he grabbed and he fondled…
He said with a smirk, I know I’m a jerk…
Now please all go get McConnelled…
Languerand’s repeated use of “I am a Patriot” grates on my ears.
I wish he would address the 81 million Patriots who voted for Pres. Biden in the 2020 election. I’d like him to acknowledge that the Capitol is THEIR house, too, and that on 1/6/21 he chose to use violence to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power. While he has “become entirely disillusioned with any notion of the world of politics since these events have transpired” [I assume because he realizes QAnon and its public cheerleaders lied to him], I wish he would acknowledge the overwhelming fact that the 2020 election was free and fair after all.
Despite claiming his violent actions on 1/6/21 were the result of lies he was fed by his QAnon programming, his letter to the judge shows, however, he still harbors thoughts that this election was stolen:
“By the time that January 6th came around, so many people including myself had become genuinely upset and fearful. Inflamatory [sic] rhetoric from high ranking military generals and their allies, much of which I intend to present as mitigative evidence, is what I believe ultimately pushed people to engage in Violence at the Capitol. I want to make it clear that I do not believe in any way that the things I have mentioned justify or excuse my or anyone else’s actions that day. I deeply regret what I did for a number of reasons. Cheifly [sic], that our movement was never meant to be violent. Beyond that, it would certainly appear that we were lied to. Though it is frustrating that no apparent official investigation or audit has taken place, such as happened after the 2016 election cycle, such matters are both over my head and out of my hands.”
And oh, in case you did not know, Trump is peaceful:
“Very few of us expected anything like what happened on January 6th to transpire. After it did, I imediatley [sic] was filled with regret for my actions. Donald Trumps words and Jacob Chansleys teachings about non-violence further made me realize that our movement was not meant to be represented by violence and that what I had done contributed to something that caused grief and hardship to many people.”
There seems to be a serious amount of delusion here. Jacob Chansley was in the Capitol with a spear. I have never seen an advocate of non-violence with a spear.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone with a spear in this or the last century before this guy showed up.
Maybe Don Jr.
Yes. I wondered how Languerand squared that spear with Chansley’s supposed non-violence talk. Perhaps he’s easily gas-lighted and saw it as Chansley’s defense attorney claimed it to be, a flagpole with a “misaligned, loose-fitting finial” atop.
Those aren’t spear-points; they’re conical, painted gold, and not sharp.
Chansley wrote a high school essay saying his goal was to become “a Muhammed … or a Christ.” I suppose this new, improved prophet might condone a little violence.
There’s a lot of delusional revision of Scripture going on with these folk.
teachings about non-violence?
How did I miss that amongst the “I’ll pay the lawyer if you punch him” and “Don’t protect their head when you put them in the squad car”?
“Crooked Hillary, for all you Second Amendment people out there.”
Please don’t give the lurking nutbags any additional fodder. I’ve binned a troll in the last 24 hours who was ranting irrationally about her.
Without diminishing the importance of racial animus in spurring people like the defendant to join in the Trump cult, it is also apparent that people like the defendant had finally found a group to which he felt he belonged. Reading his ramblings it does seem like he is struggling with breaking from the group even though he knows he has been led astray.
Reading some of what he had and other remorseful defendants have said makes me think that what the January 6th Committee is doing and hopefully will do is as important as, if not, more important than, what the DOJ is doing. We need a national truth-telling and, perhaps, a lifeline for those who have gone far down to the rabbit hole.
That said, the hammer needs to drop on people like Mike Flynn who cynically groomed QAnon people and pushed them down the rabbit hole for his own ends. When I read that Mike Flynn was flirting with QAnon in the summer of 2020, it just seemed like a convenient group of rubes for him to grift. Now, in hindsight, it seems more sinister.
‘Where are they now?’ Here’s an update from DC Jail.
https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/01/05/the-january-sixers-have-their-own-unit-at-the-dc-jail-heres-what-life-is-like-inside/
I may have misunderstood this, but does the military code of conduct have any hold on Flynn as a (retired) lieutenant general?
I heard mutterings about that while Flynn was trying to decide how guilty he was in front of judge Sullivan, but haven’t heard anything since Trump pardoned Flynn Trump. So, I’m still curious.
It hasn’t been decided – there’s a court case about whether UCMJ can be applied to retired military.
The main case Larabee, was argued on October 22, and remains under consideration. A somewhat related case, Begani, is over. The bottom line remains the same as it was every one of the hundred times this question resurfaces: There is not a chance in hell that Flynn will get recalled and prosecuted under the UCMJ. None. People need to give this up.
It does indicate he has a lot less popular support than he believes.
Lol, that is irrelevant. It is never happening.
True. But people keep hoping. It isn’t right, what he’s doing.
Nope, it is not. But UCMJ likely will never be the remedy.
But it should be one of the remedies. DoD needs to set a stake in the ground communicating forcefully to armed services that rebellion and insurrection and conspiracies to support it will not be tolerated from those who’ve sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, especially if they expect to make a pension-paying career in the U.S. military.
Naw, the UCMJ jurisdiction over former military should not maintain for anything not directly related to military crimes. And it certainly should not maintain as to Flynn as he has already been pardoned by the federal government. Sorry, he is done as to anything within the scope of his pardon.
If it comes to pass he’s done anything a whisker outside the pardon, like encouraged the use of military assets to subvert an election’s outcome? Nope. He’s repeatedly fucked off and flouted military regulations and gotten away with it.
It just is not going to happen, any more than RICO. People need to give this up.
Go ahead, you can tell me to fuck off. LOL
We have a massive problem with the military evident in the number of them who are white supremacists/nationalists, the number of former and active who participated in January 6, and the involvement of Michael Flynn at a minimum. When retired generals all become vocal about the threats to democracy posed by current+former military personnel, something MUST happen.
Lol, gonna need to change the law to fix that, and you can’t change criminal law retroactively like that. And it would be a VERY bad thing if it was done.
Just an opinion, but I don’t hold out any hope of a mass awakening on the part of the Trump faithful. At best, like the tens of millions of Nazis who evaporated into thin air in 1945, we will have grandchildren (holding a sweat stained red cap) saying “Grandpa, whatsa maga?” or “Grandpa, we studied the Trump Trials in school today. Did you vote for Trump?”. The response will be deflection, denial, and assertions of dignity but never admission that he was punching neighbors, storming the Capitol, or advocating ethno-religious idiocy while wearing the hat. No different than Beanie Babies, Florida swamp land, Scientology, or the Klan.
“
“…we studied the Trump Trials in school today…”
Thank you for the smile! ~ :D I vote HELZ yes to that future please.
I never got to ask as a child in school, “What’s a ratline?”
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963913554/the-ratline-follows-trail-of-a-nazi-murderer-who-was-never-caught
A deliberately manufactured mass psychosis. Probably unnecessary to repeat the Voltaire quote for this crowd but I’ll do it anyway: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you perform atrocities.” Only needs to be adjusted to say **will** make you perform atrocities, because that’s why they’re doing it.