Quoting Enrique Tarrio Invoking “The Winter Palace,” DOJ Charges the Proud Boys with Sedition

DOJ just charged the Proud Boy leaders with seditious conspiracy. There are two main differences from the earlier indictment adding Enrique Tarrio to the conspiracy (a charge of 18 USC 372 was also added).

First, Charles Donohoe is no longer referred to as a co-conspirator. He is described as a cooperator.

Charles Donohoe is a 34-year-old resident of Kenersville, North Carolina. On January 6, 2021, Donohoe was the president of his local chapter of the Proud Boys.

Second, the indictment added this exchange.

At 7:39 pm, PERSON-1 sent two text messages to TARRIO that read, “Brother. ‘You know we made this happen,” and “I’m so proud of my country today.” TARRIO responded, “I know” At 7:44 pm. the conversation continued, with PERSON-1 texting, “1776 motherfuckers.” TARRIO responded, “The Winter Palace.” PERSON-1 texted, “Dude. Did we just influence history?” TARRIO responded, “Let’s first see how this plays out.” PERSON-1 stated, “They HAVE to certify today! Or it’s invalid.” These messages were exchanged before the Senate returned to its chamber at approximately 8:00 p.m. to resume certifying the Electoral College vote.

In this post, I noted that last week prosecutors were being coy about whether to expect a superseding indictment, even while the discovery index shared last week did not, yet, reflect the cooperation of Donohoe.

The cooperation of Donohoe appears to have gotten them to seditious conspiracy, though in ways they’re hiding from most other potential co-conspirators.

That is, Donohoe’s cooperation appears to have gotten prosecutors to the point of charging sedition.

Update: As a number of people have noted, the reference to Winter Palace is a reference to occupying the Capitol.

The nine-page planning document, titled “1776 Returns,” is mentioned briefly in the federal indictment filed last week against Tarrio, who is accused of orchestrating key participants in the US Capitol attack that day. A source revealed more details than were previously known about the plan.

In court, prosecutors described an unnamed person sending Tarrio the document in late December 2020.

“The revolution is important,” the person told him. According to prosecutors, Tarrio replied: “That’s what every waking moment consists of … I’m not playing games.”

The written plan doesn’t mention violence and contains two prongs — one called “Storm the Winter Palace” in which organizers would “fill the buildings with patriots” and another called the “Patriot Plan.” That one-page list of demands would be distributed in the streets, declaring “we the people” request a new election on January 20, 2021, and falsely claiming “the evidence of election fraud is overwhelming.”

Though the document doesn’t call for seizing the US Capitol, its timing and themes track closely to the 1 p.m. ET assembly of the rioting crowd on Capitol Hill that ultimately overtook the Capitol building.

 

image_print
138 replies
  1. WilliamOckham says:

    That “1776 Returns” document is starting to come in to focus a bit more. DOJ is playing their cards close to their vest (so to speak) on that one. The Winter Palace (site of a Tsarist massacre of civilians) is mentioned in that document, according to the NYT. I wonder if the author of that document is concerned about a seditious conspiracy charge.

  2. Makeitso says:

    Call me Ishmael crazy but in order to have this conspiracy, don’t they need a connection in the US government to help them pull it off? Say a leader? One who many people would listen to and do his bidding to overturn the stolen election? Simeone with the power to help them? A person who leads a national, say, cult?

      • Makeitso says:

        That was the joke.

        They didn’t need this leader but boy, the available public evidence seems to lead tot he idea that they did, in fact, have such an inside man/woman.

        • Phil A says:

          It couldn’t be the guy who called his supporters to the Capitol on that day, replaced top administrators who denied Capitol Police defensive equipment and backup, attempted a hostile takeover of the DOJ, told his cultists to “march to the Capitol” and “fight like hell” or “they won’t have a country anymore” and refused to call in the NG for 3 hours.

          Not that guy.

    • Ginevra diBenci says:

      What makes you think Ishmael is crazy? November of the soul isn’t a delusion.

  3. Ken Muldrew says:

    “The Winter Palace” is surely a reference to the shot from the battleship Aurora that was the signal for the Bolsheviks to storm The Winter Palace and start the Russian revolution.

    • Tuxspeedo says:

      I seem to remember the Trump admin referring to Mar-A-Lago as the “Summer White House”, no?

      • Jared Shoemaker Jr says:

        Summer White House isn’t exclusive to trump. That’s been a thing going back to at least Lincoln

      • YancyFaith says:

        Florida is miserable in the summer. So hot & humid. We also usually get daily rain showers, not to mention tropical storms & hurricanes, so it’s not ideal for a golf vacation that time of year. “The Season” in the Palm Beach area is in the coolest months, “winter.”

        While POTUS, I think Trump spent more time at Trump branded resorts in NY and NJ during the summer months. (I went by the NJ one a few years ago. It was almost as hot and miserable as Florida was.)

    • Tom R. says:

      Neither version of the Winter Palace metaphor is apt. Tarrio doesn’t seem to be a very deep scholar of history.

      In both 1905 and 1917, the Winter Palace was the seat of executive authority; legislative authority was either nonexistent or elsewhere. So unless Tarrio was planning to petition the White House or bombard the White House with heavy artillery, his metaphor doesn’t really fit his plans.

      Perhaps the Kroll Opera House (23 March 1933) would fit better.

      • Peterr says:

        Marcy may be a Comp Lit PhD, but Tarrio et al. are not.

        For them, the simple knowledge that the Winter Palace was an “attack on the governing elites” is close enough.

          • FL Resister says:

            While we can dismiss the idea that the militiapeople can stack up to the US military, the deeper problem here is the psyops going on hour after hour in this country to ‘turn’ regular people into tools for fools like Steve Bannon and Donald Trump.

    • FLwolverine says:

      The start of the October Revolution, rather. The Russian Revolution began with the revolution of workers and the military in February 1917, which resulted in the Tsar’s abdication and which caught a lot of people, including the Bolsheviks (Lenin wasn’t even in the country; Germany helped smuggle him back in so he could further destabilize the situation), completely by surprise. The Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government that grew out of the February Revolution. (my thanks to Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast)

    • harpie says:

      Two entries:

      7:39 PM [BERTINO] text to TARRIO: “Brother. You know we made this happen[,]” [] “I’m so proud of my country today.”

      <TARRIO: “I know.”

      7:44 PM [BERTINO] text to TARRIO: “1776 motherfuckers.”

      < TARRIO: “The Winter Palace.”
      < [BERTINO]: “Dude. Did we just influence history?”
      < TARRIO: “Let’s first see how this plays out.”
      < [BERTINO]: “They HAVE to certify today! Or it’s invalid.”

      • harpie says:

        Right between those two, coming in at
        7:41 PM is RHODES to LEADERS Signal: [his “SONS of LIBERTY” message]

  4. Rugger9 says:

    With this in the books about the PBs, is it time now for DoJ to look more seriously at Stone, Meadows, Guiliani, Powell, Gosar, Biggs, Boebert et al for conspiracy? I might understand not charging misdemeanors but IIRC a conspiracy rap makes pretty much everything a felony risk.

    • emptywheel says:

      What makes you think they’re not looking seriously at Stone, Meadows, and Giuliani?

      • Rugger9 says:

        Perhaps Garland is, but I would observe that no tangible evidence has emerged that anything is being pursued even though (as an example) the House gift-wrapped a contempt charge for Meadows.

        This is why the communications are going to force an escalation, because the conspiracy is the fundamental crime here even though it did not succeed, this time. The fact that many of the usual suspects (Powell, Flynn, Stone, Meadows, Individual-1, Cleta, Ginni, etc.) are still actively pursuing the same goals to steal elections for 2022 and 2024 (that’s why the GQP is trying to embed poll workers, to manipulate the count on the inside) means that letting them run free without any fear of legal action encourages the others. Even if misdemeanor charges are considered to be minor-league, it does set down a marker about where the line is and that the line will be defended. It’s not like the GQP wouldn’t follow through if the roles were reversed, that’s why Durham kept after Sussmann and now Danchenko even though Durham knows both cases were inadequate.

        The decision to bypass prosecution because it’s too big a fish needs to be revisited because the GQP won’t ‘learn their lesson’ (h/t Sen. Collins) or at least the one they were supposed to learn. In this way Mueller dropped the ball with an assist from Congress. The DoJ can’t allow that to happen again.

        • Peterr says:

          Your line “I would observe that no tangible evidence has emerged that anything is being pursued” is precisely what good investigators like to hear when it comes to their ongoing investigations.

          When Marcy unpacks the various motions, filings, and orders from all the J6 cases, the b7a codes next to a ton of the redactions indicate that the material withheld from view is tied to ongoing investigations. As Marcy noted just three days ago, recently released documents contain a boatload of these kinds of redactions, some of which we can easily attribute to a specific investigation and target while others are more ambiguous.

          Don’t expect DOJ to stand up and say “Hey! We’re investigating X!!!” Comey’s announcements re Hillary’s emails are the exception, not the rule — for very good reasons, as his conduct proves.

          [And while I wish Meadows had indeed testified, his claim to executive privilege is a *lot* more defensible than similar claims from Bannon, Rudy, or Navarro, and it would take a whole lot more work to pierce Meadows’ claim. Not saying it couldn’t be done, but calling it a gift-wrapped charge is being overly generous.]

        • Rayne says:

          Rugger9, I don’t want to bump out this ziggurat with my reply – please scroll down further. Thanks.

        • Ryan says:

          It’s worth remembering that for all the idiocy and corruption of Jovan Pulitzer and the Merry-Band of Traitors, the actual GOP volunteers in the Arizona Audit performed an honest count. Findng a bigger margin for Biden than the original. Likely due to hand count errors, but not errors of bias. There are reasons to be cautious about partisan poll worker recruitment but the track record doesn’t justify the cynicism here.

          • bmaz says:

            Eh the threat for the future by the crazies, not just hinted at, but flat out stated in the open repeatedly, is plenty of basis for the “cynicism here”.

  5. Fran of the North says:

    I realize that I’m way off base here, but the thought of DOJ coordinating this superceding charge to create a bit of foreshadowing before the J6 events this week warm the cockles of my cold, dark heart.

    That said, even the happy confluence of galactic events serves to increase the visibility and drama of the upcoming committee hearings. May each of the participants get exactly the justice that they tried to deny the rest of us. Whether parole or much more serious, justice will prevail.

    • wetzel says:

      If you think the activities of Dept. of Justice prosecutors might have been timed to facilitate the messaging impact of the Jan 6 hearings, that would make these charges a propagandistic prosecution. I can sense you have irony and know it is a temptation to want Big Brother to save you. It is the same type of fascist show trial thinking that got us into this mess. I have a strong faith that Biden’s Dept. of Justice not acting this way, but it is good luck in timing.

      Multiple Oath Keepers have pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy, so if I believe I am interpreting Marcy’s emphasis correctly, the DOJ now claims the seditious conspiracy extends to obstructing the election, so it seems straightforward to deduce seditious conspiracy extended to the other willful activities aimed at obstructing the election if coordination can be shown through interlocutors with Oath Keepers and Proud Boys activities.

      This goes to the fraudulent electors, even, the planners, lawyers and interlocutors, but it is the fraudulent electors who will go down in history as the very signatories of the felonious sedition. Some day kids will look at those certificates in a museum. My vice is hoping Newt Gingrich got recruited into scheme here in Georgia, hoping that old monster is going down over this.

      • wetzel says:

        My language isn’t careful enough. What’s new here, I think, is the conspiracy to prevent Congress from discharging their official duties. I think that’s right, so if these prosecutorial claims are valid regarding Tarrio and Proud Boys activities designed to prevent Congress from certifying the election were seditious, then it follows other willful activities with the same goal in the conspiracy were also seditious including the felonious elector scheme. From everything I’ve learned reading here, I think the Department of Justice has built a foundation to bring the conspiracy to light and prosecute it from the bottom up. I think that’s very good!

  6. Conor says:

    Another election on the 20th?
    What would make it free of fraud? if fraud was an issue?🙄

    [Welcome to emptywheel. Please use a more differentiated username when you comment next as we have several community members named “Conor” or “Connor.” Thanks. /~Rayne]

  7. Badger Robert says:

    Ms Wheeler’s first look at the charges is good, However it will be important to know what are sentencing enhancers if these defendants are convicted, and can the prosecutor obtain out of range sentencing. The pressure may have already cracked Mr. Donahue and it will be important to turn a few of the conspirators.
    This is a very important step. But charges against the first careerist who wants this all to go away will be the big shock wave.

    • bmaz says:

      There is no way, none, to know that before what the conviction is, whether by plea or trial. Speculating without that is irrelevant.

      • Badger Robert says:

        We may not know, but the defense attorneys know. These charges carry serious maximums. And the danger posed by this sedition is unique. The pressure is there and will grow.

        • bmaz says:

          No, the defense attys most certainly do not know until they know what the conviction(s) are.

          If you want a worthless prediction, it is between 0-20 years on each count. And that means absolutely nothing.

  8. grennan says:

    The “Winter Palace” reference seems more likely to be an analogy to protecting the czar by firing on the revolutionaries…the PBs seem to have perceived their role as guarding tfg before and during the declaration of martial law they thought would be one of the subsequent steps.

    This fits perfectly with tfg’s constant altercasting of the Biden victory as an illegitimate takeover.

  9. Condor says:

    I just can’t help it (haven’t posted in three years, but I go back to 2004-ish here) — I see Danny M-F-in’ Kaye and that “chalice from the palace” (in the “winter palace” goofiness). Can’t help laughing at what a band of morons all of these Proud Boys are… not even a brute squad. Just morons:

    https://youtu.be/q4Ow69QWJmo?t=83

    Cheers — and lock ’em up!

    • KM Williams says:

      It is mind boggling how dangerously ignorant these fools were and are.

      < [BERTINO]: “They HAVE to certify today! Or it’s invalid.”

      "Overwhelming evidence of fraud" when in fact there was NO evidence of fraud, other than a few individual republicans voting twice.

      Right up there with “This court of law is invalid because of the gold fringe on the US Flag”. Superstitious, cultish, ritualistic thinking.

      • Phil A says:

        Just like cult members. They are told something they WANT to believe and it immediately becomes The Truth in their heads. It has taken decades of right wing programming to get them to that point, but the vast majority of people who consume right wing media are lost to logic and reality forever.

    • sand says:

      We were (very nearly) beaten by the best.

      https ://m.youtube .com/ watch%3Fv%3DSyd1Y4LffsQ&ved=2ahUKEwiK-MnNupr4AhXzpYQIHSX2DgIQz40FegQIBhAH&usg=AOvVaw0sHHRuHOxFofVfq

      [FYI the link you shared has been ‘broken’ by blank spaces to prevent accidental clickthrough. The link didn’t function properly; please retrieve the link again and share in a reply so I can fix it. Thanks. /~Rayne]

    • wetzel says:

      There is something deeply strange about the comic ineptitude. Seeing that. It’s like Death of Stalin.

  10. harpie says:

    https://twitter.com/capitolhunters/status/1533901418188443649
    3:59 PM · Jun 6, 2022

    #SeditionHunters – a long-awaited Jan 6 milestone: the Proud Boys, engines of the Capitol attack, now have seditious conspiracy charges too. Over 200 Proud Boys marched from the Wash. Monument, rushed the first police lines, were there at every breach. 1/

    The Proud Boys were so integral to the Capitol attack that they were our first “reels”. Here’s leader Joe Biggs, former US Army, former media (reporter for InfoWars), pal of major US politicians – he links all the worlds. Full reel at link. 2/ [THREAD]

  11. harpie says:

    “Storm the Winter Palace”: “fill the buildings with patriots” = NOT just the Capitol

    From the TL comment I linked to:

    2:57 PM TARRIO posts on social media: “1776” [] “Revolutionaries are now at the Rayburn building.” which is one of the “critical buildings” referred to in the “1776 Returns” plan received by TARRIO on 12/30/20.

    I don’t think we know all of the “critical buildings” referenced in the “1776 Returns” plan.

    I wonder if the FBI building was one:

    XX:XX AM [IOC INTELLIGENCE // (U//FOUO)
    Per USCP, a congressional staffer was at the Hyatt Regency Hotel (DC) this morning (6 January 2021) and overheard an individual, wearing fatigues, state “we are going to storm the FBI at 2PM.” WFO Criminal Division is contacting the staffer to obtain further details and will conduct logical follow-up to identify the male subject.

    [Hyatt Regency Hotel Washington on Capitol Hill, 400 New Jersey Ave NW, Washington DC. 20001]

    • Rayne says:

      That bit about the FBI building has always bothered me. The silence about this is unsettling but I can see why it wouldn’t be public until absolutely necessary if there’s more evidence behind a possible assault plan.

      • bmaz says:

        Still an active investigation with no identified suspects as far as I know. So, yeah, silence. Now I need to talk about tomorrow night’s game, where’s Punaise?

        • punaise says:

          I have to get a week’s worth of work done between now and tomorrow night, because after that the (productive) week falls to pieces: basketball game / January 6 hearings / and then my buddy come up with tickets for the Giants -Dodgers game on Friday.

          • Rayne says:

            I have one scheduled for two hours ahead of the hearings on Thursday to use as a open thread to prevent non-hearing chatter from DDoSing the scheduled hearing thread. Somebody will handle the weekend trash. ~side eyeing a certain attorney~

    • WilliamOckham says:

      According to this article: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/15/politics/january-6-occupy-capitol-hill-proud-boy/index.html

      The seven buildings were “six congressional office buildings and the Supreme Court”. I find that fascinating because it represents an attempt to completely shut down two of the three branches of government. Which would leave only the executive branch, and that in control of a would-be autocrat. That’s an interesting inversion of the Winter Palace and 1776. Very Bannonesque (not attributing authorship, just noting the stylistic similarity).

      • harpie says:

        Thanks, WO! I missed that info.
        Those names are in my mind as well: Bannon [has a townhouse/radio studio on Capitol Hill], Stone, Flynn, maybe Navarrro [who lives so close to the FBI bldg] …what about JUNIOR DON? JUNIOR MIKE?

        From WaPo:

        12:45 PM Capitol Police officers, along with agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, are dispatched to investigate reports of a pipe bomb with a timer found outside the Republican National Committee headquarters [Really the Capitol Hill Club] and suspicious packages at the Supreme Court and near the Democratic National Committee headquarters — all offices close to the Capitol. […] proved a distraction for officers guarding the Capitol

        • harpie says:

          I read somewhere [LOL] that someone [someone who knows Capitol Hill well] was giving advice about the comparative benefits of walking on the Mall as opposed to the streets because of a better “line of sight”.

  12. harpie says:

    Zoe Tillman updated with responses from two defense lawyers:
    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/proud-boys-seditious-conspiracy-jan6-trial-trump

    Rehl’s lawyer Carmen Hernandez asked the court for permission to release a statement responding to the new charges on behalf of her client. Hernandez cited court rules that limit attorneys from speaking publicly about pending cases, and argued that the Justice Department had circumvented that rule by issuing a press release announcing the latest indictment. Hernandez also used the filing to question the legal grounds for the seditious conspiracy count against her client.

    “To bring such serious charges against Mr. Rehl at this late date without alleging a single new fact against him is simply wrong and deserves a response. Indeed, in counsel’s decades of defending persons accused of federal criminal offenses, much of my career spent as a public defender representing indigent persons and persons of color, I should not be surprised at the heavy hand of federal prosecutors,” Hernandez wrote. Other defense lawyers in the case did not immediately return requests for comment.

  13. Rayne says:

    For Rugger9 at 6:50 am 07-JUN-2022:
    It took me a while to see the problem but the 2018 Bannon contempt charge subpoena offers the best example and explainer as to DOJ’s resistance to indicting Meadows for 2 USC 192 Contempt of Congress. Here’s an excerpt from an AP article from Jan 6, 2018 about the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaing Bannon.

    The members grilled Bannon as part of the committee’s investigation into Russian election inference. Lawmakers also wanted answers from him about Trump’s thinking when he fired FBI Director James Comey.

    But Bannon refused to answer questions about that crucial period, prompting the committee’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, to issue the subpoena, said Nunes spokesman Jack Langer.

    Late Tuesday, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said Bannon’s refusal to answer those questions came at the instruction of the White House.

    “This was effectively a gag order by the White House,” Schiff said shortly after Bannon’s interview concluded. Schiff said the committee plans to call Bannon back for a second interview.

    Note the words “executive privilege” don’t appear here. Is Bannon doing the same thing now that he did in 2018, complying with a request by Trump for any former advisers not to comply with subpoenas? In 2018 Trump could have immediately claimed executive privilege over a conversation with an adviser but he didn’t appear to do so. Further down in the same article:

    A White House official said the president did not seek to formally exert executive privilege over Bannon — a move that would have barred him from answering certain questions. The official said the administration believes it doesn’t have to invoke the privilege to keep Bannon from answering questions about his time in the White House. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

    The question is why would any discussions between Bannon and Trump about Comey or Trump with others about Comey in Bannon’s presence not immediately been claimed as privileged? If privilege had been claimed and the situation played out in the courts the way Nixon’s refusal to give up his tapes played out, there’s a good chance a more liberal SCOTUS would find for the House Intel Committee.

    But now there’s a far more conservative court in place with ACB on board — a court which has been willing to spit on precedents — and the current SCOTUS might not rule for the House J6 Committee if they leaned into Nixon v. General Services Administration, 433 U.S 425 (1977) and focus on the thin argument past presidents have some limited claim to privilege. Meadows would let this drag out well past the mid-terms.

    Meadows has partially complied with the subpoena by providing some records, which would also limit the charge to contempt on testimony not on documents (Navarro’s indictment was one count each testimony and documents). Would it be worth gambling on this particular SCOTUS to prosecute a single misdemeanor charge with fuzzy executive privilege claims only to end up with SCOTUS completely fucking over past precedent on executive privilege?

    Especially if the documents Meadows released AND other evidence make it clear to the public that whatever Meadows has refused to testify about before the House J6 committee are criminal acts which are not protected by executive privilege (U.S. v Nixon (1974))?

    It’s not worth completely fucking over the entire criminal case against Meadows and other key figures in the conspiracies to defraud the U.S. and seditious conspiracy, let alone future cases against members of the executive branch engaged in criminal acts.

    The contempt charges against Navarro are far more clear cut than Meadows because Navarro punctured executive privilege and has no claim to attorney-client privilege.

    • Troutwaxer says:

      I think that’s a pretty intelligent take on what happened. Thank you.

      My suspicion, BTW, is that the Jan 6th committee has more than enough evidence to prove that (at the very least) lots of high-level Republicans worked very hard to make sure the electoral votes weren’t counted by Congress – there will be some very juicy revelations even without whatever Meadows would have added.

      • Rayne says:

        We know now the Bannon situation in 2018 played out with the Trump White House exerting a stranglehold on what Bannon would answer, but at the time the GOP held the House and the White House both. But the foot dragging is instructive; had they not held the House and the White House, how would Trump and GOP have responded to a subpoena? The current Bannon contempt charges offer demonstration — filibuster through the courts.

        Agree, too, the House J6 has evidence of criminal acts which will make claims of privilege extremely difficult even under this current POS SCOTUS.

    • Rugger9 says:

      All fine and good, but I think the point still stands that the GQP is still trying to conduct a plan stealing an election. Maybe this is eleventy level rope-a-dope but this is now something that has been an issue in CO, GA and MI. If the idea is to let the seditionists have more rope, my concern is that the time will run out because the election might just return GQP majorities which will then shut the investigations down.

      https://www.salon.com/2022/06/07/michigan-backers-attempted-11-voting-breaches–and-a-mysterious-third-party-seized-machines/

      • Rayne says:

        The GQP attacks on the mid-terms are at state and local level; because the Constitution leaves the execution of elections to the states (Article I, Section 4), it’s not clear at what point the DOJ steps in although the voting rights section is likely watching closely.

        I live in Michigan and I know secretary of state Jocelyn Benson and state AG Dana Nessel are all over this, but the real challenge is that they are up for re-election this mid-term and they’re up against GQP/Big Lie types. They need to win their races to assure the 2024 election here is run on the up-and-up; we also need a state legislature which isn’t under the thumb of nutbag MIGOP leadership like Meshawn Maddock. This is where action must be taken and it’s not at all up to the DOJ: support Democrats in CO, GA, and MI to ensure they win over the seditionists. The something to be done is in your own hands.

            • bmaz says:

              That was not just any Arizona court. It was Mohave County, by far the most conservative in the state. The Judge was Lee Jantzen, the Chief Judge, and a hard nosed conservative former county prosecutor there (I did a couple of drug cases against him). And he basically LOLed at the case.

          • Rayne says:

            The incredibly stupid part about the three Michigan counties under scrutiny? Red. MIGOP bastions. So goddamned ridiculous.

            Barry County, for example, went 65.4% Trump to 32.9% for Biden in 2020.

            The stupid, it burns.

            • Peterr says:

              “Only 65.4% for Trump? Why, that should have been 99.5% Trump, because everyone I know (and I know almost everyone) tells me they love Trump! Someone’s been stealing the vote, right out from under our noses!!!”

              /blinded-by-the-Right

              • Rugger9 says:

                I’m thinking of an inverse ‘New York, New York’ lyric that if you can make it there (NYC) you can make it anywhere. In this case if you lose Mohave / redneck MI you can’t win anywhere. I’m also thinking of the GA candidate that is still screaming she was robbed even though getting only 3.4 % (not a typo) of the primary vote. That tells me that facts will never penetrate the lizard brains.

            • Purple Martin says:

              But the reason was, like Colorado’s Mesa County, Red county control let Red Big Lie aficionado election officials assist the “Trump allies” in their breach-combing, right?

        • Ginevra diBenci says:

          From out here it looks like Nessel and Benson are running against a pair of cartoons concocted by nostalgic QAnoners. Do these challengers even have a chance?

          • Rayne says:

            I can’t tell you for certain those nutbags don’t have a chance because the damage to right-wingers’ brains over the last two years fomented by their media ecosphere and targeting of the governor by Trump (“that woman in Michigan”) has amplified hate for the Democratic women greatly. What’s more likely to happen is the same manner in which Trump won Michigan in 2016: an undervote for the top of the ticket by people who can’t get behind Democrats and can’t support the MIGOP nutbags.

            I do hope we see indictments of the fraudulent electors before November since one of them is the co-chair of the MIGOP and the remainder have roles within the MIGOP across the state. That may penetrate the hate cloud.

            The other wild card situation is that so many MIGOP gubernatorial candidates were knocked off the ballot because of fraudulent signatures on petitions required for approval by the state’s election commission to make the ballot. It’s soooo obvious looking at the signatures the petitions are rife with fraud but again, as screwed up as right-wingers’ heads are here they may blame Democrats instead of blaming the candidates who failed to oversea the petition process appropriately.

            I could really use a tequila after thinking about all that crap.

    • Doctor My Eyes says:

      Dimly informed as I am, primarily by this website, it makes me crazy when people blithely claim that there is zero indication of DOJ interest in the likes of Guiliani, Meadows Powell, Trump, et al. Marcy has debunked this claim ad nauseam, citing chapter and verse. There is a post from Marcy, which I won’t track down, which lists many known examples of investigation of the highest level actors in the seditious conspiracy. Off the top of my head I will mention that Giuliani’s phones have been seized: surely that is a clear and known indication of interest.

      Furthermore, as Rayne’s reply makes plain, things are not so obvious. One thing not mentioned by Rayne, but discussed previously by Marcy, is that Bannon used his court case to attempt to pry information from the DOJ that they would rather keep secret. I don’t know if an indictment of Meadows would present the same difficulty, but it is likely.

      The reason the blanket statements that “Garland is doing nothing” bother me so much is that it would be much more productive–and much more supportive of a public narrative making prosecution of the big fish MORE likely–if informed people who oppose the take-over of the US government by fascists were preparing the public for eventual charges. If Garland’s DOJ were being praised as professional and knowing what they are doing, if the seeds were being actively planted that these seditionists are in trouble and it’s just a matter of time before they pay the piper, the GQP would be more on the defensive, behaving more guiltily, and the general public would be waiting with more anticipation for the upcoming J6 hearings. As it is, the broader public, including most of my liberal friends who consider themselves to be well-informed, will be shocked to learn that high level government actors are actually being charged for crimes. My friends have minimal interest in the coming hearings, which they assume will be just more congressional showboating with no results. This is not helpful.

      • Rugger9 says:

        It will be interesting to see how the J6SC public hearings will affect dynamics of the case. How many things will be revealed by testimony that would ‘compromise’ the DoJ process? My point is that a lot of this known evidence is in the public view from court filings already.

        So, while I’m being mischaracterized as being part of the ‘Garland’s doing nothing’ crew, it would seem to be better leverage to have an actual charge with the evidence already known to force cooperation. The minion minnows will not give up the big fish otherwise without something to trade. If they lie, charge them with that, it worked against Martha Stewart.

        • Doctor My Eyes says:

          I was trying to be general in my response, because I see your comments here and know you not to be one of the aggressive whiners I’m primarily complaining about. However, I was triggered when you said this

          no tangible evidence has emerged that anything is being pursued

          I’m sorry if I misinterpreted.

          Meanwhile, right on cue, the NYT headline: “Democrats see televised hearings as way to highlight Jan 6 revelations”. The article places the hearings solidly in the category of a horse race with apparently little interest in what might be revealed about an attempt to overthrow our democracy. The author of the linked diary says that a frequent comment in response to the article is along the lines of “Where is Garland?”. Not aimed at you R9, but this makes me crazy!

          https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/7/2102715/-NY-Times-frames-Jan-6-hearings-as-Democratic-political-messaging-stunt

      • Rayne says:

        You’re describing auto-demoralization going on among the left; we fail to look at the downsides of our flagellation which makes Democrats and their electeds look more ineffective though the silence may be what competency looks like.

        Which is a key reason why I wrote my last post: the reason no constructive movement has been made on gun control or COVID mitigation has been the GOP’s deliberate effort to do nothing when they’re not actively obstructing. They make things worse in this country at the same time by attacking civil rights like girls in sports and denying aid to hungry children.

        That’s not the Democrats who’ve been focused on writing, submitting, passing bills in the House while investigating Trump’s criming. It all ends in the Senate where 50 GOP members and a couple DINOs suffocate everything. Killers.

        Demoralization needs to stop. It’s literally Putin’s Duginist playbook to demoralize democracies. Just stop.

        • Doctor My Eyes says:

          Hear! Hear!

          “Garland is doing nothing” is at least a first cousin of “Democrats in disarray” and “Good news for John McCain”. It is frustrating to watch Democrats do this to themselves.

          • Ginevra diBenci says:

            And don’t forget that Dems are going to lose both houses of congress in a few months. That’s one that drives me crazy.

  14. Retired guy says:

    This superseding indictment perhaps does two important things.

    1. Indicates that these PB leaders were seditious conspirators with the same goal as the big OK indictment. They planned for the event on very similar timetables.

    2. Links the PB planning and actions at the Capitol to “rile up the normies” (e.g. the Konolds, maybe Samsel) to the seditious conspiracy.

    This suggests a future seditious conspiracy indictment for people who called the militias and random dudes to this violent action.

      • Bruce Olsen says:

        I assume those would those be based on individual acts…?

        Or can the whole tarball of traitors be transitively tagged as terrorists?

        • Rayne says:

          The entirety of the PB and OK effort was intended to terrify the VP and Congress into halting their proceedings and encourage them to change the outcome. Sure sounds like terror to me; I’ve wondered whether the threat of enhancement has been hanging there as an incentive to cooperate though I suspect the change to seditious conspiracy is an indication itself the accused perps aren’t cooperating.

        • bmaz says:

          They are not legally either traitors or terrorists. Why do people keep trying to put that stupid square peg in the round hole. Give it up.

          • Rayne says:

            LOL okay, sure. But I think you mean they can’t be charged with treason, not that they aren’t traitors. One can betray their country by engaging in sedition — that’s traitorous but not necessarily treason.

            I do hope Liz Cheney asks some of the witnesses who were there in/at the Capitol during the attack if they were terrified.

            • bmaz says:

              A ‘traitor” is somebody who has been convicted of treason. So, no, willy nilly bandying that term around is silly.

                • bmaz says:

                  I have only ever known it as a description of one who has committed treason. Beyond that, I think it is just intellectually lazy slang for people that tried there ass off to call the 1/6 acts treason, and finally figured out that that was ludicrous. If people want to insist on that lazy disingenuous bullshit, go ahead. But it is bogus.

                  • Rayne says:

                    We’re going to agree to disagree. A traitor is someone who betrays an oath or others to whom they have a duty or obligation; the meaning is broader than just “someone who commits treason.”

                    Just as collusion is not a legal term but conspiracy is, traitor is not a legal term though treason is.

                    • bmaz says:

                      That is my take, and I think it just sloppy to pitch that bunk around because it gives people jollies. What the 1/6 people did were certainly criminal acts, but trying to morph it into what most rational people consider treason is nonsense.

    • Bruce Olsen says:

      Very handy to have video of PB and OK leaders meeting the night before (what hubris to allow the filming). And I imagine the meeting venue can be made to speak to mens rea by the prosecution.

      It nicely illustrates the wisdom of using the EC vote counting as the focal point, since there were many plots and plotters all directed at disrupting it.

  15. harpie says:

    Judge sends another trove of Eastman emails to Jan. 6 committee
    The ruling is another victory for the Jan. 6 select committee.
    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/07/judge-eastman-emails-jan-6-committee-00037999
    KYLE CHENEY 06/07/2022 11:36 PM Updated: 06/08/2022 12:26 AM

    A federal judge Tuesday ordered John Eastman — the attorney who developed former President Donald Trump’s last-ditch strategy to overturn the election — to disclose a batch of 159 sensitive documents to the Jan. 6 select committee, including another email that the judge said presented evidence of a likely crime.

    In a 26-page ruling, [> https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000181-4144-d2d5-abb1-f9c47cc00000 ] U.S. District Court Judge David Carter also ordered Eastman to provide 10 documents about meetings Eastman held with a secretive pro-Trump group that included a “high-profile” leader discussing strategies for overturning the 2020 election. […]

    • harpie says:

      https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1534376483531153408
      11:27 PM · Jun 7, 2022

      BREAKING: A federal judge has ordered a new batch of John Eastman’s emails delivered to the Jan. 6 select committee, including another one he says is evidence of a likely crime related to the effort to overturn the election. [THREAD]

      The most interesting emails that Carter ordered disclosed related to this secretive pro-Trump group that helped him strategize about the appointment of alternate electors. He discussed meeting with the group on Dec. 8, 9 and 16. / […]

      https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1534454627797712896
      4:37 AM · Jun 8, 2022

      John Eastman attempted to protect Trump bragging about the size of his campaign rallies under a claim of atty-client privilege. [LINK] [THREAD]

      This is actually a BFD: Judge Carter finds that Eastman and Trump were conspiring to break the law **by December 7**. So, among other things, before the December 18 meeting with Powell et al. […]

        • harpie says:

          More info about that letter, signers:

          https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1484592006198403077
          1:21 PM · Jan 21, 2022

          Lots of renewed attention to the so-called “alternate” pro-Trump elector slates.

          I think it’s important to point out that the conservatives who backed this plan at the time didn’t make the same “just in case” justification we’re hearing today. There was no hedging:

          Excerpt:

          “President Donald J. Trump is the lawful winner… state legislatures… should exercise their plenary power under the Constitution and appoint clean slates of electors… both the House and Senate should accept only these clean Electoral College slates.”

      • harpie says:

        12/8/20
        -SAFE HARBOR DEADLINE
        – Texas Attorney General Ken PAXTON files suit with U.S. Supreme Court against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin
        -EASTMAN pushes Texas lawsuit on Fox Loomer show

        12/9/20
        -TRUMP and 17 states want SCOTUS to let them join Texas suit. The brief is signed by EASTMAN
        – Legislative Leaders in Arizona, Wisconsin Were Sent Memos Regarding the Ability of State Lawmakers to Alter Selection of Electors Following 2020 Election https://www.americanoversight.org/legislative-leaders-in-arizona-wisconsin-were-sent-memos-regarding-the-ability-of-state-lawmakers-to-alter-selection-of-electors-following-2020-election [2/1/22]

      • WilliamOckham says:

        The “by December 7” is more interesting than it seems…

        On that day, Dr. Eastman forwarded a memo explaining why January 6 was the “Hard Deadline” that was “critical to the result of this election” for the Trump Campaign. 129

        129Opp’n Ex. B (Dkt. 350-3).

        What was Exhibit B? That was an Eastman email to [redacted]@gmail.com with an attachment which was Kenneth Chesebro’s November 18, 2020 memo to James Troupis, a Trump campaign lawyer in Wisconsin. So, the Trump campaign’s involvement in the obstruction of an official proceeding, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), and conspiracy to defraud the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 had already started by November 18 and that’s very important. Eventually, we’re going to see evidence showing that the conspiracy started before the election and Trump was already involved.

        • WilliamOckham says:

          Ugh… WordPress

          That should be

          On that day, Dr. Eastman forwarded a memo explaining why January 6 was the “Hard Deadline” that was “critical to the result of this election” for the Trump Campaign.¹²⁹

          ¹²⁹ Opp’n Ex. B (Dkt. 350-3).

        • Rayne says:

          This was all so tightly coordinated. December 7 would give the conspirators a week to get all the so-called alternate electors on the same page, signing the same documents and at their respective state houses on December 14.

          From Detroit Free Press, January 20, 2022

          Michigan Republican Party Co-Chair Meshawn Maddock said that the Trump presidential campaign directed Republicans in Michigan to seat fake GOP Electoral College delegates, according to audio obtained by CNN.

          “We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that. I’m under a lot of scrutiny for that today,” Maddock is heard saying in the audio reportedly recorded at a conservative gathering last week, according to CNN. In the audio, Maddock does not say whether she personally communicated with officials from the Trump campaign.

          Maddock did not immediately provide a comment to the Free Press. The Michigan Republican Party also did not immediately respond to emails.

          Video of the MIGOP’s fake electors trying to get into the state capitol on December 14, 2020 included in that Free Press article; features a statement by Ian Northon, attorney for the Amistad Project.

    • Belyn says:

      Thanks for this treasure trove. Great start to my morning.
      I am also luxuriating in Franken’s primary win, and his likely defeat of Grassley in November.

    • harpie says:

      12/10/20
      – EASTMAN again touts Texas lawsuit on FOX
      – TRUMP invites GOP AG’s to LUNCH at WH:

      [Attending:] Texas// Alabama // Arkansas // // Florida // Indiana // Louisiana // Mississippi // Missouri // South Carolina // Utah

      – CONSERVATIVE ACTION PROJECT posts letter/allegations
      written by [“I’m not asking you Cleta, honestly”] MITCHELL See [12/8/20 above]

  16. Savage Librarian says:

    Malice from the Palace

    There’s a card game, “Spite & Malice,”
    descended from “Russian Bank,”
    If played at the Winter Palace,
    did wine glasses join with a clank?

    Did mobsters toast & raise a chalice
    in their games of “Cat & Mouse,”
    and laugh at just how callous
    they were as they would grouse?

    As their twisted rationale is
    deconstructed from their labor,
    In their effort to corral us
    ask why’d you “Screw your Neighbor?”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spite_and_Malice

    • Doctor My Eyes says:

      An Italian, a Frenchman, and a Russian come across a magic lantern from which a genie emerges. “I’ll grant each of you a wish for something which will change your lives.”
      The Italian says “I wish to become a great tenor, singing at all the famous opera houses and bringing joy to millions with the glory of my voice.”
      The Frenchman says, “I wish to become a great chef, creating masterful dishes which delight the tongues and please the hearts of humans all over the planet.”
      The Russian thinks a moment before saying, “I wish my neighbor’s mule would die.”

      This joke, relevant today, has been around since at least the early 20th century.

  17. Doctor My Eyes says:

    One would think emerging strong evidence that a sitting president plotted for months to end democracy and install himself would deserve more attention that it seems to be receiving.

Comments are closed.