The State of the Five Now-Intersecting January 6 Militia Conspiracies
The Oath Keeper and Proud Boy conspiracies just started intersecting in the indictment charging the Proud Boy leaders.
Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties. She writes as emptywheel at her eponymous blog, publishes at outlets including Vice, Motherboard, the Nation, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, and appears frequently on television and radio. She is the author of Anatomy of Deceit, a primer on the CIA leak investigation, and liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial.
Marcy has a PhD from the University of Michigan, where she researched the “feuilleton,” a short conversational newspaper form that has proven important in times of heightened censorship. Before and after her time in academics, Marcy provided documentation consulting for corporations in the auto, tech, and energy industries. She lives with her spouse in Grand Rapids, MI.
The Oath Keeper and Proud Boy conspiracies just started intersecting in the indictment charging the Proud Boy leaders.
The FBI arrested an innocuous Ohio couple almost entirely off their social media activity on January 6.
In the 86 minutes after Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund first asked the National Guard for help on January 6, police had to release two violent rioters — Hunter Ehmke and Mark Ponder — rather than arrest them, and Brian Sicknick got sprayed with the “bear shit” that may have led to his death.
As of today, the Durham investigation has continued longer than the Mueller investigation.
The Intelligence Report on foreign interference in the 2020 election–which finds that Russia tried to attack Joe Biden–might as well have named Rudy Giuliani personally.
There’s a good reason why DOJ didn’t charge Julian Khater and George Tanios in Brian Sicknick’s death. According to a warrant obtained yesterday, the FBI was still collecting key pieces of evidence in conjunction with the arrests yesterday.
DOJ has arrested two men on charges of assaulting Brian Sicknick and two other officers.
In December, one of Guy Reffitt’s family members alerted FBI that the Three Percenter was threatening members of Congress. Yet the FBI claims it had no warning of threats to Congress before the Norfolk Memo.
Judge Amit Mehta ordered Thomas Caldwell be released on bail today. He did so because Caldwell’s lawyer succeeded in pretending that Caldwell was charged with conspiring to storm the Capitol, rather than charged with conspiring to prevent the vote count.
A filing in the Oath Keeper conspiracy provides a sense of what the January 6 investigation looks like on Merrick Garland’s first full day.