Sealed Filings: The Serial Arrests of Insurrectionists Peter Stager, Jeffrey Sabol, and Michael Lopatic

/34 Comments/in , /by

Because I’ve been closely tracking the slow roll-out of the people behind the close to 140 assaults on cops on January 6, I’d like to look at how the arrests of three men indicted today, Peter Stager, Jeffrey Sabol, and Michael Lopatic were rolled out by DOJ. They were indicted for the assault on a cop, BM, dragged down the steps and repeated beaten while in a prone position.

After a different cop, CM, attempted to help, Lopatic punched him repeatedly.

Lopatic then walked down to BM and removed his body camera. He threw the camera away on his way home to Lancaster, PA.

Sabol was also charged with assaulting a third cop, AW.

What appears to have happened is that Sabol, realizing what he had done, went off the deep end and got stopped by cops on January 11 in NY. He admitted he was at the riot, but (even after telling cops he was “wanted by the FBI”), he claimed he had only been trying to protect BM, the officer he assaulted with a police baton.

The next day, cops started fielding tips that Stager was the one caught on tape saying, “Everybody in there is a treasonous traitor. Death is the only remedy for what’s in that building.”

Both Sabol and Stager were charged on January 14, but only with impeding an officer (18 USC 231), not assault.

It’s not yet clear how the FBI found Lopatic, but on January 20, they sent out a BOLO on him and eight others in conjunction with an assault on two DC cops.

When DOJ indicted all three men on January 29, they had IDed but not yet located Lopatic. The motion to seal described that Lopatic — who had taken BM’s body worn camera and disposed of it on his way home — might continue to flee prosecution (though that may be boilerplate).

In other words, while they had the first two main perpetrators of one of the more alarming attacks on cops identified within a week of the attack, DOJ undercharged them and waited to indict them to ensure they’d have Lopatic in custody before revealing any assault charges on the first two.

DOJ is beginning to release charging documents on more of the assault defendants. But with many of them — including Lopatic — it’s clear they’re willing to do more to avoid arrest.

Which is likely why, over a month after the attack, DOJ has still just identified about 35 people responsible for the 139 assaults on cops.

Timeline

January 11: Clarkstown, NY, police stop Jeffrey Sabol’s car for driving erratically. He tells them, “I am tired, I am done fighting,” “My wounds are self-inflicted,” I was, “fighting tyranny in the DC Capital,” “I am wanted by the FBI.”

January 12: FBI receives a tip that Peter Stager is the person a video saying, “Everybody in there is a treasonous traitor. Death is the only remedy for what’s in that building,” and seen dragging MPD cop “BM” down the steps in front of the Capitol. Another person describes Stager as the one beating the cop with a flagpole.

January 13: Law Enforcement interviews Sabol. He claims the first assault of a cop caught on tape was actually him, “patting him on the back” and saying, “we got you man.” He claims the second assault — in which he was depicted hitting a cop with a police baton — was him attempting to “protect the officer.”

January 14: Peter Stager charged with just civil disorder, 18 USC 231. Jeffrey Sabol charged, again with just civil disorder.

January 20: FBI releases BOLO poster of Lopatic.

January 29: Sealed indictment obtained against Stager, Sabol, and Lopatic. It charged Stager and Sabol with beating BM with a police baton and a flagpole, Sabol of assaulting a third officer (AW), Lopatic of assaulting CM That day DOJ moved to seal the indictment because,

Defendant Lopatic has not been arrested. Law enforcement is locating the defendant and preparing to arrest him. Moreover, law enforcement is endeavoring to identify additional individuals who were involved in the assaultive conduct in the instant case.

Placing the defendants’ indictment on the public docket at this time could cause the defendant to flee or continue flight from prosecution…

February 3: Lopatic arrested.

February 9: Motion to unseal indictment, motion for detention for Lopatic.

Bennie Thompson Sues Trump, His Mobsters, and Rudy G under the NAACP Act

/155 Comments/in , /by

Congressman Bennie Thompson, who is the Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, just sued the Former President, Rudy Giuliani, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers under the Ku Klux Klan Act for setting off a mob on January 6. Effectively, Thompson argues that the conspirators deliberately set off an insurrection and the insurrection succeeded in preventing Thompson from performing his duties in certifying the vote.

4. In furtherance of this common goal of preventing the timely approval of the Electoral College vote count, the Defendants acted in concert to incite and then carry out a riot at the Capitol by promoting an assembly of persons to engage in tumultuous and violent conduct or the threat of it that created grave danger of harm to the Plaintiff and to other Members of Congress.

5. This conduct jointly undertaken to threaten the Plaintiff and other Members of Congress in order to disrupt the Electoral College vote count was part of an ongoing course of action pursued by the Defendants for the purpose of contesting the announced results of the presidential election held in November 2020 and preventing the duly elected President and Vice President from attaining approval of Congress of their election necessary to their inauguration.

6. The insurrection at the Capitol was a direct, intended, and foreseeable result of the Defendants’ unlawful conspiracy. It was instigated according to a common plan that the Defendants pursued since the election held in November 2020, culminating in an assembly denominated as the “Save America” rally held at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, during which Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited a crowd of thousands to descend upon the Capitol in order to prevent or delay through the use of force the counting of Electoral College votes. As part of this unified plan to prevent the counting of Electoral College votes, Defendants Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, through their leadership, acted in concert to spearhead the assault on the Capitol while the angry mob that Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited descended on the Capitol. The carefully orchestrated series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol was no accident or coincidence. It was the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.

It combines many of the allegations laid out in the impeachment inquiry with the allegations laid out in some — but not the most recent — Oath Keeper and Proud Boy conspiracy cases.

There are old details not included — such as that Trump’s DOJ treated threats from Proud Boys against Judge Amy Berman Jackson to be a technicality, as well as recently revealed details not included, including details about how the Proud Boys prevented cops from shutting down access to the tunnels.

But there are a lot of key details, down to lawmakers contracting COVID after he was stuck sheltering with colleagues who refused to wear masks.

126. By being required to shelter in place, Plaintiff Thompson and other Members of Congress were forced to occupy space that did not allow for the social distancing measures that minimized the risk of transmission of the virus.

127. Shortly after the siege on the Capitol ended, at least two other Members of Congress who shared the confined space with Plaintiff Thompson tested positive for COVID-19.

It is a well-argued suit and we will see what happens (bmaz warns that a criminal conspiracy charge against Trump is a ways off, which it is, temporally, though he doesn’t consider the object of the conspiracies actually being charged, which is very similar to what Thompson alleges).

If nothing else, this will oblige the defendants to retain documents until such time as the FBI comes looking for them.

Update: Corrected that Thompson did not contract COVID and my defendants/plaintiff problem.

Roger Stone Denies Palling Around with Alleged Terrorists [on January 6]

/30 Comments/in , , /by

On Sunday, the NYT had a really good piece showing that six members of the Oath Keepers that “guarded” Roger Stone on January 5 and 6 went on to participate in the insurrection. Curiously, most don’t obviously show up in the FBI BOLO pictures and the face of at least one was cut off in a larger picture of Oath Keepers, which I suspect means the FBI doesn’t want to advertise any interest they have in them.

Even before the NYT report, in response to CNN and ABC reporting on his ties to the Oath Keepers, Stone wrote a rebuttal disclaiming any tie to their actions on January 6.

The rebuttal starts and ends with lies about the Mueller investigation, claiming they found no proven link with WikiLeaks when in fact the release he talks about showed multiple ongoing investigations (that is in March 2019) into his role in the Russian CFAA hack, and then claiming he was investigated for treason, and not conspiracy.

These are the very same news outlets who failed to report that their previous claims against me – that I was aiding the Russian state or a collaborator with Wikileaks proved to be completely false according to the US Justice Dept. Those who made those accusations failed to report the court-ordered disclosure by the DOJ, the last actions of Mueller’s report in which they admitted they had no such evidence whatsoever and even if they had proven a link between me and Wikileaks, which they found no evidence of, those activities would not have been illegal.

[snip]

The very same fake news media outlets who defamed me and insisted falsely that I was guilty of treason and other high crimes and then failed to acknowledge that an unlimited $30 million-dollar investigation provided no such evidence now seek to use me a clickbait and an easy target with entirely false allegations that I had any role whatsoever in the politically stupid, destructive and illegal acts that took place at the US Capitol on January 6th.

So we should assume that in spite of Stone’s self-publicized recommitment to Catholicism, he continues to lie as blatantly as he always has.

Consider how he denies any involvement in events that have been charged — against the Oath Keepers as well as against Stone’s buddies in the Proud Boys — as a conspiracy to hinder the official proceeding of counting the certification of the Electoral College vote. One strand of his defense is that he didn’t leave the hotel on January 6 until he left for his plane (reportedly, because his speech at the rally had been cut).

These jackals in the media, who know better, again make baseless accusations against me using conjecture and “guilt by association” to imply that I was somehow involved in the illegal events of January 6th. I was not present, I knew nothing about them and denounced them on my now-defunct PARLER feed when I saw the images on TV.

The claims by these so-called journalists are categorically false as I was not present on the Ellipse, did not march to the Capitol, was not on the Hill and, like AOC was not at the Capitol that day.

In fact, other than the brief moments out in front of the Williard Hotel which CNN falsely reported I was departing from, I never left the Williard Hotel property because Hotel management prohibited congregating in the lobby due to the Mayor’s Covid 19 restrictions. Therefore I never left the hotel property on January 6th until leaving for Dulles Airport around 6:00 P.M.

[snip]

In fact, I never left the grounds of the Willard Hotel.

I stepped outside briefly when the hotel objected to anyone congregating in the lobby due to Covid-19 declarations by the Mayor.

Of course, that’s only a denial about his actions on January 6. The conspiracies charged against the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys began weeks earlier, in preparation.

He spends a good deal of time denying he knew of any wrong-doing from the Oath Keepers and — thrown in once almost as an afterthought — the Proud Boys.

CNN rushes to characterize the Oath Keepers as criminals, which I have not seen any evidence of, and to my knowledge has never been proven in any court. I reserve the right to change my opinion if anything surfaces, which I am unaware of today. Based on what I have seen to date, ABC, CNN, and all of the low-rent left-wing advocacy news/smear sites are engaged in one vicious “guilt by association” campaign of distortion and baseless conjecture.

[snip]

If the Oath Keepers are the terrorists as some in the media claim and were involved in the planning and execution, I was not aware of any such thing.

[snip]

I know of no wrongdoing by the Oathkeepers or the Proud Boys.

But he’s talking about whether they are criminals, terrorists, or engaged in wrong-doing, not if they engaged in a concerted plan to disrupt the counting of the Electoral College vote.

He does, ultimately, say that if there’s credible evidence of a conspiracy against them, they should be charged for that (in statements on Parler that have since been deleted, he condemned the violence).

If there is evidence of that and if individual members of the organization committed unlawful acts, they should be prosecuted. If new credible information surfaces that reveals a conspiracy, everyone involved in such a conspiracy should be prosecuted.

It’s that line about a conspiracy I find most curious, given thats what has been charged. In the video from January 6, someone asks him if “we have this today.” He responds, seemingly acknowledging common understanding of what “this” is, “We shall see.” That’s the kind of intent that shows up in social media that DOJ has cited in charging documents.

More interestingly, Stone admits he raised money for security for January 6 (an observation MoJo’s Dan Friedman made), but says that the people guarding him were, instead, volunteers. The Oath Keepers’ recruiting post for the day actually invoked Stone’s name in talking about their “security” function.

Just as we have done at all the previous rallies in DC since the election, Oath Keepers volunteers will be conducting PSDs for multiple high profile speakers over both days, and our teams will be either directly responsible for event security or assisting event security on both days.   We will also have roving teams out that will be on the lookout for Antifa/communist terrorists who like to attack the weak and vulnerable.  We will be providing free security escorts to any patriot who needs one, into the night.   Just be on the lookout for men wearing our Oath Keepers hats, shirts, or patches, and ask them for help, and they will help you.    Our ethos is “first ones in, last one’s out” and we will stay out as late as we have to in order to keep the vulnerable safe from Antifa street thug terrorists.

As always, while conducting security operations, we will have some of our men out in “grey man” mode, without identifiable Oath Keepers gear on.   For every Oath Keeper you see, there are at least two you don’t see.   That keeps the bad guys uncertain of how many of us there are, or where we are.

Over the years, Oath Keepers has conducted hundreds of highly successful volunteer security operations all over the nation, protecting patriots from communist terrorist assault.  From the streets of Berkely, [sic] CA (two separate rallies), to Portland, Boston, Washington DC (six times and counting), Dallas, Austin, Sacramento, etc, including providing volunteer security escorts outside twelve Trump campaign rallies, and many PSD details for high profile VIPs, such as Roger Stone, as well as many elected officials and election fraud whistle-blowers and patriot office holders.   Our men are skilled “quiet professionals” who take pride in doing their work efficiently and effectively, without drama. [my emphasis]

Remember: way back during Stone’s Stop the Steal 2016 incarnation, there were questions about the propriety of his fundraising, and the government showed at Stone’s trial that Stone was asking Rick Gates for lists and asking Steve Bannon, while he was Campaign CEO, for help getting funding from Rebekah Mercer. This time around, he explicitly raised money, but says it didn’t get spent, on what would be funds for people who ended up having a key role in the attack.

For conspiracies that started months ago, the question is not whether Roger Stone was at the Capitol swinging a baseball bat on January 6. The question is whether he entered into an agreement to disrupt the constitutionally mandated official event of counting the votes and took overt acts — before January 6 or on that day — to advance that goal.

Mike Lee Provides Key Evidence Implicating Trump in the Existing Criminal Conspiracy

/166 Comments/in , /by

Because Donald Trump’s Personal Injury lawyer, Michael Van der Veen, made a specious argument about the First Amendment to successfully give 43 Republicans cover to vote to acquit the Former President in his impeachment trial, the discussion about Trump’s potential criminal exposure for January 6 (which according to CNN he is concerned about) has largely focused on incitement charges.

That’s true even though the trial led Mike Lee to offer up evidence implicating Trump in the same conspiracy charges already charged against 10 defendants: conspiring to delay Congress’ official proceeding to certify the electoral college vote. As I have noted, DOJ has started mapping out conspiracy charges against both the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys:

While there are differences in the scope of the conspiracy and overt acts involved, all three charging documents charge defendants with conspiring “to stop, delay, and hinder Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote,” effectively conspiring to commit 18 USC 1512, tampering with the official procedure of certifying the electoral college vote, an official procedure laid out in the Constitution.

And in spite of their votes to acquit the Former President last night, both Tommy Tuberville and Mike Lee provided evidence that the FBI might use to investigate Trump in that conspiracy. As I noted days after the attack, during the attack, Trump twice attempted to reach out to Tuberville to ask him to delay the count. The second time, Rudy Giuliani even left a message specifically asking for a delay as such, precisely the object of the already charged conspiracy charges.

I know they’re reconvening at 8 tonight, but it … the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow—ideally until the end of tomorrow.

I know McConnell is doing everything he can to rush it, which is kind of a kick in the head because it’s one thing to oppose us, it’s another thing not to give us a fair opportunity to contest it. And he wants to try to get it down to only three states that we contest. But there are 10 states that we contest, not three. So if you could object to every state and, along with a congressman, get a hearing for every state, I know we would delay you a lot, but it would give us the opportunity to get the legislators who are very, very close to pulling their vote, particularly after what McConnell did today. [snip]

Over the last few days, both Tuberville and Lee offered up more details on the earlier call. Tuberville confirmed the content of the call, including that he told the President that his Vice President had been evacuated.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville revealed late Wednesday that he spoke to Donald Trump on Jan. 6, just as a violent mob closed in on the the Senate, and informed the then-president directly that Vice President Mike Pence had just been evacuated from the chamber.

“I said ‘Mr. President, they just took the vice president out, I’ve got to go,’” Tuberville (R-Ala.) told POLITICO on Capitol Hill on Wednesday night, saying he cut the phone call short amid the chaos.

And Lee — who twice demanded that references to this call be removed from the Congressional record — ultimately provided phone records showing that even after Pence had been publicly rushed to safety, Trump was still working on delaying the vote rather than addressing the danger. Trump tweeted about Pence at 2:24, specifically complaining that Pence hadn’t given states a chance to “correct” facts, effectively a complaint that Pence had not disrupted the orderly counting of the vote.

Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!

And then, two minutes later, Trump attempted to call Tuberville and, after Lee turned over his phone to the former coach, spoke to him for four minutes. It matters that Tuberville told Trump about the evacuations, though it is highly unlikely he had not been informed both informally and formally at that point. But it matters just as much that even after the insurrectionists had breached the building, Trump took two overt acts to attempt to delay the vote.

A Trump defense might argue — as his Personal Injury Lawyer did this week — that he was just trying to count the votes, but Trump had already made an unconstitutional request of Mike Pence, something Trump’s team provided no defense for. And that’s before you consider the evidence that Rudy, at least, was in direct contact with James Sullivan, who is affiliated with the group, the Proud Boys, that has already been accused of conspiring to breach the Capitol (indeed, another conspiracy case, against Proud Boys Dominic Pezzola and William Pepe, charges that they conspired to interfere with cops trying to keep protestors out of the Capitol, and the Chrestman indictment also includes that as a separate conspiracy).

I’m not saying this will definitely happen. The bar to charging a Former President remains high.

But DOJ has already charged ten people for doing what Trump was also demonstrably doing that day. And, partly because of Mike Lee’s desperate effort to avoid having the record of him implicating Trump in the congressional record, Lee ended up making the timeline of the events public without the FBI having to breach speech and debate concerns to obtain it. By doing so, Lee made it easier for the FBI to make a case against Trump if they ever attempt to do so.

Mike Lee may have helped prevent Trump from being barred from running for President again. But Mike Lee also made it easier to prosecute Trump for those very same acts.

Update: NYT just posted a story showing that six of the Oath Keepers Roger Stone was palling around with leading up to the attack entered the Capitol on January 6.

Most People Suspected of Assaulting Officers in the January 6 Attack Remain at Large

/199 Comments/in , , /by

There continue to be efforts to make grand judgments about the January 6 insurrectionists base off a review of the ~207 people who have been charged federally thus far. In my opinion, that’s a mistaken effort, unless the analysis breaks the current arrestees up into groups, first by excluding the 100 or so people just charged with trespassing crimes, who will appropriately be treated as people who engaged in civil disobedience.

Of the rest, there are maybe 25 who are members of an identified militia group. But that group is just a fraction of the total numbers of militia members we should expect will be arrested, because anyone in the Capitol or who planned to halt the vote certification can be charged, and we know of the people who joined Jessica Watkins’ Oath Keepers’ formation, as well as a busload of others from North Carolina. Plus, there are at least 10 more Proud Boys — probably significantly more — identifiable from videos as active participants. In other words, the number of militia members will continue to grow.

There’s another set of people — like Zip Tie Guy (Eric Munchel) and his mother — not known to have ties to militia (though definitely friendly to them), but who took actions that DOJ seems to treat more seriously. So, too, are the people — many of them women — who directed and instigated the crowd.

But there are another two sets of people that the FBI is clearly pursuing, of whom just a fraction have been arrested and identified so far. One is the group of people wanted for assaulting the media (AOM in the FBI’s wanted pictures), which is reportedly being led by a special group at DOJ. There are about 27 people identified in this group right now, none of whom have yet been arrested).

A more obvious one are people who’ve assaulted cops (just three of whom so far have ties to militia groups), identified by AFO at the FBI site. Multiple reports say that around 139 cops were assaulted on January 6. Just 26 people have been charged with either 18 USC 111 for assaulting a cop, or in closely related charges. Meanwhile, there are roughly 134 BOLO images of people who are suspected of assaulting cops, meaning there may be over 100 people suspected of assaulting cops on January 6 at large right now. All told, they would make up over a third of Federal suspects, yet most haven’t been arrested yet.

Here’s my running list of the people who, as of 2/22, had been charged with intimidating or assaulting police. I’ve also tracked how the FBI found them — whether by a tip based off Social Media, a law enforcement tip (this group includes several felons), those FBI BOLO posters, or some other means.

  1. Daniel Page Adams, whose arrest affidavit describes engaging in a “direct struggle with [unnamed] law enforcement officers” (his cousin, Cody Connell, described the exchange as a “civil war”). Tip SM
  2. Zachary Alam, who pushed cops around as he was trying to break into the Speaker’s Lobby. BOLO 79
  3. Wilmar Alvarado, who pushed cops in the mob trying to get in from the West Terrace. BOLO 65
  4. David Blair, who poked a cop with a lacrosse stick with a Confederate flag attached.
  5. Matthew Caspel, who was filmed charging the National Guard. Tip SM
  6. William Chrestman, who is accused of threatening a cop as Proud Boys pushed their way past the original line of defense (charged with 18 USC 115). NM
  7. Bruno Cua, who was filmed shoving a cop to be able to get into the Senate. Tip LE
  8. Nathan DeGrave, whom security cameras caught threatening to fight cops. Network Sandlin
  9. Daniel Egdvedt, a large man who took swipes and grabbed at several officers as they tried to remove him from the Capitol. BOLO 76
  10. Scott Fairlamb, who was caught in multiple videos shoving and punching officers (one who whom is identified but not named); Cori Bush has said she was threatened by him last summer. Tips, including SM
  11. Kyle Fitzsimons, who charged officers guarding the doorway of the Capitol. BOLO 139
  12. Michael Foy, a former Marine who was caught on multiple videos beating multiple cops with a hockey stick. Tip SM
  13. Robert Giswein, who appears to have ties to the Proud Boys and used a bat to beat cops. NM
  14. Alex Harkrider, who after being filmed fighting with police at the door of the Capitol, posted a picture with a crowbar labeled, “weapon;” he was charged with abetting Ryan Nichols’ assault. Tip SM
  15. Emanuel Jackson, whom videos caught punching one officer, and others show beating multiple officers with a metal baseball bat. BOLO 31
  16. Douglas Jensen, the QAnon who chased Officer Goodman up the stairs, got charged with resisting him.
  17. Taylor Johnatakis, charged with 111.
  18. Chad Jones, who used a Trump flag to break the glass in the Speaker’s Lobby door just before Ashli Babbitt was shot and may have intimidated three officers who were pursuing that group. Tip NM
  19. Vitali Gossjankowski, who was interviewed about whether he had tased MPD officer Michael Fanone, causing a heart attack; instead he was charged with tasing CPD officer MM (BOLO 98 — with a second one mentioned)
  20. Edward Jacob Lang, who identified himself in a screen cap of a violent mob attacking cops and who was filmed slamming a riot shield into police and later fighting them with a red baseball bat. Tip SM
  21. Mark Jefferson Leffingwell, whom a Capitol Police officer described in an affidavit punching him. Onsite arrest
  22. Joshua Lollar, who described fighting cops and was caught in pictures showing himself in the front lines confronting cops. Tip SM
  23. Michael Lopatic, who allegedly assaulted some cops with Stager and Sabol, then took a BWC to hide the assault. BOLO 133
  24. Patrick Edward McCaughey III, who was filmed crushing MPD Officer Daniel Hodges in one of the doors to the Capitol. BOLO 62
  25. Jonathan Mellis, who used some kind of stick to try to jab and beat police. Tip SM
  26. Matthew Ryan Miller, who released fire extinguisher in close quarters. Tip SM
  27. Aaron Mostofsky, possibly for stripping a cop of his or her armored vest and riot shield. NM
  28. Ryan Nichols, who was filmed wielding a crowbar and yelling, “This is not a peaceful protest,” then spraying pepper spray against police trying to prevent entry to the Capitol. Tip SM
  29. Jose Padilla, who shoved cops at a barricade, then helped use a Donald Trump sign as a battering ram against them. Tip SM
  30. Dominic Pezzola, a Proud Boy who stole a shield from cops. NM (BOLO 43)
  31. Jeffrey Sabol, helped drag a cop from the Capitol and beat him while prone. LE arrest (erratic driving)
  32. Ryan Samsel, who set off the riot by giving a cop a concussion; he appears to have coordinated with Joe Biggs. BOLO 51 (though not IDed by BOLO)
  33. Robert Sanford, who was filmed hitting Capitol Police Officer William Young on the head with a fire extinguisher. Tip NM
  34. Ronald Sandlin, who tried to wrestle cops to keep the door to the Senate open. MPD tip
  35. Peter Schwartz, a felon who maced several cops. Tip NM (BOLO 120)
  36. Christian Secor, a UCLA self-described fascist who helped shove through some cops to break into the Capitol and then sat in the Senate chamber. Tip NM
  37. Barton Wade Shively, who pushed and shoved some police trying to get into the Capitol, punched another, then struck one of those same cops later and kicked another. BOLO 55
  38. Peter Francis Stager, who was involved in beating a prone cop with a flagpole. Tip SM
  39. Tristan Stevens, who fought cops with a shield and baton. Video
  40. Thomas Webster, who attacked a cop with a flagpole (BOLO 145)

One reason I made this effort was to show that many of these people were identified via other means, and really a big number of people remain on the FBI’s BOLO list.

Unsurprisingly, more people on this list have tried to destroy evidence or flee, meaning it will likely take more time to find them all. There’s also reason to believe that the FBI would prefer to wait to charge these people until they’ve shored up their case.

There are a few more cases that were originally charged as 18 USC 231 that I suspect may get charged as 111 after indictment (which has happened with DeGrave, Sandlin, and Miller), including these.

Craig Bingert (BOLO 105)

Hughes brothers (BOLO 42 and others)

Here are some other notable arrests for which the FBI released a BOLO. Note that the first 30 or so of those posters weren’t targeted to a particular crime, but some — like bullhorn lady Rachel Powell — were identified as AFO in their BOLO but not charged that way.

Joshua Black (BOLO 6)

Steve Malonado (BOLO 20)

William Pepe (BOLO 4)

Matthew Perna (BOLO 73)

Rachel Powell (BOLO 110)

Kevin Seefriend (BOLO 30)

Joshua Wagner (BOLO 34)

Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Flashbacks to the 2015 Campaign

/72 Comments/in , , , , , , , /by

Katy Tur at SXSW
[h/t nrkbeta Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) ]

Several years ago, I got Mrs Dr Peterr Katy Tur’s book Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History. Tur had been the NBC reporter assigned to the Trump campaign in 2015 and 2016, and listening to the impeachment coverage yesterday and the coverage this morning, one episode she recounted in the book came flashing back . . .

In Dec 2015, three days before Trump announced his pledge to institute a Muslim travel ban, Trump got rattled at a rally in Raleigh NC where protesters coordinated their efforts and threw him off his game, interrupting his speech every couple of minutes from different parts of the arena. Disgusted, Trump abruptly left the podium and started shaking hands offstage, and Tur sent out a simple tweet describing what had happened.

Right before lunch the next day, Hope Hicks wrote her to say “Katy, Mr. Trump thought your tweets from last night were disgraceful. Not nice! Best, Hope.” Shortly thereafter, the media gets the word about the travel ban Trump intended to announce that night, and that becomes the big story of the day with Katy doing liveshots all afternoon. That evening, before a rally inside the USS Yorktown (an aircraft carrier-turned-museum in Charleston harbor), Trump blasted her with four attack tweets in the span of four minutes.

Tur says the rally’s specific location was a surprise, in that it wasn’t held on the carrier deck but inside the belly of the ship, with the media crowded into a pen.

Yes, we are in a pen: a makeshift enclosure made of bicycle racks and jammed full of desks, reporters, and camera equipment. We’re in the middle of the carrier, slammed against the right side wall. As usual, almost all of Trump’s supporters are white and a lot of them are looking at us, not exactly kindly. The campaign and Secret Service force us to stay inside the pen while Trump is onstage. They even discourage bathroom breaks. None of them have a good explanation for why we’re kept separate from the supporters. Are we the threat or are they?

Trump starts his rambling speech, and the crowd eats it up. Then Trump opens up on the media.

“The mainstream media,” Trump says. “These people back here, they’re the worst. They are so dishonest.”

Hoots and hollers.

And then I hear my name.

“She’s back there, little Katy. She’s back there.”

Trump then calls her a liar several times, and a third rate reporter several times as well, before pivoting to a more general attack on the media. Finally, once he’s got the crowd sufficiently whipped up, he formally announces the Muslim ban, and the crowd which she described earlier as looking at her like “a large animal, angry and unchained” went nuts.

She goes live with Chris Matthews as Trump leaves the stage, and when she’s done with that, Chris Hayes takes over and wants to keep her on the air for the lead story on his show that followed Matthews’.

[Trump] supporters are taking their time to leave. They’re still whipped up. I know someone is going to start yelling at me as soon as I start talking. So I do what I always do. I find the pinhole deep in the back of the lens and I tune everything else out.

A couple of minutes later, I’m done. The crowd that had gathered behind my live shot is gone except for a few stragglers, yelling at me. They’re five feet away, held back by those lousy bicycle racks. A Trump staffer shoos them away. MSNBC has cleared me and my bosses want [her cameraman/sound tech] Anthony and me to get out of there as quickly as we can. I don’t quite understand why until we pack up and start to head out. A Trump staffer stops me and says “These guys are going to walk you out.”

I look over and see two Secret Service agents. Thank goodness. They walk Anthony and me along the gangway back to our car. It’s pitch black and I’m nervous. We’re parked with the crowd.

Once we’re moving, I take a look at my phone. My mom has called. And called. And called. I dial her back. “Are you okay? Where are you staying? Can someone stay with you? You need security!? She is crying. And it hits me.

I’m a target.

On that day in December 2015, the security professionals of the US Secret Service recognized that Trump was dangerously inciting a mob, and stepped in to protect the target he had singled out.

On January 6, 2021, Trump again incited a mob, and this time there was no one to stop them.

Laughing in the Face of Denial

/110 Comments/in , /by

TOPSHOT – Trump supporters engaging in healing the country at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021. –  (Photo by Joseph Prezioso / AFP) (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

Not this again.

From Trump lawyer David Schoen on day one of the second Trump impeachment trial:

[The House impeachment managers] tell us that we have to have this impeachment trial, such as it is, to bring about unity. But they don’t want unity, and they know this so-called trial will tear this country in half, leaving tens of millions of Americans feeling left out of the nation’s agenda as dictated by one political party that now holds the power in the White House and our national legislature. But they are proud Americans, who never quit getting back up when they are down and they don’t take dictates from another party based on partisan force-feeding. This trial will tear this country apart, perhaps like we have seen only once before in our history.

*sigh*

Long ago, as a young pastor, a couple came to me about concerns with their marriage. The husband had slept with someone else, and when his wife threatened to file for divorce, they came to me together for advice. After some pleasantries at the beginning of the conversation, the tone quickly shifted. Filled with righteous indignation, the husband said “She’s going to file for divorce and break up our family! Whatever happened to forgiveness? Tell her she can’t do that!”

I laughed out loud.

Not a chuckle, not a single snort, but a good 15 seconds of laughter. (I said I was young.) They both looked at me in absolute shock. When I quelled my laughter, I said “*She* is going to break up your family? Please. *You* broke up the relationship when you slept around. That relationship is dead. You have to decide if you are willing to take responsibility for that and make the effort to repair it, or if you want to live in denial that breaking your marriage vows wasn’t that big a deal and sleeping around really didn’t hurt anyone.”

This was met with silence, so I plunged on.

Still speaking to the husband (but with the wife listening closely), I said “You don’t get to decide the terms of how she forgives anyone. Forgiveness doesn’t mean everything goes back to the way it was. It means that she quits seeing you as a monster, and quits letting the pain you caused her continue to govern her life. If she forgives you, it doesn’t automatically mean that you two will stay married. It just means she is done with letting what you did continue to hurt her. If you want this relationship to be healed and this marriage to be rebuilt, that starts with honesty, not denial. Honesty about what happened, honesty about how damaging and painful it was, and honesty about what you are or are not willing to do going forward.”

No, that husband was not David Schoen — but in listening to Schoen yesterday, the two of them sure sound a lot alike. The more Schoen and the defenders of Trump talk about unity and moving on without acknowledging anything about Trump’s role in the insurrection, the more they show they have no interest in unity or healing.

But we already knew that.

In one of my former congregations, I had a parishioner who was a psychologist who worked with men who had been convicted of child abuse, and the two of us had a number of long conversations around abuse and denial. When someone is accused of child abuse, my parishioner told me, he would see the same dynamic play out with each one. First, they deny that the abuse happened. “I didn’t do it!” When presented with evidence that they did indeed do it, the denial shifts to avoiding judgment: “OK, but it’s no big deal. No one got hurt. She/he came on to me. He/she had it coming. You have no right to judge me for that.” When that doesn’t work, denial pulls out the big trump card to avoid any consequences: “You have to forgive me!”

Perpetrators of abuse turn to denial because if there are consequences to their actions, something will have to die – their image of themselves, their relationships with others, and more. Denial is how they hope that nothing in their lives will have to change, with no consequences for their damaging actions.

Honesty, on the other hand, is where perpetrators of abuse turn if they are truly interested in healing and moving on. From everything I heard yesterday, the abusers and their enablers have no interest in healing. Power? Absolutely. Healing? Not so much.

This trial will not tear this country apart. Trump has already torn it apart.

The question now is whether the Senate wants to honestly acknowledge that reality and begin to deal with it by holding Trump accountable, or if they want to remain in denial and encourage the tear in our country to continue growing.

 

Accused Insurrectionist Thomas Caldwell Claims to Have Top Secret Clearance

/64 Comments/in , /by

Yesterday, Thomas Caldwell — the man accused of being part of an Oath Keeper conspiracy on January 6 — submitted a motion fighting detention. In it, he claims all the accusations against him are false, there’s no evidence that he breached the Capitol (presumably based on certainty that his wife, who was allegedly with him, won’t testify to that fact), and that his bad back prevents him from doing things like walking into the Capitol.

The Oath Keepers have a reputation of ordering underlings to do their dirty work, and that may be what Caldwell is claiming here.

It is noteworthy that despite reports of over 100,000 photo and video recordings of the incidents on January 6, 2021, the Government has not identified and photo or video that shows Caldwell in the U.S. Capitol Building, on the grounds, after overcoming any barrier or other evidence of restriction, in the vicinity of any damaged property, or in any chamber of Congress. Further, the Government has not identified any time, place, or specific content of any alleged agreement that Caldwell alleged participated in that would meet the definition of a conspiracy.

But the more interesting move is — in an effort to suggest his military background means he wouldn’t engage in a conspiracy with a militia that focuses on recruiting former military — Caldwell’s claims to retain (still!) clearance.

After retiring from the Navy, he worked as a section chief for the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2009-2010 as a GS-12. He also formed and operated a consulting firm performing work, often classified, for U.S. government customers including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Army Personnel Command.

What classified work and military experience does HUD require?

In another case where an insurrectionist had Top Secret clearance, DOJ pointed to that as reason why the person should be detained.

In any case, what is clear is that Caldwell believes Congress is full of traitors because they followed the Constitution, and he advocated similarly storming Capitols around the country.

Even with his bad back.

In His Impeachment Defense, Trump Cites Mike Pence Admitting Trump Made an Unconstitutional Demand

/95 Comments/in , , /by

Eleven pages into his 75-page impeachment defense, Trump makes this claim:

President Trump did not direct anyone to commit lawless actions,

In context, he’s speaking about his speech before the riot, claiming that his invocation that his mobsters “fight” didn’t mean he wanted them to fight illegally. His defense only addresses the meaning of that word, “fight,” in his speech, while treating impeachment over and over as akin to the passage of a law restricting First Amendment protected speech and not the political act that impeachment is.

But this brief, like in the 14-page answer brief he submitted last week, barely addresses one of the times he quite clearly did direct people to commit lawless action, first, when he called Brad Raffensperger and asked him to find him votes that didn’t exist.

The article also discusses in passing other “statements” of Mr. Trump as well as a telephone call to the secretary of state of Georgia.

[snip]

The allegation that Mr. Trump should be convicted for “incitement of insurrection” based upon the telephone call to the Georgia secretary of state rests on even shakier ground. The allegations of “threats of death and violence” come not from Mr. Trump at all; they come from other individuals from the internet, not identified (nor identifiable) in the House Trial Memorandum, who took it upon themselves to make inane internet threats, which were not urged or “incited” by Mr. Trump in any way shape or form.150 Examining the discussion with the Georgia secretary of state under the standard of “incitement,” leads to the same conclusion as the January 6, 2021 statements of Mr. Trump: there is nothing said by Mr. Trump that urges “use of force” or “law violation” directed to producing imminent lawless action.151

More strikingly, given the greater length of this brief, Trump again completely ignores a key part of the article of impeachment against him: his actions targeting Mike Pence, both his demand that Pence commit an unconstitutional act by throwing out the votes of key swing states, and his comments that specifically riled up the crowd against Pence, even after the rioters started looking for him at the Capitol to assassinate him.

Instead of addressing the actions he took that got Pence targeted for assassination, Trump mentions Pence only in the context of discussions about the 25th Amendment.

The very next day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called on Vice-President Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment concluding – without any investigation – that Mr. Trump incited the insurrection and continued to pose an imminent danger if he remained in office as President.12

[snip]

First, in an attempt to usurp Constitutional power that is not in any way hers, the Speaker demanded that Vice-President Michael Pence or the White House Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment, threatening to launch an impeachment proceeding if they refused. Four days later, on January 11, 2021, an Article of Impeachment was introduced, which charged President Trump with “incitement of insurrection” against the United States government and “lawless action at the Capitol.” See H. Res. 24 (117th Congress (2021-2022). The Speaker made good on her extortionate threat.

[snip]

After the Article was introduced, Speaker Pelosi again gave Vice President Pence an ultimatum: either he invokes the 25th Amendment within twenty-four hours or the impeachment proceedings would proceed. Vice-President Pence responded in a letter to Speaker Pelosi the following day stating that he would not allow her to usurp constitutional authority that is not hers and extort him (and by extension the Nation) to invoke the 25th Amendment because he believed to do so would not “be in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution.”29 Vice-President Pence also noted that Speaker Pelosi was being hypocritical, as she had previously stated that in utilizing the 25th Amendment, “we must be ‘[v]ery respectful of not making a judgment on the basis of a comment or behavior that we don’t like, but [rather must base such a decision] on a medical decision.”30

I suspect Trump’s lawyers will try to defer any questions about Trump’s attacks on Pence by suggesting that Pelosi’s decision to impeach because Pence didn’t invoke the 25th Amendment is just like Trump’s incitement of violence targeted at Pence. With their use of the words, “usurp” and “extort,” Trump’s lawyers grossly overstate the force of language Pence himself used to compare the two:

Last week, I did not yield to pressure to exert power beyond my constitutional authority to determine the outcome of the election, and I will not now yield to efforts in the House of Representatives to play political games at a time so serious to the life of our Nation.

But there are several problems with this: Congress was already intent on impeaching Trump for his actions before the request that Pence intervene. More importantly, even in Pence’s treatment comparing these two, he calls one — Trump’s demand — unconstitutional but the other — Pelosi’s request — a “political game.”

So in one place in his impeachment defense, Donald Trump’s lawyers claim, “President Trump did not direct anyone to commit lawless actions.” Elsewhere, however, they cite a letter in which Mike Pence says he did, that he made a demand, “beyond [his] constitutional authority.”

And with this apparent effort to deflect a key accusation against him, Trump entirely ignores the specific, targeted action he used to lead the mob to attempt to assassinate his Vice President.

The Insurrection Affidavits Don’t Show Where the Insurrection Was Organized

/42 Comments/in , , /by

The normally very rigorous Thomas Brewster has a piece purporting to fact-check Sheryl Sandberg’s claim, made days after the January 6 insurrection, that the insurrection wasn’t organized on Facebook.

“I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop hate and don’t have our standards and don’t have our transparency,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operating officer, shortly after the Capitol Hill riots on January 6.

The piece has led both bad faith and good faith actors to grasp on the story to claim that Facebook is responsible for the violence.

Brewster purports to measure that by seeing how many mentions appear in the charging documents for the 223 people included on GWU’s list of arrestees.

But a few paragraphs later, Brewster admits he’s not measuring on what platform the riot was organized, but instead which was most popular among rioters.

Whilst the data doesn’t show definitively what app was the most popular amongst rioters, it does strongly indicate Facebook was rioters’ the preferred platform.

Even that is not proven (though it may well prove to be true), but obviously which platform is most used among rioters to boast about the riot is a very different question than on which platform (if any) the insurrection was organized.

Here’s why:

  • At least half the existing affidavits are a measure of which riot attendees were most likely to be outed and how
  • Expect parallel construction
  • There are a lot of dangerous rioters who’ve not yet been charged
  • The currently accused in no way represent all the known people who might be considered organizers of the riot or the larger operation
  • The existing affidavits are no measure of what platforms actual organizers used to organize

At least half the existing affidavits are a measure of which riot attendees were most likely to be outed and how

The police made just a handful of arrests on January 6, with the biggest component being curfew violators who did not even provably enter the Capitol (and so those non-federal cases should not be included in the analysis of rioters, as Brewster did).

In the four and a half weeks since the riot, the cops have engaged in a kind of triage, arresting those whom they could easily identify and then, over time, prioritizing those who — from video evidence of the insurrection — appeared to have committed more dangerous crimes. That means in the days after the insurrection, arrests largely focused on the people who appeared the most outlandishly stupid in videos, those whose own social networks of family, work acquaintances, and high school friends disapproved of their participation in the riot and so called the FBI with a tip, or those who identified themselves in media interviews (which often led to family, work acquaintances, and high school friends to then alert the FBI).

To understand the affidavits, it’s important to realize that any person who entered the Capitol without a legitimate purpose on January 6 (that includes a number of people who videoed the event but had no media credentials) were committing two crimes, both tied to it being the Capitol. So all the FBI would need to charge someone is to prove that they entered the building.

About half the current arrestees were charged with just these trespassing crimes, yet many of these people were among the first arrested. These people are in no way the organizers of the riot, and many of them are just Trump supporters who were caught up in the crowd. Some even credibly described trying to de-escalate the situation (including one such guy who got arrested because he had the misfortunate to show up in videos of the guy who stole Pelosi’s lectern).

The measure of how these people were arrested is quite often a measure of the fact that they shared their memories of the day or were caught by others who did. And to the extent that this happened on Facebook, it likely happened because Facebook is the platform where people have their broadest social networks, making it more likely that a lot of people who don’t sympathize with the riot would have witnessed social media content talking about it. Facebook is where ardent Trump supporters still share networks with people who vehemently oppose him.

In other words, in this initial arrest push, the people who bragged on Facebook were among the most likely to be arrested precisely because the network includes a broader range of viewpoints. It’s a measure of reach — and the political diversity of that reach — and not a measure of the centrality of the platform to the planning or violence.

Expect parallel construction

As noted, in the weeks since the insurrection, some agents at the FBI have obviously shifted to a reverse approach: rather than arresting those against whom tips came in from aggrieved ex-wives and people who were owed money, the FBI started to identify which rioters were the most dangerous and prioritize figuring out who they were.

One type of more dangerous rioter would be those with institutional ties that lead the FBI to believe there might be something more going on. But these are just arrest affidavits, which the FBI is acutely aware will be publicly scrutinized. As every single one of them say, they don’t reflect the totality that an Agent might know about the person. And in those cases, we should expect the FBI to parallel construct what they know about people and how they came to know it.

Social media is a wonderful way to do that.

And it does seem that the FBI relied on social media to establish probable cause for such people. Take the Lebanese-born woman who started engaging in the 3% community in November, which the FBI cites to Facebook. Or consider how the FBI pretends they did not know who Nick DeCarlo was until he showed up in Nick Ochs’ Twitter feed. Both rely on social media (in the latter case, one piece of evidence is something researchers found on Telegram and posted on Twitter, and so should be chalked up in the “uses Telegram” column).

But measuring how the FBI parallel constructed other knowledge is not a measure of what social media platforms people primarily use.

There are a lot of potentially dangerous rioters who’ve not yet been charged

As noted, one way the FBI shifted focus after the initial arrests of people identified by their disapproving family members was by identifying people involved in assaults — first of officers (designated by AFO), and then the media (designated by AOM) — and trying to identify them, in part through the use of Wanted posters (BOLO).

To date, the FBI has released 223 BOLOs, of which 40 precede the shift of focus to those involved in assault (and so include people who caught attention for another reason, such as the use of a Confederate or Nazi imagery). The FBI has arrested around 35 people identified in BOLOs, thus leaving around 190 people that the FBI has identified to be of particular interest based off video images, that they have not yet arrested.

For what it’s worth, I suspect that the FBI has identified a goodly number of these people, and may even have sealed complaints against some of them but is holding off on an arrest to gather more evidence. That is, they can arrest them now, but would prefer not to until they shore up their case. In a number of cases where people were identified off of BOLOs, the people turned themselves into the FBI but denied any physical contact was anything but a love tap (here’s one example, but there are others), potentially making it harder to prosecute for the violence.

If and when these people are identified, they may well prove to have used Facebook. But thus far, this group of people has shown better operational security and (unsurprisingly) a greater likelihood to flee or to destroy evidence.

But whatever their Facebook use, when counting the numbers of the 800 people who committed a trespass crime on January 6 by entering the Capitol, of which 200 have been arrested, it’s worth noting that almost another 200 — some of the greatest concern — have not been provably identified by bragging Facebook posts yet.

The currently accused in no way represent all the known people who might be considered organizers of the riot or the larger operation

Thus far, the government has filed the bare outlines of conspiracy charges against both the Oath Keepers (who spoke of a plan they had trained for) and the Proud Boys (who moved in obviously coordinated fashion communicating via radio on January 6). But those conspiracy charges currently include just three and two people, respectively (with a sub-conspiracy charged against two more Proud Boys).

According to claims quoted in charging documents, there were anywhere from 30 to 65 Oath Keepers involved in the riot (including a busload from North Carolina). There are at least three other key Proud Boys that have not been arrested for the riot (Enrique Tarrio, of course, was arrested days earlier for a different racist attack), and about half of those that have were charged with just the trespassing crimes.

In general, these people are not currently identified in BOLO posters.

In other words, this is a set of people — perhaps another 40 on top of the 190 outstanding BOLO figures — that the FBI likely considers key suspects.

And that’s just the organizers of the riot. That doesn’t include James Sullivan, who appears to have been in communication — via text — with Rudy Giuliani.  It doesn’t include people like Ali Alexander and Rudy and possibly Roger Stone who would tie the riot to the larger effort to delay the vote (which is the object of both the Oath Keeper and Proud Boys conspiracy). We know from Stone’s prosecution, at least, that he was de-platformed long ago and learned to use encrypted apps by August 2016.

In any case, before you can make claims about what platforms were used to organize the insurrection, you first need to identify the universe of people believed to have organized it. Right now, perhaps as few as 20 of the 200 people who’ve been arrested should be considered leaders of it, and there are probably at least another 40 who might be considered organizers of the riot itself who have not been arrested yet.

The existing affidavits are no measure of what platforms actual organizers used to organize

To be sure, both of the groups identified in conspiracies (and Three Percenters) made use of Facebook. As Brewster cited, accused Oath Keeper conspirator Thomas Caldwell posted updates to Facebook during the siege, and the co-conspirators did use Facebook to communicate both publicly and privately before the event. Among those referencing the Proud Boys in affidavits, Andrew Ryan Bennett uploaded video to Facebook,  Gabriel Garcia uploaded video to Facebook, and Daniel Goodwin used Instagram and Twitter. As noted above, Nick Ochs had a campaign Twitter account.

But some of the more substantive public communications from both groups, including important communications from before the riot, was posted on Parler. And both groups used other means — Zello for the Oath Keepers and radios for the Proud Boys — to communicate operationally during the day.

With the Proud Boys, in particular, Facebook and Twitter have long tried to exclude them from the platform, both because their speech violated platform guidelines but also because after expulsion the group tried to bypass that expulsion.

Importantly, aside from some quotations from Jessica Watkins’ Zello account and those Facebook messages, the FBI hasn’t shown what it has of operational communications between these groups, and it’s unlikely to do so, either, until trial. The FBI is not going to share how much it knows (if anything) about the operational contacts of these groups until it has to. Which makes any conclusions drawn from what it is willing to show of questionable validity.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy to argue that Sheryl Sandberg is one of a number of Facebook executives who should be ousted. I agree that Facebook has fostered right wing violence, not least with the settings of its algorithms (which is the opposite of what Glenn Greenwald wants the Facebook problem to be). Because it has such wide breadth, it is a platform where people not already radicalized might get swept up in disinformation.

But I know of little valid evidence yet about Facebook’s role in organizing the insurrection, nor is there likely to be conclusive evidence for some time yet.

Update: Changed language to describe Tarrio’s alleged vandalism of a traditionally black church to make it clear he is not accused of assaulting another person.