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How Jacob Chansley Proved Patrick LeDuc Right

I have written repeatedly about how charging January 6 rioters with obstruction provides DOJ a really elegant way of holding people accountable, while providing the flexibility to distinguish between different levels of seriousness (until such time as some judge overturns this application of 18 USC 1512).

A review of what has happened with five men who’ve pled guilty to obstruction so far illustrates not only the range of sentences possible from the same charge, but also the factors DOJ is using to distinguish defendants based on their actions on January 6.

Before I lay out what has happened, first a word of explanation: To get to sentences, the two sides in a plea deal first agree on a  “Estimated Offense Level,” then (if someone pleads guilty), knocks a few points (usually 3) off for pleading. That gives a number that gets plugged into the Sentencing Table to figure out the guidelines sentence, in months, based on whether someone has a criminal record.

So in what follows, I’m showing the initial calculation (before the 3 points taken off for pleading guilty), and then showing what the plea agreement says the guidelines will be. In the table, I’ve marked the four different guidelines calculated in the five cases I discuss here (Scott Fairlamb has some criminal background so may get bumped up a level, but the others have no criminal background).

Paul Hodgkins, who traveled alone to bring his Trump flag to the floor of the Senate, pled guilty to obstruction, and went into sentencing facing a 15 to 21-month sentence (and ultimately got an 8-month sentence).

The number you’ll see Patrick LeDuc mention — 14 — in an email below is obtained by knocking 3 points off 17. And the 15-21 months is taken by checking the “0” criminal record column for an offense level of 14.

Scott Fairlamb. who didn’t plan for insurrection but while there punched a cop, pled guilty to obstruction and assault and goes into sentencing facing 41 to 51 months. DOJ has reserved the right to invoke a terrorist enhancement (including in his plea colloquy) that, if Judge Lamberth agreed, could result in a far stiffer sentence, up to 10 years.

Josiah Colt, who planned his trip to DC with two others, came to DC armed, and rappelled onto the Senate floor, pled guilty to obstruction, but faces (before getting credit for cooperation) 51 to 63 months.

Graydon Young, who planned in advance with a militia, entered the Capitol as part of a Stack, and tried to destroy evidence, pled guilty to obstruction, but faces (before getting credit for cooperation) 63 to 78 months. The difference in guideline between him and Colt is not that Colt’s “militia” was disorganized (a couple of guys he met online), but rather that Young tried to destroy evidence. Otherwise, they’re the same.

These four men all pled guilty to the same crime, obstruction of the vote count, but all faced and are facing dramatically different sentences based on the context of what they had done. And for those who deliberately used violence in pursuit of obstruction could face longer sentences, up to 20 years, which happens to be the same sentence that some sedition-related charges carry, but (again, unless judges overturn this application of obstruction) would be far easier to prove to a jury.

Somewhere around 200 January 6 defendants have been charged with obstruction, but among those 200, there’s a great range of actions they took in their alleged effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, including:

  • How obstructive their actions were (a 3 point enhancement)
  • Whether they used violence or threats thereof (an 8 point enhancement)
  • Whether they planned in advance to obstruct the vote count (a 2 point enhancement)
  • Whether they engaged in further obstruction (a further 2 point enhancement)
  • Whether someone did or abetted more than $1,000 in damage to the Capitol (which will likely get a terrorism enhancement)

And this is an issue that will play out in Paul Hodgkins’ effort to appeal his sentence.

According to claims made in court, Hodgkins decided to admit his guilt early on, which led to him being the first person to plead guilty to that obstruction charge. His lawyer at the time was a guy named Patrick LeDuc, a JAG Reserve Officer who learned after he started representing Hodgkins he had to deploy to the Middle East. Immediately after he was sentenced to a below guidelines sentence, per representations a new lawyer has now made, he asked if he could appeal (Friday, Judge Randolph Moss granted his request to extend his time to appeal). What LeDuc said in response will likely be the matter of a legal fight. We do know that on August 21, LeDuc told Hodgkins, “You have no right to appeal the sentenced [sic] pursuant to our plea agreement,” which suggests that at that point, LeDuc understood Hodgkins’ complaint to be with the sentence, not the competence of his representation.

But we know, for sure, that LeDuc told Carolyn Stewart, Hodgkins’ new lawyer, that other January 6 defendants who made it to the Senate floor were going to be charged with more enhancements to the base obstruction charge than Hodgkins.

Here is what you should know. Capitol Hill Defendants found in the Senate are all being offered a felony (same as Paul)(some more than one felony) with an 8 level enhancement (you might consider obtaining a Federal Sentencing manual for your reference). I was able to get the DOJ to agree to only a 3 level enhancement. You ought to know that my plea deal was adopted at the highest level to include the AG of the United States. That meant that my client was at level 14 instead vice level 19. Other Capitol Hill defendant [sic] are looking at 46 months low end. The AG instructed AUSA Sedky to argue for mid range – 18 months. And you would suggest that is evidenced [sic] of malpractice. I would argue that an attorney of 6 months accusing an attorney with over 250 jury trials at both the State and Federal level, and with 30 years of experience is unprofessional on your part.

If you think the plea deal was insufficient, then you ought to know that the United States makes offers with a a [sic] take it or leave it attitude. Everything in the plea deal was boilerplate with one exception that did not bother me. That was a provision that required me to agree that level 14 was good to go and that I would not object to the PSR. I was allowed to argue for a variance under 3553, which was my strategy all along, and the judge did indeed vary 3 levels into ZONE B. Ms. Sedky is a very experienced prosecutor, and the plea deal was arranged over many lengthy phone calls over a period of 3 months. Being the first felony case to be resolved was something that DOJ had to concur in because my case was going to set the precedent for every one to follow and the stakes were high for both sides.

My strategy paid off to Paul’s benefit. No other Federal defendant who is pleading to a felony will get a sentence better than Paul (nearly 250 others)  We had a very good judge who understood the issues, and the sentence was a fair reflection of the fats.

LeDuc is obviously furious at being called incompetent (and writing from Qatar where he is also juggling a huge influx of refugees from Afghanistan). But in this passage he describes a lot of the background to the plea deals that was evident to those  of us following closely, but for which there had been only off the record confirmation.

I think things may intervene that change DOJ’s plans (particularly if any of the challenges to 1512 are successful). But LeDuc describes that the plan when he was involved was to give Hodgkins a good deal and then use that as the precedent for everyone else. With other judges an 8-month sentence may not actually be the floor, but it is the base level treatment DOJ thinks it will adopt for those charged with felonies.

We’ve seen a few people plead down from felonies to 18 USC 1752, but thus far those people are looking at close to the same sentence as Hodgkins, 6 months, a difference of 2 months and the onerous felony conviction.

One thing LeDuc did say is that other defendants who made it to the Senate floor will face 8 level enhancements. Again, I’m virtually certain there will be others who made it to the Senate that will avoid this treatment.

But yesterday, with Jacob Chansley’s sentence, LeDuc was proven correct: another defendant, with whom Hodgkins stormed the Senate floor, got an 8 point enhancement for doing so.

.

Note that, as with Fairlamb, the government reserved the right to ask for a terrorist enhancement, though I did not hear AUSA Kimberly Paschall make a record of that in yesterday’s plea hearing, as AUSA Leslie Goemaat did in Fairlamb’s plea hearing.

To be sure, Chansley’s Statement of Offense includes multiple things that weren’t present with Hodgkins (nor will they be present for some others who made it to the Senate floor). According to his sworn Statement of Offense, Chansley defied orders from Officer KR four different times, and made public and written comments while in the Senate that might be deemed a threat, including to Mike Pence personally.

11. At approximately 2:16 p.m., the defendant and other rioters ascended the stairs to the second floor to the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol building. In a clearing on the second floor, the defendant and other rioters were met by a line of U.S. Capitol Police officers, instructing them to peacefully leave the building. The defendant challenged U.S. Capitol Police Officer K.R. to let them pass, ultimately using his bullhorn to rile up the crowd and demand that lawmakers be brought out.

12. Instead of obeying the instructions of the U.S. Capitol Police to leave the building, the defendant traversed another staircase to the third floor of the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol building. At approximately 2:52 p.m., the defendant entered the Gallery of the Senate alone. The defendant then proceeded to scream obscenities in the Gallery, while other rioters flooded the Chamber below.

13. The defendant then left the Gallery and proceeded down a staircase in an attempt to gain entry to the Senate floor. There, the defendant once again encountered Officer K.R., who once again asked him to leave the building. The defendant insisted that others were already on the Senate floor and he was going to join them. Officer K.R. then followed the defendant on to the Senate floor.

14. The defendant then scaled the Senate dais, taking the seat that Vice President Mike Pence had occupied less than an hour before. The defendant proceeded to take pictures of himself on the dais and refused to vacate the seat when Officer K.R., the lone law enforcement officer in the Chamber at the time, asked him to do so. Instead, the defendant stated that “Mike Pence is a fucking traitor” and wrote a note on available paper on the dais, stating “It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming!”

15. After Officer K.R. again asked the defendant to vacate the seat, the defendant remained, calling other rioters up to the dais and leading them in an incantation over his bullhorn, which included giving thanks for the opportunity “to allow us to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists, and the globalists, that this is our nation, not theirs, that we will not allow America, the American way of the United States of America to go down.” The defendant went on to say “[t]hank you for allowing the United States to be reborn. Thank you for allowing us to get rid of the communists, the globalists, and the traitors within our government.”

16. Finally, at approximately 3:09 p.m., other law enforcement officers arrived to support Officer K.R., and cleared the defendant and other rioters from the Chamber. [my emphasis]

While it’s a puzzle to compare who posed more of a threat, Scott Fairlamb or Jacob Chansley, DOJ is treating both as people who deliberately tried to prevent the vote count by using violence or threats thereof. And because of that, DOJ has gotten their attorneys to agree, they should face a sentence more than twice as long as Hodgkins faced.

And that’s precisely what Patrick LeDuc told Hodgkins’ new lawyer would happen.

Update: I’ve corrected that these are the only five men who’ve pled guilty to obstruction. Some other Oath Keepers also did.

The Dog Ate My Conflict — Car Accident — Ventilator — Disconnected Phones: Miscellany from the January 6 Investigation

I’m working on a few other things but wanted to capture a few details about the January 6 investigation.

John Pierce succeeds in hiring a new client from the COVID ward

Last week, I described how Ryan Marshall, an associate of John Pierce — the trial lawyer attempting to represent 17 January 6 defendants — claimed Pierce couldn’t be at a hearing for someone who would be his 18th because, “Mr. Pierce is in the hospital, we believe, with COVID-19, on a ventilator, non-responsive.”

After another hearing in which that associate, Marshall, showed up with few explanations, DOJ sent out notices to most of the defendants purportedly represented by Pierce, explaining the many conflicting explanations for Pierce’s absence offered in the last week.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has had no contact with Mr. Pierce—by phone, e-mail, or otherwise—since Monday, August 23, 2021, when he appeared for a hearing before the Honorable Paul L. Friedman in United States v. Jeremiah Caplinger, No. 21-cr-342 (PLF). Since that time, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has heard conflicting information about Mr. Pierce’s health and whereabouts. The morning of Tuesday, August 24, Mr. Pierce was scheduled to appear before Judge Friedman for a status hearing in United States v. Nathaniel DeGrave, No. 21-cr-90. Mr. Pierce was not present at the hearing. Instead, Ryan Marshall—an associate from Mr. Pierce’s law firm who is not a licensed attorney—appeared in Mr. Pierce’s place and represented to the court that Mr. Pierce’s absence was due to a conflict. A few hours later, Mr. Marshall attended a reverse-proffer session with a different defendant represented by Mr. Pierce, telling the Assistant U.S. Attorney that he had just gotten word that Mr. Pierce had been in an accident and was on his way to the hospital. Mr. Marshall then proceeded with the reverse-proffer session in Mr. Pierce’s absence.

The next morning, August 25, Mr. Marshall again appeared in Mr. Pierce’s place at a hearing before the Honorable Amit P. Mehta in United States v. Shane Jenkins, No. 21-cr-245. At that hearing, Mr. Marshall represented to the court that Mr. Pierce was hospitalized with COVID19, on a ventilator, and non-responsive. After that information was reported publicly, a different individual reached out to an NPR correspondent and wrote that Mr. Pierce did not, in fact, have COVID, but instead “was hospitalized on Monday due to symptoms that he believed might be related to Covid-19”; “appears to have been suffering from dehydration and exhaustion”; and “remains under the care of his doctors[.]”3 On Thursday, August 26, Mr. Marshall again appeared before Judge Mehta in Mr. Pierce’s stead, this time in United States v. Peter Schwartz, No. 21-cr178. Before that hearing, Mr. Marshall told the Assistant U.S. Attorney that he had not had any direct contact with Mr. Pierce, but that one of Mr. Pierce’s friends had told him that Mr. Pierce was sick with COVID-19 and another had said he was not. During the hearing, Mr. Marshall requested, and was granted, a sealed bench conference at which to discuss Mr. Pierce’s condition. Later that evening, the same NPR correspondent reported that “[o]ne source close to attorney John Pierce tells me that [Mr.] Pierce is currently hospitalized, and has been diagnosed with COVID19, but firmly denied that he was ever placed on a ventilator.”4 Adding to the confusion, Mr. Pierce, who generally posts multiple messages to Twitter on a daily basis, has not tweeted since August 20.5 And there are reports that “multiple phone numbers for Pierce’s law firm, Pierce Bainbridge P.C., have been disconnected.” [my emphasis]

DOJ then declared all those cases to be “effectively at a standstill” and invited the respective judges to “take any steps [they] believe[] necessary to ensure that the defendant’s rights are adequately protected while Mr. Pierce remains hospitalized.”

Just as all these letters started to go out, the Notice of Attorney Appearance that Marshall had claimed had been filed on August 24, only dated August 30 and auto-signed by Pierce (who may or may not be on a ventilator), appeared in the docket for Shane Jenkins, the defendant at whose hearing Marshall first reported that Pierce was on a ventilator. Shortly thereafter a notice letter covering Jenkins went to Judge Amit Mehta, who had already received at least one for other Pierce defendants. It noted,

At an August 25, 2021, hearing before the Honorable Amit P. Mehta in United States v. Shane Jenkins, No. 21-cr-245 (APM), Ryan Marshall, an associate at Mr. Pierce’s firm, stated that Mr. Pierce now also represents Jenkins. A notice of appearance, purportedly signed by Mr. Pierce, was filed this morning (DE 22).

And with that filing, a man who may be incapacitated acquired an 18th defendant to represent.

WaPo has a good story on Pierce’s other shenanigans, including telling other defense attorneys that this is all a false flag operation and leaving one co-counsel unpaid.

“This whole thing was absolutely a false-flag FBI and intelligence community and military special operations set-up,” he wrote in a late July email to a group of lawyers coordinating defense efforts. The message was shared with The Washington Post. “I don’t [think] a single defendant should take any plea that involves one additional day in jail. At least that’s my mind-set.”

Another attorney replied, “John, can you explain more about how this false flag set-up worked? I’m unclear about the details of what you’re saying.” Pierce did not elaborate.

In another email chain discussing Capitol Police interviews, Pierce wrote, “THIS WHOLE THING WAS AN LEO/IC SET-UP,” referring to law enforcement officers and the intelligence community, “AND WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER TO PROVE IT.”

[snip]

James Kelly, listed as co-counsel with Pierce in a Jan. 6 case, said Monday that he cut ties with the firm in June because he wasn’t paid, is withdrawing from the case and declined further public comment.

The December 17 cooperation update in the Oath Keepers investigation

Meanwhile, things seem to be progressing in the Oath Keepers case. As a reminder, there are four known cooperators in the case: Jon Schaffer, Mark Grods, Graydon Young, and Caleb Berry. In each, Judge Amit Mehta set a two month deadline for the first status report.

In the Schaffer case, the status report submitted on or before June 16 was quickly sealed; indeed, everything since his plea remains sealed.

In both the Graydon Young and Mark Grods case, however, the status report recently got filed.

In the case of Young, the notice similarly reported on ongoing cooperation, asked that Young’s release conditions be relaxed (to match those of other cooperators, though it doesn’t say this), and asked for December 17 to be the next status report in Graydon Young’s case.

The parties report that Defendant Graydon Young continues to cooperate with the government. We request the opportunity to file a further status report by December 17, 2021.

Defendant Young requests that the Court modify his release conditions, stepping him down from home incarceration to an appearance bond on personal recognizance, with the following conditions: not obtain a passport, surrender any passport, not possess any firearms or destructive weapons, not have any contact with co-defendants or associates or affiliates of the Oath Keepers, stay out of Washington, D.C., and notify Pretrial of any travel outside the Middle District of Florida. The government does not oppose this request.

In the Grods case, DOJ asked for the next status report to be due on the same day, December 17.

The parties report that Defendant Mark Grods continues to cooperate with the government. We request the opportunity to file a further status report by December 17, 2021

Berry pled guilty more recently, so his first status report isn’t due until September 21, two months after his plea.

None of this is all that surprising, but the fact that DOJ harmonized the next report date for Young and Grods, who would otherwise be a week apart, suggests DOJ thinks of that as a milestone in the Oath Keeper case. It may be tied to the first trial date for the conspirators, currently set for January 31, 2022. Or it may reflect some understanding of what the prosecutors think they have before them.

If it’s the latter, it says they’ve got four more months of investigation to complete before they’ll finish.

Update, September 18: The two sides have submitted a status report in the Caleb Berry case, and there, too, they’re asking for a December 17 report date.

“Zachary Studabaker’s” best-in-riot passwords

In a bid to delay trial for Zachary Alam, the guy who punched through the Speaker’s Lobby door with his bare fist, prosecutor Candice Wong gave an updated status on discovery for him (see this post on discovery provided to those who helped Alam break through the Speaker’s Lobby doors; Wong has sent Alam one, two, three, four, five, six). As part of that paragraph, Wong disclosed that the government is still trying to crack the passwords on multiple devices belonging to Alam.

The government has provided defense counsel with significant case-specific discovery, as outlined in seven discovery notices filed with the Court between March 26, 2021, and July 14, 2021. See ECF Nos. 10, 14, 17, 20-22, 24. The materials provided include videos encompassing surveillance footage from the U.S. Capitol Police, body-worn-camera footage from the Metropolitan Police Department, open-source videos posted on news and social media platforms, and videos obtained through legal process or voluntary productions in other Capitol investigations that depict the defendant. Case-specific discovery provided to the defendant also includes reports of interviews with civilian and law enforcement witnesses, grand jury materials, search warrant returns, subpoena returns, and jail calls. As the defendant was inside the Capitol for over half an hour, covered four floors, and had multiple interactions while he was there, the government continues to identify and produce additional case-specific materials. Also forthcoming are extractions of the multiple digital devices recovered from the defendant upon his arrest, for which law enforcement is still attempting to decrypt the defendant’s password protections.

The fifth discovery letter, above, describes four devices obtained via a warrant.

It’s not surprising that Alam would have pretty solid passwords. A detention motion in the case described that Alam used aliases…

Moreover, the defendant is known to have used aliases. Lawfully obtained records show that the defendant has provided multiple false names to service providers, including at least one false name – “Zachary Studabaker” – for services since the events of January 6, 2021.

Stolen license plates…

In addition, according to the government’s information, the defendant was at the time of his arrest driving a vehicle that he had purchased around September 2020 but never registered, and for which the defendant had used multiple license plates, including in recent months. These include a Washington, D.C. license plate, found inside the defendant’s vehicle in Pennsylvania, which was reported stolen in 2018 by an individual who indicated that the front license plate was taken off his vehicle while parked in Northwest D.C. D.C. traffic cameras captured a black Chevy truck matching the description of the defendant’s vehicle bearing this license plate as recently as January 4, 2021. Moreover, when agents located the defendant at the motel in Pennsylvania, they observed the defendant’s black Chevy truck parked outside and noted that it bore Pennsylvania license plates for a Mazda vehicle.

False identification…

Upon arrest, moreover, the defendant had multiple identification cards in his wallet, including a D.C. driver’s license and a D.C. identification card for one male, a Permanent Resident card for a second male, and University student identification card for a female.

Burner phones…

Among the items agents seized from the defendant’s motel room nightstand, moreover, were two mobile phones – a Verizon flip phone as well as an iPhone.

[snip]

For “Sun 1/10/21,” the defendant had written “activate burner,” indicating that four days after the events at the U.S. Capitol, he began using a “burner” phone. That “burner” appears to refer to the Verizon flip phone that agents recovered, as executing agents photographed a receipt dated January 10, 2021, for a “Verizon” phone paid for with $65.13 in cash at a Walmart in Pennsylvania.

Cryptocurrency…

The defendant’s other notes from January 10 referred to his intent to “buy crypto[currency]” and “consolidate crypto,”

[snip]

Meanwhile, on “Wed 1/13,” the notes indicate that the defendant planned to “buy CRV on Binance,” an online exchange for trading cryptocurrencies.

[snip]

He also wrote on another page, “Research security (location intelligence)” and “Research how to launder BTC [bitcoin]” right above notes that likewise appear to concern January 6: “Wanted a civilized discussion w/ our representatives but the door wouldn’t open” and “Call out Pence – should have been over.”

And (a poorly implemented) VPN…

Indeed, in a jail call he made on February 21, 2021, the defendant told an individual that he believed he had been tracked down by law enforcement through GPS on his phone and complained that he had downloaded “VPN on my phone” and “got IP Vanish” but that it was “a bullshit service”; “I tried to make that thing run all the time, and it just shut off like randomly sometimes… They can’t f–ing have the VPN running 24 hours? Basically the same thing as not having it… That’s how they figured out my general location.”

But that’s the thing: Alam was using a great deal of operational security. But when it came down to it, he used a free VPN and had his burner phone sitting on a nightstand right next to his smart phone. He was attempting to use operational security, but he was botching it at every opportunity.

And yet the FBI has not yet cracked passwords on multiple — at least two — of the four devices they seized from him, after arresting him seven months ago. FBI has had limited difficulties getting into January 6 defendants’ phones (the most notable of which was solved when they forced Guy Reffitt to use his face to open his Surface Pro), and there are suspects — including two charged suspects and one who fled bail — who have spent longer periods than Alam as fugitives. But this detail seems to suggest that Alam has the best passwords among the 600 January 6 defendants.

Reuters Doesn’t Mention Terrorism When Claiming DOJ Won’t Charge Serious Offenses in the January 6 Investigation

Reuters has a story claiming to report that, “FBI finds scant evidence U.S. Capitol attack was coordinated,” that has elicited a lot of consternation. I’d like to look at what it does and does not say. Most of it is true — and not news — but somewhere along the way someone (either the reporters or the sources) misunderstood parts of what they’re looking at.

Reuters or its sources don’t understand how DOJ is charging this

One detail shows this to be true.

The Reuters piece makes much of the fact that DOJ is not charging what it calls “serious” charges.

Prosecutors have filed conspiracy charges against 40 of those defendants, alleging that they engaged in some degree of planning before the attack.

They alleged that one Proud Boy leader recruited members and urged them to stockpile bulletproof vests and other military-style equipment in the weeks before the attack and on Jan. 6 sent members forward with a plan to split into groups and make multiple entries to the Capitol.

But so far prosecutors have steered clear of more serious, politically-loaded charges that the sources said had been initially discussed by prosecutors, such as seditious conspiracy or racketeering.

[snip]

More than 170 people have been charged so far with assaulting or impeding a police officer, according to the Justice Department. That carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

But one source said there has been little, if any, recent discussion by senior Justice Department officials of filing charges such as “seditious conspiracy” to accuse defendants of trying to overthrow the government. They have also opted not to bring racketeering charges, often used against organized criminal gangs.

Not once does the story mention obstruction, which also carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. If you don’t mention obstruction — and your sources don’t explain that obstruction will get you to precisely where you’d get with a sedition charge, but with a lot more flexibility to distinguish between defendants and a far lower bar of proof (unless and until judges decide it has been misapplied) — then your sources are not describing what is going on with the investigation.

Furthermore, Reuters purports to rule out “more serious, politically-loaded charges,” but it never mentions terrorism.

One reason it wouldn’t, though, is because for domestic terrorists, you don’t charge terrorism, you charge crimes of terrorism or you argue for an enhancement under U.S.S.G. §3A1.4 at sentencing. And that has and will continue to happen. For example, both the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys  conspiracies include 18 USC 1361 charges (damage to a government building exceeding $1,000, a charge that is a bit of a stretch for the Oath Keepers) that constitutes a crime of terrorism, and the government has raised that and noted it is a crime of terrorism in a number of bail disputes. Effectively, DOJ has already called the leaders of the militia conspiracies terrorists. But Reuters doesn’t think that’s worth noting.

Similarly, for both the assault pleas DOJ has obtained thus far, the government has reserved the right to invoke a terrorism enhancement at sentencing. In the case of Scott Fairlamb, who also pled guilty to obstruction, which effectively amounts to pleading guilty to having a political purpose for his assault, I suspect such an enhancement is likely.

Somehow this entire story got written without mentioning what DOJ is using instead of seditious conspiracy: obstruction (which has been charged against over 200 defendants) and terrorism enhancements; civil disorder is likewise not mentioned, but has been charged against around 150 defendants. DOJ isn’t using seditious conspiracy because it doesn’t need it (again, unless and until the courts reject this use of obstruction).

Reuters mis-describes the Proud Boys’ role in the riot

Much of the rest of the story includes details that are true, and public, but arguably misleading.

A “former senior law enforcement official” (most former senior people who had visibility on the investigation have been gone for some time) claims that 90 to 95% of these cases are “one-off” cases, seemingly distinguishing between the 40 people Reuters describes to have been charged in conspiracy from the 540 or so who have not been charged with a conspiracy.

“Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases,” said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. “Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.”

On paper, that’s true, and in key places a really important detail. But in other places it doesn’t mean what Reuters suggests it says.

For example, consider the nine men charged in the assault of Daniel Hodges. None of them knew each other before they started beating the shit out of some cops in the Tunnel of the Capitol. But several of the men charged nevertheless managed to orchestrate the assault (indeed, that’s most of what David Mehaffie did do — make other assailants more effective) and so, even while these individuals did not conspire to beat the shit out of cops, they worked in concert when they did so. The same is true for the men jointly accused of assaulting Michael Fanone (though Daniel Rodriguez has not been charged with the other men involved, many people believe because he’ll be charged in a conspiracy with others from Southern California).

Plus, the number cited to Reuters is probably wrong. Ten percent of the 580 people charged would be around 60. There were that many people on the Proud Boys’ organizational Telegram channel that day (though not all those people were present). There are a bunch of Proud Boys already charged individually, including some (like Dan Scott) who could easily be added to existing conspiracy indictments, others charged as groups (like the five Floridians on the Arthur Jackman indictment), and a father-son pair Jeffrey and Jeremy Grace who just got a terrorism prosecutor added. There are five Oath Keepers not included in that conspiracy (four cooperating against the others). And DOJ is only beginning to unwind the 3%er networks involved. So even just considering militias, the number is likely closer to 80.

And there are other important affiliations represented at the riot — with QAnon and anti-maskers being two of the most important — that actually created networks that were in some ways more effective than the militias. The QAnoners didn’t conspire with each other but they sure as hell were directed from the same place. And anti-mask protests were actually one place where a goodly number of rioters were radicalized, and those localized networks manifested as cells of cooperation in some key incidents in the riot.

More importantly, this claim can only have come from people who misunderstand what the investigation has shown:

Prosecutors have also not brought any charges alleging that any individual or group played a central role in organizing or leading the riot. Law-enforcement sources told Reuters no such charges appeared to be pending.

Conspiracy charges that have been filed allege that defendants discussed their plans in the weeks before the attack and worked together on the day itself. But prosecutors have not alleged that this activity was part of a broader plot.

It’s true that the Proud Boys are not known to have had a detailed plan describing who would move where in the Capitol. But it’s also true that both before and after the riot, the Proud Boys discussed mobilizing the “normies,” because normies have no adrenalin control. And the Proud Boys’ success at doing this is what made the initial assault on the West side of the Capitol work (and therefore the attack generally). The Proud Boys weren’t ordering the 1,000 rioters what to do at each step (though probably 100 people at the riot had some interaction with the Proud Boys), but they did give the riot a kind of structure that was crucial to its success.

Maybe Roger Stone isn’t involved?

Because of the other problems with this article, I don’t know what to make of the single piece of news in it. As noted above, a former senior law enforcement official claims that, “there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.” That makes sense with respect to Alex Jones; his videographer was arrested long ago and remains charged only with trespass.

But Stone has continued to appear in Oath Keeper filings long after the time that someone very senior would have left. And the two cooperators who might confirm or deny Stone’s involvement — Graydon Young (who did an Oath Keeper event with Stone in Florida) and Mark Grods (who was present with the Oath Keepers who were with Stone the day of the attack) — only pled guilty at the end of June, meaning if they confirmed Stone wasn’t involved (even in the planning for the attack known to have taken place in December, in Florida), it wouldn’t have happened all that long ago.

Particularly given the mention of kidnapping — which was a real question at the beginning of the investigation because of the zip ties that Larry Brock and Eric Munchel picked up inside the Capitol — this seems like a denial of a very dated misunderstanding of what happened.

I don’t think this story is meant maliciously. For example, I’m unimpressed with concerns raised about Tass’ ownership; this is Mark Hosenball and he’ll do the same reporting regardless of who signs his paycheck. Nor am I all that concerned by the anonymity of the sources; I’m more interested in how dated some of this information might be and which corners of the sprawling investigation those who actually worked on it were personally involved with.

It reads like the end result of a game of telephone asking questions that were raised in January, not a report about the investigation as public filings reveal it to be in August.

Update: DOJ just charged InfoWars host Owen Shroyer. The initial charges are just trespassing (leveraging a prior charge and Deferred Prosecution Agreement he entered), but he’s likely to be charged with obstruction based on stuff in his arrest affidavit.

Joseph Hackett’s Detention Argument: Guns, Operational Security, and Involvement in Kelly Meggs’ Plans for Nancy Pelosi

In a status hearing in the Oath Keeper conspiracy case on August 10, Kathryn Rakoczy revealed the government had provided “certain information” to defendants that might limit or shape defense theories. She then mentioned uncharged individuals or unindicted co-conspirators.

How Person Fifteen became D-2

Then yesterday, in a memo supporting continued pretrial detention for Joseph Hackett, the government rolled out a new way to refer to those who’ve entered into cooperation agreements against their former co-conspirators (and siblings): D-1 and D-4, as opposed to Person One, Person Two, and Person Ten.

D-1, who shared details of the organizational structure of the Florida Oath Keepers, may be Graydon Young, whom the indictment describes getting operational security instructions from Hackett shortly after he joined the Oath Keepers and who lives about 30 miles from Sarasota.

According to a defendant who has pled guilty pursuant to a cooperation plea agreement (and who will be referred to as D-1), Defendant Hackett was the “leader” of the Oath Keeper CPT5 group of approximately five men from the Sarasota area. According to D-1, the organization’s hierarchy had D-1 reporting to the CPT team leader (here, Hackett), who would report to the State lead (here, Kelly Meggs).

5 D-1 did not know what CPT stood for, but other Oath Keeper materials suggest it stood for “community preparedness team.”

D-4, who shared details of what Hackett did on January 7, may be Caleb Berry, who drove to and from the insurrection from Florida.

According to a defendant who has pled guilty pursuant to a cooperation plea agreement (and who will be referred to as D-4), Defendant Hackett was one of the members of the Oath Keepers who deposited long guns at the Comfort Inn Ballston on January 5 and collected them on January 7.

[snip]

In other words, while Defendant Hackett had his phone with him at the Capitol – he is seen on surveillance video holding it up to take a picture or video, and he admitted to D-4 that he had recorded a video that he later deleted – he took substantial efforts to ensure that he would not be linked to the phone, and that the phone would not be linked to the Capitol attack.

[snip]

According to D-4, on January 7, 2021, while Defendant Hackett was in a car driving from Washington, D.C., to Florida, with co-defendant Kelly Meggs and others, he admitted that he had already deleted from his iPhone a video he had taken while inside the Capitol the prior day

But the numbering system is bound to make Oath Keepers and conspiracists like Darren Beattie, Tucker Carlson, and Glenn Greenwald more paranoid. That’s because, if my assumptions above are correct, the counting appears to start with Young, not the first Oath Keeper known to enter a cooperation agreement, Jon Schaffer, who did so on April 14 (Young was second, Mark Grods was third, and Berry was fourth; the subtitle of this section is based on a wildarse guess that in this scheme, Grods, who was described before he flipped as Person Fifteen, would become D-2). That suggests someone else may have flipped, possibly between June 28 (when Grods pled) and July 7 (when Berry did).

Checking the East Door

The detention motion includes a long description of Hackett’s attempts to use operational security while hanging out with a bunch of people who weren’t, such as this picture showing him using his customary face covering while hanging out with a bunch of people who didn’t.

It also elaborates on a narrative that had shown up in earlier detention motions. It describes Hackett moving inside the Capitol with (it says) Kelly Meggs and Kenneth Harrelson, from the Rotunda to outside of Nancy Pelosi’s door. From there, Hackett walked back to the East Door of the Capitol, as if he was waiting for someone, and then returned to (the government presumes, though they may have video of this now from other defendants) Pelosi’s door.

Attached as Exhibit 3 is a compilation of Defendant Hackett’s movements within the Capitol for the approximately 12 minutes he remained inside, as captured on surveillance video. Notably, he spent most of his time with his co-conspirators Kelly Meggs, Moerschel, and Harrelson. At around 2:45 p.m., Defendant Hackett left the Rotunda through the south door, headed towards the House of Representatives (and the office of Speaker Pelosi).

[snip]

Defendant Hackett was not visible on camera for approximately one minute. He then went to check on the exterior doors through which the group entered, before returning to his coconspirators south of the Rotunda, near the Speaker’s office, where he remained, off camera, for approximately 5 minutes. This is the area and the time that Kelly Meggs and Harrelson were similarly not visible on surveillance video.

Exhibit 3 consists of 26 photos showing which of his actions from inside the Capitol were captured on CCTV — far more detail than the three paragraphs describing Hackett’s movement included in the indictment.

146. After they penetrated the Capitol building, CROWL, WATKINS, SANDRA PARKER, Young, STEELE, KELLY MEGGS, CONNIE MEGGS, HARRELSON, HACKETT, DOLAN, ISAACS, MOERSCHEL, Berry, and the others in the Stack collectively moved into an area inside the building known as the Capitol Rotunda.

[snip]

155. At2:45 p.m, KELLY MEGGS, CONNIE MEGGS, HARRELSON, HACKETT, DOLAN, MOERSCHEL, and Berry walked southbound outof the Rotunda and towards the House ofRepresentatives.

[snip]

158. At2:54 p.m. HACKETT and MOERSCHEL exited the Capitol.

After milling about the Rotunda, Hackett walks across it to talk to Meggs and Harrelson. Berry — who may be D-4, but who definitely has agreed to tell the government everything he knows — was present.

The detention memo suggests they — apparently including Berry and Connie Meggs, though the detention motion doesn’t mention them — went from here to stand outside Pelosi’s office, and then Hackett — apparently by himself — came back through the Rotunda, stood outside the East Door, looking outward, as if waiting to meet with someone.

Hackett then enters back into the Capitol, goes back to where he (apparently) left Moerschel, Harrelson, and Meggs, along with Berry and Connie Meggs (though they aren’t mentioned) and then he and Moerschel exit the building.

Joseph Hackett’s detention motion is about Kelly Meggs

The government largely substantiates their argument that Hackett is too much a threat to be released with their evidence that he’s a leader of an organized militia, armed, and went to great lengths — both in real time and after the fact — to obscure his actions. Hackett’s actions inside the Capitol — unlike many of his co-defendants, he is not charged with an additional resisting cops or civil disorder charge for anything he did inside the building — would seem to add little.

The government gets there, repeatedly, by tying Hackett’s own actions to those of Meggs, to whom (D-1 has testified) he reported in the Oath Keeper hierarchy. In Hackett’s detention motion, for example, the government adds to a text they had included, in similar associative fashion, in Kenneth Harrelson’s detention motion showing Meggs admitting that “we looked for[] her.

In Hackett’s detention memo, they show that the night of the election (they get the conversation from UTC wrong and falsely claim this happened very late the night of the election; it would have happened before polls closed in much of the country), Meggs was threatening to “go on a killing spree … Pelosi first.”

And, almost gratuitously, the government uses a reference to the DC Circuit’s decision upholding Christopher Worrell’s detention as a way to remind Judge Amit Mehta that Meggs had purportedly orchestrated a plan with the Proud Boys.

In Worrell, the D.C. Circuit held that the “district court’s dangerousness determination was [not] clearly erroneous,” based in part on the defendant’s “membership in and alleged coordination with the Proud Boys, some of whose members have been indicted for conspiring to attack Congress.” 848 F. App’x at 5-6.8 The same heightened dangerousness applies here, as the actions of self-proclaimed members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers are similarly situated in terms of their dangerousness based both on their personal actions and their coordination with their coconspirators. And not only have 18 Oath Keeper members and affiliates (Defendant Hackett included) been indicted in this case, but there is also evidence of coordination between the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. (See Gov’t Opp to Kelly Meggs’ Motion for Pretrial Release (ECF 98) at 8 (quoting December 22, 2020, Facebook message: “we have made Contact with PB and they always have a big group”)), and 10 (quoting December 25, 2020, Facebook message: “we have orchestrated a plan with the proud boys. I have been communicating with [redacted] the leader.”).)

It’s as if to say that Hackett is dangerous by himself, but he’s especially dangerous (or just as likely, important to flip) because he was part of what Kelly Meggs was involved with on the day of the insurrection.

The pictures included as an exhibit seem to suggest that not just Hackett — but also Connie Meggs (who would have spousal privilege but who also just got a new lawyer) and Caleb Berry, who may be D-4, a witness to efforts to try to destroy evidence about what happened during the insurrection — were witnesses to whatever Meggs was up to when he went to the office of the woman he threatened to kill on the night Biden won the election. What Hackett would know is why he went back to the door of the Capitol, as if awaiting someone.

According to the government, that makes him dangerous and likely to obstruct the investigation.

Update: This analysis adds to the evidence that Berry is the guy standing by the stair doors at the QRF hotel, and therefore almost certainly D-4.

Scott Fairlamb Pled Guilty to Obstruction and Assault; Does That Amount to Terrorism?

Two January 6 assault defendants pled guilty yesterday, Scott Fairlamb and Devlyn Thompson, the first defendants to plead to assault. Here’s my live tweet of Fairlamb’s sentencing.

There’s a detail of those plea agreements that has not gotten the attention it deserves.

While both plea agreements (Fairlamb, Thompson) include the Estimated Guidelines sentence for the crimes the men pled to, both allow DOJ to request an upward departure for a terrorism enhancement. That means that, while the existing guidelines make it look like these men face around four years in prison, DOJ may come back and argue they should be sentenced to something closer to ten years. I wouldn’t be surprised if DOJ did so with Fairlamb.

Here’s how the sentencing works for Fairlamb, who pled guilty to assault and obstruction.

It starts with the math for both crimes. In both cases, Fairlamb faces an enhancement off base level charges. On the obstruction charge, Fairlamb got penalized for both his physical threats and engaging in substantial interference. On the assault charge, he got an enhancement for punching a cop, an official victim.

From there, Fairlamb gets two-plus-one-points off for pleading guilty.

That results an Estimated Offense Level of 22, based on the assumption the sentences will be served concurrently. Once you factor in Fairlamb’s past assault convictions, his Estimated Guidelines sentence is 41 to 51 months.

But!

There’s a big *but* in the plea deal. The plea deal lays out what each side can argue about next month when Fairlamb will be sentenced.

The parties agree that, solely for the purposes of calculating the applicable range under the Sentencing Guidelines, neither a downward nor upward departure from the Estimated Guidelines Range set forth above is warranted, except the Government reserves the right to request an upward departure pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3A1.4, n. 4. Except as provided for in the “Reservation of Allocution” section below, the parties also agree that neither party will seek any offense-level calculation different from the Estimated Offense Level calculated above in subsection A. However, the parties are free to argue for a Criminal History Category different from that estimated above in subsection B. [my emphasis]

Neither side will deviate from this math except that both sides can argue that Fairlamb’s past assaults result in a different criminal history category than used to calculate these guidelines. Since the guidelines calculated here are based off the lowest category, this can only work against Fairlamb going forward.

More importantly — as AUSA Leslie Goemaat made a point of noting explicitly for the record in yesterday’s sentencing — the government reserves the right to argue for an upward departure under U.S.S.G. § 3A1.4.

That’s a reference to a terrorism enhancement.

4. Upward Departure Provision.—By the terms of the directive to the Commission in section 730 of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the adjustment provided by this guideline applies only to federal crimes of terrorism. However, there may be cases in which (A) the offense was calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct but the offense involved, or was intended to promote, an offense other than one of the offenses specifically enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 2332b(g)(5)(B); or (B) the offense involved, or was intended to promote, one of the offenses specifically enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 2332b(g)(5)(B), but the terrorist motive was to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, rather than to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct. In such cases an upward departure would be warranted, except that the sentence resulting from such a departure may not exceed the top of the guideline range that would have resulted if the adjustment under this guideline had been applied.

This language allows the judge to bump that Offense Level up 12 points, up to but no further than 32.

Even assuming the government does not argue that Fairlamb’s criminal history category should be higher, that would still bump up his potential Guidelines Sentence — if the government were to choose to exercise this option and if Royce Lamberth were to agree that Fairlamb’s crimes were an attempt to influence the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion — to 121 to 151 months.

In other words, while the headlines are saying that Fairlamb could face a roughly 4-year sentence, if the government argues that his actions had a political motive and Judge Lamberth agrees, then in reality Fairlamb could be facing a 10-year sentence or more. And in Fairlamb’s case, he already pled to a crime, obstruction, that admits to that political purpose.

As part of Fairlamb’s Statement of Offense, he agreed under oath that,

When FAIRLAMB unlawfully entered the Capitol building, armed with a police baton, he was aware that the Joint Session to certify the Electoral College results had commenced. FAIRLAMB unlawfully entered the building and assaulted Officer Z.B. with the purpose of influencing, affecting, and retaliating against the conduct of government by stopping or delaying the Congressional proceeding by intimidation or coercion. FAIRLAMB admits that his belief that the Electoral College results were fraudulent is not a legal justification for unlawfully entering the Capitol building and using intimidating [sic] to influence, stop, or delay the Congressional proceeding.

That is, he already admitted his actions were intended to intimidate or coerce the government, the language required to invoke the terrorism enhancement.

Even if this application of the obstruction statute were thrown out (meaning his sentence would start at 17 instead of 22), if Judge Lamberth decided the terrorism enhancement applied, he could still face an 87 to 108 month sentence.

The government will not necessarily invoke this language. The terrorism enhancement language also appeared in Paul Hodgkins’ plea agreement, but AUSA Mona Sedky specifically noted at sentencing that the government was not invoking it in Hodgkins’ case.

The language does not appear in the five known cooperation pleas (Caleb Berry, Josiah Colt, Mark Grods, Jon Schaffer, Graydon Young). Indeed, as I’ve noted, by pleading their way out of the existing Oath Keeper conspiracy, Young and the other Oath Keepers also got out of the depredation of government property charge that is explicitly among those that can carry a terrorism enhancement. There appear to be at least three Proud Boys charged in conspiracies considering pleading, and I imagine they’d be looking at the same deal, a way out of being treated as a terrorist in exchange for their cooperation. For those willing to cooperate against their buddies, it seems, the government is willing to trade away the possibility of calling the person’s actions terrorism.

There has already been at least one case where a defendant’s lawyer described reluctance to accept a plea offer because it included this terrorism enhancement language. I would imagine the inclusion of this language in plea deals is one reason why so few defendants have taken pleas even when faced with abundant video evidence of their own crimes.

I likewise imagine that the government won’t argue for the enhancement in all cases where it appears in a plea (as noted, Sedky specifically declined to invoke it with Hodgkins).

But in Fairlamb’s case, as part of their argument to hold Fairlamb in pretrial detention, the government has argued he was arming and preparing for war. And Fairlamb swore under oath both that he engaged in violence and that he did so with the intent of coercing the government to stop or delay the certification of a democratic election.

Fairlamb will be sentenced on September 27. So we may learn then whether Federal judges — and as I noted, many of the ones presiding over January 6 cases, including Lamberth, also had key roles in the War on Terror — consider January 6 to be terrorism.

Update: Here’s Lamberth’s order upholding the government request for pre-trial detention. It was one of the first he issued after he was sort-of reversed in Munschel, and as such may reflect more chastened language. But he clearly thinks that Fairlamb’s behavior on January 6 fairly exceptional.

Here’s how he described January 6 in the original Munchel decision, though.

The grand jury charged Munchel with grave offenses. In charging Munchel with “forcibly enter[ing] and remain[ing] in the Capitol to stop, delay, and hinder Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote,” Indictment 1, ECF No. 21, the grand jury alleged that Munchel used force to subvert a democratic election and arrest the peaceful transfer of power. Such conduct threatens the republic itself. See George Washington, Farewell Address (Sept. 19, 1796) (“The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government. All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency.”). Indeed, few offenses are more threatening to our way of life.

DOJ Unimpressed by Mo Brooks’ Kickass Conspiracy Defense

Last night, DOJ refused to certify that Mo Brooks’ actions laid out in a lawsuit by Eric Swalwell were done in the course of his employment as a Congressman. To understand why, and why Brooks may have given DOJ an easy way to prosecute him in conjunction with January 6, you have to look at the sworn declaration Brooks submitted in support of a claim that his call on Trump rally attendees to “kick ass” was part of his duty as a Congressperson.

Broadly, the Swalwell lawsuit accuses Brooks of conspiring with Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr, and Rudy Giuliani to violate his civil rights by trying to prevent him from performing his official duties. One of the descriptions of the conspiracy is:

169. As described more fully in this Complaint, the Defendants, by force, intimidation, or threat, agreed and conspired among themselves and with others to prevent members of Congress, including the Plaintiff, and Vice President Mike Pence from counting the Electoral College Votes and certifying President Biden and Vice President Harris as the winners of the 2020 presidential election.

It alleges Brooks committed a number of overt acts, which include a series of Tweets that mirror and in one case anticipate the public claims the other alleged co-conspirators made, as well as his speech at the January 6 Trump rally where he incited listeners to “kick ass” to save the Republic.

Mo Brooks addressed the large crowd at the January 6 rally. He said “America is at risk unlike it has been in decades, and perhaps centuries.” He told the crowd to start “kicking ass,” and he spoke with reverence, at a purportedly peaceful demonstration, of how “our ancestors sacrificed their blood, sweat, their tears, their fortunes, and sometimes their lives,” before shouting at the crowd “Are you willing to do the same?!” Brooks intended these words as a threat of violence or intimidation to block the certification vote from even occurring and/or to coerce members of Congress to disregard the results of the election.

In general, Brooks’ sworn declaration, submitted in support of a petition to certify that he was acting within the scope of his office as a Congressperson, claimed over and over that the actions he admits to (he claims all but one of the Tweets in question were sent by his staffers) were done,

pursuant to my duties and job as a United States Congressman concerning presidential election dispute resolution obligations imposed on Congress by the U.S. Constitution, Amendment 12 in particular, and the United States Code, 3 U.S.C. 15 in particular.

That includes, for example, when Brooks claims he,

drafted my January 6, 2021 Ellipse Speech in my office at the Rayburn House Office building on my Congressional Office computer. I also timed, reviewed and revised, and practiced my Ellipse Speech in my office at the Rayburn House Office Building.

Claiming such actions were part of his duties as a Congressperson is how Brooks responds to most of the allegations against him. One notable exception is when he claimed,

I only gave an Ellipse Speech because the White House asked me, in my capacity as a United States Congressman, to speak at the Ellipse Rally. But for the White House request, I would not have appeared at the Ellipse Rally.

The far more notable exception came when, presumably in an effort to disclaim intending to invite rally participants to “kick ass” on January 6, Brooks explains that the “kicking ass” was instead an effort to get Republicans to start focusing on the 2022 and 2024 elections.

Swalwell errs by splicing one sentence and omitting the preceding sentence in a two-sentence paragraph that emphasizes I am talking about “kicking ass” in the 2022 and 2024 ELECTIONSThe full paragraph states, in toto:

But lets be clear, regardless of today’s outcome, the 2022 and the 2024 elections are right around the corner, and America does not need and cannot stand, cannot tolerate any more weakling, cowering, wimpy Republican Congressmen and Senators who covet the power and the prestige the swamp has to offer, while groveling at the feet and the knees of the special interest group masters. As such, today is important in another way, today is the day American patriots start by taking down names and kicking ass.

My intent in uttering these words was to encourage Ellipse Rally attendees to put the 2020 elections behind them (and, in particular, the preceding day’s two GOP Senator losses in Georgia) and to start focusing on the 2022 and 2024 elections.

“As such” is the key phrase in the second sentence because it emphasizes that the paragraph’s second sentence is in the context of the paragraph’s first sentence’s 2022 and 2024 election cycles (that began November 4, 2020).

Consisted with this is the middle part of the paragraph’s second sentence, which states, “taking down names”. Whose names are to be “taken down”? The names of those Senators and Congressmen who do not vote for honest and accurate elections after the House and Senate floor debates later in that afternoon and evening. Once we get and “take down” their names, our task is to “kick their ass” in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles. [emphasis original]

This claim is inconsistent with many of the other claims that Brooks makes. And claiming that he means to replace Senators and Congresspeople who don’t vote against the legal outcome of the election only defers the threats against those who don’t participate in an election scam.

But the most important part, for the purposes of Brooks’ efforts to dodge this lawsuit, is that he has just confessed, in a sworn declaration, to have been campaigning when he delivered the speech that he wrote using official resources.

That’s one of the points that Zoe Lofgren made, in her role as Chair of the Committee on House Administration, when providing a response from Congress in lieu of one from the House General Counsel. After noting that Members of Congress cannot, as part of their official duties, commit a crime, she then notes that members are also prohibited from using official resources for campaign purposes.

Conduct that is campaign or political in nature is also outside the scope of official duties and not permissible official activity. For example, regulations of the Committee on House Administration provide that a Member may use their official funds only for “official and representational expenses,” and “may not pay for campaign expenses” or “campaign-related political party expenses with such funds.”5

Similarly, the Committee on Ethics notes that, “Official resources of the House must, as a general rule, be used for the performance of official business of the House, and hence those resources may not be used for campaign or political purposes.”6 For purposes of this rule, “official resources” includes not only official funds, but “goods and services purchased with those funds,” “House buildings, and House rooms and offices,” “congressional office equipment,” “office supplies,” and “congressional staff time.”7 The limitations on the authorized use of official time and space for campaign or political purposes extends to activities such as “the drafting of campaign speeches, statements, press releases, or literature.”8 Moreover, the scope of campaign or political activities that may not be conducted with official resources is not limited to the Member’s own reelection campaign. As the Committee on Ethics explains:

Members and staff should be aware that the general prohibition against campaign or political use of official resources applies not only to any Member campaign for re-election, but rather to any campaign or political undertaking. Thus the prohibition applies to, for example, campaigns for the presidency, the U.S. Senate, or a state or local office, and it applies to such campaigns whether the Member is a candidate or is merely seeking to support or assist (or oppose) a candidate in such a campaign.9

In his motion, Representative Brooks represents to the court that he intended his January 6, 2021, speech to incite action by the thousands of attendees with respect to election activity. Representative Brooks states that he sought “to encourage Ellipse Rally attendees to put the 2020 elections behind them (and, in particular, the preceding day’s two Georgia GOP Senate losses) and to inspire listeners to start focusing on the 2022 and 2024 elections, which had already begun.”10 For example, Representative Brooks affirms that in his speech, he said, “Today is a time of choosing, and tomorrow is a time for fighting.” 11 According to Representative Brooks, the first half of that statement, “Today is a time of choosing,” is not a “call for violence,” but is instead a reference to “[w]hich Senators and Congressmen to support, and oppose, in future elections.”12 Further, he explains that the second half of that statement, “tomorrow is a time for fighting,” is a reference to “fighting” “[t]hose who don’t vote like citizens prefer … in future elections, as is emphasized later in the speech.”13

Similarly, Representative Brooks also declares that in his speech, he said, that “the 2022 and 2024 elections are right around the corner” and that “As such, today is important in another way, today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” 14 As he said “the 2022 and 2024 elections are right around the corner,” Representative Brooks withdrew a red cap that stated “FIRE PELOSI” from his coat, donned the cap, and wore it for the remainder of his speech.15 Representative Brooks says that, “The phrase, ‘As such’ emphasizes that the second sentence is in the context of the first sentence’s ‘2022 and 2024 elections’ time frame … and the desire to beat offending Republicans in those elections!”16 He asks and answers his own question about the timing: “When do citizens kick those Republican asses? As stated in the first sentence, in the ‘2022 and 2024 elections that are right around the corner.’”17 He later affirms that, “My ‘kicking ass’ comment referred to what patriotic Republicans needed to do in the 2022 and 2024 elections and had zero to do with the Capitol riot.”18

For Lofgren’s purpose, the important part is that Brooks has sworn under oath that the specific language that seemed to invite violence was instead campaign activity outside the scope of his official duties.

Essentially, in deflecting the allegation that his speech was an incitement to violence, Representative Brooks has sworn under oath to the court that his conduct was instead in furtherance of political campaigns. As noted, standards of conduct that apply to Members and precedents of the House are clear that campaign activity is outside the scope of official duties and not a permissible use of official resources.

She doesn’t say it, but Brooks’ declaration, including his confession that he wrote the speech in his office, is also a sworn declaration that he violated campaign finance laws by using his office for campaign activities.

The DOJ response to Brooks’ request for certification cites Lofgren’s letter while adopting a similar approach to it, one that would extend beyond Brooks’ actions to Trump himself. The entire rally, they say, was a campaign rally, and therefore outside the scope of Brooks’ employment as a Congressperson — or the scope of employment of any elected official.

The record indicates that the January 6 rally was an electioneering or campaign activity that Brooks would ordinarily be presumed to have undertaken in an unofficial capacity. Activities specifically directed toward the success of a candidate for a partisan political office in a campaign context—electioneering or campaign activities—are not within the scope of the office or employment of a Member of the House of Representatives. Like other elected officials, Members run for reelection themselves and routinely campaign for other political candidates. But they do so in their private, rather than official, capacities.

This understanding that the scope of federal office excludes campaign activity is broadly reflected in numerous authorities. This Court, for example, emphasized “the basic principle that government funds should not be spent to help incumbents gain reelection” in holding that House or Senate mailings aimed at that purpose are “unofficial communication[s].” Common Cause v. Bolger, 574 F. Supp. 672, 683 (D.D.C. 1982) (upholding statute that provided franking privileges for official communications but not unofficial communications).

The current House Ethics Manual confirms that the official business of Members of the House does not include seeking election or reelection for themselves or others. House resources generally cannot be used for campaign purposes, and Members’ staff may engage in campaign work only “on their own time and outside the congressional office.” House Ethics Manual, Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, 110th Cong., 2d Sess., at 121 (2008). For instance, Representatives cannot conduct campaign activities from House buildings or offices or use official letterhead or insignia, and congressional staff on official time should terminate interviews that focus on campaign issues. See id. at 127–29, 133. Of direct relevance here, a Member of Congress also cannot use official resources to engage in presidential campaigns: “[T]he general prohibition against campaign or political use of official resources applies not only to any Member campaign for re-election, but rather to any campaign or political undertaking,” and this “prohibition applies to, for example, campaigns for the Presidency.” Id. at 124; see Lofgren Letter 2.

First, the record indicates that Brooks’s conduct was undertaken as part of a campaign-type rally, and campaign activity is not “of the kind he is employed to perform,” or “within the authorized time and space limits” for a Member of Congress. Restatement §§ 228(1)(a), (b). Second, the Complaint alleges that Brooks engaged in a conspiracy and incited the attack on the Capitol on January 6. That alleged conduct plainly would not qualify as within the scope of employment for an officer or employee of the United States, because attacking one’s employer is different in kind from any authorized conduct and not “actuated . . . by a purpose to serve” the employer. Id. § 228(1)(c). Brooks does not argue otherwise. Instead, he denies the Complaint’s allegations of conspiracy and incitement. The Department does not address that issue here because the campaign-related nature of the rally independently warrants denial of certification, and because the Department is engaged in ongoing investigations into the events of January 6 more generally. But if the Court were to reject our argument that the campaign nature of the January 6 rally resolves the certification question, the Court should not certify that Brooks was acting within the scope of his office or employment unless it concludes that Brooks did not engage in the sort of conduct alleged in the Complaint. [my emphasis]

Brooks might object to DOJ’s determination that the entire rally was a campaign event; he claims the other parts of his speech were part of his duty as a Congressperson. But if pressed on that point, the inconsistencies within his own sworn declaration would either support the view that Trump’s actions also weren’t part of his official duties, or that he himself meant the “kick ass” comment to refer to events of the day and therefore did incite violence. That is, the inconsistencies in Brooks’ sworn declaration may corner him into statements that go against Trump’s interests as well.

Importantly, DOJ’s filing treats the question of whether Brooks committed a crime as a separate issue entirely, asking Judge Amit Mehta not to rule in Brooks’ favor without first analyzing Brooks’ conduct to determine if the conduct alleged in the complaint — which happens to be but which DOJ doesn’t spell out — is a conspiracy to obstruct the vote count, the same charge used against three different militias charged in January 6.

Once again, DOJ emphasizes that this language applies to any Federal employee.

Instead, he denies the Complaint’s allegations of conspiracy and incitement. The Department does not address that issue here because the campaign-related nature of the rally independently warrants denial of certification, and because the Department is engaged in ongoing investigations into the events of January 6 more generally. But if the Court were to reject our argument that the campaign nature of the January 6 rally resolves the certification question, the Court should not certify that Brooks was acting within the scope of his office or employment unless it concludes that Brooks did not engage in the sort of conduct alleged in the Complaint.

[snip]

Here, the Complaint alleges that Brooks conspired with the other Defendants and the “rioters who breached the Capitol on January 6” to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College votes. Compl. ¶ 12. To serve that end, the Complaint alleges that, among other things, the Defendants conspired amongst themselves and with others to “injure members of Congress . . . and Vice President Pence” in an effort to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Compl. ¶¶ 1, 12, 171, 179. Such a conspiracy would clearly be outside the scope of the office of a Member of Congress: Inciting or conspiring to foment a violent attack on the United States Congress is not within the scope of employment of a Representative—or any federal employee— and thus is not the sort of conduct for which the United States is properly substituted as a defendant under the Westfall Act.

Brooks does not argue otherwise. Instead, he denies the Complaint’s allegations that he conspired to incite the attack on the Capitol. See Brooks Aff. 17–18.5 The Department of Justice does not address that issue here. The campaign or electioneering nature of Brooks’s participation in the January 6 rally independently warrants denial of certification, and the Department is engaged in ongoing investigations into the events of January 6 more broadly.6 But if the Court were to reject our argument that the campaign nature of the January 6 rally resolves the certification question, the Court should not certify that Brooks was acting within the scope of his employment unless it concludes that Brooks did not engage in the sort of conduct alleged in the Complaint. Cf. Osborn v. Haley, 549 U.S. 225, 252 (2007) (recognizing that scope-of-employment questions may overlap substantially with the merits of a tort claim).

6 As this Court is aware, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have for several months continued their investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the attack. This investigation is ongoing. More than 535 defendants have been arrested across the country and at least 165 defendants have been charged on counts ranging from destruction of government property to conspiracy to obstruct a congressional proceeding. See Department of Justice Statement, https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/six-monthsjanuary-6th-attack-capitol. [my emphasis]

Someone could write a book on how many important cases Judge Mehta has presided over in recent years. But he’s got a slew of January 6 defendants, including all the Oath Keeper conspirators. And so Mehta is not just aware that DOJ is conducting an ongoing investigation, he has also presided over four guilty pleas for conspiring to obstruct the vote count, close to (but charged under a different law) as the claim Swalwell made in his complaint.

So Mehta has already accepted that it is a crime to obstruct the vote count, four different times, with Jon Schaffer, Graydon Young, Mark Grods, and Caleb Berry. He’d have a hard time ruling that, if Swalwell’s allegations are true (as noted, Brooks contends that some of them are not, and they certainly don’t yet present enough proof to support a criminal prosecution), Brooks would be exempt from the same criminal conspiracy charges that the Oath Keepers are pleading guilty to.

DOJ’s declaration is not (just) an attempt to create space — by distinguishing campaign activities from official duties — between this and DOJ’s decision to substitute for Trump in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit. It is an effort to preserve the principle that not just Congresspeople, but all Federal employees, may be charged and convicted of a conspiracy to obstruct the vote count, particularly for actions taken as part of campaign activities.

On the Upcoming Sentencing for the First January 6 Felony Defendant, Paul Hodgkins

On Monday, Paul Hodgkins will become the first felony defendant to be sentenced for his role in the January 6 riot.

Before I explain what the parties have said about that sentencing, some background is in order. The government has used obstruction, 18 USC §1512(c)(2), to charge virtually every January 6 defendant who in one way or another (often on social media before and after the riot), expressed the intent to prevent the certification of the vote, as distinct from simply wandering into the Capitol to express some support for Trump. Such an approach has a lot of upsides: it (thus far) avoids the inflammatory step of charging defendants with seditious conspiracy or insurrection (though that remains a possibility, particularly for militia defendants), while accessing the same kind of steep sentences for the most serious defendants. Because of sentencing enhancements built into obstruction, including “substantial interference,” “extensive scope or planning,” and “threatening injury or violence,” using it allows DOJ to make clear distinctions even among the defendants found guilty of obstruction. Just as an example, while Hodgkins’ sentencing range treated his occupation of the Senate Chamber as substantial interference (which resulted in a sentencing range of 15-21 months), he did not get dinged with enhancements that Graydon Young did for all his pre-planning, the Oath Keepers’ threats of violence, and Young’s attempt to destroy his Facebook account (which resulted in a sentencing range, for obstruction and conspiracy, of 63-78 months).

That said, it is an unprecedented application of the obstruction statute (of course, the January 6 insurrection was an unprecedented event). And a number of defendants have active, non-frivolous challenges to that application, some of which I explained here. Hodgkins pled guilty before all that litigation plays out, giving DOJ a significant first endorsement of this charging approach (which may be why Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco sat in on Hodgkins’ guilty plea).

But Monday will be overdetermined because Hodgkins’ sentence, whatever it is, will be taken as setting some kind of standard that over a hundred defendants may be able to point to when it comes to their own sentencing (if DOJ’s application of 1512 is upheld through what is sure to be a number of decisions and appeals). Just as three hypotheticals, Judge Randolph Moss might explain that he finds Hodgkins’ behavior to be a grave threat to democracy and say that with any other similarly situated defendant, he would sentence him to the maximum sentence in his guideline, 21 months, but because Hodgkins went first, Moss will give him a significant downward variance; that would allow him and all other DC judges to sentence hold-outs more severely than Hodgkins. Alternately, Moss might decide that the “significant interference” enhancement shouldn’t apply to Hodgkins and on that basis sentence Hodgkins using a lower guideline (it would give Hodgkins a sentencing range of 8 to 14 months), a judgment that would likely be invoked by a wide range of similar defendants and so would be more binding to other judges and Moss himself in the future. Finally, Moss might rule that what Hodgkins did is barely distinguishable from what he is seeing in some of the trespass cases before him, and so sentence Hodgkins to what would be the max range for one of those trespass charges, six months; such a decision might or might not extend to other obstruction defendants based on factors like whether they told the truth about their actions. Again, those are all just hypotheticals intended to illustrate that why Moss sentences Hodgkins to a particular sentence will be as important going forward as what he sentences him to.

The possibility that Moss might be thinking about what distinguishes Hodgkins from misdemeanor trespass defendants or other defendants charged with obstruction would not be surprising. Because all DC judges have a bunch of January 6 cases, they often express a comparative understanding of them in hearings. So, as Moss prepares to sentence Hodgkins, he might be comparing Hodgkins’ conduct with what has been charged against other defendants over whose cases he is presiding. Moss has a wide range of defendants before him (the Klein brothers, who have ties to the Proud Boys, are his only militia defendants), but the most useful comparisons with other defendants charged with obstruction include:

  • Brady Knowlton and Patrick Montgomery, who were also in the Senate Chamber and who are among the defendants challenging the application of 1512; Montgomery was charged with resisting a police officer after having claimed on Facebook not to have stormed the Capitol violently
  • Bruno Cua, who was charged with assault and civil disorder on top of obstruction and sat in Pence’s chair in the Senate Chamber even as others there told him not to
  • Ryan Suleski, who is also charged with stealing some papers from a member of Congress, who hinted at more to come in an interview after the riot, and who may not have been entirely forthright when interviewed by the FBI
  • Melody Steele-Smith, who boasted of entering Nancy Pelosi’s office and storming the Capitol on Facebook before she deleted those posts

In other words, Judge Moss’ sentencing decision may be as influenced by what he thinks of Knowlton’s similar conduct and fully-briefed challenge to 1512 as it will be by the memoranda before him. It may be influenced by a belief that Hodgkins didn’t do what other defendants did — including misrepresenting their own behaviors either to the FBI or in his own courtroom — while getting charged for the same crime.

That comparative approach may be Hodgkins’ best argument for a lenient sentence. Hodgkins’ sentencing memo makes a sustained and not very convincing pitch for the effort to forgive sedition after the Civil War and throws in some bullshit language about “cancel” culture, then asks for probation (as most defense attorneys do for obstruction). But it then argues that, given how little separates Hodgkins from defendants charged with misdemeanor trespass (significantly, that he entered the Senate Chamber itself), he should benefit from a minimal participation variance.

We contend that when one’s role is similar to the several hundred Defendant’s found inside the same building as Mr. HODGKINS who are being offered misdemeanors, and whose conduct is the same as the totality of the misconduct that is alleged in the instant case, as noted in the PSR paragraphs 10-19, that Mr. HODGKINS’ role was only minimal and deserving of a variance. Because Mr. HODGKINS is accepting a felony, giving him the minimal role variance creates a just result for sentencing purposes. Importantly, this argument is about sentencing. The Defendant has pled to a felony offense because of his presence on the Senate floor. Those being offered misdemeanors offense for being inside the Capitol could also arguably have been compelled to plead to the same felony count as Mr. HODGKINS, but for the distinction of their location within the building. While for findings purposes, Mr. HODGKINS presence inside the Senate chambers vice the Rotunda is an important consideration, for purposes of sentencing there is zero space between Mr. HODGKINS conduct and that of the several hundred others who entered the United States Capitol who are being sentenced for a misdemeanor offense. Mr. HODGKINS should be treated likewise. One surmises that had Mr. HODGKINS simply stopped at the Senate door, he also would be facing a misdemeanor charge rather than this felony offense.

This is a fairly convincing argument, not least because of the defendants who were in the Senate Chamber (notably including Cua), Hodgkins engaged in far less obstructive behavior while there.

The government, meanwhile, seems to have taken an approach that hopes to leave itself maximal flexibility after this first January 6 obstruction sentencing, one that really doesn’t credit Hodgkins all that much for being the first to plead guilty.

The defendant, Paul Hodgkins, participated in the January 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol—a violent attack that forced an interruption of the certification of the 2020 Electoral College vote count, threatened the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 Presidential election, injured more than one hundred law enforcement officers, and resulted in more than a million dollars’ worth of property damage. Hodgkins entered the Capitol wearing a backpack containing protective eye goggles, rope, and white latex gloves, among other items. He made his way to the heart of the proceeding that he has pleaded guilty to obstructing – the Senate chamber – where he took “selfie-style” photographs and saluted others who were shouting and cheering from a nearby raised platform in the well of the chamber. The government nonetheless recognizes that Hodgkins did not personally engage in or espouse violence or property destruction, he accepted responsibility early and in a fulsome manner, and he has taken significant steps toward his rehabilitation. Accordingly, the government recommends that the Court sentence Hodgkins to 18 months in custody, which is the mid-point of the Sentencing Guidelines as calculated by the U.S. Probation Office and as contemplated in the parties’ plea agreement. An 18-month, within Guidelines sentence is also supported by the U.S. Probation Office’s conclusion that neither a downward departure nor a downward variance is warranted in this case.

[snip]

The government recognizes that Hodgkins did not personally destroy property or engage in any violence against law enforcement officers. But he was surrounded by others who were doing both, and he entered the Capitol as others had paved the way with destruction and violence. Time and time again, rather than turn around and retreat, Hodgkins pressed forward until he walked all the way down to the well of the Senate chamber. Hodgkins came to D.C. preparing to encounter violence around him. He was a rioter, not a protester, and his conduct shows that he was determined to interfere with the vote count and the peaceful transition of power in the 2020 Presidential election. Hodgkins entered the Senate chamber, where he joined the chanting and ranting at the dais. This was precisely where, only 40 minutes earlier, the Vice President had been sitting at the desk on the elevated platform, surrounded by Senators who were considering a procedural issue related to the certification of the Electoral College vote.

In the end, Hodgkins, like each rioter, contributed to the collective threat to democracy, physical safety, emotional well-being, and property on January 6, 2021.

Keep in mind, the same way defense attorneys always ask for probation, prosecutors always ask for harsh sentences, knowing the judge will usually find some happy medium, and in doing so here, they’re not starting at the top of the sentencing range. But ultimately, by asking Judge Moss to apply a medium range sentence to a defendant facing a range that a large number of defendants might likewise face, they’re trying to set a standard sentence and have it start reasonably high. They’re really not fully accounting for what it took Hodgkins to decide to be the first to plead guilty; they seem to be thinking as much about the over a hundred defendants coming down the pike and so trying to frame how they’re conceiving of this obstruction crime generally as they’re thinking about Hodgkins himself.

Curiously, Judge Moss (possibly with the input of other DC District judges) afforded himself an extra range of flexibility by inviting the Sentencing Commission to review average sentences for the sentencing guidelines that Hodgkins faces. Significantly, the Sentencing Commission found that of those facing the same guidelines sentence as Hodgkins, almost a quarter — 22.6% — got a probation sentence, though it appears all but one of those probation sentences involved a defendant who provided prosecutors “substantial assistance,” and a goodly number got closer to six months after variances below range.

MINUTE ORDER as to PAUL ALLARD HODGKINS (1): In connection with the sentencing of Defendant, the Court has requested and obtained, via email, from the U.S. Sentencing Commission the following information regarding the sentencing of offenders with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct to Defendant in this case. The Sentencing Commission reports as follows:

“In the case before you the defendant pled guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). The guideline that applies is USSG 2J1.2. Your Probation Office has calculated the guideline range as follows: BOL 14, a 3-level increase for substantial interference with the administration of justice, and a 3-level adjustment for acceptance of responsibility, resulting in a final offense level (FOL) of 14. The offender is assigned to Criminal History Category I. The applicable guideline range is 15-21 months.

“We examined our records from fiscal year 2014 through 2020, and found 31 cases that match this guideline calculation. None of these cases were reported from the District of Columbia. In only nine cases was 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) a statute of conviction.

“For the 31 cases matching the guideline calculation under USSG § 2J1.2, in 16 cases (51.6%) the offender received a prison only sentence, in six cases (19.4%) the offender received prison with an alternative, in two cases (6.4 %) the sentences was probation with some condition of confinement, and in seven cases (22.6%) the sentence was probation only.

“Of the 31 cases, in seven (22.6%) the sentence was within the guideline range. The average sentence in those cases was 19 months (median = 21 months). Two cases (6.5%) were above range: one upward departure to 36 months and one upward variance to 48 months. The remaining 21 cases (71.0%) were below range. Thirteen cases were below range variances. The average sentence in those cases was seven months (median = six months). One case was downward departure to 14 months, another was a government departure to probation, and the remaining case was a government variance to six months. The remaining six cases were substantial assistance cases.

“In order to provide a more narrowly-tailored analysis, we then limited our analysis to the nine cases in which section 1512(c)(2) was one of the statutes (or the only statute) of conviction. Of those nine cases, in two the sentence was within the guideline range. The sentences were 15 and 21 months. There was one upward departure to 36 months. Three cases were below range variances. The average sentence in those cases was 10 months (median = 12 months). One case was a downward departure to 14 months. The remaining two cases were substantial assistance cases.” Signed by Judge Randolph D. Moss on 07/13/2021. (lcrdm3)

While this table is a rough estimation of what this language says, basically it says a group of people were sentenced to a guidelines sentence, another bigger group were sentenced to around six months, and a third group were sentenced to probation — but never without government agreement (either for a departure or for cooperation).

What Moss has done by obtaining this information and publishing it was, first, to go into Monday’s sentencing hearing with proof that whatever he does will be fair as compared to what has happened to others. Obtaining the guidelines also gives Moss some flexibility. He could, to recognize Hodgkins’ first guilty plea, give him a significant downward variance (and/or sentence him to some alternative to prison, such as weekend confinement), pointing out that the largest group of defendants similarly situated to him got around six months. Alternately, he could explain why he wasn’t giving Hodgkins the probation he requested by pointing out that almost everyone who got a probation sentence in recent history cooperated with prosecutors against others.

Whatever Judge Moss decides (I would be unsurprised by a four to six month sentence, possibly with the opportunity to serve it on weekends or something similar), Hodgkins went first because he has a legitimate argument to make that, aside from his presence on the Senate floor, his behavior really was less culpable than many of the defendants charged with the same crime. Which means — again assuming this novel application of obstruction is upheld going forward — this is just the beginning of a long series of similar horse trading over sentences going forward.

Update: Josh Gerstein reminded me that Judge Moss used a similar approach to George Papadopoulos’ sentencing and — believing that Papadopoulos felt remorse — sentenced him to fourteen days rather than the thirty days he had been considering. Papadopoulos’ guidelines were 0 to 6 months.

The Grand Jury Secrets Hiding the Proud Boys’ East Door Activities

By my very quick review, there have just been a handful of January 6 defendants charged individually via indictment, without first being charged by complaint.

Lewis Cantwell was arrested in February for civil disorder and obstruction, but whose actions on January 6 are not laid out in any public court documents.

Richard Harris was arrested via indictment in March for resisting arrest and obstruction. A motion supporting detention revealed that Harris persuaded cops to back down at one of the entrances and picked up a phone and purported to threaten Nancy Pelosi; he had assaulted a journalist at a protest in December in Oregon and — though this is contested — lived out of his car after that time.

Daniel Rodriguez was arrested via indictment in March for tasing Michael Fanone, among other things. A HuffPo article, which in turn relied on the work of various volunteer Sedition Hunters, had already provided ample introduction on Rodriguez.

The Klein brothers — Matthew and Jonathanpeter — probably count as one unit. They were charged via conspiracy indictment in March. Their drawn out detention fight showed one or both have ties to the Proud Boys, they followed Dominic Pezzola in the Senate side door, and then later successfully breached the North Door.

Other than that, people have been initially charged via indictment in group or conspiracy indictments: Verden Nalley got indicted along with William Calhoun a month after Calhoun was first charged. Albuquerque Cosper Head and Kyle Young were indicted for assault along with Thomas Sibick, who had already been charged. Taylor Johnatakis and Isaac Sturgeon were indicted on assault charges with Craig Bingert, who had already been charged. A now sprawling assault indictment including Jack Whitton, Clayton Mullins, and Michael Lopatic started with complaints against Jeffrey Sabol and Peter Stager. Another sprawling assault indictment including Tristan Stevens, David Judd, Christopher Quaglin, Robert Morss, and Geoffrey Sills built off a Patrick McCaughey complaint.

When some of the militia members got added to one or another indictment — Matthew Greene to one of the Proud Boys indictment, and several Oath Keepers to that omnibus indictment — they were indicted without a complaint first.

Which is to say, in this investigation, it has been very rare for an individual to be initially charged via indictment.

That’s why it’s notable that the government arrested Ricky Willden yesterday, a Proud Boy from Northern California, on assault and civil disorder charges via an indictment obtained a week earlier. The government issued a press release that describes that Willden was on the East side cheering as a bunch of Marines and one co-traveller opened the door, then sprayed some stuff at cops guarding the door.

The Proud Boys is a group self-described as a “pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.” In publicly available videos recorded on Jan. 6, Willden can be seen in a crowd near the east door of the Capitol at 2:24 p.m. (according to time stamps in one of the videos) wearing a dark jacket, beanie cap and gloves, and cheering as the doors to the Capitol opened. At 2:35 p.m., he can be seen raising his hand and spraying an unknown substance from a green can toward police officers who were standing guard at the east door.

But because the government arrested Willden via indictment, they don’t have to release a public explanation of their probable cause to arrest him. Indeed, the press release pointedly cites “publicly available videos” to back the only allegation it makes.

One reason to charge someone on indictment rather than complaint is to hide the identity of witnesses who have testified. I find that particularly interesting, in part, because there were several people who posed in Joe Biggs’ picture on the East side, but thus far, just Paul Rae and Arthur Jackman have been identified from the picture (though Biggs surely knows who the others are). While the government has ostentatiously rolled out one after another Oath Keeper cooperator — first Jon Schaffer, then Graydon Young, and yesterday Mark Grods — aside from an unindicted co-conspirator identified in some of the Proud Boy indictments (UCC-1), whose identity those charged also know, the government has hidden the cooperators it has surely recruited from the notoriously back-stabbing group.  The hybrid approach the government has used — charging five overlapping conspiracies but also charging a bunch of Proud Boys who worked in concert with others individually — has (surely by design) made it harder for both participants and observers to understand what the government has in hand. There have been a few inconclusive hints that one or another person has flipped (or that Judge Tim Kelly, who has presided over most of the Proud Boys cases, had a sealed hearing that might reflect a plea deal), but nothing concrete.

For weeks it has been clear that unpacking how it happened that two militias and a bunch of Marines converged on the East Door as if all had advance warning would be one key to demonstrating the larger conspiracy behind the January 6 insurrection.

But just as DOJ has rolled out a new player in those events, they’ve moved everything to a grand jury to hide its secrets.

Graydon Young: Trading a Potential Terrorism Enhancement for Testimony against His Sister

As of this moment, the government has obtained five misdemeanor guilty pleas, one straight up felony plea, and two cooperation pleas in the January 6 investigation. With an eye towards understanding the Graydon Young plea, I’d like to look at the stories — or lack thereof — that the government is telling with its Statements of Offense.

DOJ’s reticent Statements of Offense

Thus far, the government is using Statements of Offense for their functional purpose, to lay out how the defendant’s behavior meets the elements of the offense to which they plead guilty, and not to tell a larger story about the investigation (as, for example, in the Robert Mueller did with some of his guilty pleas).

Generally, the misdemeanor SOO are more succinct than the arrest affidavit for the same defendant. For example, in their SOO, there’s less detail of Jessica and Joshua Bustle’s social media postings or evidence from the geofence warrants than in their arrest affidavit. Instead the SOO lays out that they were in the Capitol, that they carried anti-vaccine signs (which supports their parading charge), and adds that the reason they were there was to “demonstrate against the certification of the vote count.” Similarly, Robert Reeder’s SOO doesn’t include details of the pictures he took while inside the Capitol, which were described in his arrest warrant; it focuses on the alarms ringing when Reeder entered the building, that Reeder ignored a cop’s response that “We don’t have any water in here, sir” when he walked past the cop into the building, and his second trip inside, all evidence making it clear his trespass was knowing and intentional. There is something new in Bryan Ivey’s SOO that wasn’t in his arrest affidavit: that he deleted all the photos and videos he took inside the Capitol which, if the FBI wasn’t able to restore them, would represent the loss of valuable evidence about the first rioters inside the building.

That will likely be used in sentencing to distinguish Ivey at sentencing from someone like Anna Morgan-Lloyd who was able to fully cooperate with law enforcement.

Similarly, the SOO for the one straight felony plea, that of Paul Hodgkins, adds almost nothing from his arrest affidavit, aside from a paragraph establishing his intent to obstruct the vote count, which is an element of the obstruction charge he pled guilt to.

Hodgkins knew at the time he entered the U.S. Capitol Building that that he did not have permission to enter the building, and the defendant did so with the intent to corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding, that is, a proceeding before Congress, specifically, Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote as set out in the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and 3 U.S.C. §§ 15-18.

There’s not even any language explaining the import of Hodgkins having helped occupy the Senate, as compared to those charged with misdemeanors.

There’s nothing at all wrong with this. Indeed, with the conveyor belt of plea deals that are about to go forward, doing this as efficiently and soundly, from a legal standpoint, as possible makes sense.

The cooperation deals also don’t tip DOJ’s hand

It’s not surprising, then, that the SOOs for the two cooperation deals provide little hint of what the men, Oath Keepers Jon Schaffer and Graydon Young, traded in hopes of working off their sentences. Admittedly, Schaffer’s SOO included two comments he made at the Million MAGA March on November 14, 2020 that were also included in his arrest affidavit. But like the arrest affidavit, the only link made between Schaffer’s actions on January 6 and the Oath Keepers is the Oath Keepers hat he wore to insurrection.

Instead, Schaffer’s SOO focuses on the elements needed to sustain Schaffer’s obstruction and trespassing with a deadly weapon (bear spray) charges.

Wearing a tactical vest and armed with bear spray, SCHAFFER unlawfully entered the building with the purpose of influencing, affecting, and retaliating against the conduct of government by stopping or delaying the Congressional proceeding by intimidation or coercion.

We know that Schaffer is cooperating against other Oath Keepers. A discovery letter Kathryn Rakoczy sent on April 23 explained that,

On Wednesday, April 21, 2021, we emailed you about Jon Schaffer, who pled guilty last week, with respect to the information we have at this time about whether Mr. Schaffer has had communications with your clients.

But the SOO doesn’t reveal any of what Schaffer might say.

Similarly, Graydon Young’s SOO doesn’t reveal what he might have offered prosecutors in hopes of working away the estimated 63 to 78 months he faces on the charges to which he pled guilty. Though by examining the history of the charges against him with what did get included in his SOO, we might guess what he offered.

How Graydon Young ended up pleading out of terrorism exposure

The government was prepared to arrest Young with a January 18 arrest warrant charging him with trespassing, obstruction of the vote count, and obstruction for deleting his Facebook account. Instead, they held off until February, when they arrested Young along with his sister, Laura Steele, and Kelly and Connie Meggs as part of the First Superseding Indictment, which added conspiracy and aiding and abetting the destruction of government property (18 U.S.C. §1361) charges to Young’s legal woes. The Third Superseding Indictment added no charges against Young. But the Fourth added a civil disorder charge that also implicated his sister and Jessica Watkins (as well as civil disorder, assault, and obstruction charges for some others). As I described at the time, the government was effectively turning the screws, enhancing most defendants’ legal jeopardy — albeit with charges that were already foreshadowed in case filings — as they awaited discovery. It was utterly ruthless, and about par for the course for DOJ, particularly for a complex conspiracy case.

By pleading guilty, Young not only got 3 levels of credit for pleading guilty, but the civil disorder and damage to the building charge were dismissed. Notably, the latter charge is what can be used to add a terrorism enhancement at sentencing, so by pleading, Young basically avoided being treated, legally, as a terrorist if and when DOJ decides to go there. In addition, Young’s initial charge for deleting his Facebook account got added as a two level enhancement to his obstruction charge. Had he been convicted of everything at trial, Young probably would have been sentenced to that as a separate crime concurrently, so effectively by pleading it just made his existing obstruction exposure worse.

Here’s what all that looks like in the mumbo jumbo of sentencing levels, which gives a sense of how DOJ is treating the Oath Keepers’ obstruction of the vote count as distinct from Paul Hodgkins, whose base level calculation (which did not include the threats of violence and damage, the extensive planning, or the obstruction charged against Young himself) was 17.

U.S.S.G. § 2J1.2 Base Offense Level 14

U.S.S.G. § 2J1.2(b)(1)(B) Causing/Threatening Injury or Damage +8

U.S.S.G. § 2J1.2(b)(2) Substantial Interference With Justice +3

U.S.S.G. § 2J1.2(b)(3)(C) Extensive Scope, Planning, or Preparation +2

U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 Obstruction (destroying documents) +2

Total 29

Apropos of nothing (except that this conspiracy is getting closer to Roger Stone), this is precisely the same guidelines calculation as DOJ used with Stone, and — except for threatening a judge rather than deleting Facebook — for the same reasons.

So Paul Hodgkins, who obstructed the vote by going alone to the Senate floor and occupying that space with people like Jacob Chansley, faces 15 to 21 months, whereas Young, by planning ahead with a militia and going into the day planning for violence, faces 63 to 78 months (though avoids the terrorism enhancement that DOJ has been hinting they may use against the conspirators).

What is and is not in Young’s Statement of Offense

With that as background, I’d like to look at what got included and excluded in Young’s SOO, and what got excluded (which I’ll argue may hint at what he’ll cooperate with DOJ on).

The core of Young’s SOO substantiates the obstruction charge in language similar to that used with Hodgkins:

16. At the time Mr. Young forcibly entered the building, Mr. Young believed that he and the co-conspirators were trying to obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding, that is, a proceeding before Congress, specifically, Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote as set out in the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the statutes listed in sections 15 through 18 of title 3 of the U.S. Code.

17. Mr. Young acted to affect the government by stopping or delaying the Congressional proceeding, and, in fact, did so. He accomplished this by intimidating and coercing government personnel who were participating in or supporting the Congressional proceeding.

In addition, ¶¶20-21 describe Young deleting his Facebook account and some of what he deleted, and ¶¶8-15 and ¶¶18-20 describe most of the overt acts attributed to him in the Fourth Superseding, correlating this way:

¶8 of the SOO describes making plans.

¶9 describes Young and “at least some of the co-conspirators” discussing the need for operational security includes a Proton Mail exchange in which Joseph Hackett described sending pictures to discuss, “locations, identities, Ops planning … to avoid digital reads.”

¶10 describes Young traveling with “at least one of the co-conspirators” — language of his SOO that will be used as evidence against his own sister, Laura Steele — to DC.

¶11 describes the Trump rally in very oblique terms: “an event near the White House.”

¶12 describes — again, in innocuous terms, “marched with at least some of the co-conspirators towards the U.S. Capitol” — as described as The Stack “preparing for battle and marching to the Capitol” in ¶101 of the Fourth Superseding.

¶13 describes entering the restricted grounds of the Capitol (one of the trespass charges) and what gear he wore.

¶14 describes The Stack entering the Capitol, as described in ¶132 of the Fourth Superseding.

¶15 describes The Stack walking through a damaged door (substantiating the 18 USC 1361 charge Young is no longer charged with) and tussling with cops.

As noted, ¶¶16-17 allocute the obstruction of the vote count.

¶18 describes six members of The Stack specifically pushing against a line of cops guarding the hallway (substantiating the Civil Disorder charge Young is no longer charged with but his sister is).

¶19 describes Young exiting the Capitol.

¶20 describes the content of something Young tried to delete from his Facebook account: “At around 4:22 p.m., Mr. Young posted on Facebook, “We stormed and got inside.'”

Even on its face, the SOO has Young admitting to overt acts, under oath, that implicate a number of his co-conspirators, especially Jessica Watkins, Hackett, and his sister, Laura Steele. That’s part of what DOJ got from Young in this plea deal: sworn testimony and therefore more pressure to plead against other alleged conspirators. This probably won’t be the last time in the January 6 investigation — possibly even in this conspiracy — that DOJ requires family members to testify against family members to get a plea deal.

But there are other things described in the Fourth Superseding that either don’t show up in the SOO or show up in such oblique fashion that they likely point to area where Young gave prosecutors something they didn’t have.

For example, the Fourth Superseding describes Young’s own effort to join the Oath Keepers, his efforts to recruit others, and his role in rushing his sister through the process (an utterly disastrous favor that Steele’s big brother did for her). If that’s covered in his SOO, it’s only in this vague language.

In advance of January 6, 2021, Mr. Young coordinated with certain individuals and affiliates of the Oath Keepers – referred to here as “the co-conspirators” – in making plans for what Mr. Young and the co-conspirators would be doing in Washington, D.C., on January 6.

In addition, the Fourth Superseding included details of a Signal planning chat in which Young was included.

At least as early as January 3, 2021, WATKINS, KELLY MEGGS, YOUNG, HARRELSON, HACKETT, DOLAN, ISAACS, and others known and unknown joined an invitation-only encrypted Signal group message titled “OK FL DC OP Jan 6” (hereinafter the “Florida Signal Chat”).

We know nothing of what was said on this chat. The uncertainty about when it was established suggests that the government may have obtained what it has of this chat via someone whose phone took some time to exploit, someone (possibly including Young) who was a relatively late addition to it. But certainly, whatever did take place on this chat would be one of the things incorporated into the “making plans” bullet described in the indictment, and key to showing not just that the Oath Keepers had entered into a conspiracy to conduct this operation, but probably details of how they coordinated with other militias in Florida

Relatedly, there’s the firearms training session Young set up, which is not included in his SOO but is included in the larger conspiracy.

47. On December 26, 2020, YOUNG wrote an email to a Florida company that conducts training on firearms and combat. YOUNG wrote, in part, “I trained with you not long ago. Since then I have joined Oath Keepers. I recommended your training to the team. To that effect, four of us would like to train with you, specifically in your UTM10 rifle class.”

Given how obliquely the SOO refers both to Young’s activities at the Trump rally and the decision to leave before it ended to head to the Capitol, I suspect he provided new details on that, as well.

We may not learn these details for weeks if not months (we still have no idea what Schaffer has been doing since he pled in April).

All DOJ’s telling us is that Graydon Young’s plea deal will make things worse for his co-conspirators, giving them even more incentive to flip on their own right.

Update: Benny Bryant reminds me that we do know some stuff about that Florida Signal chat, because it shows up in the government’s response to Kenneth Harrelson’s bid for bail. He also argues that the weapons training Young signed up for is not the training that the Meggses set up. [Deleted reference to Stone there.]

The January 6 Plea Deals: Cooperation, Felony, and Misdemeanor Plea Deals

Later today, Graydon Young, one of the people charged in the Oath Keeper conspiracy, will plead guilty. We won’t know until then whether his plea includes a cooperation agreement or not. He only joined the Oath Keepers in December 2020, but because he was in Florida, he may know about some key events leading up to January 6, including this book event with Roger Stone and Kelly Meggs’ wife, Connie.

Days after the event, Kelly Meggs described having set up an organized alliance between Florida militias.

Also this afternoon, Anna Morgan-Lloyd will be the first January 6 defendant to be sentenced; the government has recommended she get a three year probation sentence.

In anticipation of what will soon turn into a flood of pleas, I wanted to lay out what we’ve seen so far.

Update: Judge Lamberth did give Anna Morgan-Lloyd probation, but gave her 3 times the community service — 120 hours rather than 40 — as the government requested. Update: it was docketed as 40 hours. So I guess she got exactly what prosecutors asked for.

Cooperation Agreement

Jon Schaffer: Schaffer is the only cooperation agreement we know about, but that may be because of a docket fail. There are certainly other people I suspect are cooperating, and there are sealed filings that could suggest cooperators. He pled to obstruction and entering the building with a deadly weapon. His guidelines sentence is 41-51 months.

Plea (includes 5K1), but no assigned restitution amount

Graydon Young: Young also entered into a cooperation agreement. He is pleading to conspiracy and obstruction, and faces a guideline sentence of 63-78 months.

Plea (includes 5K1) and restitution

Felony Plea

In spite of Paul Hodgkins’ notable use of latex gloves (which he put on in an attempt to offer Joshua Black First Aid), his was a straight plea. As a felony plea, his includes sentencing guidelines for pleading to obstruction, 18 U.S.C. §1512 (which for Hodgkins was 15 to 21 months) and $2,000 restitution.

Paul Hodgkins (my post on his plea)

Misdemeanor Plea

The misdemeanor pleas we’ve seen so far require the defendant to plead to one of what is often four trespass charges. The pleas include $500 restitution and, for most (but not Reeder), a “cooperation with additional investigation” paragraph requiring an interview and a review of social media with law enforcement.

Jessica Bustle

Joshua Bustle

Bryan Ivey

Anna Morgan-Lloyd (my post on her effort to express remorse)

Robert Reeder