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Trump DOJ opposes giving Jan. 6 defendant access to evidence

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 05:07:57 +0000

Insets: Ryan Zink (Department of Justice). Background: FILE — Violent rioters loyal to President Donald Trump storm the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File).

A Jan. 6 defendant from Texas who ran for Congress last year and is reportedly attempting another political run has been granted permission to “examine and publish” footage, evidence and discovery from his criminal case surrounding the events of the 2021 Capitol attack — but the Justice Department says not so fast.

Ryan Zink, 35, of Lubbock, was granted access last week by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on account of the DOJ not filing a memorandum in opposition to Zink’s March 22 motion to lift a protective order keeping his case material sealed. Boasberg issued a minute order on April 9 announcing his decision, which the DOJ apparently saw and responded to Wednesday with the document in question.

“As the Government has not opposed Defendant’s Motion to Lift Protective Order, the Court orders that the Motion is granted, and the Protective Order is lifted,” a docket entry from Boasberg said last week.

In response, the DOJ’s top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., Ed Martin, signed off on a memorandum in opposition Wednesday that said granting such a request to Zink would put people at risk and pose a threat to national security.

“Lifting a protective order in this case creates a dangerous opportunity and could potentially place sensitive information in the possession of those who would use it to harm the national security, in addition to allowing terabytes of information including individual defendants’, witnesses’, and victims’ personal identifying information to be released to the public,” Martin said. “The government has thus demonstrated that release of these materials could cause a significant hazard to others, and there is no prejudice to the defendant from continuing the protective order here.”

Zink, who was defeated in the Republican primary last year, is reportedly running for a seat in Texas’ 19th District. He was found guilty in the District of Columbia back in 2023 of three charges related to Jan. 6, including one felony and two misdemeanor offenses.

“While on restricted grounds immediately outside the Capitol building, Zink filmed a series of video clips,” the DOJ said in a press release announcing his conviction.

“In one clip, the defendant recorded himself stating, ‘We knocked down the gates! We’re storming the Capitol! You can’t stop us!”” the DOJ said. “In the same video, Zink panned the phone camera to show the crowd around him and later began chanting, ‘We want Trump!’ as he moved through the crowd at the footsteps of the Capitol.”

Zink was caught on video and audio saying several different things that were brought up by DOJ prosecutors in his case file.

“You all want to know how it’s going? We are going to bum rush this s—!” he allegedly said in one clip.

“In a second video, the defendant filmed the crowd as it attempted to breach the Rotunda Doors to the Capitol,” the DOJ alleged. “Zink stated, ‘They’re not going to get this one.’”

In a third video, the DOJ said Zink shouted, “You wanted to see what it’s become? We’re in the doors!” Toward the end, he allegedly turned the camera to capture another individual smashing out a window near the Rotunda Doors.

“Broke down the doors,” Zink later allegedly wrote in text messages obtained by the DOJ. “Pushed Congress out of session … I’ll be posting pictures in a little bit when we get back … we accomplished the job,” Zink said.

He allegedly added, “I’m afraid the time for rioting is over better clean those guns and invest in some level 4 armor.”

Martin said Wednesday in the government’s opposition filing that since Zink has been pardoned by President Donald Trump, like other Jan. 6 defendants, “there is no need for further discovery, and the defendant does not have any First Amendment right to the discovery provided to him.”

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Entitled to reimbursement’: Trump DOJ says Jan. 6 defendants deserve to get restitution refunds after having cases ‘invalidated’

Martin claimed the protective order “continues to operate to protect information that is vital to national security” and “significantly affects the privacy rights of victims and witnesses, even after the conclusion of the investigation and prosecution,” per the filing.

“The defendant has cited no authority or rationale to release this volume of material, protected by these orders in hundreds of similar cases, in such a wholesale fashion, where this material is no longer necessary to his defense and could cause such damage to the national security and rights of third parties, including witnesses and victims,” Martin said.

“The defendant’s argument that the government should make its discovery databases available to the public fails to address the vast amount of information that has already been made public through the government’s investigations and prosecutions of these cases,” Martin added. “The events of January 6, and the ensuing investigations and prosecutions, are important to our history as a nation — events that must be considered through appropriate public access to government records and through public discourse. But criminal discovery is not the appropriate mechanism to vindicate that interest.”

Martin accused Zink of trying to “abuse the discovery process,” even though his counsel was given access to the materials in question while defending him.

“The defendant has no further right to, nor need of, the discovery in this matter,” Martin concluded. “The Court should deny the defendant’s motion.”

Zink’s attorney, Roger Roots, argued in their motion that he and other defendants — along with journalists, researchers and the public as a whole — have a right to examine and publish the footage, evidence and discovery that’s in question.

“The vast majority — perhaps almost the entirety — of camera footage, film and photos collected in these discovery databases do not concern any locations of the Capitol which are off-limits to the public,” the motion said. “Indeed millions of tourists have seen and been in the hallways and areas.”

Roots claimed that the public and press have a “presumptive First Amendment right of access” to judicial proceedings in criminal cases, which gives Zink the ability to make such a request.

“The roots of public access to court proceedings and records lie in ‘democratic values of accountability and openness,’” the motion said. “Few cases could be more crucial for publication of all court files and records than Zink’s case, and January 6 cases in general. January 6 cases are famously political, and President Trump has called the prosecutions a “grave national injustice.” Accordingly, the public’s interest is even more accentuated than in other types of cases.”

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Jan. 6 defendant with gun, grenade case gets Trump pardon

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:17:51 +0000

Left: President Donald Trump gives remarks during an event celebrating the 2024 Stanley Cup Champion the Florida Panthers in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Monday, February 3, 2025 (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images). Right: An alleged photo of Jeremy Brown at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack in 2021 (Justice Department).

A Jan. 6 defendant and Oath Keepers member from Florida who was linked to an explosives-laden RV that was allegedly brought to the Washington, D.C., area had a series of separate convictions — for possessing illegal firearms and U.S. Army grenades — officially vacated and dismissed by a federal judge Wednesday in the Sunshine State as part of President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 pardon order.

Jeremy Brown, a former U.S. Army Green Beret who was given a seven-year sentence for the weapons and grenades case, gained support from Trump’s Justice Department in late February, with federal prosecutors telling U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday that “based on consultation” with DOJ leadership it was the position of the United States that the offenses Brown was accused of — including possessing a modified AR-15 short-barreled rifle and sawed-off shotgun, both unregistered and owned illegally — were “intended to be covered” by Trump’s pardon order.

Merryday, a George H.W. Bush appointee, agreed and on Wednesday vacated Brown’s convictions with an official order in the Middle District of Florida Tampa Division. The move came after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals relinquished jurisdiction in March to the district court to “consider and rule upon” the United States’ motion to vacate and dismiss the explosives and gun convictions against Brown, who was sentenced in 2023 and released from prison in February.

“The United States’ motion is granted, the judgment is vacated, and the second superseding indictment — and, derivatively, perforce the pardon, both the superseding indictment and the indictment — are dismissed with prejudice,” Merryday said. “The clerk must close the case.”

For his Jan. 6 case, Brown was accused of “unlawfully and knowingly” entering and remaining in a restricted building and grounds at the U.S. Capitol, according to court documents. He was charged in Washington, D.C., federal court with misdemeanor trespassing and disorderly conduct, with photos showing Brown donning military gear.

In Florida, Brown was found guilty after a jury trial in December 2022 of possession of unregistered short-barreled firearms, possession of unregistered explosive grenades, improper storage of explosive grenades, and retention of classified information.

According to evidence presented at his trial, the FBI executed an arrest and search warrant at Brown’s residence in Tampa on Sept. 30, 2021, and found an unregistered AR-15-style rifle — modified to have a 10-inch barrel — in Brown’s bedroom. Agents also allegedly found the sawed-off shotgun on a couch inside of Brown’s recreational vehicle, which was parked near his home.

“Inside a briefcase next to the shotgun, agents found a classified Trip Report that Brown had authored shortly before he retired from the U.S. Special Forces,” prosecutors said in an April 2023 press release. “Inside the bedroom of that same RV, agents found an ammunition vest containing two M-67 fragmentation grenades hidden in the pockets. U.S. Army records confirmed that the grenades had originally been in the possession of the U.S. Army.”

Prosecutors didn’t provide a specific reason in their February notice of filing Brown’s certificate of pardon for why his weapons and explosives convictions were being thrown out, just that it was “based on consultation with Department of Justice leadership.”

Attempts by Law&Crime to reach the DOJ for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.

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Judge disqualifies herself from Capitol rioter’s pardon case

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 18:59:54 +0000

Left: U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston (Eastern District of California). Right: Benjamin Martin (DOJ).

A federal judge in California has withdrawn from the case of a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter after the Trump administration notified the court that it supported the defendant’s motion to be released from prison as he appeals separate felony gun charges on the theory that his pardon absolved him of those crimes as well.

While it was not immediately clear if the judge resigned in protest, it would be the result of the Justice Department’s new position that President Donald Trump’s sweeping grant of pardons for those convicted of attacking the Capitol extends to a variety of crimes unrelated to Jan. 6.

“Good cause appearing, the assigned District Judge disqualifies herself from all proceedings in the present action,” U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston wrote in a self-signed order filed Wednesday. “The Clerk of the Court SHALL reassign this action to the docket.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley stepped in later that day and signed the document granting the release of 46-year-old Benjamin Martin.

Martin, who has multiple previous convictions for domestic violence, was found guilty in November 2024 of possessing an illegal weapons cache that included an AR‑style rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition. His conviction came after a one-day trial before Thurston, who subsequently ordered Martin to serve three years and two months in federal prison.

Martin in June 2024 was convicted for his role in the Capitol riot, where he confronted cops at a set of doors to the U.S. Capitol building and got sprayed by mace.

The weapons case came to light in September 2021 when the FBI executed a search warrant at his residence in Madera in connection with the Jan. 6 breach.

During the search, agents seized eight firearms, including an AR‑15‑style rifle, multiple high-capacity magazines for the AR-15, and more than 500 rounds of ammunition, which he had been prohibited from possessing because of a prior domestic violence conviction, authorities said. He had choked his then-girlfriend and dragged her back into the house after she tried to flee, officials said.

Shortly after his arrest, Martin was caught on a recorded jail call where he instructed his current fiancee to lie to authorities and tell them that the firearms seized from his residence belonged to her and her father and that he did not know about them. Martin received an enhancement to his sentence for witness tampering, officials said.

After Trump issued about 1,500 blanket pardons for the rioters, Martin argued on appeal that the president meant to absolve him of the gun charges as well. He reasoned that because the search warrant stemmed from his actions during the Capitol attack, any evidence obtained through that search was sufficiently “related to” the events of Jan. 6.

At first, the DOJ vehemently rejected the notion that Martin’s California weapons cache was covered by the president’s pardon.

“Martin’s pardon for January 6, 2021 offenses he committed in Washington, D.C., does not reach his separate firearms offense he committed in California at a different time. The plain language of the pardon says it ‘applies only to convictions for offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,”” the DOJ wrote in court filings on Feb. 14, opposing Martin’s release pending appeal. “Martin’s instant conviction is not punishment for his conduct on January 6, 2021, nor was the search of his residence a consequence of his conviction. Martin’s argument conflates the investigation that discovered his instant offense conduct with the offense itself, contrary to the plain language of the pardon.”

But in the days that followed, federal prosecutors reversed course and began arguing that Trump’s pardons covered related weapons offenses.

For example, prosecutors last week asked a federal judge to drop weapons charges against convicted Capitol rioter Daniel Wilson. After initially claiming Wilson was erroneously released from prison after receiving his pardon, the DOJ last week said new directives indicated that Trump meant for Wilson to be set free.

“In the intervening period since the government filed its response, the government has received further clarity on the intent of the pardon,” prosecutors wrote last week. “Under these circumstances, the Presidential Pardon includes a pardon for the firearm convictions to which the defendant pled, similar to other defendants in which the government has made comparable motions.”

Less than two weeks after opposing Martin’s assertion that his weapons convictions were covered by the pardon, the DOJ filed court documents requesting that he be released from custody while his appeal plays out.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday remanded Martin’s case back to the district court to “set appropriate conditions of release” while keeping the existing briefing schedule.

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Jason Kandel and Colin Kalmbacher contributed to this report.

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Pardoned Jan. 6 defendant headed back to prison

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 13:28:34 +0000

Daniel Edwin Wilson is seen in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (U.S. Attorney’s Office).

A pardoned Jan. 6 defendant from Kentucky is going back to prison to serve out his term for separate firearms convictions after he had been erroneously released from custody.

Dan Edwin Wilson, 49, was ordered on Friday to self-surrender to federal authorities to serve the remaining time of his 60-month — or five-year — sentence.

U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Donald Trump appointee, rejected his claim that the President’s pardon for his charge of conspiracy to impede or injure an officer at the Capitol also covered his separate convictions in Kentucky for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of an unregistered firearm.

Like many other rioters, the defendant posted messages online about what he wanted to do in Washington, D.C., in the days leading up to Jan. 6.

“I am ready to lay my life on the line,” Wilson declared on Dec. 27 in the encrypted messaging app Telegram.

“We are willing to work and coordinate with others, but I am a gray ghost ranger,” he wrote, referring to his affiliation with the so-called “Gray Ghost Militia.”

Wilson entered the Capitol that day wearing a gas mask and walked through the Rotunda and Statuary Hall before exiting at 2:49 p.m. He was inside for just over 10 minutes. He was arrested on May 25, 2023, almost a year after the federal search warrant was executed on his home.

On June 3, 2022, law enforcement seized six firearms stored in a backpack and cabinet in Wilson’s home, including some that were covered by clothing.

“Wilson was prohibited from possessing firearms at the time, due to previous felony convictions,” the probable cause affidavit notes. “At least two of the seized firearms were loaded at the time of seizure, and another two did not have serial numbers.”

The firearm charges were initially filed in Kentucky federal court but were later transferred to the District of Columbia, the FBI says.

Wilson was sentenced on Aug. 28, 2024.

Around Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, when Trump issued his Executive Order granting pardons to Jan. 6 defendants, Wilson was erroneously released from prison, authorities said.

Then, he was ordered to return to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, and his defense counsel filed a motion to stay his return, which the government did not oppose.

“The government has reviewed the Certificate of Pardon, which was provided to the defendant by the Office of the Pardon Attorney on or about January 29, 2025,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “The Certificate makes clear that the pardon only applies to ‘convictions for offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.’”

The firearm convictions, they added, “did not occur at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, and thus, by the plain language of the certificate, the pardon does not extend to these convictions. The defendant should be returned to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.”

Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report.

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Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter behind bars for child solicitation

homesafetytechpros — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 03:59:56 +0000

Left: Andrew Taake. Right: Taake seen holding a whip during a confrontation at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 (via FBI court filing).

A Jan. 6 rioter from Texas who got hit with an arrest warrant for online solicitation of a minor after being pardoned by President Donald Trump is back behind bars after being busted Thursday following a surveillance operation, cops say.

Andrew Taake, 36, was taken into custody by the Harris County District Attorney’s Fugitive Apprehension squad with help from multiple law enforcement agencies after a warrant was issued for his arrest late last month, according to prosecutors. Taake was caught in Leon County, Texas, and must now face justice in Houston for a 2016 charge of online solicitation of a minor. He was on pretrial release when the 2021 Capitol attack unfolded, which landed him a six-year prison sentence for attacking police officers with a metal whip and dousing them in bear spray.

Taake pleaded guilty in December 2023 to one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon. Last month, Trump scrubbed away the charge with a “full, complete and unconditional” pardon of Taake and his roughly 1,500 fellow rioters. Prosecutors in Harris County took up the solicitation charge — now that his federal case is no longer active — as a result.

“Re-arresting individuals, like Taake, who were released with pending State warrants, will require significant resources,” District Attorney Sean Teare said in a statement before Taake’s arrest. “Know that we are already in the process of tracking Taake down, as he must answer for 2016 charge of soliciting a minor online.”

According to prosecutors, Taake was apprehended Thursday after a surveillance operation on Tuesday confirmed he was staying at a residence in Leon County.

“We would like to thank the coordinated efforts of our office’s Fugitive Apprehension Section, Leon County Sheriff’s Office, and Texas Department of Public Safety for their diligence in getting this suspected child predator back into custody,” Teare said in a statement.

Taake made headlines at the time of his Jan. 6 arrest after he was turned in by a woman he met on the dating app Bumble. He was sentenced to 74 months in prison last year — followed by 36 months of supervised release — in addition to paying $2,000 in restitution.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Taake was allegedly soliciting a person in 2016 who he “believed to be younger than 17 years of age.” He was 27 at the time.

Authorities say Taake talked on social media with an undercover cop posing as a 15-year-old girl. He allegedly sent “multiple explicit messages” and asked to meet up with her — even admitting that he “could go to jail” if anyone found out what he was doing. Taake allegedly went to an address that the undercover provided and cops arrested him. If convicted, he faces a decade in prison.

David Harris contributed to this report.

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Pardoned Jan. 6 rioter gets 10 years for deadly DUI crash

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 23:58:19 +0000

Background: Emily Hernandez arriving at court in Franklin County, Missouri (KSDK/YouTube). Inset: Emily Hernandez at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot (Department of Justice)

A Jan. 6 rioter from Missouri who made headlines for swiping Nancy Pelosi’s name plate during the Capitol attack went from pardon to prison this week as she was sentenced Wednesday for causing a fatal crash while driving drunk on the wrong side of the highway.

Emily Hernandez, 25, got hit with a 10-year sentence by Franklin County Judge Ryan Helfrich for the death of 32-year-old Victoria Wilson on Jan. 5, 2022, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and local NBC affiliate KSDK. She received 10 years and another seven years for injuring Wilson’s husband, Ryan E. Wilson — who was riding with her that night — with the sentences to be served concurrently.

“No matter how loud I cried out to her, I couldn’t wake her,” Wilson said in court Wednesday, where he reportedly used a cane to walk due to the severity of his injuries, per the Post-Dispatch. “I couldn’t reach her because of the air bags.”

According to her criminal complaint, Hernandez was driving drunk on the wrong side of the highway during the fatal crash that killed Wilson and injured her husband. The crash happened just after 7 p.m., with their cars colliding in the eastbound lane of I-44.

Hernandez had a blood-alcohol content of .20% when tested after the crash, more than double the legal limit.

“What I did was ungodly and I will live with that shame for the rest of my life,” Hernandez said at her sentencing, according to the Post-Dispatch. “I am sorry for what I did and if I could take it all back, I would.”

Victoria Wilson’s family told KSDK after the court proceeding that while it’s nice to see justice be served, there’s “an empty hole” in their hearts that will never be filled.

“Nothing will bring her back,” said Victoria’s mom, Tonie Donaldson. “It was some relief to be able to turn and look her in her eyes and tell her how much harm she had really done to us … that’s a choice she made, she has to live with it.”

Hernandez, who pleaded guilty to the drunk driving incident, was pardoned by President Donald Trump last week on his first day in office — along with other rioters — after she pleaded guilty in January 2022 to a misdemeanor for entering the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6.

After the attack, Hernandez was seen in pictures and on video grinning while holding a fragment of a sign appearing to identify Pelosi’s office. She pleaded guilty to one count of entering and remaining in a restricted building after originally being charged with disorderly conduct, disruptive conduct in the Capitol, one count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol building, and “steal[ing], sell[ing], convey[ing] or dispos[ing] of any thing of value of the United States.”

The fatal crash that claimed Victoria Wilson’s life happened just six days before Hernandez was scheduled to plead guilty. She was given a 30-day jail sentence for the Jan. 6 charge.

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Trump Jan. 6 judge hammers pardon of all Capitol rioters

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 13:25:17 +0000

Top inset: U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts via AP, File). Bottom inset: Donald Trump (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana). Background: Rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File).

A federal judge this week had choice words for Donald Trump‘s pardon freeing the rioters charged for the events on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversaw Trump’s criminal prosecution involving his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election before the case was dropped, said in an order dismissing another Jan. 6 defendant’s case, “No pardon can change the tragic truth of what happened on January 6, 2021.”

“On that day, ‘a mob professing support for then-President Trump violently attacked the Capitol’… the dismissal of this case cannot undo the ‘rampage [that] left multiple people dead, injured more than 140 people, and inflicted millions of dollars in damage”” she wrote. “It cannot diminish the heroism of law enforcement who ‘struggled, facing serious injury and even death, to control the mob that overwhelmed them’… it cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake.”

Above all, she added, “It cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”

The comments from Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee, followed comments from other prominent judges who took issue with Trump’s pardon.

In her order on Wednesday dismissing a Jan. 6 defendant’s case, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, a Bill Clinton appointee, said what occurred that day is “preserved for the future through thousands of contemporaneous videos, transcripts of trials, jury verdicts, and judicial opinions analyzing and recounting the evidence through a neutral lens.”

“Those records are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies,” she wrote.

She added that the role of law enforcement that day and the officers’ heroism cannot be altered or ignored.

“Grossly outnumbered, those law enforcement officers acted valiantly to protect the Members of Congress, their staff, the Vice President and his family, the integrity of the Capitol grounds, and the Capitol Building-our symbol of liberty and a symbol of democratic rule around the world,” she said. “For hours, those officers were aggressively confronted and violently assaulted. More than 140 officers were injured. Others tragically passed away as a result of the events of that day. But law enforcement did not falter. Standing with bear spray streaming down their faces, those officers carried out their duty to protect.

“All of what I have described has been recorded for posterity, ensuring that what transpired on January 6, 2021 can be judged accurately in the future,” she wrote.

Judge Beryl Howell, another Obama appointee, said in her order involving two Proud Boys who admitted to their roles in the riots, that Trump’s dismissals undermine the rule of law.

“This Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement,” she wrote. “The prosecutions in this case and others charging defendants for their criminal conduct at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, present no injustice, but instead reflect the diligent work of conscientious public servants, including prosecutors and law enforcement officials, and dedicated defense attorneys, to defend our democracy and rights and preserve our long tradition of peaceful transfers of power — which, until January 6, 2021, served as a model to the world — all while affording those charged every protection guaranteed by our Constitution and the criminal justice system.”

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Proud Boys leader’s mom asks Trump for pardon in Jan. 6 case

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 17:14:58 +0000

Left: President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Palm Beach, Florida (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, file). Right: Enrique Tarrio and the Proud Boys demonstrate near Freedom Plaza during the Million Maga March protest regarding election results on November 14, 2020 in Washington D.C. (Chris Tuite/imageSPACE/MediaPunch /IPX). Inset: Zuny Tarrio (WTVJ).

The mother of the Proud Boys leader who helped orchestrate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol went on television to ask President-elect Donald Trump to pardon her son from his 22-year sentence.

Enrique Tarrio was not in Washington D.C. that day but prosecutors argued he was one of the chief architects of the riot as he was the head of the Proud Boys who led the assault on the Capitol. A jury agreed, convicting him of seditious conspiracy, and a judge handed out the longest sentence of any of the Jan. 6 defendants. Now with Trump set to take office next year, many of the imprisoned rioters are hoping he issues them pardons as he said he would while on the campaign trail.

In an interview with South Florida NBC affiliate WTVJ, Tarrio’s mother Zuny Tarrio spoke directly to Trump.

“President Trump, I think my son and most of those J6, if not all, deserve to be home with their families,” she said. “We’ve suffered long enough.”

She said while the riot was unfortunate, the “government” should have prevented it before it happened.

“I don’t think anyone honestly likes what happened January 6th,” Zuny Tarrio said. “I think the way that it happened, shouldn’t have happened. I think the government could have stopped that in a lot of ways.”

At least five police officers who engaged with the violent mob died after Jan. 6. Dozens more were injured. Zuny Tarrio said when officers took an oath “there’s no guarantees of what happens when you do a job like that.” She also said the idea that her son was a leader of the riot is “far-fetched” because people who weren’t Proud Boys also committed violence.

“Enrique Tarrio wasn’t even there that day. He was not on the [Capitol] grounds,” she said. “He was not in Washington D.C. that day.”

She described the last few years with her son in prison as “horrific.”

“It’s a terrible feeling to have a child in federal prison without a real reason,” she said.

As Law&Crime previously reported, Tarrio and his four co-defendants faced a raft of other charges in addition to seditious conspiracy, widely considered to be the most serious charge to date against rioters who stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6. The mob, spurred on by then-President Donald Trump’s repeated false statements that fraud affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, overwhelmed police trying to beat back the crowd and violently breached the building as Congress had begun to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral win. Lawmakers were forced to evacuate or shelter in place for several harrowing hours.

The trial of the top leadership of the self-described “Western Chauvinist” group was a rocky road from the start, with nearly three weeks of contentious jury selection. Opening arguments from prosecutors reminded jurors of Trump’s “stand back and stand by” edict to the Proud Boys — issued during a September 2020 presidential debate — and said that the extremist group was prepared to engage in violence in order disrupt the peaceful transition of presidential power and keep Trump in office.

“These men did not stand back,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason McCullough said in opening statements. “They did not stand by. Instead, they mobilized.”

Prosecutors had alleged that Tarrio created the group’s so-called “Ministry of Self Defense” (MOSD) chapter in order to plan for violence on Jan. 6 and used encrypted messaging to organize and coordinate the Proud Boys’ role in the attack. While Tarrio himself was not in Washington that day — having recently been ordered to leave the city after being arrested for burning a stolen Black Lives Matter flag in front of a historically Black D.C. church — he encouraged his followers to stay the course at the Capitol.

Similarly, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack found that the Proud Boys “did lead the assault” on the Capitol building that day.

The defense teams, meanwhile, argued that there wasn’t enough evidence to show that the defendants had all mutually agreed to carry out the attack.

Attorneys for the defendants also argued that Trump — who earlier that day told his supporters at the so-called “Stop the Steal rally” to march to the Capitol and “fight like hell” — was the real culprit.

Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this report

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Biden should pardon Trump, as well as Trump’s enemies, says Watergate figure John Dean

homesafetytechpros — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 02:49:03 +0000

Executive Branch

Biden should pardon Trump, as well as Trump’s enemies, says Watergate figure John Dean

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 5, 2024, 9:19 am CST

Former lawyer and Nixon White House counsel John Dean (pictured here in September 2018) is suggesting that President Joe Biden should go further with his pardons. (Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)

Former lawyer and Nixon White House counsel John Dean is suggesting that President Joe Biden should go further with his pardons.

At the top of Dean’s suggested pardons list is President-elect Donald Trump. Others who should receive blanket pardons include everyone “on Trump’s enemies list,” including special counsels who investigated and prosecuted Trump, and everyone on the special counsel teams.

Dean made his suggestions in a post on the social media site Bluesky.

Fox News and HuffPost noted Dean’s recommendations.

Special counsels who should be pardoned, Dean said, are Jack Smith (who prosecuted Trump in the classified-documents and election-subversion cases) and Robert Mueller (who investigated but found no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign).

In an interview with CNN, Dean said the pardons “would create a safe harbor” for the recipients and “take out the retribution and revenge element” from the Trump campaign.

Fox News noted Trump’s comments about retribution at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2023.

“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution,” Trump said.

Trump later told Fox News host Sean Hannity in June that people worried about retribution are wrong because “it has to stop because otherwise we’re not going to have a country.”

He added however, that “based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them.”

Dean, who was convicted of obstruction of justice in the Watergate coverup, became a whistleblower in congressional testimony about the break-in. He has been “an outspoken critic of Trump,” Fox News reports.

Must Hunter Biden’s indictment be dismissed after presidential pardon? Special counsel doesn’t think so

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Trump cites Biden pardon in bid to end hush-money case

homesafetytechpros — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 02:54:25 +0000

Left to right: Donald Trump speaks Tuesday April 2, 2024, at a rally in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer), FILE — Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg gestures while speaking during a news conference Feb. 22, 2024, in New York (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II), FILE — Hunter Biden departs from federal court June 11, 2024, in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum), Clarence Thomas (YouTube/Library of Congress).

Attorneys for President-elect Donald Trump on Monday asked the judge overseeing his New York City-based hush-money case to dismiss the indictment and vacate the jury’s guilty verdicts.

In an 80-page filing, attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove say three distinct sources of federal law “require” the defense’s requested “result” and those legal sources “require it immediately.”

But the penultimate filing in the case actually begins with an invocation of current events: President Joe Biden’s pardon of his adult son Hunter Biden’s felony gun conviction and any would-be crimes.

“Yesterday, in issuing a 10-year pardon to Hunter Biden that covers any and all crimes whether charged or uncharged, President Biden asserted that his son was ‘selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,’ and ‘treated differently,”” the filing, docketed Tuesday, reads.

Trump’s attorneys do not only crib language from the 46th president’s perfidious bout of patrimonial clemency, they also echo the elder Biden’s words targeting the work of federal prosecutors.

“President Biden argued that ‘raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,’” the motion goes on. “These comments amounted to an extraordinary condemnation of President Biden’s own DOJ. This is the same DOJ that coordinated and oversaw the politically-motivated, election-interference witch hunts targeting President Trump.”

The filing accuses Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of having engaged in “precisely the type of political theater” the president rubbished when he issued his son’s pardon.

Late last month, Bragg’s office made it clear prosecutors intend to push forward and ask for Trump to be sentenced in connection with his 34 felony convictions on charges of falsifying business documents — after he finishes his second term as president in January 2029.

The Damocletian nature of that option is mentioned in the motion.

“With respect to Presidential immunity, it would be egregious and unlawful for this Court to hold the prospect of a 2029 sentencing over President Trump’s head while he continues his service to this Country,” the filing reads. “President Trump would be required to operate ‘under an apprehension that the motives that control his official conduct may, at any time, become. the subject of inquiry’ at a future sentencing.”

Trump’s attorneys go on to say the prospect of a president working under such conditions would “seriously cripple the proper and effective administration of public affairs as entrusted to the executive branch of the government.”

And, so the argument goes, simply putting the sentencing of the case on a shelf in a legal freezer would violate the presidential immunity doctrine created by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year.

In the filing, Trump’s attorneys tear into Bragg for having “ignored” the recent vintage immunity doctrine — saying the district attorney’s “hubris on that topic” and “stubborn insistence on offering official acts evidence in grand jury proceedings and at trial resulted in damage to the institution of the Presidency.”

The motion also criticizes the court itself for rushing ahead with the case “despite obviously relevant Supreme Court proceedings.”

The motion then lists a direct quote from Justice Clarence Thomas’s influential concurrence to the majority opinion: “Few things would threaten our constitutional order more than criminally prosecuting a former President for his official acts.”

Presidential immunity, the motion argues, dovetails with arguments for dismissal sourced from the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“Local elected officials such as DA Bragg have no valid basis to cause such disruptions, which also violate the Supremacy Clause,” the filing goes on. “Consequently, the federal Constitution is an absolute ‘legal impediment’ to further proceedings, and the case must be immediately dismissed.”

The motion elaborates on this point, at length:

As relevant here, “the Supremacy Clause prohibits state judges and prosecutors from interfering with a President’s official duties.” The Supreme Court has applied the Supremacy Clause in that fashion to federal employees since the 1800s.

…

The Supremacy Clause adds additional urgency to the need for immediate dismissal because DANY has created the nightmare scenario where a local, biased prosecutor is seeking to interfere with the outcome of the national election by encumbering the people’s choice of a leader with unacceptable burdens and distractions.

The third source of federal law cited by the defense is a statute: the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.

“The Presidential Transition Act applies to President Trump,” the motion goes on. “The Act’s legislative history makes clear that there is no material distinction between the President-elect and the post-inauguration sitting President for these purposes.”

Trump’s attorneys, citing precedent, say a presidential transition is effectively part of an incoming administration that implicates the “national interest” as well as the “public function” of the presidency.

This is essentially an argument that as president-elect, Trump is no longer a private citizen because his job already “includes evaluation of sensitive national security issues and associated grave risks.”

“[Bragg’s] insistence on continuing with these unlawful, failed proceedings intensifies the risk associated with that vulnerability,” the motion goes on. “President Trump has already commenced this complex. sensitive, and intensely time-consuming process. which is a ‘monumental undertaking.’ These proceedings are interfering with that process and must therefore be terminated immediately.”

The district attorney’s office has until Dec. 9, to file their response.

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