Thread by @alanfeuer

Good morning. I'm starting Thread #27 on posts about new arrests at the Capitol riot and updates on continuing cases.
Previous threads can be found archived below.

https://twitter.com/alanfeuer/status/1412722131532664836

Today's main event will likely be the sentencing of Paul Hodgkins, the first J6 defendant who's admitted to disrupting the certification of the Electoral College vote.
Hodgkins faces between 15-21 months in prison. He has asked for no jail. The govt wants 18 months.

Hodgkins' sentencing is significant b/c it marks the first time a judge will suggest how to penalize the act of interrupting the democratic process in the absence of violence or vandalism.
Until now, only people charged w/misdemeanors have been sentenced.

In pre-hearing filings, Hodgkins' lawyer depicted his case as a kind of cautionary tale, saying the months after J6 are like the post-Civil War period when Lincoln sought to heal the nation.
Prosecutors admitted he wasn't violent but insisted he was "a rioter, not a protester."

Hodgkins' hearing starts at 10 am.

Judge Randolph Moss is bringing the court to order in the sentencing of Paul Hodgkins.

Paul Leduc, Hodgkins' lawyer, says Hodgkins will make a statement to the court.

Prosecutor says some factors in Hodgkins' case are troubling:
*his goal was to subvert the democratic process
*his presence at the Capitol was intimidating even though he wasn't violent or destructive

Prosecutor adds that Hodgkins is also responsible for "emotional injuries" at the Capitol. Staff cowering in their offices were terrified, she says. "Some will bear emotional scars forever."
He's also on the hook for a portion of the damage to the Capitol, she notes.

"He was a part of that mob," she says, making it all the way down to the well of the Senate and standing with others who were cheering and ranting.
He came prepared for confrontation, she adds, with goggles, gloves, rope.

The prosecutor distinguishes Hodgkins from those who merely strolled through the Capitol on Jan. 6.
"What his conduct is not," she says, "it is not a 15 minute walk with a crowd through the Capitol building."

Hodgkins was among about 30 people who went so far as to breach the Senate floor, the prosecutor notes, which is why the government is seeking a "mid-level" sentence even though he wasn't violent or destructive.

The prosecutor--I believe it's Mona Sedky--says she wracked her brain for weeks to come up with a pithy catchphrase for what Hodgkins did. She ended up quoting the DC circuit saying, "At its care this was a grave danger to our democracy."

Sedky says the government is framing Hodgkins' act as domestic terrorism saying there's a need to deter what she called a possible "second act."

The government isn't, however, seeking a penalty enhancement for a terrorism crime.

We'll now hear from Paul Leduc, Hodgkins' lawyer.

Correction: *Patrick* Leduc.

Leduc wants Hodgkins to speak first...

Hodgkins starts by saying he's privileged and humbled to be in court. It's his first time doing something like this, he says.
Without a shadow of a doubt, he says, he's "remorseful" for his actions on Jan. 6. and his actions may have "made others feel emboldened."

He says storming the Senate was "a foolish decision" and won't blame any "politician, journalist or otherwise"
for what he did, adding that Biden IS the president.
Still, he says he was merely caught up in the emotion of the day and never planned on breaking into the building.

Hodgkins says he tried to get his fellow rioters to leave the Senate and apologized to cops on the way out.
"I'm sorry for the trouble," he says he told one officer.

Hodgkins says that if he'd have known things would have escalated as they did on J6--or if was going to face the penalty he did--he wouldn't have set foot in the Capitol.
"In short," he says, "I allowed myself to put my passions before my principles."

Hodgkins asks for no jail time, saying if he is locked up he'll lose his job. He'll also most likely lose his home which he rents, he says, and he'll need to find a new home for his two cats.

Hodgkins' lawyer, Patrick Leduc, a colonel in the Army reserves, is pushing back hard on the govt's framing of the Hodgkins case as domestic terrorism.
He's listing other acts of domestic terrorism: a bombing by the Weather Underground in the Capitol in 1971, etc...

Leduc is saying if Jan 6 can be framed as domestic terror so should the violent protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd.
Judge Moss cuts in to say he's not going to consider the actions of others in sentencing Hodgkins.

Judge Moss also says there's no way to construe J6 as a First Amendment protest when people roamed the hallways looking for Nancy Pelosi and "the sacred duties" of Congress were stopped as legislators fled in terror.
Leduc backs down saying he was "inartful" and agrees.

Shrewd move by lawyer Leduc:
He says that if Judge Moss gives a no jail-time sentence other J6 defendants will rush to resolve their cases...

Leduc dips his toe into a comparison, saying 227 people were arrested for disrupting Congress during Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing and mostly got fines.
He knows there's a difference between that and Jan 6 but asks how much worse Hodgkins' behavior was...

Leduc, winding up to his conclusion, is now slamming cancel culture for robbing us, as a people, for granting others the grace we want ourselves.

Leduc rests on Lincoln's Second Inaugural: "With malice toward none; with charity toward all."

Within seconds of Leduc's big finale, Judge Moss steps in and asks: Will a no-jail sentence really heal the country or will it encourage conditions where others will repeat a Jan 6-like attack?

Moss sees Leduc's Second Inaugural and raises him a Gettysburg Address, quoting Lincoln saying that we can't play down J6 so "that a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Judge Moss is stepping down for 5 or 10 minutes. He'll issue sentence when he returns.

Judge Moss is re-taking the bench.

Judge Moss starts by stressing that he's focused on sentencing Paul Hodgkins, not everyone else who was at the Capitol.

"Although Mr. Hodgkins was only one member of an active mob," Judge Moss says, he participated in an event that endangered not only the Capitol but "democracy itself," causing legislators to flee.
"That," Judge Moss adds, "is an extraordinary event."

It's chilling for many reasons, Judge Moss adds.
"When a mob is prepared to attack the Capitol...democracy is in trouble," he says.

The attack on the Capitol, Judge Moss says, "makes us question whether our democracy is less secure than we did just seven months ago."

Moss agrees to a point that Hodgkins was less culpable than some others at the Capitol. He wasn't a leader of the attack and wasn't violent or destructive. And wasn't one of the first people to breach the building.

Moss says he's less convinced that Hodgkins merely "lost his bearings" for a day. He went to DC on a bus form Florida. He brought goggles and gloves as if he were "prepared for conflict."
Hodgkins had to have seen the mayhem on Jan. 6 and didn't "end up there by accident."

Moss notes Hodgkins had a Trump flag with him in the Capitol.

"He was staking a claim on the floor on the US Senate," Moss said, "not with an American but a flag of a single individual over a nation."

"People have to know that assaulting the US Capitol and impeding the US congress...will have severe consequences," Judge Moss says.

BREAKING: Paul Hodgkins, the first Capitol rioter who admitted trying to stop the certification of the vote, was sentenced to 8 months in prison.
Judge Randolph Moss cited a need for "severe consequences" for Jan. 6 but said Hodgkins pled early and was a first-time offender.

NEW: Caleb Berry, another Oath Keeper, will be pleading guilty today in connection with the 1/6 riot.
Berry is the fourth member of the right-wing militia to enter a plea. The three others have cooperated w/the government. We'll learn this afternoon if Berry is cooperating too

Prosecutors say Berry stashed weapons w/the Oath Keepers' quick reaction force in a Virginia hotel and took part in the military style "stack" that breached the Capitol.

NEW: Prosecutors have charged an off-duty DEA agent, Mark Sami Ibrahim, with being in restricted areas of the Capitol on Jan. 6 without authority.

Around 1 pm on Jan. 6, court papers say--about an hour before the riot started--Ibrahim posed for photos outside the Capitol wearing his sidearm and badge.

Ibrahim posted some of his photos to a WhatsApp channel used by other law enforcement agents. At around 2:30 pm, one of them asked him if was carrying his duty weapon and badge.
"I need to know this mark," the other law enforcement agent wrote.

When DOJ's Inspector General's office interviewed Ibrahim in March, he said he'd gone to the Capitol to help a friend in the FBI document the event.

But the friend later told investigators that Ibrahim had "crafted this story in an effort to 'cover his ass.'”

JUST IN: New video released in the case of Jan. 6 rioter Robert Morss gives a flavor of the nearly medieval siege of the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol.

In another new Morss case video, rioters struggle with cops outside the Capitol.
Morss is seeking to be released on bond. A judge is likely to rule on release this afternoon.

More Jan. 6 video has been released.
This clip shows former Special Forces operator Jeffrey McKellop striking an MPD captain in the face with a flagpole then heaving the pole at him like a spear.

BREAKING: Federal prosecutors have flipped a fourth member of the Oath Keepers militia.

Caleb Berry is pleading guilty now to J6 charges in a cooperation agreement w/the government.

He joins other Oath Keepers--Jon Schaffer, Mark Grods & Graydon Young--in working w/prosecutors.

In a new Capitol riot case, prosecutors have accused Michael Brock, of Mississippi, of assaulting multiple police officers on Jan. 6 with what they describe as "four-foot-long rod."

A little late in seeing this but Proud Boy leader Ethan Nordean is re-upping his request for bond.
He's arguing the govt was slow in getting information to his lawyers including a Capitol security video showing cops standing aside and letting him into the building.

Nordean's lawyers say that in order win his release they'll wire his house with cameras if need be. They also put this photo of an electronic detection dog in their memo. Apparently, he--or one like him--would be on the job too.

Caveat dater:
Capitol rioter Andrew Taake met someone on Bumble shortly after Jan. 6 and sent his match several photos, including one of himself after being pepper sprayed.
Long story short, charges followed.

The charges against Taake are serious.
Prosecutors say he used a metal whip and pepper spray to attack law enforcement officers.