New: Capitol rioter Jack Griffith, who entered a guilty plea this morning, has been posting on Facebook promoting clips from a video game he says he's building that features a gun-toting Donald Trump and is rife with right-wing conspiracy theories buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Griffith's videos and posts underscore that the criminal prosecutions aren't deterring the conspiracy theories and pro-Trump fervor that motivated the mob on Jan. 6. Asked about the posts, his lawyer said they were "political irony" buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Griffith also posted a music video on YouTube about trying to get rich and how he has a semi-automatic weapon "but I hope to god I don’t have to use that." His lawyer says it's a "stupid song" and he has no guns (his release conditions say no illegal guns) buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Jack Griffith's social media posts since his arrest in January in connection with the Capitol riots leading up to today's guilty plea are full of right-wing conspiracy theories and claims that Trump won the 2020 election buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Griffith's posts show that notwithstanding the hundreds of arrests in connection with Jan. 6 so far, including his own, the conspiracy theories and lies about the election that motivated Capitol rioters are still very much out there buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
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Good morning from Chief Judge Beryl Howell's virtual courtroom, where Jan. 6 defendant Jack Griffith is set to enter a guilty plea. More on Griffith -->
Griffith is pleading guilty to parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol, which is a misdemeanor carrying a max sentence of 6 mos in jail — note that the indictment lists a felony up top for obstructing Congress, but that's only for his co-def Matthew Bledsoe
Griffith is represented by H. Heather Shaner. Shaner's other clients include Anna Morgan-Lloyd, who you may recall was assigned by Shaner to read/watch content about racism and antisemitism and submitted reports pre-sentencing. @ryanjreilly on that: huffpost.com/entry/capitol-…
A court loss this morning for Trump et al. — the 2nd Circuit ruled he and his co. and his family can't force a lawsuit into arbitration that accuses them of fraud in promoting a multi-level marketing company s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2101…
ACN, the MLM company, was sued by people who claimed they were duped into investing. Trump had been a spox for ACN before becoming president. The plaintiffs said Trump's endorsement convinced them to invest, but ACN didn't tell them Trump was being paid for that endorsement...
...fast forward, aggrieved investors sue ACN and Trump. Trump tried to invoke an arbitration clause in the contract investors signed with ACN, but the district judge (and now 2nd Circuit) said nope b/c a big part of the case is that customers didn't know Trump was in biz with ACN
In response to Rep. Mo Brooks seeking to have the US govt substituted as a defendant in Rep. Swalwell's Jan. 6 lawsuit — arguing he was acting within scope of employment — House GC says it won't participate, and disputes Brooks' theory to DOJ s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2101…
DOJ is also due to respond to Brooks' motion today, but there's no time deadline, so it could come in whenever tonight
Just in: DOJ won't certify that Rep. Mo Brooks was acting within the scope of his employment when he made the statements that got him sued by Rep. Swalwell for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 riots.
As Congress kicks off its Jan. 6 investigation, the steady drip, drip, drip of details about what happened on the ground that day from the 500+ criminal cases continues buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
As police officers testified on the Hill today and shared harrowing accounts of violence:
- two defendants pleaded guilty
- one defendant charged with assaulting police was ordered to stay in jail
- new charges were unsealed in another assault case buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Bouncing between the House hearing and court action in Jan. 6 cases today, it was striking to see how the macro-level focus of the former dovetailed with the micro-level focus of the latter buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Switching from the Jan. 6 hearing to a plea hearing for two Jan. 6 defendants, Lori and Thomas Vinson. Could hear someone else on the line listening to Officer Hodges testify as the line gets muted/unmuted before the hearing starts
Feds note Lori Vinson told an interviewer: "people have asked are you sorry that you done that, absolutely I am not, I am not sorry for that, I would do it again tomorrow"
A common theme we've seen in misdemeanor cases like the Vinsons is this idea that they didn't encounter police telling them they couldn't go inside the Capitol. The officers appearing before Congress now are describing how they were outnumbered/overwhelmed by the violent mob
@kadiagoba One of the most oft-played videos from Jan. 6 shows Officer Daniel Hodges screaming as he's pinned between a door and rioters with shields — that starts at around the 1:46 mark in this clipped exhibit from one of the prosecutions
@kadiagoba Here's an annotated video exhibit that prosecutors say shows the mob assaulting Officer Michael Fanone, and specifically defendant Thomas Sibick grabbing for the officer's badge and radio