A new order from Judge Amy Berman Jackson suggests the question of whether Danny Rodriguez's full confession gets admitted may all boil down to whether he definitively says "no" in this clip.
Was it though? Judge for yourself. Seconds after a muffled and simultaneous “no,” he’s saying he’s “pretty ashamed” and goes right on talking:
Not even clear it’s a “no” honestly, he just makes some sort of noise.
"Any further briefing by the government on the question of whether the defendant unambiguously asserted his right to cut off questioning is due by December 8, 2021.”
Here's a zoomed in version. Danny Rodriguez does shake his head no, but is talking about how he's "ashamed" just seconds later.
“They take a Danny Rodriguez interview, and they see that oh, this guy’s a moron. He’s a sad person who’s kind of pathetic in a way, and they think, ‘How bad could Jan. 6 really have been?’ They’re not looking at the big picture.” huffpost.com/entry/mike-fan…
Hindsight being 20-20, a yes-or-no question that gave him an opportunity to bail once he already signed the Miranda form wasn’t the best strategy at that moment. Better to ask an open-ended question and get him to accept the premise.
Here’s how it shows up in the transcript, but on video it doesn’t seem like Danny Rodriguez gets a “no” in before the agents starts speaking. He does shake his head though.
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.@nickquested has an important new film out called 64 Days that zeroes in on the critical timeframe in the lead up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
I’ve watched far more Capitol attack footage than any sane human being should, and even I was floored by what he’s got.
The day after the 2020 election, a mob of Trump supporters who believed Trump’s lies about voter fraud flooded to the TCF Center in Detroit, the largest majority-Black city in the nation.
NBC News’ own @PattersonNBC was inside, here’s some of what he saw:
As @janestreet and I report in our new story on the chaos at the TCF Center in 2020, some of the key instigators there — including folks banging on the windows — had official ties to the Trump 2020 campaign operation.
@janestreet Now, here's a key thing to know about the people who flooded down to the TCF Center on Nov. 4, 2020, because they saw some post on Facebook or something: They're plainly wrong. Trump didn't lose Michigan because of fraud in Detroit, where he performed better than he had in 2016.
NEW: One of the worst Jan. 6 rioters, David Dempsey, hit with 20 years in federal prison by a Reagan-appointed federal judge who has spoken out about the “preposterous” and dangerous rhetoric some Republicans have used in an attempt to “rewrite history" on Jan. 6.
Dempsey appeared to flash an “OK” sign as he was led out of court, several witnesses observed. Other rioters have yelled “Trump won!” as they were led out of court.
DOJ inspector general concludes, as folks who were paying attention four plus years ago did contemporaneously, that having Bureau of Prisons guards man civilian protests was a bad idea.
"Allowing federal law enforcement to operate with anonymity all but eliminates accountability when force is inevitably used against demonstrators." huffpost.com/entry/william-…
"A senior Justice Department official credited Barr with the idea of bringing in federal prison corrections officers, calling it an example of Barr’s 'outside the box' thinking." huffpost.com/entry/william-…
“If [we] don’t have a charge, we don’t say anything about an investigation; we just don’t do that.”
From the OIG report on Willam Barr and the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who helped fuel the ex-president's bogus voter fraud narrative back in 2020.
He announced his resignation just before the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which was fueled by Trump's election lies. huffpost.com/entry/david-fr…
"Freed’s unusual conduct came under intense scrutiny from Justice Department veterans who noted it was “wildly improper” for a federal prosecutor to be making public declarations about investigations that could be used as a political cudgel and help undermine confidence in the electoral process." huffpost.com/entry/david-fr…
DOJ inspector general's report on the Roger Stone sentencing recommendation (remember that?) is now out. It calls former interim U.S. Attorney Timothy Shea's leadership "ineffectual" and DOJ's handling of the Stone sentencing "highly unusual." Bill Barr refused to cooperate.
"we found that Barr had articulated his position about the sentencing recommendation both before and shortly after the first sentencing memorandum was filed, and before the President’s tweets." oig.justice.gov/sites/default/…
"Barr was in the middle of listening to what others thought about the idea of a second filing when someone mentioned the tweets, and then 'the air almost went out of the room.'"