DOJ’s sentencing memos are in for this St. Louis trio who stormed the Capitol and posed with Nancy Pelosi’s broken sign.
Feds want:
- 120 days incarceration for William Merry
- 90 days incarceration for Paul Westover
- 45 days incarceration for Emily Hernandez
"Just as a rioter began to pry the Speaker’s office suite sign off its post above a doorway, Merry commented that it was for 'the c**t of the House.’” storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
"After roaming the halls tauntingly chanting ‘Nancy,' he entered the
Rotunda, where he shouted, 'we own this,' and proceeded to climb a statue of 'a real patriot,' in
his words: Ronald Reagan.”
So why does Emily Hernandez end up with the shortest sentencing recommendation? Well, she voluntarily surrendered and cooperated, and DOJ factored in her age and "the role of her uncle, a trusted authority figure in her life, in inducing her to commit crimes.”
"It should also be noted, however, that while on pretrial release in this matter and shortly before her change of plea hearing, Hernandez was involved in a car accident that resulted in a fatality.” storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
"When asked to display her loot—i.e., the shard of Speaker Pelosi’s sign—Hernandez giggled as she withdrew it from her coat and posed for pictures with it. She ultimately took the shard and two other signs she stole from the Capitol back to St. Louis, Missouri.”
Paul Westover, William Merry, and Emily Hernandez want to bump back their sentencing a couple of weeks, until April 11.
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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.'"