THREAD: An account may soon emerge questioning the role that the Proud Boys and a man named Ryan Samsel played in the tipping point confrontation of the Capitol attack.
(The J6 committee has focused on this moment.)
If that happens, here are a few things to bear in mind:
In his first interview w/the FBI--only weeks after J6-- Samsel said a Proud Boys leader, Joe Biggs, urged him to confront the cops.
Samsel also said a man named Ray Epps encouraged him to calm down when he did confront the cops. nytimes.com/2021/10/07/us/… nytimes.com/2022/05/05/us/…
Samsel is of course free to alter his account.
But if it happens here’s some context:
*Any contacts Samsel may have had w/the media took place w/o the knowledge or participation of his lawyer
*For 18 mths Samsel has been in jail where it can be perilous to be known as a snitch
Moreover Samsel has been fighting w/the government over receiving treatment for serious medical issues.
In recent court hearings, he has become increasingly upset w/the prosecutors & judge about what he sees as neglect of his health and conditions of confinement.
It's not clear if Samsel has actually recanted his initial account to the FBI. But recall
Defendants can say anything to the media w/o risk of penalty.
However by altering an account to the FBI a defendant could theoretically be exposed to new charges of lying to federal agents
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Interesting: Judge Cannon has told the defense and govt to file proposed jury instructions defining the terms of the Espionage Act disputed at last week's motions hearing and narrowing the Presidential Records Act claim by April 2.
That suggests...
at least in theory that she is intending to take Trump's classified documents case to trial.
It would seem (?) like a waste of time to ask the parties to define for the jury the disputed elements of the Espionage Act--i.e. the law's requirement that the govt prove Trump had "unauthorized possession" of docs related to "national defense"--if she wasn't picturing a trial.
JUST IN: Alexander Smirnov told the feds during an interview after is arrest that "officials associated with Russian intelligence" were involved in passing a story about Hunter Biden.
Smirnov also reported to the feds having contacts w/some pretty shady Russians including one connected to what seems like an assassination crew and an intel guy.
Now: The first Trump documents hearing in front of Judge Cannon in Florida has ended w/o a decision on the trial schedule. Cannon seemed skeptical of the govt’s request to go to trial in December but also seemed disinclined to let the trial stray until after the 2024 election.
Cannon pressed Trump’s lawyer if they wanted to delay the trial after voting and they affirmed they did. They said if a trial date must be set it should be for mid-Nov 2024.
Cannon said she would file a written order promptly.
Beneath the scheduling issues was a fascinating philosophical discussion of the nature of Trump as defendant. It revolved around the question of should Trump be treated like any other defendant or did his role as candidate need to be taken into account .
Now: DOJ responds, glancingly, to the uproar over the Jacob Chansley footage, clarifying that the images of him w/the police took place *after* he illegally entered the Senate gallery--the behavior that triggered his obstruction of Congress charge.
By glancingly, I mean prosecutors responded to the complaints of another defendant, Dominic Pezzola of the Proud Boys, about the footage, and clarified their position on the new video.
"In sum," prosecutors wrote, "Chansley was not some passive, chaperoned observer of events for the roughly hour that he was unlawfully inside the Capitol."
We've just received more information about the tantalizing FBI data snafu that temporarily paused the Proud Boys sedition trial late week for an evidentiary
A quick thread.
Background: The dispute concerns a log of internal FBI chats from one of the case agents, Nicole Miller. The log was given to the defense for impeachment of her testimony. Miller minimized or hid responses from other agents since, govt says, they were outside scope of cross-ex.
But the defense found the minimizations & opened them up. The newly opened messages had some tantalizing things from another agent who was writing to Miller. There were also some places where Miller's responses to that agent appeared to be missing.
Update: Prosecutors have told the judge in the Proud Boys sedition case that the Jencks issue may have been a result of a "spill" of classified information.
No one seems to know exactly what that means at this point.
Jocelyn Ballentine, the prosecutor who oversees the J6 conspiracy cases, tells Judge Kelly that the spreadsheet of internal FBI comms at issue here contained classified messages from "one other agent who does clandestine work" but who did not take part in the Proud Boys case.
The Proud Boys trial data issue is threatening to spin off into true chaos.
Norm Pattis, lawyer for Joe Biggs, is calling for the appointment of a special master to examine the spreadsheet of internal FBI comms to check for any classified messages.
(Gonna say that's unlikely...)