Don't look now but there's a real dispute emerging among judges in DC about one of the staple charges against nearly every Jan. 6 defendant: Entering and remaining in a restricted building.
Tonight, Judge Cooper acquitted a Jan. 6 defendant of two counts, saying DOJ fell short.
The heart of the dispute: Does DOJ need to show that rioters *knew* Mike Pence (or another USSS protectee) was/would be present to prove someone violated he law. Until recently, judges had all agreed that wasn't necessary.
Cooper (Obama) joins Judges Nichols (Trump) and Lamberth (Reagan) in taking this narrower view of the 18 USC 1752 charges, a misdemeanor that has been leveled against 1,186 of the 1,260-ish Jan. 6 defendants.
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HAPPENING NOW: Taylor Taranto, a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant who was convicted for bringing weapons to Obama’s neighborhood, has returned to DC and has been roaming Rep. Jamie Raskin’s neighborhood — alarming police.
Today, DOJ asked a judge to immediately re-jail him.
Taranto lives in WA state but drove across the country in recent weeks. He has filmed ominous videos from the Pentagon parking lot and was wandering Raskin’s Takoma Park area at 2am. DOJ says it’s nearly identical conduct to what he was charged for in 2023.
Judge Nichols, who convicted Taranto in a bench trial earlier this year, is weighing whether to detain him immediately for violating his supervised release conditions.
HAPPENING NOW: Rahmullah Lakanwal makes his initial appearance in DC Superior Court, from a hospital bed, on charges for last week's National Guard shooting.
He's being apprised, through an interpreter, of the murder charge against him as well as charges of possessing of a firearm during commission of a violent offense, assault w intent to kill while armed.
Prosecutors are asking the judge to keep Lakanwal detained during pretrial proceedings. Lakanwal, who does appear to be in pain, says he can't open his eyes. His attorney is advising him not to speak.
The cases have surged as ICE reclassified millions who have resided in the United States for years as “arriving aliens” or “applicants for admission” — making them subject to mandatory detention typically meant for those who just crossed the border. politico.com/news/2025/11/2…
NEWS: The criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James are gone. A federal judge ruled that the appointment of Lindsey Halligan as the lead prosecutor was illegal.
DOJ could try again, but there are other headwinds.
JUST IN: A federal judge says one of the Venezuelan men — illegally deported to El Salvador in March before he was swapped back to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange — is now missing, possibly a victim of the violence he was seeking asylum from.
Judge Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee in MD, says the administration flagrantly and repeatedly defied her orders to provide regular updates about the man’s return. But she stops short of finding contempt bc it was Rubio, who isn’t named in the lawsuit, who was responsible for communicating w El Salvador
BREAKING: Prosecutors in the Comey case just told the judge that they’re under orders from the Deputy Attorney Generals’s office not to disclose whether career prosecutors wrote a memo recommending *against* indicting Comey prior to Halligan going to the grand jury.
AUSA Tyler Lemons told Judge Nachmanoff that he hasn’t gotten permission to disclose what could be considered “privileged” or “work product” material. He did say he asked to review and possible declination memo and has seen “drafts.”
NEW: The prosecution of James Comey is hanging by a thread, besieged on all sides by challenges to the legitimacy of the prosecutor, the grand jury process and the motives for bringing the case in the first place.
w/ @joshgerstein