Breaking 1-06-21: MAGA terrorist attack on Capitol

The gravamen of conspiracy is the agreement. Dating back to the common law, society has viewed it as more dangerous when people get together and plan to commit a crime than just people committing crimes. If you and I agree to go to a game to support the Rockets, and then you shoot and kill one of the players on the other team, I didn't conspire with you to do that. Even if I also ran on the floor and tried to block the shot of one of the dirty Jazz cheaters, that doesn't make us coconspirators, because all we agreed to do was go to the game together.

I don't feel any effects from the January 6 riots. What effects have you experienced. Are you hoarding your money? Committing more crime? Investing less? In theory that could be a case, but I have not seen any evidence.

Maybe? I doubt trespassing or jaywalking would cut the mustard. Setting off a nuclear device would.

I am saying that the report has redacted some of the quotes, the one quote in particular was redacted in such a way that it's meaning is ambiguous. The other quotes were not redacted, so their meaning is not ambiguous. It is not a matter of inculpatory vs. exculpatory. You are literally filling in the blank as you choose. I am pointing out that filling in the blank differently radically changes the meaning. I have no more information available to me than was shown in the article/video, so the context is that it convinced the judge he didn't represent a flight risk or a danger to the community.

You cannot transfer their actions to him unless he is a co-conspirator though. Each person must be judged individually by the actions they took.

Anyone saying they should be charged with seditious conspiracy is de facto claiming they thought things through.

Which would seem to indicate I know what both a liquor store and a capitol are, yes?

For many of them it was. For others it was battering law enforcement officers. For others it was apparently theft of classified materials. Different people did different things.

I don't know, but a lot of people think it was okay that one of them died directly.

I find attributing their suicides to the actions of anyone else dubious. I looked, but could not find any statements or notes as to why they committed suicide. Brian Sicknick died of natural causes after Capitol riot, medical examiner rules (cnbc.com) According to the chief medical examiner, he died of natural causes but "all that transpired played a role in his condition." No injuries or chemical reactions were tied to the stroke. He collapsed at 10pm, so I don't know why there would be a delay in getting medical care.

Maybe the selling of classified intelligence, depending on what it is. Assault on a peace officer? Maybe, depending on the injuries suffered. The rest of it, no.

Some of them.

 

That's not really a good analogy. To get closer, maybe we tell each other we must all go to the game to stop those dirty Jazz cheaters. Then at the game, some of us started shouting 'Stop the cheat!' and 'Hang Danuel House!' Then we all rush down to the floor and disrupt the game. Maybe you don't shout anything, but you do try to block a shot from a dirty Jazz cheater (but you're too damn short and slow, so he swishes it anyway). The game is delayed. Thankfully, NBA security rushes Danuel House away before we can see how serious anyone is. I'm not a lawyer, I don't know if I can get a conviction. But in my eyes, you're a conspirator. If they can't convict, it's merely a shortcoming of the justice system, not actually innocence on your part.

They failed to stop the election or to hang Mike Pence, which might explain why you don't feel it in a more concrete way. But failing in your crime doesn't make it not a crime. But even with the failure, our political compact was damaged that much more. You should be able to feel that, if not see it.

The sedition contemplated here was obstructing the government from exercising its authority to certify the election and officially name the new president. The obstruction was achieved by creating an unsafe environment in the Capitol so that congressmen had to be evacuated from the chamber to a safe location. They created an unsafe environment by having many, many people breach the security of the building and trespass inside. They didn't have to destroy things (though they did), or fight police officers (though they did), or search for politicians (though they did), or steal official documents (though they did). All they needed to do to create an unsafe situation in which congress would adjourn was to occupy the building, an en masse trespassing. Protesters have done such things before, like the sit-ins in public universities in the 60s to protest the war. But those protests didn't obstruct the exercise of authority of the government. This is the capitol building, the seat of the first co-equal branch of government, and while they were in session. They were obstructed by the criminal activity of protesters.

 

Talked with a client from Colombia the other day. He married an American citizen years ago, and he owned a few businesses here. Right before COVID hit, they left for Spain for a while. They've been there since. He called to tell me he's ready to sell all his US interests and stay in Spain. He said what he saw January 6, the lack of real political response to it, and what he saw from the US over the last 12 months convinced him he didn't want to be here. He said, "I thought the US was something that it's not." So he'll take his money and the jobs he's created somewhere else, where he feels better about raising his daughters.

This is not meant to be a Spain/USA comparison, because I can make those arguments for the US too. It's just to say that the perception of our country was damaged on January 6, and there are real decisions made by real people across the world with regard to investing in the United States...and there are ramifications for that, whether we agree with those decisions or not. In this anecdote, I lost a client and there are people here in Houston who will lose their jobs. I'm sure there are other anecdotes that are similar, though you can minimize them as well. But it mattered, and people need to be held ****ing accountable for it.

 

There are still living veterans of the Spanish Civil War... libs (SMH).

 

That's tough, because people do protest to stop events from happening (or pressure events to happen) but no one goes to a game to stop the other team. A more similar agreement would be to attend the game and cheer on the Rockets to beat the dirty, cheating Jazz. Then the rest happens. I don't see that as meeting the elements of a conspiracy to disrupt the game. So, you would really need an agreement to actually participate in unlawful activity with the goal of disrupting the game to be a conspirator to disrupt the game.

I just don't know how many had either of those goals, if any. I don't know if anyone's intent was to physically prevent the certification of the ballots. I think it is highly unlikely anyone was actually intending to hang Mike Pence. So to me it isn't that they failed in completing their crime, but more that we don't really know what the intended crime was, because they were stopped at the point of just trying to move through the building. Certainly if the sitting Vice President of the United States was hanged on the Capitol steps or the reported election results were somehow magically overturned by a mob storming the Capitol, that would have serious and far reaching effects.

The problem is that has been done before (people delaying the exercise of the authority of government) and never has it been considered a seditious conspiracy, so you would have a big selective prosecution problem. You would also have issues with proving intent for many of the people involved and proving the existence of an agreement for many of the people.

 

JuanValdez has already addressed a lot of the things I was going to bring up but will leave it at that. To address a couple of things though.

True they didn't and there was a 5 hour debate on that and note that charges weren't dropped against him just that he was granted bail.

I wanted to respond to this. I don't know if anyone is OK with Ashli Babbit dying. Saying whether the LEO in question should be criminally charged isn't the same as saying that it's OK that Ashli Babbit was killed. I mean are you OK with Adam Toledo being dying even though you think the shooting was justified?

 

In the months since the attack, Fanone, who suffered a heart attack and a concussion during the riot, said he started to "experience some of the more psychological injuries — PTSD."

The officer said it was "difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals kind of whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened."

"I want people to understand the significance of Jan. 6. I want people to understand that thousands of rioters came to the Capitol hell-bent on violence and destruction and murder," he said.

“I don’t know how you can watch my body-worn camera footage and deny that Jan. 6 was anything other than violent and brutal."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ticians-who-continue-downplay-attack-n1265583

@StupidMoniker

 

I guess what I'm trying to get at is that there were two planning sessions to consider, the first when people chose to congregate on Jan 6 to lawfully protest, and then the second when the protesters talk to each other on the capitol lawn on Jan 6 about occupying the building right before and during actually doing it.

Help me out here because I can think of no other example where US citizens used criminal activity to obstruct high officials from exercising their authority. I can think of people using legal means, like parliamentary tactics. I can think of illegal means by foreign actors. I can think of people blocking the exercise of state power by occupying the statehouses of Michigan and Wisconsin. I can think of how functionaries of federal government were defied, such as fighting the FBI. But, I can't think of an example where someone blocked a President, a Senate or House, or the US Supreme Court from executing their offices with criminal activity and not being so charged.

Also, again, I'd complain you're taking a political conversation and trying to reach political conclusions by looking at the subject only with a judicial lens. If we can't convict, fine, but the interesting question to me is metaphysically are they guilty? (Because if they are guilty in that sense, you should pursue the evidence to prove guilt in the judicial sense.) And, harkening back to where you and I started debating, is this silly guy sitting in Pelosi's office dangerous? I still think he is.

 

As it was a bail hearing (to my understanding), I wouldn't expect charges to be dropped. That isn't even the court that will hear his charges, AFAIK.

Yes. That is what justified means, that the Officer did nothing wrong. Sure, it may be sad in a macro sense that our society produces 13-year-olds dubbed Lil Homicide running around and shooting at cars, but I have no qualms about the outcome of his encounter with the police.

I don't know how much evidence exists of either, but yes, one could be a coconspirator if they agreed to occupy the building before doing it. I don't know off hand if there is a temporal element. If I am in a liquor store with a friend and we are at the cashier and I say, let's rob it, and he says okay and we immediately pull out guns, I think it qualifies, but am not positive.

People have attacked Federal Courthouses and ICE facilities. People used illegal activities to try to prevent the Kavanaugh confirmation (though not violent).

I would say there are different elements. There is a general moral element (should people riot at the Capitol). The obvious answer is that what these people did was wrong. I have said all along it was insane and un-American. There was a zero percent chance that any of the actions these people were taking would result in any of their stated goals being achieved (which is where the insanity, or perhaps stupidity, comes into play). American's vote to determine office holders and litigate issues with the voting process. Then there is a legal element, which is where the idea of what to charge and who is guilty comes in. That must be based on what can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, because that is the ethical mandate of a prosecutor. We cannot charge people based on political or moral considerations, we compare the facts to the law.

 

Insurrectionist arrestation per capita map

 

Shenanigans. They were let in.

 

Lol. Lying libtards

 

Wayward tourists.

 

too long to quote in full but worth reading

"The Justice Department Shouldn’t Open the Pandora’s Box of Seditious Conspiracy":

https://www.lawfareblog.com/justice-department-shouldnt-open-pandoras-box-seditious-conspiracy

summary excerpt:

Seditious conspiracy is the wrong political crime to condemn the leaders of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. A sedition charge could open up a Pandora’s box that would criminalize vast swaths of more mundane activity such as certain forms of radical protest, resisting arrest, prison riots or robbing a federal bank. To avoid this danger while still recognizing the uniquely heinous nature of the Capitol invasion, prosecutors should pursue the narrower and nearly novel political crime of “rebellion or insurrection.” Failing that and as a second best alternative, they should draw up the sedition charges very narrowly.
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more at the link