One of the January 6th insurrectionists was sentenced to 10 years in prison today. From NBC News:
WASHINGTON — A retired New York City Police Department officer who was convicted of several felonies for attacking a D.C. cop with a flag pole on Jan. 6 and then tackling the officer to the ground and attempting to rip off his gas mask was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on Thursday. Thomas Webster was sentenced by Judge Amit P. Mehta to the longest sentence yet in a Jan. 6 case.
The violent cultist’s cult leader said this today: [WaPo]
Former president Donald Trump said he would issue full pardons and a government apology to rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and violently attacked law enforcement to stop the democratic transfer of power.
“I mean full pardons with an apology to many,” he told conservative radio host Wendy Bell on Thursday morning. Such a move would be contingent on Trump running and winning the 2024 presidential election.
Do you reckon President Biden’s speechwriters are editing the draft of the speech on saving democracy right now? Good lord, these people are nuts.
Open thread.
zhena gogolia
And I’m seeing disturbing stuff about the Special Master crap, but not being a lawyer, I don’t know if it’s Chicken Little or not. We need OO.
Benw
Orange you glad you stormed the Capitol?
Baud
CaseyL
A squirrel has come into my house. She is sure I have a cache of hazelnuts I’m not sharing (she’s right).
She’s been hanging out on the back deck (where regular readers may remember I have a container garden – though nothing that would interest a squirrel). She comes in, looks for nuts, and runs back onto the deck again. I put a big bowl of water out for her, plus a few hazelnuts, because I am the World’s Biggest Sucker for animals.
I have also laid out a line of hazelnuts stretching from the back deck, across the living room, and to the front door which is propped open.
To my utter amazement, neither of my cats is the slightest bit interested.
Baud
A little surprised he didn’t say he secretly pardoned them all on the way out the door.
germy shoemangler
Surely a president deSantis would issue the same pardons.
zhena gogolia
@germy shoemangler: Not so sure about that. they’re TFG’s peeps.
Doc Sardonic
@zhena gogolia: She is going to rule for Trump. That was baked in when he filed. Although I am not a lawyer, judges generally do not telegraph their rulings in advance like she did, then reinforce that telegraphing during the hearing then do a 180. She has deferred to have a chance to do a late night or weekend ruling drop to in her mind maybe slip it under the radar.
Baud
@Doc Sardonic: It’ll be appealed if she does.
Old School
It’s about time he apologizes to the rioters for leaving them hanging. He should have marched with them!
TaMara
@zhena gogolia: Bradley Moss is my go-to on this stuff –
Ken
@CaseyL: @germy shoemangler: @zhena gogolia: If you reward bad behavior, you risk making it habitual.
EDIT: I originally wrote that in response to CaseyL feeding the squirrel, but it works for pardoning insurrectionists too.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@zhena gogolia: I hope someone who understands what happened in that hearing will explain it, because I can’t tell if it’s bad or very bad.
Scout211
On CNN
It looks like the long sentence was partially because of this, from the judge.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
Hillary had me cackling earlier with this (click for the pic!)
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
(And it appears I’m stuck in spam again. WP does not like me.)
Barbara
@TaMara: I am assuming they will be reviewing those documents 24/7 unless and until she tells them to stop. The idea that they could not even review them to determine or mitigate damage to national security interests is just obscene. These are — most of them — clearly government records.
prostratedragon
@Baud: Rabbit, rabbit!
[I have always found 2 rabbits, to be efficacious, but some insist on “rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.”]
SiubhanDuinne
Somewhere, a turd is looking for its squirrel.
Parfigliano
Have fun in prison
CaseyL
@Ken:
Oscar (one of my cats) has now gone out onto the deck. The squirrel will probably vanish over the railing. At least I hope so, rather than a panicked run into the house and upstairs.
Hoo boy.
Regarding the special master: I have no faith in the judge. She took the motion away from the only court officially able to hear it, said at the outset she was inclined to appoint a Special Master, and seems completely ignorant of (or has decided to ignore) the applicable law.
Saying now that the FBI can’t review the documents once she rules (thus also signalling that she will grant Trump’s request) is insane.
The Federalist Society is focused on destroying the American government, so Judge Cannon’s behavior is fully in keeping with her training, and is the reason she was put on the bench.
Scout211
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Here is a short update from CNN in their breaking news updates
lollipopguild
@Baud: Double Secret Pardons(TM)
JPL
@TaMara: Smart! I did read that she doesn’t want to be overturned so might be trying to thread the needle.
Omnes Omnibus
@TaMara: FWIW I agree with Moss. That being said, Judge Cannon’s remarks are not encouraging.
Scout211
Lindsey with a partial win.
Seems like a big one, though.
Cameron
@CaseyL: So next time the squirrel comes back with a subpoena?
TaMara
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛: Freed you again. I let WG know earlier, so they’re on it.
JPL
@Omnes Omnibus: If the documents can be unsealed, I assume we will see something that trump won’t like.
TaMara
I just found out I’m going to be in Boston the same time as the Obama portraits. Gonna see if I can fit it into my schedule.
https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/the-obama-portraits-tour
Craig
@CaseyL: A pal of mine in Vancouver BC has a couple of squirrels that come into his house. He started hand feeding them a couple of years ago. He said they always come alone, and it’s a couple of times a week, not greedy. Even Canadian squirrels are polite.
TaMara
@JPL: I’ve gotten the sense, only paying a bit of attention, that she is trying not to piss off them that brung her, but ultimately won’t do something stupid that will quickly be overturned. She talks like she’s going to favor them, but will ultimately rule with the DOJ with maybe a little bone to drumpers
Scout211
California just passed a “massive climate and clean energy package.”
Chief Oshkosh
Judge Lucy Cannon, seated after Trump lost the election. How is it even allowable that this come before her?
Omnes Omnibus
@TaMara: We could all live with that.
Chief Oshkosh
@TaMara: I sure hope you’re right. However, I don’t think any of the Trump appointed Fed Soc judges really give a rats ass about being overturned. First, they’re not long-term thinkers. Second, there’s a very good chance that ultimate appeal to USSC (majority Fed Soc) will result in confirmation of her ruling, and third, given that she and the rest of her ilk have shown that politics trumps all, what does she really care? She’s got a lifetime appointment and gets the same paycheck whether she calls balls, strikes, or fouls.
p.a.
Who gets the potential appeal, and how many tRumpists are on that court?
Keith P.
I still don’t get this. The only privilege that would apply to a FPOTUS vs the POTUS would be (personal) attorney-client, and by definition, all those documents with the big red or yellow borders saying ‘(TOP) SECRET/SCI’ wouldn’t fall under that privilege.
SiubhanDuinne
@Alison Rose 💙🌻💛:
I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. Great photo! (And Hillary is so, so good at this.)
germy shoemangler
germy shoemangler
Kushner wrote a bestseller!
Baud
@Keith P.: DOJ had a filter team, so there must be some potential privilege issue.
Keith P.
@Baud: Probably a language filter team consisting of a guy with a swear jar for every time an agent reviewing the evidence says “JESUS FUCK-ING CHRIST!” or “WHAT…THE…FUCK!?!?!” or “HOLYSHITWHATISTHISGUYUPTO?!??!?!”
CaseyL
@Chief Oshkosh: It isn’t. Special Master requests are ONLY supposed to be heard in the DC Circuit Court: that’s the law.
But Trump is lawless, and apparently so is the judge.
And with Federalist Society judges seeded throughout the Federal judiciary, there is no recourse.
PS: I don’t understand why the DoJ didn’t challenge that, the instant Trump filed in Cannon’s court.
Scout211
@Keith P.: IANAL but Trump’s lawyers keep writing “privilege” with no distinction between executive and attorney-client. I don’t think it’s a mistake, though. They seem to have a plan with that wording. For the judge? For the MAGA followers out there? Who?
What I have read of the DOJ filing, they make very clear the distinction between the two types. And are very clear why Trump is not entitled to executive privilege.
HumboldtBlue
@Scout211:
It’s rather nice living in a blue supermajority.
Captain C
@Baud: Unless it’s another Trump hack judge, I’d expect, or at least hope for, something along the lines of “You’re a joke as a judge and this order is gibberish and wrong and therefore squashed with extreme prejudice. Resign, go back to law school, or just do the Honorable Thing”, but in exquisite legalese.
ETA: At least from my IANAL POV.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: Where do you get that about special masters and the DC Circuit from?
Urza
Ok, maybe its cause i’m not employed by the FBI. Nor have any legal training. But unless those documents were WAAAY thicker than the picture, how is it 1 person couldn’t finish reading all of them within a day? Like this whole appointing a special master to protect privileged anything seems stupid because anyone that reads faster than TFG, so the whole planet, would have already finished doing at least a cursory read of everything and seen anything privileged. Now, maybe they need to do deeper investigations, fingerprinting, trying to tie each doc to actions he took which could take some time. But the reading itself to see whats there had damn well better be done by now and that means anything they wanted hidden isn’t at this point and who’s fault is that other than the guy who mixed in all his private crap with the TS documents.
Chief Oshkosh
@CaseyL:
Seems like DOJ ought to do that, then. Does the opportunity disappear within days? And who would that challenge it to? The Lucy Cannon herself? Or some other judge?
CaseyL
@Omnes Omnibus: It is, I believe, in the DoJ’s brief. Let me try to find a source.
Geminid
So trump promises to pardon all the January 6 criminals on the same day a judge sentences the guy whom pictures show trying to gouge a cop’s eyes out that day. A stable genius indeed!
HumboldtBlue
George Clooney has released a new PSA, and it’s a good one.
Baud
@Geminid: maybe next hell promise to personally cage pregnant women as if they were unaccompanied minors.
Baud
@HumboldtBlue:
3 years ago.
CaseyL
@Omnes Omnibus:
@CaseyL:
Dammit. Can’t find it in the brief, but I KNOW I saw it in a legal fiing somewhere.
JanieM
@CaseyL: In the amicus brief?
Betsy
@CaseyL: The squirrel is sure that you have a cache of hazelnuts that you could share in an intentional way in order to get the squirrel to come into your house.
Could she be right?!
WaterGirl
Now a rotating tag near you.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: To the best of my knowledge that is not true. Also, if it was why would the DOJ not have addressed it in the 36 page brief? They forgot? Come on.
Omnes Omnibus
@JanieM: Okay, that is an argument that this is the wrong jurisdiction not that only the DC Circuit can appoint special masters.
CaseyL
@JanieM:
@Omnes Omnibus:
It was in the Amicus Brief, as JanieM notes. Not the DOJs.
Omnes Omnibus
@CaseyL: See my response to her.
eversor
@Urza:
You find a person thats cleared, cleared for those compartments, read into/has a need to know the stuff in there, and in the case of the ORCON stuff they have to check with the originator that they can.
I don’t think the FBI is going to break the rules on this. However this is enough of an “oh shit” moment I’m sure all the various agencies and parties involved are willing to work as rapidly as possible to get people there and the FBI to actually figure out what in the fuck happened. Cause this looks to be the property of and generated by multiple agencies and I’m sure everyone wants to know what Trump stole from them.
Martin
@Scout211: I’m a bit more encouraged about this bill than I am about the Inflation Reduction Act. Seeing more money for mass transit than for EVs is moving in the right direction. The EV money is a boondoggle. We’ll regret not spending it on other stuff.
Scout211
@JanieM: They are likely referring to this in the Presidential Records Act.
Geminid
@Martin: At least there was a lot of money for mass transit in the Infrastructure bill. Ten billion dollars for New York City’s MTA alone. Plus $60 billion for AMTRAK, more than total investment since its founding
We need to do more but this was a good start.
CaseyL
Squirrel update, if anyone’s interested: She is finally out of the house. I put some hazelnuts just outside the front door and she went for them. I quickly closed the door when I saw her on the front porch.
I was getting very worried, because I can tell she’s a nursing mother, and wherever her kids are stashed, it ain’t on my back deck!
Mike in NC
Ten years. Enjoy prison, asshole!
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
I hear inmates treat cops really well in prison
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
He fucked around and found out.
HinTN
@Scout211: That’s a big LOSS for Lindsey. He had to answer questions under oath about statements he’d much rather forget.
Gravenstone
There is an upper limit to the rodent size engagement threshold. At least for the less motivated felines.
Bonnie
Those people are not only nuts; but, they are very poor losers!
persistentillusion
@prostratedragon: 3 rabbits, over-achiever! Two is sufficient to taking all the luck in the month, newbie!
Ruckus
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
He’s likely going to have to serve it in solitary if he wants to have a decent chance at getting out. Wonder if the prison will let him?
James E Powell
@Keith P.:
Those of us of a certain age recall “expletive deleted.”