Free Republic

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — They railed against politicians, conducted military-style exercises and spoke darkly of confronting tyrants scheming to seize their guns and enslave them. Yet historian JoEllen Vinyard says the “citizen militia” activists she got to know in the 1990s didn’t seem like the types who would abduct a governor or stage a coup. “I don’t think they were dangerous,” said Vinyard, an Eastern Michigan University professor emeritus and author of a book about far-right movements in the state. “They reminded me of the good old boys I knew growing up in Nebraska.” But as four men charged...

WASHINGTON — A Florida man who bragged he "broke the internet" when he was photographed carrying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's podium during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 75 days in prison on Friday. Adam Johnson, a stay-at-home father of five boys, traveled to D.C. in support of former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to President Joe Biden. U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton sentenced Johnson to prison on Friday, saying Johnson made "a mockery" of the events by grabbing Pelosi's lectern and...

Mariposa Castro, also known as Imelda Acosta, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton. She also received a $5,000 fine from the judge, who said the January 6 attack had "totally undermined" the peaceful transfer of presidential power, NBC News reported. Throughout the day, Castro posted videos on her Facebook account showing the riot from inside the building and outside on restricted grounds. One video shows her climbing through a broken window, using the platform located at the lower west terrace of the Capitol, according to court records. As she was entering the Capitol, she could be heard...

FBI @FBI Fair elections are the foundation of U.S. democracy. Foreign influence in our elections won’t be tolerated, and the #FBI will continue to work with local government and private sector partners to disrupt and expose any attempts to erode confidence in the U.S. electoral system. 4:00 AM · Feb 21, 2022·Hootsuite Inc.

SummaryThe U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia is investigating and prosecuting individuals involved in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Currently, over 700 individuals located throughout the nation have been charged with a multitude of criminal offenses arising from the attack. The Capitol Siege Section in the Criminal Division of the Office is responsible for the investigation and prosecution of these matters in U.S. District Court.

On Friday, Federal District Judge Amita Mehta ruled that a civil suit alleging a conspiracy to foment the Jan. 6 insurrection could proceed. In an extremely thorough and detailed 112-page ruling, Mehta concluded that the plaintiffs had made a “plausible” case that former President Trump himself was at the center of a conspiracy to stop the peaceful transfer of power. While plausibility is not the same as proven, Mehta’s ruling is the first time such a finding has been made in an official proceeding.

Former President Donald Trump lost a bid Friday to toss lawsuits holding him responsible for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Federal Judge Amit Mehta rejected Trump’s attempt to dismiss the civil cases with a claim that he has absolute immunity because he was in office at the time. “To deny a President immunity from civil damages is no small step,” Mehta wrote in a 112-page ruling. “The court well understands the gravity of its decision. But the alleged facts of this case are without precedent, and the court believes that its decision is consistent with...

Gov. Charlie Baker along with other moderate Republicans are blasting the leaders of their own party after a vote by the Republican National Committee declared the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, “legitimate political discourse.” “The Governor commends anyone who is willing to step forward and tell the truth, and disagrees with this vote. He has been clear that the January 6th riot was a violent insurrection and a sad day for democracy, ”Baker said through adviser Jim Conroy.

Just as the investigation into the “terror attack” of January 6 was in full swing in the autumn of 2021, court proceedings in the alleged 2020 plot to kidnap of Governor Gretchen Whitmer began in Michigan. When 13 men allegedly tied to militia groups were arrested on October 7 of this year on federal and state charges for planning to kidnap Whitmer from her Michigan vacation cottage, Team Biden and Whitmer herself made the most of the timely political gift. “There is a through line from President Trump’s dog whistles and tolerance of hate, vengeance, and lawlessness to plots such...

WASHINGTON — A man featured on the FBI's website — wanted for assaulting police at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack — died months ago. Now the bureau has to figure out what to do about those photos. In the year since the Jan. 6 investigation began, the FBI has posted images of more than 500 individuals on its U.S. Capitol Violence webpage. More than 350 of those included on the page still haven't been arrested, including dozens who have been successfully identified by online sleuths. The website typically labels those who have been locked up as arrested. But...

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Friday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that former President Donald Trump owed his testimony to the House Select Committee investigating the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Raskin said, “Well, first of all, the public record as you’ve just shown it with the tweets, with his statements makes very clear what Donald Trump was up to. The whole name of the game was to put coercive pressure on Pence to ‘do the right thing’ by which Trump meant step outside of his constitutional role and declare unilateral unconstitutional powers to reject the electoral...

Capitol police, acting as the Stasi of the Democratic Party, will collect dirt on Republicans under the pretense of national security then leak gossipy details to an always-compliant news media. When most Americans hear the term “Capitol Police,” they likely conjure visions of uniformed officers manning metal detectors at the numerous congressional buildings or helping tourists navigate the sprawling Capitol grounds: a D.C. version of a mall cop. That imagery, however, is in stark contrast to reality as Democrats have weaponized yet another federal agency to target their political enemies on the Right. After January 6, 2021, Capitol Police officials...

Ray Epps, the “mystery man” who is implicated in the very launch of the Capitol riots, has denied being an FBI informant or agent before the partisan House committee on January 6. As far as the mainstream media is concerned, they would just as soon wash their hands of the matter. “Case closed,” they say. “Time to move on. Nothing to see here!” But for unknown reasons, Ray Epps is a free man. He is not only walking free while MAGA grandmas sit languishing in jail, awaiting trial on relatively minor charges, but he has inexplicably found defenders in the...

Gizmodo reported on the leaks. A hostile offshoot of the defunct neo-Nazi group Vanguard America, Patriot Front formed in late August 2017 less than three weeks after the white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. (James Alex Fields Jr., who was convicted in December 2018 of killing 32-year-old anti-racist protester Heather Heyer at the rally, was seen there holding a shield emblazoned with the VA logo. VA later denied he was a member.) The split from VA followed months of infighting between Thomas Rousseau, the Front’s founder, and VA leader Dillon Irizarry, who was seen accusing Rousseau in...

(The Center Square) – A defense attorney for one of the five men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer asked in a new filing that the court require the government to obtain orders of use immunity of the FBI agents and confidential human sources. Scott Graham, the attorney for alleged extremist Kaleb Franks, wrote that the “illegal and unethical” use of confidential informants complicates the case. The request follows three lead sting FBI agents who won’t be testifying in the March 8 trial in Grand Rapids. Former lead FBI agent Richard Trask was arrested on a domestic violence...

Video shows female Trump supporter's desperate pleas to prevent rioters from breaking windows: "Stop! No! Don’t! Wait!" Ashli Babbitt desperately tried to prevent rioters from vandalizing the doors leading to the Speaker’s Lobby at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, even stepping between one troublemaker and police officers guarding the doors, a video analysis shows. Frame-by-frame video evidence analyzed by The Epoch Times paints a vastly different picture of Babbitt’s actions than that portrayed in media accounts over the past year. News media regularly painted Babbitt as “violent,” a “rioter,” or an “insurrectionist” who was angrily trying to breach...

I can't remember where I saw the report and I want to show it to someone.

The seditious conspiracy charges brought by the Justice Department on Thursday against the leader of the Oath Keepers and other members of the right-wing group signal the government is prepared to take on an ambitious fight to show that they joined the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as part of a coordinated effort to deny President Biden the White House. The indictment contains the first sedition charges that have been brought following the riot and mark a significant escalation in prosecutors’ efforts by drawing a connection between the physical acts of mayhem that day and the broader effort by former President...

Rep. Ruben Gallego isn’t mincing words about Jan. 6, 2021, rioters at the Capitol, saying in a new “Daily Show” interview: “F--- them.” “When it comes to insurrectionists? F--- them. I don’t give a f---,” the Arizona Democrat said in a clip airing Thursday on the Comedy Central show. Gallego’s comments were featured as part of a segment of “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse” on the anniversary of the deadly riot at the Capitol, when a mob of supporters of then-President Trump stormed the building as Congress met to certify President Biden’s Electoral College win. “Look, I was scared for...

Is Ray Epps the key to uncovering a deep state conspiracy that many of us have suspected for years? With what we have witnessed with Midyear Exam, Crossfire Hurricane, the Whitmer Kidnapping, the 2020 election, and now the January 6 “insurrection,” it has become obvious that our government is not that of a healthy functioning democratic republic. But the depths of the corruption, and how far bad actors are willing to go in corrupting our society, has largely remained hidden. But there are encouraging signs. When a doctor examines a patient, he will often use palpation. He uses his hands...