Times Reveals FBI Role in January 6

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By Julie Kelly

The New York Times often acts as the spin cycle for the Democrats’ dirty laundry. For years, Times reporters have helped get ahead of damning news, especially when it’s related to the Russian collusion hoax, in an attempt to establish the narrative early.
 
A recent example is the Times article downplaying the pending indictment against Michael Sussman, the Clinton campaign lawyer who acted in cahoots with the FBI to seed the collusion tale before the 2016 election. The article was published the day before Sussman pleaded not guilty of lying to the FBI.
 
On Saturday, the Times published a carefully constructed bombshell intended to soften the blow of an explosive scandal in the making: the FBI had at least one informant among the group of Proud Boys who marched on the Capitol on January 6. The informant, according to “confidential documents” furnished to the paper, started working with the FBI in July 2020 and was in close contact with his FBI handler before, during, and after the Capitol protest.
 
“After meeting his fellow Proud Boys at the Washington Monument that morning, the informant described his path to the Capitol grounds where he saw barriers knocked down and Trump supporters streaming into the building, the records show,” reporters Alan Feuer and Adam Goldman (the Times reporter most responsible for priming the ground for news that was unfavorable to the Russia collusion narrative) wrote on September 25. “In a detailed account of his activities contained in the records, the informant, who was part of a group chat of other Proud Boys, described meeting up with scores of men from chapters around the country at 10 a.m. on Jan. 6 at the Washington Monument and eventually marching to the Capitol. He said that when he arrived, throngs of people were already streaming past the first barrier outside the building, which, he later learned, was taken down by one of his Proud Boy acquaintances and a young woman with him.”
 
In other words, one of the informant’s Proud Boy “acquaintances” was removing temporary barriers to allow a crowd to enter the restricted grounds around the building.
 
Sounds legit.
 

 
But there’s more to come, Feuer and Goldman warned. “The F.B.I. also had an additional informant with ties to another Proud Boys chapter that took part in the sacking of the Capitol,” they wrote. In a tweet linking to his article, Feuer admitted other FBI assets “may emerge, further complicating the picture of Proud Boys activity on Jan 6,” he posted.
 
The emergence of numerous FBI informants or undercover agents won’t complicate the “picture” of the Proud Boys participation in January 6. It will, however, complicate the groupthink shared by the media, Democrats, and NeverTrump Republicans that the FBI played no role in organizing or perpetrating the “attack” on the Capitol, suspicions raised by myself and the late Angelo Codevilla here at American Greatness, and Darren Beattie at Revolver News months ago.
 
Even more ridiculous is how the Times attempts to debunk those suspicions: “The new information was revealed at a time when misinformation continues to circulate among far-right commentators and websites accusing the F.B.I. of having used informants or agents to stage the attack on Jan. 6. And the records show that the informant traveled to Washington at his own volition, not at the request of the F.B.I.”
 
Color me crazy, but an informant working with the FBI—and getting paid to do so—didn’t exactly need an invitation from Christopher Wray to get to the scene of a major political event on January 6.
 
Since the summer of 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has used every tool in its extensive and potent arsenal to target Donald Trump. This included the use of confidential informants, FISA warrants, leaks of classified information, and sketchy documents such as the Steele dossier produced by another FBI asset at the time, Christopher Steele.
 



 
As I’ve written for months, the FBI now is turning those weapons against Trump-supporting Americans.
 
The Times’ newest revelation tracks with what happened in the FBI’s orchestrated plot to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer last year. BuzzFeed reported in July that at least a dozen FBI informants helped concoct the plan. “Working in secret, they did more than just passively observe and report on the actions of the suspects,” Ken Bensinger and Jessica Garrison wrote. “Instead, they had a hand in nearly every aspect of the alleged plot, starting with its inception. The extent of their involvement raises questions as to whether there would have even been a conspiracy without them.”
 
Informants worked with the alleged kidnappers for months, using encrypted chats, organizing secret meetings, and instigating criminal behavior. As the trial date looms for the five remaining defendants in the Whitmer case—one conspirator pleaded guilty last month—the role of the FBI is earning more scrutiny. The special agent in charge of the operation was fired after his arrest for assaulting his wife; defense attorneys just asked the judge for a 90-day delay in the trial to investigate possible wrongdoing by other FBI informants and agents in the case.
 
Questions also persist about numerous unindicted co-conspirators in the January 6 “conspiracy” case against 18 alleged members of the Oath Keepers. As Beattie detailed in June, Stewart Rhodes, known as Person One in the Oath Keepers indictments, has not been charged eight months later despite his central role in organizing the so-called “attack” on the Capitol. (Read his work here.)

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Imagine if the FBI had agents among the BLM/ANTIFA gangs laying siege to the federal courthouse in Portland, involved in firing fireworks mortars at police and federal agents or trying to block police into their headquarters in Seattle and attempt to burn them all to death? What would the reaction of the left be?

Of course, there’s no guarantee the FBI WASN’T there.

I would not be the least surprised I they were. Remember Chris Wray was not the least bit concerned about the summer of riots and destruction in 2020.

But, January 06, why it is the worst attack on our country since the civil war.

And those white supremacists and those domestic terrorists pose the single most serious threat to our country.

Remember, they accuse others of what they themselves do. they don’t have the intelligence to come up with new plots; what they themselves have going on always surpasses anything they could make up.

The Government’s Case Against Many Jan. 6 Defendants is in Legal Jeopardy

The obstruction charge on which the government is relying so heavily may, in fact, be unconstitutional as applied to most of the Jan. 6 defendants.

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The government’s case against many, if not most, of the January 6 defendants is in legal peril.

Over 650 people have been criminally charged in connection with the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The main charge against hundreds of these defendants is felony “obstruction” under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2).

That statute provides:

“Whoever corruptly … obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

Most of the other charges against the Jan. 6 defendants involve misdemeanors sounding in trespass, vandalism and disorderly conduct for which the maximum sentence is one year imprisonment, thus making the obstruction charge the most serious by far.

Yet the Biden Department of Justice, in its facts-and-law-be-damned fervor to nail those on the political right to the wall, once again seemed to have overplayed its hand.

The obstruction charge on which the government is relying so heavily may, in fact, be unconstitutional as applied to the Jan. 6 defendants.

Donovan Crowl
To understand why this is so, one need only look to the case of Donovan Crowl. Crowl, who according to papers filed by his attorney is a 50 year-old Marine veteran from Ohio with no prior criminal convictions, attended the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal Rally at The Ellipse in Washington D.C..

Thereafter, Crowl and others made their way to the Capitol. According to the indictment against him, this group aligned in a “stack” formation and marched single file, each “keeping at least one hand on the shoulder of the other in front of them,” up the east side stairs of the Capitol. At approximately 2:40 p.m., says Crowl’s lawyer, Crowl and the others in his “stack” passed through the Capitol doors that were already open and entered the Rotunda.

At 3:05 p.m. – just 20 minutes later – Crowl exited the building. The others in Crowl’s “stack” had either left the Capitol contemporaneously with him or earlier.

Crowl did not destroy property, injure anyone or threaten to do so. He is not accused of possessing any weapons or of stealing documents or other items belonging to members of Congress.
The Charges
Crowl and 16 others eventually were arrested and charged on a singular indictment.

Counts One and Two of the indictment charged all of the defendants with “corruptly obstruct[ing]” the certification of the Electoral Vote in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), and conspiring with others to do so (Crowl also was charged with two misdemeanors – trespass and aiding and abetting the destruction of government property.)

Notably, the Joint Session of Congress on Jan. 6 had been suspended at 2:29 p.m. that day – 11 minutes before Crowl and the others entered the Capitol – and it did not resume until 9:02 p.m. that evening.

Nevertheless, the indictment alleges that the defendants’ entrance into the Capitol and presence there for no more than 20 minutes after Congress had recessed obstructed the Congressional proceeding in violation of §1512(c)(2).

Crowl’s lawyer recently filed a motion to dismiss the obstruction charge. In it, she argued that it was factually impossible for Crowl to have obstructed a Congressional proceeding that was already over at the time Crowl engaged in the conduct charged in the indictment.

But she also raised an important legal argument: that the obstruction statute relied on by the government is unconstitutional as applied to most of the Jan. 6 defendants because it did not put them on notice that a brief trespass into the Capitol while participating in a political rally could subject them to a 20-year prison sentence.

The Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine
The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment provides that “[n]o person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Supreme Court has made clear that this guarantee is violated when the government “tak[es] away someone’s life, liberty, or property under a criminal law so vague that it fails to give ordinary people fair notice of the conduct it punishes, or so standardless that it invites arbitrary enforcement.”

Without such guidelines, explained the high court, a criminal statute would permit “a standardless sweep” that would “allow policemen, prosecutors, and juries to pursue their personal predilections.”

How dangerous that would be in the hands of a vengeful DOJ.

But that’s exactly where we find ourselves. The Biden Administration has used an ambiguously worded criminal statute to crush President Trump’s supporters – and along with them their families and their livelihoods.

U.S. v. Poindexter
Just as Shakespeare said “what’s past is prologue,” insight into the legal issue here can be found by looking back four decades to a case that arose out of the Iran/Contra Affair.

In 1986, President Reagan’s then-National Security Advisor, John Poindexter, sent letters to the chairmen of two House committees falsely stating that the National Security Council staff had not violated federal law by providing military support to the rebel “Contras” then attempting to overthrow the “Sandinista” government of Nicaragua.

Poindexter also arranged a meeting between National Security Council staff member Oliver North and Members of the House Intelligence Committee, at which North denied giving military advice and fund-raising aid to the Contras, when in fact he had.

Thereafter, the Independent Counsel who had been appointed to investigate the Iran/Contra Affair secured a five-count indictment against Poindexter. Two of those counts charged Poindexter with violating 18 U.S.C. § 1505 on the ground that he “corruptly obstructed” Congress by making false and misleading statements to Members of the Congress.

At the time, that obstruction statute provided, in relevant part:

“Whoever corruptly … influences, obstructs, or impedes … the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress shall be fined not more than $ 5,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”

Poindexter was convicted of these and other charges at trial. In his subsequent appeal, Poindexter argued that the inclusion of the word “corruptly” in the obstruction statute rendered it unconstitutionally vague.

The D.C. Circuit agreed, holding that the term “corruptly” was an “almost boundless” term that that was “too vague to provide constitutionally adequate notice that it prohibit[ed] lying to the Congress.”

Given the facial vagueness of the word “corruptly,” the court engaged in a thorough review of both the legislative history of the statute and of judicial interpretations of it to see if either provided a narrower definition of “corruptly” that was “clear[ ] enough to have put a reasonable person on notice” of it.

The D.C. Circuit found that “neither the legislative history nor the prior judicial interpretation of [the statute] supplie[d] the constitutionally required notice that the statute on its face lack[ed].”

It therefore determined that the statute was unconstitutionally vague as applied to Poindexter’s conduct.

The statutory provision that the Poindexter Court found too vague to pass constitutional muster is materially identical to the language in § 1512(c)(2) with which many of the Jan. 6 defendants are charged.

As Crowl’s attorney aptly stated in her motion to dismiss, “nothing in § 1512(c)(2) would have given fair notice to … any person of common intelligence, that if he entered the United States Capitol for a short time, without injuring anyone or damaging any property while associated with others seeking to petition the Congress his conduct would run afoul of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) and subject him to imprisonment for a term of 20 years.”

Legislative History
Nor did the legislative history of the statute or prior court decisions interpreting it put any reasonable person on notice, either.

Congress intended § 1512(c) – which was enacted as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 – to broaden punishment for document destruction. As the Supreme Court explained in Yates v. United States, this was prompted by revelations of Enron’s massive accounting fraud and of the fact that the company’s outside auditor, Arthur Andersen LLP, “had systematically destroyed potentially incriminating documents.”

There is nothing in the legislative history that supports the notion that Congress enacted § 1512(c)(2) to criminalize the disruption of a Congressional proceeding by persons engaged in a political rally.

This conclusion is reinforced when § 1512(c)(2) is read in context with other federal criminal statutes. For instance, 18 U.S.C. § 1505 prohibits using threats or force to “obstruct” a “pending proceeding” before a federal “department or agency” or an “investigation” being conducted by Congress. Had Congress wanted to criminalize protests at the Capitol designed to interfere with all Congressional proceedings, not just investigations, it easily could have expanded § 1505 to say so.

And, 18 U.S.C. § 1507 forbids “picketing or parading” near a federal courthouse with the “intent of “obstructing … the administration of justice.” Had Congress wanted to ban picketing at the Capitol, it could have extended the reach of Section 1507 beyond federal courthouses.

By doing neither of these things, Congress made clear its intention to not criminalize as obstruction brief trespasses into the Capitol as part of a political demonstration.

Prior Court Decisions
Past court rulings also undercut the government’s use of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) against those who participated in the events at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

While that statute prohibits individuals from “corruptly obstructing” official proceedings, courts have interpreted those terms to include making false statements (see here, here, here and here), encouraging others to do so (here and here), falsifying documents, destroying evidence, thwarting a criminal investigation, or intimidating witnesses in a criminal proceeding.

None of these things happened on Jan. 6.

Further, demonstrators often disrupt congressional proceedings. Here are some examples:

The use of § 1512(c)(2) to prosecute demonstrators is novel. Other than the Jan. 6 cases, no reported cases prosecuted under § 1512(c)(2) since its passage in 2002 have involved a claim that demonstrations that disrupted an official proceeding committed an obstruction offense under § 1512(c)(2).

Recall that hundreds of protestors “broke through Capitol Police barricades” before “storming” the Capitol Building during the Justice Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. Despite the fact that Congress was disrupted when the protestors invaded the Capitol Building in the middle of the Justice’s confirmation hearings, these arrestees were not charged with 20-year obstruction offenses under § 1512(c)(2), but with misdemeanors under D.C. Code §22-1307.

Conclusion
In the Jan. 6 cases, the Biden Administration and its media allies have persisted in pushing a calumny that the defendants all participated in an organized conspiracy of bloodthirsty insurrectionists whose purpose was to overthrow the government and savage any elected official who approved of electoral votes for Joe Biden.

As I explained here, the DOJ – with the willing cooperation of pusillanimous judges – threw many Jan. 6 defendants into indefinite solitary confinement in federal lockups. This glaringly unconstitutional deprivation of liberty didn’t trouble the left in the least.

Nor did the ACLU crowd utter a peep about how such pressure tactics were designed to force guilty pleas.

Did the left, which stridently believes in emptying prisons of violent felons, speak out when a federal judge threw the book at a demonstrator without a criminal history who had committed no violence or property damage, but had simply taken a selfie and prayed during the 15 minutes he was inside the Capitol? Nope.

As more facts surrounding the events of Jan. 6 have come to light, it has become more apparent that the government’s case is built on shifting sand.

As I detailed here, the government admitted that its claim that rioters breached the barricades and entered the area around the Capitol was false.

Equally untrue was the government’s assertion that U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by violent seditionists – a canard that I wrote about here.

And, in the most recent blow to the government’s conspiracy claims, it was revealed that an FBI informant embedded within a group of Proud Boys who were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 provided the agency with real-time knowledge of what was taking place, including that the group had no plans to attack the Capitol.

To be sure, some of those who participated in the demonstration at the Capitol acted violently toward law enforcement, and they should be held criminally responsible for their actions.

But relatively few demonstrators behaved this way. According to the DOJ, of the 654 people who were arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, only 55 people – a paltry 8 percent – were charged with using a weapon or causing injury to an officer.

The vast majority of people who participated in the events of Jan. 6 simply walked into the Capitol and spent about 15 minutes there posing for selfies and posting pictures on social media.

Yet just as the government has flexed the facts to fit its narrative, it’s now also trying mightily to bend the law. The fact of the matter is that there is no reasonable and readily apparent interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) that would have put any of the Jan. 6 defendants on notice that their attendance at the demonstration at the Capitol that day – a protected activity under the First Amendment – or their mere presence inside the Capitol as part of that protest, constituted a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

It’s not just the Jan. 6 defendants who will suffer from the DOJ’s Machiavellian predation on our justice system – it is all of us, regardless of political affinity.

Nearly 150 years ago, in United States v. Reese, the Supreme Court presciently stated:

“It would certainly be dangerous if the legislature could set a net large enough to catch all possible offenders, and leave it to the courts to step inside and say who could be rightfully detained, and who should be set at large.”

Biden’s DOJ found just such a net in 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2).

And soon, when the court rules on Donovan Crowl’s motion to dismiss, we’ll find out whether the judiciary has accepted the invitation to step inside.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/09/the-governments-case-against-many-jan-6-defendants-is-in-legal-jeopardy/#comments

MUST-READ EXCLUSIVE! Family of Rosanne Boyland Who was KILLED on January 6th Is DENIED HER FULL AUTOPSY REPORT – Speak Out for First Time and Plead for Government Investigation — PLEASE HELP THE BOYLAND FAMILY HERE!

Thanks to our investigative reporting, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) grilled attorney general Merrick Garland about Boyland’s death and the video we exposed that shows her being beaten and possibly killed by a DC Police Officer on Capitol Steps. Gohmert asked Attorney General Merrick Garland if a determination was ever made to the DC Metro Police Officer who struck Rosanne Boyland repeatedly in the head with a rod before she died. Garland then proceeded to lie to the nation in front of the House Judiciary Committee and say “he believed there was an investigation.” That is false. The Boyland family has since contacted the Department Justice and were told there was no such investigation.

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DC Metro Police Officer Lila Morris, the police woman seen beating Boyland brutally with a stick & possibly killing her on Jan 6th. The DC Police & DOJ have refused to investigate the matter. We exclusively investigated & reported this officer’s identity.

November 22, 2021 – New January 6 committee subpoenas issued for 5 Trump allies including Roger Stone and Alex Jones

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/22/politics/roger-stone-alex-jones-subpoenas-january-6/index.html

What January 6 committee is investigating is nothing less than a conspiracy to overthrow the nation’s democratic election process to illegitimately keep a man in power who should have been convicted in the Senate twice. It was no less dangerous for being a conspiracy of clowns.

Idiot Biden’s economy tanks, Democrats call for more investigations to divert attention.

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The economy tanked in the 2nd quarter of 2020.

It’s unfortunate that the level of right-wing hysteria can’t be numerically quantified and charted on a graph. It would be interesting.

Oh, you mean when it was SHUT DOWN due to idiot Biden’s business partner’s virus? Wow, who would have thought closing businesses and stopping the economy would have a negative impact? What did the economy do in the third quarter of 2020 when it was reopened?

33% growth. The economy was healthy but dormant. Idiot Biden has destroyed it. And, even with vaccines and far more information about the CCP virus than Trump had available, more have died under idiot Biden.

When you have to stretch that far into conspiracy theory and speculation to criticize Joe Biden, you’ve stretched beyond the reach of reason.

It takes an equally grand stretch to cover over all of the many indications that Trump is a fraud. Even ignoring what he’s done to the country—and the current extremity of our national division IS largely his doing—there would STILL be the matter of bank fraud, loan fraud, and tax fraud, all which are actually serious statutory crimes.

Here’s a tip, for what it’s worth: If a man fights mightily to keep hidden the evidence that he claims would prove his innocence, you should say, “Ah, good.” THEN you should insist on having a close look at it. Because if you don’t do that, anyone who can look you in the eye, lie to you, and tell you whatever you want to hear, can play you for a fool.

It’s not a stretch. It’s not a theory. Democrats divide, Democrats incite violence, Democrats are corrupt. You’ve had the entire force of the federal government looking for any crimes committed by Trump and never found anything. Yet idiot Biden’s corruption is overt.

Trump couldn’t be indicted or even fully investigated while he was in office. He got away with openly locking down evidence and blocking testimony. He’s still trying to do so, but it’s not going to work.

When you tell lenders and insurers the value of your property is 30 times greater than what you say it is for tax purposes, you’re either committing bank fraud, insurance fraud, tax fraud. And that’s only a part of his problems.

When you have to lie in order to sustain your beliefs in your own head (you simply look stupid to those who know the facts) you KNOW you are lying.

Trump was spied on and investigated for 5 years; before he was President and even when he had announced his candidacy. He provided Mueller with MILLIONS of documents, everything he was asked for. Except for legitimate cases of executive privilege, a privilege every President enjoys, everyone asked to testify did so.

You are simply lying.

@Greggie, When you tell lenders and insurers the value of your property is 30 times greater than what you say it is for tax purposes, you’re either committing bank fraud, insurance fraud, tax fraud. And that’s only a part of his problems.

You know what an tax assessor is? I dont get to say how much my properties are worth no one does.
There is a little thing called the internet that will provide estimated value of properties, banks use it for loans refis ect…You live in a fantasy world where feelings are reality or what the current party line pukes out on your television.
Let me use the logic you so love to try ,Schroeder is the longest-serving active-circuit judge in Wisconsin. He was appointed as a Kenosha County Circuit Court judge in 1983 by Democratic Gov. Anthony Earl. He was subsequently elected for a full term a year later and was most recently re-elected last year. Yup he has to be honest and fair …right?

Perhaps the FBI should look elsewhere for domestic terrorists, like Democrat run criminal havens, not at school board meetings.

“There is a little thing called the internet that will provide estimated value of properties, banks use it for loans refis ect…” Yeah, but you are the only person that knows that, right? I mean, people that loan money all day don’t know they can go to the tax rolls and see what the city or state assesses the value of the property to be; most people believe you just tell the lender how much you are worth and they just nod and say, “Uhhhh, welllllll, OK then. Here’s your money!”

Cmon, man… you know you can’t include too many factual details when you are inventing false accusations.

Since your such a fan of both charts and CNN, perhaps you would like to tell us all how well China Biden is doing on the CNN chart?

When a Democrat is underwater on the one outlet that pimps 24/7 for the DNC, me thinks the DNC should be gearing up for a historical ass kicking in November 2022.

They are, preparing more fraud, their only avenue to victory.