Tag: Proud Boys

Commentary: Is SCOTUS Poised to Overturn Key J6 Felony Count?

Julie Kelly

An order published by the Supreme Court on December 13 represented a moment hundreds of January 6 defendants and their loved ones had been waiting for: the highest court granted a writ of certiorari petition in the case of Fischer v. USA.

In a nutshell, after more than two years of litigation before federal judges in Washington, SCOTUS will review the Department of Justice’s use of 1512(c)(2), obstruction of an official proceeding, in January 6 cases. A “splintered” 2-1 appellate court ruling issued in April just barely endorsed the DOJ’s unprecedented interpretation of the statute, passed in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the aftermath of the Enron/Arthur Anderson accounting scandal.

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Commentary: January 6 Supporters Set Their Focus on Trump

Michigan Star Staff

In 2002, David Frum, chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, coined the phrase “axis of evil” to describe the despotic regimes of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq during the nascent stages of the global war on terror.

Today, Frum is warning the country about a different axis of evil that he believes similarly threatens the security of America and perhaps even the world: Donald Trump, the Oath Keepers, and the Proud Boys.

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Commentary: Outcome of Proud Boys Trial Could Decide Trump’s Fate

Michigan Star Staff

Of the hundreds of video clips used as evidence in the marathon trial of five members of the Proud Boys, prosecutors began closing arguments not with a clip of the defendants engaged in criminal activity but with a clip of Donald Trump.

The government showed the jury a portion of the September 2020 presidential debate; goaded by Joe Biden and then-Fox News host Chris Wallace to condemn “white supremacists and militia groups” in an effort to downplay Black Lives Matter and Antifa violence, Trump asked them to “give me a name.” Biden quickly answered, “the Proud Boys.”

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DOJ Attorneys Improperly Introduced Evidence in Landmark January 6 Trial, Lawyer Says

Michigan Star Staff

Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers improperly brought forward new pieces of footage as evidence during a Jan. 6 defendant’s cross-examination at trial, without giving the defense enough time to review them, the defendant’s attorney alleged Thursday.

Zachary Rehl testified between April 11 and Tuesday in his ongoing trial with other former Proud Boys members for allegedly conspiring to oppose the January 2021 transfer of presidential power, along with related charges. Minutes before cross-examining Rehl Monday, the government revealed two U.S. Capitol CCTV videos, a body camera clip and an open source video, using the last one to question Rehl without immediately admitting they received it recently from a yet-unidentified source, Rehl’s attorney Carmen Hernandez said in a Thursday court filing.

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Commentary: Informants Everywhere

Admin

After nine weeks of testimony from multiple government witnesses, including FBI agents, the Justice Department finally concluded its case-in-chief in the Proud Boys’ seditious conspiracy trial on Monday.

Five Proud Boys, including the group’s leader, Enrique Tarrio, are accused of conspiring to “oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force” on January 6, 2021. It is Attorney General Merrick Garland’s most consequential case related to January 6; convictions will help build a similar case against Donald Trump largely based on his infamous “stand back and stand by” remark to the Proud Boys during an October 2020 presidential debate.

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Commentary: Feds Had Informants in Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for January 6

Michigan Star Staff

If Republicans eke out a win in the House of Representatives—which now seems likely—GOP leaders have promised to investigate numerous government scandals, including the irredeemably corrupt Federal Bureau of Investigation. One path of inquiry is how the bureau manufactures data to promote the phony narrative that “domestic violent extremists,” i.e., supporters of Donald Trump, pose a security threat to the country.

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FBI Had Up to Eight Informants in Proud Boys on January 6, Court Docs Show

Michigan Star Staff

The FBI had up to eight informants within the Proud Boys in the months surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, recent court filings suggest, according to The New York Times.

Defense attorneys for former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four members of the group, who are scheduled to stand trial in December for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to Jan. 6, filed court documents in the past several days revealing the informants’ presence in the Proud Boys’ ranks, the outlet reported. The defense contended that the prosecution had, until recently, improperly withheld some information the government received from the informants that was favorable to the accused.

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Julie Kelly Commentary: It’s Inevitable, Trump Will Be Indicted

Michigan Star Staff

A few days after federal agents stormed Donald Trump’s castle in Palm Beach last week, Judge Beryl Howell berated a man from Georgia for his involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021.

“Listening without question to political rhetoric that leads to serious offenses, criminal conduct, is not an excuse when you’re standing in a court of law,” Howell told Glen Simon, a Trump supporter who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct on restricted grounds. “You’ve got to use your common sense and your own sense of who you are and how you’d like to conduct yourself as an American citizen before just blindly doing what a political figure says.”

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Commentary: Justice Department Colludes with Congress to Bolster the ‘Insurrection’ Narrative

Michigan Star Staff

This week produced yet another example of the shameless collaboration between the U.S. Department of Justice, the Democratic Party, and the national news media to destroy Donald Trump and everyone around him. The ink was barely dry on the not guilty verdict for Michael Sussmann, just one of many figures who acted as a pass-through between Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the FBI to manufacture the Russia collusion hoax, before the same players were up to their old tricks.

Members of the January 6 select committee blanketed the Sunday news programs last weekend promising bombshell revelations would shake the nation during a primetime hearing Thursday night. Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told CBS News’ Robert Costa the committee would present findings to show an “extremely broad . . . extremely well-organized” conspiracy to overthrow the government that day. What the committee uncovered related to the alleged conspiracy, Cheney warned, is “really chilling.’

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Probe Claims Seattle Police Officers Faked Right-Wing Protests on Police Radio During 2020 Riots

Michigan Star Staff

On Wednesday, an internal probe claimed that members of the Seattle Police Department (SPD) deliberately faked police radio transmissions that indicated a right-wing protest was about to occur in June of 2020.

According to The Hill, the Office of Police Accountability (OPA) concluded after its review that a “misinformation effort” was “approved, ordered, and led” by a high-ranking officer in the SPD. The radio chatter in question appeared to describe a gathering of the Proud Boys, a patriotic and conservative organization, that was heading towards the Capitol Hill region of the city, where a riot was taking place on June 8th.

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Commentary: In Search of the Neon-Hatted ‘Proud Boys’

Michigan Star Staff

A steady drip of information continues to reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation played a much larger—perhaps central—role before and during the Capitol protest than initially believed. And unanswered questions as to why certain co-conspirators or alleged instigators have not yet been charged while others who played a far lesser role face serious charges are fueling mounting suspicions that January 6 was an inside job rather than an “insurrection” incited by President Donald Trump.

After months of speculation about the use of FBI assets, first raised by Darren Beattie at Revolver News, the New York Times confirmed in September that at least two informants embedded with the Proud Boys were in close contact with their FBI handlers that day.

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Commentary: January 6 and the FBI’s ‘Operation Cold Snap’

Michigan Star Staff
Close up of Capitol with Trump and America flag in the wind

The tony, bucolic town of Dublin, Ohio would be one of the last places in America expected to host a convention of white supremacist militiamen. Nestled along the Scioto River, the Columbus suburb’s biggest claim to fame is hosting the PGA’s annual Memorial Golf tournament every summer.

But in June 2020, days after the nation was roiled by Black Lives Matter looting and rioting, a man from Wisconsin named Stephen Robeson sponsored a “National Militia Conference” at a Dublin hotel. (Yes, that was the real name of the event.) 

According to BuzzFeed’s exceptional July 2021 investigative report on the FBI-led plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, Robeson “helped organize the national meeting, and he was enthusiastically pushing people he knew to attend.” The purpose of the conference was to recruit people who ultimately would stoke “political violence” against governors who refused to reopen their states after lockdowns supposedly necessitated by COVID.

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Commentary: The New York Times Reveals FBI Role in January 6

Michigan Star Staff

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.

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Firm Conducts Analysis of Michigan’s Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety’s Handling of 2020 Unrest

Hayley Feland
Crowd of people in the streets, protesting and Black Lives Matter movement

A firm conducted an analysis of how the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety handled the unrest of 2020. The report notes some pros, some cons, and some communication issues. As was reported by WOOD, “one core issue was the erosion of the public’s trust amid a breakdown in communication.” The report and study was conducted by the OIR Group, who have conducted similar reviews in Oregon, California, and others.

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Big Tech’s Anti-Terrorism Task Force Adds Far-Right Militias to List of Extremist Groups It Tracks

Michigan Star Staff
A member of the "Proud Boys" waves a flag at a "Stop The Steal" rally outside the Minnesota Governor's mansion on November 14th, 2020.

The tech industry’s anti-terrorism alliance announced Monday it would begin tracking content from far-right organization in a shared counter-terrorism database used by major tech companies.

The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), a non-profit organization founded by Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, will add manifestos, posts and links from far-right militias flagged by U.N. anti-terrorist group Tech Against Terrorism to a shared database, GIFCT told Reuters. The organization will also share content flagged by Five Eyes, a global partnership between intelligence agencies in the U.S. and other countries, Reuters reported.

The database, established in 2017 and shared exclusively by the tech giants, aggregates hashes, or digital signatures, of images, videos and URLs, allowing tech companies to easily remove logged content, according to the GIFCT website. The database was previously focused on content primarily from Islamic terror organizations, according to Reuters.

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