< home > 2-24-2021 Donald J. Trump : Accessory to Murder > LEGAL RESEARCH by a retired American - still living in Ohio Congressional District 10
YES. DONALD HAS HIS TEAM AFTER A "RETIRED" Software Engineering Technical Writer.
Why? Perhaps for describing him as a "rapacious bag worm". And, I thought it was charitable and accurate.
H
wASHINGTON dc : ELLIPSE. SOUTHWEST QUADRANT, AND SOUTHEAST QUADRANT; SOUTH OF TREE LIGHTING SITE
wASHINGTON dc : ELLIPSE. SOUTHWEST QUADRANT, AND SOUTHEAST QUADRANT; SOUTH OF TREE LIGHTING SITE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ellipse
SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/16/us/capitol-riot-funding.html
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< home > 2-24-2021 Donald J. Trump : Accessory to Murder > LEGAL RESEARCH by a retired American - still living in Ohio Congressional District 10
YES. DONALD HAS HIS TEAM AFTER A "RETIRED" Software Engineering Technical Writer.
Why? Perhaps for describing him as a "rapacious bag worm". And, I thought it was charitable and accurate.
H https://hansandcassady.org/accessory-to-Murder.html
SOURCE: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/16/us/capitol-riot-funding.html
Before the Capitol Riot, Calls for Cash and Talk of Revolution
A network of far-right agitators across the country spent weeks organizing and raising money for a mass action to overturn President Trump’s election loss.
A conservative organizer and QAnon adherent, Keith Lee, helped rally a mob outside Congress on Jan. 6.
“They have evacuated all of the senators and House representatives. We have done our job. Now they’re closing the access, and they’re going to arrest everybody that’s inside.
OK? So we’ve done our job, let’s step outside, let’s be peaceful and let’s go sing the national anthem.” “This is the inside, we took the House back. That’s our House, OK, but we can’t do this alone. Guys, when we were doing this, if we do it together — when we’re at mass like this, there’s no violence. I promise you, they basically just let us go in once we got to a certain point. They weren’t there. They weren’t there to do — I mean, this is our House, guys. We should be allowed, we should be allowed to see our representatives make laws for us.”
A conservative organizer and QAnon adherent, Keith Lee, helped rally a mob outside Congress on Jan. 6.
CreditCredit...Timothy Wolfer for The New York Times
By David D. Kirkpatrick,Mike McIntire and Christiaan Triebert
Jan. 16, 2021
Keith Lee, an Air Force veteran and former police detective, spent the morning of Jan. 6 casing the entrances to the Capitol.
In online videos, the 41-year-old Texan pointed out the flimsiness of the fencing.
He cheered the arrival, long before President Trump’s rally at the other end of the mall, of far-right militiamen encircling the building.
Then, armed with a bullhorn, Mr. Lee called out for the mob to rush in, until his voice echoed from the dome of the Rotunda.
Yet even in the heat of the event, Mr. Lee paused for some impromptu fund-raising.
“If you couldn’t make the trip, give five to 10 bucks,” he told his viewers, seeking donations for the legal costs of two jailed “patriots,” a leader of the far-right Proud Boys and an ally who had clashed with the police during an armed incursion at Oregon’s statehouse.
Much is still unknown about the planning and financing of the storming of the Capitol, aiming to challenge Mr. Trump’s electoral defeat.
What is clear is that it was driven, in part, by a largely ad hoc network of low-budget agitators, including far-right militants, Christian conservatives and ardent adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Mr. Lee is all three. And the sheer breadth of the movement he joined suggests it may be far more difficult to confront than a single organization.
Image
Rioters after they breached the doors of the Capitol.Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times
In the months leading up to the riot, Mr. Lee had helped organize a series of pro-Trump car caravans around the country, including one that temporarily blockaded a Biden campaign bus in Texas and another that briefly shut down a Hudson River bridge in the New York City suburbs.
To help pay for dozens of caravans to meet at the Jan. 6 rally, he had teamed up with an online fund-raiser in Tampa, Fla., who secured money from small donors and claimed to pass out tens of thousands of dollars.
Theirs was one of many grass-roots efforts to bring Trump supporters to the Capitol, often amid calls for revolution, if not outright violence.
On an online ride-sharing forum, Patriot Caravans for 45, more than 4,000 members coordinated travel from as far away as California and South Dakota.
Some 2,000 people donated at least $181,700 to another site, Wild Protest, leaving messages urging ralliers to halt the certification of the vote.
Oath Keepers, a self-identified militia whose members breached the Capitol, had solicited donations online to cover “gas, airfare, hotels, food and equipment.”
Many others raised money through the crowdfunding site GoFundMe or, more often, its explicitly Christian counterpart, GiveSendGo.
(On Monday, the money transfer service PayPal stopped working with GiveSendGo because of its links to the violence at the Capitol.)
A few prominent firebrands, an opaque pro-Trump nonprofit and at least one wealthy donor had campaigned for weeks to amplify the president’s false claims about his defeat, stoking the anger of his supporters.
Image
Amy Kremer is one of the leaders of Women for America First, which helped sponsor rallies ahead of the riot.
Credit...Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press
A chief sponsor of many rallies leading up to the riot, including the one featuring the president on Jan. 6, was Women for America First, a conservative nonprofit.
Its leaders include Amy Kremer, who rose to prominence in the Tea Party movement, and her daughter, Kylie Jane Kremer, 30.
She started a “Stop the Steal” Facebook page on Nov. 4.
More than 320,000 people signed up in less than a day, but the platform promptly shut it down for fears of inciting violence.
(The group has denied any violent intent.)
By far the most visible financial backer of Women for America First’s efforts was Mike Lindell, a founder of the MyPillow bedding company, identified on a now-defunct website as one of the “generous sponsors” of a bus tour promoting Mr. Trump's attempt to overturn the election.
In addition, he was an important supporter of Right Side Broadcasting, an obscure pro-Trump television network that provided blanket coverage of Trump rallies after the vote, and a podcast run by the former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon that also sponsored the bus tour.
“I put everything I had into the last three weeks, financial and everything,” Mr. Lindell said in a mid-December television interview.
In a tweet the same month, he urged Mr. Trump to “impose martial law” to seize ballots and voting machines.
Through a representative, Mr. Lindell said he only supported the bus tour “prior to December 14th” and was not a financial sponsor of any events after that, including the rally on Jan. 6.
He continues to stand by the president’s claims and met with Mr. Trump at the White House on Friday.
Image
Mike Lindell, the head of MyPillow, helped fund a bus tour that promoted President Trump’s false election claims.
Credit...Erin Scott/Reuters
By late December, the president himself was injecting volatility into the organizing efforts,
tweeting an invitation to a Washington rally that would take place as Congress gathered to certify the election results.
“Be there, will be wild!” Mr. Trump wrote.
The next day, a new website, Wild Protest, was registered and quickly emerged as an organizing hub for the president’s most zealous supporters.
It appeared to be connected to Ali Alexander, a conspiracy theorist who vowed to stop the certification by
“marching hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of patriots to sit their butts in D.C. and close that city down.”
Mr. Alexander could not be reached for comment, but in a video posted to Twitter last week, he denied any responsibility for the violence.
While other groups like Women for America First were promoting the rally where Mr. Trump would speak — at the Ellipse, about a mile west of the Capitol
— the Wild Protest website directed Trump supporters to a different location: the doorsteps of Congress.
Wild Protest linked to three hotels with discounted rates and another site for coordinating travel plans. It also raised donations from thousands of individuals, according to archived versions of a web portal used to collect them. The website has since been taken down, and it is not clear what the money was used for.
“The time for words has passed, action alone will save our Republic,” a user donating $250 wrote, calling congressional certification of the vote “treasonous.”
Another contributor gave $47 and posted: “Fight to win our country back using whatever means necessary.”
Mr. Lee, who sought to raise legal-defense money the morning before the riot, did not respond to requests for comment.
He has often likened supporters of overturning the election to the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and has said he is willing to give his life for the cause.
A sales manager laid off at an equipment company because of the pandemic, he has said that he grew up as a conservative Christian in East Texas.
Air Force records show that he enlisted a month after the Sept. 11 attacks and served for four years, leaving as a senior airman.
Later, in 2011 and 2012, he worked for a private security company at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
In between, he also worked as a police detective in McKinney, Texas.
He had never been politically active, he has said. But during Mr. Trump’s presidency, Mr. Lee began to immerse himself in the online QAnon conspiracy theory. Its adherents hold that Mr. Trump is trying to save America from a shadowy ring of pedophiles who control the government and the Democratic Party. Mr. Lee has said that resonated with his experience dealing with child crimes as a police officer.
His active support for Mr. Trump began last August when he organized a caravan of drivers from around the state to show their support for the president by circling the capital, Austin. That led him to found a website, MAGA Drag the Interstate, to organize Trump caravans around the country.
By December, Mr. Lee had achieved enough prominence that he was included in a roster of speakers at a news conference preceding a “March for Trump” rally in Washington.
“We are at this precipice” of “good versus evil,” Mr. Lee declared. “I am going to fight for my president. I am going to fight for what is right.”
He threw himself into corralling fellow “patriots" to meet in Washington on Jan. 6, and at the end of last month he began linking his website with the Tampa organizer to raise money for participants’ travel.
The fund-raiser, who has identified himself as a web designer named Thad Williams, has said in a podcast that sexual abuse as a child eventually led him to the online world of QAnon.
While others “made of steel” are cut out to be “warriors against evil” and “covered in the blood and sweat of that part,” Mr. Williams said, he sees himself as more of “a chaplain and a healer.” In 2019, he set up a website to raise money for QAnon believers to travel to Trump rallies. He could not be reached for comment.
Image
Trump supporters boarded a bus from Massachusetts to Washington on the night before the riot.Credit...Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By the gathering at the Capitol, he claimed to have raised and distributed at least $30,000 for transportation costs. Expressions of thanks posted on Twitter appear to confirm that he allocated money, and a day after the assault the online services PayPal and Stripe shut down his accounts.
Mr. Lee’s MAGA Drag the Interstate site, for its part, said it had organized car caravans of more than 600 people bound for the rally. It used military-style shorthand to designate routes in different regions across the country, from Alpha to Zulu, and a logo on the site combined Mr. Trump’s distinctive hairstyle with Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the alt-right that has been used by white supremacists.
Participants traded messages about where to park together overnight on the streets of Washington. Some arranged midnight rendezvous at highway rest stops or Waffle House restaurants to drive together on the morning of the rally.
On the evening of Jan. 5, Mr. Lee broadcast a video podcast from a crowd of chanting Trump supporters in the Houston airport, waiting to board a flight to Washington. “We are there for a show of force,” he promised, suggesting he anticipated street fights even before dawn. “Gonna see if we can do a little playing in the night.”
A co-host of the podcast — a self-described Army veteran from Washington State — appealed for donations to raise $250,000 bail money for Chandler Pappas, 27.
Image
Chandler Pappas outside the the Oregon statehouse last month.
Credit...Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Reuters
Two weeks earlier in Salem, Ore., during a protest against Covid-19 restrictions, Mr. Pappas had sprayed six police officers with mace while leading an incursion into the State Capitol building and carrying a semiautomatic rifle, according to a police report. Mr. Pappas, whose lawyer did not return a phone call seeking comment, had been linked to the far-right Proud Boys and an allied local group called Patriot Prayer.
“American citizens feel like they’ve been attacked. Fear’s reaction is anger, anger’s reaction is patriotism and voilà — you get a war,” said Mr. Lee’s co-host, who gave his name as Rampage.
He directed listeners to donate to the bail fund through GiveSendGo, and thanked them for helping to raise $100,000 through the same site for the legal defense of Enrique Tarrio, a leader of the Proud Boys who is accused of vandalizing a historically Black church in Washington.
By 10:45 a.m. the next day, more than an hour before Mr. Trump spoke, Mr. Lee was back online broadcasting footage of himself at the Capitol.
“If you died today and you went to heaven, can you look George Washington in the face and say that you’ve fought for this country?” he asked.
Video
TRANSCRIPT
0:00/0:29
“If you died today and you went to heaven, you look — can you look George Washington in the face and say that you fought for this country?” “They think this is going to stop us. Probably not. Guys, we need you in the numbers out here. As soon as you all get down here — the president — you all get to the Capitol, we need to surround this place. If you are sitting at home, I need you all to share this. It needs to get out. Please go on my page and find the GoFundMe. If you couldn’t make this trip, give five to 10 bucks, guys.”
CreditCredit...GhoSToRM143, via Periscope
By noon, he was reporting that “backup” was already arriving, bypassing the Trump speech and rally. The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were among the groups that went directly to the Capitol.
“Guys, we got the Three Percent here! The Three Percent here that loves this country and wants to fight!” Mr. Lee reported a little later, referring to another militant group. “We need to surround this place.”
Backed by surging crowds, Mr. Lee had made his way into the Rotunda and by 3 p.m. — after a fellow assailant had been shot, police officers had been injured and local authorities were pleading for help — he was back outside using his megaphone to urge others into the building. “If we do it together,” he insisted, “there’s no violence!”
When he knew that lawmakers had evacuated, he declared victory: “We have done our job,” he shouted.
Reporting was contributed by Kitty Bennett, Stella Cooper, Cora Engelbrecht, Sheera Frenkel and Haley Willis.
Video production by Ainara Tiefenthäler.
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SOURCE: https://abc7chicago.com/trump-allies-helped-plan-promote-rally-that-led-to-capitol-attack/9477293/
"... Title: Trump allies helped plan, promote rally that led to Capitol attack
By WILL STEAKIN
Friday, January 8, 2021
In the days before a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday, President Donald Trump's political apparatus worked behind the scenes with pro-Trump groups to plan and promote events in Washington, D.C., that ultimately led to Wednesday's attack on Congress.
Speaking at the "March to Save America" rally at the Ellipse in President's Park on Wednesday, President Trump urged a sea of supporters to march to the Capitol in protest of the Electoral College vote count -- telling the crowd he'd join them but ultimately not doing so -- after delivering a speech pushing baseless and unfounded claims that the election was rigged and telling the rowdy crowd that "you'll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength."
Trump's order sent thousands of his supporters marching to the Capitol, where some would overpower law enforcement, topple barricades and riot inside the halls of Congress in an unprecedented attack that left five people dead.
( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-protest-organizers-insight-idUSKBN29G2UP :: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-usa-trump-protest-organizers-insight-idUSKBN29G2UP&psig=AOvVaw3foM5NEDKiouZWXlbo1b7N&ust=1614301302306000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=2ahUKEwiZr9-O64PvAhVDElMKHaBxDTIQjRx6BAgAEAc )
While the "March to Save America" rally was publicly promoted as being organized by groups not directly tied to the president's team, including "Women for America First" and "Stop the Steal," behind the scenes White House staff and close allies of the president, including former Trump campaign staff, worked with the organizers to plan and promote the events on Wednesday that would ultimately erupt into the deadly storming of the Capitol, sources said.
A permit for the rally submitted by "Women for America First" Executive Director Kylie Jane Kremer -- the daughter of the group's founder, former Tea Party activist Amy Kremer -- was approved on January 4. The permit stated that the event would take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. with 30,000 attendees, according to documents obtained by ABC News.
h https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304173704575578332725182228
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_Patriots
https://www.teapartypatriots.org/ :: 80 M St SE, First Floor Washington, D.C. 20003
"Cydev Inc." : https://cydev.net/ [ https://cydev.net/about/ : http://cydev.ekonomka33.ru/ < RUSSIAN INFLUENCE - PERHAPS ]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Kremer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Kremer#/media/File:Amy_Kremer_(7004380180).jpg < TED Cruz : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amy_Kremer_(7004380180).jpg
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/10/trump-impeachement-stop-the-steal-speakers-467554
12 more
SOURCE: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/10/trump-impeachement-stop-the-steal-speakers-467554
Trump is on trial for inciting an insurrection. What about the 12 people who spoke before him?
Rioters heard from others besides Trump on Jan. 6. As the former president confronts a Senate impeachment trial, 12 other notable “Stop the Steal” speakers have faced few, if any, consequences.
By MATTHEW CHOI 02/10/2021 04:30 AM EST
Design and development by Kamran Rahman and Kristen East.
Former President Donald Trump may be the one facing an impeachment trial for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
But he wasn’t the only one who riled up the crowd at the now-infamous “Stop the Steal” rally.
A dozen of the president’s allies and family members took the stage before Trump, where they repeated the same false claims and egged on attendees with similar enthusiasm.
The speakers blasted the 2020 elections as rife with fraud, saber-rattled to Republican lawmakers still on the fence about challenging the election results and heaped praise on the thousands of attendees as the country’s true patriots.
So far, the other speakers haven’t publicly apologized for their roles that day.
Many of them defended themselves by saying they were merely gassing up supporters to challenge lawmakers at the ballot in 2022 and 2024.
And few have faced sanctions approaching the scale of the former president.
Here’s who else spoke at the rally and how things have played out for them since.
1. Mo Brooks -- REPRESENTATIVE, ALABAMA'S 5TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Mo Brooks: 'Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass'
“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) was one of two members of Congress to take the stage, where he urged “American patriots” to “start taking down names and kicking ass.”
Donning a red hat that said “Fire Pelosi,” he decried Democrats as “socialists” and his fellow Republicans as “weak-kneed," warning that “we American patriots are going to come right at them.” He faced blowback only days later when two House Democrats, New Jersey’s Tom Malinowski and Florida’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz, filed a motion to censure Brooks for his comments. Brooks refused to apologize and fired back in a lengthy statement in which he said he was being subject to Orwellian censorship. He called himself a “square” who never smokes or drinks and has never had any problems with the law.
2. Katrina Pierson FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER
Katrina Pierson: 'Even if they think for a second that they’re going to get away with it today, they've got another thing coming'
“Americans will stand up for themselves and protect their rights and they will demand that the politicians that we elect uphold those rights, or we will go after them.”
Katrina Pierson has a long history with Trump’s base. She was his spokesperson during the 2016 campaign and has deep roots in the tea party movement, and she invoked those ties when she took the rally stage.
“The Republican politicians down there have forgotten what the tea party movement did,” she said. “Americans will stand up for themselves and protect their rights, and they will demand that the politicians that we elect will uphold those rights, or we will go after them.” She clarified on stage that she meant the base would go after Republicans at the ballot box. She urged supporters to campaign hard in 2022 and 2024 to vote out members who didn’t support Trump’s election challenges.
But her role in the rally wasn't limited to what she said. ---- The New York Times reported that Pierson served as a liaison between the White House and rally organizers, potentially giving her insider knowledge should congressional Democrats opt to call witnesses as part of the Senate trial.
3. Amy Kremer -- CHAIR, WOMEN FOR AMERICA FIRST
Amy Kremer: 'We are not going to back down. We’re not going away'
SharePlay Video
“Republicans for years have been afraid of their own shadow. They tuck tail and run any time they see their shadow.”
Another tea party activist-turned-Trump surrogate, Amy Kremer was one of the driving organizers for the rally. She moderated the “Stop the Steal” Facebook group, created by the pro-Trump group “Women for America First," which corralled members to gather in Washington on Jan. 6. ... The group was shut down for spreading misinformation — a move Kremer angrily denounced from the rally stage. She offered up conspiracy theories of a stolen election and a corrupt media in cahoots to keep Trump out of office. She also prodded Republican lawmakers to vote to challenge the election result and “punch back from Donald Trump.” ... Kremer later denounced the Capitol rioters, but shifted blame for the violence to the left. “Unfortunately, for months the left and the mainstream media told the American people that violence was an acceptable political tool," she said in a statement after the rioters attacked the Capitol. "They were wrong. It is not."
4. Vernon Jones FORMER MEMBER, GEORGIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Vernon Jones: 'I’m coming home to the Grand Old Party'
SharePlay Video
“Today, I’m coming home. I’m coming home to the Grand Old Party. I am officially joining the Republican Party.”
Then-state Rep. Vernon Jones, a Democrat in the Georgia House of Representatives, switched parties on the rally stage, saying he was “coming home to the Grand Old Party.”
"I’m ready to go home to the party of Frederick Douglass. I’m ready to go home to the party of South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. Today, I’m coming home,” he said.
He warned Democrats not to fight Trump’s election challenge, saying “they’ve awakened a sleeping giant” among the president’s base.
He thanked MyPillow CEO and ardent Trump supporter --- Mike Lindell --- for guiding him away from “these demon Democrats."
Jones was one of the rare Democrats to endorse Trump in the lead-up to the 2020 election — a decision that pushed him to nearly resign from the Georgia Legislature in April 2020. But he stood by his endorsement and tweeted at the time that “an uprising is near.” Jones withdrew from the June 9 Democratic primaries in his district and left the state Legislature soon after the "Stop the Steal" rally.
5. Ken Paxton TEXAS ATTORNEY GENERAL
Ken Paxton: 'We kept fighting in Texas'
SharePlay Video
“If you look at what Georgia did, they capitulated. They consented.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told the rally audience that other states, particularly Georgia, had “capitulated” by acknowledging Biden as the winner. He said he would keep fighting the election results, even though his attempt to sue other states over their elections had been rejected by the Supreme Court only weeks before.
After the Capitol riot, Paxton was the only state attorney general not to sign a statement condemning the violence. He denounced the riot separately, but falsely claimed the mob was filled with leftist agitators masquerading as Trump supporters. Democrats in the Texas Legislature called for an investigation into Paxton’s role in the riots.
Paxton is also tangled up in other potential legal woes amid allegations in October of corruption, with calls from his own staff to resign.
6. Lara Trump
and
7. Eric Trump
DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AND SON OF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
MOST READ
Judge rips Capitol rioter’s Trump defense - How the White House botched the Neera Tanden nomination
Romney: Trump will win 2024 GOP nomination if he runs
Eric Trump: 'Have some backbone, show some fight, learn from Donald Trump'
SharePlay Video
“Our family didn’t get in this fight for just four years. We are in this fight to the bitter end. We are going to take our country back, OK?”
Eric and Lara Trump took to the stage to vow the former president’s family would continue their “fight” long after 2020. When Lara asked what her husband wanted for his 37th birthday, Eric said he wanted Republicans in Congress to “have some backbone” and support his father's election challenges.
“He has more fight in him than every other one combined, and they need to stand up and we need to march on the Capitol today. And we need to stand up for this country and stand up for what’s right,” he said.
8. Kimberly Guilfoyle FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER
Kimberly Guilfoyle: 'We will not allow the liberals and the democrats to steal our dream or steal our elections'
SharePlay Video
“We will not allow the liberals and the Democrats to steal our dream or steal our elections.”
Kimberly Guilfoyle, former Fox News host and Trump super fundraiser, promised she would “continue to hold the line” for Trump and vowed not to “allow the liberals and the Democrats to steal our dream or steal our elections.”
The bombastic performance was an echo of her memorable appearance at the Republican National Convention in which Guilfoyle shouted that the “best is yet to come.” She repeated that message from the stage as she claimed that Trump would “continue to save America.”
9. Donald Trump Jr. -- SON OF PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
Donald Trump Jr: 'Today Republicans, you get to pick a side for the future of this party'
SharePlay Video
“You have an opportunity today: You can be a hero, or you can be a zero. And the choice is yours but we are all watching.”
The president’s eldest son, Donald Jr., prodded Republicans in Congress still on the fence about Trump’s election challenges, saying the vote was an opportunity to be either a “zero or a hero," a “friend or foe.” He cast their hesitancy as cowardice and said, “I’m going to be in your backyard in a couple of months” if they didn’t vote with Trump.
He also added some jabs at the summer’s anti-racism protesters, telling the crowd that they’d gathered without “ripping down churches” and “looting.” But only hours later, hundreds of pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol building.
10. Madison Cawthorn REPRESENTATIVE, NORTH CAROLINA'S 11TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Cawthorn: 'Make sure they stood up for election integrity and make your voices heard'
SharePlay Video
“There is a significant portion of our party that says we should just sit idly by and sit on our hands. They have no backbone.”
The second member of Congress to talk at the rally, Madison Cawthorn, urged the crowd to keep their representatives “accountable” if they didn’t vote to contest the election results. The right-wing wunderkind said many of his colleagues “have no backbone” to face Trump, and he cheered on the audience as the future of the Republican Party.
“The courage I see in this crowd is not represented on that hill,” he said. “My friends, I will tell you right now that there is a new Republican Party rising.”
After the insurrection, Cawthorn changed tack and denounced the rioters as “despicable." But he still didn’t regret his appearance at the rally, he said during an interview on "The Carlos Watson Show." Democratic leaders from his North Carolina district wrote to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to expel him from Congress, but Cawthorn brushed off any responsibility for the violence at the Capitol.
11. Rudy Giuliani TRUMP'S PERSONAL ATTORNEY
Giuliani: 'Let's have trial by combat'
SharePlay Video
“If we’re wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. So, let’s have trial by combat.”
One of the most infamous lines from the Jan. 6 rally came from personal Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. After insisting the legality of everything he and his team were doing to undermine the election results, Giuliani declared, “Let’s have trial by combat.”
The bellicose language immediately raised alarms as a call to violence. But Giuliani later insisted in an interview with The Hill that it was a reference to the HBO series “Game of Thrones," which he called a “documentary” about medieval England. He also denied Trump had any responsibility for the Capitol riot and repeated the false claim that antifa or other leftists were behind the attack.
12. John Eastman CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER law professor at Chapman University
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Eastman :: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/01/13/john-eastman-retires-from-chapman-university/?sh=759bc28e65e7 )
John Eastman: "This is bigger than President Trump'
SharePlay Video
“This is bigger than President Trump. It is the very essence of our Republican form of government and it has to be done.”
Giuliani brought out John Eastman, a law professor at Chapman University, to explain in detail the various conspiracy theories behind their challenges to the election results. He was the last speaker before Donald Trump and put their cause in terms beyond one president.
"This is bigger than President Trump. It is the very essence of our Republican form of government and it has to be done," Eastman said. "And anybody that is not willing to stand up to do it does not deserve to be in the office. It is that simple."
Students and faculty later called on Chapman to fire Eastman for his role in the rally. He eventually retired on his own, though he said he had "mixed feelings" about the separation. The university's president, Daniele Struppa, said his departure put an end to a "challenging chapter for Chapman."
© 2021 POLITICO LLC
"Women for America First" is a nonprofit 501(c)4 organization that was founded in 2019.
Since the November election, the group has taken the lead in organizing events, bus tours, and protests challenging the results of the election, which often feature members of the president's campaign and family.
Sources tell ABC News that many staffers who had worked on the president's 2020 campaign were involved in setting up and taking down the event space, including the stage on the National Mall. The Trump campaign denied that any active members of its team were involved in the planning of the rally, telling ABC News in a statement, "We did not organize, operate or finance this event. No campaign staff was involved in the organization or operation of this event. If any former employees or independent contractors for the campaign worked on this event, they did not do so at the direction of the Trump campaign."
Following the attack on the Capitol, "Women for America First" posted a statement on its website from Kremer denouncing the violence and distancing itself from any responsibility.
"We unequivocally denounce violence of any type and under any circumstances." the statement read. "We are saddened and disappointed at the violence that erupted on Capitol Hill, instigated by a handful of bad actors, that transpired after the rally."
"Unfortunately, for months the left and the mainstream media told the American people that violence was an acceptable political tool. They were wrong. It is not. We stand by and strongly support the men and women of the Capitol Hill police and law enforcement in general and our organization played absolutely no role in the unfortunate events that transpired," Kremer's statement said. "What is truly sad, is that the misdeeds of a handful of people will overshadow the overwhelming success of the peaceful event -- attended by hundreds of thousands of Americans -- that we sponsored today. The movement that was launched by President Donald J. Trump is one that respects the rule of law, supports our law enforcement and believes that violence has no place in politics today."
Kremer and "Women for America First" did not respond to ABC News' request for comment. The group has not disclosed its funding, and unlike other political committees that are required to disclose donors to the Federal Election Commission, its 501(c)4 status means it is not required by law to disclose its donors. A disclosure reviewed by ABC News that was filed to the FEC shows that "Women for America First" donated $19,000 in February 2019 to a super PAC called "Women Vote Smart," which supported Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C.
On a private call following the election, the Trump campaign called on outside surrogates and organizers to be ready to put on events and show public support for the president, according to audio obtained by ABC News.
"At a moment's instance, we may need your help at protests in your state to make sure that the president is represented and our side of the argument shows," Trump Campaign Manager Bill Stepien said on the call. "At a moment's notice, we may need your help and support on the ground, you know, waving the flag and yelling the president's name and support."
Trump first promoted the event in mid-December before he was announced as a speaker. His participation wasn't publicly announced until just days before the rally. Beyond the president himself promoting the rally weeks ahead of January 6, his campaign also used its large social media presence to boost the rally to millions of followers on Twitter and Facebook.
On "Good Morning America" Friday, Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine said his office will investigate those who incited Wednesday's violence, including President Trump.
"Clearly, the Capitol was ground central in the mob's behavior. Donald Trump Jr, Rudy Giuliani, even the president were calling on supporters and hate groups to go to the Capitol, and in Rudy's words, 'exercise combat justice,'" said Racine. "We're going to investigate not only the mob, but those who incited the violence."
Since the November election, the president's campaign has significantly trimmed down its staff despite massive fundraising hauls, and has largely leaned on the behind-the-scenes help of outside groups like "Women for America First" and "Stop the Steal," a pro-Trump group contesting the 2020 election results, to conduct events that show support for the president following his loss.
A short time before President Trump spoke at the rally, a video posted on Facebook by Donald Trump Jr. showed the president, surrounded by aides and family members including Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and top adviser Dan Scavino, surveying the crowd.
Online, a "March to Save America" event page showed plans for protesters to head to the Capitol following the president's speech.
"Take a stand with President Trump and the #StopTheSteal coalition and be at The Ellipse (President's Park) at 7 am. The fate of our nation depends on it. At 1:00 PM, we will march to the US Capitol building to protest the certification of the Electoral College," the event signup page read.
A flyer was also circulated online by the group "Stop the Steal" showing a planned protest at the Capitol following the president's remarks.
And as the protesters swarmed the Capitol, "Stop the Steal" national organizer Ali Alexander posted a video of himself overlooking a sea descending onto the nation's capital saying, "I don't disavow this. I do not denounce this."
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SOURCE: https://lawandcrime.com/impeachment/trump-pushed-rally-organizers-to-override-prohibitions-against-marching-from-ellipse-to-the-capitol-impeachment-manager/
"... Trump Pushed Rally Organizers to Override Prohibitions Against Marching from Ellipse to the Capitol: Impeachment Manager :: BY ADAM KLASFELDFeb 10th, 2021, 7:39 pm
JANUARY 5, 2021 WASHINGTON, DC “Trump” ::
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/photos-dc-braces-for-conflict-as-trump-supporters-descend-on-the-capitol/2529596/
Photos: DC Braces for Conflict as Trump Supporters Descend on the Capitol
By Anisa Holmes and NBC Washington Staff • Published January 5, 2021 • Updated on January 18, 2021 at 6:21 pm
Supporters of President Donald Trump are set to begin their second day of demonstrations in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, as Congress meets to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the Electoral College.
Following a day and evening of mostly peaceful but sometimes tense rallies and speeches that ended with six arrests, Trump plans to address a crowd of supporters on Wednesday.
Multiple groups have received permits to host events with hundreds or thousands of people around the National Mall and near the White House.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has encouraged people to avoid downtown on Tuesday and Wednesday as law enforcement braces for the possibility of violent confrontations between pro-Trump demonstrators and counterprotesters.
“Make no mistake: many of these individuals have stated that they are coming to the District to provoke residents and wreak havoc," D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said.
The Metropolitan Police Department is expecting a crowd larger than at two pro-Trump events in D.C. last year. The D.C. National Guard will assist with crowd management and traffic control, officials said Monday.
“Some of our intelligence certainly suggests there will be increased crowd sizes,” said Acting Police Chief Robert Contee, adding, "There are people intent on coming to our city armed.”
Photos from Tuesday show throngs of pro-Trump fans waving flags at Freedom Plaza – a block from the White House. A heavy police presence was out in force and many downtown businesses were boarded up in anticipation of potential destruction of property.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, crowds started to converge on the Capitol, some praying together in groups. Some arrived as early as 3 a.m. in order to see Trump speak at the Save America rally on the Ellipse at 11 a.m.
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(Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
A Black Lives Matter activist screams at pro-Trump supporters during a confrontation near Black Lives Matter plaza in Washington, DC on January 5, 2021, on the eve of a rally of supporters of US President Donald Trump to protest the upcoming certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College as president. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
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Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Supporters of President Donald Trump gather in the rain for a rally at Freedom Plaza in D.C. Jan. 5, 2021. Tuesday’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by the president’s continued claims of election fraud and a last-ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them.
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(Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Pro-Trump supporters stand behind police as they argue with counter protesters during a confrontation near Black Lives Matter plaza in Washington, DC on January 5, 2021, on the eve of a rally of supporters of US President Donald Trump to protest the upcoming certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College as president. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
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(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporters of US President Donald Trump hold a rally as they protest the upcoming electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington, DC on January 5, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
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(Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Pro-Trump supporters stand behind police as they argue with counter protesters during a confrontation near Black Lives Matter plaza in Washington, DC on January 5, 2021, on the eve of a rally of supporters of US President Donald Trump to protest the upcoming certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College as president. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Roger Stone, former adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, center, departs after speaking during a protest outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Republican lawmakers in Washington are fracturing over President Trump’s futile effort to persuade Congress to overturn his re-election defeat, as his allies spar with conservatives who say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to override voters. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: Supporters of President Donald Trump listen to speakers in front of the Supreme Court on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by President Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and a last-ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them on January 6. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: Supporters of President Donald Trump listen to speakers in front of the Supreme Court on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by President Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and a last-ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them on January 6. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: Roger Stone, former advisor to President Donald Trump, greets supporters after speaking in front of the Supreme Court on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by President Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and a last-ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them on January 6. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Roger Stone, former adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, speaks during a protest outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Republican lawmakers in Washington are fracturing over President Trump’s futile effort to persuade Congress to overturn his re-election defeat, as his allies spar with conservatives who say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to override voters. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: US Park Police officers arrest a man on gun charges after officers spotted him carrying a concealed firearm during a pro-Trump rally at Freedom Plaza on January 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by President Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and a last ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them on January 6. Gun laws in the District are extremely tight and further restrictions have been put in place within 100ft of first amendment events. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A demonstrator wears a :Make America Great Again” hat during a protest outside the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Republican lawmakers in Washington are fracturing over President Trump’s futile effort to persuade Congress to overturn his re-election defeat, as his allies spar with conservatives who say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to override voters. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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(Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporters of US President Donald Trump, gather at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, on January 5, 2021, one day ahead of a joint session of the US Congress on January 6 to certify the Electoral College vote that confirmed Joe Biden as the presidential winner. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: People protest in downtown Washington, DC as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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(Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporters of US President Donald Trump, gather at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, on January 5, 2021, one day ahead of a joint session of the US Congress on January 6 to certify the Electoral College vote that confirmed Joe Biden as the presidential winner. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: People protest in downtown Washington, DC as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
UNITED STATES – January 5: A man takes down a tapestry with Saint Mary depicted on it during a Trump rally on the East Front of the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. (Photo by Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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(Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporters of US President Donald Trump, gather at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, on January 5, 2021, one day ahead of a joint session of the US Congress on January 6 to certify the Electoral College vote that confirmed Joe Biden as the presidential winner. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
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Mark Segraves, WRC-TV
Hundreds of pro-Trump protesters gather at Freedom Plaza just a block from the White House.
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(Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Signs calling for more relief, a second Paycheck Protection Program, and support from elected officials are setup as part of a campaign by Goldman Sachs supporting small businesses near the US Capitol in Washington, DC on January 5, 2021. (Photo by Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Signs read “Help Still Wanted” on the lawn outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Republican lawmakers in Washington are fracturing over President Trump’s futile effort to persuade Congress to overturn his re-election defeat, as his allies spar with conservatives who say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to override voters. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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(Photo By Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
UNITED STATES – JANUARY 5: A woman kicks over a Help Still Wanted Affordable Child Care sign on the East Front of the U.S. Capitol as Trump supporters beging to gather at the Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Goldman Sachs filled the lawn with 10,000 Help Stll Wanted signs to call attention to the needs of more government assistance to small businesses. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Mark Segraves, WRC-TV
Hundreds of pro-Trump protesters gather at Freedom Plaza just a block from the White House.
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The U.S. Capitol as streets are closed in Washington D.C., U.S. on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Protests are expected to occur throughout Washington as Congress prepares to certify the results of the Presidential election on Wednesday. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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(Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
UNITED STATES – JANUARY 5: Stephen Bradshaw of Greenville, S.C., sets up The Silent Majority apparel booth near the West Front of the Capitol before a rally in support of President Trump on Tuesday, January 5, 2021. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
https://thesilentmajorityapparel.com/ [ "Stephen" "Bradshaw" of "Greenville", S.C "FOX" "Carolina" ]
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(Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporters of US President Donald Trump, gather at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC, on January 5, 2021, one day ahead of a joint session of the US Congress on January 6 to certify the Electoral College vote that confirmed Joe Biden as the presidential winner. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP)
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A Trump Pence 2020 trailer parked in front the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Republican lawmakers in Washington are fracturing over President Trump’s futile effort to persuade Congress to overturn his re-election defeat, as his allies spar with conservatives who say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to override voters. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Police close streets surrounding the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Republican lawmakers in Washington are fracturing over President Trump’s futile effort to persuade Congress to overturn his re-election defeat, as his allies spar with conservatives who say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to override voters. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: A cowboy hat with Stop the Steal on one side and Team Trump on the other is for sale next to Freedom Plaza where supporters of President Trump have gathered for a rally on January 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by President Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and a last ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them on January 6. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: Two women try on cowboy hats with Team Trump on one side and Stop the Steal on the other next to Freedom Plaza where supporters of President Trump have gathered for a rally on January 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by President Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and a last ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them on January 6. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
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(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporters of US President Donald Trump hold a rally as they protest the upcoming electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington, DC on January 5, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
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(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporters of US President Donald Trump hold a rally as they protest the upcoming electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington, DC on January 5, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
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(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
A supporter of US President Donald Trump wears a sticker at a rally as they protest the upcoming electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington, DC on January 5, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
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(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: Supporters of President Donald Trump gather in Freedom Plaza for a rally on January 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by President Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and a last ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them on January 6. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
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Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A truck with President Donald Trump campaign flags passes in front of members of the New York Army National Guards preparing to close a road near the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, urged residents not to engage with any protesters “seeking confrontation” and requested National Guard help in anticipation of potential violence in tied to protests as Congress meets to certify Joe Biden as the next U.S. president. Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A truck with President Donald Trump campaign flags passes in front of security fencing being installed near the White House ahead of protests in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, urged residents not to engage with any protesters “seeking confrontation” and requested National Guard help in anticipation of potential violence in tied to protests as Congress meets to certify Joe Biden as the next U.S. president. Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Members of the New York Army National Guards prepare to close a road near the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, urged residents not to engage with any protesters “seeking confrontation” and requested National Guard help in anticipation of potential violence in tied to protests as Congress meets to certify Joe Biden as the next U.S. president. Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Supporters of US President Donald Trump hold a rally as they protest the upcoming electoral college certification of Joe Biden as President in Washington, DC on January 5, 2021. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
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Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Members of the New York Army National Guards prepare to close a road near the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, urged residents not to engage with any protesters “seeking confrontation” and requested National Guard help in anticipation of potential violence in tied to protests as Congress meets to certify Joe Biden as the next U.S. president. Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: The US Capitol is seen from Freedom Plaza where Supporters of President Donald Trump have gathered for a rally on January 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by President Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and a last ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them on January 6. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
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Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Members of the New York Army National Guards prepare to close a road near the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, urged residents not to engage with any protesters “seeking confrontation” and requested National Guard help in anticipation of potential violence in tied to protests as Congress meets to certify Joe Biden as the next U.S. president. Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Workers board up the windows of a business near the White House ahead of protests in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, urged residents not to engage with any protesters “seeking confrontation” and requested National Guard help in anticipation of potential violence in tied to protests as Congress meets to certify Joe Biden as the next U.S. president. Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Workers board up the windows of Strayer University near the White House ahead of protests in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, urged residents not to engage with any protesters “seeking confrontation” and requested National Guard help in anticipation of potential violence in tied to protests as Congress meets to certify Joe Biden as the next U.S. president. Photographer: Erin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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(Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: Supporters of President Donald Trump gather in Freedom Plaza for a rally on January 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. Today’s rally kicks off two days of pro-Trump events fueled by President Trump’s continued claims of election fraud and a last ditch effort to overturn the results before Congress finalizes them on January 6. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: People protest in downtown Washington, DC as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: People protest in downtown Washington, DC as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: Streets in downtown Washington, DC stand mostly empty as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: People protest in downtown Washington, DC as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: People protest in downtown Washington, DC as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: People protest in downtown Washington, DC as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: People protest in downtown Washington, DC as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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Anthony Mague, WRC-TV
A couple of DC Police Department cruisers and a plow positioned outside Asbury United Methodist ahead of pro-Trump rallies in the District.
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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 05: People protest in downtown Washington, DC as thousands of pro-Trump and far-right demonstrators arrive in the city on the eve of the official certification of the Electoral College ballots on January 05, 2021 in Washington, DC. The certification marks the final step in the election process, one that President Donald Trump continues to challenge before President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on January 20th. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The U.S. Capitol as a stage is prepared at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Republican lawmakers in Washington are fracturing over President Trump’s futile effort to persuade Congress to overturn his re-election defeat, as his allies spar with conservatives who say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to override voters. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A stage is prepared on the ellipse near the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Republican lawmakers in Washington are fracturing over President Trump’s futile effort to persuade Congress to overturn his re-election defeat, as his allies spar with conservatives who say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to override voters. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Workers board up buildings near the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. Republican lawmakers in Washington are fracturing over President Trump’s futile effort to persuade Congress to overturn his re-election defeat, as his allies spar with conservatives who say the Constitution doesn’t give them the power to override voters. Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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(Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
A worker boards up a building on a closed street for traffic on January 5, 2021, near the White House in preparation for US President Trump supporters, who are planning to demonstrate on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. – One day after the runoffs, Congress will meet in a joint session to certify the Electoral College vote that confirmed Biden as the presidential winner. Certification is usually a formality. But while Republican heavyweights like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have acknowledged Biden’s victory, dozens of House Republicans and 12 Senate Republicans loyal to Trump have signaled they will raise objections to the certification. (Photo by Daniel SLIM / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images)
This article tagged under:
PROTESTSDCPOLICEJAN. 6 PROTESTSPROUD BOYS
"Permit"
"Save America March"
Disclosed during opening statements of Trump’s second impeachment trial, this permit for the ‘Save America’ rally prohibited a march from the Ellipse to the Capitol—until the 45th president got involved, an impeachment manager said.
Dramatic opening arguments for former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial kicked off with never-before-seen footage of law enforcement in hand-to-hand combat with the mob, Officer Eugene Goodman provoking rioters to chase him to protect Congress members, and now-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s “near miss” with insurrectionists who viewed him as a target.
A few hours before that footage started to unspool, a Virgin Islands delegate serving as the first impeachment manager from a U.S. territory quietly revealed a perhaps more explosive revelation.
“President Trump became directly involved with the planning of the event, including the speaking lineup and even the music to be played, ” Del. Stacey Plaskett said, in the beginning of a remarkable dive into the logistics and planning of the Capitol siege.
At the center of Plaskett’s speech in this passage was Women for America First, an Alexandria, Va.-based dark money group whose executive director is Kylie Jane Kremer.
Earlier on Wednesday, fellow impeachment manager Rep. Eric Swalwell called attention to Kremer’s currently pinned tweet: a message “The calvary [sic] is coming, Mr. President!” with an advertisement of the day of the siege with the website TrumpMarch dot com. Trump quoted her tweet with the message: “A great honor!”
Kremer’s group had obtained a permit that expressly prohibited the defining event that preceded the riot: “This permit does not authorize a march from the Ellipse.”
Del. Plaskett noted that Trump “seemed to have other plans for what was going to happen at the rally.”
“Women for America First had initially planned the rally-goers to remain in the Ellipse until the counting of the state electoral votes was completed, just like they had remained at Freedom Plaza after the second Million MAGA March,” Plaskett said, referring to the Nov. 14th demonstrations that brought thousands to Washington. “The permit stated in no uncertain terms that the march was not permitted. It was not until after President Trump and his team became involved in the planning that the march from the Ellipse to the Capitol came about—in direct contravention of the original permit.”
“This is not a coincidence,” she continued.
The role of dark money groups in facilitating the events at the U.S. Capitol had been a matter of intense scrutiny long before the impeachment trial.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) urged the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether non-profit organizations abused the U.S. tax code to solicit charitable contributions to attempt to overthrow the government the agency served. The Oregon Democrat had been reacting in part to the reporting from the Washington Post that an arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) sent out robocalls urging supporters to go to the Capitol and “fight” Congress over Trump’s election-fraud conspiracy theories.
That non-profit group had not been mentioned by the impeachment managers by press time.
Women for America First did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
(Screenshot from USCongress.gov)
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Related to textBOOK: "Constitutional Law for Criminal Justice", 15th ed.
By Jacqueline R. Kanovitz, Jefferson L. Ingram, and Christopher J. Devine
Constitutional Law for Criminal Justice, 15th Edition, offers criminal justice professionals the training they need to recognize the constitutional principles that apply to their daily work. Jacqueline R. Kanovitz and revision authors Jefferson L. Ingram and Christopher J. Devine provide a comprehensive, well-organized, and up-to-date analysis of constitutional issues that affect the U.S. justice system. This book makes complex concepts accessible to students in all levels of criminal justice education. The result is an incomparably clear, student-friendly textbook that has remained a leader in criminal justice education for nearly 50 years.
Online Resources: Many of the materials cited in footnotes are available, free of charge, from the following sources:
Supreme Court :: www.supremecourt.gov The Supreme Court’s official website contains an automated docket system of cases now pending before the Court, including the briefs filed in these cases, slip opinions of cases recently decided, and bound volumes of cases decided since 2007.
Findlaw :: www.findlaw.com/casecode/ This website contains all Supreme Court decisions since 1893, all federal statutes, more recent lower federal court decisions, and select state materials, plus additional legal resources, such as the Supreme Court’s current docket, briefs, and transcripts of oral arguments. For cases decided since September 2000, Findlaw offers a choice between the full text or an opinion summary, plus access to other secondary materials. CAVEAT: The website at www.findlaw.com/casecode/ cannot be accessed using Internet Explorer. It is necessary to type this address into another search window.
Google Scholar :: www.scholar.google.com/ Google Scholar is an excellent resource for in-depth research. Researchers can access the full text of Supreme Court cases by typing in the case name; check the box entitled “articles” and gain access to numerous law review articles; and find references to other online repositories, universities, and websites that contain relevant information. A Gmail account is needed to use this resource.
American Bar Association :: www.americanbar.org/publications/preview_home.html This site contains summaries of the facts and issues presented in cases currently before the Supreme Court, along with the briefs filed in these cases.
Duke University :: www.law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/legal_materials This site contains most law journals and law review articles in PDF form for back issues, but not for current ones. Some legal reference books are also available.
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) :: www.aclu.org/ The American Civil Liberties Union brings litigation and files amicus briefs in cases involving a broad array of constitutional and criminal justice issues. Its website provides information, not found elsewhere, about free speech, arrest, search and seizure, privacy, national security, due process, equal protection, racial justice, and other civil liberties issues currently before the courts.
Historical Documents :: www.usa.gov/Topics/Reference-Shelf/Documents.shtml This site contains the full text of the Constitution and other historically significant documents like the Declaration of Independence (1776), Articles of Confederation (1777), Federalist Papers (1787–1788), Bill of Rights (1791), Gettysburg Address (1863), and Emancipation Proclamation (1863).
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WHEN JODIE FOSTER TELLS YOU TO "KILL DONALD JOHN TRUMP!" > DON'T DO IT! > THE LAWYERS & VICTIM'S FAMILIES ARE JUST BEGINNING :-)
Donald J. Trump " Accessory to Murder " The NAACP & B. Thompson are just getting started!
FBI CHARGED 1-6-2021
:: https://casetext.com/case/us-v-hinckley : PROTEST! (if needed) , CATCH A "MUSKIE"! - or, "catch a beer" INSTEAD!
BEST FISHING LURES GREEN BAY PACKERS ...
( BIGGER : )
Wisconsin Angler Releases Possible World Record Muskie :: An angler from Green Bay, Wisconsin, [ WHERE SUSAN WENT TO SCHOOL - UWGB ] caught the fish of a lifetime--and didn't even know it. No stranger to catching big fish, John Grover was targeting walleyes on May 9, 2013 when he hooked something notably larger. He proceeded to fight the 64-inch fish for almost an hour on 17-pound test line, even after his reel blew out, the Green Bay Press Gazette reported. He landed the fish, measured it, took a few photos, and released it back into the bay.
The President of the United States lures Americans to Washington, DC - for "wild" event.
THEN, USCP Officer Brian SickNick dies. Charges?
... A beautiful woman (or man) lures a person back to their hotel room - for robbery. Victim dies. : Two Found "Guilty"! charge? :: Defendents plead: We only intended to rob - the rich person - wearing diamonds and gold. ( Brady Rule ) :: The "heart-attack" was not planned.:: Capitol Hill Police :: "Luring" the victim :: "conspiracy" "negligent" "homicide" "District of Columbia" "Trump" < https://casetext.com/case/state-v-mckenzie-jr-1 : Reagan Jim Brady homicide :: How to take a pretty "SLOVENIAN Girl" bass fishing on the "Green Bay of Wisconsin" [INSTRUCTIONS] : STEP ONE:FIND ONE ... STEP TWO:ASK VLADIMIR PUTIN FOR PERMISSION.
Release or "whack"? < How to take a pretty "Scottish Girl" - bass fishing on the "Green Bay of Wisconsin" - of USA [ INSTRUCTIONS ]
Donald J. Trump : Accessory to Murder >
LEGAL RESEARCH by a retired American - living in Ohio Congressional District 10
"But for" Rule : In the law of Negligence, a principle that provides that the defendant's conduct is not the cause of an injury to the plaintiff, unless that injury would not have occurred except for ( "but for" ) the defendant's conduct.
In order to be liable in negligence, the defendant's conduct must constitute the "proximate cause", or direct cause, of the plaintiff's injury. Mrs. O'Leary's Cow & The Chicago Fire
The concept of proximate cause encompasses both legal cause and factual cause, and the "but for" rule pertains to the latter. It is also referred to as the sine qua non rule, which means "without which not," or an indispensable requirement or condition. The "but for" rule is a rule of exclusion, in that the defendant's conduct is not a cause of the event, if the event would have occurred without it. ... In order to rectify the frequently problematic application of the "but for" rule, some jurisdictions have applied a broader rule, which provides that the defendant's conduct is a cause of the event if it was a material element and a substantial factor in bringing about the event. ... TRUMP VIDEO The jury ascertains whether such conduct constitutes a "substantial factor", unless the issue is so unambiguous that it is appropriate for judicial determination. ... In addition to resolving the aforementioned case, the "substantial factor test" resolves two other types of situations that have proved troublesome, where a similar, but not identical, result would have followed the defendant's act or where one defendant has made an obvious but insignificant contribution to the result. The application of the two rules can achieve the same result in some instances, since, except as indicated, no case has been encountered where the defendant's act could be deemed a substantial factor when the event would have transpired without it. In addition, cases seldom arise where the defendant's conduct would not be such a substantial factor yet was so indispensable a cause that the result would not have ensued without it. ... If the defendant's conduct was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff's injury, he or she will not be absolved from liability simply because other causes have contributed to the result, since such causes are always present. ... However, a defendant [ DONALD J. TRUMP ] is not necessarily relieved of liability - because the negligence of another person is also a contributing cause, and that person, too, is to be held liable for the harm inflicted. ... The principle of "joint tortfeasors" is based primarily upon recognition of the fact that each of two or more causes may be charged with a single result. :: West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright - SINCE MOSES
If they had "impeached" Trump the first time - would Officer Sicknick still be alive? "But for", The principle of "joint tortfeasors" , and THE "substantial factor test" LEGAL DOCTRINES
:: [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Trump ] THE FIRST IMPEACHMENT OF DONALD TRUMP
( https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/%22But+for%22+Rule#:~:text=In%20the%20law%20of%20Negligence,for%22)%20the%20defendant's%20conduct. )
"Loss of USCP Officer Brian D. Sicknick" [ SOURCE ] ... January 7, 2021 :: At approximately 9:30 p.m. this evening (January 7, 2021), United States Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick passed away due to injuries sustained while on-duty. ...Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol - and, was injured while physically engaging with protesters. He returned to his division office and collapsed. He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The death of Officer Sicknick will be investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, the USCP, and our federal partners. ... Officer Sicknick joined the USCP in July 2008, and most recently served in the Department’s First Responder’s Unit. ...The entire USCP Department expresses its deepest sympathies to Officer Sicknick’s family and friends on their loss, and mourns the loss of a friend and colleague. ... # # #
SOURCE: https://www.rollcall.com/2013/09/20/capitol-police-first-responder-unit-is-at-the-ready/ "... The First Responder Unit is an elite, close-knit group of more than 150 officers charged with protecting the members, staffers, journalists, visitors and thousands of tourists crisscrossing the grounds of the Capitol each day. CQ Roll Call was given the opportunity to talk to four of the unit’s officers about how they ensure the security of the Capitol and the people inside. ...When a threat emerges, “it should start and end with us,” Nebel said. “That’s our job, to make sure the threat never gets in the building.”
... The unit was created in the summer of 1985, in part a response to the explosion of a bomb outside the Senate chamber in 1983. ... A fit, young group of officers, among them eventual Assistant Chief Tom Reynolds, was selected to be part of an elite new guard. They would be outfitted with dress uniforms and responsible for responding to emergency situations and threats to the Capitol. ..."
HH
... Trump ... LET CAESAR BE CAESAR : Do PROUD BOYs, PATRIOTs and OATH KEEPERs, "love" each other - in a "special" way?
( NOW! RENDER UNTO CEASAR! ) :: " fur trapper - render "
... When people (in authority) tell you to press a button ["march to the Capital"]...
Donald's video
> Was Jesus "homosexual" ?
Is Trump "homosexual? :: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius ... [ YES! ] Let's ask Melania
Trump! "embraces it" - he's "special"
Oh Lindsey Dear!
- But, to get to Kamala
- you got to go thru me
... :-)
- AND, I will "halasana"
your fat ass off the stage.
Guns a blazing!
"... TRUMPERS... passive homosexuality
Rumors of passive homosexuality ... Roman society viewed the passive role during sexual activity, regardless of gender, to be a sign of submission or inferiority. Indeed, Suetonius says that in Caesar's Gallic triumph, his soldiers sang that, "Caesar may have conquered the Gauls, but Nicomedes conquered Caesar."[146] According to Cicero, Bibulus, Gaius Memmius, and others (mainly Caesar's enemies), he had an affair with Nicomedes IV of Bithynia early in his career. The stories were repeated, referring to Caesar as the Queen of Bithynia, by some Roman politicians as a way to humiliate him. Caesar himself denied the accusations repeatedly throughout his lifetime, and according to Cassius Dio, even under oath on one occasion.[147] This form of slander was popular during this time in the Roman Republic to demean and discredit political opponents. ... Catullus wrote two poems suggesting that Caesar and his engineer Mamurra were lovers,[148] but later apologised.[149] ... Mark Antony charged that Octavian had earned his adoption by Caesar through sexual favors. Suetonius described Antony's accusation of an affair with Octavian as political slander. Octavian eventually became the first Roman Emperor as Augustus.[150] ..."
I wish the "gallows" & "effigy" (photographed below) were intended - for Donald. I do! I do! And, I hope (that) Donald can be proven - to have paid for their construction.
PRODUCE THE RECEIPTS & YOU HAVE HIM! ... FOR SERIOUS CRIMINAL OFFENSES, IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - USA - on "Capital grounds". Accessory to murder et al
NOTES: Hans helped me to place Donald's head onto King George - in furs.
And, YES - I do attend a church - sometimes - [that] openly welcomes "gay" Christians. Shiloh Church of Christ
I was baptized "full dunk" - by Bob Daugherty - at the West Rich Street - Church of Christ, Columbus, Ohio. Yes, I was the teen-age girl - that removed all of her clothing - under the baptismal cloak (a white sheet) -AND, was "presented" dripping wet - to the church congregation - while the thin wet sheet clung to me - on a cold winter day. My mother observed - from a church pew - with dignity.
PRACTICAL - at all times - we were both pleased [that] my clothes & shoes remained dry - on that cold winter day.
God & Jesus
- were with me - surely.
In fact, , it was my observation - during my many employed years (that) "homosexual" people - are some of the most "talented" Americans - for designing soft ware, etc. On which - our modern military relies. I merely want to annoy Donald - and, those who continue to support a "traitor" to the American Constitution - and our American REPUBLIC. Does Donald have any talent ?
Trump
TRUMP & ? ... SITTEN IN A TREE - K-I-S-S-I-N-G [audio ]
1984
When did "THEY" build the gallows?
hhhhh
Dear REPUBLICAN
(my Congressman) Mike Turner
[ OH-10 ]
Who was the
President of the United States
- on January 6, 2021?
- ABC News -
If we permit V. Putin ( and DONALD J. TRUMP ) to poison and jail anyone who would challenge him for the "Presidency" of a "Representative Democracy" - isn't he just a "dictator" with nukes? ...WE SHALL FIGHT - AT THE TIME - AND PLACE - OF OUR CHOOSING - and 'take back' the Republican Party - of A. Lincoln.
Impeach #one, #TWO :: ( Hang Em High Clint Eastwood "Music" :: Mahomes , Brady , ... ) Have no fear - President Biden - I am no "Robert Emmet" ( Who "they" hanged - as was threatened to Mike Pence.) My genetic stock "CassAdy" - is most probably - of Scotland. I do possess a "language ability" - of which my mother was informed ( 1965 ) - But, I put this (small thing ) to use - in the making of algorithms - for computers. - sited in Wisconsin, Georgia, Ohio - for our great Universities & our US Army. I have never spoken - "from the 'dock' ... ROBERT Emmet said: "If the French came as a foreign enemy, oh, my countrymen, meet them on the shore, with a torch in one hand, a sword in the other, receive them with the destruction of war. Immolate them in their boats, before our native soil should be pillaged by a foreign foe. If they succeed in landing, fight them on the strand. . ." Churchill said of a possible German invasion: "We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender". - Yours, etc., ( https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/emmet-s-speech-from-the-dock-1.378247 ) ...
OPINION (by Susan ) "UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE" - AS PROPOSED - BY SUSAN "draft" Bill
- bigger -
< STORY:
So, a "graduate" of UWGB (1982)...
- (me) "A Girl - with a fancy degree in
"Environmental Science & COMMUNICATIONS"
(who could "program" a VAX VMS Computer)
- THE NCR CORPORATION hired me
- to "document" - their new product:
"A RETAIL TERMAL SYSTEM
- "SOFTWARE PLATFORM" - "ETSB"
... AND, there was this "cute guy"
- working there - in the
"NCR Art Department" ...
AND, I had a little 9-year old girl
- but, he didn't care...
[ "LOVE - OR SOMETHIN' LIKE IT" ]
GOTTA 'HOLD ON HIM'
" When
- taking taking the stripes off
- of a tiger
- encourage him
not to bare his teeth. "
- Hans Neuhart - 2-6-2021
> FDA diagram:
:: bigger
Offer to help Gustave F. Perna > "...
United States Army four-star general - chief operating officer
[ COO ] of "Operation Warp Speed" Offer to help
( in progress )
logistics in the United States federal government's - "Operation Warp Speed" - OWS:
Confirmation
CONTACT
ABOUT Susan < Avatar ( by Hans )
& FAMILY
https://hansandcassady.org/ABOUTSusanResume.html
Susan is a "retired" American
SUSAN
CONTACT Form
Alexi Nalvany CAPTURES AMERICA'S HEART
"courage" Wizard of OZ
https://hansandcassady.org/Alexi-Nalvany-Request.html
YOU are here "Earth" > United States > Ohio > WPAFB > : SITEMAP (IN PROGRESS)
( file178 ) :
https://hansandcassady.org/MO-BROOKS-AL.html https://hansandcassady.org/MO-BROOKS-AL.html
In fact - there are things - that I know - and, have experienced,
[that] no other human could "know" - unless THEY were also born "crippled".
I [Susan] was born ( 1954 ) - with a diagnosis of "pigeon breast" [ pectus carinatum ]
I "overcame" this "deforming" condition
- with, braces, science and the "helps" of my family.
https://hansandcassady.org/DEMS-survey-1-11-2021.html
< Related RESEARCH pages - used to build the DRAFT for "hopper" .
<< HEALTH CARE RESEARCH RELATED PAGES
THANK YOU!
GA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(U.S._state)
"Bicycle Bob" Bob Davis - Kleptz ( memory )
"When - taking taking the stripes off - of a tiger - encourage him not to bare his teeth."
- Hans Neuhart
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dailyadvocate/obituary.aspx?n=robert-lee-davis&pid=197425562&fhid=17945
2-6-2021
When - taking taking the stripes off - of a tiger - encourage him not to bare his teeth. - Hans Neuhart
" Data Item Descriptor "
SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_item_descriptions
"... A United States data item description (DID) is a completed document defining the data deliverables required of a United States Department of Defense contractor.[1] A DID specifically defines the data content, format, and intended use of the data with a primary objective of achieving standardization objectives by the U.S. Department of Defense. The content and format requirements for DIDs are defined within MIL-STD-963C, Data Item Descriptions (2014).[2] ..."
MEDICAL & SCIENTIFIC GRAPJICS - BY HANS
https://www.sciencevectorart.com/ CONTACT Form
UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE
- AS PROPOSED - BY SUSAN
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_(United_States_Congress)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedures_of_the_United_States_Congress
"HOPPER"
BILL ready for debate
( TRUMAN-CARE-Version-1-6-2021.pdf )
https://hansandcassady.org/TRUMAN-CARE-Version-1-6-2021.pdf : [ PDF] Universal HEALTH CARE!
( idea by Susan) ::
HERE'S HOW TO DO IT ! The "draft" Bill PDF ... Needs to be placed in Congressional "hopper" - for "debate" :: DEMS Please use our NEW power - to implement Health CARE - based on my RESEARCHED design> Please Place PDF in "hopper" for debate.
MIKE Turner < MY CURRENT CONGRESSMAN
https://turner.house.gov/
https://www.facebook.com/RepMikeTurner/photos/a.10150484650621648/10158787119361648/?type=3
JOE & MIKE
https://anthonygonzalez.house.gov/
https://www.brown.senate.gov/
SHERROD BROWN
( MY US SENATOR )
"UNITY"
This Buckeye hopeD Democrats Warnock and Ossoff
- [would] defeat the Republicans - in Georgia ... - done!
https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/1673652/warnock-ossoff.jpg CONTACT Form
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/opinion/biden-president.html "unity!" < New YORK Times
https://hansandcassady.org/Profiles-In-Courage.html
https://hansandcassady.org/Profiles-In-Courage.html < "... Defining "Political Courage" book INDEX
&REFERENCES
https://hansandcassady.org/Profiles-In-Courage-INDEX.html
WELSHLY ARMS
CLEVELAND, OHIO BAND
https://hansandcassady.org/Welshly-SAVE.html CONTACT Form
:: Halasanas AT the YMCA are fun!
https://hansandcassady.org/NOW-is-IMG-0164-Copy.mp4 < sUSAN HALANA KLEPTZ
DUMP TRUMP
halasana for Hans "Dump Trump"
https://hansandcassady.org/result-Dump-Trump.mp4
< DUMP TRUMP
https://hansandcassady.org/Yoga.html > yoga PAGE - halasana at Kleptz YMCA- OhiO
https://hansandcassady.org/NOW-is-IMG-0164-Copy.mp4 < sUSAN HALANA KLEPTZ
CONTACT Form
https://hansandcassady.org/contact_form/indexCOPY8-15-2018.html
FLOWCHART (IN PROGRESS)
Vaccine development And DELIVERY TRACKING System ...
https://hansandcassady.org/bATTELLE-offer.html
Sanjay Gupta "tIBUS" ERIVaccine < Google >
https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines/index.html
"ASSUME" > "ASS - OUTA - "U" & "ME" ...
https://hansandcassady.org/bATTELLE-offer.html
SARS-COV-2 "vaccine" -
>
https://www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines/index.html
https://hansandcassady.org/Trump-RadicaliZation.html < ( TIME magazine article "shred" in progress ) "CONVICT TRUMP"
"RADICALIZATION
Where to get more information: www.hhs.gov/coronavirus/explaining-operation-warp-speed/index.html Operation Warp Speed (official web site)
Note: MY CONTACT Form ( THIS DATE ) has been fixed - Sorry for any inconvenience.
How does SARS-COV-2 "vaccine" work?
( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-020-00352-y " A systematic review of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates ")
( PFIZER: " How the Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Works - By Corum and Zimmer - Updated Jan. 21, 2021 " https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine.html#:~:text=The%20SARS%2DCoV%2D2%20virus,for%20potential%20vaccines%20and%20treatments.&text=Like%20the%20Moderna%20vaccine%2C%20the,for%20building%20the%20spike%20protein. )
( MODERNA [NO EXPLANATION]: " How Does Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine Work, and Who Is Funding Its Development? " https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2020/08/27/moderna-covid19-vaccine-government-funding/ )
( MODERNA [TRY 2] (READERS MUST UNDERSTAND "PROTEIN SYNTHESIS" TO UNDERSTAND & APPRECIATE THE mRNA approach ! )
"PROTEIN SYNTHESIS" [ hhhhhhhhhh ]
YOGA-MAIN ) < RECENT Yoga PoseS Attempted by Susan : Videos ... : Welshly ARMS ( < AMERICAN RHYTHMIC Yoga Pose MUSIC )
> < "unity!" < New YORK Times
:: CONTACT Form
:: :: Warnock Ossoff :: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/opinion/biden-president.html "Unity!"
[ https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/who-could-replace-rob-portman-us-senate-1-25-2021 ]
Jim Jordan: "Premier Trump Ass Kisser" "why?" = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jordan_(American_politician) [ OH- 4 ]
https://hansandcassady.org/Profiles-In-Courage.html [ INDEX ] < "PROFILES IN COURAGE" -
"unity!" < New YORK Times Dear President-Elect Biden, I am a retired American female - and, I vote. I am extremely pleased that YOU and Senator [Vice President ELECT] Harris won. I think (thus far) you are doing a great job! YOUR DAILY "Profiles IN Courage" DURING THIS TRANSITION - MADE MORE DIFFICULT BY - Donald J. Trump - IS APPRECIATED ! God Speed, Mr. Biden & Ms. Harris! Thank you - again - for your "public service". - Susan I hope my VIDEO helped YOU & "brothers" Warnock-OSSOFF [ DUMP TRUMP VIDEO > https://hansandcassady.org/result-Dump-Trump.mp4 ]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Gonzalez_(politician)
::
ARTwork by Hans Neuhart [ medical, science, DIGITAL artist & Susan's VERY fine husband - since 1982 ]
"Bicycle Bob"
Bob Davis - Kleptz ( memory )
Thought of & missed by:
Hans, Susan, Judy & hundreds of others ...
Jon-Ossoff
-
Raphael Warnock
Endorsements: Andrew Young : Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown - OHIO - Kirsten Gillibrand, Jeff Merkley, Chris Murphy, Bernie Sanders, Brian Schatz, and Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee,
Stacey Abrams, and former presidents:: Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter
SOURCE: https://www.rollcall.com/2021/02/13/new-revelation-could-derail-plan-for-senate-to-acquit-trump-saturday/
"... New revelation could derail plan for Senate to acquit Trump Saturday. ... Fresh questions arise about timeline that may spur Senate to consider witnesses. Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the Republican senator who has seemed most persuaded by the House manager's; case, walks into the Senate Reception room on the second to last day of the Senate Impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump on Friday. ( The Washington Post/POOL )
Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the Republican senator who has seemed most persuaded by the House managers' case, walks into the Senate Reception room on the second to last day of the Senate Impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump on Friday. (The Washington Post/POOL)
By Lindsey McPherson ( Posted February 13, 2021 at 4:08am, Updated at 8:20am )
The Senate was preparing to conclude former President Donald Trump's second impeachment trial Saturday and hand him another acquittal. But then news broke late Friday of a damning statement Trump made to House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy during the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol the House is charging him with inciting. ( https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/12/politics/trump-mccarthy-shouting-match-details/index.html )
The new details of Trump's reaction to the Capitol attack could influence senators' thinking ahead of the vote, and even lead to a delay in the trial's conclusion if the prosecution, defense or senators want to call witnesses to confirm or rebut the account.
[ Combative Trump defense foretells likely impeachment acquittal ]
CNN reported that Trump responded to House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy asking the then-president on a phone call during the Capitol breach to tell his supporters to end their attacks by telling McCarthy the rioters "are more upset about the election than you are," citing lawmakers McCarthy briefed on the call.
[Seattle] Washington GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who voted to impeach Trump and was one of the lawmakers cited in the CNN report, confirmed and elaborated on the account in a statement calling on others with information on Trump's response Jan. 6 to come forward. She had previously relayed the McCarthy-Trump call to her local paper, The Daily News, on Jan. 17, but it didn't get national attention.
[ https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/washington-gop-rep-jaime-herrera-beutler-spoke-truth-to-power/
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Herrera_Beutler ]
“When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol," she said. "McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said:‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’" [ https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/who-are-trumps-supporters ]
1 December 2015 ... WHO ARE TRUMP'S SUPPORTERS? ... ...Dr Nicole Hemmer ... Honorary Associate, United States Studies Centre ... Research associate Nicole Hemmer in the US News & World Report. :: VIEW ON USNEWS.COM → "Honorary Associate, United States Studies Centre "
Nicole Hemmer is an Assistant Professor in Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, working with the Presidential Recordings Program. She was previously an Honorary Associate at the United States Studies Centre. She is the author of Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics. :: First published :: 1 December 2015
"... "Who are Trump Supporters?" THE Who, What, Where, When, WHY and How" - of ignorant & ANGRY Americans
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Messengers_of_the_Right/jpzQDAAAQBAJ?hl=en :: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Messengers_of_the_Right/jpzQDAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1 ..."
Who Are Trump's Supporters? ... "Ethno-nationalists" now represent a huge chunk of the Republican base, and Donald Trump is their pawn.
... By Nicole Hemmer, Contributing Editor for Opinion Dec. 1, 2015, at 8:00 a.m.
More
Who Are Trump's Supporters?
More
The inevitable result of the narrowed GOP base.( CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/AP )
IT TOOK LESS THAN A week for the narrative around Donald Trump's campaign to mutate from Trump the fool to Trump the fascist. "There is an odor of early fascism, or rather of the hysteria that precedes the march away from democracy, to much of this Trumpian rhetoric,"
Sasha Abramsky wrote for The Nation, while The Week's Ryan Cooper catalogued Trump's "alarming skid toward outright fascism."
Nor was this a phenomenon of liberal journalists. Conservative writers found themselves reaching for the word as well.
But Trump is more fool than fascist. Fascism is an ideology. Trump is just an id.
Rather than pretend a carnival barker is a political philosopher, it would be better to turn attention to Trump's supporters.
Who are the Trumpists, the voters who signed on for the Mexican rapists and stayed for the Muslim registry?
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Though they are right-wing GOP voters, Trump supporters have a political lineage that is neither wholly conservative nor wholly Republican.
They are instead right-wing and populist, more Charles Lindbergh than Robert Taft, more George Wallace than Barry Goldwater. Political theorist Danielle Allen has called them ethno-nationalists , a term preferable to the ill-defined pejorative "fascist."
SOURCE: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/birthers-trumpists-and-a-crisis-for-the-gop/2015/09/04/3b3e2074-5308-11e5-8c19-0b6825aa4a3a_story.html?postshare=6381448719054051&tid=ss_tw
The question is how these ethno-nationalists came to represent a plurality – perhaps even a majority – of the Republican base. It's a story that starts with Goldwater's 1964 run. The spectre of totalitarianism stalked that campaign, whose grassroots organizers seemed to come out of nowhere, toppling the party establishment. (A Chicago Defender article epitomized this line of argument, leading with, "This is Germany, 1933, and the Nazis are about to take over the country.")
But Goldwater was no Trump. He was a libertarian conservative, a sitting senator and someone suspicious of the fringier parts of his base. And make no mistake: His base was not simply made up of ethno-nationalists. Goldwater drew support from conservative intellectuals, stalwart Republicans, even a young Hillary Clinton. He occasionally courted the fringe but could never quite embrace it, something made clear in his decision to bar Birch Society members from his campaign team.
After Goldwater, the ethno-nationalists flocked to George Wallace's campaign. Wallace was a candidate who made both conservatives and Republicans uneasy. The conservative journal National Review – which today denounces Trump – ran article after article criticizing Wallace and Wallace-ism. Columnist Frank Meyer exemplified the journal's position when he called Wallace a "demagogue" and a "populist," arguing that populism was "the radical opposite of conservatism."
Richard Nixon, running against Wallace in 1968, also had little time for Wallace's earthy populism and arch-segregation. But Nixon won that election by less than 1 percent. He recognized the old political coalitions were falling apart, and he sought to court the ethno-nationalists who had given Wallace their votes. He ditched his affirmative action plans, needled the press and started trumpeting the "silent majority."
That silent majority, though, was a great, amorphous group, into which ethno-nationalists as a distinct faction melted away. They emerged again during Pat Buchanan's 1992 bid for the Republican nomination. Buchanan, with his protectionist policies, culture-war rancor and closed-border rhetoric, was an ethno-nationalist king. Both a Republican and a conservative, he crystallized the ethno-nationalist lament (" we must take back our cities, and take back our culture and take back our country") and then urged his supporters to come home to the GOP.
And they did. As the GOP base grew increasingly white, ethno-nationalists came to comprise a larger proportion of the base. By 2005-2006, they were influential enough to scotch George W. Bush's immigration reforms. By 2012, they could cripple any candidate who got out of line on their core issue, immigration. ( See: Rick Perry, 2011; Marco Rubio, 2013.)
[
RELATED: Donald Trump's Anti-Muslim, Fascist Flirtation Means He's Not Funny Anymore ]
This conflict came to a head after Mitt Romney's defeat in 2012. In the election aftermath, the party's leaders and conservative policymakers tried to wrest control from the ethno-nationalists in their camp. Trump's months-long front-runner status is evidence that they failed. And their failure has left the rest of the field pinched between appealing to the ethno-nationalist base and staking out the moral high ground. Mostly they've chosen the former, doubling down on Trumpism even as they denounce him. (Witness Jeb Bush denying Trump is a "serious candidate " in the same week he argued for a religious test for refugees.)
Whatever Trump's eventual fate in the 2016 campaign, his candidacy highlights not his political skill (which is minimal) but his supporters' political will. He has become a rare thing, indeed: a billionaire who's the pawn of the masses.
But don't weep for Donald Trump. He's getting what he wanted at the outset: attention, and the chance to plaster his name on as many surfaces as possible. Weep instead for the GOP leaders who recognized, belatedly, that they had narrowed their base too much, a mistake that would appear to have lost them control of their party, with no clear road map for how to get it back.
Nicole Hemmer, Contributing Editor for Opinion ... Nicole Hemmer is a U.S. News contributing editor for opinion and author of "Messengers of the ... "
The Senate is set to reconvene the trial Saturday at 10 a.m. Senators had expected the House impeachment managers and Trump's defense team to forgo calling witnesses or entering late motions to introduce new evidence, as the procedures for the trial allow, and to proceed straight to closing arguments and a final vote. ... That plan seemed up in the air with the new revelation considering senators during the question-and-answer portion of the trial sought more information about the timeline in which Trump learned the Capitol had been breached and how he responded.
Adds to timeline confusion
Republicans weighing conviction, like Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah, were especially interested in the timeline. Most of them felt the answers the defense provided did not clarify Trump's response on Jan. 6, so they're likely to be interested in the new details on his phone call with McCarthy.
During Friday's session, Cassidy had asked about the House managers arguing Trump knew Vice President Mike Pence was evacuated from the Senate, per a phone call with Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville, before he tweeted “Pence didn't have the courage” to stop certification of the election results.
"Does this show that President Trump was tolerant of the intimidation of Vice President Pence?" Cassidy asked, posing the question to both the prosecution and defense.
He was not satisfied with the defense’s response disputing the premise of his question and the claim they can’t know the facts because the House did nothing to investigate.
“I didn’t think it was a very good answer,” Cassidy said. He specifically took issue with the defense calling Tuberville’s account “hearsay” even though Tuberville has repeatedly confirmed it.
Tuberville told reporters Friday he doesn't know exactly what time he spoke with Trump or if it was before the tweet in question, but he confirmed he told Trump that Pence was being evacuated.
"I said 'Mr. President, they've taken the Vice President out. They want me to get off the phone, I gotta go,'" he said.
Tuberville said he doesn't know if Trump knew Pence was in danger before that or how he reacted to him saying the vice president was being evacuated.
"I don't remember," he said. "Because they were dragging me. They had me by the arm."
The House impeachment managers had sent a letter inviting Trump to testify before the trial started, but his lawyers declined on his behalf. Lead House manager Jamie Raskin argued in response to Cassidy's question that Trump's decision not to testify can be used to draw an "adverse inference" about any holes in the evidentiary record he's declining to fill.
Cassidy said he is not a lawyer and would want to consult one about "adverse inference" but he seemed to buy into the prosecution's argument.
“The real issue is what was the president’s intent," he said. "Only the president could answer that. And the president chose not to testify.”
Depose McCarthy and Tuberville?
Senators largely had not reacted to the new details of McCarthy's phone call with Trump by Saturday morning. But Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse said in a Twitter thread that Trump's lawyers have an ethical obligation to clear up their "misrepresentations."
Whitehouse suggested the Senate could suspend the trial to depose McCarthy and Tuberville.
The comment was telling considering earlier Friday Whitehouse had told reporters witnesses would not be called in the trial, saying definitively, "That's not gonna happen."
Early Saturday morning, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley re-tweeted Whitehouse's tweet, suggesting what may perhaps be a gathering sentiment in the Democratic caucus. "Senator Whitehouse nailed it," he tweeted.
Romney said he would be vote to allow witnesses if either side were to request that, suggesting there could be bipartisan support for prolonging the trial.
"I would support additional witnesses if the counsel on either side ... wishes to call it," he told reporters just before the trial was to begin Saturday morning.
But one Democrat questioned the reason for calling witnesses. "I haven't heard a compelling argument for why we need witnesses," Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said.
And Sen. Bob Casey suggested witness testimony wouldn't change the outcome.
"My gut tells me no, and I think that the record is already replete with evidence," the Pennsylvania Democrat said.
After making a big push for witnesses in Trump's first impeachment trial, Senate Democrats have said for weeks that witnesses were not needed in the second because senators themselves were witnesses to the insurrection.
But Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and some in his caucus had been careful never to rule it out and instead defer to the House managers to decide whether to call witnesses.
Leader impeachment manager Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin declined to comment as he left the Capitol Friday night when reporters asked if the prosecution planned to call witnesses. But another manager, Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean, had signaled that was unlikely, noting, “The American people witnessed this. The senators witnessed this.”
Without witnesses, Trump’s second trial was on track to be significantly shorter than his first, ending Saturday after just five days. But even before Friday night's revelation, it appeared there would be more Republican support to convict, despite falling short of the 67 votes needed, than in Trump's first trial.
Last February the Senate acquitted Trump of two charges: abuse of power related to his pressure campaign on Ukraine to investigate now-President Joe Biden and obstruction of Congress for his administration’s refusal to cooperate in the House impeachment inquiry into that matter.
All but one Republican, Romney, voted to acquit Trump of both charges. Romney only voted to convict on abuse of power.
This time there’s a single impeachment article, incitement of insurrection, and a handful of Republicans besides Romney are considering voting to convict.
While not a single GOP senator had announced a planned conviction vote as of press time, there were several undecided -- even before the new details the McCarthy-Trump call.
Most likely to convict
The Republicans considered most likely to convict are the six who joined with Democrats Tuesday in a 56-44 vote dismissing the defense’s primary objection and determining the Senate has the constitutional jurisdiction to try a former president.
Those six Republicans were Cassidy, Collins, Murkowski, Romney, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania.
Cassidy has been the most vocal about how the House managers’ case is influencing him.
“There’s a proverb: your mind is persuaded but you should hear the other side,” Cassidy told reporters Thursday when asked if he believes Trump is responsible for the insurrection.
Still, after hearing the other side Friday, Cassidy was not prepared to say how he’d vote.
“I’m gonna go home and write my thoughts out, because I find when you write your thoughts out, you establish clarity,” he said.
Of the other five senators who voted “yes” on the constitutionality question, all but Sasse — who has repeatedly declined to answer questions — have offered some clues to reporters about how they may vote.
Collins left Friday’s question-and-answer session unsatisfied with the response to the Trump timeline questions she and others posed. But she seemed to be leaning toward siding with the defense.
“I didn’t really feel that I got a response, but I’m not sure that that was the fault of the counsel,” Collins said. “One of the problems is that with the House not having held hearings to establish exactly what happened when, it’s difficult to answer a question like that. I was hoping that one side or the other would have, because I think it’s a very important question.”
Murkowski, who joined Collins in the question to the defense about Trump’s timeline, also admitted the details of his response to the attack weren’t exactly cleared up. But she said Trump’s lawyers “did a good job in terms of responding, and that’s what I was certainly looking for.”
Earlier in the day after Trump’s team presented the first part of their case, Murkowski said, “They are putting on a good defense” and are “more on their game today than what I saw the other day.”
She was referring to their arguments Tuesday on the constitutionality of the trial, which she said kicked off their case “in a way that wasn’t as strong.”
The House managers “laid their case out and they’ve done it with a chronology and timeline that people could follow. And so it was important to have a significant response today from” the defense, Murkowski said.
The CNN report cited a source close to Pence saying defense attorney Michael van der Veen lied when he said "at no point" did Trump know his vice president was in danger. It was not immediately clear how that might shift Collins and Murkowski's thinking on the defense's response to the timeline questions.
Romney — who had joined Collins in a question about whether Trump knew Pence had been evacuated from the Senate for his safety when he sent his disparaging tweet about the vice president — only told reporters Friday that he appreciated the answers that came in to his and Cassidy’s questions.
Some questions Romney had prepared but did not ask during the session, however, indicate he’s leaning toward conviction. For example, he had wanted to ask the House managers if it was necessary for them to prove that Trump intended for the mob to enter the Capitol and cause mayhem and to ask the defense whether Trump’s call to the Georgia secretary of state was an attempt to have him falsify the election results.
Toomey, who is retiring after this term, hasn’t made any public comments since the main presentations, so it’s hard to judge where he stands. But he told reporters after Tuesday’s debate on the constitutional question that the House managers’ arguments were “persuasive and well grounded in the Constitution and precedent,” while the defense “had a weaker case to start with, and I don’t think it was very persuasive.”
Unconstitutional voters
Few, if any, of the 44 Republicans who voted Tuesday that the Senate lacks the constitutional jurisdiction to try a former president were expected to vote to convict Trump before Friday's development. It was unclear if that would change their views.
While a majority of the 44 had said they plan to acquit Trump in part because of their constitutional objections, some have claimed throughout the proceedings they are impartial jurors and listening to and considering the evidence of both sides.
During the vote, all eyes will be on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as various press reports citing anonymous sources close to the Kentucky Republican claim McConnell is open to conviction.
Among the other Republicans claiming to be impartial jurors, John Thune of South Dakota, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Tuberville all left the Senate after Friday’s proceeding declining to say how they’d vote.
Thune, the No. 2 in GOP leadership, ignored a question about whether his mind was made up. Tuberville said his was not: “I’m going to wait till the end. I’m a juror.”
Grassley may have made up his mind but wouldn’t tell CQ Roll Call how he planned to vote as he left the Capitol Friday. “You will hear me say that about two o'clock tomorrow,” he said.
Sullivan also wouldn’t say how he’s voting until Saturday. But he said the defense “did a strong job” in their presentation Friday and the House managers arguing Thursday that due process is discretionary “was a shocker.”
Chris Cioffi contributed to this report. ..."
https://patriots.win/p/12hRUvrxBv/these-are-the-lawyers-who-are-ab/c/
https://patriots.win/
I have always liked science; And, in the spring - of 1965 - I selected a book to report on: "Black Like Me" - by John Howard Griffin. It fascinated me (as an eleven year old ) - [that] a white man could change himself - to look like a "colored" man.
My father had died from mesothelioma - the previous October 31, 1964.
B. Thompson & "naacp" v "TRUMP" IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
( https://naacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Thompson-v.-Trump-Complaint-FILED.pdf )
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59292668/thompson-v-trump/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/us/politics/naacp-sues-trump-giuliani-proud-boys-capitol.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/lawsuit-trump-capitol-riot/2021/02/16/1695b6b0-6fd6-11eb-b8a9-b9467510f0fe_story.html
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59292668/2/thompson-v-trump/ < eRRATA-dOCUMENT #2
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59292668/3/thompson-v-trump/ < NOTICE
NOTICE of Appearance by Brian Christopher Corman on behalf of All Plaintiffs (Corman, Brian) (Entered: 02/16/2021)
"... COMPLAINT against All Defendants with Jury Demand ( Filing fee $ 402 receipt number ADCDC-8202743) filed by BENNIE G. THOMPSON. (Attachments: # 1 Civil Cover Sheet, # 2 Summons, # 3 Summons, # 4 Summons, # 5 Summons, # 6 Summons)(Sellers, Joseph) (Entered: 02/16/2021) ..."
"... NOTICE OF ERROR re 1 Complaint; emailed to mbekesha@judicialwatch.org, cc'd -1 associated attorneys -- The PDF file you docketed contained errors:
1. Blank or missing coversheet. Please use the cover sheet at
https://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/new-case-forms & file using the event Civil Cover Sheet.,
2. COMPLIANCE DEADLINE is by close of business today. This case will not proceed any further until all errors are satisfied. (adh, ) ..."
( https://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/sites/dcd/files/CivilCoverSheetJS44_Nov_2020FILL.pdf )
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59292668/parties/thompson-v-trump/
https://www.courtlistener.com/?type=r&cause=%2228:1331%20Federal%20Question:%20Other%20Civil%20Rights%22
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THOMPSON v. TRUMP et al
District Of Columbia District Court ( www.pacermonitor.com/court/113/District_Of_Columbia )
Judge: Amit P Mehta ( www.pacermonitor.com/person/2461/amit_p_mehta )
Case #: 1:21-cv-00400
Nature of Suit 440 Civil Rights - Other Civil Rights
Cause 28:1331 Federal Question: Other Civil Rights
Case Filed: Feb 16, 2021
Docket ( www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/38378105/THOMPSON_v_TRUMP_et_al#docket )
Parties (5) ( www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/38378105/THOMPSON_v_TRUMP_et_al#parties )
Docket last updated: 15 minutes ago
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
4
SUMMONS (5) Issued Electronically as to RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI, OATH KEEPERS, PROUD BOYS INTERNATIONAL, L.L.C., DONALD J. TRUMP. (Attachment: #1 Notice and Consent)(adh, )
3
NOTICE of Appearance by Brian Christopher Corman on behalf of All Plaintiffs (Corman, Brian)
2
ERRATA (Corrected Civil Cover Sheet) by BENNIE G. THOMPSON re1 Complaint, filed by BENNIE G. THOMPSON. (Sellers, Joseph)
1
32 pgs COMPLAINT against All Defendants with Jury Demand ( Filing fee $ 402 receipt number ADCDC-8202743) filed by BENNIE G. THOMPSON.(Sellers, Joseph)
Att: 1 Civil Cover Sheet,
Att: 2 Summons,
Att: 3 Summons,
Att: 4 Summons,
Att: 5 Summons,
Att: 6 Summons
Case Assigned to Judge Amit P. Mehta. (zsb)
NOTICE OF ERROR re1 Complaint; emailed to mbekesha@judicialwatch.org, cc'd -1 associated attorneys -- The PDF file you docketed contained errors: 1. Blank or missing coversheet. Please use the cover sheet at https://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/new-case-forms & file using the event Civil Cover Sheet., 2. COMPLIANCE DEADLINE is by close of business today. This case will not proceed any further until all errors are satisfied. (adh, )
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THOMPSON v. TRUMP et al
District Of Columbia District Court
Judge: Amit P Mehta
Case #: 1:21-cv-00400
Nature of Suit 440 Civil Rights - Other Civil Rights
Cause 28:1331 Federal Question: Other Civil Rights
Case Filed: Feb 16, 2021
Docket
Parties (5)
Last checked: Tuesday Feb 16, 2021 10:05 AM EST
Defendant
RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI
Rudolph W. Giuliani PLLC 445 Park Ave Floor 18
New York, NY 10022
Defendant
Oath Keepers
1030 E. Hwy 377 Suite 110-285
Granbury, TX 76048
Defendant
Proud Boys International LLC
108 Durango Dr.
Crossroads, TX 76227
Defendant
DONALD J. TRUMP
Mar-A-Lago 1100 S. Ocean Blvd.
Palm Beach, FL 33480
Plaintiff
Hon. BENNIE G. THOMPSON
2466 Rayburn House Office Building U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Represented By
Joseph M. Sellers
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC
contact info
Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC : ( https://www.cohenmilstein.com/ )
Joseph M. Sellers : ( https://www.cohenmilstein.com/professional/joseph-m-sellers )
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https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/59292668/1/thompson-v-trump/
Thompson-V-Trump
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON, in his
personal capacity,
2466 Rayburn House Office Building
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Plaintiff,
v.
DONALD J. TRUMP, solely in his personal
capacity
Mar-A-Lago
1100 S. Ocean Blvd.
Palm Beach, Florida 33480-5004,
RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI,
Rudolph W Giuliani, PLLC
445 Park Ave FL 18
New York, NY 10022-2606
PROUD BOYS INTERNATIONAL, L.L.C.,
c/o Jason L. Van Dyke
108 Durango Dr.
Crossroads, TX, 76227, and
OATH KEEPERS,
Attn: Stewart Rhodes
1030 E. Hwy 377
Ste 110-285
Granbury, TX 76048
4625 West Nevso Drive, Suite 2 & 3
Las Vegas, NV, 89103
Defendants.
Civil Action No. ____________
COMPLAINT
JURY TRIAL REQUESTED
COMPLAINT
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 1 of 32
2
INTRODUCTION
1. On and before January 6, 2021, the Defendants Donald J. Trump, Rudolph W.
Giuliani, Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers conspired to incite an assembled crowd to march upon
and enter the Capitol of the United States for the common purpose of disrupting, by the use of
force, intimidation and threat, the approval by Congress of the count of votes cast by members of
the Electoral College as required by Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution. In
doing so, the Defendants each intended to prevent, and ultimately delayed, members of Congress
from discharging their duty commanded by the United States Constitution to approve the results
of the Electoral College in order to elect the next President and Vice President of the United
States.
2. Plaintiff, the Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, Member of the United States
House of Representatives, brings this action against the Defendants for conspiring to prevent him
and other Members of Congress from discharging these official duties, in violation of 42 U.S.C.
§ 1985(1). Enacted as the “Ku Klux Klan Act” in 1871, Section 1985(1) was intended to protect
against conspiracies, through violence and intimidation, that sought to prevent Members of
Congress from discharging their official duties. The statute was enacted in response to violence
and intimidation in which the Ku Klux Klan and other organizations were engaged during that
time period.
3. The Defendants conspired to prevent, by force, intimidation and threats, the
Plaintiff, as a Member of Congress, from discharging his official duties to approve the count of
votes cast by members of the Electoral College following the presidential election held in
November 2020.
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 2 of 32
3
4. In furtherance of this common goal of preventing the timely approval of the
Electoral College vote count, the Defendants acted in concert to incite and then carry out a riot at
the Capitol by promoting an assembly of persons to engage in tumultuous and violent conduct or
the threat of it that created grave danger of harm to the Plaintiff and to other Members of
Congress.
5. This conduct jointly undertaken to threaten the Plaintiff and other Members of
Congress in order to disrupt the Electoral College vote count was part of an ongoing course of
action pursued by the Defendants for the purpose of contesting the announced results of the
presidential election held in November 2020 and preventing the duly elected President and Vice
President from attaining approval of Congress of their election necessary to their inauguration.
6. The insurrection at the Capitol was a direct, intended, and foreseeable result of the
Defendants’ unlawful conspiracy. It was instigated according to a common plan that the
Defendants pursued since the election held in November 2020, culminating in an assembly
denominated as the “Save America” rally held at the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. on January 6,
2021, during which Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited a crowd of thousands to descend
upon the Capitol in order to prevent or delay through the use of force the counting of Electoral
College votes. As part of this unified plan to prevent the counting of Electoral College votes,
Defendants Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, through their leadership, acted in concert to
spearhead the assault on the Capitol while the angry mob that Defendants Trump and Giuliani
incited descended on the Capitol. The carefully orchestrated series of events that unfolded at the
Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol was no accident or coincidence. It was the
intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the
legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 3 of 32
4
7. While not all of the Defendants in this action were physically present at the
Capitol during this attack on the Plaintiff and other Members of Congress, the events that
occurred were the natural, foreseeable and intended consequence of the Defendants’ coordinated
campaign to use intimidation, harassment and threats in an attempt to prevent Congress from
discharging its legally required duty to preside over, and approve, the count of the Electoral
College votes which ultimately confirmed that Defendant Trump’s opponent was elected the next
President of the United States.
8. Accordingly, this action seeks the award of compensatory damages to redress the
harm to the Plaintiff caused by the Defendants’ use of intimidation, harassment and threats of
violence to interfere with his discharge of his legally required duty as a Member of Congress and
punitive damages to punish the Defendants for the reckless and malicious manner in which they
acted and to enjoin and deter a recurrence of this unlawful conduct.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
9. This Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this suit pursuant to 28
U.S.C. § 1331 because the claim in this case arises under the laws of the United States.
10. Venue is proper in this judicial district pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b)(2)
because a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the claims occurred in this
district.
THE PARTIES
11. Plaintiff Bennie G. Thompson is the duly elected Representative of the Second
Congressional District of Mississippi. On January 6, 2021, Rep. Thompson was present in the
Capitol in order to discharge his legally required duty to observe and approve the count of votes
cast by members of the Electoral College for the election of President and Vice-President of the
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 4 of 32
5
United States. As described in more detail below, Rep. Thompson was hindered, delayed,
impeded and almost completely prevented from carrying out these duties because of the
Defendants’ unlawful actions. Rep. Thompson brings this suit in his personal capacity.
12. Defendant Donald J. Trump was the President of the United States from January
20, 2017 until noon Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2021. Defendant Trump is a resident
of the state of Florida. As described in more detail below, Defendant Trump, acting solely in his
personal capacity, conspired with others with the purpose of preventing, by force, intimidation
and threats, the Plaintiff and other Members of Congress from discharging their duty to approve
the results of the Electoral College vote and certify the results of the presidential election held in
November, 2020. Defendant Trump is sued in his personal capacity.
13. Defendant Rudolph William Giuliani has acted as a confidant of Defendant
Trump. The actions attributed to Defendant Giuliani were undertaken in his personal capacity
and not as an officer of the United States. He is a resident of New York. As discussed in more
detail below, Defendant Giuliani acted in concert with other Defendants to prevent the Plaintiff
and other Members of Congress from discharging their duty to approve the results of the
Electoral College vote and certify the results of the presidential election held in November 2020.
14. Proud Boys International, L.L.C. (“Proud Boys”) is a Texas Limited Liability
Company with multiple chapters in the United States and main offices located in Crossroads,
Texas. The organization describes itself as a “pro-Western fraternal organization for men who
refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.” Proud Boys
members have participated in multiple events that have supported and promoted views that were
highly critical of positions advanced during the presidential campaign of then Vice President
Biden and views that were strongly supportive of positions advanced during the presidential
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campaign of then President Trump. It also has repeatedly employed and supported the use of
violence in its opposition to views with which it differed, such as the views expressed by leaders
of the Black Lives Matter movement. Proud Boys members can often be identified by the
yellow and black colors they wear as well as by logos and emblems that are identified with the
Proud Boys organization. As described in more detail below, Proud Boys was involved in
organizing and carrying out the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in pursuit of a
purpose shared by Defendants Trump and Giuliani, as part of a jointly conceived and executed
plan to prevent the counting of Electoral Votes confirming Defendant Trump’s opponent as the
next President.
15. Defendant Oath Keepers is a militia organization incorporated as a non-profit
corporation in Nevada, with its main office located in Las Vegas, Nevada, whose members are
comprised of current and former military and law enforcement officers who express the view that
the federal government is trying to strip American citizens of their rights. The organization’s
name is derived from the oath that all military and police take to “defend the Constitution against
all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The organization and its leadership have routinely stated
that it is preparing for or engaged in a civil war. As described in more detail below, Oath
Keepers was directly involved in organizing and carrying out the insurrection at the Capitol on
January 6, 2021 in pursuit of a purpose shared by Defendants Trump, Giuliani and Proud Boys.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
I. Defendants’ Actions Leading Up to the “Save America” Rally
16. The attack on the Capitol that occurred on January 6, 2021 was no accident.
Since the results of the election held in November 2020 were announced, Defendant Trump, in
concert with Defendant Giuliani, mobilized supporters by mounting a campaign of
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misinformation and anger-laden rhetoric to challenge the validity of the election results in
support of the false contention that Defendant Trump had actually won the election
notwithstanding the results certified by every state in the Union that demonstrated otherwise.
17. During the presidential campaign, Defendant Trump repeatedly declined to agree
that, regardless of the outcome of the election, he would ensure a peaceful transition of power.
In doing so, he solicited the support of, and endorsed the belligerent and violent actions of,
organizations such as the Proud Boys that expressed support of his reelection.
18. During this time, Defendant Trump actively and enthusiastically supported armed
protesters who used threats and, at times, violence in the pursuit of their political and social
agendas. For example, after state governments began implementing restrictions on access to
public facilities in response to the spread of the COVID-19, Defendant Trump referred to
supporters who threatened the use of violence in resisting these restrictions as the “Trump Army”
and the “first line of defense when it comes to fighting off the Liberal mob.”
19. In another illustration of Defendant Trump’s endorsement of the threat of
violence, after a caravan of Trump supporters swarmed a Biden campaign bus on November 1,
2020, nearly causing a violent accident and leading to the cancellation of a Biden campaign
event, Defendant Trump praised the mob, saying, “These patriots did nothing wrong.”
20. After the votes were tallied from the election held on November 3, 2020,
Defendants Trump and Giuliani initiated a campaign in which they reported that the announced
vote tallies were the product of fraud and that Defendant Trump in fact won the election,
notwithstanding that these assertions were repeatedly rejected by the courts and the states to
which they were presented.
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21. On November 4, 2020, Defendant Trump declared that he had won the
presidential election, notwithstanding that some votes cast had not yet been counted.
22. After all the votes had been counted and former Vice President Joseph Biden was
declared the victor, Defendants Trump and Giuliani and Defendant Trump’s supporters
embarked on a campaign to challenge as fraudulent the vote results in more than 60 lawsuits
filed in various state and federal courts.
23. Notwithstanding that the allegations of fraud were repeatedly rejected by the
courts in which these suits were filed, Defendants Trump and Giuliani together maintained that
Defendant Trump had actually prevailed in the election and continued to attack the integrity of
the state election offices and officials and the election results in those states that reported
Defendant Trump received fewer votes than then-former Vice President Biden.
24. Defendant Trump communicated these inflammatory and demonstrably false
views through various social media outlets, including Twitter, through which he had 89 million
followers.
25. Similarly, at a press conference held in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total
Landscaping in Pennsylvania held on November 7, 2020, Defendant Giuliani stated that there
had been widespread voter fraud in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh which he claimed accounted for
Defendant Trump’s loss in that state. Both cities have large African American populations.
26. Defendant Giuliani claimed that Philadelphia had “a sad history of voter
fraud.” He also named deceased African Americans, whom he falsely claimed were still allowed
to vote.
27. In another episode in the campaign mounted by Defendants Trump and Giuliani,
Defendant Giuliani said, “The margin in Michigan was 146,121, and these ballots were all cast
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basically in Detroit, that Biden won 80-20. So, you see a change as a result in the election in
Michigan if you take out Wayne County, so it’s a very significant case.” As a result, Defendant
Giuliani advocated rejecting the votes cast by voters in Detroit, the population of which is 78
percent African American. No evidence of such fraud was ever produced or found by any court
or state agency.
28. In still another episode in this campaign to instill doubt in the integrity of the
electoral process, Defendant Giuliani asserted at a press conference held on November 19, 2020
that Defendant Trump’s loss in Wisconsin was attributed to fraud in voting in Milwaukee and
Madison, Wisconsin, both of which have large African American populations.
29. In response to Defendant Trump and Giuliani’s repeated assertions that voting in
states where Defendant Trump lost was tainted by fraud, some supporters of Defendant Trump,
with his urging and support, harassed election workers in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and other states and attempted to interfere with and/or stop the vote
count in those states.
30. Defendant Trump persisted in casting doubt on the integrity of the electoral
process in states where he lost and encouraging supporters to do the same, notwithstanding that
state election officials found no evidence of fraud and resistance to the election results expressed
by his supporters grew increasingly shrill and accusatory. Although officials rebutted the
allegations of fraud and urged calmer exchanges over the election results, supporters of
Defendant Trump, with his expressed support, continued to engage in personal and accusatory
attacks.
31. Georgia Republican election official Gabriel Sterling, for example, pleaded with
Trump to “[s]top inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get
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shot, someone is going to get killed. And it’s not right.” This plea, like others from state
election officials, went unheeded by Trump and his supporters.
32. Other threats of violence expressed by Trump supporters, with his endorsement,
continued unabated. On December 6, 2020, for example, armed protestors arrived at the home of
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, threatening violence after the results of the
election.
33. Similarly, on December 8, the official Twitter account of the Arizona GOP asked
supporters if they were willing to die for Defendant Trump, accompanied by a clip from the
movie “Rambo.”
34. Acknowledging the existence of these threats of violence, Trump endorsed rather
than discouraged them. On December 10, 2020, for example, he tweeted: “People are upset, and
they have a right to be. Georgia not only supported Trump in 2016, but now. This is the only
State in the Deep South that went for Biden? Have they lost their minds? This is going to
escalate dramatically. This is a very dangerous moment in our history....” Notwithstanding the
danger that these threats of violence could escalate, Defendant Trump continued to claim that he
had won elections in states where the state-certified vote tallies showed otherwise.
35. As states finished certifying the official election results, confirming that
Defendant Trump had lost the presidential election, Defendants Trump and Giuliani began
characterizing the presidential election as stolen. On December 12, 2020, “Stop the Steal” rallies
occurred across the country where violence erupted among the demonstrators. Rather than
urging the demonstrators to act peacefully, Defendant Trump expressed his unqualified support
of those who participated in these rallies and their violent tactics and tweeted, “I’ll be seeing
them!”
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36. Turning his attention away from challenging the state election results and toward
the final count of the Electoral College votes by Congress on January 6, 2021, Defendant Trump
began to rally his supporters to descend on Washington at that time. He tweeted: “Statistically
impossible to have lost the 2020 Election” and “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will
be wild!”
37. In the days leading up to the “Save America” rally scheduled for January 6, 2021,
Defendant Trump repeatedly issued messages to his supporters expressing support for the use of
violent means to secure his reelection and stop the process confirming the election of former
Vice President Biden.
38. On social media message boards used by Trump supporters, supporters referred to
the need to “go to war” against those who they regarded as unreceptive to Defendant Trump’s
efforts to secure his reelection.
39. In yet another warning that the incendiary remarks expressed by Trump could
lead to violence, on December 28, 2020, former White House official Olivia Troye expressed
concern “that there will be violence on January 6th because the president himself encourages it.”
Ms. Troye continued, “This is what [Trump] does. He tweets. He incites it. He gets his
followers and supporters to behave in this manner, and these people think they they’re being
patriotic because they are supporting Donald Trump.”
40. Nonetheless, on January 1, 2021, Defendant Trump retweeted a tweet from the
chair of Women for America First, an organizer of the “Save America” rally, stating, “The
cavalry [sic] is coming, Mr. President!”
41. On December 29, 2020, Enrique Tarrio, Chairman of the Proud Boys, posted a
message on the social media site Parler about the demonstration planned for January 6, 2021.
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Among other things, Tarrio announced that the Proud Boys would “turn out in record numbers
on Jan 6th but this time with a twist… We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow.
We will be incognito and we will be spread across downtown DC in smaller teams. And who
knows … we might dress in all BLACK for the occasion.” Law enforcement investigating the
Capitol insurrection has attributed the statement about dressing in “all BLACK” as a reference to
dressing like the group known as “Antifa,” whom the Proud Boys have identified as an enemy of
their movement and are often depicted in the media wearing all black to demonstrations.
42. In early January, Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs posted on the social media
platform Parler: “Every lawmaker who breaks their own stupid Fucking laws should be dragged
out of office and hung.”
43. In an interview posted online on or about January 3, 2021, Mr. Biggs described
the Proud Boys’ efforts to organize and participate in events, stating that the group carefully
plans ahead around a common objective for the group to achieve at the event.
44. Defendant Trump encouraged and condoned the violence in which the Proud
Boys engaged. When asked to denounce the Proud Boys during the September 28, 2020
presidential debate, which had followed events over the summer in which Proud Boys members
were reported to have promoted and engaged in violence during rallies, Defendant Trump
condoned, rather than condemned, their violent conduct, telling members of the group: “Proud
Boys, stand back and stand by.”
45. Understanding that Defendant Trump was endorsing their violent conduct and
enlisting them for future conflicts, Proud Boys Chairman Tarrio responded by tweeting:
“Standing by sir.”
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46. Thomas Caldwell, a leader of Defendant Oath Keepers, was also directly involved
in coordinating and preparing for the insurrection at the Capitol.
47. On January 1, 2021, Caldwell sent a Facebook message with information about a
hotel in Northern Virginia where Oath Keepers members could stay and assemble when they
came to Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, stating that the hotel had “a good location and
would allow us to hunt at night if we wanted to.” This message further stated that gathering on
January 6 would be a “call to arms.”
48. Following his father’s lead, on January 4, 2021, at a campaign rally in Georgia,
Donald Trump Jr. rallied the crowd by stating, “They’re not taking this White House. We’re
going to fight like hell.”
49. Stoking the anger and fervor of the crowd assembled in Washington, D.C. for the
“Stop the Steal” rally scheduled for January 6, 2021, at a rally at Freedom Plaza in Washington,
D.C. held on January 5, 2021, the leader of the “Stop the Steal” event led the crowd of Trump
supporters in a chant of: “Victory or death!”
50. On the morning of January 6, 2021, before the Congressional approval of the
Electoral College vote count was scheduled to occur later that day, Defendant Trump sent a
message by twitter to Vice President Pence, encouraging him to refuse to allow the state-certified
Electoral College ballots to be counted, as the Electoral Count Act of 1887 required. Instead,
Defendant Trump stated, “All Mike Pence has to do is send [the election] back to the States,
AND WE WIN.”
51. The Electoral Count Act of 1887 requires that Congress convene on January 6 at
1:00 PM of the year after each presidential election in order to count the ballots cast by members
of the Electoral College and, absent objection to any of the ballots, certify the count to the Vice
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President, acting as President of the Senate, who is required to formally declare the victor in the
election.
52. Defendant Trump’s proposal to Vice President Pence as the President of the
Senate, that he decline to count the Electoral College ballots and, instead of declaring the winner
of the election, send the election back to the states, was in direct contravention of the legal
requirements that the Electoral Count Act of 1887 imposed on the Vice President.
II. The Actions of Defendants Trump and Giuliani at the “Save America” Rally
53. On the morning of January 6, 2021, before the “Save America” rally, Defendant
Trump urged his followers to resist the final count of the Electoral College ballots, misinforming
them in a tweet that “The States want to redo their votes. They found out they voted on a
FRAUD. Legislatures never approved. Let them do it. BE STRONG!” No state ever expressed
the view, attributed to them by Defendant Trump, that they wanted to “redo their votes.”
54. Defendant Giuliani spoke immediately before Defendant Trump. In remarks
mirroring Defendant Trump’s prior messages, Defendant Giuliani began by making a series of
statements about the election contradicted by the state election officers, calling the votes lawfully
cast in favor of President Biden “crooked ballots” and stating that he was “going to find
criminality” and “proof this election was stolen.” Then, he incited the crowd to take violent
action, stating, “If we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. So, let’s have trial by combat … I’ll
be darned if they’re going to take our free and fair vote … We’re going to fight to the very end to
make sure that doesn’t happen.”
55. Then, Defendant Trump addressed the assembled crowd. Defendant Trump
began by condemning his political opposition and repeating the same unproven accusation,
rejected by the state election officers, that the election was stolen from him: “Hundreds of
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thousands of American patriots are committed to the honesty of our elections and the integrity of
our glorious Republic. All of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by
emboldened radical left Democrats, which is what they’re doing and stolen by the fake news
media. That’s what they’ve done and what they’re doing. We will never give up. We will never
concede, it doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved.” No state or court
has credited Defendant Trump’s assertion that his opportunity to win the presidential election
was “stolen” from him.
56. Defendant Trump then began stoking the crowd’s anger and urging them to take
action to forcibly seize control of the process for counting and approving the Electoral College
ballots, stating: “Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his
back. It’s like a boxer, and we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody,
including bad people. We’re going to have to fight much harder and Mike Pence is going to
have to come through for us. If he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country because you’re
sworn to uphold our constitution. Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on
our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to
walk down. We’re going to walk down any one you want, but I think right here. We’re going
walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave Senators, and Congressmen and
women. We’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them because you’ll
never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be
strong.” It was Defendant Trump’s efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the presidential
election results, not the lawful actions of the state election officials, that constituted the
“egregious assault on our democracy” to which he referred.
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57. The call to arms by Defendant Trump had its intended effect. Immediately after
his incendiary remarks, the crowd began shouting and chanting, “Storm the Capitol,” “Invade the
Capitol Building,” and “Take the Capitol right now.”
58. Rather than discourage the riotous action that was advocated, Defendant Trump
reinforced it by stating: “The radical left knows exactly what they’re doing. They’re ruthless and
it’s time that somebody did something about it.”
59. Defendant Trump then roused the crowd further, shouting: “Something is wrong
here, something is really wrong, can’t have happened and we fight, we fight like hell, and if you
don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
60. At this point, the crowd began chanting “Fight like Hell” and “Fight for Trump.”
61. Then, Defendant Trump directed the crowd to descend upon the Capitol: “So we
are going to … walk down Pennsylvania Avenue …, and we are going to the Capitol, and we are
going to try and give … our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don’t need any
of our help, we’re … going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to
take back our country. So, let’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
62. The permit obtained for the Save America rally expressly provided: “This permit
does not authorize a march from the Ellipse.” Defendant Trump nevertheless instructed the
angry crowd to march from the Ellipse to the Capitol for the purpose of “fight[ing] like hell,” and
therefore directed the crowd to take action outside the bounds of what the permit authorized.
III. The Insurrection at the Capitol
63. The U.S. Capitol, which is located at First Street, SE, in Washington, D.C., is
secured 24 hours a day by U.S. Capitol Police. Restrictions around the U.S. Capitol include
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permanent and temporary security barriers and posts manned by U.S. Capitol Police. Only
authorized people with appropriate identification were allowed access inside the U.S. Capitol.
64. On January 6, 2021, the exterior plaza of the U.S. Capitol was closed to members
of the public. Metal barriers were placed along pedestrian entrances approximately one hundred
feet from the west side entrance to the Capitol.
65. On January 6, 2021, at approximately 1:00 PM, in accordance with the
Constitution and federal law dictating the means by which Congress counts the states’ Electoral
Votes, including the date and time such counting shall occur, a joint session of the United Sates
Congress convened at the United States Capitol to certify the vote count of the 2020 presidential
election.
66. Defendant Proud Boys was a key instigator of the insurrection at the Capitol,
working in concert with Defendants Trump and Giuliani as they incited and directed an angry
mob to descend on the Capitol.
67. At approximately 12:50 PM on January 6, 2021, Defendant Proud Boys, rallied
by leader Joseph Biggs, coalesced and marched towards the Capitol while Trump was speaking
at the Save America rally.
68. En route to the Capitol, members of Defendant Proud Boys were engaged in
various chants and response calls, including “Fuck Antifa!” and “Whose streets? Our streets!”
69. At the direction of the Defendant Proud Boys rally organizers, many Proud Boys
members abandoned their organization’s colors of black and yellow in order to wear the black
attire associated with Antifa.
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70. Captured on video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0MA5GjR6Zo, at
approximately 12:52 PM, Defendant Proud Boys head Biggs dispatched the leader of the assault
on the Capitol entrance.
71. Following this lead, more members of Defendant Proud Boys descended on the
Capitol, breaking through the metal barriers erected a hundred feet from the Capitol building and
overcoming the Capitol Police officers stationed there to repel any incursion on the Capitol.
72. Following the lead of the Defendant Proud Boys, who overcame the barriers
erected to protect the Capitol, the crowd dispatched by Defendant Trump descended on the
Capitol.
73. By the time the thousands of demonstrators arrived at the Capitol, the Proud Boys
had already begun compromising the protections erected by the Capitol Police near the base of
the Capitol.
74. As a result, the crowd that arrived passed easily through the outer ring of barriers
and was able to confront and ultimately overwhelm an inner array of Capitol Police and
barricades established as the last line of defense outside the Capitol building.
75. Having delayed delivering his incendiary remarks to the crowd at the Ellipse in
order to afford the Defendant Proud Boys an opportunity to arrive at the Capitol and overcome
its initial defenses, Defendant Trump acted in concert with the Proud Boys, allowing them to
clear the way for the arriving riotous crowd to descend on, and ultimately enter, the Capitol.
76. The crowd that Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited to march upon and
forcibly enter the Capitol erected gallows on the Capitol grounds and displayed a noose.
77. Members of the crowd, whom Defendants Trump and Giuliani incited to forcibly
enter the Capitol, proceeded as Defendants Trump and Giuliani directed them to interrupt the
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count of the Electoral College ballots with the purpose of precluding the final certification of the
election results required by law.
78. At the time the rioters initially broke into the Capitol, members of the House of
Representatives and the Senate were engaged in debating the tally of the votes cast by members
of the Electoral College.
79. Defendant Trump was watching live televised reports of the forcible entry into the
Capitol and the violence committed by the crowd dispatched by Defendants Trump and Giuliani.
Rather than take action to attempt to calm the riotous crowd or direct additional law enforcement
to the site, Defendant Trump egged on members of the riotous crowd by tweeting at 1:49 PM a
video of the “Save America” rally filmed shortly before, where he had rallied the crowd with his
clarion call: “Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore and that’s what this is all
about . . . You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and
you have to be strong.”
80. Shortly after 2:00 PM, the riotous crowd breached the Capitol Building.
Windows and barricades were broken as the mob stormed into the National Statuary Hall, the
heart of the Capitol building.
81. Video recorded a member of Defendant Proud Boys as he broke through a Capitol
window at approximately 2:11 PM, using the clear-plastic shield seized from an overcome
Capitol Police Officer. Thereafter, members of the crowd, including some from the Defendant
Proud Boys, entered the Capitol through the broken window and then opened a door, through
which the riotous crowd streamed into the Capitol.
82. The member of Defendant Proud Boys who broke through the window with a
plastic shield then posted a self-congratulatory video of himself smoking a cigar in celebration of
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his unlawful entry, declaring: “Victory smoke in the Capitol, boys … I knew we could take this
shit over if we tried hard enough.”
83. Other video live streamed to the social media site Parler captured Defendant
Proud Boys leader Joseph Biggs, who had entered the Capitol, responding to an inquiry asking,
“Hey Biggs, what do you gotta say” by smiling and pronouncing, “This is awesome!”
84. Shortly after the Capitol was breached, the Senate was called into recess.
85. Chaos and violence reigned as riotous members of the crowd inflamed by remarks
from Defendants Trump and Giuliani streamed into the Capitol, overcoming most of the
remaining Capitol Police and descending upon Capitol offices of Members of Congress and their
staff. Rioters beat on the doors of the chamber of the House of Representatives where Defendant
Thompson and other members of the House were forced to shelter in place.
86. Employing ear pieces and walkie-talkies in order to communicate with each other
and coordinate their attack on the Capitol, members of Defendant Proud Boys inside the Capitol
Building continued to lead and coordinate facets of the attack on the Capitol in order to interfere
with the tally of Electoral College votes in which members of Congress were engaged.
87. Yet another video depicted a member of Defendant Proud Boys inside the Capitol
saying, “We just went ahead and stormed the Capitol. It’s about to get ugly.” He was
surrounded by riotous supporters who chanted “Our house” and were accompanied by another
member of Defendant Proud Boys who sarcastically called for “Nancy,” to summon the Speaker
of the House of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
88. Thereafter, members of Defendant Proud Boys and members of the riotous crowd
whose invasion of the Capitol was incited by Defendants Trump and Giuliani roamed the
Capitol, entering and rifling through Member offices, including the office of House Speaker
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Nancy Pelosi, leaving furniture and files in disarray and removing personal and official effects
including laptops containing confidential information. As they roamed the Capitol Building,
members of Defendant Proud Boys and members of the riotous crowd chanted, “Fight for
Trump.”
89. Members of Defendant Proud Boys as well as members of the riotous crowd also
searched for Members of Congress in the halls and rooms of the Capitol. Several rioters
carried plastic handcuffs that would have permitted them to detain Members of Congress whom
they encountered.
90. Notwithstanding that Republican Members of Congress trapped in the Capitol
transmitted appeals to the White House to take immediate action to stop the insurrection, no
action was forthcoming as the President continued to watch the insurrection unfold in live
televised reports.
91. Soon after members of the riotous crowd dispatched by Defendants Trump and
Giuliani forcibly entered the Capitol and began roaming its halls and offices, Defendant Trump
called upon them to disrupt the Electoral College ballot count, tweeting that “Mike Pence didn’t
have the courage to do what should have been done …”
92. When the Capitol was breached around 2:11 PM, then Vice President Pence was
present at the Capitol in his capacity as President of the Senate, in order to preside over the tally
of the Electoral College ballots.
93. Having declined to suspend the Electoral College vote tally as Defendant Trump
urged him to do, then Vice President Pence also became a target of the crowd’s ire, along with
Members of Congress, as rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”
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94. Once inside the Capitol, some members of the riotous crowd confirmed they were
acting upon the direction and at the behest of Defendant Trump. When the crowd confronted
Capitol Police inside the Capitol, they warned the Capitol Police officers, “You’re outnumbered.
There’s a fucking million of us out there. And we are listening to Trump – your boss.”
Apparently believing that Defendant Trump’s inciteful remarks gave them license to enter and
overtake the Capitol, leaders of the riotous crowd also told Capitol Police, “We were invited here
by the President of the United States.” Rioters parading through the halls of the Capitol carried
flags and wore clothing and other paraphernalia bearing the name: “Trump.”
95. As House Republican Conference Chair the Honorable Elizabeth L. Cheney
stated in her vote in favor of the Article of Impeachment on January 12, 2021, Defendant Trump
“summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that
followed was his doing.”
96. Then Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell likewise observed in
remarks delivered on the Senate floor on January 19, 2021 the pivotal role of Defendant Trump
in inciting the attack on the Capitol, stating, “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the
President and other powerful people and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific
proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.”
97. Acting in concert with Defendant Proud Boys and the rest of the riotous mob
entering the Capitol, members of Defendant Oath Keepers wore paramilitary equipment,
helmets, reinforced vests and clothing with Oath Keepers paraphernalia, moving in a regimented
manner as members of the military are trained. Pursuing a purpose shared by Defendants Trump
and Giuliani as well as Defendant Proud Boys, Defendant Oath Keepers played a leadership role
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of the riotous crowd and provided military-style assistance sufficient to overcome any Capitol
Police resistance.
98. Members of Defendant Oath Keepers were equally clear that the purpose of their
unlawful presence at the Capitol was to interfere with the tally of Electoral College votes. One
member of Defendant Oath Keepers, for example, posted a photograph of herself at the Capitol
on the social media site Parler, along with the statement: “Me before forcing entry into the
Capitol Building. #stopthesteal #stormthecapitol #oathkeepers #ohiomilitia.” Another post late
in the day declared: “Yeah. We stormed the Capitol today. Teargassed, the whole, 9. Pushed
our way into the Rotunda. Made it into the Senate even. The news is lying (even Fox) about the
Historical Events we created today.”
99. Like Defendant Proud Boys, members of Defendant Oath Keepers communicated
with portable devices that permitted them to coordinate their activities in the Capitol. A message
later posted on Facebook for example revealed Defendant Oath Keepers was transmitting
intelligence about the location of Members of Congress whom they were hunting. It said: “All
members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas.” Another message
transmitted to Defendant Oath Keepers leader Thomas Caldwell during the attack reported:
“Tom, all legislators are down in the Tunnels 3 floors down,” and “Go through back house
chamber doors facing N left down hallway down steps.” Still another message among members
of Defendant Oath Keepers revealed the organized manner in which they pursued their mission:
"We have a good group. We have about 30-40 of us. We are sticking together and sticking to
the plan.”
100. Reflecting on their success in interfering with the tally of the Electoral College
votes, Defendant Oath Keepers leader Thomas Caldwell posted a message on Facebook at
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 23 of 32
24
approximately 7:49 PM on the same day with a video of himself inside the Capitol and the
message: “Us storming the castle. Please share. Sharon was with me. I am such an instigator!
She was ready for it man! Didn’t even mind the tear gas.”
101. Gloating over their perceived success, Caldwell then sent another message
reporting: “Proud boys scuffled with cops and drove them inside to hide. Breached the doors.
One guy made it all the way to the house floor, another to Pelosi’s office. A good time.”
102. Viewing their success in disrupting the Congress as a model for similar actions in
the future, Caldwell sent another message stating: “We need to do this at the local level. Let’s
storm the capitol in Ohio. Tell me when!”
103. Members of the riotous crowd prominently displayed a Confederate flag within
the walls of the Capitol. Widely viewed as a symbol of the subjugation of African Americans as
slaves by the dominant white slave holders as well as a powerful reminder of the insurrection
caused by the secession of the southern states before the Civil War, members of the riotous
crowd carried the Confederate Flag as a banner reflecting much of the sentiment motivating
many who invaded the Capitol.
104. Outside the Capitol, rioters attacked Capitol Police officers, yelling “traitors” at
those law enforcement officers who were trying to protect the Capitol and the members of the
House of Representatives and Senate.
105. Rioters doused law enforcement officers with bear mace, a concentrated pepper
spray designed to deter bear attacks, i.e., not intended to be deployed against humans.
106. Capitol Police Officers were dragged and kicked.
107. At least one officer was beaten with the pole attached to an American flag.
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25
108. While the rioting crowd was forcibly entering the Capitol, roaming its halls and
desecrating its offices, that same day Defendant Giuliani joined the other Defendants in seeking
to delay and derail the tally of the Electoral College ballots by calling Members of Congress,
urging them to do everything they could to “slow it down” and “delay” the Electoral College
vote count in Congress.
109. In these phone call communications with selected Members of Congress while the
insurrection was ongoing on January 6, Defendant Giuliani urged: “And I know they’re
reconvening at eight tonight, but the only strategy we can follow is to object to numerous states
and raise issues so that we get ourselves into tomorrow ideally until the end of tomorrow.”
110. At 6:01 PM, Defendant Trump expressed the view that the insurrection attempted
by the rioting crowd dispatched by Trump and Giuliani and the accompanying violence at the
Capitol were justified and to be expected, tweeting: “These are the things and events that happen
when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from
great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in
peace. Remember this day forever!” This again was a complete and utter lie by Trump trying to
tell the American people that he won a landslide election victory which was being stripped away.
111. The final announcement by Vice President Mike Pence of the count of the
Electoral College votes, which provided the imprimatur of Congress on the results of the
presidential election held in 2020, did not occur until 3:41 AM the next morning, January 7,
2021.
112. Five people died during the course of the riot and/or as a result of injuries
sustained during the riot. Those casualties included one member of law enforcement.
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26
113. Fights between rioters and officers of the Capitol Police resulted in the
hospitalization of more than 50 officers.
114. Faced with the threat of criminal prosecution, many of the rioting crowd members
justified their presence and their actions as occurring because Defendants Trump and/or Giuliani
instructed them to proceed in this unruly and disruptive manner, and that these individuals were
following orders from their then-President and his attorney.
IV. Plaintiff, the Honorable Bennie Thompson
115. When the attack on the Capitol began, Plaintiff Thompson was seated in Gallery
C of the House of Representatives, prepared to discharge his duties to supervise and eventually
vote on approval of the count of the Electoral College ballots.
116. Plaintiff Thompson was present when the proceeding began at 1:00 PM, as
required by the Electoral Count Act of 1887.
117. Between approximately 2:15 and 2:20 PM, soon after rioters had breached the
Capitol Building, the House was called into recess.
118. Plaintiff Thompson heard rioters pounding on the door of the House chamber and
saw security guards move furniture to blockade the door. He then heard the rioters trying to
break into the chamber refer to Speaker Pelosi as a “bitch,” saying they wanted to get their hands
on her and refer to Vice President Pence as having betrayed President Trump.
119. Plaintiff Thompson witnessed security personnel draw their firearms to protect
Plaintiff Thompson and other Members of Congress, who were there to perform their legally
required duties, from the violent rioters who were attempting to disrupt, and ultimately did
disrupt, this important function of Congress.
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120. Through the blocked doors, Plaintiff Thompson heard threats of physical violence
against any Member who attempted to proceed to approve the Electoral College ballot count.
121. Plaintiff Thompson heard a gunshot, the source of which, at the time, was
unknown to him, although he later learned that it had killed one of the rioters who had forced her
way into the Capitol lobby.
122. Capitol security instructed Plaintiff Thompson and the other lawmakers to lie on
the floor, don gas masks that were stored under seats in the gallery, and to move to the other side
of the gallery. After an extended period of time had elapsed, during which Plaintiff Thompson
and his colleagues were unable to move or leave the gallery because the rioters posed a
continuing threat to their safety, Capitol security led Plaintiff Thompson and the other lawmakers
through a tunnel out of the Capitol to the Longworth House Office Building, where they were
directed to shelter in a room with 200-300 other lawmakers, staff members, and family members.
123. During this period, Plaintiff Thompson received telephone calls from his wife
who reported what she saw on the televised reports of violence at the Capitol. Plaintiff
Thompson ultimately moved to a different room in the Longworth Building, and at about 6:00
P.M. was moved to a secure location in the Capitol.
124. Plaintiff Thompson personally witnessed rioters who had gotten far into the
building and were lying face down on the floor and restrained after being arrested by security.
125. All these events took place during a worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. Plaintiff
Thompson was 72 years old at the time and therefore within the age group for which the virus
posed the greatest risk to his health.
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 27 of 32
28
126. By being required to shelter in place, Plaintiff Thompson and other Members of
Congress were forced to occupy space that did not allow for the social distancing measures that
minimized the risk of transmission of the virus.
127. Shortly after the siege on the Capitol ended, at least two other Members of
Congress who shared the confined space with Plaintiff Thompson tested positive for COVID-19.
128. Until the proceedings with the count of the Electoral College ballots resumed at
approximately 8:00 PM, Plaintiff Thompson and other Members were barred from leaving the
Capitol Building because their safety remained at risk from rioting crowd members who were
still present.
129. During this entire time, Plaintiff Thompson reasonably feared for his physical
safety. While trapped in the building, during the siege by the rioters that Defendants unleashed
on the Capitol, Plaintiff Thompson feared for his life and worried that he might never see his
family again.
130. On January 13, 2021, an Article of Impeachment was passed by a bipartisan
majority of the House of Representatives, citing Defendant Trump for inciting the violence
perpetrated at the Capitol. The Article of Impeachment provides, in part:
On January 6, 2021, pursuant to the 12th Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, the Vice President of the United
States, the House of Representatives, and the Senate met at the
United States Capitol for a Joint Session of Congress to count the
votes of the Electoral College. In the months preceding the Joint
Session, President Trump repeatedly issued false statements
asserting that the Presidential election results were the product of
widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American
people or certified by State or Federal officials. Shortly before the
Joint Session commenced, President Trump, addressed a crowd at
the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. There, he reiterated false claims
that “we won this election, and we won it by a landslide.” He also
willfully made statements that, in context, encouraged — and
foreseeably resulted in — lawless action at the Capitol, such as: “if
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 28 of 32
29
you don’t fight like hell you're not going to have a country
anymore.” Thus incited by President Trump, members of the
crowd he had addressed, in an attempt to, among other objectives,
interfere with the Joint Session's solemn constitutional duty to
certify the results of the 2020 Presidential election, unlawfully
breached and vandalized the Capitol, injured and killed law
enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress, the Vice
President, and Congressional personnel, and engaged in other
violent, deadly, destructive and seditious acts.
131. At the conclusion of President Trump’s impeachment trial, the Senate voted to
acquit Defendant Trump, finding Defendant Trump not guilty of inciting the deadly riot at the
Capitol by a vote of 57 to 43.
132. Minutes after voting to acquit Defendant Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell gave a speech on the floor of the Senate. Senator McConnell began by
acknowledging Defendant Trump’s culpability: “There is no question that President Trump is
practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who
stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.
And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false
statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept
shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.” However, like the other Senators who
voted to acquit Defendant Trump, Senator McConnell did not believe that the impeachment
process was constitutional. Senator McConnell went on to state that “President Trump is still
liable for everything he did while he was in office, as an ordinary citizen, unless the statute of
limitations has run, still liable for everything he did while in office, didn't get away with
anything yet – yet. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation.
And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 29 of 32
30
CAUSE OF ACTION
Violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act
133. Plaintiff incorporates herein by reference the allegations contained in all
preceding paragraphs.
134. Under the Ku Klux Klan Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1985(1), Defendants may not “conspire
to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person … holding any office, trust, or place of
confidence under the United States … from discharging any duties thereof; or to induce by like
means any officer of the United States to leave any … place[] where his duties as an officer are
required to be performed, or … to molest, interrupt, hinder, or impede him in the discharge of his
official duties.”
135. Defendants Trump, Giuliani, Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers plotted, coordinated,
and executed a common plan to prevent Congress from discharging its official duties in
certifying the results of the presidential election.
136. In furtherance of this conspiracy, Defendants Trump and Giuliani engaged in a
concerted campaign to misinform their supporters and the public, encouraging and promoting
intimidation and violence in furtherance of their common plan to promote the re-election of
Defendant Trump, even after the states had certified election results decisively showing he lost
the election, and to disrupt the legally required process before Congress to supervise the counting
of the Electoral College ballots and certify the results of that count.
137. As a result, Defendant Trump acted beyond the outer perimeter of his official
duties and therefore is susceptible to suit in his personal capacity.
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 30 of 32
31
138. The activities alleged above were undertaken by all Defendants as co-conspirators
for the purpose of seeking to prevent Plaintiff Thompson and other members of Congress from
certifying that former Vice President Biden won the presidential election.
139. As a result of the acts set out in the above paragraphs committed in furtherance of
this conspiracy, Plaintiff Thompson was hindered and impeded in the discharge of his official
duties and suffered the deprivation of his right to be free from intimidation and threats in the
discharge of his official duties, as explicitly protected under Ku Klux Klan Act. During the time
when the Capitol was under attack, Plaintiff Thompson suffered emotional distress.
140. As a result, Plaintiff Thompson seeks an award of compensatory damages.
141. As the unlawful actions taken by the Defendants were malicious and in reckless
disregard of federally protected rights, Plaintiff Thompson seeks an award of punitive damages
to punish the Defendants for engaging in a concerted and continuing course of unlawful conduct
and to deter the Defendants and others from engaging in similar unlawful conduct in the future.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
Wherefore, Plaintiff respectfully requests an award of the following relief:
A. A declaratory judgment that the actions described herein constitute a violation of
42 U.S.C. § 1985(1);
B. Injunctive relief enjoining Defendants from engaging in future violations of 42
U.S.C. § 1985(1);
C. Compensatory in an amount to be determined at trial;
D. Punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial;
E. An award of costs and reasonable attorney’s fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988;
F. Such other relief as the Court deems necessary and just.
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 31 of 32
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Dated: February 16, 2021
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Janette Louard
Janette Louard (pro hac vice motion to be
filed)
Anthony P. Ashton, Bar No. MD0096
NAACP
Office of General Counsel
4805 Mount Hope Drive
Baltimore, MD 21215
Telephone: (410) 580-5777
jlouard@naacpnet.org
aashton@naacpnet.org
/s/ Joseph M. Sellers
Joseph M. Sellers, Bar No. 318410
Brian Corman, Bar No. 1008635
Alison S. Deich, Bar No. 1572878 (application
for admission to be filed)
COHEN MILSTEIN SELLERS & TOLL PLLC
1100 New York Avenue, N.W. Suite 500, East
Tower Washington, DC 20005
Telephone: (202) 408-4600
Facsimile: (202) 408-4699
jsellers@cohenmilstein.com
bcorman@cohenmilstein.com
adeich@cohenmilstein.com
Case 1:21-cv-00400 Document 1 Filed 02/16/21 Page 32 of 32
Myrtle Beach Area News
Hicks column: Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott showing more leadership than the White House
Aug 18, 2017 Updated Sep 14, 2020
Brian Hicks
South Carolina Republican U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham (left) and Tim Scott. File
Just in case some people have forgotten, this is what moral authority looks like.
“I’m not going to defend the indefensible,” U.S. Sen. Tim Scott said Thursday. “What we want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority. And that moral authority is compromised when Tuesday happened.”
And this.
″... because of the manner in which you have handled the Charlottesville tragedy you are now receiving praise from some of the most racist and hate-filled individuals and groups in our country,” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted to the president on Thursday. “For the sake of our Nation -- as our President -- please fix this.”
These comments come in response to President Donald Trump’s news conference on Tuesday, in which he stumbled through some inartful remarks that suggested there was blame to go around in the Charlottesville, Va., tragedy.
No, there wasn’t. It’s actually pretty simple: Racists and Nazis promote hate and white supremacy. People who protest hate groups are not bigots.
It’s a shame Graham and Scott have to point this out.
Sponsored
To celebrate Black History, The Post and Courier is presenting a series of video interviews and podcasts of 12 Black Leaders to Know in South CarolinaMeet 12 Dymanic People from Across South Carolina
But while much of Washington is cowering in dark corners or putting party above country, South Carolina’s senators are showing the rest of the nation what a little backbone looks like.
More Coverage
How U.S. Sen. Tim Scott’s personal history with racism is informing speaking out on Charlottesville - Read more (at link)
( https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/how-u-s-sen-tim-scott-s-personal-history-with/article_b454550c-83a6-11e7-a21e-0b755be13fd5.html )
Fate of the party
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to most people.
Graham proved long ago he will speak his mind, no matter what. Truth is, he doesn’t dislike Trump. There are parts of the president’s agenda he supports. The two talk more than most people realize, especially given their antagonistic Twitter relationship.
Scott has also gone along with much of the administration’s agenda. But on matters of race, Scott has been pretty clear. And this issue obviously hit a nerve.
He told reporter Emma Dumain that Trump trying to draw a moral equivalence between white supremacists and counter-protesters is lunacy.
“I think you are either missing four centuries of history in this nation or you are trying to make something what it’s not,” Scott said.
And that is exactly what it looks like Trump is trying to do with mealy-mouthed statements about good and bad on both sides. Conventional wisdom is that the president is trying not to anger white supremacists, which are a chunk of his base.
But in doing so, he alienated a lot of other people. See: Captains of Industry. And that’s not just because he wrongly asserted the counter-protesters didn’t have a permit, which they did, or that some of them had bats.
Yeah, some of the Nazis were packing guns. So looks like the counter-protesters were under-armed.
The bigger issue here is what the Republican Party wants to be, and that seems to be a concern of both senators. Is it going to be overtaken by white nationalists?
On Wednesday, Graham predicted that Republicans “will fight back against the idea that the Party of Lincoln has a welcome mat out for the David Dukes of the world.”
Well, some of them will anyway.
Fallout?
It will be interesting to see how this plays out for the senators in a state where elections are pretty much decided in GOP primaries.
Graham has been on thin ice with ultra-conservatives for a long time. He isn’t nearly as hateful on immigration as some would like him to be, and he routinely has pushed back against Trump — who remains pretty popular in South Carolina.
Scott is probably the most popular politician in the state, and it’s hard to imagine anyone would fault him for supporting basic civil rights. But you never know. This is the state where the Civil War started, after all.
Regardless, both say there are some things that a person just has to stand up for — and against. And bigotry is at the top of that list.
The fact that both of this state’s senators are willing to make a stand against a president of their own party, even if it is over something as obvious as Nazis, is a good sign.
South Carolina has a long history of sending rabble-rousers and pot-stirrers to Washington, sometimes to our detriment. But if this is where we are — debating the merits of Nazis and racists — it’s a good thing they are there.
Graham is right: History is watching. And for once, South Carolina may be on the right side.
Reach Brian Hicks at bhicks@postandcourier.com.
Socol article (in progress)
"Trump" "first-degree" "premeditated" "murder" while "armed" "District of Columbia" "2021" <Google
https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/sections/22-2101.html
https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/titles/22/chapters/21/
https://statelaws.findlaw.com/dc-law/district-of-columbia-first-degree-murder-law.html
https://statelaws.findlaw.com/dc-law/district-of-columbia-second-degree-murder-law.html
https://mpdc.dc.gov/release/additional-arrest-made-homicide-5500-block-9th-street-northwest
https://patch.com/district-columbia/washingtondc/northeast-man-faces-first-degree-murder-charge-report
http://dccode.elaws.us/code?no=22-21&e=8
https://irasocol.medium.com/why-felony-murder-charges-and-congressional-disqualifications-are-essential-for-kids-8204921b45e9 < "Trump"
"Why “Felony Murder” charges and Congressional Disqualifications are essential for kids"
"But for" Rule : In the law of Negligence, a principle that provides that the defendant's conduct is not the cause of an injury to the plaintiff, unless that injury would not have occurred except for ( "but for" ) the defendant's conduct.
In order to be liable in negligence, the defendant's conduct must constitute the "proximate cause", or direct cause, of the plaintiff's injury. Mrs. O'Leary's Cow & The Chicago Fire
The concept of proximate cause encompasses both legal cause and factual cause, and the "but for" rule pertains to the latter. It is also referred to as the sine qua non rule, which means "without which not," or an indispensable requirement or condition. The "but for" rule is a rule of exclusion, in that the defendant's conduct is not a cause of the event, if the event would have occurred without it. ... In order to rectify the frequently problematic application of the "but for" rule, some jurisdictions have applied a broader rule, which provides that the defendant's conduct is a cause of the event if it was a material element and a substantial factor in bringing about the event. ... TRUMP VIDEO The jury ascertains whether such conduct constitutes a "substantial factor", unless the issue is so unambiguous that it is appropriate for judicial determination. ... In addition to resolving the aforementioned case, the "substantial factor test" resolves two other types of situations that have proved troublesome, where a similar, but not identical, result would have followed the defendant's act or where one defendant has made an obvious but insignificant contribution to the result. The application of the two rules can achieve the same result in some instances, since, except as indicated, no case has been encountered where the defendant's act could be deemed a substantial factor when the event would have transpired without it. In addition, cases seldom arise where the defendant's conduct would not be such a substantial factor yet was so indispensable a cause that the result would not have ensued without it. ... If the defendant's conduct was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff's injury, he or she will not be absolved from liability simply because other causes have contributed to the result, since such causes are always present. ... However, a defendant [ DONALD J. TRUMP ] is not necessarily relieved of liability - because the negligence of another person is also a contributing cause, and that person, too, is to be held liable for the harm inflicted. ... The principle of "joint tortfeasors" is based primarily upon recognition of the fact that each of two or more causes may be charged with a single result. :: West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright - SINCE MOSES
FINDLAW lp.findlaw.com/
CASELAW caselaw.findlaw.com/
UNITED STATES caselaw.findlaw.com/courts/United%20States
DC COURT OF APPEALS caselaw.findlaw.com/court/dc-court-of-appeals
WILSON BEY V. UNITED STATES
SOURCE: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/dc-court-of-appeals/1348248.html [ HYPERLINKS AND COMMENTS ADDED BY A RETIRED LADY
WILSON BEY v. UNITED STATES ( https://www.justice.gov/osg/brief/wilson-bey-v-united-states-opposition )
District of Columbia Court of Appeals. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Court_of_Appeals )
Lakeisha WILSON-BEY, Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee, [ "mob violence" ]
( https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2001/01/27/woman-gets-36-to-lifein-revenge-murder/bbfb7f67-1962-400a-bd39-5783d807e56e/ )
Sckeena Marbury, Appellant, v. United States, Appellee.
( https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2000/11/09/sisters-guilty-of-killing-woman/2b5a735a-7dd8-4b97-be54-f91550768061/ )
Nos. 01-CF-293, 01-CF-633.
Decided: July 20, 2006
Before WASHINGTON, Chief Judge, FARRELL, RUIZ, REID, GLICKMAN, and KRAMER, Associate Judges, and WAGNER and SCHWELB,* Senior Judges. John O. Iweanoge, Jr.,
Washington, DC, for appellant Lakeisha Wilson-Bey. Matthew M. Hoffman, with whom John Moustakas and Stephen R. Galoob, Washington, DC, were on the brief, for appellant Sckeena Marbury. David B. Goodhand, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Kenneth L. Wainstein, United States Attorney, and Roy W. McLeese III and Lynn C. Holliday, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief, for appellee.
Andrea Roth, with whom James Klein and Samia Fam were on the brief, for Public Defender Service, amicus curiae.
Following a jury trial, Lakeisha Wilson-Bey and Sckeena Marbury, who are [BIOLOGICAL] sisters, were both convicted of first-degree premeditated murder while armed, in violation of D.C.Code §§ 22-2401, -3202 (1996).1
( https://caselaw.findlaw.com/dc-court-of-appeals/1120113.html#:~:text=The%20felony%20murder%20statute%20states,was%20intended%20or%20even%20foreseeable. )
( https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/sections/22-2101.html )
The two women were also found guilty of several other offenses stemming from the same homicide.2 The prosecution's theory at trial was that Ms. Wilson-Bey, who was twenty-one years old at the time that the offenses were committed, was the principal in the premeditated murder of Tomika Blackwell, and that Ms. Marbury, who was then eighteen, participated as an aider and abettor.
Both women appealed from their convictions, contending principally that the trial judge instructed the jury erroneously with respect to the “intent” element of “aiding and abetting” first-degree premeditated murder. Specifically, appellants claim that the trial court committed reversible error, in the context of this case, by instructing the jury that “[a]n aider and abettor is legally responsible for the natural and probable consequences of the crime in which [s]he intentionally participates.”
On April 7, 2005, a division of this court affirmed appellants' convictions. Wilson-Bey v. United States, 871 A.2d 1155 (D.C.2005) (Wilson-Bey I ). The division noted the existence of substantial authority casting doubt on the appropriateness of the “natural and probable consequences instruction,” id. at 1161-62, 1165-66, but concluded that then-binding precedent in this jurisdiction required affirmance of the convictions. Id. at 1163-64. The members of the division expressed the view that consideration of the issue by the en banc court may be warranted. Id. at 1166.
Each appellant petitioned the full court to rehear the case, and on November 2, 2005, we granted both petitions and vacated the opinion of the division in Wilson-Bey I. See Wilson-Bey v. United States, 886 A.2d 77 (D.C.2005) (per curiam) (en banc) (Wilson-Bey II ). We now hold that the trial court's instruction regarding the requisite intent was erroneous, for in any prosecution for premeditated murder, whether the defendant is charged as a principal or as an aider or abettor, the government must prove all of the elements of the offense, including premeditation, deliberation, and intent to kill. Because the instruction given in this case omitted the mens rea element of the offense charged, the error was of constitutional magnitude. Concluding that the erroneous instruction was prejudicial as to Ms. Marbury but harmless beyond a reasonable doubt as to Ms. Wilson-Bey, we reverse Ms. Marbury's conviction of premeditated murder while armed. With a single exception unrelated to the principal issue before us, we affirm Ms. Marbury's other convictions and all of Ms. Wilson-Bey's convictions.3
I.
THE TRIAL COURT PROCEEDINGSA. The evidence.
The facts relevant to these appeals were described in Wilson-Bey I, 871 A.2d at 1157-59, and we summarize them briefly, borrowing liberally from the division's narrative. On the evening of January 16-17, 2000, several young women were playing cards in an apartment in southeast Washington, D.C. An argument broke out between the decedent, Tomika Blackwell, and appellant, Sckeena Marbury, who had been drinking heavily. After the two women, whose quarrel was causing a disturbance, left the apartment at the request of their hostess, the dispute escalated from words to blows, and Ms. Blackwell easily bested Ms. Marbury in the fight that followed. At the conclusion of the encounter, Ms. Marbury was lying on the ground with a bloody nose, a knot on her head, a busted lip, and an injured eye. By all accounts, Ms. Marbury was both drunk and angry.
In the hours after her beating, Ms. Marbury related to several of her friends that she had been “jumped” by Tomika Blackwell and two of Tomika's alleged confederates. According to Teresa Brown, in whose car Ms. Marbury was riding away from the scene of the fight, a “ranting and raving” Ms. Marbury proclaimed that “I'm coming back. I'm going to kill that bitch.” 4 Appellant Lakeisha Wilson-Bey, who had clashed with Ms. Blackwell on a previous occasion,5 was notified of her younger sister's beef, and resorting to terminology identical to that allegedly used by Ms. Marbury, she stated in front of the group of young women that had gathered in the wake of the fight that she was going to “kill that bitch.” 6 Eventually, the group of eight, including both appellants, armed themselves with knives and baseball bats and set out in a van for Ms. Blackwell's apartment. Their ostensible plan was to find out why Ms. Marbury had been beaten up and to avenge Ms. Marbury by fighting Ms. Blackwell and her friends. All of the women in the van were subsequently charged with first-degree premeditated murder while armed, but several of them agreed to cooperate with the government in exchange for negotiated plea agreements, and three testified at trial against the appellants.7 The facts described below are based largely on their testimony and that of Ms. Blackwell's boyfriend, Arnold Rucker. The prosecution witnesses were all impeached, at least in some measure, but there was evidence which, if credited, would permit an impartial jury to find that both appellants set out deliberately to murder Ms. Blackwell in retaliation for her having beaten up Ms. Marbury, and that Ms. Wilson-Bey repeatedly stabbed the decedent, thus carrying out this premeditated plan. The sufficiency of the evidence cannot be persuasively disputed by either appellant.
The van in which the eight young women traveled to seek out Ms. Blackwell was owned and driven by appellants' friend, Angel Lewis. When the vehicle arrived outside Ms. Blackwell's apartment house, the two appellants and their friend Lashawn Miller ran up to Ms. Blackwell's unit, Apartment 304. According to prosecution witnesses, Ms. Wilson-Bey had a large butcher knife or steak knife 8 in her hand, and Ms. Marbury was carrying both a bat and a knife. The other occupants of the van, several of them armed, followed the initial trio up the stairs.
At the time the appellants arrived on the scene, Ms. Blackwell was inside the apartment with Mr. Rucker and another woman. Rucker became aware of the commotion outside, and he heard someone calling for Ms. Blackwell. Rucker opened the door, and he observed what he described as “a rack of females” in the hall. He testified that several of the women were carrying weapons. Rucker did not know Ms. Wilson-Bey,9 but he recognized Ms. Marbury as the young woman whom Ms. Blackwell had fought and bested earlier that night. According to Rucker, Ms. Wilson-Bey was at the head of the group, holding a butcher knife, and she asked for Tomika. Ms. Blackwell walked to the door, stood behind Rucker, and announced: “I'm right here.” Although she was not armed, Ms. Blackwell advanced on Ms. Wilson-Bey. Rucker tried unsuccessfully to restrain Ms. Blackwell, but while he was attempting to do so, Ms. Wilson-Bey swung the knife at Ms. Blackwell several times, inflicting a stab wound near her victim's right eye. Ms. Blackwell, bleeding profusely, nevertheless tried to fight her knife-wielding assailant. The two women struggled on the floor, with Ms. Blackwell on top, and during the ensuing melee, Ms. Wilson-Bey (and apparently one or more other assailants) 10 stabbed Ms. Blackwell several more times. One witness testified that Ms. Marbury struck Ms. Blackwell with a bat while Ms. Wilson-Bey was stabbing her; according to Rucker, however, Ms. Marbury was initially just standing there, crying.11
At approximately 4:00 a.m. on January 17, officers from the Metropolitan Police Department arrived at the apartment. They found Ms. Blackwell unconscious, and she was suffering from multiple wounds to the face and body. The officers transported Ms. Blackwell to D.C. General Hospital. At 4:30 a.m., Tomika Blackwell was pronounced dead.
Ms. Blackwell was not the only person who suffered injury to person or property as a result of the criminal activities of the appellants and of the other members of their group. Arnold Rucker was stabbed in the arm, and although he left the hospital before being treated,12 he later testified that he suffered intense pain for two weeks, and the wound left a large scar. Moreover, after the appellants and their friends left Ms. Blackwell bleeding to death in her apartment, they proceeded to the home of Teresa Brown, in whose car Ms. Marbury had earlier left the scene of the fight; they did so because Ms. Marbury had stated that Ms. Brown was one of the women who had joined Ms. Blackwell in attacking Ms. Marbury. Upon arrival at Teresa Brown's apartment house, the women tried to locate Ms. Brown's unit, and they yelled at Ms. Brown to come out. Ms. Wilson-Bey allegedly threatened to kill Ms. Brown; Ms. Marbury allegedly made a similar threat to Ms. Brown's fiancé. When Ms. Brown declined to leave her apartment, several of the women took turns stomping on Ms. Brown's automobile, and they shattered the car windows, inflicting over $700 worth of damage. There was also evidence that after the women had left Ms. Brown's car and apartment and completed the night's revenge-seeking activities, Ms. Wilson-Bey telephoned her brother and gave him the names of all the women who were present at the homicide, thereby implying a threat of reprisal in case any of them “snitched.”
A forensic pathologist called by counsel for Ms. Wilson-Bey testified that Ms. Blackwell died as a result of a stab wound in the neck. The witness opined that the fatal injury had been inflicted by a small knife with a narrow blade, and that it could not have been caused by a knife as large as the one Ms. Wilson-Bey was alleged to be carrying.13 At the trial, Ms. Wilson-Bey's attorney contended that his client neither killed the decedent nor intended to kill her; he also argued that Ms. Wilson-Bey was acting in self-defense. Ms. Marbury's defense was essentially that she was hopelessly drunk and that she took no part in the armed assault on Ms. Blackwell. Neither appellant testified.
B. The aiding and abetting instruction.
The issue that led this court to consider this case en banc initially arose at trial when the prosecutor-not either defense attorney-asked for a modification of the Redbook Instruction 14 on aiding and abetting. The prosecutor's stated goal was to ensure that the government would not be required to prove, in order to secure a first-degree conviction, that Ms. Marbury premeditated the murder or specifically intended that the decedent be killed. Although the government had identified Ms. Wilson-Bey as the principal in the armed premeditated murder of Ms. Blackwell,15 the prosecutor contended that, as an aider or abettor, Ms. Marbury was guilty of the same offense. The prosecutor argued that Ms. Marbury
did not have to go with the specific intent to commit the ultimate crime, which in this case would be the killing. [A]ll [that] would be necessary was that she participate in some unlawful manner while present and that she have some desire to participate and to make whatever the unlawful purpose was to succeed in this case.
Subsequently, the prosecutor added:
[O]ur concern is that the jurors would think that the crime in this case is the ultimate crime which was the murder, as opposed to the defendant being guilty if they [sic] participated in any unlawful way at the scene, whether there was the intent to kill, which was the crime, or merely participated in the assault.
․ I want the jury ․ to be clear that as long as they're there and participating [in] the assault, what's going on on that platform, then [all] the defendants can be found guilty [of premeditated murder while armed]. This all goes to foreseeability, natural and reasonable consequences of the acts. I just don't want them to hold the defendants to the commission of the murder.
In order to make it clear to the jury that Ms. Marbury could properly be convicted of armed premeditated murder without intending that Ms. Blackwell be killed, the prosecutor asked the trial judge to modify Instruction 4.02 (Aiding and Abetting) of the 1993 Redbook by making intentional participation in a “criminal venture” (and not merely in a specific crime) a sufficient basis for conviction of first-degree premeditated murder while armed. The judge expressed agreement with the prosecutor's approach, and over defense objection,16 he modified Redbook Instruction No. 4.02 by adding the language italicized below:
Any person who in some way intentionally participates in the commission of a crime or a criminal venture, aid[s] and abets the criminal offender. She, therefore, is as guilty of the crime as she would be if she had personally committed each of the acts that make up the crime.
To find that the defendant aided and abetted in committing a crime, you must find that the defendant knowingly associated herself with the person who committed the crime or criminal venture, that she participated in the crime or criminal venture as something she wished to bring about, and that she intended by her actions to make it succeed.
(Emphasis added.) 17
Quoting two bracketed sentences from the Redbook instruction, the judge also charged the jury:
It is not necessary that the defendant have had the same intent that the principal offender had when the crime was committed or that she have intended to commit the particular crime by the principal offender. An aider and abett [o]r is legally responsible for the acts of other persons that are the natural and probable consequences of the crime or criminal venture in which she intentionally participates.
(Emphasis added.) In light of the foregoing italicized language, the court's instruction did not require the prosecution to prove that Ms. Marbury acted upon a premeditated design to kill Ms. Blackwell, that she specifically intended Ms. Blackwell's death, or even that Ms. Marbury knew that her sister (or anyone else) intended to kill the decedent. Cf. Hackney v. United States, 389 A.2d 1336, 1341 (D.C.1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1132, 99 S.Ct. 1054, 59 L.Ed.2d 95 (1979) (quoting Rollin M. Perkins, Criminal Law 662 (2d ed.1969)). On the contrary, the jury was explicitly instructed that Ms. Marbury need not be shown to have intended to commit premeditated murder while armed, even though premeditation and deliberation are elements of that offense. See Mills v. United States, 599 A.2d 775, 781 (D.C.1991).
Ms. Marbury's attorney, as we have noted, objected to the insertion into Redbook Instruction No. 4.02 of the “criminal venture” language. He complained that
[i]f you put criminal venture, it negates the same intent as the principal and it makes-just makes her responsible for anything that happens there. I mean regardless whether or not she had specific intent or whether or not she was just there. I mean-and that wording it says, look, if you're [there], regardless what happens, you're responsible for it if you use criminal venture.
Although neither defense attorney requested the judge not to give the “natural and probable consequences” instruction, Ms. Marbury's attorney did implicitly argue, in the passage quoted above, that his client, as an aider and abettor, must be shown to have “the same intent as the principal,” i.e., the premeditated intent to kill, in order to be guilty of premeditated murder.
Both appellants were found guilty, inter alia, of first-degree premeditated murder while armed. Each was sentenced to serve an aggregate term of thirty-six years to life.
II.
THE STANDARD OF REVIEW
In the order granting appellants' petitions for rehearing en banc, the court explicitly directed the parties to address the applicable standard of review. Wilson-Bey II, 886 A.2d at 78. In this case, the issue as to the proper standard arises in a somewhat unusual posture, because
1. although, in the trial court, appellants objected to a modification of the applicable Redbook instruction on grounds that, if valid, could not be reconciled with the bracketed “natural and probable consequences” language in the instruction itself, neither appellant explicitly objected to that bracketed portion of the instruction; both appellants, however, now challenge that portion on appeal; but
2. in its initial brief to the division, the government did not claim that appellants had failed to preserve the issue raised on appeal, thus arguably waiving the point and implicating the “waiver of the waiver” principle. 18 Moreover, in its brief to the en banc court, the government only perfunctorily addressed the question whether appellants' claim of instructional error was preserved and whether this court's review should be for plain error. 19
The question whether the challenged instruction was proper-i.e., what elements the prosecution must prove to show aiding and abetting of premeditated murder-is one of law. Little v. United States, 709 A.2d 708, 711 (D.C.1998); accord, Brown v. United States, 881 A.2d 586, 593 (D.C.2005). Accordingly, our review is de novo, and we accord no deference to the ruling of the trial court.
Rule 30 of the Superior Court's Rules of Criminal Procedure provides in pertinent part:
No party may assign as error any portion of the charge or omission therefrom unless that party objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which that party objects and the grounds of the objection. Opportunity shall be given to make the objection out of the hearing of the jury and, on request of any party, out of the presence of the jury.[20]
Because appellants did not specifically state to the trial court that aside from the references to “criminal venture,” the portions of Redbook Instruction No. 4.02 now challenged on appeal should not be given, they arguably failed to state “distinctly” the matter to which they objected.21 We conclude, however, that in objecting to the “criminal venture” language proposed by the prosecutor as a modification of the Redbook instruction, appellants urged a theory which, if it had been adopted by the trial judge, would have rendered illogical and self-contradictory the portions of the instruction now complained of on appeal. Given the judge's ruling on the objection to “criminal venture” and his explanation of that ruling, any further argument by defense counsel regarding the “natural and probable consequences” instruction, and any further contention that the aider or abettor must be shown to have the specific intent to kill the decedent, “would have fallen on deaf judicial ears․” Reams v. United States, 895 A.2d 914, 921 (D.C.2006).
It is undisputed, as we have seen, that appellants objected to the instruction that exposed each defendant to accomplice liability if she “knowingly took part in the criminal venture.” The grounds for counsel's objection were that the proposed instruction permitted an accomplice to be convicted of premeditated murder without the showing, required when the defendant is charged as a principal, that she had the specific intent to kill the decedent and that she had premeditated and deliberated. Nevertheless, the government contends, though not very forcefully, that appellants did not preserve an objection to the language making an aider and abettor “legally responsible for the acts of other persons that are the natural and probable consequences of the ․ criminal venture in which she intentionally participates.” Our reading of the entire record leads us to disagree.
In requesting the redefinition of “crime” to include “criminal venture,” the prosecutor expressly linked that modification to the now-challenged instruction, telling the judge that the defendants could be “guilty if they participated in any unlawful way at the scene [of the homicide], whether [or not] there was the intent to kill, ․ [and that this] goes to foreseeability, natural and reasonable consequences of the acts.” More tellingly, the judge himself demonstrated his awareness of that link when he rejected appellants' objection to the phrase “criminal venture.” The judge stated that he did not understand why, “as a matter of law,” the prosecutor's reasoning was “inaccurate,” for “[i]f the ․ defendant aided and abetted another in committing an assault with a knife or [with a bat,] ․ that person is ․ legally responsible for the acts of other persons that are the natural and probable consequence of those acts in th[e] criminal venture [in] which [she] intentionally participates.” The judge thus indisputably endorsed the principle that (to use his own words) it is “not necessary that the defendant have the same intent that the principal offender had when the crime was committed.” The judge also recognized that this principle derives in turn from the accomplice's “legal[ ] responsib[ility]” for the natural and probable consequences of her actions, a proposition with which the judge likewise explicitly agreed. In these circumstances, we believe that the judge was “on notice that ․ [appellants'] position on the correct rule of law differed from the court's.” Russell v. United States, 698 A.2d 1007, 1012 (D.C.1997). Accordingly, the purpose of the contemporaneous objection rule was satisfied. See, e.g., Watts v. United States, 362 A.2d 706, 708 (D.C.1976) (en banc). Because appellants' argument was sufficient to “direct the judge's attention to the correct rule of law,” Hasty v. United States, 669 A.2d 127, 134-35 (D.C.1995), their failure to define the reach of their objection with “consummate clarity” is not dispositive. Whitaker v. United States, 617 A.2d 499, 508 (D.C.1992); see also Russell, 698 A.2d at 1012 (“where there was considerable discussion on the issue between counsel and the court throughout the trial, we think that counsel's failure to submit written requested instructions or to state his objections with exact precision does not compel plain error review”). Although appellants could have stated more explicitly and clearly that they objected to the bracketed portion of the Redbook instruction as written, and not merely to the modification of the instruction by the addition of the words “criminal venture,” we conclude, all things considered, that their objections passed muster.22
III.
THE REQUIRED PROOF OF INTENTA. Background.
Before the en banc court, as before the division, Ms. Marbury's basic position, joined by Ms. Wilson-Bey,23 is that in first-degree premeditated murder cases, the Redbook instruction on aiding and abetting is inadequate and that it understates the requisite intent. She first argued that “[i]f the charge is first[-]degree murder based upon an alleged deliberate and premeditated killing, the abettor is not guilty of this degree of the crime unless he [or she] either acted upon a premeditated design to cause the death of the deceased or knew that the perpetrator was acting with such an intent. ․” Hackney, 389 A.2d at 1341 (emphasis added) (quoting at 662). However, Ms. Marbury also quoted another leading commentary, as follows:
To determine the kind of homicide of which the accomplice is guilty, it is necessary to look to his state of mind; it may have been different from the state of mind of the principal and they thus may be guilty of different offenses. Thus, because first-degree murder requires a deliberate and premeditated killing, an accomplice is not guilty of this degree of murder unless he acted with premeditation and deliberation.
Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 13.2(c), at 347 (2d ed.2003) (emphasis added). Although Ms. Marbury's attorneys initially appeared to have been satisfied with the Perkins approach, which requires intentional participation by the accomplice in the crime with knowledge of the principal's design to kill (even without proof of a specific intent to kill on the accomplice's part), they now argue, with the support of the Public Defender Service as amicus curiae, for the more demanding LaFave standard.
Ms. Marbury also complains of the use in premeditated murder cases of the bracketed “natural and probable consequences” language contained in Redbook Instruction No. 4.02, which was included in the trial judge's charge to the jury in this case. Ms. Marbury again quotes Professor LaFave:
[G]eneral application of the “natural and probable consequence” rule of accomplice liability is unwarranted. A's guilt as an accomplice to one crime should not per se be a basis for holding A accountable for a related crime merely because the latter offense was carried out by A's principal, for this as well would result in A's guilt of a crime as to which he did not have the requisite mental state.
Id., § 13.3(b), at 362-63.24 Appellants and the Public Defender Service have cited extensive authority consistent with Professor LaFave's approach.
The government responds that this court's precedents have “consistently and thoughtfully” applied the “natural and probable consequences” rule, and it argues that the Redbook instruction is defensible by analogy to the rule rendering conspirators liable for substantive offenses committed by their co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy. See Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 646-47, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946); Thomas v. United States, 748 A.2d 931, 934 (D.C.2000). We hold that conviction of first-degree premeditated murder on an aiding and abetting theory requires the prosecution to prove that the accomplice acted with premeditation and deliberation and intent to kill, and we decline to draw the government's proposed analogy to Pinkerton.25
B. The aiding-and-abetting statute and the Peoni rule.
In assessing appellants' contentions, we begin with D.C.Code § 22-105 (1996), now recodified in D.C.Code § 22-1805 (2001), which reads as follows:
In prosecutions for any criminal offense all persons advising, inciting, or conniving at the offense, or aiding or abetting the principal offender, shall be charged as principals and not as accessories, the intent of this section being that as to all accessories before the fact the law heretofore applicable in cases of misdemeanor only shall apply to all crimes, whatever the punishment may be.
The District's statute was enacted by Congress in 1901, eight years before its federal analogue.26 We have stated that “[o]ur aiding and abetting statute does not differ substantially from its federal counterpart,” Hackney, 389 A.2d at 1342, and we can look to the federal courts' interpretation of the federal statute in construing our own.
In United States v. Peoni, 100 F.2d 401 (2d Cir.1938), Judge Learned Hand, writing for the court, addressed the meaning of the words “aids” and “abets” in the federal statute. Judge Hand surveyed definitions of aiding and abetting throughout centuries of common law, and he concluded as follows:
[A]ll these definitions have nothing whatever to do with the probability that the forbidden result would follow upon the accessory's conduct; ․ [T]hey all demand that he in some sort associate himself with the venture, that he participate in it as in something that he wishes to bring about, that he seek by his action to make it succeed. All the words used-even the most colorless, “abet”-carry an implication of purposive attitude towards it.
Id. at 402 (emphasis added). The court held in Peoni that the defendant, who had sold counterfeit bills to a purchaser who had then resold the counterfeit money to a third person, could not be held criminally responsible for the subsequent transaction, even if it was a “natural consequence of [his] original act.” Id. In our view, the portions of Redbook Instruction No. 4.02 which appellants have challenged in this case do not require proof that the accomplice harbored the “purposive” intent described by Judge Hand, and are therefore irreconcilable, in the context of this first-degree premeditated murder case, with the well-established Peoni standard.
Although Peoni was decided sixty-eight years ago, it remains the prevailing authority defining accomplice liability. In 1949 the Supreme Court explicitly adopted Peoni's purpose-based formulation. Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U.S. 613, 618, 69 S.Ct. 766, 93 L.Ed. 919 (1949). This court has likewise followed Peoni, see, e.g., [Reginald B.] Brooks v. United States, 599 A.2d 1094, 1099 (D.C.1991); Hackney, 389 A.2d at 1342, and we have held that an accomplice “must be concerned in the commission of the specific crime with which the principal defendant is charged [;] he must be an associate in guilt of that crime.” Roy v. United States, 652 A.2d 1098, 1104 (D.C.1995) (emphasis in original).
Every United States Circuit Court of Appeals has adopted Peoni's requirement that the accomplice be shown to have intended that the principal succeed in committing the charged offense, and the federal appellate courts have thus rejected, explicitly or implicitly, a standard that would permit the conviction of an accomplice without the requisite showing of intent.27 The majority of state courts have also adopted a purpose-based standard.28 See also LaFave § 13.2(d), at 349 & n. 97. Federal 29 and state 30 model jury instructions are also generally consistent with Peoni, and require proof that the accomplice intended to help the principal to commit the charged offense.
Although, as we have noted, the courts in a minority of jurisdictions have applied a “natural and probable consequences” approach to accomplice liability, it is significant that some of these courts have recently shifted to a standard consistent with Peoni. In Sharma, supra note 28, for example, the Supreme Court of Nevada reversed the conviction of an alleged aider and abettor for attempted murder (which required a showing of specific intent to kill) because the jury received a “natural and probable consequences” instruction but was not told that the accomplice “must have aided and abetted the attempt with the specific intent to kill.” 56 P.3d at 873 (emphasis added). The court noted that the natural and probable consequences doctrine
has been harshly criticized by most commentators as both incongruous and unjust because it imposes accomplice liability solely upon proof of foreseeability or negligence when typically a higher degree of mens rea is required of the principal. It permits criminal liability to be predicated upon negligence even when the crime involved requires a different state of mind. Having reevaluated the wisdom of this doctrine, we have concluded that its general application in Nevada to specific intent crimes is unsound precisely for that reason: it permits conviction without proof that the accused possessed the state of mind required by the statutory definition of the crime.
Id. at 871-72 (citations, internal quotation marks, and alterations omitted). Thus, “in order for a person to be held accountable for the specific intent of another under an aiding and abetting theory of principal liability, the aider or abettor must have knowingly aided the other person with the intent that the other person commit the charged crime.” Id. at 872 The court relied on the decision of the Supreme Court of New Mexico in State v. Carrasco, 124 N.M. 64, 946 P.2d 1075 (1997), in which the court likewise disavowed the “natural and probable consequences” doctrine and held that “an accessory must share the criminal intent of the principal.” Id. at 1079.
With the exception of the “natural and probable consequences” language, our own aiding and abetting instruction was likewise largely derived from the language in Peoni, and we have repeatedly cited that language as the standard for accomplice liability. See, e.g., Trapps v. United States, 887 A.2d 484, 489 (D.C.2005); Outlaw v. United States, 604 A.2d 873, 875 (D.C.1992); [Reginald B.] Brooks, 599 A.2d at 1099; Hackney, 389 A.2d at 1342. Indeed, the trial judge's instruction in this case, quoted at pp. 824-25, supra, contained the critical language from Peoni. However, the “natural and probable consequences” standard has also been invoked in this jurisdiction, even in cases, such as prosecutions for premeditated murder, in which it runs afoul not only of Peoni, but also of the requirement that the defendant be shown to have a deliberate and premeditated intent to kill. See Wilson-Bey I, 871 A.2d at 1163-64.
C. The natural and probable consequences standard and the Peoni rule.
In United States v. Heinlein, 160 U.S.App. D.C. 157, 490 F.2d 725 (1973), a felony murder case, the court stated that “the accomplice who aids and abets the commission of a felony is legally responsible as a principal for all acts ․ which are in furtherance of the common design ․ or are the natural and probable consequence of acts done in the perpetration of the felony.” 160 U.S.App. D.C. at 167, 490 F.2d at 735. See also Waller v. United States, 389 A.2d 801, 807 (D.C.1978) (quoting Heinlein, in a felony murder case, for the proposition that an accomplice is responsible for the foreseeable consequences of the underlying felony); Harris v. United States, 377 A.2d 34, 37 (D.C.1977) (also quoting Heinlein ). It is true, in a felony murder case, that an accomplice does not escape liability for a foreseeable death merely because he or she neither intended to kill nor pulled the trigger. To hold otherwise would be to reject the underlying purpose of the felony murder doctrine, which is designed to deter the commission of certain especially dangerous felonies because these particular crimes create an unacceptably high risk of death, and which permits the conviction of the defendant, whether she is a principal or accomplice, without any showing that she intentionally or knowingly caused the decedent's death. See discussion, infra, at pp. 836-37.
Nevertheless, as the division explained in Wilson-Bey I, the standard articulated in Heinlein has also been invoked in premeditated murder cases. See, e.g., Daniels v. United States, 738 A.2d 240, 246 (D.C.1999); Matthews v. United States, 629 A.2d 1185, 1197 (D.C.1993); Byrd v. United States, 364 A.2d 1215, 1219 (D.C.1976).31 In the 1993 edition of the Redbook, the “natural and probable consequences” principle was included in brackets in Instruction No. 4.02, dealing generally with accomplice liability. In our view, however, the application of the bracketed language in Instruction No. 4.02 to a first-degree premeditated murder prosecution renders the instruction internally inconsistent. This is so because the language from Peoni that appears in the instruction requires the prosecution to prove that the accomplice knowingly associated herself with the commission of the crime, that she participated in the crime as something she wished to bring about, and that she intended by her actions to make it succeed, while the natural and probable consequences theory dispenses with any requirement that the accomplice be shown to have the requisite mental state for conviction of first-degree murder, including premeditation and specific intent to kill.
In Oates v. State, 97 Md.App. 180, 627 A.2d 555 (1993), Judge Charles E. Moylan, Jr., in an especially persuasive opinion, explained why the liability of each participant in criminal homicide committed by several persons must necessarily depend on his or her individual mens rea. Remarking on the “complex matrix of blameworthiness arising out of a single criminal homicide,” the judge explained:
When two or more persons are joint participants in a crime, they are joint participants only with respect to a single and common actus reus. Where, however, a single criminal act has different levels of blameworthiness contingent upon the particular mens rea with which it is perpetrated, multiple participants in that crime do not necessarily share the same mens rea. Although joint participation ultimately depends upon a mutual tie to the same criminal act, the individual mentes reae or levels of guilt of the joint participants are permitted to float free and are not tied to each other in any way. If their mentes reae are different, their independent levels of guilt, reflected by nondependent verdicts, will necessarily be different as well.
* * *
The mens rea or level of blameworthiness of a principal in the first degree by no means controls the mens rea or level of blameworthiness of a principal in the second degree or of an accessory before the fact. If three codefendants burst into a motel room and discover the wife of one of them in an act of adultery, what is the crime if the two adulterers are then shot and killed? If the triggerman (the principal in the first degree) is the cuckolded husband, the Rule of Provocation may mitigate his guilt downward to the manslaughter level. The accomplice who hands him the gun, however, will be guilty at least of murder in the second degree, notwithstanding the fact that he is aiding and abetting a mere manslayer. If the third codefendant, who led the suspicious husband to the motel room in the first place, knew full well what would there be found and had been scheming for some time thereby to get rid of the adulterous lover, his premeditated intent to kill would raise his guilt to the first degree notwithstanding the guilt of his fellow participants at lower levels. Conversely, the principal in the first degree (the triggerman) could have possessed a premeditated intent to kill and his aider and abettor, who handed him the gun in a fit of jealous rage, might be the beneficiary of the Rule of Provocation.
Id. at 558-59.
We agree with the foregoing analysis and, in our view, application of the “natural and probable consequences” standard in the case of an alleged aider and abettor to armed premeditated murder cannot be reconciled with Judge Moylan's reasoning, which posits that each participant's responsibility in a criminal homicide must turn on his or her individual intent or mens rea. Here, appellants were convicted of premeditated murder without any requirement that the prosecution prove the requisite premeditation, deliberation, or intent. This could not be done consistently with Peoni, and the “natural and probable consequences” doctrine cannot be permitted to dilute the principle that the mens rea required to prove premeditated murder, whether by a principal or by an accomplice, necessarily includes premeditation, deliberation, and a specific intent to kill.
The Peoni standard is widely regarded by legal scholars as logical and just. Professor LaFave and the authors of the Model Penal Code have recognized that a “natural and probable consequences” rule imposes liability on an accomplice for the crime committed by the principal on the basis of the accomplice's negligence.32 At least in the present context, we agree with Professor LaFave that a negligence-based approach contravenes basic notions of criminal responsibility:
The “natural and probable consequence” rule of accomplice liability, if viewed as a broad generalization,[33 ] is inconsistent with more fundamental principles of our system of criminal law. It would permit liability to be predicated upon negligence even when the crime involved requires a different state of mind. Such is not possible as to one who has personally committed a crime, and should likewise not be the case as to those who have given aid or counsel.
․
[G]eneral application of the “natural and probable consequence” rule of accomplice liability is unwarranted. A's guilt as an accomplice to one crime should not per se be a basis for holding A accountable for a related crime merely because the latter offense was carried out by A's principal, for this as well would result in A's guilt of a crime as to which he did not have the requisite mental state.
LaFave, § 13.3(b) at 362-63.34
Moreover, it is illogical to hold an accomplice criminally liable for an offense when the accomplice's guilt of that offense stems from his or her negligence:
To say that the accomplice is liable if the offense ․ is “reasonably foreseeable” or the “probable consequence” of another crime is to make him liable for negligence, even though more is required in order to convict the principal actor. This is both incongruous and unjust.
Model Penal Code & Commentaries § 2.06 at 312 n. 42.35
A rule imposing criminal liability upon an accomplice for foreseeable consequences, without proof that the accomplice intended those consequences (while, by contrast, a principal must be shown to have the proscribed intent), is also contrary to the underlying purpose of aiding and abetting statutes, which is to “abolish the distinction between principals and accessories and [render] them all principals.” Standefer v. United States, 447 U.S. 10, 19, 100 S.Ct. 1999, 64 L.Ed.2d 689 (1980). Enforcing statutory mens rea requirements with respect to principals, while applying a negligence-based standard to accomplices, requires the court to make the very kinds of distinctions which the law was intended to eliminate:
If the mental state for the principal is allowed to differ ․ from that for the aider and abettor or the causer, then the jury would have to first determine in each instance whether the defendant is an aider and abettor ․ or a principal, in order to know which mental state to apply. Requiring the jury to make those distinctions effectively resurrects the pre-1901 state of the law, and stands in direct contradiction to the “no distinction” rule.
What Were They Thinking?, 70 Fordham L.Rev. at 1365, supra note 35. As Judge Moylan suggested in Oates, guilt or the degree of guilt should turn on the mental state of each participant in the crime, and the requisite proof should not automatically be made less demanding for the prosecutor to achieve vis-a-vis one perceived to be an accomplice than with respect to a codefendant alleged to be the principal.
Focusing on the present appeals, it is particularly inappropriate to permit the conviction of an aider or abettor upon a lesser showing of criminal intent than is required vis-a-vis a principal when the defendants are being prosecuted for homicide. The District's statutory scheme is designed to relate the degree of the crime and the punishment of the defendant to his or her individual intent. In Comber v. United States, 584 A.2d 26 (D.C.1990) (en banc), this court, as part of a comprehensive examination of the District's homicide laws and of the mental state required for each form of the offense, reaffirmed that it would not be enough, in order to convict a defendant of, e.g., first-degree murder, that the risk of death was reasonably foreseeable. Id. at 39 n. 12.36 We therefore conclude that it serves neither the ends of justice nor the purposes of the criminal law to permit an accomplice to be convicted under a reasonable foreseeability standard when a principal must be shown to have specifically intended the decedent's death and to have acted with premeditation and deliberation, and when such intent, premeditation, and deliberation are elements of the offense.
Finally, District of Columbia law treats a killing as first-degree murder, without requiring proof of intent to kill, only under two carefully circumscribed doctrines: felony murder and conspiracy.37 Our felony murder statute, D.C.Code § 22-2101, imposes criminal responsibility for first-degree murder in the case of a reasonably foreseeable killing, without a showing that the defendant intended to kill the decedent, if the homicide was committed in the course of one of several enumerated felonies. The statute also makes any purposeful killing during the course of any felony first-degree murder. This doctrine is premised on the notion that malice may be presumed from the commission of certain “dangerous” or “violent” felonies that “generally involve[ ] a risk that ․ someone might be killed.” LaFave, § 14.5(a) at 446. Felony murder is a “special crime of peculiar magnitude deemed to warrant proof by unique fashion.” Shanahan v. United States, 354 A.2d 524, 526 (D.C.1976). Holding an accomplice, but not a principal, criminally liable for all unintended foreseeable killings stemming from any intentional crime, including less serious felonies and even misdemeanors, creates an illogical distinction between the two kinds of participants, and it cannot be reconciled with the carefully considered limits to the reach of the felony murder statute, specified by the legislature.38
D. The Pinkerton doctrine.
In its brief to the en banc court, the government contends, for the first time,39 that “it is difficult to draw a principled distinction” between the “natural and probable consequences” rule in the aiding and abetting context and the “parallel doctrine of Pinkerton liability.” Contrary to the government's position, however, both the Supreme Court and this court have drawn that very distinction, and have emphasized that Pinkerton liability and aiding and abetting are distinct legal theories that require proof of different elements. As a result, concepts that are applicable in the Pinkerton context “may not be transposed to the related but distinctively different context of aiding and abetting.” Erskines v. United States, 696 A.2d 1077, 1080 (D.C.1997) (emphasis added).
As articulated by this court, the Pinkerton doctrine provides that “a co-conspirator who does not directly commit a substantive offense may [nevertheless] be held liable for that offense if it was committed by another co-conspirator in furtherance of the conspiracy and was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the conspiratorial agreement.” Gordon v. United States, 783 A.2d 575, 582 (D.C.2001). Thus, in order to secure a conviction in conformity with Pinkerton, the prosecution must prove that an agreement existed, that a substantive crime was committed by a co-conspirator in furtherance of that agreement, and that the substantive crime was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the agreement between the conspirators. Pinkerton, 328 U.S. at 646-47, 66 S.Ct. 1180; Gordon, 783 A.2d at 582. The government is not, however, required to establish that the co-conspirator actually aided the perpetrator in the commission of the substantive crime, but only that the crime was committed in furtherance of the conspiracy.
To establish a defendant's criminal liability as an aider and abettor, on the other hand, the prosecution need not show that an agreement existed between the principal and the accomplice. Rather, as we have seen, the government must prove, in conformity with Peoni, that the accomplice “in some sort associate [d] himself with the venture, that he participate[d] in it as in something he wishe[d] to bring about, [and] that he [sought] by his action to make it succeed.” Peoni, 100 F.2d at 402.
In Nye & Nissen, the Supreme Court, in citing with approval the Peoni standard, recognized that Pinkerton liability differs fundamentally from liability for aiding and abetting. The Court explained the distinction as follows:
The rule of [Pinkerton ] does service where the conspiracy was one to commit offenses of the character described in the substantive counts. Aiding and abetting has a broader application. It makes a defendant a principal when he consciously shares in any criminal act whether or not there is a conspiracy. And if a conspiracy is also charged, it makes no difference so far as aiding and abetting is concerned whether the substantive offense is done pursuant to the conspiracy. Pinkerton ․ is narrow in its scope. Aiding and abetting rests on a broader base; it states a rule of criminal responsibility for acts which one assists another in performing. The fact that a particular case might conceivably be submitted to the jury on either theory is irrelevant. It is sufficient if the proof adduced and the basis on which it was submitted were sufficient to support the verdict.
336 U.S. at 620, 69 S.Ct. 766 (emphasis added). This court recognized the same distinction in Erskines, holding that “[a]iding and abetting ․ resembles Pinkerton liability but nonetheless differs from it significantly,” because, among other things, aiding and abetting requires proof that the defendant “intentionally participated” in the principal's crime. 696 A.2d at 1080-81 (emphasis added).
Although the government, as we have seen, discerns what it believes to be decisive similarity between the “natural and probable consequence” standard applied by the trial judge in this case and the “reasonable foreseeability” standard of Pinkerton, the proposed analogy cannot withstand critical scrutiny. Reasonable foreseeability is only one of the elements that the government must prove to support a conviction under Pinkerton. Pursuant to that doctrine, as we have seen, the government must also prove both that an agreement existed and that the substantive offense was committed by a co-conspirator in furtherance of that agreement. By contrast, in the aiding and abetting context, the “natural and probable consequence” standard as applied by the trial court in this case would make the aider and abettor responsible for all reasonably foreseeable crimes committed by the principal, regardless of whether there was any agreement to commit these crimes or, if there was such an agreement, irrespective of whether the principal's actions were in furtherance of it. We therefore agree with counsel for Ms. Marbury that “the extension of the ‘natural and probable consequences' rule to the aiding and abetting context eliminates the other substantive limitations that make the ‘reasonably foreseeable’ element appropriate in the context of Pinkerton liability, effectively conflating the two doctrines into one omnibus and sprawling theory of vicarious criminal liability.”
As we have previously noted in a different context, there are two narrowly defined doctrines that permit conviction for unintended crimes that result from intentional participation in a predicate crime, without proof of the mens rea otherwise required for the subsequent crime. These doctrines are felony murder and conspirator liability under Pinkerton. Legislatures, and sometimes courts, have carved out these exceptions to address specific especially dangerous circumstances: commission of certain serious felonies that inherently create a high risk of homicide, or participation in crimes that depend for their execution on conspiratorial agreements. Where these or similar special circumstances do not exist, e.g., in cases, such as this one, which was prosecuted on an aiding and abetting theory, the raison d'etre for these exceptions does not apply. Significantly, under these carefully circumscribed doctrines, principals and accomplices are treated alike on the basis of each participant's mental state. Accord, Oates, 627 A.2d at 558-59. Accomplices are not treated more harshly than principals-i.e., they are not subject to conviction on a less demanding standard of proof-solely because they are accomplices. We agree with the Public Defender Service that these narrow exceptions “prove the rule” that, in first-degree murder prosecutions which are neither for felony murder nor based upon the Pinkerton doctrine, a showing of mens rea is essential; under the government's approach, on the other hand, the exceptions swallow the rule.
Each of the two special doctrines has a unique rationale that does not exist in the markedly different context of accomplice liability.40 The rationale of Pinkerton, which imposes liability on members of a conspiracy for certain acts of co-conspirators, turns on the existence of a criminal agreement. “[T]he agreement is the ‘essence’ or ‘gist’ of the crime of conspiracy.” LaFave, § 12.2(a) at 266. A criminal conspiracy is an offense “of the gravest character” that implicates concerns beyond the commission of the substantive crime which is the object of the conspiracy:
A conspiracy is a partnership in crime. It has ingredients, as well as implications, distinct from the completion of the unlawful project. ․ “For two or more to confederate and combine together to commit or cause to be committed a breach of the criminal laws, is an offense of the gravest character, sometimes quite outweighing, in injury to the public, the mere commission of the contemplated crime. It involves deliberate plotting to subvert the laws, educating and preparing the conspirators for further and habitual criminal practices. And it is characterized by secrecy, rendering it difficult of detection, requiring more time for its discovery, and adding to the importance of punishing it when discovered.”
Pinkerton, 328 U.S. at 644, 66 S.Ct. 1180 (quoting United States v. Rabinowich, 238 U.S. 78, 35 S.Ct. 682, 59 L.Ed. 1211 (1915)).
Foreseeable acts of co-conspirators in furtherance of a conspiracy are imputed to the conspirator-defendant because the co-conspirators are deemed by the law to be his agents. Baker v. United States, 867 A.2d 988, 1005 (D.C.2005). In principle, the law treats the co-conspirator as the conspirator-defendant's alter ego, and presumes him to be bound by the pre-existing conspiracy to achieve his fellow co-conspirators' shared objectives. This court has recognized the uncommon character of this aspect of conspiracy law:
Conspiracy is a unique theory of liability that renders individual defendants guilty of any offense committed by co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy․ Special evidentiary rules apply where a conspiracy is charged or alleged, and hearsay evidence ․ may be introduced against a co-conspirator under the exception for admissions or statements of party opponent on the theory that one co-conspirator is the agent of another․ [B ]ecause the agency theory underlies conspiracy liability, the only admissions of party opponent admissible in a trial where the government seeks to assign vicarious liability to co-conspirators are those statements and acts of a co-conspirator made during and in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Akins v. United States, 679 A.2d 1017, 1028 (D.C.1996) (emphasis added) (citations omitted).
In contrast, a principal is not an accomplice's agent, and criminal liability attaches to the accomplice even if there is no preexisting conspiratorial agreement between the two. When the judge delivers the standard aiding and abetting instruction, he or she specifically admonishes the jury that the prosecution need not prove any prior agreement to commit the crime. See Redbook Instruction No. 4.02 (government need not “prove that anyone discussed or agreed upon” the criminal goal). While, in a particular case, an accomplice may also be a co-conspirator, that dual role simply permits the government to proceed on alternative theories. That the prosecution may do so, however, does not mean that the two legal doctrines have collapsed into one another.
Finally, in the present case, the government did not pursue a Pinkerton theory in the trial court (or, for that matter, before the division). It is therefore beyond dispute that the jury was not instructed on Pinkerton liability, nor did it make the findings necessary to support a conviction under that theory. In its brief to the en banc court, the government expressly concedes this point (“To be clear, we do not contend that the jury in this case was instructed on Pinkerton liability and made all of the Pinkerton findings in precisely those terms.”). In particular, the jury did not find, nor was it asked to find, that the premeditated murder was committed “in furtherance of” the conspiracy, as required under Pinkerton. This concession by the government further undermines its Pinkerton argument and renders it untenable. Because the jury was not instructed on the elements of Pinkerton liability, a conviction for premeditated murder may not be sustained on that basis.41
E. The constitutional nature of the error.
Ms. Wilson-Bey's attorney argues in his brief to the en banc court that “[t]he instructional error in this case is constitutional error because it eliminated the specific intent, premeditation and deliberation elements of first-degree murder[;] therefore, the Chapman[42 ] test should apply to this case.” Counsel for Ms. Marbury, while acknowledging that they argued for the Kotteakos43 standard before the division, have since changed their minds:
Having further considered the matter, Ms. Marbury now believes that the proper standard is actually constitutional harmless error under Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), which requires reversal unless the error is “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 24, 87 S.Ct. 824. This is because the trial court's instructions had the effect of eliminating the mental state element of the offense from the jury's consideration. In these circumstances, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the error is of constitutional dimension, and consequently that the Chapman harmless error standard should apply. See Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 15, 119 S.Ct. 1827, 144 L.Ed.2d 35 (1999) (applying Chapman standard where court's instruction omitted element of offense.)
The Public Defender Service, as amicus curiae, agrees with appellants:
Because the District's aiding and abetting statute requires proof that an accomplice acted with the mental state necessary to convict her as a principal, the government here was required to prove, in order for the jury to find Ms. Marbury guilty of first-degree murder, that she acted with a specific intent to kill after premeditation and deliberation. See D.C.Code § 22-210l; Redbook Instruction 4.17. But Instruction 4.02 instead required the jury to find her guilty upon proof that the murder was a “natural and probable consequence” of her involvement in a plan to assault Ms. Blackwell. By omitting three essential mens rea elements of the offense, the instruction violated the Sixth Amendment. See White v. United States, 613 A.2d 869, 872 (D.C.1992) (en banc)․ The Court reviews such errors under the harmless-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard of [Chapman].
The government has vigorously defended the trial court's “natural and probable consequences” instruction. It has not, however, contested the proposition that if the state-of-mind elements of premeditated murder apply to aiders and abettors, then the error was of constitutional magnitude and implicates the Chapman standard of “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” 44 The government likewise has not argued that Ms. Marbury has waived this point, and we agree with the now essentially uncontested proposition that the Chapman standard applies.
F. Harmless error analysis.
(1) Ms. Marbury.
Ms. Marbury, supported by the Public Defender Service, contends that the trial judge's instructional error was prejudicial to her, rather than harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.45 Although the case against Ms. Marbury was a strong one, we are constrained to agree.
The division unanimously concluded, and so do we, that the government's evidence, if credited, “would permit an impartial jury to find that both appellants set out deliberately to murder Ms. Blackwell in retaliation for her having beaten up Ms. Marbury, and that Ms. Wilson-Bey executed this premeditated plan.” Wilson-Bey I, 871 A.2d at 1157-58. Indeed, Teresa Brown testified that Ms. Marbury had openly stated her intention to kill “that bitch,” referring to the decedent, and if Ms. Brown's testimony is credited, and if the record is viewed, as it must be for sufficiency purposes, in the light most favorable to the prosecution, then the elements of deliberation, premeditation, and specific intent to kill have been readily satisfied.
But “[m]ere sufficiency of the evidence does not dictate a finding of harmless error.” Bell v. United States, 801 A.2d 117, 129 (D.C.2002). Even under the less rigorous standard of Kotteakos, “analysis under the harmless error doctrine should not be limited to superficial inquiry as to whether the same verdict would have been possible absent the tainted evidence.” 46 [Raymond ] Brooks v. United States, 367 A.2d 1297, 1309 (D.C.1976); see also Clark v. United States, 593 A.2d 186, 192 (D.C.1991). To conclude that an error is harmless, we must find it “highly probable that [that] error did not contribute to the verdict.” United States v. Tussa, 816 F.2d 58, 67 (2d Cir.1987) (emphasis added) (quoting United States v. Corey, 566 F.2d 429, 432 (2d Cir.1977)); Clark, 593 A.2d at 192; see also In re Ty.B., 878 A.2d 1255, 1267 (D.C.2005). In the present case, as we have seen, the issue is whether the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and the foregoing authorities apply a fortiori in Ms. Marbury's favor.
In our view, the government has not satisfied the Chapman standard vis-a-vis Ms. Marbury. Ms. Marbury argues that her inebriation warrants reversal. Voluntary intoxication “may nega[te] the ability of the defendant to form the specific intent to kill, or the deliberation and premeditation necessary to constitute first-degree murder in which event there is a reduction to second-degree murder.” Harris v. United States, 375 A.2d 505, 508 (D.C.1977) (citing Bishop v. United States, 71 U.S. App.D.C. 132, 136, 107 F.2d 297, 301 (1939)). The evidence required to support a voluntary intoxication defense, however, is quite exacting-the record must demonstrate “such a degree of complete drunkenness that a person is incapable of forming the necessary intent essential to the commission of the crime charged.” Smith v. United States, 309 A.2d 58, 59 (D.C.1973); see also Powell v. United States, 455 A.2d 405, 412 (D.C.1983).47 Although there was extensive testimony regarding Ms. Marbury's drinking and state of intoxication at the time of her fight with Ms. Blackwell and also when she first determined to seek revenge, the effects of the intoxication may well have dissipated by the time of the murder hours later. But even if we assume that Ms. Marbury had the capacity to form the requisite specific intent and to deliberate upon and premeditate a murder, the “cooperating witnesses” testified that appellants and their friends went to Ms. Blackwell's house to find out why Ms. Marbury was beaten up and to fight the decedent and her friends. None testified that there was any plan to kill Ms. Blackwell, and one of the women explicitly denied that the group harbored an intent to kill. Teresa Brown's testimony that Ms. Marbury had declared her intent to kill Ms. Blackwell was, as we have observed, see note 4, supra, subject to substantial impeachment. Thus, taking the evidence as a whole, an impartial juror might readily have a reasonable doubt whether Ms. Marbury in fact formed an intent to kill Ms. Blackwell, as distinguished from an intent to join with others in beating up Ms. Blackwell and her friends. Under the trial court's “natural and probable consequences” instruction, however, a juror who believed that Ms. Marbury's intent was merely to join in an assault on Ms. Blackwell could nevertheless reasonably find Ms. Marbury guilty of aiding and abetting armed premeditated murder. The error was therefore potentially decisive, and we cannot say, with respect to Ms. Marbury, that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
(2) Ms. Wilson-Bey.
Some time after taking a beating from Tomika Blackwell, Ms. Marbury arrived with four of her friends at Ms. Wilson-Bey's home. Ms. Marbury related to her older sister that Ms. Blackwell and her friends had “jumped” her, and Ms. Wilson-Bey looked at Ms. Marbury's injuries, which, as we have noted, included a bloody nose, a busted lip, an injured eye, and a knot on her head. Ms. Wilson-Bey then interrupted Ms. Marbury's narrative, went into the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and told the other women that “I am going to kill that bitch.” She subsequently announced that she was going to “fuck one of them up,” obviously meaning Ms. Blackwell.
When the group arrived at Ms. Blackwell's apartment house, Ms. Wilson-Bey was one of the three women who rushed up to the decedent's unit, and she immediately spoke for the group, telling Mr. Rucker that she wanted to see Tomika. When an apparently unintimidated Ms. Blackwell came to the door, announced her presence, and advanced towards Ms. Wilson-Bey, the latter stabbed her near her eye. The two women struggled, and different witnesses estimated that Ms. Wilson-Bey swung her knife at the decedent “at least three times” and “four or five times,” causing the victim's blood to flow “everywhere.” Subsequently, the group left Ms. Blackwell in a gravely wounded condition and proceeded to Teresa Brown's house, where, according to the testimony, Ms. Wilson-Bey yelled at her: “Come outside, bitch, I'm going to kill you.” Finally, Ms. Wilson-Bey made a telephone call to her brother and, in order to ensure that no one would betray her by reporting her deeds to the authorities, she gave him the names of all of the participants in the night's violence.
With respect to the killing itself, Ms. Wilson-Bey was obviously the leader of the group that went to Ms. Blackwell's home to avenge the beating of Ms. Marbury. She was charged with premeditated murder as a principal, on the theory that she was the killer, while the government took the position that Ms. Marbury was an aider or abettor. Some doubt was cast by the medical evidence, however, on the government's theory that it was Ms. Wilson-Bey who inflicted the fatal wound. The medical examiner, testifying for the prosecution, found numerous stab wounds on the decedent's body. One of the wounds, five to six inches deep, and one half-inch long, transected Ms. Blackwell's jugular vein, penetrated her lung, and resulted in her death. A forensic pathologist called by Ms. Wilson-Bey testified that Ms. Blackwell's wounds were caused by at least two different knives, that the fatal wound was inflicted with a knife that had a narrow blade, and that a large knife, such as the one said to have been wielded by Ms. Wilson-Bey, would not have produced that wound. Ms. Wilson-Bey's attorney argues that his client therefore could not have killed Ms. Blackwell, and that if she participated in the killing at all, it was only as an aider and abettor. Therefore, counsel maintains, Ms. Wilson-Bey was prejudiced by the erroneous instruction regarding the elements of accomplice liability. Moreover, although the government principally argued that Ms. Wilson-Bey was the principal in the killing, the prosecutor also told the jury that both appellants could be found guilty on an aiding and abetting theory.
The evidence that Ms. Wilson-Bey played a leading role in the murder of Ms. Blackwell was overwhelming. “Carrying the murder weapon to the scene of the crime [48 ] ‘is highly probative of premeditation and deliberation ․ as it permits the inference that appellant arrived on the scene already possessed of a calmly planned and calculated intent to kill.’ ” Mills, 599 A.2d at 782 (quoting McAdoo v. United States, 515 A.2d 412, 427 (D.C.1986)). Whether the instructional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt boils down to whether an impartial juror could reasonably conclude that Ms. Wilson-Bey did not kill (or help to kill) the decedent with deliberation, premeditation, and the specific intent to cause her death.
The government discerns no difficulty in answering that question in the negative. It asserts, in a footnote to its en banc brief, that no reasonable juror could find in her favor:
Because [Ms.] Wilson-Bey was tried as the principal and the evidence showed that she repeatedly plunged her knife into Ms. Blackwell after earlier declaring her desire to “kill,” it is impossible to perceive how the aiding-and-abetting instruction could have harmed her. At any rate, as our recitation of the facts demonstrates, the overwhelming evidence established beyond a reasonable doubt that [Ms.] Wilson-Bey traveled to Atlantic Street with the intent to kill Ms. Blackwell and that she did so with premeditation and deliberation.
We think that the government's assessment of the record as to this appellant is consistent with, and indeed compelled by, common sense. Any impartial trier of fact who credited the prosecution's evidence 49 would, in our view, be bound to conclude that Ms. Wilson-Bey intended to kill the decedent, tried to kill her, and succeeded in doing so, either by personally causing her death or by abetting a knife-wielding confederate who actually inflicted the fatal wound if Ms. Wilson-Bey did not. To quote Peoni, Ms. Wilson-Bey, at the very least, intended that the decedent be killed, and she “participated in [the killing] as in something that [s]he wishe[d] to bring about, that [s]he [sought] by [her] action to make it succeed.” 100 F.2d at 402. In sum, we conclude that as to Ms. Wilson-Bey, the instructional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and that revision of the instruction on aiding and abetting to conform to the standard that we have now adopted would not have affected the jury's verdict as to her.50
IV.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we remand the case to the trial court with directions to vacate both appellants' convictions of assault with a dangerous weapon. See note 3, supra. Ms. Wilson-Bey's remaining convictions are affirmed. Ms. Marbury's conviction of premeditated murder while armed is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion; 51 Ms. Marbury's other convictions are affirmed. With respect to those contentions of the appellants which are not explicitly addressed in this opinion, the en banc court reaffirms and adopts the conclusions reached by the division in Wilson-Bey I, 871 A.2d at 1166 n. 20.
So ordered.
FOOTNOTES
1. This offense is now recodified in D.C.Code §§ 22-2101, -4502 (2001).
2. These offenses were the following: Conspiracy to Commit Murder and AssaultD.C.Code §22-105 a (1996), recodified in §22-1805 a (2001); Assault with a Dangerous WeaponD.C.Code §22-502 (1996), recodified in §22-402 (2001); Aggravated Assault While ArmedD.C.Code §§22-504.1, -3202 (1996), recodified in §§22-404.01, -4502 (2001); Malicious Destruction of PropertyD.C.Code §22-403 (1996), recodified in §22-303 (2001); Threats to Injure a PersonD.C.Code §22-2307 (1996), recodified in §22-1810 (2001); Carrying a Dangerous WeaponD.C.Code §22-3204(a) (1996), recodified in §22-4504(a) (2001).
3. The parties agree, and so do we, that the appellants' convictions for assault with a dangerous weapon merge into their convictions for aggravated assault while armed. Accordingly, both appellants' convictions for assault with a dangerous weapon must be vacated.
4. Ms. Brown was, however, impeached with convictions for theft and false pretenses, and with a statement to the police in which she failed to mention Ms. Marbury's threat to kill the decedent. See also Wilson-Bey I, 871 A.2d at 1166 n. 20 (trial judge did not err in limiting cross-examination of Ms. Brown regarding her failure to volunteer to the grand jury that Ms. Marbury threatened to kill the decedent).
5. Ms. Blackwell's friend, Diamonika Thompson, was dating a man with whom Ms. Wilson-Bey had previously been involved. Both appellants apparently blamed the decedent for this development, which may have precipitated the fight between Ms. Blackwell and Ms. Marbury. There was also testimony, however, that Ms. Marbury described the situation as being her sister's problem, not her own.
6. Ms. Wilson-Bey also allegedly used the expression “fuck [her] up” with respect to her plans for Ms. Blackwell.
7. Ms. Wilson-Bey's attorney called two of the “cooperating witnesses” to testify on his client's behalf.
8. Arnold Rucker, Ms. Blackwell's boyfriend, described the knife as “the biggest size that come[s] in the set.”
9. Rucker was subsequently unable to identify Ms. Wilson-Bey's photograph in a photo array, but he did identify her in court.
10. Gravely injured, Ms. Blackwell said that “[t]hose bitches stabbed me” and that “I'm going to die this time.” The decedent thus evidently believed that Ms. Wilson-Bey was not the only person who stabbed her. There was also expert testimony that Ms. Blackwell's death was caused by wounds inflicted by a knife smaller than the one that Ms. Wilson-Bey was carrying.
11. Rucker stated, however, that at some point, Ms. Marbury began swinging her knife; there was also testimony that she threw a bat at Rucker. The evidence of the various witnesses regarding Ms. Marbury's actions at the scene of the homicide was contradictory and inconsistent.
12. Rucker was apparently wanted by the police.
13. There was also testimony that one of the appellants' friends subsequently discarded this knife at Ms. Wilson-Bey's direction.
14. Criminal Jury Instructions for the District of Columbia (4th ed.1993), Instruction 4.02.
15. The government also asserted that if the proof was insufficient to prove that Ms. Wilson-Bey was guilty as the principal, she was nevertheless liable for premeditated murder as an aider and abettor.
16. Ms. Marbury's counsel took the lead in making and arguing this objection. Ms. Wilson-Bey's attorney stated that he was joining counsel for Ms. Marbury in his objection to the aiding and abetting instruction.
17. The judge defined the criminal venture as follows:Now, when I refer to criminal venture, the criminal venture in this case was to assault and murder Tomika Blackwell and to assault Teresa Brown and Diamonika Thompson.The reader will recall that Teresa Brown was the woman who drove Ms. Marbury from the scene of the fight and whose car was later damaged. Diamonika Thompson was the woman who was dating Ms. Wilson-Bey's former boyfriend; she was also a passenger in Ms. Brown's car. Ms. Brown testified for the government, but the prosecution did not call Ms. Thompson as a witness; she testified instead, as a defense witness, on behalf of Ms. Wilson-Bey.In defining “criminal venture,” the judge referred to “assault” and “murder,” both of which are crimes. Thus, the charge as given, notwithstanding the added phrase, did not contemplate that the defendants could be convicted of armed premeditated murder on a theory that the decedent's death was a natural and probable consequence of non-criminal conduct.
18. See Wilson-Bey I, 871 A.2d at 1156 n. 4, and authorities there cited.
19. In that brief, the government confined its assertion that the plain error standard applies to the first six lines of its twenty-second footnote. Although the government did frame its first question presented as whether the trial court committed plain error in instructing the jury, it has not argued anywhere in its submission that if there was error, that error was not plain. In our view, the government has come perilously close to abandoning the point that appellants' objection was not preserved. Cf. Bardoff v. United States, 628 A.2d 86, 90 n. 8 (D.C.1993).
20. While Rule 30 could be read literally to bar any review of an appellant's claim of instructional error absent an appropriate objection, the Supreme Court, in interpreting the identical federal rule, held that an appellate court may conduct a limited review of such claims for plain error.Gordon v. United States, 783 A.2d 575, 581-82 (D.C.2001) (citing and following Jones v. United States, 527 U.S. 373, 408, 119 S.Ct. 2090, 144 L.Ed.2d 370 (1999)).
21. We note that the judge gave the now-contested bracketed portion of the Redbook Instruction, see pp. 824-25, supra, without any prior discussion of it, so that the defense attorney did not focus on it. The position that appellants had taken with respect to the “criminal venture” language, however, necessarily suggests that they could not have been satisfied at trial with the portion of the instruction that they have challenged on appeal.
22. Significantly, as we have noted, the government did not claim at all in its brief to the division that appellants had failed to preserve the objection to the natural and probable consequences instruction. This omission suggests that, at least initially, the government may have regarded Ms. Marbury's objection (joined by Ms. Wilson-Bey) that substitution of “criminal venture” for “crime” would make the defendants “responsible for anything that happened there” (regardless of their specific intent) as embracing an objection to responsibility for premeditated murder based on the natural and probable consequences standard. It was only after the division, sua sponte, raised the issue whether appellants' claims on appeal had been preserved, and after the division requested supplemental briefing on the point, that the government first argued that the claim made on appeal had not been preserved and that the correct standard of review was therefore for plain error.This new turn in the government's position prompted appellants to argue that the government had forfeited its right to challenge, on appeal, the sufficiency of appellants' objection at trial to the “natural and probable consequences” instruction. See, e.g., In re T.L., 859 A.2d 1087, 1090 n. 6 (D.C.2004) (explaining “waiver of the waiver” principle); United States v. Leichtnam, 948 F.2d 370, 375 (7th Cir.1991) (“whatever its reasoning, the government has now waived waiver as a defense”). The government contended, on the other hand, that its initial failure to argue for a plain error standard did not waive appellants' alleged failure to preserve their objection to the instruction, especially after the court had given the appellants the opportunity to respond to the government's belated claim that the plain error standard applied. We need not resolve this dispute, for which there is something to be said for each side. It is enough to remark that the government's initial failure to challenge the sufficiency of appellants' objection, as well as its treatment of the issue as marginal in its brief to the en banc court, reinforce our conclusion that, albeit imperfectly, the challenge to the natural and probable consequences instruction has been adequately preserved.
23. Although, according to the prosecution, Ms. Wilson-Bey was the principal in the premeditated murder of Ms. Blackwell, and not merely an accomplice, the contested aiding and abetting instruction potentially affected Ms. Wilson-Bey as well. In light of the expert testimony to the effect that the fatal wound could not have been inflicted by a knife as large as the one allegedly carried by Ms. Wilson-Bey, this appellant could theoretically have been an aider and abettor to another person whose stabbing of the decedent with a different weapon actually killed her.
24. Professor LaFave would confine the “natural and probable consequences” principle to “unique situations in which unusual principles of liability obtain.” He cites as examples felony-murder and misdemeanor-manslaughter, which “permit conviction for a homicide or dangerous misdemeanor without any showing that the defendant intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or even negligently caused the death.” In such limited circumstances, according to Professor LaFave, the doctrine “is not objectionable-or, at least, no more objectionable than other applications of the felony-murder and misdemeanor-manslaughter rules.” Id. at 363.
25. Our conclusion that the challenged instruction erroneously relieved the government of proving the mens rea element of the offense charged rests substantially on the application of principles embodied in this jurisdiction's aiding and abetting statute. We express no opinion on the validity-or constitutionality-of a similar instruction derived from a statute that, unlike the District's, defined accomplice liability partly in terms of the natural and foreseeable consequences of the abettor's actions.
26. The original federal aiding and abetting federal statute, initially codified in 18 U.S.C. § 550, provided that “[w]hoever directly commits an act constituting an offense defined in any law of the United States, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is a principal.” The current federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2, states that “[w]hoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.”
27. See, e.g., United States v. Wilson, 333 U.S.App. D.C. 103, 109, 160 F.3d 732, 738 (1998) (“Although the intent of the aider and abettor need not be identical to that of the principal, the government still was required to show that Judd had sufficient knowledge and participation to allow a reasonable juror to infer that he ‘knowingly and willfully participated in the offense in a manner that indicated he intended to make it succeed. In other words, the government must show that Judd intended to bring about [the decedent's] murder․”); United States v. Ruiz, 105 F.3d 1492, 1499 (1st Cir.1997) (to prove aiding and abetting, the evidence must show that the crime was “something [the accomplice] wished to bring about and sought by his actions to make it succeed”). United States v. Nelson, 277 F.3d 164, 213 (2d Cir.2002) (accomplice must be shown to have “necessary intent” that would lead to criminal liability if the principal's act had been “directly performed by him”); Nicholas v. Saul Stone & Co., 224 F.3d 179, 189 (3d Cir.2000) (accessory must be shown to have both “knowledge of the principal's intended” act and “the intent to promote that principal's violation”); United States v. Burgos, 94 F.3d 849, 873 (4th Cir.1996) (en banc) (accomplice must be proved to have “knowledge of the result and intent to bring about that result”); United States v. Delgado, 256 F.3d 264, 274 (5th Cir.2001) (“To aid and abet, a defendant must share in the intent to commit the offense as well as play an active role in its commission.”); United States v. Searan, 259 F.3d 434, 444 (6th Cir.2001) (“In order to prove association there must be evidence that the defendant shared the criminal intent of the principal”; the accomplice must be shown to have “the intent to aid in [the crime's] commission”); United States v. Heath, 188 F.3d 916, 921 (7th Cir.1999) (To prove that the defendant associated himself with the crime, the prosecutor “must show that the defendant shared the principal's criminal intent”); United States v. Greer, 467 F.2d 1064, 1068-69 (7th Cir.1972) (relying on Peoni and Model Penal Code in rejecting foreseeability standard for accomplice liability as one of “negligence rather than criminal intent”); United States v. Roan Eagle, 867 F.2d 436, 445 (8th Cir.1989) (“Aiding and abetting is not a separate crime but rather is linked to the underlying offense and shares the requisite intent of that offense.”); United States v. Ramos-Rascon, 8 F.3d 704, 711 (9th Cir.1993) (participation in an unlawful venture not enough; accomplice must be shown to have “intentionally assisted in the venture's illegal purpose”); Johnson v. Gibson, 254 F.3d 1155, 1163 (10th Cir.2001) (jury must be told that accomplice is not guilty of “first degree malice murder” unless he had “the specific intent to kill”); United States v. Leonard, 138 F.3d 906, 909 (11th Cir.1998) (aider and abettor must have “shared the criminal intent of the principal(s)”). Not all of these cases involved premeditated murder prosecutions, but each of these decisions in some measure supports the result that we reach in this case.
28. In suggesting that en banc consideration of the instructional issue may be appropriate, the division cited five state court decisions holding, in the context of a premeditated murder prosecution, that the government must prove that the accomplice had the specific intent to kill the victim. Wilson-Bey I, 871 A.2d at 1165-66 (discussing Savage v. State, 18 Fla. 909, 962-63 (1882); Leavine v. State, 109 Fla. 447, 147 So. 897, 904 (1933); Commonwealth v. Bachert, 499 Pa. 398, 453 A.2d 931, 935 (1982); State v. Clemons, 946 S.W.2d 206, 230 (Mo.1997); and Tharp v. Commonwealth, 40 S.W.3d 356, 365 (Ky.2000)). In its amicus brief, the Public Defender Service has brought to our attention numerous additional decisions to the same general effect, including, inter alia, Jordan v. State, 81 Ala. 20, 1 So. 577, 586 (1887) (“When a particular intent or formed design is requisite to constitute an offense, knowledge of its existence, and a common purpose to perpetrate the offense must be shown before a person can be convicted of aiding and abetting”); State v. Phillips, 202 Ariz. 427, 46 P.3d 1048, 1056-58 (2002) (reversing premeditated murder conviction because state should have been required to show that accomplice had the specific intent to kill, and rejecting the theory that the conviction could stand if the accomplice “reasonably should have foreseen” the murder); State v. Robertson, 254 Conn. 739, 760 A.2d 82, 110 (2000) (prosecution must prove that accomplice “share[d] the criminal intent and community of unlawful purpose with the perpetrator,” and “intent is a necessary element of the crime of murder whether the defendant is the principal or merely an accessory”); State v. Fabeny, 132 Idaho 917, 980 P.2d 581, 588 (Ct.App.1999) (because “[a]iding and abetting requires some proof that the accused either participated in or assisted, encouraged, solicited, or counseled the commission of the crime,” the “state had to show that [the defendant] had the requisite intent to kill ․ and acted in furtherance of that intent by encouraging [the principal]”); State v. Ferguson, 20 S.W.3d 485, 497 (Mo.2000) (en banc) (“[W]here a defendant is convicted of first degree murder as an accomplice, the state must prove that the defendant personally deliberated upon the murder.”); State v. Lantis, 289 Mont. 480, 962 P.2d 1169, 1175 (1998) (to be guilty as an aider and abettor of “deliberate homicide,” one must have “had the purpose to promote or facilitate commission of deliberate homicide”); Sharma v. State, 118 Nev. 648, 56 P.3d 868, 872-73 (2002) (accomplice must have specific intent to kill to be guilty of attempted murder; court “disavow[ed] and abandon[ed]” a rule based on “natural and probable consequences”); People v. Weiss, 290 N.Y. 160, 48 N.E.2d 306, 312 (N.Y.1943) (reversing accomplice's first-degree murder conviction because trial judge gave “normal and necessary consequences” instruction which “withdrew from the jury the necessity of finding an intent to kill”); State v. Goode, 350 N.C. 247, 512 S.E.2d 414, 422 (1999) (aider and abettor must “communicate” to the principal “his intention to assist in [the crime's] commission”; “[w]here a defendant aids and abets the perpetrator in the commission of a first-degree murder based on premeditation and deliberation, he shares the criminal intent of the perpetrator and thus possesses the requisite mens rea and specific intent for that crime”); Johnson v. State, 928 P.2d 309, 315 (Okla.Crim.App.1996) (“[I]n a malice murder case the State must prove the aider and abettor personally intended the death of the victim and aided and abetted with full knowledge of the intent of the perpetrator.”); State v. Diaz, 654 A.2d 1195, 1202 (R.I.1995) (accomplice must share in principal's intent to commit charged offense; in murder case, government had to show deliberation and premeditation).A few courts have applied a somewhat less stringent standard than that envisaged in Peoni and advocated in LaFave, but have required proof that the accomplice aided the principal either with specific intent to bring about the crime or with knowledge of the principal's specific intent. See, e.g., State v. Raines, 326 Md. 582, 606 A.2d 265, 271 (1992) (“[W]hen a specific intent is a necessary element of a particular crime one cannot be a principal in the second degree [i.e., an aider-and-abettor] to that offense unless such person entertained such an intent or knew that the principal in the first degree entertained such intent”); State v. Arnold, 253 Neb. 789, 572 N.W.2d 74, 79 (1998) (“When a crime requires the existence of a particular intent, an alleged aider or abettor can be held criminally liable ․ if ․ the aider and abettor knew that the perpetrator of the act possessed the required intent or that the aider and abettor himself or herself possessed such intent.”). These decisions are generally consistent with the approach in Perkins, quoted by this court in Hackney, 389 A.2d at 1341. In most but not all instances, the Perkins standard will lead to the same result as the LaFave approach, because it is a reasonable inference that one who intentionally assists the principal, with knowledge of the principal's intent, shares that intent. In a few situations, however, the results of the two approaches may diverge, e.g., where, as in this case, it is claimed that the alleged accomplice, Ms. Marbury, was too intoxicated to premeditate or deliberate, or to have the specific intent to kill the decedent, even if she knew that Ms. Wilson-Bey intended to do just that.A minority of jurisdictions follow the “natural and probable consequences” approach. See, e.g., People v. Beeman, 35 Cal.3d 547, 199 Cal.Rptr. 60, 674 P.2d 1318, 1326 (1984) (“the liability of an aider and abettor extends also to the natural and reasonable consequences of the acts he knowingly and intentionally aids and encourages”); State v. Linscott, 520 A.2d 1067, 1070 (Me.1987) (under a Maine statute, “[s]o long as the accomplice intended to promote the primary crime, and the commission of the secondary crime was a foreseeable consequence of the accomplice's participation in the primary crime, no further evidence of the accomplice's subjective state of mind as to the secondary crime is required”); see also People v. Robinson, 475 Mich. 1, 715 N.W.2d 44, 49 (2006). The cases are not always easy to categorize, for some of the decisions are based on state statutes, but to the extent that any of the decisions relied on by the government cannot be reconciled with the Peoni standard and the LaFave approach, we decline to follow them.
29. See, e.g., Kevin F. O'Malley et al., Fed. Jury Pract. & Instr. 18.01 (5th ed.2000) (accomplice must act with the “intent to commit the crime”).
30. See, e.g., Ariz.Crim. Jury Instr. 3.01 (Accomplice) (accomplice's “liability extends only to offenses that the defendant intended to aid, solicit, facilitate or command”); Mass.Crim. Jury Instr. 2-10 (2005) (accomplice must “have shared the state of mind of the principal”; instruction also quotes Peoni ); Md. State Bar Ass'n Crim. Pattern Jury Instr. 6:01 (2003) (Aiding and Abetting) (accomplice must act “with the intent to help commit the crime” and must have “willfully participated with the intent to make the crime succeed”); N.J. Standard Crim. Jury Instr. 72C:2-6 (Accomplice must have “possessed the criminal state of mind that is required to be proved against the person who actually committed the criminal act”).
31. The division affirmed appellants' convictions in this case on the basis of the then-binding authority of Daniels and Byrd. Wilson-Bey I, 871 A.2d at 1163-65. For an earlier case in which the court arguably invoked the “natural and probable consequences” standard in a first-degree murder prosecution and held that specific intent to kill need not be shown, see Eagles v. United States, 58 App. D.C. 122, 125, 25 F.2d 546, 549 (1928); cf. Patten v. United States, 42 App. D.C. 239 (1914) (court utilized “natural and probable consequences” standard in first-degree murder case arising out of a conspiracy).
32. See LaFave, § 13.3(b) at 362; see also Model Penal Code & Commentaries § 2.02 at 241 n. 24 (describing the “natur[al] or probable consequences” rule as one of “negligence”).
33. As previously noted, however, this generalization does not apply to felony murder, misdemeanor manslaughter, or conspiracy, all of which the law treats differently.
34. Of course, in this case, the trial court's instruction would not have permitted appellants to be convicted of premeditated murder solely because they were negligent. Even with the inclusion of the words “criminal venture,” the prosecution was required to prove criminal intent, i.e., an intent, at least, to assault. But once the intent to commit the lesser offense had been established, then, in conformity with the trial court's charge, a defendant's failure to appreciate the natural and probable consequences of her conduct-essentially a negligence standard-could support her conviction of the far more serious crime charged in the indictment, namely, armed first-degree premeditated murder.
35. As noted previously, we agree with the analysis in Oates, which bases the degree of culpability of each participant in the crime on that participant's mental state. But application of a lesser standard of proof in the prosecution of an accomplice than of a principal, solely because she is an accomplice, is not only contrary to the Oates analysis, but is also in tension with the historical purpose of previous distinctions between parties, which was “to mitigate the harshness of the common law when all felonies carried the same sanction-death”-by “punish [ing] ․ the aiders and abettors ․ less severely.” Baruch Weiss, What Were They Thinking?: The Mental States of the Aider and Abettor and the Causer Under Federal Law, 70 Fordham L.Rev. 1341, 1357 (2002).
36. Evidence of malice is sufficient, however, to support a conviction for second-degree murder, if the defendant's conduct involved “such wanton and willful disregard of an unreasonable human risk as to constitute malice aforethought even if there is not actual intent to kill or injure,” or if “the perpetrator has the specific intent to inflict serious bodily harm” (but not the specific intent to kill). Comber, 584 A.2d at 38-39 (quoting R. Perkins & R. Boyce, Criminal Law 59 (3d ed.1982)); see also Wheeler v. United States, 832 A.2d 1271, 1274 (D.C.2003).
37. We address the Pinkerton doctrine of conspirator liability in Part III.D., infra.
38. To avoid any misunderstanding, nothing in our opinion casts doubt on the propriety of the instruction which the trial judge gave, as part of the general intent instruction applicable to both defendants, to the effect that a jury may-but is not required to-infer that “a person intends the natural and probable consequences of [his or her] acts knowingly done or knowingly omitted.” As the Public Defender Service points out, this (permissive) common-law presumption does not distinguish between principals and accomplices, nor does it expand the liability of one but not of the other. Rather, to the extent that it applies to accomplices, it does so as a logical part of its application to all defendants.
39. The government did not raise Pinkerton liability in the trial court with respect to the premeditated murder charge, and the jury was not instructed on the elements of Pinkerton. The government likewise did not refer to Pinkerton before the division at all; indeed, the table of contents of the government's brief to the division does not include a citation to Pinkerton. Although the government claims that a grant of rehearing en banc “turns the clock back to zero,” it cites no authority for this proposition, and there is a substantial body of law to the contrary. See, e.g., Thaddeus-X v. Blatter, 175 F.3d 378, 403 n. 18 (6th Cir.1999) (per curiam) (en banc); Miller v. Texas Tech Univ. Health Sciences Ctr., 421 F.3d 342, 348-49 (5th Cir.2005); 16 A. Charles Alan Wright, arthur r. miller, edward h. cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 3986.1, at 731-32 & n. 8 (1999). Indeed, this court has stated that arguments in a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc that were not presented to the division are “ordinarily ․ deemed to have been waived when they are not properly raised in the first instance.” Breezevale, Ltd. v. Dickinson, 783 A.2d 573, 575 (D.C.2001) (en banc); see also Majerle Mgmt., Inc. v. District of Columbia Rental Hous. Comm'n, 777 A.2d 785 (D.C.2001) (per curiam)Our statement in the order granting rehearing en banc, Wilson-Bey II, 886 A.2d at 78, that the opinion and judgment in Wilson-Bey I are vacated and that the parties' new briefs “shall be specifically designed for consideration by and addressed to the en banc court and shall supersede all briefs previously filed in these appeals,” was a routine directive, and it was not designed to alter the normal rules of law governing the preservation of claims. Nevertheless, appellants and the Public Defender Service have had the opportunity to address the Pinkerton doctrine on the merits in their reply briefs, and we are satisfied that there has been no procedural unfairness. Moreover, the government's invocation of Pinkerton for the first time in its brief to the en banc court might reasonably be viewed not as an impermissible new “claim,” but rather as a permissible new argument in support of a previously made and preserved claim. See Yee v. City of Escondido, 503 U.S. 519, 534, 112 S.Ct. 1522, 118 L.Ed.2d 153 (1992). Accordingly, we are prepared to address the government's contention on its merits.
40. The purpose of the felony-murder rule, as we have explained, is to deter certain enumerated and especially dangerous felonies targeted by the legislature, because the commission of these particular crimes poses an especially high risk that death will result.
41. The government's position also rests on the premise that the Pinkerton doctrine would necessarily allow Ms. Marbury to be convicted of premeditated murder even if she conspired only to assault Ms. Blackwell. The authorities on which the government relies for this proposition do not necessarily establish that the government's view is correct. Rather, the courts in these cases have sustained Pinkerton liability for premeditated murder only upon a finding that the defendant entered into a conspiracy the object of which was to kill. See, e.g., United States v. Sampol, 204 U.S.App. D.C. 349, 403-04, 636 F.2d 621, 675-76 (1980) (Pinkerton liability imposed for murder of Chilean ambassador and American associate because “the object of the conspiracy was the deliberate and premeditated murder” of the former); Thomas, 748 A.2d at 937 (Pinkerton liability imposed where “the assault that was the object of the conspiracy was an assault with intent to kill, not a simple assault”).
42. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).
43. Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-65, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946).
44. In the 44th footnote to its brief, the government states: “[W]e do not mean to suggest that we are necessarily conceding that this instructional error implicates constitutional concerns.” The brief contains no additional argument on the point.
45. The government did not argue to the division that any error was harmless, and cited neither Kotteakos nor Chapman in its brief. Arguably, the government therefore waived the point. See Randolph v. United States, 882 A.2d 210, 222-23 (D.C.2005), and authorities there cited. Because the government did make the argument in its brief to the en banc court, and because both appellants had ample opportunity to respond, we are prepared, in the exercise of our discretion, to entertain the government's argument on its merits.
46. Or, in this case, the tainted instructions.
47. “[T]here must be evidence of the type and quantity of alcohol consumed, the length of time during which it was consumed, and the specific manner in which the consumption made the defendant incapable of acting with specific intent.” Washington v. United States, 689 A.2d 568, 574 (D.C.1997).
48. Or, in this case, carrying a potential murder weapon with which the decedent was stabbed several times. Several women also carried weapons to the scene, but the evidence against Ms. Wilson-Bey-that she threatened to kill Ms. Blackwell, brought a butcher knife to the scene, and repeatedly stabbed the decedent-is more compelling than the evidence against any of Ms. Wilson-Bey's confederates.
49. The convictions of both appellants of, inter alia, aggravated assault while armed demonstrate that the jury accepted the largely uncontradicted testimony of the government's witnesses regarding the manner in which the crime was committed.
50. If the jury reached the aiding and abetting theory as to Ms. Wilson-Bey, the natural and probable consequences instruction obviously permitted conviction upon less evidence than an instruction requiring proof of deliberation and premeditation would have done. We discern no reasonable doubt, however, that the outcome under a correct instruction would have been the same.
51. The government has not requested, in the alternative, that we enter judgment on the lesser included offense of second-degree murder as to Ms. Marbury, and in the absence of briefing or argument on the issue, we do not decide whether such a course would be appropriate. But see, e.g., Willis v. United States, 692 A.2d 1380, 1382-83 (D.C.1997) (despite absence of language in appellate mandate “that the government could elect between retrial and judgment on a lesser included offense,” trial court on remand properly entered such judgment where “the lesser included offense ․ was not affected by the error causing reversal”). See also note 36, supra, discussing the evidence required to prove second-degree murder, and Part III F(1), at pp. 844-45, supra, addressing the appropriate disposition if a defendant is too intoxicated to be able to form the specific intent required for premeditated murder.
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SOURCE: https://irasocol.medium.com/why-felony-murder-charges-and-congressional-disqualifications-are-essential-for-kids-8204921b45e9
Ira David Socol ( https://irasocol.medium.com/ ) PHOTO < SOURCE: https://www.hollandsentinel.com/article/20080429/NEWS/304299870
ARTICLE: " Why “Felony Murder” charges and Congressional Disqualifications are essential for kids " BY Ira David Socol
police officers outside the Capitol on January 6
“Officer Brian D. Sicknick died Thursday due to injuries sustained while on-duty, physically engaging with protesters at the US Capitol, a statement said.
“Sicknick, a 12-year veteran of the force, was “responding to the riots on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, at the US Capitol and was injured while physically engaging with protesters”, Capitol Police said in a statement.” — France24
I am not a big fan of punishment. Punishments rarely prevent ‘recidivism,’ and the threat of punishment rarely discourages the illegal, the immoral, or the inappropriate. Punishment also, far too often, looks like revenge or vengeance, and revenge and vengeance are morally untenable and do as much damage to those avengers as they do to the perpetrators (the harm is just less immediately obvious).
So, why am I asking for the most extreme criminal charges against those who assaulted the US Capitol and US democracy on January 6, 2021? And why am I asking for the most extreme political charges against Congressional Republicans who helped foment that insurrection?
Because social responsibility matters, and people must be forced to respond regarding actions that harm our society, our culture, and our communities.
Felony Murder. Felony Murder charges against a thousand people? Why?
The invasion of the US Capitol was, in itself, a violent felony, a premeditated, well-planned violent felony. Unlike the outbreaks of looting that occasionally broke out in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, no reasonable person in the mob marching on the Capitol could have missed the intent. They were marching along with armed co-conspirators, with criminals carrying ladders and scaling gear and restraints and clubs. They were openly calling for the lynching of the Vice President.
“First-degree murder is called a felony murder when a human being is killed during the commission of a felony… Another common situation is an armed robbery where only one of the participants shoots the victim. In these cases, all of the participants in the robbery can be charged with felony murder, even though they didn’t kill the victim nor were even present at the time the killing took place.”
So, intent to commit a felony combined with participating in a variety of crimes — trespass, theft, assault, vandalism, intimidation, and the interference with the operation of the national government — which led to the death of a police officer. Felony murder by definition.
Now, imagine a group of, say, your school’s football team, participating and/or watching teammates sexually assault one or more other teammates. Imagine a group of students running through the halls assaulting teachers because their grades “felt” unfair.
Simply put — you have no right to punish either of those mobs if you have not made it clear, repeatedly, to every student that the Capitol insurrectionists were completely criminal, and you have not — at the same time — made public statements to the community reinforcing that.
Congressional Disqualification. Forcing Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and over 140 other Republican Senators and House members to ask two-thirds of both houses of Congress for forgiveness, and the right to remain in Congress, sounds drastic — and yet — how else will we impress on everyone the need to adhere to certain obvious and communal truths?
Not every Confederate leader was personally violent against the US government during the Civil War. I have never heard of any incidence of violence perpetrated in the act of rebellion by Jefferson Davis. I’ve never seen evidence of that kind of violence from Judah Benjamin either.
Senator Josh Hawley giving “aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Yet, when the 14th Amendment was written and passed neither were excluded from the disqualification. They were both enablers of the rebellion, enablers of the violence, and both had, “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [government], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Insisting that an obviously — and legally declared legitimate — election should be overturned simply because some people “feel” it was unfair is a kind of sociopathy and delusional behavior in most, but once someone has, “taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States,” things change, and the behavior becomes — by definition of the 14th Amendment — unconstitutional support for insurrection.
14th Amendment, Section 3: “No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
OK, two of your students send a whole-student body email falsely accusing another student of… being a Nazi, a sexual predator, a thief, whatever… and that student gets physically or emotionally harmed. Is there any accountability?
Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour — malicious untruths at school
Teach your children well…
Why wouldn’t a child lie? Or cheat? Or bully? Or make fun of kids with disabilities? Or say that the lives of some of their classmates don’t matter? Or disregard any rule big or small? Or even use violence?
In November 2020 over 70 million Americans, most parents or grandparents, great-grandparents or aunts and uncles, told every kid in America that all of that was OK. That was after four years of the President of the United States, and almost the entirety of one of our political parties, telling every kid in America the same thing.
Since then almost an entire major political party has doubled down on that. Some police officers have doubled down on it. Some ministers have doubled down on it.
Trump supporters assault Capitol and District of Columbia police officers on January 6, 2021 while the President says, “I love you.” Earlier Senator Josh Hawley had given the mob a clenched fist salute.
Can this evil genii be stuffed back into the basic human morality bottle?
I would argue that it’s likely impossible without fundamentally changing how we treat those who have sought to break our civil society, and how our schools do business. And even then, it will be hard because Donald Trump never did represent anything new in America, he represents everything we’ve been unable to change.
If anything tells us that, it is this. 2020 was a year when the phrase Black Lives Matter was highly controversial in the United States. Over 70 million voters effectively declared the phrase as a terrorist threat. One entire political party believes that voting by Black Americans is, or certainly should be, illegal. This comes 401 years after slavery arrived in English-speaking North America, 160 years since the 1860 Presidential Election, 155 years after the 13th Amendment to the Constitution came into force (the last legal slaves in the US were freed 155-years-ago this month), 66 years since the Brown v Board of Education decision, 55 years since the Voting Rights Act.
First slaves in English America arrive at Point Comfort in the Virginia Colony, 1619
Racism, bullying, intolerance of newcomers, a distrust of science, intelligence, and education are deeply engrained in our culture, ‘as American as apple pie’ as they say.
“We’re doing everything we can [to promote a healthy, respectful, equitable society] but our kids go home and are taught something different.” — the superintendent of an upper SES school district, autumn 2020
Schools can be an engine of change, but they cannot be that if we do not — every day — confront what is wrong.
Perhaps you have a parent who tells their children that 2+2=6, or a church leader who says that “reader” is pronounced “highway” — how would a school, or a teacher respond?
What do our children need from schools right now? One teacher’s answer last week… “[help] to unlearn the behaviors that have been modeled to them as acceptable.”
“Once students have had space to process, the priority is to help them become more informed,” writes Paula McAvoy, assistant professor of social studies education, North Carolina State University in a post from the National Writing Project about helping kids understand January 6. “When engaging in this work, teachers must not treat the question, “Did Joe Biden legitimately win the 2020 election?” as open to interpretation. He most definitely did. Likewise, teachers should not give any credence to the idea that the election was stolen, as the angry mob that wreaked havoc in the Capitol alleged. Instead, teachers should affirm each state’s certification. They should be clear that over 80 judges — including some appointed by Trump — rejected the baseless claim that fraud affected the outcome. They should do this because it is true.”
There is no question that systemic racism pervades our society. That is a fact we must not hide from our children — Lafayette Park during George Floyd protests
That is truth at our its most basic level, and it is long past time to stop lying to children in order to avoid adult controversy.
There are other truths that our children need us to be clear about. There is systemic racism in this nation. There is systemic inequity in this nation. If you lie about this to Black kids or poor kids — even 5-year-olds — they will see you as a fool, or worse. If you lie about this to white kids or rich kids — even 5-year-olds — you are helping to preserve white supremacy and its co-conspirator, wealth preservation.
The fact there are 50 states, or remembering what 9x5 equals, has almost no impact on a young student’s life… but the fact that racism and white privilege dominate all of American life impacts every child, every day.
And then there are even deeper truths, truths about right and wrong. In that same NWP post, Dr. David Schonfeld, director of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and professor of clinical pediatrics, University of Southern California, while asking teachers to not avoid the topic of the insurrection, adds, “it’s not a time for teachers to introduce their personal take on what elected officials did right or wrong.” For me that bit of advice is just wrong.
If we do not discuss the right and wrong of adult actions we declare ourselves morally neutral, and we encourage the ongoing destruction of any societal common understandings and shared values.
Unleashing — even encouraging — this mob is, without any doubt, a criminal act. Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to these images because of my police career — but I don’t think that’s a problem.
If we do not discuss the wrong in the actions of Donald Trump and Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz — publicly and in our classrooms — we are taking a side: We are encouraging lying and violence and the destruction of our democracy. Would we ever want to admit that our schools are taking less of a moral stand than Marriott, Blue Cross, Dow Chemical, and American Express?
Do the Right Thing
“When I first began talking about education on social media I had many teachers, administrators, even professors respond to me saying, “education should not be political.” I’ve heard that a lot over my life, “prayer in school should not be political,” “policing should not be political,” “the justice system should not be political,” “our gender policies should not be political,” “journalism should not be political.” You know what? every time a statement like that is made it is made by someone with enormous privilege and an enormous stake in the power structure that is.”
“Education is the most political thing we do, it is the fight for our future,” I have said over and over. Pretending that isn’t true is a critical fallacy. “It doesn’t matter what subject we teach, what age group we teach, or where we teach. We are on one side or the other.”
And… children learn far more from what they see adults doing than they learn from whatever adults say.
What do our children need from schools right now? One teacher’s answer last week… “A reevaluation of a null curriculum and movement toward a stronger focus on civics, citizenship and social justice.”
Thus, stepping up for what is right is the most crucial part of our roles as adults responsible for children — and — aren’t all adults responsible for children?
So as we find ways to talk about the never-ending year of 2020 with our kids, we must insist on our leaders beginning the process of restorative justice with the strongest charges possible.
from Maximum Charges to Restorative Justice
It is wonderful when those who have transgressed come to their own realization of the damage they have done, and, in my experience, that is not uncommon. That realization is something different than worrying about being caught. It is something different than feeling guilty. Instead it is the discovery of empathy — it is the realization of the impact that one’s behavior has on others — that is the key driver of moral growth.
“As lawmakers entered the Capitol on Wednesday for one of the most solemn enterprises in American government, the impeachment of a president, Representative Lauren Boebert was causing a spectacle before even making it into the chamber. She pushed her way through newly installed metal detectors and ignored police officers who asked her to stop so they could check her with a hand-held wand.
“This reprised a standoff from the evening before, when Ms. Boebert, a freshman Republican from Colorado, refused to show guards what was inside her handbag as she entered the building. In both cases, she was eventually granted access, but not before engineering a made-for-Twitter moment that delighted the far right.”
“Republican members of Congress refuse to wear masks during Capitol insurrection”
But I don’t see this kind of maturity or even readiness for moral growth in the actions of Donald Trump, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz or their 145 Congressional followers. And I don’t see it among the Capitol insurrectionists either. What I see is a group of entitled and amoral adults who’ve never learned “to play with others.” Somehow they’ve reached 21 or 61 without ever having been called to account for behaving really badly.
“What I did not realize was all of the national conversation about states like Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, was seen as casting doubt on the validity of votes coming out of predominantly Black communities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit,” [Oklahoma Republican Senator James Lankford wrote eight days after the insurrection]. “After decades of fighting for voting rights, many Black friends in Oklahoma saw this as a direct attack on their right to vote, for their vote to matter, and even a belief that their votes made an election in our country illegitimate. … I can assure you, my intent to give a voice to Oklahomans who had questions was never also an intent to diminish the voice of any Black American.”
“In this instance, I should have recognized how what I said and what I did could be interpreted by many of you,” Lankford continued. “I deeply regret my blindness to that perception, and for that I am sorry.”
[Even in this apology this Senator can only see how his words and actions were received, not for his fatally flawed logic and morality in spreading lies for 60 days. Is there any factual possibility that falsely claiming electoral fraud in Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Phoenix wasn’t racist?]
Faced with that, we must call them to account. Charging a thousand insurrectionists with felony murder (and sedition), disqualifying 147 Senators and Representatives from federal office, doesn’t mean we’d put a thousand people in prison for 40 years to life, or that 147 Congressional Republicans would need to look for real jobs this year, but it would make every one of those who chose to ignore their responsibilities as citizens and those who chose to ignore their oaths of office ask for forgiveness. It would make all, finally, face the consequences of their irresponsible lives and put their fates into the hands of a society damaged by their actions.
That is important for these people, but it is even more important that our children see us — this nation — stand up to those who so egregiously violate our social compact.
Restorative Justice Key Questions
Restorative Justice
Kids do all kinds of things. Kids do all kinds of things in schools. I have seen everything from the, “really? you’re doing that right here?” kind of transgression, to violent assault, to acts that could have been seen as violations of federal laws.
I’ve also been a police officer and worked with adult transgressors — including some in the homeless population of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The first step to bringing any of these kids — or adults — back has always rested with three questions that need to be honestly answered: What happened? How did it happen? and What part did [I] play in what happened?
But as much as I dislike the concepts of [earthly] punishment and the issuance of threats, I have learned that those who cannot, or will not, answer those three questions honestly and factually must — for their own good as well as the social good — be persuaded to do so.
“The second tier [of Restorative Justice in schools] is intervention, such as restorative chats, in which teachers use restorative discipline practices to discuss and mend the harm that was done. When a student misbehaves, the offending student is given the opportunity to come forward and make things right. He or she will sit in a circle and work together with the teacher and the affected individuals. To facilitate the process, the teacher or support staff asks non-judgmental and restorative questions like, Is everything OK? What happened? How did it happen? What were you thinking then? How do you feel about it now? Who did your actions hurt? What can we do to make it right?”
The charges and disqualifications I began with are designed to help persuade all our seditionists, from Rocky Mount, VA police officer Jacob Fracker (“Lol to anyone who’s possibly concerned about the picture of me going around… Sorry I hate freedom? …Not like I did anything illegal…y’all do what you feel you need to…”) to Senator Hawley (“But to equate leading a debate on the floor of the Senate with inciting violence is a lie, and it’s dangerous. I will not be deterred from representing my constituents, and I will not bow to left-wing corporate pressure.”), to find the true answers. And if they can find true answers then perhaps those who choose align themselves with their malignant falsehoods and fantasies might begin to find true answers themselves.
“It is called the sacrament of Conversion because it makes sacramentally present Jesus’ call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father from whom one has strayed by sin.
“It is called the sacrament of Penance, since it consecrates the Christian sinner’s personal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction.
“It is called the sacrament of Confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this sacrament. In a profound sense it is also a “confession” — acknowledgment and praise — of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man.
“It is called the sacrament of Forgiveness, since by the priest’s sacramental absolution God grants the penitent “pardon and peace.”
“It is called the sacrament of Reconciliation, because it imparts to the sinner the live of God who reconciles: “Be reconciled to God.” He who lives by God’s merciful love is ready to respond to the Lord’s call: “Go; first be reconciled to your brother.”’ — The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Confession and Reconciliation
As we told a high school freshman that his internet security violations could easily be construed as federal crimes — and thus helped him move past both an adolescent reluctance to confess and a (perhaps understandable) distrust of school adults, we must help the seditionists in a similar way.
That young man turned into one of our finest citizens, finest scholars, and most creative thinkers — and his life since has been a wonderful success. We can only hope we can have a similar impact on our January 6 — and election denier — transgressors.
Yet even if we cannot, we owe our children full-throated support for the effort — for if we do not do that we will simply confirm our hypocrisy and moral weakness to our kids. And if we confirm that, we — and more importantly they — will be permanently damaged.
Ira Socol
WRITTEN BY
Ira David Socol
Author, Dreamer, Educator: A life in service - NYPD, EMS, disabilities/UDL specialist, tech and innovation leader for education. Co-author of Timeless Learning