Jan 6 Breach of the Capitol: Consequences & Repercussions III

[SimplyMe]

The spouse of a sitting USSC Justice is influencing the WH chief of staff to overturn an election? At the very least, Justice Tomas must recuse himself for any 2020 election related cases that come before the Supreme Court.

All federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, are subject to a federal law on recusal.

The law says that “any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

A more specific provision concerning relatives, including spouses, might also apply to his situation. Judges should not participate, the law says, in proceedings in which their spouse has “an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding.”

Professor Gillers said the word “interest” was the key.

“By writing to Meadows, who was chief of staff and active in the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement, she joined the team resisting the results of the election,” Professor Gillers said. “She made herself part of the team and so she has an interest in the decisions of the court that could affect Trump’s goal of reversing the results.”
Justice Thomas Ruled on Election Cases. Should His Wife’s Texts Have Stopped Him?

He's never done it before based on his wife's involvement on issues before the Supreme Court, why would he start now?

 

[essentialsaltes]

Jan. 6 committee says Trump ‘may have engaged in criminal acts’ to overturn election

For context, this has to do with the subpoena of ex-Chapman University professor John Eastman's Chapman University emails. Eastman contends they are privileged due to client confidentiality.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Inside Ted Cruz’s last-ditch battle to keep Trump in power
The Texas senator’s effort alienated some allies and sparked questions about ties to John Eastman, a longtime friend and author of key legal memos in Trump’s efforts.

The Jan. 6 committee’s investigators have recently focused on Eastman’s efforts to pressure Pence to declare Trump the winner, but there has been little public notice that Cruz and Eastman have known each other since they clerked together 27 years ago for then-U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig. Cruz’s proposal ran on a parallel track to Eastman’s memos.

Luttig told The Post that he believes that Cruz — who once said that Luttig was “like a father to me” — played a paramount role in the events leading to Jan. 6.

“Once Ted Cruz promised to object, January 6 was all but foreordained, because Cruz was the most influential figure in the Congress willing to force a vote on Trump’s claim that the election was stolen,” Luttig said in a statement to The Post. “He was also the most knowledgeable of the intricacies of both the Electoral Count Act and the Constitution, and the ways to exploit the two.”

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Now, just before the events of Jan. 6, Sweet urged the senator not to challenge the results. Sweet had helped create a nonpartisan group in 2020 called Citizens for a Strong Democracy, which focused on strengthening public confidence in election systems. So he was intimately familiar with how falsehoods were being used to try to overturn Biden’s win.

Sweet told Cruz “that if he proceeded to object to the Electoral count of the legitimate slates of delegates certified by the States, I could no longer support him,” Sweet later wrote on his LinkedIn page.

-

For months, one of those staffers, communications director Lauren Bianchi, had promoted Cruz to the press as a smart and savvy constitutionalist. But now, in a telephone conference call with the senator and other aides, she pleaded with Cruz to stop.

He rejected her advice.

Cruz went to the floor and voted to object to the Pennsylvania results, an effort that failed by a vote of 92 to 7.

In the days that followed, some of those who had been closest to Cruz severed their ties to him.

Bianchi submitted her resignation.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Trump's White House Diary for Jan 6

Details are a bit sparse as the Capitol was breached.

Link2

Internal White House records from the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol that were turned over to the House select committee show a gap in President Donald Trump’s phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the building was being violently assaulted, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

The records show that Trump was active on the phone for part of the day, documenting conversations that he had with at least eight people in the morning and 11 people that evening. The seven-hour gap also stands in stark contrast to the extensive public reporting about phone conversations he had with allies during the attack, such as a call Trump made to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — seeking to talk to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) — and a phone conversation he had with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

[Trump is certainly known to borrow people's phones, and we know some of the Jan 6 rally organizers bought burner phones.]

In a statement Monday night, Trump said, "I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term."

A Trump spokeswoman said that Trump had nothing to do with the records and had assumed any and all of his phone calls were recorded and preserved.

The documents obtained by the committee show Trump having several previously unreported exchanges on Jan. 6, including brief calls with Bannon and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that morning, before Trump had a final call with Pence, in which the vice president told him he was not going to block Congress from formalizing Biden’s victory.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Rioter Arrested After Bragging About Talking His Way Out Of Getting Arrested

Texas Trump supporter John Franklin Lammons, who boasted about “talking his way out” when asked online if he was arrested after the January 6 Capitol riot, was taken into custody by FBI agents last week and charged with illegal entry, disruptive and disorderly conduct and parading in the Capitol.

 

[essentialsaltes]

In a statement Monday night, Trump said, "I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term."

John Bolton, the former national security adviser, has revealed that he heard Donald Trump use the term “burner phones” several times and that they discussed how the disposable devices were deployed by people as a way of avoiding scrutiny of their calls.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Justice Department officials met with Trump in the Oval Office and railed against a post-election plan from Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, a Trump supporter who was also in the meeting. Clark wanted to distribute letters to state legislatures falsely saying that the election may have been stolen ...

“That letter that this guy [Clark] wants to send — that letter is a murder-suicide pact,” Cipollone told Trump, according to a transcript of Donoghue’s interview with the Jan. 6 committee. “It’s going to damage everyone who touches it. And we should have nothing to do with that letter.”

Exclusive-Two former U.S. officials help ethics probe of Trump ally Clark, source says

Jeffrey Rosen, who served as acting attorney general, and Richard Donoghue, his former acting deputy, each have given voluntary interviews in recent months to the District of Columbia Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which is investigating Clark for possible misconduct, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The office is examining whether Clark violated ethics rules that prohibit lawyers from engaging in "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation" when he urged Rosen and Donoghue to send officials in states pivotal to the 2020 election outcome a letter that contained false statements, the source said.

 

[Opdrey]

He's never done it before based on his wife's involvement on issues before the Supreme Court, why would he start now?

I don't believe that one recuses because one has, in the past, failed to recuse during an obvious conflict of interest.

In this case it is absolutely called for that Thomas would recuse himself of any involvement in cases related to the 2020 election.

Regardless of is he is or isn't in any way swayed by actions his wife takes it is a clear indication of possible conflict of interest. In order for the American people to feel that their government is trustworthy we put in place these stopgaps so that fairness is preserved.

Not that it always happens. Antonin Scalia apparently did not recuse himself when his son's law firm presented before SCOTUS and that was pretty dicey. We are being trained to accept dodgy ethics and that has to stop.

 

[essentialsaltes]

In a federal sentencing hearing on April 1, Lonnie Coffman of Falkville received a 46-month federal prison sentence.

On March 5, Lonnie Coffman, of Falkville, wrote a five-page handwritten letter to a federal judge accepting full responsibility for his actions during the Capitol riot. In his letter, Coffman says he had no intentions to hurt anyone or destroy property. Instead, he says his objective was to discover how true and secure the Nov. 3, 2020 election was.

[This is the guy with 11 molotov cocktails and five loaded handguns in his car.]

 

[Always in His Presence]

Trump's White House Diary for Jan 6

Details are a bit sparse as the Capitol was breached.

Link2

Internal White House records from the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol that were turned over to the House select committee show a gap in President Donald Trump’s phone logs of seven hours and 37 minutes, including the period when the building was being violently assaulted, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News.

The records show that Trump was active on the phone for part of the day, documenting conversations that he had with at least eight people in the morning and 11 people that evening. The seven-hour gap also stands in stark contrast to the extensive public reporting about phone conversations he had with allies during the attack, such as a call Trump made to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) — seeking to talk to Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) — and a phone conversation he had with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

[Trump is certainly known to borrow people's phones, and we know some of the Jan 6 rally organizers bought burner phones.]

In a statement Monday night, Trump said, "I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term."

A Trump spokeswoman said that Trump had nothing to do with the records and had assumed any and all of his phone calls were recorded and preserved.

The documents obtained by the committee show Trump having several previously unreported exchanges on Jan. 6, including brief calls with Bannon and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that morning, before Trump had a final call with Pence, in which the vice president told him he was not going to block Congress from formalizing Biden’s victory.

White House phone records are COMPLETE, with gap 'explained by Trump having staff place calls' | Daily Mail Online

 

[Hans Blaster]

White House phone records are COMPLETE, with gap 'explained by Trump having staff place calls' | Daily Mail Online

So what you are saying is that instead of realizing that their calls needed to be kept off the record *after* the fact, they realized that they didn't want a record of their activities *before* they did them.

 

[Always in His Presence]

So what you are saying is that instead of realizing that their calls needed to be kept off the record *after* the fact, they realized that they didn't want a record of their activities *before* they did them.

Nope - never said such a thing

 

[Hans Blaster]

Nope - never said such a thing

That is the implication of the article -- pre-planning of avoidance of record keeping.

 

[Always in His Presence]

That is the implication of the article -- pre-planning of avoidance of record keeping.

According to your particular POV - Not mine.

Why?

Because I read the article:

But an official review of the White House switchboard records and presidential daily diary turned over by the National Archives to the House select committee investigating the infamous day, found that they were complete, with no missing pages from the call log.

According to CNN sources, the gap may be explained by the former president's habit of having staff place calls for him while in the Oval Office.

The former president would often opt to have his staff use landlines or cell phones to make calls for him, which would not be recorded in the White House switchboard records, insiders told CNN.
​

It was his established habit of not using the switchboard. From the days of Obama Presidents used cell phones and other methods than going through the switchboard.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/obama-won-t-give-up-blackberry-spokesman-says-1.825263

 

[essentialsaltes]

White House phone records are COMPLETE, with gap 'explained by Trump having staff place calls' | Daily Mail Online

They are certainly not complete, since we know of many calls that happened during that gap.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Jan. 6 committee says Trump ‘may have engaged in criminal acts’ to overturn election

For context, this has to do with the subpoena of ex-Chapman University professor John Eastman's Chapman University emails.

How a California lawyer became a focal point of the Jan. 6 investigation

[Judge] Carter reached his conclusion relying on evidence in a federal lawsuit Eastman brought to prevent Congress from obtaining his emails and documents. The judge found that Trump and Eastman “more likely than not” conspired to obstruct Congress on Jan. 6.

Already, Eastman has faced substantial fallout from his increasingly public role as Trump’s attorney, including an abrupt resignation from his position at an Orange County law school and an ethics investigation by the California State Bar.

“Judge Carter looked at the evidence that’s available and concluded this was an attempted coup in search of a legal investigation,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley Law School. “No judge comes to such a conclusion lightly. But everything that we know about what happened supports what Judge Carter said.”

"[T]here are things lawyers can’t do even in the name of zealous representation,” Chemerinsky said, adding that among those are participating in crimes or “attempting coups to overthrow the government.”

Jeremy B. Rosen, a prominent Los Angeles appellate lawyer and member of the conservative legal network, the Federalist Society, said Carter’s ruling confirmed his belief that Eastman and Trump had sought to subvert the law.

--

After the riot ended, Eastman again emailed Pence lawyer Greg Jacob to say that the vice president still should send the election back to the states rather than certifying it, based on what he called a “relatively minor violation” of the procedural law.

The House Select Committee’s focus quickly turned to Eastman. Following a subpoena, Eastman appeared before the committee in December but answered only biographical questions before invoking the 5th Amendment 146 times and refused to provide any documents.

 

[essentialsaltes]

The House Select Committee’s focus quickly turned to Eastman. Following a subpoena, Eastman appeared before the committee in December but answered only biographical questions before invoking the 5th Amendment 146 times and refused to provide any documents.

By way of contrast:

Jan. 6 Committee Member Confirms Jared Kushner Provided Six Hours of Testimony With ‘Precise’ and ‘Not Combative’ Answers

“He was not combative,” Lofgren replied. “He was precise, and he didn’t volunteer anything, but he did answer questions, if he remembered the answers. So it was not a combative or a, you know, volatile exchange at all.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

Trump’s presidential diarist tells Jan. 6 committee White House officials provided less detail about his activities days before riot

Just days before the US Capitol riot, White House officials started providing fewer details about then-President Donald Trump’s calls and visits, the person in charge of compiling those activities for the official record told the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, according to two sources with knowledge of the probe.

The committee interviewed Trump’s presidential diarist roughly two weeks ago. That interview has not been previously reported, nor has the testimony describing a noticeable drop-off in information provided by Oval Office staff leading up to January 6.

One source described how White House record-keepers appeared to be “iced out” in the days leading up to January 6.

“The last day that normal information was sent was the 4th,” said another source familiar with the investigation. “So, starting the 5th, the diarist didn’t receive the annotated calls and notes. This was a dramatic departure. That is all out of the ordinary.”

 

[essentialsaltes]

Ivanka Trump, the daughter of former President Donald Trump and a former White House senior adviser, will meet Tuesday with the committee investigating the Capitol Hill insurrection, two sources familiar with the meeting tell CNN.

In addition to being one of Donald Trump's closest advisers, Ivanka Trump had a unique perch from which she saw the events of January 6, 2021. She was with her father most of the day, and she was in the Oval Office for key meetings.

 

[essentialsaltes]

A Manhattan pickup artist facing federal charges over the US Capitol riot was sentenced to three and a half years in prison Monday for hoarding weapons in an Upper East Side apartment.

Samuel Fisher, 33, apologized to the court and to his family before Acting Justice Robert Mandelbaum handed down the punishment on the state charges.

Fisher, who according to reports once ran a coaching service aimed at helping men get dates, also stands accused of attending the Jan. 6 riot in Washington DC with a small arsenal.

In [a social media] post, titled “January 6, 2021 Will Be the Most Historically Important Day of Our Lives,” Fisher stressed the need to “stand up to the evils of this Government… and remove them physically.”

[The day after the riot] “People died . . . but it was [doggone] great if you ask me . . . i got tear gassed and pepper sprayed,” the messages said. “Seeing cops literally run . . . was the coolest thing ive ever seen in my life.”

-

“All he has is love for his family and for the country and for everyone,” one of Fisher’s supporters told reporters while sobbing. “He just believes in the Constitution,” claimed the man, who said that Fisher used to babysit his children.