It can now never be claimed that January 6 was not an "Insurrection"

[Dafinch]

It can now never be claimed that January 6 was not an "Insurrection"​

Frank Vyan Walton
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Saturday May 06, 2023 · 8:00 AM PDT

Since the moment the event started there was been denial. There have been endless stories and endless explanations as to why the treasonous attack on our Capitol that occurred on Jan 6, 2021 was not exactly what it appeared to be.
It has been called a “False Flag.” It has been blamed on the FBI [particularly and obsessively by Tucker Carlson], on so-called “Informants” [such as “Ray Epps”] and also somehow on “ANTIFA” and magically on “BLM.”

It’s been argued that the event was “mostly” peaceful as if the violence that did happen didn’t matter because while there were 100-200 people doing that in one spot there were 150-200 other people at another part of the building who didn’t do that. As is the second “peaceful” group wasn’t still a drain and distraction for law enforcement even if they didn’t get violent, and that this weakened the overall LEO response to protect against those that did.
The last thing that anyone who excuses and minimizes what happened will admit is that it was an attempt to violently and forcefully overthrow the U.S. Government. They will not admit that the entire point was to stop the functioning of Congress and block them from certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 Election.
There was no other reason for a massive crowd to approach Congress on that date and at that time. There was no other goal that could have been accomplished.
But now, after the conviction of four members of the Proud Boys for Seditious Conspiracy — following the previous conviction of members of the Oath Keepers on the same charge — there can be NO DOUBT under the law, and under the facts that January 6 was an act of Insurrection. It was an act of Sedition.
18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

[For the record, Insurrection is an identical charge to Sedition but it only has a maximum penalty of 10 years.]

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Enrique Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl and Joseph Biggs have now been convicted of exactly this. They’ve been convicted of using force against the Government.
There can be no more doubt. There can be no more excuses. Justice has spoken.


The outcome was never truly in doubt. The actions of the Proud Boys planning and plotting before the attack creating their “Ministry of Self-Defense” and engaging in encrypted chats to organize and strategize how they would use “Normies” to increase the impact and the intensity of their attack on vulnerable portions of the building were well documented.

[in 9:48 in this video you can see the initial breach of the building by Dominic Pezzola which lead to protestors first entering the Capitol and kicking open the locked doors. Seconds later, you can see Jacob Chansley enter while the windows are still being kicked in This substantiates the “violent entry” charge against Chansley.]
One of the Jurors has stated that he voted to convict because so many of their messages had been deliberately deleted.

Speaking to Vice News, juror Andre Mundell said he was convinced that four of the Proud Boys that stood trial in Washington DC were guilty because of the lengths they went to cover their tracks.
That included deleting key messages.
“The Proud Boys didn’t want everybody to know the plan, because then I guess it would have gotten out,” he said. “And they didn’t want it to get out,”
He said the many messages the jury reviewed, sent between defendants Enrique Tarrio Ethan Nordean, Joe Biggs and Zachary Rehl, were littered with blank spaces where others had been deleted.
All were found guilty of the conspiracy charge Thursday. A fifth defendant, Dominic Pezzola, was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other charges.
“So, they definitely didn’t want people to know,” he said.
He said the jury was also struck by the lack of messages telling followers to withdraw from the attack on the Capitol.
“That factored in for me,” he said. “It showed an absence of evidence of standing down. No one says, ‘no, don’t do this. We’re not going to do this.’ There was none of that,”

They didn't want anyone to know because they knew what they were planning was some shady shit and they knew it.
Using a document titled “1776 Returns” the Proud Boys worked out a plan to infiltrate and occupy buildings in Washington D.C.

Prosecutors cited “1776 Returns” in Tarrio’s indictment. The document describes plans to “Storm the Winter Palace” — a reference to the Russian Revolution of 1917. The indictment also notes that in celebratory text messages with Tarrio, an associate referenced 1776 and Tarrio responded with “The Winter Palace.”
[Samuel] Armes, a former State Department and Special Operations official, said he recognized components of the document as ideas he had composed as part of a “war gaming” exercise he did in August or September of 2020. He would later share those ideas with a friend in the crypto industry who happened to be an associate of Tarrio’s.
[...]
Armes told the panel that in August or September 2020, after observing riots that took place across the country — against the backdrop of the raging Covid pandemic — he jotted down some thoughts on potential worst-case scenarios for the transfer of power. His views, he said, were partially informed by the August release of the Transition Integrity Project, a similar “war gaming” exercise conducted by 100 campaign and government experts to envision potential threats to the transfer of power.
“It was just how I thought things might happen in a scenario where a certain president doesn’t leave the White House or there is just mad chaos in the streets because no one knows who’s in charge,” Armes said.
Armes said his eventual three-to-five-page document sketched out scenarios in which an unruly mob might gather in Washington, and he appended images and Google Maps screenshots. While it was meant to be a private document, Armes said, he recalled sharing it with an interested friend, Erika Flores, an ally from the cryptocurrency world with whom he interacted frequently in the latter months of 2020. Flores, he noted, was also a friend of Tarrio’s.
“So I ended up sharing it with her on a Google Drive. And after that, I thought nothing of it,” Armes told the committee. “I would’ve never imagined that it turned into the document that I was shown last week, would’ve had zero clue, zero idea. … It’s horrific for me to even imagine that something that I would’ve written would’ve been used to source this kind of, like — I guess call it ‘terroristic document.’”

That document was the blueprint that the Proud Boys used for their attack.
What they did essentially was find a target a weak point in building defense, “Rile Of Up Normies” and attack. Then reassess and find the next weak point.


This was not a random group of Americans who just happened to show up on that day -— under the direction of Trump — and while he was having a WH rally just happened to march on the Capitol — also, under the direction of Trump — and just happened to stroll through the barricades and over the fences surrounding the Capitol that stated “AREA CLOSED” and were happily welcomed by Capitol Police under the ended up inside the well of Congress.
The initial breach of the first barricade — egged on by Joe Biggs — happened at 12:52 pm. The first breach of the building by Proud Boy Dominic Pezzolla using a stolen riot shield didn't happen until 2:15 pm.
People weren’t simply standing around during that almost 90 minutes of time. There was a fight. A very physical fight between protestors and police across the barricades using pepper spray, shields and poles for that entire time — including a pitched battle up the stairs -- until they finally reached the building and forced their way in.
[This NYTimes video shows devastating evidence of the Proud Boys plan to gain access to the Capitol being implemented, reassessed and adjusted during the attack.]