Here’s an excellent in-depth ProPublica article about the security failures on January 6th, with details I haven’t seen before.
It also includes a link to Sund’s (head of the Capitol Police) 8 page letter to Nancy Pelosi, dated Feb 1st.
Fantastic article. It’s glaringly clear that some layer of leadership deliberately created a scenario where the Capitol Police were understaffed and underprepared for the coming crisis.
There are several incredible isolated nuggets sprinkled throughout. One that jumped out at me is that the police were specifically instructed to be on the lookout for counter-demonstrators, in contrast to the official advance intelligence that said the main body of Trump protesters was supposed to be harmless. This is an obvious indication that the Trump White House was counting on conflict between Red Hats and the opposition in the streets, which could be used as a pretext for declaring a crisis and appealing for a delay. As we learned from the Time article a few days ago, coordination between opposition groups kept those counter-protesters away, which surprised the Trump planners and left a big hole in their scheme.
The Department of Homeland Security employed a now-Russia-based Neo Nazi who was tasked with coordinating the U.S. government’s counterterrorism efforts.
That was back in the Bush II years (DHS confirms 2004-2006) after the invasion of Iraq. Shit ton of sketchy and sometimes unqualified folks were hired as military contractors (see for example the entire Blackwater mercenary firm) during that fucking disaster and most operated with very little direct oversight. From sketchy military operative in a chaotic warzone to Neo-Nazi terrorist shitheel is not an unlikely progression. Sadly I’m sure there was more than one.
But barring more information it probably has little to do with anything regarding the Trump administration.
Some Capitol Police officers are under investigation:
Great attitude, dude:
I guess he doesn’t realize how much fun Federal prison can be. Make lots of new friends.
Yeah, ex-cops are always welcome there!
That cop has a weird sense of humor. Losing his job and facing prison gets a lol.
I’m wondering why the police chief doesn’t have him on at least suspension or investigation.
From that article
Hell, don’t MOST people recover from it? The great majority of us are in some sort in financial squeeze when we’re younger, with limited income, assets, and savvy. Pretty much everyone I know was in some pretty tight fiscal straits at some point, but I’m 49 now and almost everyone I’m familiar with is doing well now; it would be genuinely silly, were I or one of the people I know to engage in bizarre antisocial behaviour, to claim it’s because I had credit card debt in 1997.
One of the Oath Keepers in jail for the insurrection claims she had a VIP pass to the rally, met with the Secret Service, and provided security escort to legislators to and from the assault on the Capitol.
The Secret Service denies that they were working with private citizens.
Either we’ve got a very interesting scandal on our hands, or we’ve got a raging fabulist RW wacko. Stay tuned.
I have to say I’m surprised the Oath Keepers would allow a mere woman into their exalted ranks. Friggin’ morons. Dangerous morons though.
Dude, they let a trans woman in. Which, hey - credit to them. I guess 
.
Well, if you believe the troglodytic folks who say people are the gender/sex they were born into, then Jeremy later Jessica is really a male. Just one with an odd taste in clothes. As long as he/she/they carry the right caliber rifle, they’re in.
« I’ll take raging fabulist RW wacko for 200, Alex. »
I’m thinking that we need to start holding people more accountable for their willful ignorance.
There’s a legal principle that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” for committing illegal actions, because it’s your duty to learn enough about the law to know whether you’re breaking it. We need a similar principle for ethical evaluation of stupid acts, along the lines of “ignorance of the (readily available) facts is no excuse”.
People deliberately wrapping themselves up in disinformation media bubbles and then whining that they didn’t know they were doing anything wrong shouldn’t get a pass on their behavior. If you feel that your “FREEEEEDUM” requires you to voluntarily isolate yourself from common knowledge because you think it’s communist or satanic or whatever, fine. But then you shouldn’t expect to be exempt from the consequences of people negatively judging your dumb behavior when it turns out that your chosen information source was a bunch of pernicious lies.
Not so much. Cheek v. United States , 498 U.S. 192 (1991) would disagree. Also Lambert v. California , 355 U.S. 225 (1957). The courts have ruled that when a reasonable person should know something is illegal, or should check into the laws regarding it, they can be held liable.
And the hits just keep comin’: FBI Reportedly Probing Roger Stone's, Alex Jones' Possible Links To Capitol Violence [Video]
A clean conscience makes a soft pillow. The MyPillow Guy has the hardest one:
This is wrong. The general rule is that ignorance of the law is no excuse. There are rare exceptions to that. One of the rare exceptions, discussed in Cheek, is that, if confusion caused by the extreme complexity of the tax code causes a person to not file, or take a deduction, etc. that would otherwise be unlawful, that may be an excuse, even if unreasonable. But subscribing to a theory that the income tax is unconstitutional is not that kind of confusion.
In Lambert, the issue was a city ordinance requiring a felon to register within a certain number of days in the city. The court said that there had to be proof of actual notice of the requirement to register, because essentially, it was an affirmative requirement to act, and a person wouldn’t be expected to know of the obligation or seek out knowledge of it.
Those are very narrow exceptions to the general rule of being expected to know the law.