(duck drops from ceiling with $100 bill in its bill)
Maybe something along the lines that the protesters may have gotten a little unruly, but that was because they were being deprived of their Constitutional right for redress of a grievous wrong being perpetrated against not only them, but the entire country — to wit, the theft of the election and the pending expropriation of Donald J Trump’s legitimately won second term.
Expressed, of course, with mounting astonishment and indignation at the perfidy of it all.
I think they would have said something like,
“we know what happened. It was terrible. So terrible. But we know what happened. The only reason we’re having this hearing is to keep stirring up the democrat base and try to link the behavior of a few bad actors (maybe leftists in disguise) to try to discredit the 45th President of the United States (may God’s prayers and peace be with him)”
Re: Mo Brooks -
It’s quite amusing that Brooks’ own affidavit provided the justification for the DOJ to deny his attempt to use the Westfall Act. Swalwell’s complaint mentions Brooks saying “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass!” In his attempt to demonstrate that he wasn’t talking about actual violence, Brooks said the following in his affidavit:
I am talking about ‘kicking ass’ in the 2022 and 2024 ELECTIONS! My intent in uttering these words was to encourage Ellipse Rally attendees to put the 2020 elections behind them (and, in particular, the preceding day’s two GOP Senator losses in Georgia) and to start focusing on the 2022 and 2024 elections.
Which creates a problem when you then try to argue that you were acting in your role as a congressman, since partisan campaigning is explicitly NOT one of his official functions.
Yep. When facts, logic, common sense, video evidence, sane members of your own party and eyewitness accounts from police officers go against you, there’s always the “partisan witchhunt” card.
Witch hunts make the Trump Coven uncomfortable.
I’m thinking of something along the lines of “When Officer So-and-so was in Cub Scouts in third grade, he LIED so he could win a knot-tying merit badge! How can we be expected to believe anything he says now??? The man is clearly a liar and has been one since he was a little kid! And when Officer Thus-and-so was an altar boy, the priest caught him sneaking a bottle of communion wine out of the sacristy! Clearly he grew up to be a lying, unreliable, unprincipled drunk! Throw his wholly fabricated testimony out immediately!”
Ya know, stuff like that.
Attacking the testifying officers is not a winning tactic. Jordan’s strategy would have been to distract with comparisons to BLM and assigning blame to House leadership for failing to prepare.
I know Jordan would have derailed any fact-finding effort into Jan. 6 because he already announced how he would have done it had he been allowed to participate during a press conference with Republican House leadership on the Capitol steps on Tuesday.
At that press conference, Jordan declared that he was uninterested in who perpetrated the attacks, who organized the events that led to the insurrection, and whether the former president actually abetted the violence that he had incited by failing to order a timely National Guard response. Instead, for Jordan, the “fundamental question” of Jan. 6 that needs answering was whether or not Democratic leadership had failed to prepare enough for that day’s unprecedented assault on the Capitol because “it was all driven by what happened last summer where Democrats normalized anarchy, normalized political violence, raised bail money for the very rioters and looters who destroyed small businesses, attacked innocent civilians, and maybe most importantly attacked police officers.” With that, Jordan told us what he would have done had he been on the committee: make a false equivalence between the violent attempted overthrow of the U.S. government on Jan. 6 and some of the violence that occurred during last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, and distract from the entire endeavor by blaming Democrats. This is precisely the line he has taken at previous attempted oversight hearings surrounding the events of Jan. 6.
Yeah, distraction would have been the only way to go, given all the video and the fact that a lot of the country watched the events LIVE as they unfolded.
Then they could also have tried to shut down the hearings with procedural objections, accusations of rule violations, throwing tantrums, banging their heads on their desks, breaking pencils, and howling like coyotes.
In one of these nearby threads, I raised the questions: Does anybody take these death threats seriously anymore, they are so commonplace now? Here, they got the guy’s voice recorded! Can he be identified by his voice? Will any law enforcement go after him? I see frequent reports of death threats delivered by voicemail. How cocky can they get?
Under US 1st Amendment law, probably no charge would lie.
But being first-hand witnesses to those events, it’s astonishingly biased that they weren’t appointed to the 9/11 investigation committee ! ! ! Who would have better information about the events than them? But no, couldn’t put them on the committee! Can’t get more biased and one-sided than that!
What? Threats of violence aren’t protected by the 1st Amendment. Nor are threats or intimidation of witnesses.
ETA: I have read, on occasion, of anonymous threatening e-mails somehow occasionally being traced to their source, resulting in arrests and prosecutions.
The First Amendment protects threatening language, as held by the Supreme Court in Brandenberg v Ohio. Urging violence only loses 1st Amendent protection if there is imminent likelihood of unlawful violence as a result of the incitement. Brandenburg was speaking at a rally calling for the killing of Blacks and Jews. Protected speech.
There’s also the concept of a « true threat ». from the Watts case. Threats can be protected under the 1st Amendment, unless they amount to « true threats » which the Supreme Court has not defined. In that case, Watts said to a crowd that if he was drafted and given a rifle, the first person he would put in his sights would be LBJ. Protected speech.
If someone leaves death threats on an answering machine, with no intention or likelihood of being able to carry out the threat, the 1st Amendment will likely protect the speaker.
I must disagree, my friend. I think the officer in this case, would have a reasonable fear that the threat might be carried out.
See the Washington harassment law, for example.
RCW 9A.46.020
Definition—Penalties.
(1) A person is guilty of harassment if:
(a) Without lawful authority, the person knowingly threatens:
(i) To cause bodily injury immediately or in the future to the person threatened or to any other person; or
(ii) To cause physical damage to the property of a person other than the actor; or
(iii) To subject the person threatened or any other person to physical confinement or restraint; or
(iv) Maliciously to do any other act which is intended to substantially harm the person threatened or another with respect to his or her physical or mental health or safety; and
(b) The person by words or conduct places the person threatened in reasonable fear that the threat will be carried out. “Words or conduct” includes, in addition to any other form of communication or conduct, the sending of an electronic communication.
(2)(a) Except as provided in (b) of this subsection, a person who harasses another is guilty of a gross misdemeanor.
(b) A person who harasses another is guilty of a class C felony if any of the following apply: (i) The person has previously been convicted in this or any other state of any crime of harassment, as defined in RCW 9A.46.060, of the same victim or members of the victim’s family or household or any person specifically named in a no-contact or no-harassment order; (ii) the person harasses another person under subsection (1)(a)(i) of this section by threatening to kill the person threatened or any other person; (iii) the person harasses a criminal justice participant who is performing his or her official duties at the time the threat is made; or (iv) the person harasses a criminal justice participant because of an action taken or decision made by the criminal justice participant during the performance of his or her official duties. For the purposes of (b)(iii) and (iv) of this subsection, the fear from the threat must be a fear that a reasonable criminal justice participant would have under all the circumstances. Threatening words do not constitute harassment if it is apparent to the criminal justice participant that the person does not have the present and future ability to carry out the threat.
(3) Any criminal justice participant who is a target for threats or harassment prohibited under subsection (2)(b)(iii) or (iv) of this section, and any family members residing with him or her, shall be eligible for the address confidentiality program created under RCW 40.24.030.
(4) For purposes of this section, a criminal justice participant includes any (a) federal, state, or local law enforcement agency employee; (b) federal, state, or local prosecuting attorney or deputy prosecuting attorney; (c) staff member of any adult corrections institution or local adult detention facility; (d) staff member of any juvenile corrections institution or local juvenile detention facility; (e) community corrections officer, probation, or parole officer; (f) member of the indeterminate sentence review board; (g) advocate from a crime victim/witness program; or (h) defense attorney.
(5) The penalties provided in this section for harassment do not preclude the victim from seeking any other remedy otherwise available under law.
Fred Guttenberg has received an ugly e-mail from someone and he sure sounds a lot like the same jerk who left the voice mail for Officer Fanone.
In the message, this asshat expresses how very glad he is that Fred’s daughter was shot and killed. A truly disgusting piece of human garbage and I wish we knew he he really is.
I defer to your expertise. 
Insurrectionist’s defense lawyer tried to argue that his client can’t be forced to wear a mask in court hearings. After arguing it for a long time, the judge threatened to hold the lawyer in contempt and yelled at him.
Sounds like a great, bigly approach to take in court! First, don’t just piss of the judge, but ensure that the judge is fully irate with you. Best of luck to your client! Ha ha. Maga!!!
It gives him an opportunity to claim on appeal that the judge was prejudiced against his client.