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The Hybrid Hatchet Conspiracy: A Premeditated Plan to Surround the Capitol on January 6

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emptywheel
A Three Percenter January 6 conspiracy indictment released last night has a hybrid form, tying the anti-mask community in Southern California into a network with the Three Percenters. More importantly, it suggests the organizing surrounding the rally on January 5 included a premeditated plan to surround the Capitol on January 6.
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Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: The Metadata of Insurrection

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emptywheel
The arrest affidavit for Kevin Douglas Creek, who is accused of assaulting some police at the January 6 insurrection, reveals just how much metadata traveling to an insurrection can leave for investigators.
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Tea Leaves on the Garland-Monaco DOJ and the Stay in Andrew McCabe's Lawsuit

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emptywheel
One tea leaf to read to determine precisely why Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco aren't reversing course on Bill Barr's policies more abruptly is the Andrew McCabe lawsuit, which was stayed on Monaco's third day on the job.
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The Gateway Pundit's East Capitol Door Oath Keeper Conspiracy

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emptywheel
The detention motion for Jason Dolan makes a compelling case that he should be detained pre-trial. But it also suggests he invented a story claiming not only that the Oath Keeper stack could not have "broken" into the East door of the Capitol, but also that Marine Major Christopher Warnagiris did something other than know precisely when the door was going to be opened from the inside.
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The Hole in the Senate January 6 Report Created by DOJ's Non-Cooperation

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emptywheel
One excuse DOD made for not deploying the National Guard promptly on January 6 is that there was no federal agency to lead the response. But there was one: DOJ. Only, according to the Senate Report on January 6, DOJ did nothing to prepare.
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Welcome to Lisa Monaco's DOJ, E Jean Carroll Lawsuit Edition

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emptywheel
Lots of observers are asking how Merrick Garland could make such a horrible decision as to sustain DOJ's defense of Trump against the lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll. They might be better served by -- finally -- considering what Lisa Monaco's background suggests she will do at DOJ.
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Merrick Garland Agreed He Would Go after January 6 Kingpins, if Evidence Merits

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emptywheel
There continue to be questions about how we'll ever get accountability for January 6 without a January 6 commission to do that work. In an exchange yesterday, for example, Bart Gellman asked what questions we'd most want a January 6 commission…
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On January 6, Look to the Continuances

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emptywheel
One way to get a read of what might happen in the January 6 cases is to track who hasn't been indicted yet.
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Bill Barr Is Not Dick Cheney

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emptywheel
When Bill Barr set out to provide immunity from committing a crime with his Barr memo, he either didn't have the competence or any interest in doing so with the competence that Dick Cheney did with the torture memos.
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Barbara Jones' Special Mastery of Releasing Donald Trump's Lawyers' Crime-Fraud Excepted Communications

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emptywheel
Former US Attorney Rudy Giuliani seems to have missed a detail while trying to protect Donald Trump from the damage a search on Trump's attorney's devices could do when it happened to Michael Cohen in 2018. An SDNY filter team cannot share attorney-client communications to which a crime-fraud exception clearly applies. A Special Master can. And Barbara Jones, acting as Special Master in such a situation, already has.
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Accused Terrorist* Leader Ethan Nordean Complains He Got Charged with Trespassing

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emptywheel
Ethan Nordean says that his entire indictment, up to and including his trespassing charge, must be dismissed because he had no way of knowing Mike Pence would be accompanied by the Secret Service.
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At the Barricades: Newly Discovered Video Depicting Timothy Hale-Cusanelli

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emptywheel
Last week, I argued that based on the existing evidence, Nazi sympathizer Timothy Hale-Cusanelli may have been overcharged. But both publicly and via discovery, newly identified video appears to substantiate the civil disorder charges against him.
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The [Thus Far] Missing Seth DuCharme Emails Pertaining to Rudy Giuliani's Russian Disinformation

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emptywheel
There's something odd about DOJ's response to a FOIA for the documents pertaining to Rudy Giuliani's efforts to share known Russian disinformation with DOJ.
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Paul Hodgkins Pleads Guilty to Obstruction

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emptywheel
Paul Hodgkins became the first January 6 defendant to plead out today. He faces a sentencing range of 15-21 months.
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Government Moves to Dismiss Its First January 6 Case: Christopher Kelly

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emptywheel
The government just moved to dismiss the case against Christopher Kelly, whose Facebook seemed to show that he went to January 6 with some Proud Boys and his brother, a former NYPD cop.
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OpSec Confusion on the Oath Keeper Conspiracy

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emptywheel
The Oath Keepers went to some lengths to hide their communications. And then they made their hotel reservations via an interlocking set of bookings and payments that makes plain they were an organized interstate network.
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Crystalizing Conspiracies: Fourth Superseding, James Breheny, Puma's GoPro, [Redacted], and the Willard Hotel

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emptywheel
The developments in the Oath Keepers prosecution in the last week have added a call for insurrection, a planning meeting with other militia, and a third witness to what happened at the Willard Hotel before Oath Keepers rushed from there to the Capitol.
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Latex Gloves Hiding Evidence of Conspiracies: On the Unknown Adequacy of the January 6 Investigation

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emptywheel
If Donald Trump and his close associates are going to be held accountable for January 6, it will be via a conspiracy charge, almost certainly involving the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. But thus far, we have no idea what evidence of conspiracy prosecutors have.
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