Jan. 6th commission

[IglooDame]

"The FBI is corrupt and biased, therefore there was not an insurrection" (am I distilling it down correctly?) is certainly an interesting perspective.

 

[Gori the Grey]

It's all because I'm pressing him to make good on his claim early in this thread that if written evidence of a conspiracy emerged, he would change is mind. The indictment of the Oathkeepers included such evidence, but TMIT said "well, you can charge anyone with anything." Now we're at, "well, a conviction doesn't mean anything either."

All rather than just change his mind, and say so. As he said he would.

 

[Remorseless1]

yep, significant fed involvement before 1/6. tainted narrative publicly. these convictions seem about as legit as the "fbi's whitmer kidnapping plot" convictions after all, right down to advance fed involvement that makes the events (as described) strange. if feds knew about 1/6 significantly in advance, i don't see a way to conclude anything but government malice wrt decisions involving security leading up to it.

the other people might be criminals, but now we have evidence that known criminals (fbi) were involved as well

edit: note that the conviction you reference very likely involves brady violation(s). you cool with brady violations?

Let's say the FBI, Capitol Police and DC Police knew of the coup beforehand. They would want the National Guard mobilized and sent to the Capitol. That means calling the 2020 Loser aka Benedict Donald to authorize release of the Guard. Guess what? The Orange Turd was asked repeatedly to do just that and refused. It was PENCE, not the president, who finally got reinforcements. So yeah, it's the FBI's fault.

Obviously you were not in front of a screen on J6 and haven't watched any since. Those scumbag attacked the government, looking for Pelosi and Pence to hang -- the two people in direct succession if the president dies or removed. Had those been black people beating and pepper spraying cops, machine guns would been used against them. Yes, there is corruption in the FBI, but it does not come close to the corruption of the Traitorous Trump Administration.

Those weren't patriots demonstrating at the Capitol, they were white scumbag trying to overthrow the government. All of should really dance at the of a rope.

 

[El_Machinae]

What would the FBI involvement be that's alleged? That they infiltrated and lead people to insurrect?

Is this the same case when they literally had guns on standby?

 

[Gori the Grey]

What would the FBI involvement be that's alleged? That they infiltrated and lead people to insurrect?

Yes, that's the insinuation. There were some FBI agents in the crowd. I believe that has been established. It's because some of the members of the crowd were under FBI surveillance. The right will latch on to any detail that will get the, ahem, scumbags off the hook, and so they've fabricated, out of whole cloth, the notion that it was these FBI agents who instigated the break-in to the Capitol building.

Just like the whole crowd was actually Antifa, when they desperately needed for it not to be (what it is obvious on the surface that it was) scumbag Trump supporters initiating and conducting the insurrection.

They flail about to put the blame on anybody except the actual agents.

 

[Remorseless1]

What would the FBI involvement be that's alleged? That they infiltrated and lead people to insurrect?

Is this the same case when they literally had guns on standby?

Considering the low intelligence of Trump minions, it's quite possible they could be duped into trying to overthrow the government. Fortunately there is verified video evidence of the minions being duped for months and incited into trying to destroy American democracy. Just look at the campaign speeches where Don the Con claimed the only way he could lose is if the Democrats cheated, then after election he claimed fraud. His minions lapped it up by the gallon. But obviously the FBI was the cause -- they never arrested Donnie Numbnuts during the campaign or even after, so they really are the ones who lied for months then whipped up a crowd into a murderous rage on J6.

Obviously.

Moderator Action: Warned for trolling. The_J

 

[Gori the Grey]

My version of Remorsless's formulation:

Don't you dare suggest that their hero telling them to "fight like hell" or they "wouldn't have a country anymore" stirred them up to the attack.

But some rando guy at a broken Capitol window waving them in, now that could send them into a murderous frenzy!

 

[Sommerswerd]

It's all because I'm pressing him to make good on his claim early in this thread that if written evidence of a conspiracy emerged, he would change is mind. The indictment of the Oathkeepers included such evidence, but TMIT said "well, you can charge anyone with anything." Now we're at, "well, a conviction doesn't mean anything either."

All rather than just change his mind, and say so. As he said he would.

I gave a good faith effort at exactly this. After the goalpost was moved multiple times I concluded that bad-faith had been conclusively established, and I was dealing with rank partisanship rather than any sort of intellectual honesty. I'm satisfied that there's no fig leaf.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Yeah, nobody likes having to say "I was wrong." But I think that reluctance is especially strong among people on the right. So when this right-leaning poster indicated precisely the grounds on which he would change his mind, I latched on to that, as a kind of test case. It's become pretty clear that there will be no stage of this process at which he will simply say: "Yes, there was a conspiracy to overthrow the US government using violence."

But there was. Here's why I think this is a meaningful development. It has now been legally established, through a conviction not a plea, that there was a seditious conspiracy. Now, if the evidence is there for it, you can draw other conspirators into that: Stone, etc. (Not likely Trump himself, because he's careful never to put anything in writing.)

I say this is meaningful because the report through which I learned of the conviction of Rhodes, et al, indicated something I hadn't previously heard: that the DoJ went after seditious conspiracy, even though 1) it's much harder to prove and 2) it doesn't carry any more severe penalty than interfering with a government process. That tells me DoJ positively wanted this activity to get labeled as a seditious conspiracy. I think that's valuable just for how posterity looks back on this moment, but also perhaps valuable for bringing others into this conspiracy, now established as existing as a conspiracy..

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ok, so now I gotta wait until all appeals have been exhausted?

I'm a patient man.

third time: you cool with brady violations?

But to keep denying that there was a conspiracy to overthrow the US government

question is how much of this conspiracy to overthrow the government came from...the government. the whole reason i expressed doubt in the first place was that the fbi was already caught doing nearly all the work of a "plot" to kidnap a governor. to the point of sourcing the only means anybody involved had to actually execute the plot, smoking pot with the suspects, and having more feds than willing participants in the plot. they secured pleas and (using mistrial) convictions with this disgraceful fact pattern.

that, plus other confirmed fbi criminal misconduct, was the backdrop under which i had doubt regarding 1/6. and *what a surprise*, it looks like they had pre-involvement in 1/6 too. and *what a surprise*, knowingly withheld evidence that would benefit defendants.

at some point, "maybe these people did exactly what we caught them doing previously again, and there's evidence for that" isn't a "theory" any longer.

But convictions can be a result of prosecutorial misconduct (it turns out), so now I have to wait another while to see whether TMIT will make good on his boast regarding his intellectual honesty: that he would change his mind if there ever appeared a written record of such a conspiracy.

meanwhile, you seem to be disregarding lots of evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, and some questionable practices regarding people being held w/o bond for long periods. if you're actually cool with brady violations (?), i don't think i'm where the fingers should be pointing wrt intellectual honesty.

2) no jury reaches a verdict "on the word of prosecutors"; the defense gets to make its best arguments as well

numerous people get convicted with no evidence beyond the claims made in the usa, even in unrelated/non-political cases

3) the prosecution has to convince twelve people; the defense only one; they couldn't do that in this case

it's a lot easier to secure convictions when you willfully exclude evidence inconvenient the prosecution. which isn't legal, and reeks of the same conduct as prosecutors moving to block dna evidence clearing previously (and wrongfully) convicted felons.

if you're not cool with that sort of behavior, and you're not cool with brady violations, why are you okay with the convictions as they presently stand?

MLK died roughly 55 years ago, before most of us were even born.

our alphabet agencies have not exactly maintained clean hands in that period, and probably didn't have clean hands prior.

it was actually this forum that first alerted me to some of cia's worst history wrt banana republics, courts upholding theft by government (civil forfeiture w/o conviction), and at one point it was a bit less controversial to point out the fbi's track record. but i guess politics dominates the mindset and blatant recent history of misconduct, recent history of entrapment, and evidence of it happening in this case are all disregarded and we're supposed to feel good about a "conviction" obtained through misconduct. dc courts are also some of the worst in the country, unsurprisingly. since the misconduct in this case was blatant, i'd hope even they realize how bad a look it would be to not have a mistrial. but it wouldn't surprise me if they don't care. enough other people seem not to care, so why should they?

What would the FBI involvement be that's alleged? That they infiltrated and lead people to insurrect?

Is this the same case when they literally had guns on standby?

reports are that 8 fbi agents were involved in months both before and after 1/6. also that they withheld information from this involvement during the prosecution, which is illegal

given that the fbi literally offered weapons that would be impossible for the "whitmer kidnappers" to procure otherwise, and that fact came out in court, i don't think it's prudent or even reasonable to rule that out in this case too. especially given prosecutorial misconduct.

Yes, that's the insinuation. There were some FBI agents in the crowd. I believe that has been established. It's because some of the members of the crowd were under FBI surveillance.

it seems there was involvement well before there was a "crowd". like, month+ before.

I gave a good faith effort at exactly this. After the goalpost was moved multiple times I concluded that bad-faith had been conclusively established, and I was dealing with rank partisanship rather than any sort of intellectual honesty. I'm satisfied that there's no fig leaf.

you guys seem to be treating a conviction with an apparent brady violation as meaningful. it's odd to claim my rejection of it as bad faith. unless you're cool with brady violations?

But there was. Here's why I think this is a meaningful development. It has now been legally established, through a conviction not a plea, that there was a seditious conspiracy. Now, if the evidence is there for it, you can draw other conspirators into that: Stone, etc. (Not likely Trump himself, because he's careful never to put anything in writing.)

are you cool with brady violations?

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh, in colloquial parlance 'informant' =/= ' FBI agent', just to avoid any misstep. "FBI Agent" tends to refer to actual FBI personnel in regular usage.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Oh, in colloquial parlance 'informant' =/= ' FBI agent', just to avoid any misstep. "FBI Agent" tends to refer to actual FBI personnel in regular usage.

fair, though it doesn't change the optics much...the conclusion is still "we knew about this way in advance" and "we withheld relevant information from the courts".

though if i'm not mistaken, the whitmer situation involved actual agents too.

 

[Gori the Grey]

you guys seem to be treating a conviction with an apparent brady violation as meaningful.

I know I'm going to regret doing this, but I'll bite.

But only this little nibble:

What will it mean to you, TheMeInTeam, if Rhodes' lawyers do not file an appeal that alleges violation of the Brady principle?

Will it mean that, while that can occur in some cases, it did not occur in this case?

 

[El_Machinae]

fair, though it doesn't change the optics much...the conclusion is still "we knew about this way in advance" and "we withheld relevant information from the courts".

though if i'm not mistaken, the whitmer situation involved actual agents too.

Oh sure, but I was a bit disappointed in your summary when I did a fact-check, so thought I'd give a warning.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What will it mean to you, TheMeInTeam, if Rhodes' lawyers do not file an appeal that alleges violation of the Brady principle?

depends on explanation/context

 

[Gori the Grey]

There will be little explanation given for a grounds of appeal they choose not to use.

 

[Samson]

question is how much of this conspiracy to overthrow the government came from...the government.

Loads, it was the head of government. It was on TV.

brady violations

If it happened, he will probably get off, right? I think there is little chance the would risk that when they so clearly had him bang to rights, but feel free to provide a link.

 

[Lexicus]

Loads, it was the head of government. It was on TV.

Bingo.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Criminal referrals coming Friday.

 

[Lexicus]

Criminal referrals coming Friday.

Damn, series finale of the January 6th show, RIP.