ReportWire

Tag: right-wing extremism

  • The Proud Boys Love a Winner

    The Proud Boys Love a Winner

    [ad_1]

    A second Trump term would validate the violent ideologies of far-right extremists—and allow them to escape legal jeopardy.

    Matt Huynh

    Editor’s Note: This article is part of “If Trump Wins,” a project considering what Donald Trump might do if reelected in 2024.

    Until the very end of his presidency, Donald Trump’s cultivation of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and other violent far-right groups was usually implicit. He counted on their political support but stopped short of asking them to do anything.

    Trump had mastered a form of radicalization sometimes known as stochastic terrorism—riling up followers in ways that made bloodshed likely while preserving plausible deniability on his part.

    Explore the January/February 2024 Issue

    Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.

    View More

    But in the weeks after November 3, 2020, his language became more direct. He named the place and occasion for a “big protest”—on January 6, 2021, when Congress would be certifying his election loss—and told supporters, “Be there, will be wild!” When that day arrived, Trump told the assembled crowd, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” With that, the president of the United States embraced violence as the natural extension of Americans’ democratic differences, and he has not stopped since.

    Trump continues to lash out at his perceived enemies. Yet Americans have mostly been able to treat Trump’s extremism as background noise. That’s partly because he’s no longer in office, and partly because he’s no longer using Twitter. But it’s also because the legal counteroffensive against pro-Trump extremism, along with a proliferation of court proceedings holding Trump himself to task for his misdeeds, appears to have given his fans reason to think twice before committing crimes on his behalf.

    From the November 2020 issue: A pro-Trump militant group has recruited thousands of police, soldiers, and veterans

    Extremism ebbs and flows. Violent groups can grow only when they can raise money and recruit members faster than law enforcement can shut down their operations. They thrive when they are perceived to be winning; even the kind of person who might be drawn to violence makes a calculation about whether taking part in a plot to, say, overthrow an election or kidnap the governor of Michigan will be worth the risk. In the past few years, Trump’s election loss and his legal woes have made him less persuasive in this regard.

    Trump now faces both state and federal conspiracy charges for his efforts to stay in power despite losing the election. Leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have received long prison sentences for their role in the violence of January 6. Fox News, which knowingly broadcast false statements about faulty voting machines rather than offend its pro-Trump core audience, agreed to a defamation settlement of nearly $800 million with Dominion Voting Systems. All of these proceedings have demonstrated that Trump and his supporters will be held accountable for what they do and say.

    But if Trump wins another term, both he and his most disreputable supporters will feel vindicated. The Republican Party has already given Trump a pass for exhorting a mob to break into the Capitol. In turn, Trump has promised to pardon many of the January 6 insurrectionists. His forgiveness could extend to extremist leaders convicted on federal charges.

    Federalism, to be sure, would be a check on his power. Trump’s followers, like Trump himself, may still be subject to state prosecution. But a president with firm control of the Justice Department, who wields a corps of supporters willing to use intimidation for political ends and who has maintained a considerable following among police, could overwhelm the ability of state institutions to uphold the law.

    From the January/February 2024 issue: Barton Gellman on how Trump gets away with it

    Trump’s bullying of military leaders, journalists, and judges was never merely the ranting of an attention seeker, and that behavior—backed by the credible threat of violence from radicalized supporters—will likely become even more central to his governing style. “The extremism won’t be some side group,” Erica Chenoweth, a Harvard professor who studies political violence, told me. “It won’t be like a terror group against the state. The conditions will be different. It will be embedded into state institutions, and into the orientation of the state against perceived opponents.”

    What’s clear is that a restored Trump would have a winning narrative in which right-wing extremism, after suffering some legal setbacks during the Biden interregnum, thrives again.

    This article appears in the January/February 2024 print edition with the headline “Extremists Emboldened.”

    [ad_2]

    Juliette Kayyem

    Source link

  • Judge in Proud Boys case denies mistrial motion after jurors report being followed | CNN Politics

    Judge in Proud Boys case denies mistrial motion after jurors report being followed | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The federal judge overseeing the trial of five Proud Boys members who are accused of plotting to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, denied a mistrial motion on Thursday after jurors reported being followed and confronted in public.

    In late March, several jurors reported two incidents in which they were approached outside the courthouse by members of the public, District Judge Timothy Kelly said in a sealed proceeding Thursday that was inadvertently streamed to a media room in the Washington, DC, federal courthouse. CNN reported last week that one juror believed she was being followed.

    Kelly denied a mistrial motion from all five defendants, saying that every member of the jury was questioned about the interactions and confirmed they could still judge the case fairly. Kelly also denied motions from the defendants to strike the jurors who said they had been confronted, adding that “none of the jurors expressed a concern that any of this would affect their jury service.”

    Kelly said that he instructed the jury to disregard those interactions, and that “when I read this instruction to the jury, I watched many of them nod as if to say, ‘Okay, let’s get on with the case.’”

    The ruling ends a dayslong argument over how to handle the alleged incidents involving a total of four jurors who were approached in public, the latest in a series of mishaps that have plagued the trial.

    Kelly described the interactions in detail during the under-seal proceeding, bringing to light additional information about the incidents. A coalition of media outlets, including CNN, previously fought for access to the sealed arguments, but Kelly denied that request.

    In one instance, three jurors were walking away from the courthouse when they were approached by a man on a bike, Kelly said. The man began discussing a trial he was watching at the courthouse, and while it is not clear if he mentioned the Proud Boys defendants by name, the man said that the case was interesting and called a recent defense witness “crazy.”

    “The individual did not say that he knew they were jurors,” Kelly said.

    The three jurors told Kelly that they thought the incident was “odd” and “weird,” but didn’t become concerned until they saw the same man sitting in the courtroom the next day, looking at them and whispering to someone else in the gallery. One juror told Kelly that seeing the man gave her a “weird feeling.”

    In another instance, Kelly said that a juror reported seeing the same man at a metro stop on four separate occasions. The first time she saw the man, the juror said that he asked her if she was serving on a jury but did not mention any case specifically.

    Kelly said the issue was referred to the US Marshals, who went to the metro station to find him and watched the man walk into a nearby homeless shelter. Kelly also saw two pictures of the man and said that “from my view of the photos, it was certainly plausible he was homeless.”

    The juror who was approached at the metro stop told Kelly that she “did not feel intimidated by this,” he added.

    After issuing his ruling Thursday, Kelly was informed by a courtroom staff member that video of the proceeding was being streamed elsewhere in the courthouse. Kelly then had the video stream cut, saying that “there is nothing we can do at this point. Let’s have them shut it off now.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Proud Boy testifies that talk of ‘stacking bodies’ was locker-room banter | CNN Politics

    Proud Boy testifies that talk of ‘stacking bodies’ was locker-room banter | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Proud Boys member Fernando Alonso, who was with members of the group in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, testified on Monday that text messages about “stacking bodies” on the White House lawn were akin to locker-room banter and that members of the group were simply “knuckleheads.”

    During his testimony in the trial against five members of the Proud Boys charged with seditious conspiracy for their alleged actions around the US Capitol attack, Alonso testified that the idea Proud Boys wanted to take over the government was “offensive.”

    But then prosecutors pressed him about text messages he sent weeks earlier.

    In one message, an individual named Al messaged Alonso on December 24, 2020, asking: “When do we start stacking bodies on the White House Lawn?”

    “Jan 7th,” Alonso wrote back, according to evidence presented at the trial.

    Al responded: “The RINOs first, make the Democrats watch…”

    Alonso answered: “yes.”

    When asked about the message, Alonso testified it was all “‘locker room talk,’ if you will.”

    The Proud Boy also testified that defendant Enrique Tarrio – chairman of the group – never wanted violence. Alonso said the idea that they wanted to overtake the government “is insulting” and “ridiculous.”

    The five defendants – Tarrio, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, Dominic Pezzola and Joseph Biggs – have pleaded not guilty.

    Alonso said that, around the time of January 6, Proud Boys were irritated by police who, in his view, didn’t do enough to stop violence perpetrated by the left-wing group Antifa, calling them “coptifa.”

    “Antifa did a lot of things, and I don’t see any trials for them,” he said.

    Alonso testified that on January 6, he followed Proud Boys leaders around the Capitol but said he never went inside. Alonso has not been charged in connection with his actions on January 6.

    “I wasn’t going to go in when there’s armed police pointing guns at us,” Alonso said, adding that it “was pretty extreme” to go inside.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Proud Boy testifies in sedition trial about far-right group being the ‘tip of the spear’ on January 6 | CNN Politics

    Proud Boy testifies in sedition trial about far-right group being the ‘tip of the spear’ on January 6 | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The sole Proud Boy to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in connection to the US Capitol riot testified on Wednesday that members of the far-right organization believed the country was barreling toward revolution and that they were the “tip of the spear.”

    Jeremy Bertino, a top lieutenant to Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio, testified as part of a cooperation deal that he struck with prosecutors against Tarrio and four other members of the Proud Boys charged with conspiring to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

    “We had a big fight on our hands. It was going to be an uphill battle, and everyone had turned against us,” Bertino testified. “My belief was that we had to take the reins and pretty much be the leaders that we had been building ourselves up to be.”

    His testimony allowed prosecutors to show jurors how the events of January 6, 2021, unfolded in the mind of a top member of the organization as he watched it online from his North Carolina home, sending messages to his “brothers” about targeting then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and assuring them that members of the far-left group Antifa weren’t there to stop them.

    Some of the messages featured in court were from defendants in the case, whom Bertino said he would “take a bullet for.” But Bertino and the five defendants – Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, Joseph Biggs and Dominic Pezzola – rarely made eye contact during the testimony.

    There was not a premeditated or specific plan to storm the Capitol, Bertino testified, adding that getting the Proud Boys to communicate and work together was like “herding cats.” The Proud Boys had several group messages from the days before the riot where members mentioned descending on the Capitol building, according to exhibits shown by prosecutors.

    As court challenges to the 2020 election failed, members of the Proud Boys – who saw themselves as the “foot soldiers of the right” – began to believe the country was headed toward an “all-out revolution,” Bertino testified.

    “I felt it coming,” he said.

    The Proud Boys believed that the government was controlled by “commies,” he testified, and they began to turn against the police, whom the group increasingly saw as their enemy. Everybody in the organization felt “desperate,” including Tarrio, Bertino told the jury.

    “His tones were calculated,” Bertino said of Tarrio. “Cold, but very determined. He felt the exact same way that I did.”

    Members also were inspired by then-President Donald Trump’s reference to their organization in a 2020 presidential debate, where he told the group to “stand back and stand by.” Bertino testified that there were “nonstop requests for membership” after the debate, specifically from people who wanted to attend rallies, and that the group did less vetting of new members to keep up with applications.

    During cross examination, Bertino said that he thought the Proud Boys had a goal to stop the 2020 election but had no knowledge of how that goal would be achieved.

    “I didn’t have a direct idea of where they were going, how they were going to get there.”

    Bertino was not in Washington, DC, on the day of the riot because he was at home recovering from a stab wound he suffered during a previous pro-Trump rally, but he testified that he watched on a livestream video. He saw the mob as starting the “next American revolution,” and told others Proud Boys he was brought to tears during the attack.

    “I was happy, excited, in awe and disbelief that people were doing what they said they would do,” Bertino told the jury. When the crowd descended on the Capitol building, “it meant that we influenced people, the normies, enough to make them stand for themselves and take back their country and take back their freedom,” he said.

    In chats to other Proud Boys, Bertino encouraged members to move forward, telling them that he could see the Capitol building on a livestream and that no members of Antifa would be at the building to stop the pro-Trump mob.

    Bertino also messaged: “They need to get peloton” – which he testified was a misspelled reference to Pelosi. “She was the talking head of the opposition and they needed to remove her from power,” he said.

    By the evening of January 6, Bertino grew angry at Trump supporters for leaving the Capitol building, he told the jury.

    “The way I felt at the moment, if we give that building up, we were giving up our country,” Bertino testified. He sent encrypted messages to other Proud Boys members, saying that “we failed,” and “Half measures mean nothing,” and, referring to lawmakers inside the Capitol, “Fuck fear: They need to be hung.”

    “Once they took that step, there was no coming back from it,” Bertino testified Wednesday. “And they decided basically to balk and walk away after creating all that chaos down there.”

    “The revolution had failed,” he continued, “because the House was still going to go on and certify the election.”

    Bertino told the jury that after January 6, he tried to delete what he saw as incriminating messages on his phone and he wasn’t fully truthful with FBI agents when they asked him about the Capitol attack.

    “I guess it’s a natural instinct to protect yourself and protect those you love,” Bertino testified.

    “I love them,” he said of the five defendants. “I didn’t want to see anything bad happen to them. Still don’t.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Lawyers for Proud Boys member take steps to subpoena former President Trump in seditious conspiracy trial | CNN Politics

    Lawyers for Proud Boys member take steps to subpoena former President Trump in seditious conspiracy trial | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Lawyers for a Proud Boys member on trial for seditious conspiracy related to his alleged role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol are taking steps to subpoena former President Donald Trump to testify as a witness for the defense.

    It’s a longshot bid as judges have previously rejected subpoenas for Trump and arguments that rioters were obeying his orders in other trials of January 6 defendants. Trump’s lawyers also wouldn’t accept service of any subpoena for him unless they had extensive discussions about it first, according to a source familiar with the matter, and they have not decided on a Proud Boys trial subpoena.

    The Justice Department has not indicated in court, or in the email to defense attorneys, whether it plans to try to quash this subpoena.

    But DOJ has informed defense lawyers they can contact Trump’s attorney Evan Corcoran, according to an email reviewed by CNN. If he refuses to accept service, the Justice Department said they can reach out to the Secret Service’s Miami field office to facilitate the process, or ask the court to order the US Marshals Service to serve the subpoena.

    The subpoena asks for Trump to come to the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, on March 1, but bringing Trump into court is likely an uphill battle. Trump’s attorneys also could move to quash the subpoena, and federal prosecutors still have the ability to argue that his testimony isn’t relevant to the ongoing trial.

    A federal prosecutor on the case declined to comment.

    Norman Pattis, a lawyer who represents defendant Joseph Biggs, announced the subpoena in court last week and asked for the government’s assistance in serving the subpoena. Pattis told CNN on Wednesday that he had reached out to Corcoran about the subpoena and has not received a response. Pattis added that he also has reached out to the Secret Service in Miami.

    CNN has reached out to Corcoran for comment.

    Biggs and his four co-defendants are on trial for their alleged participation in the January 6 US Capitol insurrection, and all five have pleaded not guilty.

    Attorneys for the five defendants in this case, including Biggs, previously asked a federal judge to allow them to argue to a jury that Trump ordered their clients to storm the Capitol on January 6. District Judge Timothy Kelly rejected the argument, saying that Trump did not have the authority to order a mob to storm the Capitol.

    Pattis told CNN that serving Trump with the subpoena is “the first of many steps” in the process of getting the former president to testify in the high-profile sedition trial. Pattis also said he anticipates lawyers for Trump will move to stop the subpoena.

    “I presented to the United States government a signed subpoena requiring the presence of Donald J. Trump at the Proud Boy trial sometime in March,” Pattis said on his podcast “Law and Legitimacy” last week. “We’re hoping that Mr. Trump – ambitious as he is – recognizes that this is an opportunity for him to begin to explain to the public his position on ‘Stopping the Steal.’”

    “We have drawn the line,” Pattis continued. “We have asked Mr. Trump to join us, and our position is, Mr. President, you urged patriots to stop the steal in 2020 and early 2021. We have a simpler request: Take the stand.”

    Pattis added that they want to question Trump on the period between November 3, 2020 and January 6, 2021.

    Pattis has not said publicly what he would hope to elicit from Trump’s testimony, but several defense lawyers representing Proud Boys members have argued during this trial that their clients were called to action by the former president when he told the far-right group to “stand back and stand by” during a 2020 presidential debate, and that the Proud Boys believed they were acting at his behest on January 6.

    “You see Trump, President Trump, told them the election was stolen. It was Trump that told them to go [to the Capitol]. And it was Trump that unleashed them on January 6,” Sabino Jauregui, the attorney for former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, told jurors during his opening statement last month.

    “It’s too hard to blame Trump,” Jauregui said. “It’s too hard to bring him in here with his army of lawyers. … Instead, they go for the easy target. They go for Enrique Tarrio.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Nikki Haley defended right to secession, Confederate History Month and the Confederate flag in 2010 talk | CNN Politics

    Nikki Haley defended right to secession, Confederate History Month and the Confederate flag in 2010 talk | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley defended states’ rights to secede from the United States, South Carolina’s Confederate History Month and the Confederate flag in a 2010 interview with a local activist group that “fights attacks against Southern Culture.”

    Haley, who was running for South Carolina governor at the time, made the comments during an interview with the now defunct “The Palmetto Patriots,” a group which included a one-time board member of a White nationalist organization.

    The former UN ambassador also described the Civil War as two sides fighting for different values, one for “tradition” and one for “change.”

    Haley announced last week she was running for president, becoming the first official major challenger to former President Donald Trump.

    The interview was posted on the group’s YouTube at the time and resurfaced over the years, most recently by Patriots Takes, an anonymous Twitter account that monitors right wing extremism. CNN’s KFile reviewed the interviews as part of a look into Haley’s early political career.

    One of the Palmetto Patriots’ interviewers was Robert Slimp, a pastor and member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and one-time board member and active member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a White nationalist group. The CCC is a self-described White-rights group that opposes non-White immigration and advocates a White nationalist ideology. The group reportedly inspired Charleston shooter Dylann Roof, the White nationalist who killed nine people at a historically Black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

    The shooting spurred Haley, then governor, to call for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina statehouse grounds where it had been since being removed from the state’s Capitol dome in 2000.

    In a comment to CNN, Haley’s spokesperson cited her decision to help remove the flag from the grounds but declined to address Haley’s other comments.

    “Nikki Haley’s groundbreaking leadership on removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol grounds is well known,” Ken Farnaso, her spokesperson, wrote in an email to CNN.

    Former Trump supporter tells ‘Daily Show’ contributor why he stopped supporting Trump

    In the 2010 interview, Haley said the Confederate flag was not “racist” but part of heritage and tradition within the state. She called the flag’s location a “compromise of all people, that everybody should accept a part of South Carolina.”

    “You know, for those groups that come in and say they have issues with the Confederate flag, I will work to talk to them about it,” Haley said. “I will work and talk to them about the heritage and how this is not something that is racist. This is something that is a tradition that people feel proud of and let them know that we want their business in this state. And that the flag where it is, was a compromise of all people that everybody should accept as part of South Carolina.”

    After the Charleston church mass shooting, Haley called on the state legislature to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol, becoming one of the defining moments of her governorship.

    “There is a place for that flag,” Haley said to CNN in July 2015 after the flag was removed. “It’s not in a place that represents all people in South Carolina.”

    But Haley’s later comments would complicate this legacy after she claimed that to some people the Confederate flag symbolized “service, sacrifice and heritage” for some South Carolinians until Roof “hijacked” it, sparking backlash.

    Following the backlash, Haley wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post defending her comments.

    “In South Carolina, as in much of the South, the Confederate flag has long been a hot-button issue,” Haley wrote. “Everyone knows the flag has always been a symbol of slavery, discrimination and hate for many people. But not everyone sees the flag that way. That’s hard for non-Southerners to understand, but it’s a fact.”

    SE CUpp unfiltered 0216

    SE Cupp: Nikki Haley promises youth, but will her policies reflect that?

    When asked about secession, Haley said that while she believed under the Constitution that states have the right to secede from the rest of the country. When asked if she would support the seccession of South Carolina, which was the first state to secede during the Civil War, she said she did not think “it’s gonna get to that point.”

    “The Union, I think that they do,” Haley inaccurately said. “I mean, the Constitution says that.”

    The Supreme Court ruled in 1869 that states do not have a constitutional right to unilaterally secede.

    Haley declined to say if she would support South Carolina if it “needed” to secede, when asked.

    “You know, I’m one of those people that doesn’t think it’s gonna get to that point,” Haley said before describing how she might rally governors to go to the federal government to settle disputes over “federal intrusion.”

    nancy mace nikki haley SPLIT

    Collins asks lawmaker from Nikki Haley’s home district if she’ll endorse her. See her response

    Haley also said she supported South Carolina’s “Confederate History Month” during the interview, comparing it to Black History Month.

    “Yes, it’s part of a traditional – you know, it’s part of tradition,” she said. “And so, when you look at that, if you have the same as you have Black History Month and you have Confederate History Month and all of those. As long as it’s done where it is in a positive way and not in a negative way, and it doesn’t go to harm anyone, and it goes back to where it focuses on the traditions of the people that are wanting to celebrate it, then I think it’s fine.

    Haley Trump SPLIT

    Smerconish: Why Trump wants Haley to run

    In her interview, Haley also described the Civil War in terms sympathetic to the southern cause and did not mention slavery.

    “I mean, again, I think that as we look in government, as we watch government, you have different sides, and I think that you see passions on different sides, and I don’t think anyone does anything out of hate,” Haley said. “I think what they do is, they do things out of tradition and out of beliefs of what they believe is right.”

    “I think you have one side of the Civil War that was fighting for tradition, and I think you have another side of the Civil War that was fighting for change,” she added. “You know, at the end of the day, what I think we need to remember is that you know, everyone is supposed to have their rights, everyone is supposed to be free, everyone is supposed to have the same freedoms as anyone else. So, you know I think it was tradition versus change is the way I see it.

    “Tradition versus change on what,” asked the interviewer.

    “On individual rights and liberty of people,” she responded.

    Haley later added she believed everyone was endowed with rights from “our creator” to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

    “Well, I think that for me, you know what I continue to remember is that you know we also know that our creator endowed the rights of everyone having you know, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she said. ‘And so, when I look at it that way, I look at that’s still what needs to be what guides everybody, so that we make sure that we keep those three things in check.”

    CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the name of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

    SOTU LTG Haley_00002509.png

    Watch UN ambassador react to Nikki Haley’s position on China

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Russian intelligence agents believed to have directed White supremacists to carry out bombing campaign in Spain, US officials say | CNN Politics

    Russian intelligence agents believed to have directed White supremacists to carry out bombing campaign in Spain, US officials say | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    US officials believe that Russian intelligence officers directed a Russian White supremacist group to carry out a letter-bombing campaign that rocked Madrid late last year, targeting the prime minister, the American and Ukrainian Embassies as well as the Spanish defense ministry, according to current and former US officials.

    Spanish authorities have yet to make any arrests in connection with the attacks, which wounded one Ukrainian Embassy employee, but they were widely suspected at the time to be linked to Spain’s support for Kyiv.

    Some details of how, exactly, the campaign was directed and carried out remain fuzzy, two US officials said. It’s not clear how much knowledge – if any – the Kremlin or Russian President Vladimir Putin himself had.

    Still, US officials now believe that the attack was likely a warning shot to European governments which have rallied around Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February of last year.

    The New York Times first reported on the alleged involvement of Russian intelligence in the attacks.

    A State Department spokesperson declined to comment “on matters involving leaked intelligence or active law enforcement investigations,” and referred to the Spanish government “for information related to their ongoing investigation.”

    “We condemn all attempts by entities to harm and intimidate government officials and foreign embassies,” the spokesperson added.

    As the war rages on – and particularly if Russia’s battlefield position deteriorates – US officials expect Russia to try to look for proxy groups it can work with to drive up fear of possible terrorist attacks carried out by Russian-backed groups in Europe and the Middle East, one US official explained.

    The State Department designated the White supremacist group, the Russian Imperial Movement, as a global terror organization in 2020. The group is believed to have connections to Russian intelligence agencies and has been used as a proxy force before, current and former officials familiar with US intelligence told CNN. But those connections are murky, these people emphasized, in part because the US lacks good visibility inside RIM.

    But the possibility that an organ of the Russian government – the military intelligence agency, the GRU – appears to have been involved in the attacks is likely to drive up pressure on the Biden administration to name Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, according to one current and one former US official. The administration has so far been loathe to take such a step, despite pressure from key congressional officials, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

    There are drawbacks to taking that step, one US official noted, in particular that it limits the administration’s ability to engage with Russia in areas where it might want to.

    The White supremacist group, RIM, has associates across Europe and operates military-style training centers within Russia but is not formally affiliated with the Russian government. But, one former US official said, “There’s no question that RIM operates in Russia because it’s allowed to operate in Russia.”

    The GRU, meanwhile, has carried out increasingly bold operations across Europe and beyond, including assassination attempts. It is also believed to have offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing US troops in Afghanistan, although in that instance, too, the intelligence reporting remained murky, and the Kremlin’s involvement was unclear.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • ‘Victory smoke in the Capitol, boys,’ Proud Boys member said on Jan. 6, prosecutors say as trial begins | CNN Politics

    ‘Victory smoke in the Capitol, boys,’ Proud Boys member said on Jan. 6, prosecutors say as trial begins | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Dozens of messages, social media posts and videos show that leaders of the far-right Proud Boys not only planned for the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack but recruited others to help stop Joe Biden from becoming president, federal prosecutors said Thursday during opening statements in the seditious conspiracy trial.

    “Let’s bring this new year with one word in mind…revolt,” defendant and then-Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio wrote to others in the group on January 1, 2021, according to prosecutors. “New year’s revolution.”

    Prosecutor Jason McCullough told the jury that Proud Boys leaders were afraid a Biden presidency would mean the end of the organization and that, after President Donald Trump infamously said in a presidential debate in 2020, to “stand back and stand by,” the organization reached a turning point.

    “In that moment, some battle lines were drawn. President Trump was for the proud boys, and Joe Biden was for antifa,” McCullough said.

    “The defendants’ mission threatened the very foundations of our government,” McCullough told the jury. “These five defendants had agreed – by any means necessary including use of force – to stop Congress” from certifying the election for Biden.

    The defendants – Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, Dominic Pezzola and Ethan Nordean – have all pleaded not guilty to charges, including seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to obstruct and obstructing an official proceeding.

    According to McCullough, the five defendants planned to stop the transfer of power to Biden that day and communicated and organized through messaging apps. McCullough played video of several defendants allegedly tearing down police barricades, attacking officers and ultimately being the first to break into the Capitol, celebrating along the way.

    Why did some Proud Boys dress up like Antifa on January 6?


    09:50

    – Source:
    CNN

    “Victory smoke in the Capitol, boys,” Pezzola, who prosecutors say was the first to break into the Capitol using a riot shield he stole from a police officer, said inside the building, according to a video shown in court. “This is f**king awesome. I knew we could take this mother**ker over [if we] just tried hard enough. Proud of your motherf**king boy.”

    “Don’t f**king leave,” Tarrio allegedly wrote in a public post during the riot.

    Prosecutors played a video of Nordean allegedly celebrating the riot.

    “I was part of f**king storming the Capitol of the most powerful country in the f**king world,” Nordean said.

    On January 7, Rehl allegedly wrote to other Proud Boys: “I’m proud as f**k at what we accomplished yesterday.”

    In their opening statements, defense attorneys repeatedly told jurors that the Proud Boys had no plan to storm the Capitol building on January 6, and were instead caught up in a mob mentality.

    “You will see at trial no evidence that supports the government’s conspiracy claim that these defendants plotted before January 6 to do what the government alleges,” Nordean’s attorney Nick Smith told the jury.

    “It’s only human to say something phenomenal must have caused this,” Smith said of the deadly riot. “But as we often see, that’s not true.”

    But because it is “emotionally unsatisfying” to admit that a mob mentality took over, Smith said, prosecutors “selectively presented messages” to make the Proud Boys a “scapegoat.”

    Tarrio’s attorney Sabino Jauregui also said that his client, who was not in Washington, DC, on January 6, is being blamed for other people’s actions.

    “You see Trump, President Trump, told them the election was stolen,” Jauregui said. “It was Trump that told them to go [to the Capitol]. And it was Trump that unleashed them on January 6. He’s the one that told them to march over there and ‘fight like hell.’”

    He continued: “It’s too hard to blame the politicians on the left and on the right, the ones that use us for their fundraising and their reelection., the ones that pit us against each other… Instead, they go for the easy target, they go for Enrique Tarrio.”

    Jauregui highlighted for the jury that Tarrio, according to Jauregui, had no communication with members of the group that were at the Capitol and never called for attacking the building.

    Rehl’s attorney, Carmen Hernandez, implored the jury to forget everything they had heard about the Proud Boys’ reputation, including allegations that the group is violent or racist.

    “Americans express a lot of opinion about politics, about politicians, about elections, about other public issues,” Hernandez said. “The fact that we state these opinions, I would submit to you, isn’t evidence of a crime.”

    “You all swore to the court that you would put aside any theories, any views you had about the Proud Boys,” Hernandez said, adding, “I am dependent on that.”

    Smith, Jauregui and Hernandez all said that the government has spoken to FBI informants and cooperating Proud Boys who were at the Capitol on January 6. Those witnesses repeatedly emphasized the group had no plan, the attorneys said.

    While several defense attorneys condemned the Capitol riot, Pezzola’s attorney, Roger Roots, used his opening statement to downplay the attack, repeatedly saying that the Proud Boys case is simply about a six-hour delay of Congress.

    “The government makes a big deal of this six-hour recess, from about two o’clock to eight o’clock,” Roots said of Congress’ forced recess on January 6 as rioters stormed the Capitol.

    “Some have called it an attack or even an insurrection,” Roots continued. “The evidence will show that if it was an attack, it might have been one of the lamest attacks that you can imagine.”

    Roots also said his client didn’t “steal” a riot shield from a police officer, as prosecutors have alleged, and suggested that “someone chose not to” fortify the Capitol windows, one of which Pezzola allegedly broke open with the shield.

    Roots closed by asking the jury to question whether Pezzola’s motivation that day was truly to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election, and to look closely at what his client saw as the “victory” that day.

    “Mr. Pezzola described victory, simply, as taking this motherf**ker,” Roots said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • First weeks of Proud Boys sedition trial marked by courtroom drama and fighting | CNN Politics

    First weeks of Proud Boys sedition trial marked by courtroom drama and fighting | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    The preliminary stage of the trial of five Proud Boys charged with seditious conspiracy related to the 2021 US Capitol attack has been a chaotic wind-up that included contentious fights during jury selection, debates over evidence and defense lawyers threatening to withdraw from the case.

    But while opening arguments are expected Thursday, the bickering in the courtroom is likely to continue.

    Tensions between federal prosecutors, defense lawyers and the judge have grown increasingly hostile and confrontational over the past three weeks, and the judge has repeatedly pushed back the start of the trial to deal with the endless fighting.

    District Judge Timothy Kelly delivered a stark warning to all the lawyers on Wednesday: “Everyone take note – you talk over me, and contempt will be coming down the line. It’s going to be a long trial.”

    The five defendants – Enrique Tarrio, Zachary Rehl, Ethan Nordean, Dominic Pezzola and Joseph Biggs – have all pleaded not guilty.

    The three weeks of courtroom drama began before Christmas with the jury selection process, which was plagued by a constant struggle for prosecutors and defense attorneys to agree on jurors who didn’t have strong opinions on the far-right Proud Boys group.

    Some defense attorneys, like Rehl’s lawyer Carmen Hernandez, fought for the dismissal of nearly every potential juror who mentioned previous knowledge, however slight, of the Proud Boys. Other attorneys, including Tarrio’s lawyers Nayib Hassan and Sabino Jauregui, said they were suspicious that people who claimed to not know much about the Proud Boys could be lying so they can get on the jury and find their client guilty.

    Wednesday, Kelly mediated fights over potential exhibits. During one heated moment, Hernandez said she would withdraw from the case if Kelly allowed prosecutors to show the jury a specific video.

    The video has not been shown publicly, but Hernandez said it was taken before January 6, 2021, and was “highly prejudicial.”

    Kelly was not pleased by the inference the lawyer would quit.

    “You, Ms. Hernandez, had said something like you were going to withdraw from the case if I didn’t make certain decisions,” Kelly said. “And I want to make it clear that I don’t really care about that… it’s not even clear if I would let you out of the case.”

    “It isn’t a threat,” Hernandez replied. “I’m not in the habit from threatening to withdraw from a case.”

    Another defense attorney, Nick Smith, said that he too would leave the case over a video the government wants to play for the jury, though Kelly did not address his threat.

    Kelly did allow prosecutors to use video of a 2020 presidential debate when then-President Donald Trump said the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by.” The comments, Kelly said, showed “an additional motive to advocate for Mr. Trump (and) engage in the charged conspiracy” to keep Trump in power.

    Roger Roots, a defense lawyer who joined Pezzola’s legal team just before the trial, also got in hot water with the judge. Roots suggested that he planned to tell the jury Pezzola was acting in self-defense on January 6 against police officers who were high on pepper spray.

    “I know you just joined the case last week but there is no evidence of that,” Kelly said, telling Roots the time had passed to make any self-defense arguments.

    Meanwhile, Biggs’ attorney Norman Pattis had his law license suspended last week for six months.

    Pattis, representing right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in the defamation case brought by parents of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, had improperly released court documents.

    The files included two years of Jones’ text messages, medical records from some of the Sandy Hook families and other confidential discovery items.

    Kelly has not yet ruled on Pattis’ status, but he did allow two other attorneys who had defended other Proud Boys and therefore had potential conflicts to serve on the case.

    Pattis, however, tweeted Wednesday that “six months off sounds good about now.”

    The constant turmoil has left some defense attorneys repeatedly asking for the trial to be moved to a different courthouse or further delayed, though they don’t all agree (Smith said he wouldn’t consent to delaying the trial for any reason “up to and including a zombie apocalypse”).

    Prosecutors have not been saved from the judge’s scrutiny either – most notably when they claimed they couldn’t provide evidence binders to defense lawyers because their office had run out of dividers, and they hadn’t been authorized to buy new ones.

    In the past three weeks, lawyers for the five defendants have repeatedly criticized government lawyers for how they have handled the case.

    Hernandez said the prosecutors were acting “immature” and said, “it reminds me of when my kids were little.”

    Roots told Kelly that the department was using “cutthroat strategies.”

    By Wednesday evening, Assistant US Attorney Jason McCullough asked the judge to reiterate his “order on decorum” in the courtroom.

    “We are going to be in front of a jury soon and we need to take this up a couple levels,” McCullough said.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Virginia judge decreases punitive damages owed by Unite the Right organizers from $24 million to $350,000 | CNN

    Virginia judge decreases punitive damages owed by Unite the Right organizers from $24 million to $350,000 | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A Virginia judge applied the state’s statutory punitive damages cap to decrease the amount of punitive damages owed by White Nationalists who organized and participated in the 2017 Unite the Right rally from $24 million to $350,000, court records show.

    A total of $26 million was awarded by a jury in 2021 after finding those involved in the Unite the Right rally liable for injuries suffered during the Charlottesville rally in August 2017. The jury decided the defendants should pay $2 million in compensatory damages and $24 million in punitive damages.

    While the court recognized “the jury verdict findings of Defendants’ liability,” and upheld the compensatory damages award, the order said it would reduce the punitive damages to $350,000, “as compelled by the Virginia statutory cap on punitive damages.”

    A Virginia state law limits the total amount awarded for punitive damages to $350,000 per case, but the law does not allow the jury to be advised of the punitive damages cap. Instead, in cases where a jury awards more than the $350,000 in punitive damages, the law requires judges to reduce the award to the maximum.

    The order was filed on December 30, 2022, and signed by Senior US District Judge Norman K. Moon.

    Among the 23 defendants was James Alex Fields, Jr., who sped his car through a group of counter protestors at the rally, injuring dozens and killing 32-year old Heather Heyer. Half of the damages awarded by the jury were against Fields.

    Some of the most prominent figures of the alt-right – Jason Kessler, Matthew Heimbach, Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell – were also among the defendants.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Convicted member of plot to kidnap Michigan governor sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison | CNN Politics

    Convicted member of plot to kidnap Michigan governor sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A Michigan federal judge sentenced a man convicted of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to nearly 20 years in prison Wednesday.

    Barry Croft Jr. was part of a plan to kidnap the Democratic governor from her summer home in 2020 and practiced detonating explosives in preparation, prosecutors have said.
    Croft, who was sentenced to 235 months in federal prison, the longest sentence of the people convicted, is the last of the defendants in federal court to be sentenced in connection to the plot. Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Croft to life in prison.
    Explaining his sentencing decision, Judge Robert Jonker said, “I’m not somebody who’s willing ever to give up on somebody. And that’s why I think, in particular, life sentences are very unusual.”
    “Because, by definition, you’re not giving people a chance to come back into the fold,” he said.
    But Jonker also agreed with prosecutors that Croft was a leader to others involved in the plot, and noted his previous criminal history when handing down the sentence.
    A Delaware resident, Croft had traveled to Michigan to work with the local militia members to plan and surveil Whitmer’s summer home in the summer of 2020. Croft discussed using his grenade launcher and a mounted machine gun to thwart law enforcement response to the scene as a part in the kidnapping plot, jurors heard at trial.
    Trial evidence also showed that Croft practiced detonating an explosive filled with shrapnel at a training event using human silhouettes made of paper.

    Croft’s attorney, Joshua Blanchard, had asked the court Wednesday to administer a sufficient sentence but “not longer than it needs to be.”
    In a lengthy plea to the court, Blanchard asked the judge to consider Croft’s history of substance abuse and mental health concerns related largely to his significant marijuana use and family medical history.
    He blamed much of Croft’s behavior in 2020 to intoxication and said Croft ended up in the courtroom having fell down a “conspiracy rabbit hole” during solo rides as a long-haul truck driver before his arrest.
    Blanchard acknowledged his client is “a bit more susceptible to fringe ideas” and said he understands that Croft should serve a fair prison sentence – but not a life sentence.
    Croft declined to speak on his own behalf at the sentencing hearing, citing advice from his attorney.
    But the prosecutor pushed back on the defense arguments Wednesday, telling the court, “This man is thoroughly radicalized.”

    “He hasn’t changed his viewpoint,” prosecutor Nils Kessler said.

    Kessler said during his argument that Croft was the “spiritual leader” of the group “putting himself in the role of prophet.”

    He also went on to argue that Croft encouraged the other participants by saying they would be the “new founding fathers.”

    “People believed it” Kessler said.
    Croft has long been known to law enforcement for his extreme anti-government views. And in his sentencing memo, prosecutors noted a jail call recorded earlier this month during which Croft discussed his preferences for a violent lawless society with an associate.

    Jonker on Tuesday had sentenced Adam Fox, considered to be a leader of the plot with Croft, to 16 years in prison.
    “There is need for public understanding of the cost of this kind of wrongdoing and certainly for specific deterrence as well. And there is impact on our overall governmental system, not just physical threat to our sitting governor, it’s the emotional baggage that now our governor will have to carry and that she’s written about in her report,” Jonker said in court before issuing Fox’s prison sentence.
    And, earlier this month, three other men – Pete Musico, Joseph Morrison and Paul Bellar – were all sentenced in state court on charges of gang participation, support of a terrorist act and carrying or possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony, according to the Michigan attorney general’s office.
    Musico and Bellar must serve a minimum of 12 years and seven years, respectively. The alleged “commander” of the group, Morrison – who, according to affidavits filed with the attorney general’s office, went by the online moniker “Boogaloo Bunyan” – must serve a minimum of 11 years.
    This story has been updated with additional information.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Warnock honored 5 civil rights ‘martyrs’ in his victory speech. Here are their stories | CNN

    Warnock honored 5 civil rights ‘martyrs’ in his victory speech. Here are their stories | CNN

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Sen. Raphael Warnock’s re-election is being celebrated by supporters across the nation with many political observers crediting the work of voting rights groups for the consequential win.

    Warnock delivered a victory speech to a fiery crowd in Atlanta on Tuesday night that touched on the power of faith, his deep Georgia roots and the perseverance of voters in the face of Republican-led voter suppression efforts. Election officials said a record number of voters showed up for early voting last week. And Black voters have been largely credited for Warnock’s win, signaling that Georgia is no longer a reliably red state.

    In his speech, Warnock also honored the Black and White unsung heroes of the civil rights movement who died fighting for equal voting rights, making wins like his possible.

    “Tonight, I want to pay tribute to all those, over so many years, who have put their voices, and their lives on the line, to defend that right,” Warnock said. “Martyrs of the movement like (Michael) Schwerner, (James) Chaney and (Andrew) Goodman, Viola Luizzo, James Reeb. And those who stood up and spoke up like Fannie Lou Hamer. John Lewis, who walked across a bridge knowing that there were police waiting to brutalize him on the other side. Yet, by some stroke of destiny mingled with human determination he walked across that bridge in order to build a bridge to a more just future.”

    While Hamer and Lewis have been widely discussed by historians and journalists, Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman, Luizzo and Reeb are lesser known. But that doesn’t negate the significance of their work toward equality. All of them were killed by white supremacists or Ku Klux Klan members.

    Here is what you should know about five “martyrs” of the movement:

    Liuzzo was a 39-year-old wife and mother of five of from Detroit who was killed by Ku Klux Klansmen in Selma on March 25, 1965.

    Historical records show Liuzzo, a White woman, had been committed to fighting for economic justice and civil rights.

    She was an active member of the Detroit NAACP chapter and the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit. Family members say she decided to travel to Selma in 1965 after seeing televised news reports of peaceful protesters being beaten and tear-gassed by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

    In Selma, Liuzzo marched and helped transport demonstrators in her car. She was ambushed and shot to death by KKK members while driving Leroy Moton, a Black man, to Montgomery. Within 24 hours of Liuzzo’s death, President Lyndon Johnson announced the arrests of the KKK members. They were all acquitted by Alabama courts, however a federal grand jury found them guilty of violating Liuzzo’s civil rights and they were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

    In 1991, a marker honoring Liuzzo was erected at the site where she was killed on U.S. Highway 80, about 20 miles east of Selma

    Rev. James J. Reeb, 38, was attacked by a White mob in Selma in 1965 and he died from his injuries days later.

    Reeb, a White Unitarian minister who lived in Boston, died after traveling to Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to answer Martin Luther King Jr’s call to clergy to join demonstrations for voting rights in the aftermath of “Bloody Sunday.”

    The 38-year-old minister was beaten by a group of White men on March 9, 1965 as he and two other White clergymen left an integrated Selma restaurant after having dinner. He was hit in the head and died two days later at a Birmingham hospital.

    His killing gained nationwide attention, prompted vigils in his honor and is believed to have contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

    “The world is aroused over the murder of James Reeb. For he symbolizes the forces of goodwill in our nation. He demonstrated the conscience of the nation. He was an attorney for the defense of the innocent in the court of world opinion. He was a witness to the truth that men of different races and classes might live, eat, and work together as brothers,” King said as he delivered a eulogy for Reeb in 1965.

    Three White men were indicted with murder in Reeb’s killing but their cases resulted in acquittals.

    Andrew Goodman, left, James Chaney, center, and Michael Shwerner, right, were killed in the summer of 1964.

    Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner were three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. The killings were among the most notorious of the civil rights era, and were the subject of the 1988 movie “Mississippi Burning.”

    The three men, who registered African Americans to vote, had just visited the victims of the burning of a Black church in Neshoba County when a sheriff’s deputy took them into custody for speeding. The men were driving a car with license plates registered to the Congress of Federated Organizations (COFO), one of the most active civil rights groups in Mississippi, according to an FBI file on the case.

    After their release from the county jail, a Ku Klux Klan mob tailed their car, forced it off the road and shot them to death. Their bodies were found 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam, after an extensive FBI investigation.

    Chaney was a 21-year-old Black volunteer with COFO. Goodman, a White 20-year-old, was a college student and new volunteer from New York. Schwerner, a White 24-year-old former social worker, was an established civil rights organizer who was “particularly reviled by the Klan for his work,” according to the FBI file.

    The killings fueled the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the next year.

    In 1967, prosecutors convicted eight defendants for violating the federal criminal civil rights conspiracy statute, namely the victims’ right to live. None served more than six years in prison.

    No murder charges were filed at the time but nearly 40 years later, Edgar Ray Killen, a part-time Baptist minister and the plot leader, was found guilty of manslaughter in 2005 and sentenced to three consecutive 20-year sentences. Killen died in 2018.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Alito’s mentions of Ashley Madison and children wearing KKK costumes cap an awkward Supreme Court day | CNN Politics

    Alito’s mentions of Ashley Madison and children wearing KKK costumes cap an awkward Supreme Court day | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    As the Supreme Court gathered for more than two hours on Monday to discuss whether a graphic designer can refuse to do business with same-sex couples, the justices somehow strayed into dueling hypotheticals concerning Black and White Santas and dating websites.

    Hypotheticals are nothing new at the high court as the justices probe how cases before the court could impact different challenges down the road. But Monday’s hypothetical was unusually awkward, with a reference to children wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit to visit Santa Claus.

    It all began when Justice Ketanji Jackson expressed some alarm about the extent of arguments put forward by the graphic designer, Lorie Smith, who wants to expand her business to celebrate marriages, but does not want to work with same-sex couples out of religious objections to same-sex marriage.

    “Can I ask you a hypothetical that just sort of helps me flesh” this out, Jackson asked a lawyer for the designer.

    Jackson wanted to know about a photography business in a hypothetical shopping mall during the holiday season that offers a product called “Scenes with Santa.” She said the photographer wants to express his own view of nostalgia about Christmases past by reproducing 1940s and 1950s Santa scenes in sepia tone.

    “Their policy is that only White children can be photographed with Santa,” Jackson said and noted that according to her hypothetical, the photographer is willing to refer families of color to the Santa at “the other end of the mall” who will take anybody, and they will photograph families of color.

    Jackson asked Kristen Waggoner, Smith’s lawyer, “why isn’t your argument that they should be able to do that?”

    Waggoner finally said that there are “difficult lines to draw” and said that the Santa hypothetical might be an “edge case.”

    That drew incredulity on the part of liberal Justice Elena Kagan.

    “It may be an ‘edge case’ meaning it could fall on either side, you’re not sure?” she asked.

    Jackson returned to her query later and expanded it. She said her hypothetical photographer is doing something akin to the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” and wants it to be “authentic” so that only White children could be customers.

    Waggoner suggested that in the case at hand the “message wins,” but never really explained what she meant.

    Artist explains why she thinks she shouldn’t have to work with same-sex couples

    When a lawyer for Colorado stood up to defend the state’s anti-discrimination law, Justice Samuel Alito chimed in.

    He wanted to know if a Black Santa at the other end of the mall doesn’t want to have his picture taken with a child who’s dressed up in a Ku Klux Klan outfit whether the Black Santa has to do it?

    Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson replied that there is no law that protects a right to wear a KKK outfit.

    That spurred Kagan to jump in, noting that objection would be based on the outfit, not whether it was worn by a Black or a White child.

    Alito then uttered an extremely awkward aside that could have been an attempted joke gone astray. “You do see a lot of Black children in Ku Klux Klan outfits, right? All the time.”

    At another point in arguments Alito was posing a set of hypotheticals and again engaged Kagan – his seat mate – as he searched for how the case at hand could impact other cases.

    He was referring to a “friend-of-the-court” brief filed by lawyer Josh Blackman on behalf of the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty in support of Smith. The aim of the brief is to discuss problematic situations for Jewish artisans who object to speaking out about certain topics. A series of hypotheticals was included to show instances in which a Jewish artist would be compelled to betray his conscience.

    “An unmarried Jewish person asks a Jewish photographer to take a photograph for his JDate dating profile,” Alito began, referring to a hypothetical in the brief.

    He paused. “It’s a dating service, I gather, for Jewish people,” Alito said.

    Kagan, who is Jewish, chimed in to laughter, “It is.”

    Alito decided to plow awkwardly forward with another hypothetical from Blackman’s brief .

    “All right. Maybe Justice Kagan will also be familiar with the next website I’m going to mention,” he said. “A Jewish person asks a Jewish photographer to take a photograph for his Ashleymadison.com dating profile.”

    The audience laughed as Ashleymadison.com appears to refer to an online dating service and social networking services marketed to people who are married or already in relationships.

    It was another awkward moment with Alito adding: “I’m not suggesting that – she knows a lot of things. I’m not suggesting – okay … Does he have to do it?”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Arkansas GOP governor says Trump’s meeting with Holocaust denier is ‘very troubling’ and ’empowering’ for extremism | CNN Politics

    Arkansas GOP governor says Trump’s meeting with Holocaust denier is ‘very troubling’ and ’empowering’ for extremism | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump’s meeting last week with White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes was “very troubling” and “empowering” for extremism, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Sunday.

    “No, I don’t think it’s a good idea for a leader that’s setting an example for the country or the party to meet with (an) avowed racist or anti-Semite. And so it’s very troubling and it shouldn’t happen and we need to avoid those kind of empowering the extremes,” Hutchinson told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” “You want to diminish their strength, not empower them. Stay away from it.”

    Trump had dinner at his Mar-a-Lago estate last Tuesday with both Fuentes and rapper Kanye West, who himself became engulfed in controversy after repeating antisemitic conspiracy theories and making other offensive claims last month.

    The Anti-Defamation League has identified Fuentes as a White supremacist and he has been banned from most major social media platforms for his White nationalist rhetoric. Fuentes was present on the grounds of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and has promoted Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about fraud in the 2020 election. The House select committee investigating the events of January 6 issued a subpoena to Fuentes in January.

    Trump’s meeting with the two figures has drawn intense criticism in recent days, with Hutchinson saying on Sunday: “Well, I hope some day we won’t have to be responding to what former President Trump has said or done. In this instance it’s important to respond.”

    Hutchinson, a former US Attorney in Arkansas, is term-limited and leaving office in January. He’s currently mulling a 2024 White House bid, and he used Trump’s controversial meeting to note his own record on such issues, telling Bash, “the last time I met with a White supremacist it was in an armed standoff. I had a bulletproof vest on. We arrested them, prosecuted them and sent them to prison.”

    During last week’s dinner, Trump was engaged with Fuentes and found him “very interesting,” a source familiar with the dinner said, particularly Fuentes’ abilities to rattle off statistics and data, and his familiarity with Trump world. At one point during the dinner, Trump declared that he “liked” Fuentes.

    Trump acknowledged the dinner in a post on Truth Social Friday stating: “This past week, Kanye West called me to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Shortly thereafter, he unexpectedly showed up with three of his friends, whom I knew nothing about. We had dinner on Tuesday evening with many members present on the back patio. The dinner was quick and uneventful. They then left for the airport.”

    Trump repeated later Friday that he “didn’t know” Fuentes and had offered West business as well as political advice.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • 3 more men found guilty in Whitmer kidnapping plot | CNN Politics

    3 more men found guilty in Whitmer kidnapping plot | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    A jury in Michigan has found three men guilty of providing material support for a terrorist act and two other state charges related to the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

    Paul Bellar, Joseph Morrison and Pete Musico were also convicted of gang membership and felony possession of a firearm. Prosecutors alleged the men “engaged in the planning and training for an operation to attack the state Capitol building and kidnap government officials, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.” Providing material support is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

    In August, a federal jury found two men guilty of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer, a Democrat, in 2020.

    Adam Fox and Barry Croft face a maximum sentence of life in prison for the kidnapping conspiracy conviction. They were also convicted of one count of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. Their first trial ended in a mistrial.

    A sentencing date for the three men has been set for December 15.

    This story is breaking and will be updated.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Proud Boys member is first to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy | CNN Politics

    Proud Boys member is first to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Jeremy Bertino, a top lieutenant to Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy in federal court on Thursday, and is cooperating with the Justice Department’s investigation into the far-right extremist group.

    Bertino, 43, also pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. He is the first member of the Proud Boys to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy – a major boost to the historic prosecution of the organization.

    He could spend more than five years in prison, according to his plea agreement, which was read aloud in court, though prosecutors could ask a judge for a lesser sentence depending on his level of cooperation with the investigation.

    The judge did not set a sentencing date. Bertino’s next hearing is scheduled for February 2023. Bertino will not be held in jail. He will not be able to have a passport or firearms, and will not be able to return to Washington unless it is to meet with prosecutors or participate in court proceedings.

    Bertino was listed in previous indictments as “PERSON-1,” but has not publicly faced charges. He is not alleged to have been in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021. Prosecutors have previously outlined his involvement in Proud Boys leadership and extensive planning meetings and chats.

    Even though he was not present for the Capitol riot, Bertino could provide crucial testimony for prosecutors in the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial, which is set to begin in December of this year.

    According to the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy indictment, Bertino was in a number of encrypted group chats meant to plan for January 6. The groups, including the main “Boots on Ground” channel, included all of the Proud Boys sedition defendants – Tarrio, Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl. They have pleaded not guilty.

    Bertino posted instructions for January 6 in the chats, prosecutors say, telling Proud Boys where to meet and to not wear the usual Proud Boys colors, though he ultimately did not travel to Washington because he was recovering from a stab injury from a previous DC rally.

    After 1 p.m. on January 6, Bertino, along with another member of the group posted messages in a Proud Boys chat to “Push inside! Find some eggs and rotten tomatoes!” and asking if “they deploy the mace yet,” according to the indictment.

    Bertino posted publicly to rioters, writing “DO NOT GO HOME. WE ARE ON THE CUSP OF SAVING THE CONSTITUTION.”

    Bertino also texted Tarrio on the evening of January 6, saying: “Brother. You know we made this happen” and “I’m so proud of my country today,” according to the indictment. “I know,” Tarrio allegedly replied.

    According to prosecutors, Bertino later replied “1776 motherf*****s” to Tarrio, adding later “Dude. Did we just influence history?”

    “They HAVE to certify today!” Bertino allegedly texted. “Or it’s invalid.”

    The same day Tarrio was arrested in March 2022, investigators executed a search warrant at Bertino’s house, according to court documents. Agents found six firearms, including an AR-15 rifle with a scope, and more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition, prosecutors said. Bertino had previously been convicted of a felony and was not allowed to own a firearm.

    Bertino previously testified to the House select committee investigating January 6, and a clip of his testimony was played at a public hearing in June.

    The committee used a clip from Bertino’s deposition to show how former President Donald Trump’s call for the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during a 2020 presidential debate when asked if he was willing to condemn White supremacists and militia groups in turn energized individuals from the Proud Boys and other extremist groups.

    When asked if the membership to the Proud Boys increased after Trump’s “stand back and stand by” comment, Bertino testified, “Exponentially. I’d say tripled probably. With a potential for a lot more probably.”

    He also may be eligible for witness protection, according to his plea agreement.

    CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the year of Enrique Tarrio’s arrest and the search of Jeremy Bertino’s residence. The events took place in March 2022. This story has also been updated with additional details.

    Jan. 6: Proud Boys, Oath Keepers

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

    Tudor Dixon seeks a culture war in campaign against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Tudor Dixon, the Republican taking on Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in November’s midterm election, is turning to tactics that have worked for other Republican winners in competitive governor’s races as she seeks to turn the race into a cultural battle over education, transgender athletes and more.

    But her clash with a well-funded Democratic incumbent governor – one taking place in a state where a referendum that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution has emerged as a dominant issue – is showcasing the limits of those efforts at cultural appeals to the moderate, suburban voters who could decide the race’s outcome.

    National Republicans have largely abandoned Dixon in the race’s closing weeks, leaving her outspent and floundering in one of the nation’s most important swing states.

    Dixon sought to change the race’s trajectory on Saturday when former President Donald Trump traveled to Michigan for a rally in Warren with Dixon and other GOP candidates, including Matthew DePerno, who is challenging Attorney General Dana Nessel, and Kristina Karamo, who is taking on Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Dixon, DePerno and Karamo have all parroted Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

    Trump called Whitmer “one of the most radical, most sinister governors in America,” criticizing her support for abortion rights and Michigan’s pandemic-related lockdowns.

    The former President, echoing Dixon’s focus on cultural issues and education, called Dixon “a national leader in the battle to protect our children by getting race and gender ideology out of the classroom.”

    Trump’s attack on Whitmer as “sinister” is the latest in a series of rhetorical escalations by the former President. On Friday, he said on his social media website Truth Social that the top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, had a “death wish” after Congress approved stopgap funding to avert a government shutdown.

    Dixon, meanwhile, spoke twice Saturday – once before Trump, and again when Trump invited her on stage. As she lambasted Whitmer, the crowd repeated a familiar Trump rally chant, this time directed at Whitmer rather than 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: “Lock her up.”

    “We’re not going to let our kids be radicalized. We’re not going to let our kids be sexualized. We’re not going to let our law enforcement be demonized. We’re not going to tell our businesses they can’t expand,” Dixon said.

    Dixon, a conservative commentator and first-time candidate, emerged from a crowded primary after receiving the financial support of former Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos’ family. The Michigan GOP megadonors funded a super PAC bolstering Dixon’s campaign. And Trump waded into the race in the closing days of the primary with a Dixon endorsement that came after a handwritten letter from DeVos urged him to back Dixon, as reported by The New York Times.

    “The Dixon campaign is seeking to get its name ID up and MAGA base fully engaged to close the polling gap and that is what they hope to gain from a Trump rally in Macomb County,” said John Sellek, a Republican public relations adviser and head of Harbor Strategic Public Affairs in Lansing.

    However, she has struggled to raise money and gain traction since her August primary victory.

    Democrats on Saturday said Dixon’s comments at the Trump rally were an effort to distract from issues on which her positions are unpopular – particularly abortion rights.

    “Tonight, Michiganders saw a schoolyard bully on stage – not a leader,” Michigan Democratic Party chairwoman Lavora Barnes said in a statement. “Tudor Dixon hurled insults and rattled off a litany of grievances because she knows that her dangerous agenda to ban abortion and throw nurses in jail, dismantle public education, and slash funding for law enforcement is out-of-step.

    “Michigan families deserve a real leader who will work with anyone to get things done, and Tudor Dixon has shown time and again she will continue to divide and pit people against each other if it means she and Betsy DeVos gain political power,” Barnes said.

    Whitmer’s campaign and her supporters have dwarfed Dixon in television advertising spending – and Dixon’s campaign is currently off the air in Michigan, underscoring the reality that major Republican donors have shifted their focus to other races they view as more winnable.

    Since the primary on August 2, Democrats have spent about $17.6 million on ads in the governor’s race, while Republicans have spent just $1.1 million, according to data from the firm AdImpact. And over the next month through election day, Democrats have $23.4 million booked while GOP has just $4.3 million booked.

    Early voting is already underway in Michigan. And in the governor’s race, Whitmer is widely viewed as the favorite by nonpartisan analysts. The race is rated as one that “tilts Democratic” by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales. The Cook Political Report and University of Virginia Center for Politics director Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate it as “likely Democratic.”

    “The battle has been fought on the Democrats’ terms with millions and millions of dollars, and there’s been essentially no effort to fight back,” Michigan-based Republican strategist John Yob said on the Michigan Information & Research Service Inc.’s “MIRS Monday” podcast this week. “On the Republican side, we’ve never faced this before. And, you know, it doesn’t look very good in terms of a way out unless some serious money gets on TV pretty quickly.”

    The most dominant issue in the governor’s race has been abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Michigan’s Republican-led legislature has refused to change a 1931 law that would prohibit abortion in nearly all instances. Whitmer and other pro-abortion rights groups sued to block that law. And a Democratic-backed referendum that would amend Michigan’s constitution to guarantee abortion rights is on November’s ballot in the state.

    Dixon, who opposes abortion except when necessary to protect the life of the mother, has struggled to redirect the race’s focus.

    “You can vote for Gretchen Whitmer’s position without having to vote for Gretchen Whitmer again,” she told reporters last week, explaining that voters could support the referendum but oppose the incumbent governor.

    In an effort to shift the contest’s focus, Dixon’s campaign has borrowed tactics from Republican governors who have won in battleground states in recent years.

    For months, she has focused on parental control of schools’ curriculum, as well as school choice. It’s a message built on that of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican whose 2021 victory was an early harbinger of a potentially favorable political landscape for the GOP in this year’s midterm elections.

    “That’s why Gov. Youngkin’s message resonated,” Dixon said in an August interview on Fox News alongside Youngkin, who was campaigning in Michigan.

    “He said, ‘I’m listening to you. I want parents involved. And I’m going to bring you back into the schools,’” Dixon said. “That’s what people want to hear right now.”

    In her latest move to redefine the race, Dixon this week proposed two policies aimed at the LGBTQ community and schools.

    In Lansing on Tuesday, Dixon proposed a policy modeled after the controversial measure Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law earlier this year that critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

    “This act will require school districts to ensure that their schools do not provide classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in grades K through three, or in any manner that has not age- or developmentally appropriate,” Dixon told reporters, blasting what she called “radical sex and gender instruction.”

    Florida’s HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education bill, passed earlier this year effectively bans teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms for young students. LGBTQ advocates say the measure has led to further stigmatization of gay, lesbian and transgender children, causing more bullying and suicides within an already marginalized community.

    Then, on Wednesday in Grand Rapids, she unveiled her proposal for a “Women’s Sports Fairness Act,” which would ban transgender girls from competing in sports with the gender they identify with.

    “As a mother of four girls, nothing infuriates me more than the prospect of my daughters losing their friends and their teammates, losing opportunities in sports or otherwise, because some radically progressive politicians decided one day that they should have to compete against biological men,” she said. “Gretchen Whitmer has embraced the trans-supremacist ideology, which dictates that individuals who are born as men can be allowed to compete against our daughters.”

    Whitmer’s campaign has largely ignored Dixon’s proposals, and did not respond to a request for comment on them. Instead, Whitmer has in recent days emphasized her economic message and her support for abortion rights.

    Whitmer is leaning into policies enacted by Democrats in Washington in recent months, including the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in August.

    Whitmer in September signed an executive directive capping insulin costs at $35 per month and out-of-pocket costs at $2,000 a year for Medicare recipients.

    And last week, Whitmer announced that student loan borrowers will not be taxed on the debt relief that Biden had ordered.

    What has dominated media coverage of the race in recent days, though, are a series of jokes Dixon has made about the 2020 kidnapping plot against Whitmer.

    A federal jury in August convicted two men of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer at her vacation home in 2020. They were also convicted of one count of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction after prosecutors detailed their plans to blow up a bridge to prevent police from responding to the kidnapping of the governor. The men now face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

    “The sad thing is that Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you’re ready to talk,” Dixon said at an event last week in Troy alongside Kellyanne Conway, a former Trump White House aide. “For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.”

    After her comment drew backlash, Dixon joked again about the kidnapping plot at a second event Friday, this time with Donald Trump Jr., the son of the former President.

    She told a crowd that, at a stop with President Joe Biden at the Detroit Auto Show last week, Whitmer looked like she’d “rather be kidnapped by the FBI.”

    “Yeah, the media is like, ‘Oh my gosh, she did it again,’” Dixon said, anticipating the reaction to her second reference of the day to the 2020 kidnapping plot.

    As she told the crowd that her earlier remarks about the plot to kidnap Whitmer had been characterized as a joke, Dixon said: “I’m like, ‘No, that wasn’t a joke.’ If you were afraid of that, you should know what it is to have your life ripped away from you.”

    Whitmer’s campaign and Democratic groups condemned Dixon’s remarks Friday.

    “Threats of violence and dangerous rhetoric undermine our democracy and discourage good people on both sides of the aisle at every level from entering public service,” Whitmer campaign spokesperson Maeve Coyle said in a statement.

    “Governor Whitmer has faced serious threats to her safety and her life, and she is grateful to the law enforcement and prosecutors for their tireless work,” Coyle said. “Threats of violence – whether to Governor Whitmer or to candidates and elected officials on the other side of the aisle – are no laughing matter, and the fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it’s a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • GOP congressional candidate Joe Kent’s ties to white nationalists include interview with Nazi sympathizer | CNN Politics

    GOP congressional candidate Joe Kent’s ties to white nationalists include interview with Nazi sympathizer | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Despite disavowing White nationalism last spring when one of its adherents endorsed him, a US House candidate in Washington subsequently gave a previously unreported interview in June to a Nazi sympathizer and White nationalist.

    While Republican Joe Kent touted his support for prominent far-right figures like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green and Paul Gosar and supported MAGA policies, he was speaking with Greyson Arnold, a Nazi sympathizer.

    Kent’s exchange with Arnold is all the more notable because just weeks later Kent’s campaign worked to distance him from Arnold after photos surfaced of the pair together. A Kent campaign strategist told the Associated Press in July that the campaign did not do background checks on those who took selfies with the candidate.

    Arnold has a well-documented history of making White nationalist, racist, antisemitic and pro-Nazi statements, including once calling Adolf Hitler “a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand.”

    In a statement to CNN, campaign spokesperson Matt Braynard said, “Joe Kent had no idea who that individual was when he encountered him on the street and Joe Kent has repeatedly condemned the statements that the individual is accused of making.”

    Braynard added that the campaign screens all interview requests and that Arnold approached Kent on the street by what he assumed was a local journalist. “None of the questions gave Joe any indications that the individual had any racist or antisemitic views and, if he had, Joe would have cancelled the interview immediately,” said Braynard.

    The campaign said that Arnold “is not in any way part of our campaign nor would we allow our campaign to be associated with someone who has that background. We also have no record of any contribution from that individual and if we had received one, we’d return it.”

    Kent, a former Green Beret and gold star spouse endorsed by former President Donald Trump, ran in this summer’s primary against Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, one of ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021.

    In August, Kent advanced to November’s general election against Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez under the state’s top-two primary system after edging out Beutler, who placed third. Inside Elections recently redesignated the race as more competitive, moving it from “Safe Republican” to “Likely Republican.”

    On a since-suspended Twitter account and active channel on Telegram called “Pure Politics,” Greyson, or “American Greyson” as he calls himself, has shared posts that called Nazi men the “pure race” and that the US should have sided with the Nazis during World War Two. Arnold has falsely claimed there were “Jewish plans to genocide the German people,” and in a post, he shared a quote that said the “Jewish led colored hordes of the Earth” were attempting to exterminate White people.

    Arnold was pictured in multiple photographs with Kent at a fundraiser in April and has been canvassing for Republican candidates with Washington State Young Republicans, with one recent photo showing Arnold in a Joe Kent shirt according to photos on their public Instagram.

    Speaking with Arnold, Kent praised Gosar’s stance on illegal and legal immigration in a friendly five-minute interview.

    “Paul Gosar has been excellent, obviously immigration – border state down there. He took me down to the border, so I got a firsthand feel of all the crises we face there,” said Kent. “Representative Gosar also has some awesome legislation he’s proposed about getting rid of a lot of the legal immigration.”

    Arnold was at the Capitol during the January 6, 2021, riot, posting a video of himself leaving the steps of the front of the building saying they were being “chased out by communists,” calling the riot “an American baptism,” as he said police were deploying tear gas. There is no indication he entered the building, and he has not been charged with any crime.

    While Kent has tried to shift his campaign rhetoric toward the center – including by removing calls to adjudicate the 2020 election from his website sometime between June and July – his campaign has been bogged down by associations with white nationalists and extremists, whom Kent has repeatedly had to distance himself from.

    Back in March 2022, Kent disavowed Nick Fuentes, a 24-year-old far-right white nationalist, after Fuentes endorsed Kent in the primary. Fuentes is the architect of the America First Political Action Conference, a white nationalist conference held annually that received intense backlash this year after Gosar appeared at the event and Greene attended it.

    Kent said at the time that he was unfamiliar with Fuentes despite a brief call with him in spring 2021 about the candidate’s social media strategy. In April 2021, Kent tweeted in defense of Fuentes after he was banned from Twitter.

    “Many are glad that their political rivals are targeted by the state & big tech, they hate Trump, @NickJFuentes & MAGA. This short side thinking has led to some of the greatest tragedies in human history. We must fight for all speech & fight the confluence of gov & big tech.”

    He later said he stood by his comments but reiterated he did not want Fuentes’ endorsement because of Fuentes’ “focus on race/religion.”

    Kent’s website also features an endorsement from Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers who was censured by the Republican-controlled Arizona senate after she gave a speech to the white nationalist conference calling for public hangings.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Proud Boys members ordered to pay over $1 million in ‘hateful and overtly racist’ church destruction civil suit | CNN Politics

    Proud Boys members ordered to pay over $1 million in ‘hateful and overtly racist’ church destruction civil suit | CNN Politics

    [ad_1]



    CNN
     — 

    Members of the right-wing extremist group, the Proud Boys, have been ordered to pay more than a million dollars as part of a civil suit judgment involving the destruction of property in December 2020 at the predominantly Black campus of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.

    DC Superior Court Judge Neal E. Kravitz approved Friday’s default judgment against Proud Boys members Joseph R. Biggs, Enrique Tarrio, Jeremy Bertino and John Turano, as well as the group’s limited liability corporation.

    In a blistering order, Kravitz described the “highly orchestrated” and “hateful and overtly racist conduct” from members of the Proud Boys during the “attack” on the Metropolitan AME church, in which a Black Lives Matter sign owned by the church was allegedly destroyed.

    CNN has reached out to attorneys for Tarrio and Biggs for comment on the judgment, and is attempting to locate attorney information for the other named defendants.

    A request for comment on the judgment has also been made to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.

    According to Kravitz’s order, on December 12, 2020, several people in Proud Boys regalia “leaped over Metropolitan AME’s fence, entered the church’s property, and went directly to the Black Lives Matter sign. They then broke the zip ties that held the sign in place, tore down the sign, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it while loudly celebrating. Many others then jumped over the fence onto the church’s property and joined in the celebration of the sign’s destruction.”

    Describing the target of the attack, Kravitz wrote, “For generations, the leaders of Metropolitan AME and the members of its congregation have vocally and publicly supported movements for civil rights and racial justice,” adding, “Church leaders and congregants view supporting the Black Lives Matter movement as a continuation of the church’s mission of advocacy for civil rights and racial justice.”

    In his rebuke of the Proud Boys, the judge wrote that the group has “incited and committed acts of violence against members of Black and African American communities across the country. They also have victimized women, Muslims, Jews, immigrants, and other historically marginalized people.”

    The church sought compensatory damages as part of the civil suit, in part to repair the sign and increase security in the wake of the attack and due to “ongoing threats,” the order said.

    “The ultimate goal of this lawsuit was not monetary windfall, but to stop the Proud Boys from being able to act with impunity, without fear of consequences for their actions,” the plaintiff’s co-counsel, Arthur Ago, said in a statement after the judgment. “And that’s exactly what we accomplished.”

    In July 2021, Tarrio, the group’s leader, pleaded guilty to property destruction in a criminal case involving the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner at a different, predominately Black church in Washington, and also pleaded guilty to attempted possession of a high-capacity magazine, a violation of local gun control laws. He was later sentenced to more than five months in jail for those crimes.

    In May, Tarrio and Biggs were also among a group of four Proud Boys members found guilty of seditious conspiracy by a jury in Washington for their roles in attempting to forcibly prevent the peaceful transfer of power from President Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

    This headline has been updated.

    [ad_2]

    Source link