Commentary: Feds Had Informants in Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for January 6

If Republicans eke out a win in the House of Representatives—which now seems likely—GOP leaders have promised to investigate numerous government scandals, including the irredeemably corrupt Federal Bureau of Investigation. One path of inquiry is how the bureau manufactures data to promote the phony narrative that “domestic violent extremists,” i.e., supporters of Donald Trump, pose a security threat to the country.

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FBI Had Up to Eight Informants in Proud Boys on January 6, Court Docs Show

The FBI had up to eight informants within the Proud Boys in the months surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, recent court filings suggest, according to The New York Times.

Defense attorneys for former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four members of the group, who are scheduled to stand trial in December for seditious conspiracy and other charges related to Jan. 6, filed court documents in the past several days revealing the informants’ presence in the Proud Boys’ ranks, the outlet reported. The defense contended that the prosecution had, until recently, improperly withheld some information the government received from the informants that was favorable to the accused.

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Commentary: The Democrats’ Insurrection Flop

If there is a poster child for the Democrats’ humiliating failure to make the events surrounding January 6, 2021 a winning issue in the midterm elections, it is U.S. Representative Elaine Luria (D-Va.).

The two-term congresswoman is fighting for her political life in a race now categorized as a toss-up; a recent poll showed Luria tied with Republican State Senator Jen Kiggans just a few weeks before an expected red wave election, despite Luria outspending Kiggans by a more than 2-1 margin. (Before the state’s remap process, Luria represented a district that voted for Joe Biden by 5 percentage points and Hillary Clinton by 6 percentage points. Her new district now has a 3-point Democratic advantage.)

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Commentary: Race-Baiting Celebrity January 6 Police Officer Once Involved in Race-Related Lawsuit

Michael Fanone, the former D.C. Metropolitan police officer using his presence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 as a pathway to fame and fortune, is on a major publicity blitz. Along with his Pulitzer-prize finalist co-author, Fanone managed to turn his 30-minute struggle that afternoon into a 256-page book: Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul is an “urgent warning about the growing threat to our democracy from a twenty-year police veteran and former Trump supporter who nearly lost his life during the insurrection of January 6th.

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Bannon Sentenced to Four Months in Prison for Contempt of Congress Conviction, $6,500 Fine

The sentencing of ex-Trump White House political adviser Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress concluded Friday morning with four-month imprisonment and a $6,500 fine.

The judge overseeing the case said that while Bannon poses a “very small risk of recidivism with regard to congressional subpoenas,” there must be a deterrence for others to commit “similar crimes,” NBC News reported.

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Commentary: The Tentacles of the Social Media Octopus

Washington DC

by Victor Davis Hanson   A shared theme in all dystopian explorations of future and current totalitarian regimes – whether China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba – is government control of all media information, fueled by electronic surveillance. A skeptical public learns to say one thing publicly but quite…

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Commentary: Dems Inexplicably Block Demand for FBI to Cough Up Ray Epps Documents

For those who do not know who Ray Epps is and why he matters—and this includes most Democrats and many journalists—U.S. Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) served up a handy reference guide last week. Gosar did this in the form of a resolution of inquiry (ROI) directing Attorney General Merrick Garland to hand over all documents relevant to the Epps case within 14 days. 

“Multiple videos show Ray Epps repeatedly urging crowds of people in Washington, D.C. on January 5 and January 6, 2021, to go to the United States Capitol and breach the building,“ Gosar explained. “Epps is the one person seen on video directing people towards the Capitol seconds before violence broke out, yet he has never been arrested or charged with any crime while more than 800 others have and countless more remained jailed.”

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Julie Kelly Commentary: Fair Trials Are Impossible for January 6 Defendants

Odds are jurors in Douglas Austin Jensen’s trial took longer to fill out the verdict forms than they took to decide his fate.

After only a few hours of deliberations on Friday, 12 residents of the nation’s capital found Jensen guilty on seven counts related to his involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. Jensen, an alleged QAnon follower, infamously confronted Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman inside the building that afternoon; he potentially faces decades in prison for convictions on impeding law enforcement officers and obstruction of an official proceeding, a dubious nonviolent felony punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

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Commentary: Democrats Continue to Lie About Police Deaths on January 6

United States Representative Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) is a sterling example of the degradation of an Ivy League education.

Following a lengthy riff about the horrors of the January 6 “insurrection” during which he described his Republican colleagues as fascists, Jones, a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard School of Law, unloaded a whopper. 

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TikTok Lawyer Says Left-Wing Nonprofit Offered Him $400 to Post Propaganda About Trump and January 6

An attorney with a popular TikTok account has exposed a corrupt left-wing influence operation that pays social media personalities to post disinformation about former president Donald Trump and January 6.

Atlanta-based attorney Preston Moore claimed on Saturday that he was offered $400 by the nonprofit “Good Information Foundation” to post manipulative “propaganda” ahead of the 2022 mid term elections.

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Commentary: The Unidentified and Uncharged Instigator in the Oath Keepers Case

The long-awaited trial of the most high-profile January 6 case will begin later this month. Five members of the Oath Keepers, an alleged “militia” group involved in the Capitol protest, face charges of seditious conspiracy and other serious felonies. It is the first trial in a multi-defendant prosecution that has dominated the attention of the Department of Justice, the January 6 select committee, and the national news media.

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Commentary: The Regime’s ‘Operation MAGA Fascist’ Gains Ground

After nearly two years of lies related to the events of January 6, 2021, the regime finally has admitted the truth: The widening legal dragnet to scoop up Donald Trump, his associates, and his voters has nothing to do with the four-hour disturbance on Capitol Hill that afternoon. It is, rather, a thus-far successful crusade to criminalize wrongthink about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

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January 6 Committee Investigates Newt Gingrich for Allegedly Attempting to Overturn 2020 Election

The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is trying to probe former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, reportedly finding he was involved in efforts to overturn 2020 election results, according to The Hill.

A committee member said Gingrich seems to have participated in an effort by various allies of former President Donald Trump to establish fake electors in states Trump claimed to have won, the outlet reported. Committee chair Bennie Thompson’s recent letter requesting Gingrich’s “voluntary cooperation” indicated he communicated with Trump advisors like Jared Kushner, Mark Meadows and Jason Miller about election outcome reversal tactics.

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Julie Kelly Commentary: It’s Inevitable, Trump Will Be Indicted

A few days after federal agents stormed Donald Trump’s castle in Palm Beach last week, Judge Beryl Howell berated a man from Georgia for his involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021.

“Listening without question to political rhetoric that leads to serious offenses, criminal conduct, is not an excuse when you’re standing in a court of law,” Howell told Glen Simon, a Trump supporter who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct on restricted grounds. “You’ve got to use your common sense and your own sense of who you are and how you’d like to conduct yourself as an American citizen before just blindly doing what a political figure says.”

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Commentary: Adam Schiff Is Hiding Something

Jeffrey Rosen had a secret on January 6, 2021.

The then-acting attorney general—Rosen was appointed on December 24, 2020 to replace departing Attorney General William Barr—had assembled a team of elite and highly skilled government agents at Quantico, a nexus point between the FBI and U.S. military, the weekend before Congress met to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election. At the same time he was rejecting President Donald Trump’s last-minute appeals to investigate election fraud, Rosen was managing a hush-hush operation in advance of planned rallies and protests in Washington on January 6.

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Feds Raid the Home of Former Trump DOJ Official Who Wanted to Investigate Allegations of Voter Fraud

In a pre-dawn raid Wednesday, armed federal law enforcement agents searched the home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Trump Justice Department official who has emerged as a central figure in the partisan House Select Committee’s investigation into the January 6 riot.

Clark’s name was expected to come up in the Jan. 6 Committee hearing on Thursday.

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Commentary: Justice for J16

An already overworked grand jury in Washington, D.C., presumably will be very busy in the days to come.

For nearly 18 months, at the behest of Joe Biden’s Justice Department, grand juries in the nation’s capital have issued a nonstop flood of criminal indictments against Americans who protested Joe Biden’s election on January 6, 2021; hundreds of people who peacefully entered the building as police stood by face serious felony charges punishable by decades in prison. Even those accused of low-level misdemeanors such as “parading” in the Capitol have been sentenced to months in jail.

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Commentary: Justice Department Colludes with Congress to Bolster the ‘Insurrection’ Narrative

This week produced yet another example of the shameless collaboration between the U.S. Department of Justice, the Democratic Party, and the national news media to destroy Donald Trump and everyone around him. The ink was barely dry on the not guilty verdict for Michael Sussmann, just one of many figures who acted as a pass-through between Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the FBI to manufacture the Russia collusion hoax, before the same players were up to their old tricks.

Members of the January 6 select committee blanketed the Sunday news programs last weekend promising bombshell revelations would shake the nation during a primetime hearing Thursday night. Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told CBS News’ Robert Costa the committee would present findings to show an “extremely broad . . . extremely well-organized” conspiracy to overthrow the government that day. What the committee uncovered related to the alleged conspiracy, Cheney warned, is “really chilling.’

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Peter Navarro Commentary: An Illegitimate Court Gets Ready to Convene

As the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack prepares to stage a show trial of Donald Trump on Capitol Hill this week, I have filed a lawsuit challenging the Select Committee’s gross violations of the Constitution’s separation of powers.

Yes, congressional committees do have the power to investigate. Yet, they can only do so in pursuit of a “legislative function,” e.g., to enact new rules, regulations, or policies.

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Commentary: Clinton’s Plot Came Closer to Succeeding than January 6 Ever Did

Kevin Clinesmith must feel like an idiot for pleading guilty without a trial after a D.C.-area jury acquitted Clinton co-conspirator Michael Sussman for his role in the plot to frame Donald Trump for colluding with the Russians, supposedly to steal the 2016 election. Sussman’s D.C.-based jury which featured partisan Democrat donors rendered a quick “not-guilty” verdict. While the Left undoubtedly sees the acquittal as another “lawfare” victory against the bad orange man, that victory did not come without cost to its enabling allies. 

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Commentary: McConnell’s ‘Exhilarating’ Insurrection

A dirty little secret about January 6—one of many—is that Democrats and establishment Republicans, not Trump supporters, wanted to shut down the official proceedings of that day.

Just as the first wave of protesters breached the building shortly after 2 p.m., congressional Republicans were poised to present evidence of rampant voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Ten incumbent and four newly-elected Republican senators planned to work with their House colleagues to demand the formation of an audit commission to investigate election “irregularities” in the 2020 election. Absent an audit, the group of senators, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pledged to reject the Electoral College results from the disputed states.

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Commentary: Another January 6 Narrative Goes Boom

Large group of people storming Washington D.C. in protest on January 6.

How does a mob “illegally storm” the Capitol building when police let them in? That is the latest narrative-shifting question the media wants desperately to avoid after a federal judge on Wednesday found a January 6 defendant not guilty for his conduct during the protest at the Capitol that day. 

Matthew Martin was arrested in Santa Fe, New Mexico on April 22, 2021; he later was charged with the four most common misdemeanors related to the Justice Department’s prosecution of Capitol protesters: entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct, violent entry, and parading in the Capitol building.

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Judge Acquits January 6 Protester in First Defeat for DOJ

D.C. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden today delivered a major blow to the Justice Department’s aggressive prosecution of January 6 protesters. Following a bench trial this week for Matthew Martin, a New Mexico man charged with the most common misdemeanors related to the Capitol protest, McFadden found Martin not guilty on all counts. It is the first acquittal in a January 6 case; nearly 800 Americans have been arrested and charged, mostly on petty offenses, for their involvement in the four-hour disturbance that day.

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Donald Trump Vindicated as Yet Another ‘Blue Anon’ Conspiracy Theory Bites the Dust

Corporate media outlets on Friday were forced to walk back their breathless reporting on former President Donald Trump’s “missing” January 6 phone records, as an official review of the White House switchboard records showed nothing out of order.

Earlier this week, it appeared that the “Teflon Don’s” luck had run out, and the walls were finally closing in. The Democrat’s January 6 committee had discovered a 7 1/2 hour gap in President Trump’s White House phone records on that day—which allegedly meant he was using burner phones to activate his plot to make “all hell break loose” on Capitol Hill and overthrow the 2020 election.

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Commentary: GOP Must Promise Inquisitions, Not Meaningless Task Forces

Ginni Thomas and Mark Meadows

Using the pretext of the so-called insurrection on January 6, 2021, the long knives are out for Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Post-election text exchanges between Mrs. Thomas and Mark Meadows, President Trump’s chief-of-staff, recently were leaked by the January 6 select committee to none other than the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, who darkly described the communications as proof that “Ginni Thomas used her access to Trump’s inner circle to promote and seek to guide the president’s strategy to overturn the election result.”

The small cache of texts—29 total—shows Thomas expressing frustration at the election’s outcome. There is nothing sinister, and certainly nothing criminal, about the messages.

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Commentary: The Next Jan. 6 Trial Might Expose Another Justice Department Lie

empty courtroom

Federal prosecutors last week scored a big victory after a Washington, D.C., jury took less than three hours to find Guy Reffitt, the first January 6 defendant to stand trial, guilty on all counts.

The Justice Department’s winning streak might be short-lived, however. Prosecutors will have a tougher task with the trial starting Monday for Couy Griffin, the “Cowboys for Trump” leader arrested for his minor and nonviolent involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6.

Griffin was the subject of my very first article over a year ago on the Justice Department’s abusive prosecution of January 6 protesters in which, coincidentally, I asked the rhetorical question, “Where is the outrage over America’s political prisoners?” as official Washington was in a tizzy over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s imprisonment of his country’s star dissident.

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Commentary: Election Overseer Found Democratic National Committee, Chalupa Broke Rules over Ukraine, Then Reversed Its Finding After January 6

Though ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was never charged with conspiring with Russia, he did go to jail for, among other things, failing to register as a foreign agent for Ukraine. The Democratic National Committee operative who helped get him booted from the campaign should be investigated for the same violation, Republican Senators say.

Former DNC contractor and opposition researcher Alexandra “Ali” Chalupa not only worked closely with the Ukrainian Embassy and Clinton campaign, trading dirt on Manafort and Trump, but also Congress and the Obama White House, State Department and even the FBI. “At the center of the [Ukraine foreign influence] plan was Alexandra Chalupa,” GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee has asserted.

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Commentary: The Suicide of a January 6 Defendant; ‘They Broke Him’

Close up of Capitol with Trump and America flag in the wind

Matthew Perna did nothing wrong on January 6, 2021.

The Pennsylvania man walked through an open door on the Senate side of the building shortly before 3 p.m. that afternoon. Capitol police, shown in surveillance video, stood by as hundreds of Americans entered the Capitol. Wearing a “Make America Great Again” sweatshirt, Perna, 37, left after about 20 minutes.

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Commentary: The January 6 Pipe Bombs Look Like Another FBI Hoax

In the 15-minute time span before the joint session of Congress convened at 1:00 p.m. on January 6, 2021, two incidents that set the stage for the day’s ensuing chaos happened simultaneously.

First, a man named Ryan Samsel, after taking some sort of direction from Ray Epps, overran a thin line of police and metal racks in what would be the first official breach of Capitol grounds around 12:50 p.m. (Samsel was charged and has been incarcerated for more than a year; Epps faces no charges.) Joining Samsel were members of the Proud Boys and a still-unknown number of FBI informants.

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Federal Judge Blasts DOJ for False Account of Kamala Harris’ Whereabouts on January 6

A D.C. District Court judge overseeing numerous Capitol protest cases today accused the Justice Department of repeatedly falsifying the location of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris during the afternoon of January 6, 2021.

Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, openly doubted the validity of trespassing charges against Nicholas Rodean, indicted last March on several counts for his participation in the protest on Capitol Hill.

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Commentary: No Shot at a Fair Trial for January 6 Defendants in the Swamp

Large group of people storming Washington D.C. in protest on January 6.

The first set of trials for the hundreds of protesters charged in the Justice Department’s sweeping criminal investigation into January 6 begins later this month. Since the Capitol building is considered the scene of the crime, every trial will be held in the District of Columbia—which means the jury pool will be composed solely of residents living in the nation’s capital.

To say this is a problem for Trump supporters facing even minor charges is a huge understatement.

January 6 defendants already have suffered the wrath of D.C.-based federal judges who’ve imposed unusually harsh prison sentences for low level misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies while routinely berating defendants from the bench.

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RNC Formally Censures Cheney, Kinzinger over Trump Criticism, January 6 Committee Participation

The Republican National Committee (RNC) officially voted Friday to censure Republican Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for their continued criticism of former President Donald Trump and their participation in the Jan. 6 select committee investigating the Capitol riot.

The resolution passed during the RNC’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, and it passed unanimously.

The resolution alleged that the roles of Cheney and Kinzinger on the committee amounted to “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” It also said that as a result, the RNC would “immediately cease any and all support of them as members of the Republican Party,” calling their actions “destructive” to the House of Representatives and the country.

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January 6 Committee Asks Ivanka Trump to Voluntarily Cooperate in Probe

The House Jan. 6 select committee is asking former President Trump’s daughter and senior Trump White House adviser Ivanka Trump to voluntary cooperate with its probe, committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson said Thursday.

The committee announced its plans in a statement following remarks from Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, according to CNN.

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Commentary: More Trouble for the FBI in the Whitmer Kidnapping Case

Gretchen Whitmer

The media went wild last week after Joe Biden’s Justice Department finally produced a criminal indictment to support the claim that January 6 was an “insurrection” planned by militiamen loyal to Donald Trump: Eleven members of the Oath Keepers, including its founder, Stewart Rhodes, face the rarely used charge of seditious conspiracy for their brief and nonviolent involvement at the Capitol protest that day.

Journalists luxuriated in the news, jeering those of us who had correctly noted that the Justice Department had failed to charge anyone with insurrection or sedition for more than a year.

But the press does not share the same zeal in covering another politically charged investigation: the imploding criminal case against five men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. The kidnapping narrative shares many similarities with their preferred telling of January 6, not the least of which is that alleged militias incited by Trump attempted to carry out a domestic terror attack.

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Commentary: Conspiracies as Realities, Realities as Conspiracies

American politics over the last half decade has become immersed in a series of conspiracy charges leveled by Democrats against their opponents that, in fact, are happening because of them and through them. The consequences of these conspiracies becoming reality and reality revealing itself as conspiracy have been costly to American prestige, honor, and security. As we move away from denouncing realists as conspiracists, and self-pronounced “realists” are revealed as the true conspirators, let’s review a few of the more damaging of these events.

Russians on the Brain

Consider that the Trump election of 2016, the transition, and the first two years of the Trump presidency were undermined by a media-progressive generated hoax of “Russian collusion.”

The “bombshell” and “walls are closing in” mythologies dominated the network news and cable outlets. It took five years to expose them as rank agit-prop.

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Rep. Davis Blasts Pelosi for Refusing to Release January 6 Evidence

The top Republican on the House committee that oversees U.S. Capitol security is blasting Speaker Nancy Pelosi for refusing to release key evidence showing the security planning prior to the Jan. 6 riots and is warning that the police force that protects lawmakers has not reformed itself enough to avoid another tragedy.

“We know there were intelligence analysis failures at the Capitol Police,” Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) told the John Solomon Reports podcast during an interview Thursday on the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riots. And frankly, John, I don’t think those have been corrected yet.

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Commentary: Democrats Are the Real Insurrectionists

Recently, Democrats have been despondent over Joe Biden’s sinking polls. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support. 

As a result, the Left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when they expect to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when they fear losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup. 

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Trump Fires Back at Biden Blaming Him for January 6

Former President Trump on Thursday responded to President Biden holding him responsible for incidents exactly one year earlier during the Jan. 6 riot.

“Biden is working hard to try and deflect the incompetent job he is doing, and has done, on the horrible Afghanistan withdrawal (surrender), the Borders, COVID, Inflation, loss of Energy Independence, and much more,” Trump said in an email from his Save America PAC. “Everything he touches turns to failure.”

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Minnesota Democratic Legislators Make Statements on One Year Anniversary of January 6

Several Minnesota Democrat legislators made statements on the one year anniversary of January 6, 2021, where several protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building during the certification of the 2020 presidential election. All the remarks held a common theme, calling out the event as “insurrection” and an “attack on democracy.”

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Commentary: Democrats Are Making a Mistake Focusing on January 6

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats seem happy with their totally partisan Select Committee on Jan. 6. They will have activities this week including speeches by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the Capitol.

Let me be clear: Those who broke into the Capitol, attacked police, and threatened members of Congress last year should be tried and brought strictly to justice. Further, Congress should seriously investigate what happened and how we can prevent it from ever happening again. But that’s not what is happening on Capitol Hill this week.

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Commentary: Democrats Gin Up January 6 Hysteria to Pass Election Rigging Bill

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, Democrat leaders in Congress are ginning up hysteria in order to pass a bill that would transform our elections and give Democrats permanent majorities in all three branches of government. In addition, Democrats’ faux outrage deflects from the root causes of the breach which include four years of multiple attempts by Democrats to overturn the 2016 election results, loose election laws, and lax Capitol security.

But to pass their election rigging bill, Democrats first need to eliminate the Senate filibuster. That would allow them to pass the bill with only a simple majority of votes and not the 60 votes needed to overcome a presumed Republican filibuster.

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Attorney Says January 6 Detainee Being Denied Proper Diet, Medical Care

According to a Tuesday report, a defendant from the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol who is being held in a Virginia jail is being denied medical care, and the special diet he needs due to an autoimmune disease. 

According to his attorney Joseph McBride, Jan. 6 participant Christopher Quaglin, charged with assaulting police officers, has lost 20 pounds at Northern Neck Regional Jail. 

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Commentary: The DOJ’s Whitmer ‘Kidnapping’ Case Faces Uncertain Future

Gretchen Whitmer

The U.S. Department of Justice received an unwelcome Christmas gift from defense attorneys representing five men charged with conspiring to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020: a motion to dismiss the case.

The Christmas Day filing is the latest blow to the government’s scandal-ridden prosecution; defense counsel is building a convincing argument that the FBI used undercover agents and informants to entrap their clients in a wide-ranging scheme that resulted in bad press for Donald Trump as early voting was underway in the key swing state last year. What began as random social media chatter to oppose lockdown policies quickly morphed into a dangerous plan to abduct Whitmer as soon as the FBI took over.

A Michigan judge delayed the trial, now set for March 8, so defense attorneys could investigate the misconduct of FBI special agents handling at least a dozen government informants involved in the caper.

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