The pardon request submitted by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) contains language that could be used to prove corrupt intent in a criminal proceeding.
The Alabama Republican sought a pardon from Donald Trump in a Jan. 11, 2021, email obtained by the Guardian that shows his request for all-purpose, preemptive pardons for lawmakers who objected to the certification of Joe Biden's election win just hours after the insurrection.
At least a half dozen Republican lawmakers asked for pardons immediately after the Capitol riot after Trump “hinted at a blanket pardon for the Jan. 6 thing for anybody,” according to testimony from former White House presidential personnel director John McEntee.
Brooks refers to a Texas lawsuit that put pressure on vice president Mike Pence to halt or stop certification, which the select committee has argued violated the Electoral Count Act of 1887, and to objections filed in Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Objections filed in those two states came after the Capitol attack, and when viewed alongside efforts by Trump attorney to push senators to continue objecting to Biden's certification suggests additional corrupt intent.
A grocery store worker smacked Rudy Giuliani while he was shopping.
The former New York City mayor and Donald Trump campaign lawyer was at a ShopRite on Staten Island shortly before 3:30 p.m. when an employee approached and struck him in the face, reported the New York Post.
“I was shoulder-to-shoulder with Rudy inside ShopRite,” said witness Rita Rugova-Johnson. “We’re talking, and all of a sudden an employee came out of nowhere and open-handedly slapped him in the back and said, ‘Hey, what’s up scumbag?’
“[The attacker] was on duty at the time,” Rugova-Johnson added. “The cops arrested him.”
The 39-year-old suspect, whose name was not released, was charged with second-degree assault involving a person over age 65, law-enforcement sources said.
The State Island man had no prior arrests.
Giuliani was campaigning for his son Andrew, who is running for New York governor.
Edit: An earlier version of this story erroneously reported the worker had slapped Giuliani in the face, not on the back.
Newly revealed video shows Proud Boys leaders calling on members to remain orderly and professional during the Jan. 6, 2021, march that turned into the U.S. Capitol riot.
Enrique Tarrio and some of his top lieutenants met Dec. 30, 2020, for a video conference to found the right-wing paramilitary group's Ministry of Self-Defense, and they told group members to remain in a defensive posture for their march the following week and keep "normies" away from them, but that's not what happened, reported the New York Times.
We’re never going to be the ones to cross the police barrier or cross something in order to get to somebody,” Tarrio said.
The extremist group's members played an aggressive and apparently coordinated role in breaking into the Capitol, and Tarrio and several other Proud Boys members have been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the deadly riot.
Proud Boys members also repeatedly instigated Donald Trump supporters around them in a tactic that members later described in private messages as “riling up the normies.”
The video conference has been mentioned in court papers but hasn't been widely seen, and the Times obtained a copy recently that had been seized from Tarrio's phone.
Proud Boys lawyers say the video recording shows the Ministry of Self-Defense was not "formed to plan a violent attack on the Capitol," as prosecutors allege, but shows the group was trying “to avoid the chaos and violence” from a Dec. 12, 2020, march in Washington, D.C., following a pro-Trump rally.
However, the video shows group members using flagrantly misogynistic, homophobic and antisemitic language and rarely mention the Capitol at all, and prosecutors say some of the Proud Boys in that meeting used violent language in private messages ahead of the riot.
“Time to stack those bodies in front of Capitol Hill," one of the members posted in a group chat that included other members of the ministry.
“What would they do if 1 million patriots stormed and took the capital building," said another member in the group. "Shoot into the crowd? I think not.”
