'Striking legal question': State court debates whether cops who rioted on Jan. 6 can hide

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'Striking legal question': State court debates whether cops who rioted on Jan. 6 can hide
Capitol rioters on Jan. 6, 2021. (Shutterstock)

Justices on the Washington Supreme Court must decide whether police officers who attended former President Donald Trump's Jan. 6 "Stop the Steal" rally have a right to anonymity, according to a new report.

Six Seattle Police department officers — two of them fired months after the historic Capitol riots in 2021— who attended the riots are at the heart of a new case covered Wednesday by Law & Crime's Brandi Buchman.

"A striking legal question came before justices," she writes. "Must their names — and those results — be revealed to the public?"

Per the report, married former officers Caitlin Everett and Alexander Everett were in the area where rioters were scaling the walls and local police scrambled to fend them off.

"The SPD police chief in 2021, Adrian Diaz, ordered all officers to come forward if they were at the Capitol or attended any related events so they could present themselves for formal scrutiny by the Office of Police Accountability, or OPA," writes Buchman.

"Diaz resoundingly declared it 'absurd' of the couple to suggest that the evidence [Office of Police Accountability] amassed did not show them trespassing directly in a zone where 'they should not be amidst what was already a violent, criminal riot.'"

"It does not appear that any criminal federal charges have been filed against the couple at this time," noted the report. "As for the four other officers, who are all currently on active duty, OPA investigators determined in a final report that three did not violate department policy while a fourth officer’s conduct was deemed inconclusive."

A former law student named Sam Sueoka made public records requests to reveal the officers' identities and more information about them, which prompted the officers to tell courts that they should have a constitutional right to keep that information private.

Lower courts ruled against them, but an appeals court found OPA should consider whether these requests violate the officers' rights — namely, because they were not charged with a crime, but the disclosure of their identities could cause people to associate them with the January 6 rioters, causing harm to their reputations.

A number of people who were arrested for involvement in the Jan. 6 attack are current or former law enforcement, including a former FBI special agent who called for Capitol Police to be killed.

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Conservative economist predicts Trump will spur 'massive money printing' and soaring costs

Economist Peter Schiff is warning that the federal government's yawning budget gap will be papered over with a flood of newly printed money, and that ordinary Americans will pay for it through prices that could eventually double.

The chief economist and global strategist at Euro Pacific Asset Management laid out the math in a post on Saturday. In May, he wrote, the government spent $628 billion while collecting just $335 billion in taxes, a shortfall so large that balancing the budget would require tax revenue to nearly double. Schiff does not believe that will happen, and his prediction for what comes instead is blunt. "Since that won't happen," he wrote, "massive money printing will cover the shortfall, sending consumer prices doubling instead."

In other words, Schiff is arguing that the administration faces a politically impossible choice and will take the path of least resistance. Rather than impose a tax increase steep enough to close the gap, which he later estimated at roughly 50 percent once seasonal revenue is accounted for, he expects the government to monetize the debt. The cost of that decision, in his telling, does not disappear. It simply shows up at the grocery store and the gas pump instead of on a tax bill.

The thread drew agreement from others who share Schiff's hard-money outlook.

Where Schiff went further than some observers was on the political fallout. When one user argued that doubling taxes was "virtually impossible" and would "absolutely cause massive unrest," recommending spending cuts instead, Schiff agreed the unrest is coming either way. "Yes, but they won't" cut spending, he replied, predicting that the government "will still get unrest, but they will blame it on inflation." The implication is that the administration will treat rising prices as an external force to be managed rather than the predictable result of its own fiscal choices.

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JD Vance 'humiliated' by Iranian negotiators in stunning spectacle: 'Never looked weaker'

The ongoing peace talks in Switzerland between American and Iranian officials got off Sunday to a rocky start, according to one Emirati political analyst who went on to describe the spectacle as nothing short of “humiliation” for Vice President JD Vance, who’s leading the U.S. delegation.

“This was humiliation. No one in modern history has made America wait and beg for negotiations. This was the moment JD Vance should have returned to Washington. The Islamic regime did this on purpose,” argued Emirati political analyst and author Amjad Taha in an analysis published on social media.

Taha flagged several key details from the meeting between the two delegations that made it, he argued, “easy for the world to draw its own conclusions” on “who looked confident and who looked desperate.” Chief among them was the U.S. delegation entering the venue “well before the Iranians,” according to Taha.

“In diplomacy, the side with leverage doesn't wait in the room,” Taha wrote. “You claim to be leading and winning, yet you arrived first. First mistake.”

Taha also flagged a telling moment from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghci, who Taha claimed “entered last and refused to shake hands,” a claim supported by reporting from the Iranian news outlet Tasnim News Agency.

Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of the progressive media organization MeidasTouch, reacted to Taha’s analysis with a bleak assessment of the United States’ global standing.

“The US has never looked smaller or weaker on the world stage,” Filipkowski wrote in a social media post on X to his more than 1 million followers.

Trump's 'unhinged' phone call to foreign leader leaves critics stunned: 'Brazenly illegal'

President Donald Trump's account of a phone call he says he had with Iranian officials, in which he reportedly threatened to wipe out their country, take over the Strait of Hormuz, and more, has set off a wave of disbelief, ridicule, and alarm across the political spectrum.

The threats were relayed by Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, who said he spoke with Trump for more than 20 minutes and came away with what he called "new insight" into the president's posture as nuclear talks opened in Switzerland. According to Yingst, Trump described what he told the Iranians about the strait in blunt terms. "You close it and you won't have a country," Trump said he warned them. "You won't even make it back to your f------ country." Yingst added that Trump said, "We may take over the Strait, if we have to."

The response from Trump's critics was immediate and caustic. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly in Trump's first term before becoming a frequent antagonist, summed up his reaction in three dry words. "Normal Presidential behavior," he wrote, sharing a MeidasTouch post that reported Trump had told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, after Pezeshkian said Iran would not give up enrichment, "He better watch his mouth ... or we will take over the rest of the country."

Journalist Aaron Rupar, who posted Yingst's full segment, catalogued the threats without restraint. "We'll take over the rest of your country ... I'll blow the s--- out of them," Rupar quoted, describing the "bonkers phone call" as one that "apparently included threats to assassinate Iran's leadership, impose draconian US tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, and occupy Iran with the US military."

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California zeroed in on the practical and legal emptiness of the threats. "US troops would die during any ground invasion of Iran," Lieu wrote. "It would also be brazenly illegal without Congressional authorization." He warned that seizing the strait would trap American forces in a quagmire, adding that "Iran would try to kill them every day in a forever war." His conclusion was that Tehran is not impressed: "Iran knows these are empty threats by Trump."

Some questioned whether the call even happened as described. Author and Iran expert Hooman Majd, who has written extensively about the country and served as an informal interpreter for past Iranian presidents, flatly disputed the premise. "President Trump did not speak with an Iranian official and say anything of the sort directly to him," Majd wrote. He then floated a mocking theory about how Trump might be staging these confrontations: "Is it possible the WH staff has arranged for a Persian-accented staffer to man a phone for Trump to call whenever he wants to yell at an 'Iranian official'?"

Notably, the criticism was not confined to the left. David Pyne, a self-described America First analyst who posts as @AmericaFirstCon, called the president "completely unhinged" and accused him of "threatening to assassinate Iran's diplomatic representatives and invade, conquer and occupy all of Iran." Pyne, who opposes new wars, argued the bravado was hollow. "His threat to take over all of Iran is a bluff since he's reportedly afraid to invade Iran knowing that it would lead to thousands of US military servicemembers being killed in action," he wrote, adding that even committing the entire active-duty Army and reserves "likely wouldn't be enough to conquer all of Iran without a US nuclear first strike."

The threats were also amplified, approvingly, by right-wing accounts. Commentator Nick Sortor, whose post was boosted by conservative legal activist Mike Davis, framed the same language as a triumph. "HOLY CRAP! President Trump issued a DIRECT THREAT to Iranian negotiators in Switzerland," Sortor wrote, presenting "You close [the Strait] and you won't have a country" as evidence of strength rather than instability.

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