Protesters speak to U.S. Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber inside the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo)
Posted on 03/10/2023 8:33:45 PM PST by SeekAndFind
A defendant in the Proud Boys trial over Jan. 6, 2021, charges moved March 9 to dismiss the case, after some footage from the day of the breach was shown for the first time.
Protesters speak to U.S. Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber inside the Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo)
Dominic Pezzola is one of the Proud Boys members on trial for obstruction of an official proceeding and other charges. The newly disclosed footage, shown on Fox News this week, “is plainly exculpatory,” Pezzola’s lawyers said in the new motion.
“It establishes that the Senate chamber was never violently breached, and—in fact—was treated respectfully by January 6 protestors,” they said.
Among the clips Fox’s Tucker Carlson broadcast were moments where Jacob Chansley, another defendant who is serving a jail sentence after pleading guilty, was walking around accompanied by police officers. The officers did not stop Chansley and even tried opening doors for him. Chansley eventually made it into the Senate chamber, where he and others later knelt and prayed. Chansley, during the prayer, gave thanks to the officers for “letting us into the building.”
Pezzola also entered the Capitol, and prosecutors have argued that he and others being inside forced Congress, which was certifying electoral votes from the 2020 election, to go into recess.
The new footage, though, shows that members “could have continued proceedings,” Pezzola’s attorneys said. “It was not Pezzola or codefendants who caused the Congress to recess. Congress interrupted its own proceedings.”
The lawyers are asking U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee overseeing the case, to dismiss it. If Kelly rejects that request, he is asked in the motion to declare a mistrial.
Dominic Pezzola in a file image. (DOJ via The Epoch Times)
Prosecutors must provide defendants with evidence that can be exculpatory, or help defendants prove their innocence. The rule was crystallized in Brady v. Maryland, a 1963 Supreme Court decision. “Suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused who has requested it violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution,” the decision states.
Zachary Rehl, another Proud Boys defendant, requested all information regarding Congress going into recess on Jan. 6 as early as late 2021.
“While Brady obligations do not extend to the entirety of the government, they do include investigative agencies or agencies closely related who knew or should have known that information would be material to a prosecution arising from their direct involvement. Here the U.S. Capitol Police are directly related and fully aware of the events of January 6, 2021,” lawyers for the defendants said.
They cited previous court decisions, including one that found a prosecutor “has a duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to the others acting on the government’s behalf in the case, including the police.”
“We will respond through the court,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia told The Epoch Times via email.
The U.S. Capitol Police did not return a request for comment.
Albert Watkins, who represented Chansley, said on Fox on Wednesday night that the footage the outlet aired this week had not been provided to him.
“The government knew that Jake had walked around with all of these police officers. They had that video footage. I didn’t get it. It wasn’t disclosed to me. It wasn’t provided to me,” Watkins said. “They had a duty, an absolute duty, with zero discretion to provide it to me so I could share it with my client.”
Proud Boys members Joseph Biggs, left, and Ethan Nordean, right with megaphone, walk toward the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo)
Another development supports a dismissal, according to the new motion.
FBI special agent Nicole Miller is being accused of hiding a tab in a spreadsheet that showed some of her emails.
Miller was testifying on March 8 when Nick Smith, a lawyer representing Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean, revealed the secret tab, leaving over one thousand hidden Excel rows of messages, Nordean’s attorneys said in a separate filing.
Miller said in one email that “my boss assigned me 338 items of evidence i have to destroy” and in another that colleagues should go into a confidential human source report and “edit out that I was present,” according to the filing.
The hidden emails featured Miller “admitted fabricating evidence and following orders to destroy hundreds of items of evidence,” Pezzola’s lawyers said, adding, “If justice means anything, it requires this case to be dismissed.”
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Erik Kenerson, an assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, said in court Wednesday that even if there were missing messages, the defense could have asked the government to produce them. He said that prosecutors decide which messages to provide to the defense, so it was not appropriate to imply the agent hid them.
Oh ho ho ho!
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4137317/posts
BREAKING: DOJ Gets Hit With Huge Legal Motion After Merrick Garland Falsely Claims 5 Officers Were Killed On J6
More at link
Good news is spreading...
FBI special agent Nicole Miller is being accused of hiding a tab in a spreadsheet that showed some of her emails.
Miller was testifying on March 8 when Nick Smith, a lawyer representing Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean, revealed the secret tab, leaving over one thousand hidden Excel rows of messages, Nordean’s attorneys said in a separate filing.
Miller said in one email that “my boss assigned me 338 items of evidence i have to destroy” and in another that colleagues should go into a confidential human source report and “edit out that I was present,” according to the filing....
××××××
Interesting. Wonder who her boss was/is?
Crimes by the federales.
Since the prosecutions and “conviction” happened in DC, I suspect these political prisoners will have no chance of having these travesties of justice remedied. They’ll get no help from the media or any of our “representatives” in congress.
With the Republicans taking the House, we all hoped things would be fixed, but alas . . .
Brady Violations mean that all convicted defendants if there’s video of them withheld in that 41000 hours can appeal their cases up the chain of courts citing the Brady Violations.
The 1963 Brady Supreme Court ruling says evidence proving innocence cannot be withheld by the government from defense lawyers and it was here big time.
It all costs $$$$$ for the lawyers to do it.
People awaiting trial have a shot at using this video to help make their case to the juries or judges.
😊👍
With the Republicans taking the House, we all hoped things would be fixed, but alas . . .
What can they legally do? Enlighten us.
Ah! The benefits of diversity are kicking in.
Let’s assume that the below statement is true, (which it is not and could not be true;
“Erik Kenerson, an assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, said in court Wednesday that even if there were missing messages, the defense could have asked the government to produce them. He said that prosecutors decide which messages to provide to the defense, so it was not appropriate to imply the agent hid them.”
The prosecution has a absolute obligation to provide the defense with ALL exculpatory evidence. The defense, whom does not know that the prosecution knows that these emails existed, were required to let the defense know of their existence.
Knowing that the emails reflected alleged destruction of evidence and a conspiracy to destroy evidence by having CI statements re-written is, without a doubt, criminal activity and a violation of Brady.
Whether the agent was ordered to destroy evidence, or not, she had a legal obligation to refuse to do it and to report it to the Director of the FBI/IG/AG, and if necessary, to the defense attorney/s
Can the federal government be held liable in a RICO suit? After all, they are participating I organized crime.
I believe that the PROUD BOYS are just FEDS trying to ENTRAP conservative Trump voters.
Some of the charges may be dismissed but not the charge of Pezzola smashing a window with a police shield.
Every person in custody should be freed immediately and each given 50 million dollars in reparations for government malfeasance and false imprisonment. Every member of that Congressional show trial committee should be jailed for 17.76 years.
I give March 31st in the pool when she announces her retirement from the FBI.
Without a doubt. They should also lose any government pension they may have.
I give March 31st in the pool when she announces her retirement from the FBI.
/\
OR
She commits suicide and becomes part of
...... 6 people died from 1/6 !!!!
narrative.
Would there be plausible deniability? They did give all the information. But oops, forgot about them being hidden.
At least in their minds..........................
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