patrick.net

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/double-trouble-wednesday-january

Politico ran a story yesterday headlined, “Ray Epps, pro-Trump rioter smeared by conspiracy theories, gets probation for role in Capitol riot.” James Ray Epps, Sr., the only January 6th protestor to actually encourage people to go into the Capitol, including saying “we’re here to storm the Capitol,” and who texted his nephew claiming to have “orchestrated” the Capitol riot, was harshly sentenced in DC court yesterday, as he deserved. Epps’s hard sentence was: a year probation, a $500 fine, and a 100 hours of community service, which he may perform, at his option, at other conservative rallies or at the FBI’s regional field office. Haha, I made up that last part. But sadly, not the rest.

The Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, James Boasberg, wrestled with the difficult decision, for at least as long as it took him to say “This is not an easy sentencing.” Then he tossed the felony charges and gave Epps misdemeanor probation, because, and I am not making this up, he felt Epps had suffered enough from deranged Trump supporters who kept throwing Epps’s own words and actions in his face.

In the Chief Judge’s view, just like an Old Testament prophet, or maybe more like peace-loving, non-violent martyr Mahatma Ghandi, James Ray Epps similarly suffered for “what (he) didn’t do.”

In other words, Ray has already been punished.

There have been so many J6 cases it’s impossible to keep up with them all. But I think this might be the lightest sentence given to any January 6th defendant, including people sentenced who weren’t even in DC on January 6. Julie Kelly, who closely watches the cases, said in the rare cases where defendants have received probation only, it is usually for 2-3 years and usually includes paternalistic conditions, such as staying off social media.

The Court also granted Epps’ motion to attend his sentencing hearing by phone. He didn’t even have to go down there. I probably don’t need to tell you that is highly irregular. (From what I can tell, for some reason, Epps thought he might be served with one or more subpoenas if he attended in person.)

Oh — in case you’re not entirely furious yet: the Chief Judge gave Epps a lighter sentence than the US Attorney requested, which was six months in jail. Lest you feel too much angst, that request was just a beard; this charade was never intended to end with Epps in a cell, not even for a quiet afternoon.

My speculation is this sideshow was meant to resolve Epps’ criminal liability, in case a new administration takes over in January with a different prosecutorial appetite. Now that he’s been sentenced for his “crimes,” Ray cannot be re-tried on the same grounds. In other words, it might have been trivially-easy for a new DOJ to send Epps to jail for 25 years for inciting the insurrection; a sentence that would have been completely consistent with all the previous ones.

But Ray does not benefit from double-jeopardy for anything other crimes. And the shadowy, so-far unnamed people who gave Ray his orders, those people aren’t protected by this little circus. Theoretically, and I recognize this is a long shot, but Ray’s bosses could also be prosecuted for run-of-the-mill J6 offenses on a conspiracy theory. Think of a trespassing charge for every person who entered the Capitol on January 6th, with sentences to run sequentially.

Ironically, President Trump — who was not granted permission to attend by phone — was attending a separate hearing in one of his cases in the same courthouse at the time of Epps’ sentencing.

Whew! I’m sure you are as glad as I am to see justice for Ray Epps.

https://slaynews.com/news/ray-epps-gets-slap-on-wrist-from-judge-for-jan-6-charges-no-jail-time/

https://jameshowardkunstler.substack.com/p/poison-spiders-at-the-center-of-the

You remember those videos of Ray on the DC street the day before the riot, importuning the crowd, a commanding presence with his military bearing and red hat, six inches taller than most of the other men around him, yelling, “Tomorrow we need to go into the Capitol, into the Capitol!” At which moment the crowd groaned “no-o-o-o. . . !” and then commenced chanting, “fed. . . fed. . . fed. . . !” They had his number. His use of the word need was especially beguiling, as in, who actually “needed” that to happen? ...

Okay, I’ll tell you the actual reason that Ray Epps got the VIP powder puff treatment: It was to give half of America a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. . . the old double-barreled middle finger. . . a thunderous fuck you, with the subtext: we can do anything we want to you and you can’t do anything about it. . . and we can rub your faces in it, too, ho ho. . . and then empty a bed pan over your head in case you’re not feeling sufficiently impotent and humiliated. And the purpose of all that is their hope to foment some act of genuine violent resistance against the blob to justify further lawless persecution of the blob’s enemies. They’re really hoping to set off a civil war to justify martial law in order to ensure a free and fair election.

The judge in the Ray Epps case is. . . wait for it. . . the fabulous judicial utility infielder, James Boasberg, now Chief Judge of the DC Federal District Court, a big cheese. Yes, the same rascal who sat on the FISA Court during the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” shenanigans, when they fed all manner of fake documents to that court to enable the FBI to conduct warrantless surveillance on Donald Trump’s campaign, and then afterwards on his presidency.

It was Judge Boasberg who let FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith off the hook with probation when he was charged with doctoring an email to conceal the fact that FBI target Carter Page had been an active CIA informer in Russia over the years, not just some schlub swanning around the fringe of the Trump Campaign. Getting a FISA warrant on Carter Page was tremendously advantageous to the FBI, because it enabled them to use the “three-hop rule,” meaning they could also surveil anyone else in the Trump retinue who Mr. Page had communicated with by phone or email.

The disposition of Ray Epps’s case also means there will be no further official inquiries into his behavior that fateful day 1/6/21. The principle of double jeopardy means he can’t be tried for the same thing twice. There will be no further inquiries into what he did that day and on J-6 itself when he appeared at the barricades on the Capitol grounds, apparently goading protesters to bust through them. It’s a dead letter. Chalk up a “W” for the blob.

But now, chalk up an “L” for the blob: Fani Wills, the Fulton County (GA) District Attorney, has been caught funneling more than half a million dollars to her love bunny, attorney Nathan Wade, after appointing him “special counsel” in the gigantic RICO case against Donald Trump and eighteen other defendants. Poor optics, as they say, and maybe a good deal more than that — such as prosecutorial misconduct. The fact that the lovestruck pair took Caribbean cruises together with that money may only be a minor part of the story. More will come out when Fani Willis answers the summons she has been served to give a deposition at the request of Joycelyn Wade’s lawyers in the Wades’ ongoing divorce proceeding.

More to the point, both Fani Willis and Nathan Wade (in her service) spent time consulting with lawyers at the White House before they filed charges against Mr. Trump. Mr. Wade was there on May 23 and November 19, 2022 talking to Joe Biden’s White House counsel for sixteen hours. Ms. Willis is shown by White House visitor logs to have been present for five hours a few months later, on February 18, 2023, a week after recommending charges to a Fulton County grand jury. The log states that she spent those five hours with veep Kamala Harris.

I doubt that is who she came to visit. My guess is that Ms. Willis spent those hours being coached by Deputy US Attorney General Lisa Monaco, possibly joined by Mary McCord, a former head of the DOJ’s National Security division during the “Crossfire Hurricane” years, then “outside counsel” to the first House impeachment committee, then counsel to the House J-6 committee. It was Ms. McCord, in Trump Impeachment # 1, who arranged for then DOJ Inspector General Michael Atkinson to change the whistleblower rules, allowing for hearsay evidence, which gave a green light to NSA mole Eric Ciaramella to report on the infamous Ukraine phone call that he had not personally witnessed (but was fed a story on by Col. Alexander Vindman.) Nice work there. In other words, these two gals, Lisa Monaco and Mary McCord, are the poison spiders in the DOJ web of veteran seditionists.

This week there is also chatter as to whether Special Counsel Jack Smith might ever actually bring an official federal “insurrection” charge against Mr. Trump to facilitate his “branding” so as to get him kicked off the ballot around the country. I doubt that’ll work out for Mr. Smith, too. If such a matter ever went to trial Mr. Trump would enjoy the right to “discovery” of all sorts of evidence that the DOJ and the FBI would never allow to see the light of day. So, Jack’s stuck with his lame cases now on the docket which, believe me, will be going nowhere.

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Looks like Baker is going to get worse punishment than Epps ... Baker was charged with misdemeanor of trespassing ...

the Democrat judge and Democrat jury will give Baker a punishment as close to the death penalty as possible.. Baker says that left wing journalists who were reporting like him have not been charged with trespassing

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/musician-libertarian-writer-works-blaze-arrested-jan-6-charges-rcna140041

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