January 6 Hearings and Fallout

[4theEarth]

Sigh. Ok, I'll bite, what laws? Examples, please.

No way, Republicans protect free speech in it's absolutest!

According to Reporters Without Borders’s Press Freedom Index, which measures trends in media freedom at both the global and regional levels, all but two European Union-member states (plus Iceland and Norway) have a lower press freedom score in 2016 than they did in 2013. In some cases, there has been marked backsliding: Germany went from a score of 10.24 in 2013 to 14.8 in 2016 (the lower the score, the more respect for press freedom); the United Kingdom has gone from 16.89 to 21.7; and Poland is among the worst cases, jumping from a respectable 13.11 to a deeply worrying 23.89. These scores reflect changes in important indicators such as media independence, self-censorship, and rule of law, among others.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/07...f-speech-fail/

https://listverse.com/2019/10/04/europe-no-free-speech/

You seem to be under the impression I am defending Republicans and their intolerance. Both parties claim to support freedom while insisting that the "community" should be able to issue consequences.

On

Islamic radicals, the former U.S. speaker of the House argued that they do not believe in the Constitution or free speech, and the U.S. should thus “use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people.” In an essay defending his remarks, Gingrich argued that “free speech should not be an acceptable cover for people who are planning to kill other people who have inalienable rights of their own,” adding that “the fact is not all speech is permitted under the Constitution.”

[hyped78]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/07...f-speech-fail/

https://listverse.com/2019/10/04/europe-no-free-speech/

You seem to be under the impression I am defending Republicans and their intolerance. Both parties claim to support freedom while insisting that the "community" should be able to issue consequences.

On

I skimmed through those articles and on the second one - "10 Terrifying Times Europe Recently Said “No” To Free Speech" - the #1 is "Denying the Holocaust (Austria)"

I mean, do you think there's a place for holocaust denial?

[Catlady in training]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/07...f-speech-fail/

https://listverse.com/2019/10/04/europe-no-free-speech/

You seem to be under the impression I am defending Republicans and their intolerance. Both parties claim to support freedom while insisting that the "community" should be able to issue consequences.

On

I skimmed through those articles and on the second one - "10 Terrifying Times Europe Recently Said “No” To Free Speech" - the #1 is "Denying the Holocaust (Austria)"

I mean, do you think there's a place for holocaust denial?

Yeah, there are obvious limits to "free speech" and that is when it moves from free speech to hate speech. Being able to insult everyone is not a human right.

On the other hand, that poem about Erdogan sounds hilarious, I would give the comedian a pass. In democratic countries, politicians are expected to bear more criticism than regular people, so comedy is fine, the only problem are obvious threats. But I can see how people got afraid of potential international scandal, Turkeye is one of those countries that get more pass than they should.
Most of the times comedians complain about wanting to be able to insult everyone, they want to go against minorities such as trans people, not politicians with power.

And there are indeed problems that journalists face in Poland and Hungary, as those two countries are slowly moving towards authoritarianism, but I wouldn't make a blanked statement about the whole EU based on those two who constantly stand out.

[CaptainEurope]

Yeah, there are obvious limits to "free speech" and that is when it moves from free speech to hate speech. Being able to insult everyone is not a human right.

On the other hand, that poem about Erdogan sounds hilarious, I would give the comedian a pass. In democratic countries, politicians are expected to bear more criticism than regular people, so comedy is fine, the only problem are obvious threats. But I can see how people got afraid of potential international scandal, Turkeye is one of those countries that get more pass than they should.
Most of the times comedians complain about wanting to be able to insult everyone, they want to go against minorities such as trans people, not politicians with power.

And there are indeed problems that journalists face in Poland and Hungary, as those two countries are slowly moving towards authoritarianism, but I wouldn't make a blanked statement about the whole EU based on those two who constantly stand out.

The case with the Erdogan poem actually led to the laws being changed in Germany, and it now being fully legal to insult powerful figures. The issue came up again when a youth community center in my town put up "FCK Putin" flags a year ago and the police briefly took them down because they were unaware that law was no longer on the books.

[Catlady in training]

The case with the Erdogan poem actually led to the laws being changed in Germany, and it now being fully legal to insult powerful figures. The issue came up again when a youth community center in my town put up "FCK Putin" flags a year ago and the police briefly took them down because they were unaware that law was no longer on the books.

Nice ......

[CaptainEurope]

March 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday urged an appeals court to reject former President Donald Trump's claim that he is automatically immune from lawsuits over his supporters' assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had asked for the Justice Department's view as it weighs whether to allow civil lawsuits against Trump over the riot.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-jus...ts-2023-03-02/

[WestPhillyPunisher]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-jus...ts-2023-03-02/

Sounds like Trump knows the wolves are nipping at his heels and will eventually run him down.

[CaptainEurope]

Trump seeks to block Pence’s grand jury testimony in 2020 election interference probe

Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal court to block former Vice President Mike Pence from speaking to a grand jury about certain matters covered by executive privilege as part of the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss, sources familiar with the move told CNN.

The request, in a new filing submitted secretly in a sealed proceeding on Friday, comes after the Trump team had already indicated to special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into Trump, that the former president intended to assert privilege over Pence’s testimony.

The DOJ had previously asked a judge to compel Pence’s appearance before the grand jury, CNN reported last week.

It is unclear how long it will take for the sealed proceedings to unfold, but it’s possible that the district court resolves the dispute, or that it will be appealed to a federal appeals court and perhaps, eventually, to the US Supreme Court.

[CaptainEurope]

More fallout:

Donald Trump's White House ethics lawyer is looking at seeing his livelihood taken away over accusations that he tried to influence staffer Cassidy Hutchinson from giving truthful testimony to House Jan. 6 investigators.



According to a report from the Washington Post, Stefan Passantino is facing an onslaught of accusations from multiple sources that could lead to his disbarment if not worse.

It was previously reported that Passantino tried to get Hutchinson to withhold information about what was going on behind the scenes at the White House up to and after the Capitol insurrection.

Speaking to the House select committee, she was upfront about her belief that she felt he was more interested in protecting the former president before she retained her own counsel.

According to the Post, "a 22-page complaint filed on Monday with D.C.’s Board on Professional Responsibility, prominent lawyers accused Mr. Passantino of the crimes of subornation of perjury, obstruction of justice, witness tampering and bribery. The latter referred in part to Ms. Cassidy’s allegation that his advice to say little to the panel was accompanied by assurances that she would get a 'really good job in ‘Trump world.'"

https://www.rawstory.com/stefan-passantino/

[CaptainEurope]

Breaking via CNN:

In a monumental ruling Friday, a federal judge ordered Donald Trump attorney Evan Corcoran to provide additional testimony as part of an investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.

The judge said in an order that Justice Department prosecutors have met the threshold for the crime-fraud exception for Corcoran, the source said.

[Dalak]

Breaking via CNN:

[CaptainEurope]

Breaking:
Judge says several Trump aides, including former chief of staff, must testify to Jan. 6 grand jury

Trump’s legal team had challenged subpoenas issued by special counsel Jack Smith demanding testimony and documents from Meadows, the former president’s White House chief of staff, as well as several others by asserting executive privilege.

In a sealed decision last week, then-Chief Judge Beryl Howell rejected the Trump team’s claims of privilege for Meadows and other top Trump administration officials who were subpoenaed by Smith, including former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, former national security adviser Robert O’Brien and former Department of Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli, sources told CNN.

Trump’s privilege claims for other former White House aides, including Stephen Miller and Dan Scavino, also were rejected, the sources said.

[CaptainEurope]

Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller spends six hours at federal court where Jan. 6 grand jury meets

Miller arrived around 9:40 a.m. ET and left around 3:40 p.m.

Neither Miller nor his attorney responded in the morning when asked what Miller was doing there.

The grand jury is investigating the role former President Donald Trump played in the Jan. 6 riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Miller was a senior adviser to the president and the director of speechwriting at the time of the riot.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., last week denied an emergency motion filed by Trump's legal team to block the testimony of several of the former president's White House aides, including Miller.

...
Meanwhile, Trump filed an appeal in federal court Monday to block former Vice President Mike Pence from testifying before the federal grand jury. It’s unclear when Pence would appear before the grand jury in Washington, a source familiar with the matter said last week.

[CaptainEurope]

Robert Sanford, the ex firefighter who chucked a fire extinguisher at cops on Jan. 6, sentenced to 4+ years (52 months) in federal prison.

He went to a cult deprogrammer to figure out how he came to actually believe Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

[SquirrelMan]

DOJ recommends 25 year prison sentence for Oath Keepers founder/leader Stewart Rhodes.

Also:

The Department of Justice secured its most severe sentence for a convicted Jan. 6 defendant yet -- a marked victory for the government as it pursues those accused of attempting an insurrection.

Peter Schwartz, whom prosecutors termed "one of the most violent and aggressive participants" in the Jan. 6 riot, was sentenced to 14 years behind bars and 36 months of probation in a decision announced by Judge Amit Mehta on Friday. Earlier, federal prosecutors argued he should be sentenced to 24.5 years (or 294 months) in prison, three years of supervised release, $2,000 restitution and a fine of $71,541.