While everyone’s attention is focused on Putin’s debacle in Ukraine, the world spins on and the wheels of justice continue to turn...
The New York Times
When the first trial stemming from the attack on the Capitol opens on Monday, it will set the stage for prosecutors to do more than merely lay out the details of how the defendant, Guy Wesley Reffitt, sought to storm the building with a pistol at his hip.
For the first time in a courtroom, they will present a broad portrait of the violent chaos that erupted that day and seek to persuade a jury that the pro-Trump mob that Mr. Reffitt is accused of joining struck at the heart of American democracy by disrupting the transition of presidential power.
The trial, which will take place in Federal District Court in Washington and begin on Monday morning with jury selection, may not be the flashiest or most significant of the dozens of Capitol riot cases that are scheduled to go to trial this year.
But because it is the first to reach a courtroom, it will most likely set the tone for those that follow and serve as a kind of proving ground for the charges prosecutors have filed against hundreds of defendants. (More than 200 people have already pleaded guilty in cases related to the Capitol attack.)
Jury selection starts tomorrow in the long awaited criminal trial of Guy Wesley Reffitt, the first insurrectionist to exercise his 6th Amendment rights after learning he had more than just the TWO…
CBS News
Guy Wesley Reffitt of Wylie, Texas — husband, father and alleged affiliate of the Three Percenters militia group — has been indicted on five counts. He's accused of transporting a rifle and a semi-automatic handgun to Washington, D.C., and then carrying the handgun onto U.S. Capitol grounds, where he allegedly participated in the January 6 riot and threatened law enforcement officers. He's one of only a handful of defendants accused of carrying a firearm.
He is also charged with obstruction of justice, illegally entering the Capitol complex, and obstructing Congress' counting of the 2020 Electoral College votes — a process that ultimately affirmed the election of President Biden.
Reffitt pleaded not guilty to all five counts and has made a number of unsuccessful attempts to have some of the charges dismissed; he has claimed that the laws he is accused of breaking are "vague" and violate his constitutionally protected freedom of speech.
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Prosecutors plan to try to show Reffitt targeted two lawmakers, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and that he planned to try to remove them from the Capitol. The government also alleges that Reffitt, with his gun holstered at his waist, charged two U.S. Capitol Police officers, who struggled to push him back before finally stopping him with pepper spray.
Although this dipshit has been jailed since his arrest last January, he doesn’t appear to have rehabilitated himself one bit during his year long incarceration...
WUSA9
In a defiant jailhouse letter just days before his trial is set to begin, a Texas defendant in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol declared himself a political prisoner and said he was ready to “receive the bullet of freedom.”
Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday morning for 49-year-old Guy Reffitt, of Wylie, Texas. Reffitt, an alleged member of the anti-government Three Percenters militia movement, is facing five felony charges for his role in the Capitol riot.
Reffitt has been in court all week with his attorney, William Welch III, trying to nail down jury instructions. On Thursday, a Telegram channel dedicated to sharing messages from detained Jan. 6 defendants posted a letter from Reffitt taking aim at the justice system and calling on fellow “patriots” to support him. Reffitt’s wife, Nicole, confirmed the message’s authenticity to WUSA.
“The beginning of the 1/6 Political Prisoner trials,” Reffitt wrote. “Orwellian thought crimes, Spies, and the Ministry of Truth.”
He’s shown no regret, only stupidity; and that is why he’s facing 60 years in prison if convicted on all five charges…
WUSA9
Prosecutors will tell jurors Reffitt is a member of the anti-government Three Percenters militia movement and that he spent the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot discussing his plans for Jan. 6, when then-President Donald Trump had urged followers to travel to D.C. for a “wild” protest to “Stop the Steal.”
Once at the Capitol, Reffitt is accused of entering the restricted area on the lower west terrace, where three U.S. Capitol Police officers say it took multiple rounds of pepper balls and O.C. spray to repel him from entering the building. Prosecutors say photos from the riot show he carried a semi-automatic handgun in a holster on his waist on Capitol grounds.
Prosecutors plan to call two of the children Reffitt told, “traitors get shot” as witnesses against him at the trial…
Law & Crime
Two children of accused militia member Guy Reffitt, including the son who flagged his father to the FBI, will be called as government witnesses, prosecutors confirmed in a filing on Monday.
Linked to the Three Percenters militia group, Texas dad Reffitt memorably told his kids in the days after Jan. 6 that “traitors get shot.”
His son Jackson Reffitt had previously flagged his father to the FBI with concerns about his increasingly violent rhetoric. When the FBI called him to ask if his father was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, Jackson—notwithstanding Reffitt’s threat—said yes.
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The role of Reffitt’s kids as witnesses for the government highlights the painful family dynamic that thrust the Reffitt family into the public eye. According to an in-depth VICE News profile, Jackson’s decision to flag his father to federal authorities has all but torn the family apart. He has cut off almost all contact with the family, while his sisters, Peyton and Sarah Reffit, have defended their father, even though they have said that they don’t support his decision to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, and they have indicated that they think Reffitt, who has been kept in custody since his arrest in January 2021, is a “political prisoner,” according to the VICE News report.
NBC
A Texas man who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was arrested and accused of having threatened to shoot his children if they told authorities that he had gone to Washington, D.C., according to federal court documents released Monday.
(snip)
In an interview with the FBI, Reffitt's son said his father told his family that he had gone to the Capitol while wearing a GoPro camera attached to a helmet.
Reffitt is alleged to have later threatened to "put a bullet through" his daughter's cellphone if she recorded or mentioned his comments on social media, the affidavit says.
Reffitt's wife told investigators that during an argument, he told his children that if one of them turned him in, "you're a traitor and you know what happens to traitors ... traitors get shot."
Despite everything going on in the world, the FBI continues to seek the public’s assistance in identifying individuals who participated in unlawful conduct during the Capitol Insurrection. New images are added frequently...
If you have information about individuals who participated in the largest assault on police officers in U.S. history at the Capitol Riot on January 6th, call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or leave a tip online at the FBI’s website.
If you just can’t get enough information about the terrorists who tried to usurp our democracy, then these links are for you…
Department of Justice Capitol Breach Cases
FBI US Capitol Violence Most Wanted
Insider Searchable Table
George Washington University Spreadsheet — Updated Daily
NPR — Updated Database
seditiontracker.com
ProPublica Capitol Riot videos lifted from Parler
KUMU — Capitol Riot Insurrectionist Networks
Just Security — January 6th Clearinghouse
The Trace — Capitol Riot Gun Arrests
USA Today January 6 Capitol Riot Arrests
Sedition Hunters - Sedition Insiders Photo Gallery