Article includes statements by the persecutors--ur, prosecutors--but I will generally not be referencing that enemy propaganda here.
Also includes discussions of some protesters' genuinely violative acts. Patriots want the legitimately guilty, even those one could say were on "our side," punished. This includes a case of off-duty police officers violating the law, which is a different animal altogether, given their initiated status and supposedly superior knowledge.
When President Trump is returned to power, this judge should be given special consideration for positions in whatever reformed judiciary will be retained--so long as he holds this good line, that is.
Judge issues first acquittal to Jan. 6 riot defendant | The Hill
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday acquitted a New Mexico man of misdemeanor charges that he illegally entered the U.S. Capitol and engaged in disorderly conduct after he walked into the building during last year’s riot.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden issued the verdict from the bench after hearing testimony without a jury in the case against Matthew Martin. McFadden, who was nominated by former President Trump, acquitted Martin of all four counts for which he was charged.
McFadden said it was reasonable for Martin to believe that outnumbered police officers allowed him and others to enter the Capitol through the Rotunda doors on Jan. 6, 2021. The judge also said Martin’s actions were “about as minimal and nonserious” as anyone who was at the Capitol that day.
Martin is the third Capitol riot defendant whose case has been resolved by a trial. He is the first of the three to be acquitted of all charges that he faced. The first two Capitol riot trials ended with convictions, although McFadden acquitted one of those defendants of a disorderly conduct charge after a bench trial last month.
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The judge...said video shows two police officers standing near the Rotunda doors and allowing people to enter as Martin approached. One of the officers appeared to lean back before Martin placed a hand on the officer’s shoulder as a possible sign of gratitude, the judge said.
This paragraph shows how desperate the anti-Trumpers are to miscast the whole aftermath. Sorry, but officers offing themselves over their role in the set-up--or perhaps being murdered to aid in the coverup--don't count in the way they try to imply. In fact, it's actually the opposite:
At least nine people died in the riot or its aftermath. One officer died after he collapsed hours after being sprayed with bear spray, and other officers who tried to quell the riot died by suicide in the months following the attack.
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Defense attorney Dan Cron said Martin saw another person shake a police officer’s hand after entering the Capitol. Martin placed his hand on an officer’s shoulder “as a gesture of thanks and of goodwill,” Cron said.
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Other riot defendants have claimed police waved them in or said they could enter.
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Then there's this. One has to wonder if they were among the agent-provocateurs behind the set-up, giving reason for others to believe their actions were legal. This whole trial may itself indeed turn out to be a complete sham. It's possible they were sincere but stupid, but their law enforcement status both separates them from other defendants AND gives an argument for the actions seeming reasonable to regular people.
After Martin’s acquittal Wednesday, a jury in a different courtroom heard a second day of testimony for the trial of former Rocky Mount, Va., police officer Thomas Robertson. The town fired Robertson and another officer, Jacob Fracker, who joined him at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Fracker was scheduled to be tried alongside Robertson before he pleaded guilty last month to a conspiracy charge and agreed to testify against somebody who was his mentor and a father figure.
“I absolutely hate this,” Fracker said. “I’ve always been on the other side of things, the good guys’ side, so to speak.”
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There are two basic reasons that some sincerely Patriot-minded people did violative acts that day. The first reason is that most of them were Teabrained, and simply stupid. That is the bane of the modern grassroots conservatism in America today, which I have often discussed (most notably HERE).
The other reason is related to this, but much more specific: These people, having seen the Antifa and BLM insurrection of the previous summer, and indeed decades of the Left getting away with tons of similar acts, took it on themselves that they should be able to do something similar. That is, they thought they had the "right" to do it in some moral sense (no comment), and they thought they'd easily be able to beat the rap, as those Leftists generally do.
But they made two mistakes: First, they forgot the inherent advantage the Left has in matters of "civil disobedience" at numerous levels--judicial and media bias, being the biggest. But also, they simply didn't know that so much of what the Left does in this area is in cahoots with the authorities! Of course, part of that is the Deep State set-up we saw on January 6, but back through the decades it has been more in the form of pre-event agreements. Note this from "Of Arms and the Law" in 2005:
How things are done in Washington
Saw some footage of a protest the other day, and it reminded me of the days when I worked in Interior Dept's legal shop. The Park Service attorneys were across the hall, and we often lunched together.
One day their conversation went like this: "It's all worked out. The protestors will come in as part of a White House tour group. They'll send ten, perhaps twelve. At 9:15 they leave the tour group and go onto the White House lawn and sit down. At 9:30, Secret Service will tell them to leave, and four will refuse, the others will return to the group. At about 9:40 the four will be arrested, booked, and released."
I was astonished ... how could you predict these events, down to the minute? The Parks attorneys explained that in a DC protest of this type, all the details were negotiated in advance between the protestors and the government. It made it more convenient for everyone. The government tried to dicker them down on how many would stay and be arrested (less work for the agents), and they tried to dicker the government up on how long a time window between refusal to leave and arrest. There might be other terms to be worked out as well. But this way the media could be notified to show up at 9:30 for photos, or earlier for the story. If you didn't coordinate -- why, what if the media showed up and security was shorthanded and couldn't make arrests for another hour? Or someone threw the timing off and arrested before the media showed up? Or somebody got hardnosed and instead of book and release, actually popped the protestors in jail? Much better to reach agreement in advance. Besides, by scheduling early in the day you ensure that the reporters have time to write the story.
I remembered reading a WashPo article on an AIDS protest where the police wore rubber gloves in picking up the protestors, and the protestors were angry because that wasn't part of the deal, leaving me wondering what was the "deal." That was it -- the negotiations hadn't mentioned gloves, and the protestors thought it spoiled the photos' intended impact. (I seem to recall that the police objected in turn that the protestors were not supposed to lie down and require carrying, as they did).
So the next time you see a DC protest (a non-rowdy one, anyway), remember it may have been negotiated out down to how many get arrested and the precise time at which it occurs.
The January 6 "rioters" simply weren't aware of how the Left pulls off their stunts. They didn't try to do pre-event negotiations with the authorities: "Okay, the Viking-helmeted guy and 50 other people get to enter the Capitol and stir around for 15 minutes, then you arrest them for disorderly, then release them two hours later without charges." Most of them could never imagine how such things were done, as they were the "good guys." And, they had never done much if anything in the way of street activism (no, attending an organized Trump rally on set grounds doesn't qualify). As one who indeed has done street activism--namely, as a Chapter Leader in "ProtestWarrior," a now-defunct outfit of the early 2000s which did counterprotesting of anti-American "peace" activists during the early years of GWOT (if you don't know what that is, look it up and then sit down and just keep reading)--I know the seemingly impossible way the Left succeeds, while we on the Patriot/Right know we would fail with exactly the same actions. This article, though, educated my planning--I knew not to try the same things the Left did--and in my pushing it to Chapter members, hopefully helped them understand the situation.
Hopefully the actions by this judge yesterday will help with the jurisprudential side of rectifying what happened on January 6, 2021 in every sense. Yet the actual issue will only be resolved by a fundamental and comprehensive shift in the American political condition. Our system is broken. It needs replacement. Federalist 46 remains our biggest hope.