But we were told that voter fraud doesn’t exist. One loon in Northern California went as far as saying that in all 50 states that there was one case of voter fraud and it was a Republican.
A Democrat Virginia Board of Supervisors’ member has been indicted on 82 mostly election-related felony charges a Commonwealth Attorney announced May 3.
“The Special Grand Jury indicted Trey Adkins and Sherry Lynn Bailey for several election related offenses,” said Commonwealth Attorney Zack Stoots in a Facebook statement. “Adkins was also indicted for embezzlement of public funds while being in a position of public office.”
“During each election cycle, Mr. Adkins relied on a number of absentee ballot applications and votes,” Clevinger reportedly said. “He personally campaigned to a number of homes in the Knox District and in 2019, took hundreds of ballot applications to residents, filled them out and turned them in to the local Registrar.”
The first image of Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
Visits: 14
An image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way has been captured, giving the first direct glimpse of the turbulent heart of our galaxy.
The black hole itself, known as Sagittarius A*, pronounced “Sagittarius A-Star,” cannot be seen because no light or matter can escape its gravitational grip. But its shadow is traced out by a glowing, fuzzy ring of light and matter that is swirling on the precipice at close to the speed of light before its eventual plunge into oblivion.
The image was captured by the Event Horizon telescope (EHT), a network of eight radio telescopes spanning locations from Antarctica to Spain and Chile, which produced the first image of a black hole, in a galaxy called Messier 87, in 2019.
Prof Sera Markoff, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam and co-chair of the EHT Science Council, said: “The Milky Way’s black hole was our main target, it’s our closest supermassive black hole and it’s the reason we set out to do this thing in the first place. It’s been an 100-year search for these things and so scientifically it’s a huge deal.”
The image provides compelling proof that there is a black hole at the center of the Milky Way, which had been the working assumption of mainstream astronomy. But a minority of scientists had continued to speculate about the possibility of other exotic objects such as boson stars or clumps of dark matter.
“I’m personally happy about the fact it really drills home the fact that there is definitely a black hole at the center of our galaxy,” said Dr Ziri Younsi, a member of the EHT collaboration who is based at University College London. “It’s a turbulent, chaotic and quite violent environment. It made me think, ‘Wow, we’re quite lucky to live at the edge of the galaxy actually.’”
To the untrained eye, the latest image might appear similar to that of M87, which is 55m light years from Earth, but the observations are already giving entirely new scientific insights. And, Younsi said, there was an emotional, as well as purely scientific, value in finally seeing the enigmatic object about which our home galaxy revolves. “It’s another doughnut, but it’s our doughnut,” he said.
A resolution the equivalent of seeing a bagel on the moon was required to bring it into focus.
Despite being local in astronomical terms (still 26,000 light years away) observing SgrA* turned out to be more challenging than anticipated and the team has spent five years analyzing data acquired during fortuitously clear skies across several continents in April 2017. Sagittarius A* is more than a thousand times smaller and less massive than M87*, meaning a resolution the equivalent of seeing a bagel on the moon was required to bring it into focus.
Its size means dust and gas is orbiting it in a matter of minutes, rather than weeks, so the image was constantly changing from one observation to the next. Markoff compared the challenge to trying to capture a puppy chasing its tail using a camera with a slow shutter speed. And the scientists had to peer through the galactic plain, meaning radiation from all the intervening stars had to be filtered out. Some combination of these factors – and possibly some extreme black hole phenomenon – explain the bright blobs in the image.
“We didn’t anticipate how evasive and elusive it would be,” said Younsi. “It was really a tough picture to take – it’s hard to overstate that.”
Four million times more massive than our Sun.
The EHT picks up radiation emitted by particles within the accretion disc that are heated to billions of degrees as they orbit the black hole at close to the speed of light, before vanishing into the central vortex. The blotchy halo in the image shows light bent by the powerful gravity of the black hole, which is four million times more massive than our Sun.
The latest observations are already giving intriguing hints about the nature of our own black hole. Simulations based on the data hint that our black hole’s angle of rotation is not neatly aligned with the galactic plain, but is off-kilter by about 30 degrees. The observations also suggest that SgrA* is in a dormant state, in contrast with some black holes, including M87, which feature vast, powerful jets that blast light and matter from the black hole’s poles into intergalactic space. “If a big star fell in, which would happen every 10,000 years, that would wake it up for a short amount of time and we’d see things brighten up,” said Markoff.
Ultimately, scientists hope that observing these competing processes in black holes – gobbling up nearby material versus blasting it outwards into space – could help answer a chicken-and-egg style question about the evolution of galaxies.
“It’s an open question in galactic formation and evolution. We don’t know which came first, the galaxy or black hole,” said Prof Carole Mundell, an astrophysicist at the University of Bath who is not part of the EHT collaboration.
“From the technology perspective it’s mind-blowing that we can do this,” she said of the latest images.
The EHT team’s results are being published on Thursday in a special issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The justices pose for a group photo at the Supreme Court in Washington on April 23, 2021. (Erin Schaff – Pool / Getty Images).
By Abby Liebing for Western Journal May 11, 2022 at 7:48am
Last week, Politico published a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. The draft showed that the court could strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
Now, as the court is set to meet on Thursday, Politico has published more leaked information — and it is good news for pro-lifers.
The outlet reported Wednesday morning that Alito’s draft opinion is still the only circulated draft in the abortion case and that no votes have changed while the court is waiting for the dissent opinion to emerge.
“[T]here’s no sign that the court is changing course from issuing that ruling,” the report said.
The initial draft majority opinion by Alito said “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Politico reported on May 2.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” the justice wrote. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
However, Politico noted at the time that the court’s votes on the Dobbs v. Jackson case could change.
“Under long-standing court procedures, justices hold preliminary votes on cases shortly after argument and assign a member of the majority to write a draft of the court’s opinion,” it said. “The draft is often amended in consultation with other justices, and in some cases the justices change their votes altogether, creating the possibility that the current alignment on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could change.”
But the report Wednesday indicated no change in the votes.
Do you think Roe v. Wade will be overturned?
Yes: 97% (66 Votes)
No: 3% (2 Votes)
(From WJ site @ 11 am 5/11/22)
“Justice Samuel Alito’s sweeping and blunt draft majority opinion from February overturning Roe remains the court’s only circulated draft in the pending Mississippi abortion case, POLITICO has learned, and none of the conservative justices who initially sided with Alito have to date switched their votes,” the outlet reported.
“No dissenting draft opinions have circulated from any justice, including the three liberals,” Politico added.
The initial leak led to outrage among pro-abortion activists and joy among pro-lifers over the possibility of the court overturning Roe v. Wade.
But also shocking was that someone inside the Supreme Court would leak such information to the media.
How does Politico know this? Someone inside the Supreme Court continues to leak. Unbelievable! https://t.co/Chr4wz80rz
University of Texas law professor Steve Vladek said these leaks indicate there is turmoil behind the Supreme Court’s closed doors.
“It’s hard to overstate how ugly this means things must be behind the scenes,” Vladeck tweeted.
This appears to be at least the fifth different leak out of #SCOTUS related to Dobbs — after the WSJ editorial page, the original Politico leak, CNN, and the Washington Post. (And I may be missing one.)
It’s hard to overstate how ugly this means things must be behind the scenes. https://t.co/jpJrel5dFH
Even Politico, which has published the leaked information, reported that the Supreme Court is facing a great crisis due to the leaks and the resulting furor, which has included protests targeting justices’ homes.
“This is the most serious assault on the court, perhaps from within, that the Supreme Court’s ever experienced,” one source told the outlet. “It’s an understatement to say they are heavily, heavily burdened by this.”
With the summer break coming, the justices have only about seven more weeks to craft a decision on abortion.
Debunking Fake News.
(Photograph by Erin Schaff/Getty Images.)
Visits: 28
Article was originally here.
A viral tweet claims that Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Samuel Alito justified overturning Roe v. Wade in the leaked draft majority opinion because “the US needs a ‘domestic supply of infants.’”
The draft was written by Alito, not Barrett and Alito as the tweet suggests. The section of the opinion from which the quote is pulled is a footnote, with the line not being written by Barrett or Alito, but coming from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paper on adoption. The line reads: “[N]early 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002 (i.e., they were in demand of a child), whereas the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent.”
This paper is cited in a paragraph summing up arguments from pro-life Americans, specifically being cited in a sentence noting that a newborn put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a home. The footnote appears in the following section, following the italicized portion (italicization added):
“Americans who believe that abortion should be restricted press countervailing arguments about modern developments. They note that attitudes about the pregnancy of un-married women have changed drastically; that federal and state laws ban discrimination on the basis of pregnancy,42 that leave for pregnancy and childbirth are now guaranteed by law in many cases,43 that the costs of medical care associated with pregnancy are covered by insurance or government assistance44; that States have increasingly adopted ‘safe haven’ laws, which generally allow women to drop off babies anonymously45; and that a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home46.”
From the context of the footnote, it’s clear that the CDC quote appeared in the footnote only to highlight the fact that unwanted babies put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a family—not, as the tweet implies, that domestic birth rates need to increase to meet adoption demands. What’s more, the paragraph in which the footnote appears is about the arguments of pro-life Americans, taking place in a summary of the public debate surrounding abortion. Immediately preceding the above paragraph is another summing up the beliefs of pro-abortion Americans, which reads:
“Defenders of Roe and [Casey v. Planned Parenthood] do not claim that any new scientific learning calls for a different answer to the underlying moral question, but they do contend that changes in society require the recognition of a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Without the availability of abortion, they maintain, people will be inhibited from exercising their freedom to choose the types of relationships they desire, and women will be unable to compete with men in the workplace and in other endeavors.”
Following both summaries, the opinion continues:
“Both sides make important policy arguments, but supporters of Roe and Casey must show that this Court has the authority to weigh those arguments and decide how abortion may be regulated in the States. They have failed to make that showing, and we thus return the power to weigh those arguments to the people and their elected officials.”
Four positive signs we’re seeing as we move into year 3 of this pandemic
Here we are in May 2022. We made it through the “winter of death.” The springtime birds are singing, the sun is shining and we’re feeling hopeful… So let’s briefly take stock of how things are looking, shall we?
1) The FLCCC and CDC found something to agree on
It took a while. A lot longer than any of us thought it would, in fact. And although it wasn’t how we imagined it might go, and certainly not how we suggested, the Centers for Disease Control recently came to a bold conclusion — one the FLCCC has been championing all along: “Early treatment works.”
Still, we agreed on something: COVID is treatable. Let’s take our wins where we can.
2) States are starting to push back
Legislatures in 30 states – 60% of the country — have now proposed bills either putting limits on the authority of health boards to punish doctors who promote alternative treatments, or explicitly enabling the promotion of those treatments.
As Drs. Kory and Marik say, the federal public health agencies have been captured by Big Pharma, so our only hope is in individual states fighting back. And state legislators will only do that if they hear the voice of the people — i.e., you!
Let’s have a look at some recent advances:
On May 5, New Hampshire’s Senate adopted a bill that allows licensed providers to create a standing order for pharmacists to dispense ivermectin (for a legitimate medical purpose). The bill also prohibits medical, nursing and pharmacy boards from disciplining licensees based on that standing order.
A bill introduced in Ohio late last month would prevent health departments, healthcare facilities and pharmacies from refusing to promote or expand access to ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID.
This doesn’t mean you can roll right into a pharmacy in Nashville or Nashua and grab some ivermectin off the shelf just yet, but after two years of a near-daily struggle just to be allowed to treat COVID, these are small victories. Thanks to the dedication, sacrifice and hard work of many people around this country, change is beginning to manifest — slowly but surely.
Thank you for reading The FLCCC Alliance Community. This post is public so feel free to share it.
3) Mainstream media are inventing new reasons why ivermectin works
Wendy Zukerman hosts a podcast called ‘Science Vs’ and she recently devoted an episode to what she calls “the wild and bizarre tale of … ivermectin.”
Of the 82 studies from around the world that have now looked at IVM and COVID, Zukerman focused on just two – the now discredited Elgazzar paper and the recently released and highly suspicious TOGETHER trial.
Here’s the conclusion her podcast came to:
“Ivermectin didn’t work”
We all know that’s not true. Even the TOGETHER trial’s principal investigator, Edward Mills, knows it’s not true:
“I advocate that, actually, there is a clear signal that IVM works in COVID patients, just that our study didn’t achieve significance. I really don’t view our study as negative… I think if we had continued randomizing a few hundred more patients, it would have likely been significant.”
According to Zukerman, having a nice doctor like Pierre Kory, who gives you a drug they really believe will work, maybe just makes you feel better. Hear her out:
She cites a previous episode of her own show from 2019 on placebos to back this up.
Another podcaster suggests some people were going to get better from COVID anyway, so doctors who get results by prescribing ivermectin can’t really claim the drug is having an effect. He explains:
If it’s true that a lot of people will have a mild case and recover on their own, then it’s hard to understand why vaccines should be mandatory and why people should be encouraged to take an expensive medicine like Paxlovid with its many drug-drug interactions. But that’s a topic for another time.
Other people who still struggle to “explain” the effectiveness of ivermectin, demonstrated in study after study, put it down to the fact that many of those studies were conducted in places where people are infected with worms.
Or, it could just be that ivermectin works for COVID… Go figure.
4) There is a growing understanding of how clinical trials can be corrupted or designed to fail
Sadly, what’s being revealed is not a pretty sight.
The story of how Andrew Hill was likely coerced into changing the conclusions of his meta-analysis on ivermectin, and the many ways in which the much-touted TOGETHER trial was based on bad science, are now well documented.
Will this awareness change anything? Maybe, maybe not. As a society, we may have become indifferent to the truth if that truth threatens to shatter our illusions. But as a group of people with a moral conscience, the FLCCC will not stop exposing lies when we see them. We will not stop encouraging critical thinking. We will not stop pursuing solutions for a better world.
For over two years, the members of the FLCCC have endured assaults on our character, integrity, personal and professional reputations, and livelihoods. We have had ample opportunity to turn and walk away, to acquiesce, to give in.
But we didn’t.
We will never give up on our patients. We will never give up on fighting for safe, science-based solutions to one the greatest medical challenges we have ever faced.
We will be here when others see the light and decide to come join us. We won’t even complain (much) if others try to co-opt our ideas and take credit for them. Treating patients and saving lives is in our DNA and will always come before divisive politics and crony capitalism.
Our goal is simple: developing affordable COVID-19 treatments powered by safe, off-patent, repurposed drugs. All are welcome to join. And if you can’t get behind that, then may we politely ask that you at least get out of the way?
Parishioners confronted several pro-abortion protesters in costumes from The Handmaid’s Tale who attempted to disrupt Sunday mass at Our Lady of the Angels, the “mother church” of the L.A. archdiocese.
The Catholic News Agency confirmed the disruption, and reported:
The description of the protesters’ attire provided by the parishioner, Bradford Adkins, resembles costumes worn by members of the pro-abortion group Ruth Sent Us, which threatened to disrupt Catholic Masses on Sunday, Mother’s Day.
As of 10 p.m. EDT on Sunday, the group did not appear to have taken responsibility for the protest in Los Angeles. Representatives of the group did not respond to CNA’s request for comment prior to publication.
…
Ruth Sent Us has taken responsibility for disrupting Catholic churches before, such as at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco in February. During Mass at St. Mary’s, video footage shows protesters walking down the aisle toward the altar wearing red robes and white bonnets or “handmaids” costumes frequently worn by abortion activists. The costumes symbolize enslaved women who are raped and forced to give birth, inspired by Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
The left-wing protesters continued to resist being moved out of the Cathedral in Los Angeles after failing to shut down Sunday mass. The male protester in the group almost became violent. #abortion#prochoice#prolifepic.twitter.com/RNkvozAAPO
Pfizer likely knew that Paxlovid did not work in the vaccinated, and removed them from the EPIC-SR trial
Paxlovid was not AT ALL tested on children in both trials, but the FDA approved it for children anyway.
Introduction
You can skip this introduction and head straight into the next section if you are familiar with the Paxlovid story. Briefly, I wrote the following article on April 13, pointing out that the Internet is full of stories of Paxlovid-treated patients relapsing and having Covid re-emerge on Day 10 of their illness.
Igor’s Newsletter
Paxlovid, “Snake Oil” of the 21st Century?
Paxlovid is a combination of a protease inhibitor Nirmatrelvir and a HIV medication Ritonavir. At $895, it is definitely going to be a moneymaker for Pfizer. But how well does it work for the patients? This is what we all heard: The first study, that lasted for four weeks only, reported amazing success and “89% prevention of severe symptoms”. That first s…
Hundreds of stories are all over Twitter and Reddit. This one from yesterday 4/30/22:
Pfizer Purposely Excluded Vaccinated People from Trials. It had a Reason!
Two Pfizer trials for Paxlovid (High Risk and Standard Risk) had long lists of patients to exclude. Some, like HIV patients with complicated problems, are understandably excluded.
But why did Pfizer decide to exclude vaccinated people from the trials? That decision seems crazy since Pfizer intended to ”vaccinate the world” and have everyone vaccinated. So, considering that Pfizer knew about “breakthrough infections,” why did it decide to ban vaccinated people from both trials if it expected that most people would be vaccinated? Seems strange to exclude most people from being potential customers, no?
Well, it looks like Pfizer knew more than it disclosed. (hat tip, Dr. Buzz)
Actually, Pfizer did NOT want to exclude the vaccinated from at least one trial, EPIC-SR, from the start. In the beginning, EPIC-SR allowed vaccinated people with comorbidities. Original Epic-SR exclusion read:
Has received or is expected to receive any COVID-19 vaccine, except for participants with an underlying medical condition associated with an increased risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19. Participants with these conditions who are fully vaccinated are considered to be at lower risk of developing severe disease and are therefore considered eligible.
So, according to the above, vaccinated patients with comorbidities were considered “standard risk” and were in the trial.
However, between March 9 and April 5 of 2022, Pfizer decided to change the criteria and excluded ALL vaccinated people:
What made Pfizer change this criterion? My speculative answer is that Pfizer knew that Paxlovid did not work in the vaccinated. Having failed to hit the target when it came to vaccinated people, Pfizer decided to remove them from the trial and “move the target,” so to speak. This way, the EPIC-SR study would end up being a “success,” technically.
They removed their main target market — the vaccinated — from the trial, to make sure that the trial looks good. Then Pfizer turned around and asked the FDA to sell the drug to the very people whom they consciously excluded from the trial.
Despite intentionally removing and ignoring vaccinated people in both trials, Pfizer asked for and received FDA approval for all patients, vaccinated or not. So now, Pfizer gets $895 per treatment course and makes a lot of money. Does this treatment benefit vaccinated patients? You decide.
Paxlovid was not tested in Children; FDA Approved Paxlovid for Kids Anyway
It gets worse. Both EPIC-HR and EPIC-SR excluded children under 18.
I am slightly puzzled by this. I mean, surely the FDA cares for our children, right? So wouldn’t it want to ask Pfizer to at least test Paxlovid for children? Of course, it is just a few million dollars for Pfizer. Not a big deal. But testing on children was not done at all, and the FDA recommended Paxlovid for children anyway.
Mind you, Paxlovid is not a little harmless vitamin pill. It is a repackaged HIV/AIDS medication blocking certain liver functions, combined with a radically novel protease inhibitor affecting intricate intracellular processes. Who knows how Paxlovid affects growing kids going through puberty? I surely do not know, but does anyone else?
Controversy over “herd immunity” has been with us since beginning of Covid-19. “Herd immunity” is defined as a critical percentage of people who are immune to the virus, that is so high that the pathogen does not have enough susceptible hosts to jump to and from to sustain transmission, and thus the pandemic stops or remains at extremely low level.
Narratives of mainstream media and the so called “health experts” about herd immunity changed several times. Before vaccines, “herd immunity” and the Great Barrington Declaration, calling for smart ways to reach herd immunity, were vilified and declared to be a very dangerous concept:
Later, during the period of promoting “Covid Vaccine’“, herd immunity was declared to be the a desirable, but elusive goal requiring higher and higher percentage of people to be vaccinated:
Lastly, as vaccine failure became most evident to all except the most ardent supporters, herd immunity was declared unattainable by the same “health experts”:
It turns out that all three of these messaging campaigns were false:
Herd immunity is a good thing when it is reached
Herd Immunity is attainable
Many countries in the world reached herd immunity already
Look at the chart: the herd immunity countries listed above, barely register on the bottom of this graph. You have to make a visual effort even to identify their recent curves, way below the crazy infection curves of vaccinated countries.
The Mistake of Vaccination is NOT Reversible.Unfortunately, there is no way to “un-vaccinate” people. The highly vaccinated countries and regions will have to suffer endless Covid infections and reinfections for a long time.
California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Gabe Petek had some bad news for the Legislature last week. His office conducted an analysis of 10,000 possible scenarios of tax revenue collections to see how the state’s general fund would be affected.
“In 95 percent of our simulations, the state encountered a budget problem by 2025-26,” Petek wrote.
The “budget problem” is that the state has taken in so much revenue from its high tax rates that it has triggered the so-called Gann limit, a state appropriations limit that was approved by voters in 1979. An “appropriation” is a legislative authorization for spending, and the Gann limit, named after its proponent, Proposition 13 backer Paul Gann, was intended to prevent local and state government from intentionally raking in surplus tax revenue and then spending it all.
The Gann limit, also known as 1979’s Proposition 4, has specific and complicated rules about how revenue is counted and which types of appropriations are limited, but what it means is that surplus revenue can’t simply be spent on anything lawmakers choose.
Voters have had their say more than once about the state should be allocating tax dollars. Under 1988’s Proposition 98, a percentage of revenues must be spent on education, and under 2014’s Proposition 2, the Legislature must put money toward budget reserves. The Legislative Analyst’s Office determined that once the state appropriations limit (SAL) is reached, the “budget problem” kicks in with a vengeance. “We estimate that for every dollar of tax revenue above the SAL, the state faces approximately $1.60 in constitutional funding obligations,” Petek wrote.
So if the economy is strong and revenues continue to rise, the budget is in trouble by 2025-26, and if the economy goes into a recession and revenues fall, the budget is in trouble by 2025-26.
While this would seem to indicate that nothing lawmakers do will change the outcome, that’s not the case. The recommendation from the Legislative Analyst’s Office is for the Legislature to reject “the lion’s share” of $10 billion of proposals in the governor’s budget.
You might as well try to get a raw steak out of a lion’s jaws. Even the LAO admits that rejecting new spending programs is “the most jarring of the options” for the Legislature.
Still, the governor’s budget plan “is not a fiscally sustainable starting point,” Petek writes. Rejecting $10 billion of the governor’s “non-SAL-excludable spending proposals” would help by “constraining growth of the state’s spending base,” another way of saying new programs are an ongoing commitment, not a one-time expense. Rejecting the governor’s spending proposals would also help by “saving the unspent funds” to put the state on “more solid fiscal footing for whatever economic conditions the future holds.”
In a worse-case scenario, the LAO’s analysis found, the state’s budget reserves, estimated at $25 billion, “would be depleted within one year.”
It would be a good idea, Petek, wrote, for lawmakers to apply “close scrutiny to the governor’s spending proposals,” and if it’s not possible to reject them all, to at least adopt a “high threshold for new programs.” The LAO recommends approving only proposals that “address a well-defined problem with a policy strategy that has been evaluated and found to be cost-effective.”
As long as we’re indulging in daydreams, the state should cut its highest-in-the-nation tax rates and stay within the spending limits in the state constitution.
Attorney Brad Geyer seeks information on unidentified “suspicious actors” at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Brad Geyer/Graphic via The Epoch Times)
By Joseph M. Hanneman May 6, 2022Updated: May 7, 2022
Defense attorneys are seeking to identify and investigate 80 suspicious actors and material witnesses, some of whom allegedly ran an entrapment operation against the Oath Keepers on January 6, 2021, and committed crimes including the removal of security fencing, breaching police lines, attacking officers, and inciting crowds to storm into the Capitol.
In a motion (pdf) and supplement (pdf) filed after 11 p.m. on May 5 in federal court in Washington, attorney Brad Geyer listed 80 people, some of whom he said could be government agents or provocateurs. The people are seen on video operating in a coordinated fashion across the Capitol grounds on January 6, the attorney alleged.
Geyer’s suggestion of an entrapment scheme will resonate with dozens of January 6 defense attorneys, coming shortly after two men were acquitted of an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). There was a hung jury on charges against two other defendants. The jury in that case was allowed to consider FBI entrapment as a defense.
Geyer, who represents Oath Keepers defendant Kenneth Harrelson, is seeking a court order from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta compelling federal prosecutors to help identify the individuals and disclose whether they were working for law enforcement or any government agency on January 6. Geyer wrote that the information is exculpatory, which compels the government to produce it. Other Oath Keepers defendants are expected to join in the motion.
The May 5 filing comes on the heels of an April 12 Oath Keepers motion that alleged at least 20 “assets” from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were embedded in the crowds on January 6.
More than a dozen ‘suspicious actors’ flagged by defense attorneys line up on the east steps of the U.S. Capitol, shortly before they pushed past police and climbed to the Columbus Doors on Jan. 6, 2021. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) According to the new filing, video evidence the defense gained access to only recently shows that some of the 80 people attacked police, other people, and members of the Oath Keepers; entered the Capitol on the west side “with apparent permission or acquiescence of government actors”; opened the Columbus Doors on the east side of the Capitol “from the inside, possibly with even further assistance of government actors”; and deployed “sophisticated crowd-behavior techniques,” orienting themselves between protesters and police.Suspicious actors are seen on video “associating, conferring and traveling with others, engaging in behavior to confuse law enforcement through body masking, facial masking, clothing changes, and disorienting skirmishing behavior,” Geyer wrote.
The suspected people used earpieces, satellite phones, and other communication equipment. “Often it appears that these communications devices do not seem to be affected by capacity restriction or sophisticated jamming that was evident throughout the day,” Geyer wrote.
“If it can be established that these SAs [suspicious actors] were government agents, this could amount to entrapment defense that will dispose of this 7th indictment prior to trial,” the motion said.
“If it can be established that SAs, even without established government agency, from the west or elsewhere, were let into the Capitol and/or were assisted in opening the Columbus Doors from the inside—a reasonable inference from video evidence—a reasonable jury might conclude that one or more SAs had government sponsorship,” Geyer wrote.
Eleven members of the Oath Keepers were charged on January 12 with seditious conspiracy, obstruction of a government proceeding, and other counts. The government alleged the Oathkeepers committed the crimes to prevent the certification of Electoral College votes from the 2020 presidential election.
Two Oath Keepers defendants of the original 11 accepted deals offered by prosecutors and pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction. Another Oath Keepers member from North Carolina was charged May 4 with the same counts and pleaded guilty on May 5. All three are expected to assist the FBI with its ongoing January 6 investigations.
Geyer suggested the Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol Rotunda through the famous Columbus Doors atop the east stairs were entrapped by suspicious actors who boxed them in and attempted to push them into the Capitol after the doors were opened from the inside.
“Prima facie evidence of an entrapment scheme (very possibly without formal government agency) is becoming impossible to ignore on video,” Geyer wrote.
Video shot by a French television crew, and surveillance footage under court seal raise “significant concerns of informants, influencers, and inciters whose activities are now clearly observable,” said a footnote in the motion.
Suspicious Examples
“The now observable behavior suggests the exact kind of specialized training, coordination, logistical support, timing, and common goals and objectives that the government attributes to the Oath Keepers,” Geyer wrote. “Conduct alleged against the Oath Keepers seems to have been perpetrated by others before the Oath Keepers were brought in front of the Columbus Doors.”
The new video evidence “not only exculpates defendant Harrelson and the Oath Keepers in compelling ways, it also shows a large group of SAs that actually carry out the crimes of which the Oath Keepers are accused and which is the centerpiece of the government’s case,” the motion said.
The many unidentified individuals in the court filing are referred to by the hashtag nicknames assigned by the Sedition Hunters website.
“James Dean Wannabe” stood on a column near the Columbus Doors and led “vicious attacks by SAs on police with chemicals and mace,” Geyer wrote.
As soon as the inner doors to the Rotunda opened, James Dean Wannabe shot inside the door and began violently pulling protesters into the Capitol, the document said. He also helped to trap Oath Keepers member James Dolan into a tight space with a Capitol Police officer, the report alleged. He was later seen on the east steps after changing clothes and removing his hat.
“Lemony Kickit” and “Lemon Zest,” both known for their colorful hats, appeared at the first and second breach points of the day near Ray Epps, the alleged provocateur who was captured on video on January 5 and 6 imploring protesters to go into the Capitol.
Video also showed Lemony Kickit and Lemon Zest pushed at police and breached the police line on the east steps before they moved up the stairs to the Columbus Doors.
Columbus Doors Were Closed
Videos referenced in Geyer’s motion show that the 17-foot-high, 20,000-pound bronze Columbus Doors were closed when the crowd gathered at the bottom of the steps and then breached the police line. When the crowd reached the top, the fortress-like doors were still shut. It’s not clear when, or why, the doors were opened.
That significant revelation backs up arguments made in January by attorney Jonathon Moseley, who told prosecutors his client, Kelly Meggs, could not have breached the doors because they are controlled from inside the Capitol.
“The outer doors cast from solid bronze would require a bazooka, an artillery shell, or C4 military-grade explosives to breach,” Moseley wrote in a letter to federal prosecutors. “That of course did not happen. You would sooner break into a bank vault than to break the bronze outer Columbus Doors.”
The 17-foot-high bronze Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol were closed when protesters and suspicious actors pushed past police on the east steps on Jan. 6, 2021. The 20,000-pound doors can only be opened from inside. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
The towering Columbus Doors that lead into the Rotunda on the east side of the U.S. Capitol are secured by magnetic locks that can only be opened from the inside by using a security code controlled by Capitol Police, Moseley wrote in an eight-page memo in January.
The two inner doors are secured by magnetic locks and cannot be opened from the outside. Twice within an hour on January 6, suspicious actors opened the inner doors from inside the Rotunda, surveillance video shows.
According to Geyer’s filing, a large number of suspicious actors controlled the scene directly in front of the Columbus Doors after the giant doors were opened. They chased away regular protesters with pepper spray and moved other actors into place. The Oath Keepers, each of whom was shadowed by at least one suspicious actor, were positioned and coaxed toward the entrance.
Six to eight suspicious actors attacked police with mace in preparation to breach the entrance, Geyer wrote.
“The dynamic of the crowd makes this almost invisible or fleeting to almost all publicly available camera angles, so most people in the crowd could not have known these chemical assaults occurred and certainly no one could have known who was standing on the steps which is where the Oath Keepers were positioned at exactly this moment.”
The net effect is that the Oath Keepers, who had come up the east stairs, were swept into the Capitol with the group of suspicious actors, the document alleged. The actors attacked police, breached the doors, and led a crowd inside the Rotunda.
Members of the Oath Keepers were flanked and followed into the U.S. Capitol by suspicious actors on Jan. 6, 2021. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Some of the video evidence referenced in the court motion was redacted from the document because it is part of the more than 14,000 hours of video under a protective court seal.
The court filing will bring fresh attention to the issue of provocateurs at the U.S. Capitol. Epps, a former Oath Keepers member from Arizona, denies he was working as a government informant on Jan. 5 and 6.
Federal prosecutors announced earlier this year they would disclose more information about Epps, whose photo was removed from the FBI’s Jan. 6 most-wanted list. He has not been arrested or charged, despite urging crowds to enter the Capitol and being present when police lines were breached by protesters.
Some of the suspicious actors on Geyer’s list were also seen in the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby where Ashli Babbitt was shot at 2:44 p.m. on Jan. 6. There are a number of other unidentified individuals who stood near Babbitt before she tried to climb out of the hallway and was shot and killed by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.
Three witnesses to the Babbitt shooting were removed from the FBI’s most-wanted list in April 2021 without explanation. Those men have not been identified or charged.
186
