Florida Pastor, Son and Congregant Face Federal Charges for Capitol Riot

….when the FBI is motivated. Now, let’s talk about the wrongs done by the BATFE in Fast & Furious, the IRS in their nonprofit accreditation scandal (still ongoing if some recent news is indicative), the FBI vis-a-vis the false claim of Russian interference in the 2016 elections and use of the unvetted Steele/Clinton dossier, and the failure to act for the past 20 years as Occupy, Antifa, and others have terrorized American cities.

[Bert Perry]

Now, let’s talk about the wrongs done by the BATFE in Fast & Furious…

deflection. Whether they were caught or not is only partly relevant. The bigger relevancy is the theology associated with a pastor storming the US capital building committing numerous crimes.

No doubt that being willing to participate in a riot does speak to the theology of those doing so. That said, there is also a very big issue where the FBI seems to be very motivated to investigate crimes committed (or as in the case of Carter Paige and President Trump, not committed nor plausible) by Republicans, but not so motivated to investigate those claimed against Democrats. It’s a hard way to run a republic, to put it mildly.

Some of the items you mentioned are more Trump and right wing narratives than actual threats. For example, only one death has been attributed to Antifa, and that individual was subsequently shot while being arrested. more than 40 people have died from white supremacy in the last 2 years. There is no evidence that Antifa is part of the domestic terroism threat to the US, but enormous evidence that white supremacy is a serious threat to the US. While there may be instances of slant in investigations (remember much of this is political to begin with), it isn’t as extreme as the narratives that are pedaled would have you believe.

David, that’s a rather selective way of determining the death toll and impact of Antifa, Occupy, and BLM. Due to many factors, but very significantly “defund the police” and the failure of politicians to stand up for the force, murder rates in many big cities were up 30-40% last year. That’s 120 extra deaths in New York City alone. Add to that the billions of dollars in property damage and the economic ruination of thousands of business owners and workers, and you’ve got a seriously big issue here.

It isn’t entirely the fault of the FBI, but Antifa and Occupy both did commit federal crimes, and just like their spectacular record in the Nassar case, and just like their spectacular record in the Hilliary Clinton server investigation, the FBI were nowhere to be found.

And yes, the Hilliary investigation; for months, they didn’t even issue a subpoena to get the server on which hundreds of pieces of classified information were stored. When I was working for TRW at Space Park—this is the company immortalized as “RTX” in The Falcon and the Snowman—HR made very clear to us that if people got word that any of us were screwing around with classified information, the FBI would have all our electronic devices (and us) in custody by the end of the day.

Again, the FBI is saying a lot about their priorities by what they do, and do not, investigate. I’m glad they’re putting effort into this, but the overall lack of effort for investigating crimes that are committed by Democrats speaks volumes.

So we are to believe that the FBI is politically slanted to ignore crimes by Democrats and focus on Republicans? I find that somewhat hard to believe, especially since the current director is a Trump appointee. It seems more likely that the magnitude of what took place on January 6 is what is motivating the FBI.

[Ken S]

So we are to believe that the FBI is politically slanted to ignore crimes by Democrats and focus on Republicans? I find that somewhat hard to believe, especially since the current director is a Trump appointee. It seems more likely that the magnitude of what took place on January 6 is what is motivating the FBI.

Exactly. The FBI, the executive branch, the Justice Department, the Supreme Court, the federal courts were all occupied by Trump appointees. The reason why there was nothing, is because there was nothing. Bill Barr claimed that antifa was responsible for the riots after George Floyd’s death. 51 individuals faced federal charges. None of the people arrested were found to have any antifa links. The police, FBI and Justice Department could not find any. So it lands on the heap of a narrative with no real truth behind it.

Then you have the Capitol Riot, which was fully coordinated by White Supremicist, with plenty of recorded evidence. They storm the capitol building the very soul of our democracy, to overthrow duly elected officials who had not committed a single crime. They setup gallows, chanted that they were going to hang people, including the VP. And somehow the FBI is blowing this out of proportion. January 6th, if it had continued to the end result that was desired by many in that crowd would have been the single biggest threat to American Democracy since the founding of this country.

So an unarmed incursion into the Capitol is a bigger deal than the likelihood that Mrs. Clinton’s illegal and unsecured server was exposing the inner workings of the State Department to anyone who figured out it existed? It’s a bigger deal than the strong likelihood that Joe Biden was selling influence in return for sinecures for his son? It’s a bigger deal than the very real deaths of 300 Mexican nationals and at least two Border Patrol agents who died because the BATFE commanded gun dealers to allow known ineligible purchasers to buy assault rifles? It’s a bigger deal than the fact that Patrick Fitzgerald’s office mysteriously “leaked” just as the identities of people bidding for Barack Obama’s Senate seat would have become known? It’s a bigger deal than Lois Lerner (“oopsie”) illegally using political affiliation as a proxy for increased surveillance of Tea Party groups—and thus keeping many on the sidelines for (ahem) the 2012 elections?

Seriously? Really, Patrick Fitzgerald is a case study for bias here. He took out Scooter Libby despite learning three weeks into his investigation that no real crime was committed in unveiling Valerie Plame status, generating the “lying to investigators” conviction with an unwarranted investigation. In l’affaire Blago, his office leaked just as the investigation into Blago really would have gotten interesting (and likely devastating for Illinois Democrats). At my alma mater, Fitzgerald “exonerated” MSU in the Larry Nassar case without as much as a report. 500 million bucks later, we know how that one turned out. Evidence suggests the man is for sale.

Jim Comey is similar. He’s the guy who hounded Martha Stewart into a “lying to investigators” conviction long after he determined that her sale of ImClone stock was not illegal, is the guy who failed to even subpoena evidence in the open and shut Hilliary Clinton case, then said “well, we’d never try to convict her, but you plebians shouldn’t try this”, and then leaked memos to the NY Times to get tne Mueller investigation started when he was fired.

Also worth noting is that the IRS has been caught using religious viewpoints as if they were political in applications for 501C3 status again. Really, the Capitol invasion was an attempt to overturn an election—and so is this abuse of the IRS.

Brothers, this stuff is serious. It’s not that the Capitol riot is not, but if it’s worth the FBI’s time to investigate this, it’s worth their time to investigate these other things seriously, too.

Yes the unarmed incursion into the Capitol is more serious than all of that. It had the potential, if carried to its logical end to subvert the Constitution and essentially destroy America as we know it. Then all of the other things you mentioned are irrelevant. Clinton is not the first person to use a personal email server. Colin Powell did it. Is there any uproar over him? Nope. We have been going on and on about the Clinton email server. No one has found anything. Trump didn’t find anything. If someone finds something great. But if Trump and his team couldn’t find anything, than I am not that concerned. Same with Biden’s son. The funny thing is that in the end it is going to be Guiliani that will be in trouble for selling favors to Ukraine. If they had something than Rudy wouldn’t need to be doing all of this back handed stuff to try to get them to announce something on Biden’s son.

Bert, there is probably a secret cabal that is controlling all of this and hiding this from the public. There is a secret group of politicians and important people that are really controlling things here and that is who we need to find and chase after. I have heard of this group from someone whose name starts with a Q, but I can’t remember.

….for those who think that the incursion of unarmed protesters really was an existential threat to the republic. Let’s be honest; even if they had been armed, they were going to get past security and the Secret Service exactly how? They would have been slaughtered, and as the prosecutions continue, it will become very clear that the protesters and their leaders knew that well.

Yes, it was an attempt to subvert an election, but that is exactly like what Lois Lerner did with the IRS, and that is exactly like what Clinton, Comey, and Mueller did with the Steele dossier. It is also exactly what Comey did by refusing to issue a subpoena regarding the server that held at least 1586 emails holding confidential or top secret information—22 in the latter category. If you doubt this, look up 18 USC 798.

Since you mention Powell, the inventory of his email (which he actually provided to the government, ahem) revealed two that were later classified as confidential. No doubt he shouldn’t have used private email, as it subverts government accountability and confidentiality, but his crimes were nowhere near as significant as Mrs. Clinton’s.

You can mock the pattern as much as you like, but when there’s a consistent pattern of ‘making mistakes” in big cases, especially where one side of the political aisle seems to benefit, that’s the point where a thinking person ought to wonder whether that many smart people are making that many dumb mistakes, or whether there’s a reason that these particular things are being dropped.

[Bert Perry]

….for those who think that the incursion of unarmed protesters really was an existential threat to the republic. Let’s be honest; even if they had been armed, they were going to get past security and the Secret Service exactly how?

The issue is that they were a threat. They had weapons, including pipe bombs and they did get past security. Many layers of it. The problem that you are facing is that you are selectively focusing on perceived items that you felt should have gotten prosecuted and then you make a blanket statement that the FBI focuses more on conservatives and ignore liberal issues. I will just give you one example. Most liberals thought that Mueller and subsequently the Justice department should have gone farther with Trump. Most legal experts agree that wrongdoing was committed and that it could have been prosecuted. Trumps head of the Justice department shot it down and refused to prosecute based on long standing tradition. This is no different than what Comey did with Clinton’s email. He said almost the same words that Mueller used. You are caught up in an echo chamber that reinforces your beliefs and concerns. If you flip the coin you have the same issue. The damage that white supremcist and far right people have done is much greater than what far left people have done. In fact, you are driving the same narrative that Timothy McVeigh used when he became angry when federal agents and other individuals were not held accountable. So he bombed the federal building killing 168 people and injuring 684 others. In the last 25 years the far right has killed 329 people. To this day do evidence or charges have been produced against any deaths of Antifa. I am not saying Antifa is perfect. But you are just playing into the Trump narrative that all of the violence in this country is solely in the realm of Antifa

[Bert Perry]

….for those who think that the incursion of unarmed protesters really was an existential threat to the republic. Let’s be honest; even if they had been armed, they were going to get past security and the Secret Service exactly how? They would have been slaughtered, and as the prosecutions continue, it will become very clear that the protesters and their leaders knew that well.

Yes, let’s be honest. They were rioters with weapons, not unarmed protesters. The rioters DID get past security and were very close to being able to get their hands on legislators. There is no doubt that they would have killed some of them if they could have. The rioters were in the building for hours before police gained control, and they wasn’t enough law enforcement in the building to “slaughter” them. And why were members of Congress hunkered down waiting for a way to escape the building if the danger was not imminent? And would the crowd chanting “hang Mike Pence” not have carried out their threat if they had been able to capture the vice-president, which they were almost able to do?

There is plenty of information on what happened that day available, and it is clear that members of Congress were in very real, life-threatening danger. The sanitized right-wing news reports of what actually took place on January 6 are not an accurate description of the real story. Watching video and listening to some of the stories from Capitol police is pretty chilling. And that is why the FBI is taking this so seriously…because it was.

Most liberals thought that Mueller and subsequently the Justice department should have gone farther with Trump. Most legal experts agree that wrongdoing was committed and that it could have been prosecuted.

Now, let’s contrast this with what the Mueller investigation actually achieved; a net total of zero convictions for crimes related to the ostensible reason for the investigation, and his report found no evidence of collusion with Russia.

In other words, Dave’s found a group of so-called “legal experts” who think it’s somehow just to go off nonsense evidence to bleed people dry, one billable hour at a time, while on the other side of the aisle, open and shut cases can’t even get a grand jury convened, let alone a subpoena issued or an indictment made.

That’s a big part of why that crowd was at the Capitol, guys. And don’t think that I haven’t noticed that you haven’t really dealt with the evidence I provided of how some very serious cases that would impact the left heavily are languishing.

One other note; there were no pipe bombs or other weapons found at the Capitol. They were found at Republican and Democratic headquarters outside buildings away from the Capitol. So like I noted before, there was no serious threat to life posed by the rioters, as they were unarmed.

[Bert Perry]

One other note; there were no pipe bombs or other weapons found at the Capitol. They were found at Republican and Democratic headquarters outside buildings away from the Capitol. So like I noted before, there was no serious threat to life posed by the rioters, as they were unarmed.

[Kevin Miller]

Bert Perry wrote:

One other note; there were no pipe bombs or other weapons found at the Capitol. They were found at Republican and Democratic headquarters outside buildings away from the Capitol. So like I noted before, there was no serious threat to life posed by the rioters, as they were unarmed.

Wouldn’t the chant “hang Mike Pence” be, in and of itself, a serious threat to life? One wouldn’t even need an actual weapon to carry that out. A piece of rope would have been sufficient.

Well, can you and a couple dozen of your buddies make it past a few dozen Secret Service agents armed with a rope? There is a certain point where this becomes like me arguing I’m going to get past the 101st Airborne and give the commanding officer a noogie. It just ain’t gonna happen.