Trump’s legal team is meeting a stonewall of opposition in its quest to find out the truth about what actually happened on January 6, 2021, when objections to the Electoral College’s slate of electors were interrupted by political extremists who has laid siege to the Congress despite multiple disregarded warnings about the danger from law enforcement.
On Monday, Judge Tanya Chutkan, the federal judge hearing former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election challenges lawsuit, declined his legal team’s motion to subpoena members of the House Jan. 6 select committee and others for evidence in his future trial.
The former president’s lawyers requested in October that the court approve subpoenas for records from the National Archives and Records Administration, the House Administration Committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chair of the House Jan. 6 panel, and others.
Trump’s lawyers claim there are missing records from the now-disbanded committee that they need for court preparation. However, former J6 committee members baldly assert that there is no missing material.
Trump’s lawyers have yet to say if they would appeal Judge Chutkan’s judgment.
The former president’s lawyers recently filed a motion for discovery in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case, demanding records about any FBI informants and undercover officers involved in the January 6 incident.
“Please provide all documents regarding informants, cooperators, undercover agents, representatives, or anyone acting in a similar capacity on behalf of or at the behest of the Department of Justice or any law enforcement agency…who was present at or within five miles of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the 9-page discovery letter.
Trump’s trial date in Jack Smith’s January 6 lawsuit is now set for March 4, 2024. This is one day before Super Tuesday – the most important date in the entire primary season.
Julie Kelly reported on the Trump legal team’s discovery filing.
Whoo boy–last week, Trump's lawyers in J6 case filed a 9-page discovery letter seeking lots of records from Special Counsel and DOJ related to 2020 election and Jan 6.
Some highlights: pic.twitter.com/L4iJMbGuqE
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) November 27, 2023
“Whoo boy–last week, Trump’s lawyers in J6 case filed a 9-page discovery letter seeking lots of records from Special Counsel and DOJ related to 2020 election and Jan 6,” Kelly said on X. “Some highlights…”
Kelly noted that the Trump legal team, among other things, wanted the Department of Justice to provide “all documents regarding informants, cooperators, undercover agents, representatives, or anyone acting in a similar capacity on behalf of the Department of Justice or any law enforcement agency…”
She commented, “I’ve said Smith’s indictment could backfire on Dems/Biden in a big way. If Trump’s team gets even some of this discovery, that’s exactly what will happen–not just related to 2020 election but J6 in general…”
Kelly noted that the Trump legal team had run into many redacted documents in the discovery process.
At J6 defendant William Pope’s trial, a federal prosecutor “admitted in court papers that three D.C. Metropolitan Police Department undercover officers acted as provocateurs at the northwest steps of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.”
The report cites an admission in a March 24 filing before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras that sought to keep video footage shot by the officers under court seal. (The document now appears to have been removed.)
The undercover video—a portion of which posted on Rumble on March 24—shows three members of the MPD’s Electronic Surveillance Unit approach the Capitol’s northwest steps. The video footage has been reviewed and is consistent with the Epoch Times report.
“This video clearly evidences undercover law enforcement officers urging the crowds to advance up the stairs and scaffolding towards the Capitol on January 6,” Pope wrote in an earlier case filing. “The government may claim that incidents like this did not happen, but the facts show they did.”
The prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Moran, argued against releasing surveillance footage, even if it contained exculpatory evidence, by claiming that it put officers at risk.
“There are very specific and highly worrisome risks associated with the specific videos the defendant seeks to share en masse,” she wrote.
“Given the highly volatile nature of the discourse surrounding these cases, releasing the identities of the officers depicted in these videos—officers the defendant now claims to have instigated the entire attack on the U.S. Capitol—would surely put the lives of those officers at risk,” the lawyer argued.
Prosecutor Moran, however, acknowledged the thrust of Pope’s statement in a motion filed on March 24.
“The specific footage, GoPro video recorded by an MPD police officer who was stationed at the Capitol in an evidence-gathering capacity, captures the officer shouting words to the effect of, “Go! Go! Go!” Moran said.
“At other times in these videos, the officer and the two other plainclothes officers with him appear to join the crowd around them in various chants, including “drain the swamp,” “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”, and “Whose house? Our house!”
As the motion adds, Officer 1 pushed protesters in front of him to advance on the Capitol, shouting, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, let’s go!”
Video from the bodycam of MPD officer Terry Thorne shows him urging protesters to go down Constitution Avenue to the Capitol from Trump’s speech at 12:30 p.m. He says to “keep the march going.”
“Let’s keep it going,” Thorne says. “Let’s keep the march going. Let’s keep it going. Guys, let’s keep the march going.”
Another video showed uniformed police explaining how to spot non-uniform police who were working the Capitol Riots.
“Dark hair, black vest, thin blue line, thing on, dark hair,” the officer said. “And he’s got like, it looked like a little 27 or something on his hip. No police identification on him at all.”
BREAKING.🚨
“They set us the [expletive] up. That’s what they did. They set us up."
New J6 footage reveals undercover officers revealing themselves, urging Trump protesters to go to the capitol.https://t.co/HLiU4FNRBl
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) February 21, 2023
“They will have a wristband,” he added. “Their guns will have a candy stripe on the barrel. Okay. I don’t know the wristband color, but they’ll have a wristband somewhere.”
In another clip, plain clothes officers reveal their identification and confirm that they are all “armed.”
According to further reports, a defense attorney suggested that as many as 15 federal informants worked the Proud Boys case alone. It is unclear how many FBI informants and undercover police officers worked the January 6 riots. Much of this information remains under seal and FBI Director Christopher Wray has refused to divulge this information to Congress.
But the GOP-led House has released new footage that adds to the mounting evidence that the federal government, which had been tracking far-right extremists plotting to be in the capitol on January 6 since at least November 2020, not only allowed the Capitol Riots to happen, but had aided and abetted in the “insurrection.”
The Capitol Riots conveniently disrupted objections to the 2020 election, as well as became weaponized fodder to attack former President Donald Trump in the aftermath.
The Trump legal team is entitled to know the real story behind what happened on January 6, particularly because his life as a free citizen of the United States depends on it.