Tag: sedition caucus
'Sedition Caucus' Decries Treatment Of Jailed Capitol Riot Suspects

'Sedition Caucus' Decries Treatment Of Jailed Capitol Riot Suspects

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and three other “Sedition Caucus” Republicans held a press conference Tuesday allegedly to decry the conditions at the D.C. jail, which is housing accused suspects awaiting trial for actions during the January 6 Capitol riot. But Greene and her three co-members used the event primarily to further false far-right claims about the insurrection, while wrongly claiming they are being “persecuted” by the government – a talking point Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly used.

“We have a January 6 committee that Nancy Pelosi is leading,” Greene said, falsely. U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) is the chairman. “That is nothing but a political witch hunt on Republicans and Trump supporters all across America, and anyone that was at the Capitol on January 6.”

More than 600 people from more than 40 states have been charged. Only about 75 are currently in jail, and the charges are often far from casual misdemeanor ones. USA Today maintains a massive, daily-updated listing that currently contains information on 672 people.

Here are the charges for a recently-arrested suspect chosen at random:

“What’s happening to these people being held in custody is wrong,” Greene continued. “It’s unconstitutional. It’s a violation of their rights. And it is an abuse that I call on every single member of Congress to start paying attention to. We need investigations. It’s outrageous. The American people are purely upset, disgusted and cannot believe this is happening in our country.”

Greene claimed the defendants are “beaten” by guards and called “white supremacists,” although she did not say by whom. Some of the defendants infamously carried the flag of the treasonous Confederacy into the U.S. Capitol.

She also claimed those in the D.C. jail “are told they have to denounce President Trump” and “are told that their views are the views of cult members.” Many QAnon cult members were at the Capitol during the attack.

Greene said they are being treated “worse than we treat terrorists.”

But Greene also used the event to attack the Black Lives Matter movement and to suggest that those who engaged in the BLM protests over the summer of 2020 should have been jailed, ignoring that state and local police forces have prosecuted the few violent protestors – some of whom have been documented as far right wing instigators. Multiple reports found of the several hundred arrested, most were not “far left extremists,” despite what the right claimed at the time.

Greene concluded by blaming “Congress,” not the defendants, for their actions and current circumstances.

“Congress only cares about itself,” the GOP extremist told reporters. “It clearly demonstrates to the American people, it does not care about your business that got burned down. It doesn’t care about the job you lost. Congress doesn’t care about your city or community that was devastated by violence. They don’t care about you taxpayers that have to pay to fix and mend and and they don’t care about the person that assaulted you looted your store or hurt you in this violence. They don’t care about any of that,” she claimed.

Greene has voted against every measure that would assist the American people.

“They only care about themselves, and they’re willing to use the Department of Justice, the FBI, the prisons, the jails, the guards and any means possible to make sure that you never mess with them again,” she claimed, again falsely.

Watch this short excerpt:


House Republicans Feuding Over Infrastructure Vote

House Republicans Feuding Over Infrastructure Vote

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

House Republicans have no problem with one of their members posting a tweet depicting him murdering Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but they are outraged at 13 members of their caucus who voted to pass President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill.

Read NowShow less
The Sedition Caucus, Under Oath

The Sedition Caucus, Under Oath

It is an indisputable fact that House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, were at the very heart of former President Donald Trump's coup plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election. While more than hints and clues have pointed to their involvement ever since the January 6 insurrection, their central role emerged this past week when notes of a December 27, 2020, conversation between Trump and the acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen were disclosed.

Informed by Rosen that the Department of Justice could not and would not reverse President Joe Biden's election victory, Trump urged him to "just say the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me and the [Republican] congressmen." Moments later, Trump referred specifically to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, founder of the Freedom Caucus and close associate of Mark Meadows, the former Freedom Caucus chair who left Congress to become Trump's White House chief of staff.

Jordan is so far unwilling to say whether he will testify about the insurrection if he is summoned, just as he refused years ago to assist official inquiries into hundreds of sexual assaults on the Ohio State wrestling team in which he was suspected of complicity or worse. But this time, if the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol requests his appearance, either voluntarily or by subpoena, he will have to show up or face legal consequences. So will several other members of the Capitol Hill "sedition caucus" who sought to invalidate Biden's election, including McCarthy and Arizona Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks, and Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, to name a few of the most prominent.

And so will their longtime confederate Meadows, who has already been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee in the Rosen matter and "may face significant criminal exposure," according to the Just Security website published by New York University School of Law.

Each of these Republican myrmidons has serious questions to answer. Brooks, donning a flak jacket when he addressed the pre-riot Trumpist rally at the Ellipse on January 6 calling for "kicking ass," has claimed immunity, a justification denied by the DOJ. Boebert allegedly gave a tour through the Capitol with unknown persons later identified as insurrectionists in December and January. "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander boasted of concocting a plan to intimidate Congress from certifying the election with Gosar, Biggs, and Brooks.

Jordan was implicated in the coup effort very early, even before Election Day, when he publicly accused Democrats of planning to corrupt the balloting. In the weeks leading up to the insurrection, he plotted with Meadows and Trump at the White House; in the days afterward, he was given the Medal of Freedom by Trump in a closed ceremony there. It is undoubtedly the first time that high honor has been awarded for seditious conspiracy against the Republic.

As the Lincoln historian and former presidential adviser Sidney Blumenthal pointed out in a recent Guardian column, members of Congress possess no immunity against a subpoena from a House investigating committee. Moreover, as Blumenthal also noted, there is richly ironic precedent to summon all of these characters, voluntarily or otherwise, in the official Senate probe of John Brown's infamous Harpers Ferry raid on the eve of the Civil War. Leading that investigation was none other than Mississippi Sen. Jefferson Davis, the traitor who later served as president of the Confederacy (whose battle flag soiled the Capitol hallways on January 6.)

Harper's Ferry was the last domestic insurrection to come under congressional scrutiny — until now. Among the witnesses called to testify about the events leading up to Brown's attack were two antislavery Republican senators suspected by Davis of knowing or aiding him. And it is safe to say that Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and other Democrats on the committee are aware of that precedent.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans named to the committee by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has suggested that Jordan and McCarthy, both of whom spoke with Trump on January 6, should be called — and a very large and rapt television audience awaits her questioning of them.

Meadows, who spent that day and the days preceding the insurrection with Trump in the White House and knows what the former president did and didn't do, will have to face the music. It will not be the last time he's been caught in a coup. In January 2013, when he conspired with Jordan to overthrow Republican House Speaker John Boehner, he was exposed in the failed attempt. He later came to the speaker's office, according to Boehner, got down on his knees, and pleaded, "Will you please forgive me?" Meadows will undoubtedly have another opportunity to get on his knees soon.

These ultra-right Republicans are the face of an authoritarian and frankly nihilist insurgency that began its takeover of the Grand Old Party back when their model Newt Gingrich rose to power as speaker. It is no surprise that this miscreant crew now surrounds their would-be dictator Trump like a praetorian guard, or that they spearheaded his attempt to destroy democracy. But the time is rapidly approaching when they will have to answer for those actions under oath. Of course, Jordan and Meadows and Brooks and Boebert and the other members of the gang can always plead the Fifth Amendment.

To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com

Rep. Madison Cawthorn, right, listens to former President Trump at a fundraising dinner.

‘Sedition On Film’: Cawthorn And Trump Host Weird New Jersey Fundraising Dinner

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) posted a short video clip of himself in a "round table" meeting with Donald Trump and over a dozen people, which he labeled, "Creating the Plan to Win," and captioned: "Behind the Scenes."

The video, since disappeared but captured by some savvy internet users, shows Trump at his usual place whenever he's seated at a table, dead center. One man can be heard saying something about "half a million dollar salaries for four years," and asking, "What do we do? We're a little bit of a special group."

Former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski posted a copy:

Cawthorn also posted photos:

It's all eerily reminiscent of Trump's White House cabinet meetings setup, more so after Trump's former White House Chief of Staff went on right wing cable news Friday talking about how the former president is currently holding meetings with his "Cabinet," as if he were a president in exile.

"We met with several of our Cabinet members tonight," Mark Meadows told Newsmax, "we actually had a follow-up … meeting with some of our Cabinet members, and … we're looking at what does come next."

The New York Times' Maggie Haberman was so stunned she weighed in on Twitter:

Cawthorn, a member of what some call the "Sedition Caucus," held a $50,000 a plate fundraiser at Bedminster Saturday, one day after that curious video was taken, with "special guest" Donald Trump. Cawthorn desperately needs the cash. He's reportedly spent $1.5 million of his $1.8 million fundraising haulthis year.

One of Cawthorn's Democratic opponents mocked him on Twitter:

Some are responding to the "Cabinet" video and photos. Filipkowski says, "I think it's about the second rally at the Capitol they are planning on Sept 18."

Others: