Controversial Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem was paid thousands of dollars by the Trump campaign as it sought to overturn the election results. “Former President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign reported paying $6,037 to a business owned by state Rep. Mark Finchem while the lawmaker pushed for the Legislature to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona,” the Arizona Republic reported Saturday. “The campaign reported in its latest financial disclosure that it made a payment on Dec. 18 to ‘Mrk Finchem PLLC’ and the address provided for the company is the lawmaker’s home. The campaign labeled the expense as ‘recount: legal consulting.'” “And Finchem is not a lawyer, but the University of Arizona confirmed he is enrolled in the Master of Legal Studies program at the James E. Rogers College of Law,” the newspaper noted. “Finchem, R-Oro Valley, said the payment was a reimbursement ‘for crowd control and security costs’ at a meeting he convened at a downtown Phoenix hotel on Nov. 30 with the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, several other Republican legislators and various people alleging wrongdoing during the election.”
A Kentucky man was arrested Thursday in Uniontown on charges of participating in the U.S. Capitol riots on Jan. 6, including spraying police with mace. Peter Schwartz was charged with forcibly assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers; knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building; obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder; and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Mr. Schwartz appeared briefly before a federal magistrate judge in Pittsburgh and will be held in custody pending more hearings Wednesday, including a hearing on the government’s request for detention. It was not immediately clear why he was in Uniontown or whether he has ties to that area. According to an FBI affidavit, agents identified Mr. Schwartz on a television newscast Jan. 7 that showed a clash between rioters and police outside the Capitol building. In that footage, the FBI said Mr. Schwartz is seen extending his arm from among the crowd and spraying mace at police. One officer appears to be hit and turns away. Mr. Schwartz is later seen in the footage wielding a wooden baton, the FBI said. On Jan. 11, agents also received a tip from an acquaintance of Mr. Schwartz. The tipster said Mr. Schwartz, a traveling welder by trade, is a felon who had been released from prison because of COVID-19 concerns and was supposed to be in a rehabilitation center in Owensboro, Ky.
New Hampshire postal worker and former correctional officer Jason Riddle first won national attention when he was captured on video drinking a bottle of wine inside the Capitol building during the Jan. 6 riot. But he has since told the FBI he also stole a leather-bound volume from the Senate Parliamentarian’s office, then sold it outside, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in federal court. Riddle told agents he took the tome from a desk, and “described it as old looking, bound in reddish-brown leather, and [said] it was ‘like a dictionary.’” After spending about 30 minutes inside, Riddle said he left and sold the book, which he remembered being titled “something to the effect of ‘Senate Chambers,’” to an unknown man outside for $40. Riddle later tried to delete any incriminating evidence from his phone, according to the complaint. It didn’t work.
siehe auch: NH Man Who ‘Chugged’ Glass of Wine Amid Capitol Riot Says He Has No Regrets. Jason Riddle said he now understands he likely broke the law by going into the Capitol but hasn’t yet heard from any law enforcement agency. A New Hampshire man who attended a Trump rally in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, then swept with a mob into the Capitol building, described drinking wine amid the melee and said he has no regrets. Jason Riddle, of Keene, New Hampshire, says he is a military veteran and a proud supporter of President Donald Trump. Their shared belief that the election results were wrong is why he decided to make the trip to D.C. and protest. “He’s winning the election when I go to sleep and then I wake up and, somehow, he’s magically losing now?” Riddle told NBC10 Boston in a Zoom interview Friday. All U.S. states have validated that there was no fraud in the 2020 election, and fraud hasn’t been proven in dozens of court cases brought by Trump’s legal team.
Two individuals from Lycoming County were arrested and charged with breaking into the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. in January. Mark R. Aungst, 45, of South Williamsport and Tammy A. Bronsburg (a.k.a. Tammy Butry), 49, of Williamsport were arrested on Thursday. Both were charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct and entering a restricted building. Bronsburg and Aungst were part of a bus trip organized “via Facebook to go to President Trump’s rally in Washington D.C.,” according to the criminal affidavit sworn by Special Agent Agent Josh Miller of the FBI. Aungst was a last-minute addition to the bus, taking the place of a last-minute drop out, and Bronsburg reportedly “delayed the bus’s departure departure from Pennsylvania because she had been waiting at a McDonald’s in Williamsport” instead of the actual pick-up location at the McDonald’s in Lewisburg, states the affidavit. Aungst and Bronsburg were “the last two trip participants to return to the bus” and Aungst reportedly bragged “about being inside the U.S. Capitol” upon returning to the bus, according to Agent Miller.
Widespread voter fraud is a fake problem, but some conservative donors say they’re getting scammed out of real money. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S post-election litigation was, in legal terms, a flop. In financial terms, however, it was an unparalleled success, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in donations. While a small percentage of that money was spent on doomed legal challenges, much of it went to pay off the campaign’s debts, straight to the Republican Party, or to finance a leadership PAC that Trump can use to fund his future ambitions. More than $2.7 million flowed from the Trump campaign to individuals and firms involved in the January 6 rally in Washington, D.C. The former president isn’t the only one who cashed in on manufactured voter-fraud panic. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., have both fundraised off the lie. “The evidence was quite clear within a few weeks of the election that there was no massive fraud that could have affected its results. And so anyone making those claims is either deluding themselves or deluding someone else.” Further from the spotlight, a network of small nongovernment groups and right-wing personalities also used the discredited narrative of a stolen election to convince conservative Americans, rich and poor alike, to hand over their money. In some cases, new lawsuits allege, it may have been used to personally enrich the fundraisers themselves. Suits filed against the groups True the Vote and pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s Defending the Republic, along with some individuals tied to those enterprises, describe how they turned election fraud allegations into cash.
‘I have no military background … I’m a mom with eight kids. That’s it. I work. And I garden. And raise chickens. And sell cheese at a farmers’ market’ The FBI has arrested a woman seen on video participating in the Capitol riots last month while apparently directing the insurrectionists with a bullhorn and donning a pink hat, after the mother of eight defended her involvement in the deadly mob in a new interview. Rachel Marie Powell was arrested by authorities on Thursday in Pennsylvania and charged with obstruction, violent entry/disorderly conduct, depredation of government property and entering a restricted building with a dangerous weapon. She could face decades in prison if convicted on all counts, reports said. (…) Ms Powell, who has since described herself as a cheese vendor for local farmers markets with “no military background,” earned herself the moniker “pink hat lady” after videos of her storming the Capitol and seemingly instructing others went viral during the attacks, which left at least five people dead, including United States Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. According to the filings, Ms Powell smashed a window in the Capitol building to illegally gain entry into the facilities as Congress convened to certify former President Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 elections.
siehe auch: Local mom in custody for role in violence at U.S. Capitol will stay in prison until next hearing. Local mom in custody for role in violence at U.S. Capitol will stay in prison until next hearing. Rachel Powell, the local mother of eight who has been on-the-run from the FBI, is now in custody and will stay there until her next hearing. She turned herself in to the FBI in New Castle Thursday night, officials said. Powell was taken to the Butler County Prison, which is a holding facility for federal inmates, about 1 a.m. Friday. Powell is charged with obstruction, depredation of government property, restricted building or grounds with a dangerous weapon, restricted building or grounds and violent entry or disorderly conduct. “Rachel Powell is neither a danger to her community or a risk of flight. She hired counsel to assist her in turning herself in to the FBI and to address these charges. It is inconceivable that she would try to run and leave her children without their mother.” Powell didn’t speak during a hearing Friday afternoon, other than to give her name. Her next hearing will be Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 2:30 p.m. and she will be held in the Butler County Prison until then. Sources told Channel 11 she’s unhappy about wearing a mask in jail.
Im vergangenen Jahr wurden viele Anfeindungen gegen Politiker festgestellt. Foto: dpa/Weronika Peneshko Berlin Seit Beginn der Pandemie sind die Drohungen gegen Politiker, Journalisten und auch Virologen stark gestiegen. Das Bundeskriminalamt hat nun vor weiteren Vorfällen gewarnt und sieht die Entwicklung mit Sorge. Das Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) hat eine steigende Anzahl von Bedrohungen und Anfeindungen von Politikern, Wissenschaftlern und Journalisten durch Corona-Leugner festgestellt. „Wir sehen mit Sorge, dass die Zahl der Bedrohungen und Anfeindungen stetig zunimmt. Das betrifft Politiker, aber auch andere Personen wie etwa Virologen, die während der Pandemie in den Medien besonders präsent sind“, sagte BKA-Präsident Holger Münch in einem Interview „Spiegel“-Interview. „Immer häufiger registrieren wir Angriffe auf Journalisten. Die Emotionalisierung ist groß.“ Deshalb habe das BKA seine Schutzkonzepte in enger Abstimmung mit den Ländern angepasst. „Unter den Querdenkern sind Verschwörungstheoretiker, Esoteriker, aber auch Reichsbürger und Rechtsextremisten“, sagte Münch
