PRESIDENT TRUMP’S DAYS in office dwindled in the aftermath of
the riot. But the arrests piled up.
Down in Georgia, a federal judge rejected a defendant’s request
that he be allowed to spend time until trial at his sister’s house, where he
promised to be good, rather than be sent to jail for his part in the riot.
William Hall Calhoun Jr.’s request was denied, after the
judge told his attorney that clearly a dangerous ideology “has poisoned this man’s mind.”
____________________
“It was absolutely my pleasure to crush a white nationalist insurrection, and we’ll do it as many times as it takes.”
Officer Daniel Hodges
____________________
According to investigators, Mr. Calhoun (who practices law in
the town of Americus) bragged on social media about his skill in firing sniper headshots, and called for
the “slaughter” of political enemies.
A second story filled in more
detail and gave us insight into Calhoun’s flag-waving, Trump-loving, “Make America Lynch Again” frame
of mind. The following information allegedly comes from his Facebook page.
Calhoun said the “mob” searched
through Pelosi’s “inner sanctum,” according to his Facebook post cited in the
affidavit.
“And get this – the first of us
who got upstairs kicked in Nancy Pelosi’s office door and pushed down the hall
towards her inner sanctum, the mob howling with rage,” Calhoun wrote, according
to the FBI.
“Crazy Nancy probably would
have been torn into little pieces but she was nowhere to be seen.”
Yep. Another Trump fan, quoting
the Orange God, referring to the House Speaker as “Crazy Nancy.”
Also facing multiple charges
related to the Capitol Hill attack, was Samuel Camargo, 26, a Florida man who
you might also think had had his mind poisoned. Realizing he was wanted by the
F.B.I. after they tracked him down, he first took a call from an agent and
admitted he had been in Washington the day of the riot. “Then he
became uncooperative and questioned the agent’s loyalty to the constitution
before saying he had no more information to provide,” prosecutors wrote in an
affidavit. “Following this interview, the defendant then posted on social media
‘Just finished speaking to an FBI agent, I believe I’ve been cleared.’”
When authorities arrived at his home to arrest him, however,
Camargo was gone. In what may have been the dumbest move yet, the young man
hopped in his car and drove back to the nation’s capital.
His plan, he said, was to attend the Biden inauguration,
because apparently he was too dumb to watch TV and realize no one like him was
going to get within five miles of the Inaugural stage. And unlike Amanda
Gorman, he wasn’t a poet. Whatever chance he had of crashing the party
evaporated when he was stopped by federal authorities and placed under arrest in Washington D.C.
Blue lives matter!
Right?
This blogger absolutely believes they do. But can we not
agree there are bad cops, just like there are bad teachers, bad businesspersons?
And bad mule skinners?
T. D. Pham, now a “former” Houston, Texas police officer, has
resigned from the force after he was charged with
participating in the Capitol Hill riot. F.B.I. agents found deleted pictures on
his phone, placing him inside the Rotunda on Jan. 6. Pham at first claimed he
traveled to Washington D.C. for a business trip. He just happened to hear that
the president would be giving a speech. Then he happened to attend. Then he
kind of followed the crowd, after Trump stirred everyone up and the
crowd/soon-to-be-mob headed for the building where the electoral votes were to
be counted.
At first, Officer Pham denied he had followed the crowd/mob.
Agents reminded him it was a crime to lie to investigators. Pham admitted he
did leap a couple of barricades and did get inside the Capitol Building, but
only stayed for 10-15 minutes, because he wanted to “look at the historical art
on the walls.”
That’s all the detail we have on ex-Officer Pham; and it
could be he did get caught up in the moment. (I do hate to see people lose
their livelihoods. Or in several cases that day, their lives.) His lawyer
insists that her client cooperated with the F.B.I. and “prays for the success
of the incoming Biden administration.”
She went on to say, “He is deeply saddened to be associated
with the domestic terrorists who attacked our Capitol on January 6, believes
strongly in the rule of law, and that the election choosing President Biden was
fair and free.”
(On
that, Mr. Pham and this blogger agree.)
Also
arrested was solid family man Guy Wesley Reffitt, whose wife turned him in to
the F.B.I. According to his affidavit, Mr. Reffitt warned his wife and children, “If
you turn me in, you’re a traitor and you know what happens to
traitors...traitors get shot.”
That
story was so much “fun,” I decided I should go looking for more detail. Surely
this Texas man must be Antifa! After all, no less than great lawmakers like
Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama had insisted that no
Trump fans had participated in the riot, because Trump fans love “Law &
Order” more than having sex or shooting their guns.
Or
shooting their guns while having sex.
The
Washington Times added a splash of color, but not a
syllable about Mr. Reffitt’s left-wing inclinations.
Rather:
Mr. Reffitt also told his family that he had to “erase
everything” because the F.B.I. was on to him, vowing to “do what he had to do,”
if his family reported him to the F.B.I., court documents revealed.
Mr. Reffitt also threatened to “put a bullet” through his daughter’s
phone if she shared a video of him rioting in the Capitol, according to federal
prosecutors.
His wife told federal agents that her husband was a member of
the far-right Three Percenters movement, too.
Mr. Reffitt was
allegedly spotted in a video of the Capitol riot wearing a blue jacket over a
black military-style vest and a black helmet with a camera attached. The video
also appears to show him flushing out his eyes because he was sprayed with a
chemical irritant.
Federal agents discovered an AR-15 rifle and a Smith & Wesson pistol while
searching his home on Jan. 16, court documents said. Mr. Reffitt told
investigators he brought the pistol to Washington but disassembled it to comply
with the city’s gun laws.
Also posing for a mug shot this week: Patrick Edward
McCaughey III, 23, of Ridgefield, Connecticut.
In this case, we can let CNBC tell the tale. During one pivotal moment, with police
barring a hall behind double doors, and dozens of rioters pushing against them,
McCaughey played a central role:
Patrick Edward McCaughey III,
23, of Ridgefield, repeatedly told Metropolitian [sic] Police Officer Daniel
Hodges “just go home” and “come on man, you are going to get squished” as he
pinned Hodges between a police riot shield that McCaughey was holding and the
doors, a criminal complaint said.
As McCaughey did so, another
rioter “began violently ripping off Officer Hodges’ gas mask, exposing Officer
Hodges bloodied mouth,” said the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in
Washington, D.C.
“Don’t try and use that stick on
me boy,” McCaughey snapped at Hodges, referring to a police riot baton.
Hodges is seen on a YouTube
video of the attack crying out in pain as a horde of supporters of
then-President Donald Trump pushed in against him, adding their weight to
McCaughey’s.
McCaughey was spotted leaving
the Capitol later by security cameras after hitting other cops with the riot
shield, according to the complaint.
If the mob scenes were shocking to most Americans, and even
to most sensible Trump fans, (we hope), Officer Hodges had a comment that, for
this blogger, partly redeemed the day. Asked about his efforts to hold back the
attackers, he told reporters, “If it wasn’t my job, I would have done that for
free.”
He added: “It was absolutely my pleasure to crush a white
nationalist insurrection, and we’ll do it as many times as it takes.”
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