NOW: Court hearing for newly charged US Capitol Police officer. Officer Michael Riley is accused of obstruction... of warning Facebook friend who was at Capitol on Jan 6 to delete pictures

One alleged message: "I'm a Capitol police officer who agrees w/ your political stance"

More of alleged warning message sent by Capitol Police officer to suspected Jan 6 participant: "Take down the part about being in the building they are currently investigating and everyone who was in the building is going to be charged"

Feds allege Capitol Police officer Riley deleted his facebook messages with suspected Jan 6 participant... after the suspect alerted him that the FBI was asking questions ==>

Hearing is beginning now ... before federal magistrate judge Michael Harvey

Officer Riley, 50, is being sworn-in

Grand jury has indicted Riley on two counts of Obstruction of Justice (each is 20-year max federal charges)

Court schedules next court hearing in US Capitol case of Samuel Fisher for...... Jan 6, 2022

Fisher pleaded NOT GUILTY, accused of sending message of Facebook on Jan 7: "I was there.. it was awesome.. it was dangerous and violent.. people died . . . but it was f***ing great"

It appears a plea deal is off-the-table in a high profile Jan 6 case. And an “untraditional” argument was made in another. My latest reporting ===>

Wow

Just read through Rep Mo Brooks (R-AL) legal filing today defending himself in lawsuit filed by Rep Eric Swalwell (D-CA) alleging Brooks helped incite the US Capitol insurrection with "start taking down names and kicking ass" speech

It's quite something

(thread)

Rep Brooks specifies he was called by the White House on Jan 5 and invited to give the speech at Ellipse on Jan 6. And only did so because the White House invited him

He also says, at last minute, organizers tried to reduce the time he was allotted for speech

Rep Brooks' court filing includes the vote tally in his District for Trump and Biden

Arguing he was "representing the will" of the Alabama 5th District that day

About those words we've heard in video clips so many times since Jan 6: "Start taking down names and kicking ass"...

Rep Brooks argues the words "as such" at the start of the sentence were important modifiers or softeners of the language

Rep Brooks added this nugget on info in his legal filing:

He believes the evidence is "overwhelming" that Nov 3 elections suffered from voter fraud, that Donald Trump won the electoral college and should be serving his 2nd term as President