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‘I Can Confirm That’: Democrat Says GOP Member of Congress Gave Capitol Tour to Insurrectionists Day Before Attack

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Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) confirmed the account by Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) that insurrectionists were doing a “reconnaissance tour” with a member of Congress the day before the attack.

Rep. Sherrill did a 13-minute video on Facebook Tuesday evening recalling seeing the incident.

“I can confirm that,” Rep. Maloney told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace. “I don’t have firsthand knowledge of it, but I spoke to a member who saw it personally, and he described it with some alarm. Some of our new colleagues, the same ones, of course, who believe in conspiracy theories and who want to carry guns into the House chamber, who today, today, have been yelling at Capitol Police, shoving them. Who a week ago were risking their lives to save ours. This conduct is beyond the pale, and it extends to some of this interaction with the very people who attacked the Capitol, and that’s why the issue of making sure every member of Congress now goes through a metal detector, which has never happened before, is so important for the security of the inauguration and for our proceedings and it’s a sad reality that we find ourselves at a place where the enemy is within, and we cannot trust our own colleagues.”

“So, I just want to burrow into this fact. It’s so startling. Is it a member or member staff who gave tours to insurrectionists the day before the riot on Wednesday?” Wallace asked.

“Again, I don’t have all the specifics on that,” he said. “My understanding is that there was a member showing people around. And that was the reason that when the person who relayed that story to me objected, the answer comes, ‘well, they’re with a member of Congress.’ So, this issue, right, if a member of Congress wants to do it, traditionally, it has been assumed to be safe. That’s why I sit on the House Intelligence Committee. No one does a background check of me. I’ve been elected by the people. I swear an oath to our nation’s secrets and most of American history, we could rely on the fact that people would conduct themselves a certain way.”

He explained that for the first time since the Civil War, Americans can’t be certain that an official in Congress won’t try to bring a gun to the inauguration and attempt to assassinate President-elect Joe Biden.

Wallace asked who the member was, and Maloney wouldn’t say but claimed he would “send him your way.”

See the interview below:

 

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‘RICO’: Trump Could Be Facing Racketeering and Conspiracy Charges Used to Prosecute Organized Crime

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Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis is reportedly considering RICO charges against Donald Trump in her probe of his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, CNN reports. RICO charges are generally used when prosecuting organized crime cases.

“The reason that I am a fan of RICO is, I think jurors are very, very intelligent,” Willis had said last year about a different case. “They want to know what happened. They want to make an accurate decision about someone’s life. And so RICO is a tool that allows a prosecutor’s office and law enforcement to tell the whole story.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a law professor and an NBC News/MSNBC contributor, Monday morning on Twitter, pointing to CNN’s report, said Willis “is seriously considering a RICO charge.” She repeated that claim on MSNBC shortly after.

READ MORE: Experts Warn Trump Is Encouraging Violence One Day After He Announces Rally at Waco on 30th Anniversary of Siege

CNN reports, “Investigators have a large volume of substantial evidence related to a possible conspiracy from inside and outside the state, including recordings of phone calls, emails, text messages, documents, and testimony before a special grand jury. Their work, the source said, underscores the belief that the push to help Trump was not just a grassroots effort that originated inside the state.”

On-air Monday morning, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor, explained conspiracy, racketeering, and RICO, saying, “conspiracy” is “a loaded word. But all it really means is an agreement, a meeting of the minds between two or more people to commit a crime.”

But he added, “if we go up to racketeering, now, this is a really powerful tool the prosecutors use. What you have to do is show two things. First of all, the existence of what we call a racketeering enterprise, that can be a Mafia family, that can be a drug trafficking organization, but it could also be a corporation or a political entity, and then you have to show that they engage in what we call a pattern of racketeering activity, meaning that they committed two or more crimes in an organized fashion, which brings us to this other new piece of information. There’s a third phone call we already know about, of course, the infamous phone call to Brad Raffensperger. ‘I just want to find 11,780 votes.’ There’s also a public recording of Donald Trump talking to this investigator, Francis Watson, when he tells her, ‘when the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised.'”

READ MORE: ‘Reacting to a Cult Leader’: Trump Supporters Organizing to ‘Stock Up on Weaponry’ Says GOP Adviser

“Now we know, Trump also called the former Georgia Speaker of the House asking him to convene a special session,” Honig continued. “As we know we’ve heard from some of the grand jurors special grand jurors who’ve come out, they’ve told us that they recommended indictments for more than a dozen people.”

Watch CNN’s report below or at this link.

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‘This Man Is a Criminal’: George Conway Busts GOP’s ‘Completely Ridiculous’ Trump Defense

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George Conway ripped Republicans for defending lifelong “criminal” Donald Trump against a looming indictment in New York.

The ex-president apparently expects to be charged in the Stormy Daniels hush money payoff, and the conservative attorney told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he richly deserves it.

“The Republicans are behaving like complete disgraces,” Conway said. “They’re basically saying that, by saying that Trump is being persecuted, they’re essentially saying, you can’t touch Trump and Trump is above the law. Whatever slack you might have wanted to cut a former president, that was gone after Jan. 6. This man is a recidivist criminal, he’s committed fraud all his life, he’s lied all of his life.”

“This Stormy Daniels thing was something he cooked up,” Conway added. “The notion that [Michael] Cohen is going to be discredited on it is ridiculous given the paper trail. We see the checks signed by Donald Trump. It’s hard to say he is being picked on for paying $130,000 in hush money to a porn star and concealing that and using a straw donor, which was Cohen, to do that, and saying he’s being persecuted somehow when no one has ever done that it is completely ridiculous.”

RELATED: Georgia weighs slapping Trump with racketeering charges: CNN

Watch the video below or at this link.


 

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Watch: Fox Anchor Tells Viewers Trump Could Be Handcuffed if Indicted

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Fox Corp. anchor John Roberts told viewers Friday afternoon that if Donald Trump is indicted he might be handcuffed.

Discussing reports that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has requested a “meeting with law enforcement ahead of a potential Trump indictment,” Roberts said, “to discuss logistics for some time next week, which would mean that they are anticipating an indictment next week.”

Roberts appears to report the decision to handcuff the former president or not would be up to the Secret Service.

“Same sources familiar with the planning said they will go over security preparations in and around the courthouse in lower Manhattan. Secret Service will take the lead in what they will allow or will not allow, the source cautioned, mentioning for instance, that the decision to handcuff the president, the former president, or not, they will set the tone and will escort him into the courtroom.”

Bragg’s Office has been investigating Trump’s $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels, which could fall under a number of legal categories, including falsification of business records and unlawful campaign contributions, among others.

READ MORE: ‘A BFD’: Legal Experts Say Judge Ordering Ex-President’s Attorney to Testify Means ‘Trump Probably Committed Crimes’

Without even knowing what charges Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg might bring to indict Trump, if he even decides to charge the ex-president, Roberts claimed: “This was a misdemeanor in New York that Alvin Bragg has decided to elevate to a felony while at the same time downgrading other felonies to misdemeanors. So we’ll be watching this to see how it all unfold to get more information as it comes in.”

The New York Times last week reported, “In New York, falsifying business records can amount to a crime, albeit a misdemeanor. To elevate the crime to a felony charge, Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors must show that Mr. Trump’s ‘intent to defraud’ included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”

“In this case,” The Times explained, “that second crime could be a violation of New York State election law. While hush money is not inherently illegal, the prosecutors could argue that the $130,000 payout effectively became an improper donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign, under the theory that it benefited his candidacy because it silenced Ms. Daniels.”

Earlier Friday NBC News reported that five local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies were meeting to coordinate plans if Trump is indicted.

Watch below or at this link.

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