According to Attorney Brad Geyer, who is defending Oath Keepers member Kenneth Harrelson, members of the Salt and Light Brigade engaged in a stunning conspiracy to attack the Capitol during the J6 capitol raid but were not arrested.
A defence lawyer claims that on January 6, 2021, “suspicious actors” who got past security on the east side of the U.S. Capitol and engaged in a “stunning conspiracy” to commit crimes that were falsely attributed to the Oath Keepers included members of an Ohio-based Christian organisation called the Salt and Light Brigade.
In a motion (pdf below) filed on January 6, attorney Brad Geyer, who is defending Oath Keepers member Kenneth Harrelson in a criminal seditious-conspiracy case, named dozens of individuals as being among those who allegedly pushed past security on the east side and moved up to the Columbus Doors entrance to the Capitol Rotunda.
Although they have not been charged, according to Geyer, members of the Salt and Light Brigade engaged in a “stunning conspiracy” to attack the Capitol. A former Green Beret with experience in “special operations, covert operations, psychological operations, undercover operations, [and] surveillance operations” is one of many group members and acquaintances who claim to have worked in intelligence. He stated that some people have asserted to have high-level government security clearances.
Geyer further claimed in his filing that the Department of Justice had restricted defence lawyers by refusing to provide evidence requested by the defence and withholding information that could have exonerated them, such as the FBI’s potential use of secret human sources—informants—within the Oath Keepers.
Geyer urged U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to postpone the Oath Keepers trial for six months. Mehta dismissed the request. Additionally, the judge rejected Geyer’s request to compel the prosecution to provide defence attorneys with evidence they had requested but not yet received.
Before Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, the founder of Oath Keepers, sacked his defence attorneys and requested Judge Mehta to postpone the trial’s start date of Sept. 26 by at least 90 days, Geyer filed a motion for a delay. On September 7, Mehta decided that Rhodes could not dismiss his legal counsel and rejected an urgent motion to postpone the trial.
“We’re still turning over rocks and finding amazing things on a daily basis,” Geyer said on “Crossroads” program. “The learning curve at this stage should not still be that steep.”
Geyer claimed that witnesses for the defence would testify that Harrelson and other Oath Keepers were responsible for the actions of Salt and Light Brigade members.
Experts “will document the actual plan and conspiracy to deploy rally attendees as force multipliers that the Oath Keepers played no part in,” Geyer wrote. “There was a plan to attack the Capitol, but not by Harrelson.
“The government frames Harrelson as the conductor of the orchestra when he did not even play in a strings section or a brass section but was merely a member of the audience.”
Plans to Storm the Capitol
In his application for a trial adjournment, Geyer said that members of the Salt and Light group, which includes a man convicted of bombing an abortion clinic, spoke on video about their intentions to storm and seize the Capitol. In a hearing on August 2, Mehta rejected the motion, and in subsequent hearings, he has reiterated his objection to postponing the trial.
In his earlier court filing, Geyer listed 80 “suspicious actors” and “material witnesses,” many of whom had not yet been detained or accused of crimes related to the morning of January 6, and 43 more people were added to that list. Geyer questioned how the FBI could be unaware of an organisation whose members publicly discussed sending 500,000 armed men to the Capitol in the first few days of January 2021.
“We developed an additional overlapping list of 43 suspicious actors and/or material witnesses, some of whom planned to attack the Capitol, organized and coordinated the attack on the Capitol,” Geyer wrote, “and can now actually be seen carrying it out without Mr. Harrelson’s knowledge, because we can now finally see from surveillance video that he participated in no attacks, took part in no vandalism and came to the assistance of police.”
“That the FBI could still be reviewing required discovery and Brady [exculpatory] information more than 18 months post-arrest and be sitting on evidence of a host of perpetrators who actually engaged in the crimes that Harrelson is accused of committing is shocking and frankly, incomprehensible…” he wrote, “since the FBI is the best law enforcement agency without question in the world, and it is expert in developing CHS [confidential human source] assets prior to events like January 6.”
‘They Must Fear Us!’
Pastor Bill Dunfee, a member of the Salt and Light Brigade, is allegedly seen on camera urging a crowd to storm the Capitol on the east side. According to the court filing, the majority of his alleged inciting occurred before to President Donald Trump’s speech at the Ellipse. According to the document, Dunfee exhorted the gathering, “They must fear us.” “We must rise up!”
“Dunfee asked repeatedly, ‘Whose building is that?’ He then asked, ‘Why are we here?’” Geyer wrote. “And Dunfee answered, ‘We are here to take our building, to have our voices heard.’”
Dunfee stated in an email that he concurs with Daubenmire’s comments to the newspaper.
That statement reads, in part, “Sadly, selective enforcement of the law seems to be rampant today. Since when is exercising a Constitutional right illegal? That is all we did. That is all we ever do. Our record speaks for itself. Peaceable assembly. Anyone is welcome to gather with us.”
On January 6, John Brockhoeft, another accused member of the brigade, said during a live feed on the Capitol’s east side, “They put these barriers up because they knew we were coming. The livestream video states, “And I’ve heard some chatter about how our people are going to take those barriers down and push their way in.”
According to local newspaper accounts from the time, Brockhoeft served time in federal prison for the 1988 attempt to bomb an abortion clinic in Florida and the 1980 bombing of an abortion clinic in Ohio. According to Geyer, he frequently takes part in Salt and Light Brigade activities across the nation.
Battalion member Joseph “Silver” Farrell proposed locking up lawmakers in the House and Senate chambers with a full-term aborted kid on January 6 and “making every person in that damned room lick it” on the Dec. 29, 2020 broadcast of “Coach Dave Live.” “Okay, let’s see how they enjoy their freedom, because we’re going to bar the doors until everybody does it.”
On his podcast on December 16, 2020, Daubenmire played a clip of a Salt and Light Brigade member urging 500,000 armed men to attack Washington on January 4—a date that had been modified to January 6 after Trump’s Ellipse speech announcement. Daubenmire stated that the timing was right to “strap a rifle over your shoulder” and that there was a chance to “totally redo Washington D.C.,” according to Geyer.
Just after the Ohio delegation arrived in Washington, Daubenmire posed the following question on his podcast: “What if 500,000 people said they’ve had enough of it?’” Geyer wrote. “Then Daubenmire asked, ‘What if 200,000 people said they’ve had enough and decided to storm the capitol? .”
Geyer claims that a U.S. Senate inquiry discovered that the U.S. Capitol Police had information on the need for 500,000 armed men by the end of December 2020.
No. 9 on FBI Most-Wanted Page
Other allegedly suspicious actors, including Megan Paradise, who can be seen on surveillance footage at numerous locations on the Capitol’s east side directing demonstrators inside, are also mentioned in Geyer’s court brief. Paradise is listed as the ninth most sought person on the FBI’s most wanted page as of January 6, but she has not been found or charged.
A cell phone video captured Paradise telling some onlookers, “You guys better [expletive] join us is the thing,” as Dunfee attempted to address a raucous crowd on January 6.
On January 6, a picture of Paradise seated at a desk in Nancy Pelosi’s office was taken. She sat next to Richard “Bigo” Barnett, who was requested to pose by a news photographer for a picture of him with his feet up on a desk. For his alleged activities on January 6, Barnett is charged with almost half a dozen federal offences. He declined a plea deal that asked for up to 87 months in jail.
“Take their shields ! Take their shields!” the Paradise chant was heard at the top of the east steps, according to Geyer. Just as another suspicious actor going by the handle #GooseInGrey swiped a police officer’s riot shield. According to Geyer, “She chanted, ‘Break the door, break the door,'”
Paradise and the other man, according to Wheeler, informed him the items originated from Pelosi’s office. The man was holding a bottle of wine from the San Francisco Democratic National Convention in 1984.
In the days following January 6, according to Paradise’s aunt Lynette Carolla, her niece took a flight back to Washington and spoke with FBI agents.
“She was very apologetic, and she was honest,” Carolla said during an episode of her podcast, “For Crying Out Loud.”
“And, you know, she just sat at the desk, wrote a note, and then she laughed. They [the FBI] want to see all the text messages. They want to make sure she’s not part of anything, which she’s not. And she went down there by herself. Her dad bought her the ticket.”
Adam Carolla, a comedian and celebrity radio presenter who co-hosted “The Man Show” on Comedy Central with Jimmy Kimmel, and Lynette Carolla are divorced. Dean Paradise, her brother, is Megan’s father.
Read the motion given below:
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