Last Call For Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Meanwhile, in one of the several other extremely illegal activities of the Trump regime...

 

A lawyer with close ties to the right-wing militia group the Oath Keepers has been charged with four counts related to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack, including conspiracy to obstruct the certification of the electoral college vote that day. 

Kellye SoRelle, an attorney who volunteered for Lawyers for Trump during efforts to challenge the 2020 election results and says she's general counsel for the Oath Keepers, also faces obstruction of justice and obstruction of an official proceeding charges. 

The 43-year-old attorney was arrested Thursday in Junction, Texas, following an indictment in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the US Attorney's Office in DC, Bill Miller, told CNN. Miller added that the Justice Department currently has no additional comments on the case. 

She is scheduled to appear in an Austin, Texas, courtroom Thursday afternoon. 

In May, SoRelle told CNN that she was cooperating with the Justice Department. 

"I've done interviews. I've done everything. I'm helping them," SoRelle told CNN about her cooperation, adding that she also handed over phones to investigators. SoRelle does not represent any Oath Keepers in their criminal proceedings.

 

Oath Keepers are a white supremacist militia who stormed the Capitol because they were instructed to do so by Trump. 

Speaking of the US Capitol building...

Two former top Trump White House lawyers are expected to appear Friday before a federal grand jury investigating the events surrounding Jan. 6, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

Former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, ABC News reported last month.

The move to subpoena the two men has signaled an even more dramatic escalation in the Justice Department's investigation into the Jan. 6 attack than previously known. Members of former Vice President Mike Pence's staff have also appeared before a grand jury.

Officials with the Department of Justice declined to comment when reached by ABC News. A representative for Cipollone and Philbin also declined to comment.

Sources previously told ABC News that attorneys for Cipollone and Philbin were expected to engage in negotiations around any grand jury appearance, while weighing concerns regarding potential claims of executive privilege.

 

Season 2 of the January 6th Hearings will be riveting TV.

 

Everything I've seen in the last six weeks or so has been part of the public case for indicting Trump.

 

More will follow.

 

Russian To Judgment, Con't

It seems that Putin's oligarchs are suffering from a contagious round of fatal defenestration again.

A senior Russian oil executive has died after falling from the window of a Moscow hospital, months after his company criticised the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ravil Maganov, the chair of the board of directors of Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company, “fell from a window at Central clinical hospital,” the Interfax news agency wrote on Thursday, citing a source. “He died from injuries sustained.”

Lukoil said Maganov had “passed away following a severe illness”. The company did not say what Maganov was being treated for.

It was not immediately clear whether his death was an accident, a suicide, or could be tied to foul play. Russian state media agencies citing an unnamed source reported that Maganov had been admitted to the hospital with a heart condition and had been on antidepressants.

Baza, a Russian news site with close ties to the police, suggested he may have slipped from a balcony while smoking.

Half a dozen businesspeople with ties to the Russian energy industry have died in apparent suicides or in mysterious circumstances since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. None of the deaths have been classified as murders.

Maganov’s death has attracted scrutiny because Lukoil was rare among Russian energy companies in criticising the invasion of Ukraine, publicly calling for a ceasefire just one week after Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of Moscow’s “special military operation”.

“Calling for the soonest termination of the armed conflict, we express our sincere empathy for all victims who are affected by this tragedy,” the board of directors of Lukoil said. “We strongly support a lasting ceasefire and a settlement of problems through serious negotiations and diplomacy.”

 

Maganov got his lasting peace, delivered at a very personal level.

 

While Russia continues to get quagmired inside Ukraine, outside of it, their retaliation to EU sanctions by cutting off the continent from natural gas and the personal war against "enemies of the state" like Maganov are both going brilliantly. 

Still an extremely dangerous situation in Europe.

The Posse Comes For The Loan Arranger

Not that it was a particularly difficult call to make, but I did warn you that Republicans were going to challenge Biden's student loan debt forgiveness in court in order to tie it up for years, hurting the people who need it the most so that they turn on Biden's "failure to deliver" with the ultimate goal of getting it struck down by SCOTUS and using it as a cudgel in 2024.

Republican state attorneys general and other leading conservatives are quietly exploring a slew of potential lawsuits targeting President Biden’s plan to cancel some student debt — challenges that could limit or invalidate the policy before it takes full effect.

In recent days, a number of GOP attorneys general from states including Arizona, Missouri and Texas have met privately to discuss a strategy that could see multiple cases filed in different courts around the country, according to a person familiar with their thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the confidential talks.

Other influential conservatives — including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and allies of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank — are mulling their own options as they ratchet up criticism of Biden’s debt-relief plan, two additional people familiar with the matter said. And a conservative advocacy group founded by a major Trump donor said it would file a lawsuit against the policy.

“The conservative public interest law firms in our network are exploring filing lawsuits against this. They are doing background legal research, trying to find out who might be the most suitable clients for them,” John Malcolm, director of the Meese Center at the Heritage Foundation, said in an interview. “They have to find a client with the standing and the gumption to take on a lawsuit. There are several groups in our network who are exploring that right now.”

All of the sources cautioned that no decisions have been made — and as of Thursday morning, no lawsuits appeared to have been filed. But a legal battle could carry stark financial consequences for millions of student borrowers, who rejoiced last week after Democrats delivered on a long-standing promise to erase some of their debt.

The possible litigation also raises the prospect of a broader, precedent-setting courtroom tussle over the scope of the president’s economic authority. Such a lawsuit could reach the Supreme Court, thrusting it back into the spotlight after it infuriated Democrats by stripping abortion protections and limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to respond to climate change.

 

Republicans have to tie up Biden's victories in court and slay them or you know, people might actually think Biden accomplished things during his first term with a 50-50 Senate. A Roberts Court that struck down Roe and the EPA's emissions regulations will have the votes to kill this law. They will find a Trump judge in the Fifth or Eleventh Circuit to deliver a national injunction, and there's a good chance that given the stakes, it'll remain blocked until SCOTUS can kill it off just in time for the 2024 elections.

 

Republicans will say "Our lawsuit stopped a trillion in taxpayer theft! Vote for us!" 

And there will be tens of millions who will.