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The second trial of a January 6th protester is focusing on former Vice President Mike Pence’s whereabouts during the breach at the Capitol after a judge ruled that the defendant being tried can grill the Secret Service over his exact location.
Couy Griffin, the leader of Cowboys for Trump who is on trial for taking part in the protest, wants to use Pence’s location as the focal point of his defense Monday. He’s been given the nod by the judge to question the Secret Service over it, according to Politico.
He contends that Pence was evacuated off Capitol grounds to a secure location and that it was outside a Secret Service perimeter established to protect the vice president.
Griffin is being charged with breaching a Secret Service-protected zone. Prosecutors claim that his assertion that Pence was not there is nonsense. They contend that he was within the Capitol complex during the riot while also asserting that it is irrelevant if he left since the trespassing law Griffin is charged with only requires that Pence intended to return.
It’s clear DOJ has lied about Pence’s location on January 6. By claiming he was “inside” the Capitol that day, DOJ argued in thousands of criminal charges that his presence as a Secret Service protectee rendered the building and grounds a “restricted” area @MarinaMedvin pic.twitter.com/eEl2Ek8NEU
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) March 19, 2022
The nuance of the argument is pivotal for the Justice Department and will directly affect hundreds of protesters charged with “entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds” on Jan. 6. The charge is a misdemeanor that can potentially result in a defendant getting a one-year maximum jail sentence. If U.S. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden decides Pence’s location is crucial to the legal argument, it could impact as many as 800 cases.
According to prosecutors, the Secret Service witnesses will not disclose Pence’s precise location. It’s being said that revealing that information could jeopardize national security protocols for the current vice president, Kamala Harris, and her successors.
“[T]his information is so sensitive and important to the security of Secret Service protectees that any Secret Service witness who testifies in this case will not answer any questions about the precise location of the emergency relocation site to which the Vice President was taken on January 6, 2021,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Janani Iyengar stated in a court filing on Thursday.
“To require any witness to testify to such facts would compromise the mission of the Secret Service and would put the government in the untenable position of trying to prosecute a statute aimed at protecting a Head of State, while simultaneously compromising the future security of a Head of State,” he added.
Pence’s location may be forced to come to light since McFadden has already ruled that a Secret Service witness can be cross-examined in the case if it moves forward. The judge is limiting some of the cross-examination but contended that Pence’s location was fair game for questioning.
Just because the statute says “would be visiting” doesn’t change the fact that Biden’s DOJ has misled judges and a grand jury to believe Pence was in the building during the protest. That’s quite different than admitting a year later he wasn’t in the building but was coming back
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) March 19, 2022
Another sticking point in the case is the definitions of the “Capitol building,” “Capitol complex” and “grounds.” At issue is whether that includes adjacent office buildings and a network of underground tunnels that connect them.
Prosecutors claim that Griffin entered the restricted area after Pence was evacuated. He allegedly climbed an outer wall with cameraman Matthew Struck filming him while he called for Pence to overturn the results of the 2020 presential election.
“Griffin spent over an hour perched on the front railing of the inaugural stage being filmed by Struck,” the Department of Justice asserts. “During this time, Griffin joined those around him in chanting ‘We… the people!,’ and later shouted through a bullhorn, waiving [sic] his arms and asking the crowd below to kneel and listen as he led them in prayer.”
“Whether the Vice President was present on the Capitol grounds is … an essential question in Griffin’s prosecution,” McFadden wrote Friday, alluding to the fact that Griffin has the right to challenge the Secret Service evidence being used against him. “[T]o mount a meaningful defense Griffin must be allowed to test the veracity of the Government’s contention that Vice President Pence was on the Capitol grounds during the relevant period.”
Griffin elected to have a bench trial, which means McFadden will determine his guilt or innocence according to the evidence presented.
Prosecutors had also previously stated that then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was on Capitol grounds that day during the riot in their charges against Griffin. That turned out not to be the case. Harris was blocks away at the offices of the Democratic National Committee, according to Politico.
“The Government has never explained how it got such a basic fact so wrong for so long,” McFadden said, blasting prosecutors. “Presumably, it was relying on representations—and in felony cases, grand jury testimony—of Secret Service personnel. Given all that, Griffin may probe the Government’s evidence as to the location of Vice President Pence.”
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