Also on today’s menu:
More January 6 Testimony
Democracy At Risk
As prosecution of Capitol rioters makes its way through the courts, Jason Riddle of Keene is now facing up to one and a half years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of theft of government property and one count of illegal parading in a government building.
Court documents show that Riddle, 33, publicized his actions during the riots at the United States Capitol Building, sharing photos and videos of himself in the building, drinking a stolen bottle of wine, and of the Senate Procedure manual he stole and sold on Ebay, to his social media accounts. He also gave interviews to media outlets in the days after the riots, talking about wandering through the building.
He pleaded guilty last Thursday, and sentencing is scheduled on Feb. 17 in the United States District Court in Washington, D.C.
More January 6 Testimony
Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-California), who sits on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, told CNN that many of the people they have interviewed about the event so far have been Trump officials who testified voluntarily and wanted to be subpoenaed for “cover.”
New subpoenas went out to Dustin Stockton and Jennifer Lawrence, who organized the “Women for America First” rally, Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, Roger Stone, who raised money for the rally and hired members of the Oath Keepers as personal bodyguards, and newscaster Alex Jones, who helped to organize and pay for the rallies, and spoke on January 5.
Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi) said, “We need to know who organized, planned, paid for, and received funds related to those events, as well as what communications organizers had with officials in the White House and Congress.”
Democracy At Risk
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, based in Stockholm, Sweden, in its 2021 report on “The Global State of Democracy,” has declared that “Democracy is at risk. … Its survival is endangered by a perfect storm of threats, both from within and from a rising tide of authoritarianism.”
The report says, “The world is becoming more authoritarian as nondemocratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many democratic governments suffer from backsliding by adopting their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law.”
The report identifies the United States as one of those democracies that has “experienced gradual but significant weakening of Checks on Government and Civil Liberties, such as Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Association and Assembly, over time.” It goes on to say, “The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale.”
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