The January 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capital did actually involve rioters.
There were those who broke windows and doors and vandalized.
But there were a lot of people who simply walked into the building, through doors sometimes held open by security officers. Some officers even escorted the “rioters” around the building. Other visitors were allowed in to use a restroom.
Those all appear to be facing charges.
One of those is Jacob Hiles, a charter boat captain from Virginia Beach, who traveled to Washington that day to “express his support for President Trump.”
He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of “parading” in the building, and was given two years of probation and 60 hours of community service.
But he’s now suing CNN, alleging that the network defamed him by suggesting he wanted to have a “revolution.”
He’s seeking $37 million in damages.
A report at Newsweek explained the complaint states he was in Washington to support Trump by “exercising his 1st Amendment rights guaranteed to him under the United States Constitution.”
The complaint in federal court in Virginia said the problem arose because he posted a selfie from his visit with the sarcastic comment, “Feelin cute…might start a revolution later.”
Then a Capitol police officer, Michael Angelo Riley, messaged him and suggested he delete his posts, and Riley was sentenced to probation and home detention for “obstruction.”
When CNN wrote about those cases it suggested that a man, referencing Hiles, “wanted to start ‘a revolution’ on January 6.”
That, the lawsuit charges, had CNN falsely accusing Hiles of “felonious criminal activity of which he was not charged or convicted, either directly or indirectly.”
Newsweek, which reviewed the complaint, explained, “The lawsuit alleges that the article accuses Hiles of having ‘the intention to overthrow a sitting government which is one of the gravest felonies in the United States of America even though at the time of publication he had been charged with four Class B misdemeanors and entered a guilty plea to only one nonviolent misdemeanor and resulting in the three other charges being dismissed.’”
The lawsuit charges CNN admitted Hiles was only involved in a misdemeanor case, but “continued to mislead their viewers by painting a picture of a violent revolutionary intent on causing violence on January 6, 2021.”
Hiles reports the article triggered “many credible death threats,” even injuring his daughter.
A thousand people already have faced charges for the events that day, which critics of the government have suggested were triggered by rabble-rousers in the employ of the federal government. Prosecutors say they have another thousand people they want to charge.
The critics’ theory is that a riot could be used by Democrats against President Trump to try to paint him as an “insurrectionist” and prevent him from holding office again.
But Newsweek also has reported that one case heading to the Supreme Court now could have a huge impact on Jan. 6 cases.
A New York man, awaiting sentence for assaulting an officer, is challenge a charge of obstructing an official proceeding, a charge that appears in many of the cases being pursued by the feds.
That specific claim was “cited by the House committee investigating the riot when the panel issued criminal referrals against Donald Trump. The official proceeding refers to Congress’ certification of the Electoral College votes that elected Joe Biden president,” the report said.
But the defendant, through his lawyer Norman Pattis, is charging that the government has “too broadly applied” the law.
“The government misuse and abuse of the federal penal code in the [January 6] cases is shocking,” Pattis said.
The statute suggests it applies to an individual who “corruptly alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document” or “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding.”
The argument is that this defendant, and probably others, “did not satisfy the ‘corrupt’ element and that various interpretations in lower courts have led to a ‘cacophonous result that leaves unsettled significant issues,’” the report said.
Further, the petition to the high court notes, there is “good reason” to suspect the Justice Department’s use of the statute will “serve to chill political speech and expression on the eve of one of the most consequential events in American life – the election of the next President of the United States.”
In fact, its use is the action of a “tyrant,” it suggests.
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