US District Federal Judge Jia Cobb acquitted January 6 political prisoner James Grant of four of eight felony counts leveled by the Department of Justice for his role in the Capitol riot after enduring two “nightmarish” years in pretrial incarceration.
The government claims Grant and four other men –Ryan Samsel, Paul Johnson, Steven Randolph and Jason Blythe, his four co-defendants that he never met before trial— led the “first breach” of the restricted area on Capitol grounds and initiated attacks on US Capitol officers during the Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6, 2021, according to FBI criminal complaints.
Grant, 31, unknowingly alongside Ray Epps, and more than a dozen demonstrators, pushed a chain of bike racks that were placed as a barricade between officers and demonstrators on the parameter of the Capitol building, a crime typically punishable by misdemeanor charges that the Justice Department is unprecedently prosecuting as multiple felonies.
As the crowd knocked over the bike racks, Grant is seen pulling a civilian off the police officer in an attempt to de-escalate the scuffle.
As Grant attempted to grab the civilian off of the cop, a third police officer sprinted down the nearby steps and from a running start punched Grant in the face.
Simultaneously, Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards was knocked to the ground bike rack was erected. Samsel immediately ran around the bike racks, lifted Edwards to her feet and carried her to other officers for protection.
Grant, a graduate of North Carolina State University with honors in political science, is identifiable in footage of “the first breach” wearing a baseball cap with an insignia of a map of his home state and the words, “Drink Local” on Jan. 6.
He also wore a mask with an insignia of a skull and is referred to by Sedition Hunters as “YoungSkullMan.”
Approximately 20 minutes after demonstrators proceeded to rally on the Capitol grounds, sniper cops began firing CS gas, flash grenades, and deadly “less-than-lethal munitions” from an incline at the crowd.
At least 5 demonstrators including Joshua Black and Michael Dickinson were pierced in the face by rubber bullets.
In a complaint against Grant, an FBI agent contends Officer Edwards fell backward and “lost consciousness and suffered a concussion” when the bike rack was erected by the demonstrators hit Edwards in the face with force.
The government maintains Grant, Samsel, Johnson Randolph and Blythe committed “Assault with a Deadly Weapon,” equating the bike racks as the deadly weapon. Yet, when interviewed by the FBI, every single officer responded that no weapon was used by the demonstrators during the “breach.”
Officer Edwards took the stand during Grant’s trial, but like the plurality of January 6 trials, no major network covered the proceedings, and transcripts run up to $500 daily while transcription of the entire trial costs approximately $5000 to obtain.
All cameras, phones, and recording devices are prohibited in courtrooms of the Barry E. Prettyman Federal Courthouse, where the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is located on the 6th floor. Just a select few high-profile trials are aired on a screen in the media room where two or three leftwing reporters live-tweet transcription. One US Marshal has warned this reporter that even live-tweeting from the media room is prohibited as well as sketching a depiction of the courtroom. Meanwhile, the hyper-partisan J6 House Select Committee hearings were aired primetime.
After 2 months of deliberation following a bench trial that concluded in late November, Judge Cobb ruled Friday that Grant was not guilty of “assaulting police with a dangerous weapon,” “entering and remaining in a restricted building with a dangerous weapon,” “disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds,” and “engaging in physical violence in a restricted building with a dangerous weapon.”
The 31-year-old aspiring attorney was found guilty of “Obstruction of an Official Proceeding,” and a second count of “assault on police with a dangerous weapon,” both of which are felonies. He was also found guilty of two misdemeanor charges including committing an “act of physical violence in the Capitol Grounds or Buildings” and “Disorderly conduct in a Capitol building.”
Exoneration from any counts leveled by the DOJ for J6 defendants is an astounding rarity in the federal jurisdiction where the US Attorney’s Office has secured a 100 percent conviction rate against J6ers in jury trials.
Judge Cobb also permitted Johnson, Randolph and Blythe to return home until sentencing. Randolph’s attorneys cited his meager health as a condition for continued release, arguing his weight of 120 pounds would put him in peril during incarceration. Randolph’s attorney also notified the judge that Randolph’s father has cancer and he is the primary caretaker.
As the verdict hearing came to a close, Samsel, who suffers from a blood clotting condition and was prescribed lifesaving surgery before his arrest, asked Judge Cobb if he could speak with her directly. He then walked to the podium and pled with the judge to allow him medical treatment, noting he only received blood thinners for a potential blood clot on his leg two months ago,” following this publication’s reports exposing how he was tortured for refusing to plea and his critical medical condition. Cobb refused to grant his request.
The FBI raided Grant’s suburban North Carolina home on October 14, 2021, weeks before he was about to start law school, but he wasn’t home. The bureau then deployed dozens of armed agents and a squadron of local police for backup to apprehend him in a Dennys restaurant he stopped to eat breakfast around 4 am. The feds then executed a search of his house.
The five defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on 13 and are afforded 10 days to appeal their convictions.
***PLEASE SUPPORT J6 HOSTAGE JAMES GRANT HERE ***
The biggest factor weighing on the outcome of the amount of time Grant will be sentenced to prison will be reconciled in the Supreme Court, as is the fate of hundreds of J6 defendants who are charged with Obstruction of an Official Proceeding under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), a crime punishable by a 20-year prison sentence.
In full, the statute, which has historically been used to prosecute offenders who destroyed documents, provides, “(c) Whoever corruptly— (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”
Of the 16 federal judges considering the obstruction charges against J6 defendants, only one, Judge Carl Nichols chose to dismiss: Nichols maintains § 1512(c)(2) is limited to the destruction of documents or other physical evidence, interpreting the statute narrowly. All the other federal judges favor the government’s unusual, unprecedented interpretation, ruling that subsection (c)(2) should instead be construed broadly to encompass all possible acts of obstruction. The DC Circuit reversed Judge Nichols’s interpretation on appeal, issuing three opinions replete with three distinct interpretations.
If the high court overturns 1512 in Fischer v. United States, Grant and hundreds of political prisoners could be released with time served or their egregiously long prison sentences will be reduced in half.
It is increasingly unclear how the 1512 statute methodically applies to the sentences of J6 defendants. Judge Cobb arbitrarily applied the 1512 charge to Grant, Samsel, Johnson, Randolph and Blythe’s convictions, making the inconsistent definition of the law even more obscure. Grant was charged with Obstruction of an Official proceeding and walked through the Capitol building; Samsel was found guilty of the 1512 count and never entered the building; Johnson, Randolph, and Blythe walked through the Capitol building but were found not guilty of Obstructing an Official Proceeding.
Jonathon Moseley a veteran criminal defense attorney of 22 years was disbarred while fighting the constitutional abuses facilitated by judges during the Oath Keepers trial, in which defendants who committed no violent crimes were convicted of seditious conspiracy, 1512 speech crimes, and wrongthink. The crusading legal expert now assists attorneys with spearheading litigation for some of the most consequential legal cases of our time, including the defense of President Trump amid 92 felony counts.
“The prosecutors should be in jail” for charging Grant and his co-defendants who pushed over bike racks with dozen-plus felonies when the crime was a misdemeanor offense.
“1512 has never been used for anything like this before —never in American history been this statute been used to prosecute gatherings that interrupt an official,” Moseley told The Gateway Pundit in an exclusive interview. “1512 has to do with destroying documents and intimidating witnesses. That’s why there is an appeal in the Supreme Court. They are trying to change the meaning of the statute specifically for January 6. The Supreme Court brief argues that if the government has never treated assembly this way before, why should we believe their new interpretation now?
“They’re lying. They are changing the law without Congress. They are violating the law and they are doing this a lot — they are doing creative prosecution.”
The Proud Boys leaders Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola and Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oathkeepers, are serving the lengthiest prison sentences of all January 6 defendants after being convicted of 1512 in addition to “seditious conspiracy,” charges the DOJ is illegally leveling against Trump.
1512, 40 USC 5103 or 5104 are the laws the political prisoners who pushed the bike racks or engaged in the “first breach” actually violated, a crime punishable by a fine and imprisonment for not more than six months, or both, Mosely explained.:
There are a whole bunch of statutes that actually do apply to the worst of what happened that some protesters engaged in at the Capitol on January 6. The Supreme Court is being asked to apply those statutes rather than misapplying 18 U.S.C. § 1512.
The problem for the government is that the statutes, 40 USC 50103 and 50104, are misdemeanors! 40 USC 50103 and 50104 are the actual statutes that Grant and others who pushed over the bike rack should be prosecuted with vs. the ‘domestic terror attack’ the government alleges happened on January 6. But those are misdemeanors. The government has invented this new interpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2).
Bike racks. They are not gates they are bike racks mobile back racks. A decently strong man could pick it up with his hand. Those are the actual statutes that the allegations that they violated if the violations are true. punishable by 6 months to a year in prison. That’s why the prosecutors don’t want to use the law that exists they want invent a law that doesn’t exist. The government has never used 1512 to prosecute protesters because they dont beleive that 1512 applies; they are trying to overcharge these Trump supporters.
The Women’s March admitted their goal was to shut down Congress. Most J6 defendants that I am aware of deny that their goal was to shut down Congress. They said, ‘They just wanted their voices heard.’ The left admits openly that that was their goal. The left gloats, ‘We attempted to shut down Congress but they were so scared they did it for us’ and 1512 was not used to prosecute them.
Judges are not sensitive to the idea that why don’t you charge someone else too? These arguments don’t move these judges at all. If the government doesn’t believe this new interpretation why should the Supreme Court adopt it? Why should the Supreme Court, believe? It has never been applied ever to a gathering of people. Nichols finds it applies only to obstruction of documents and witness intimidation.
Conversely, the government itself is violating 8 U.S.C. § 1512 while over-prosecuting and over-sentencing J6 defendants, the former criminal defense attorney of 22 years continued:
Under Judge Carl Nichols’s interpretation of 1512, the Justice Department and US Attorneys Office are fabricating evidence, withholding evidence, destroying evidence, doctoring evidence and intimidating witnesses. The prosecutors should be jail.
When you take a message or chat or video and take only a slice of it, or take it out of order to give the opposite impression of what the entiriety of video would show, that its a fabrication of evidence. Taking a version of the video that shows a version of the truth — how is that not fabricating?
I haven’t seen in a single J6 trial where the government doesn’t lie, cheat and steal by misrepresenting the video. That’s why the bombshell expose J6: A True Timeline is so important. Simply putting the videos in order tells a completely different story.
On Friday in Judge Cobbs’s courtroom, The Gateway Pundit sat in the gallery 20 minutes ahead of James Grant’s verdict hearing. Cobb was concluding a sentencing hearing of a defendant named Mr. Lipsum, a child sex offender that she ordered to pay $18,000 in restitution. Cobb warned the child predator his computer devices would be government-monitored and that he would be reincarcerated upon obtaining visually explicit images of minors.
Moments later, Grant and Samsel were released from the dungeon they were caged in for hours in the jail of the courthouse and seated at the same table, facing more severe penalties than the child predators for pushing over the bike racks and misdemeanor trespassing.
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***PLEASE SUPPORT J6 HOSTAGE JAMES GRANT HERE ***
In adherence with recommendations from prosecutors, federal judges have stacked additional charges on the conviction of numerous J6ers for discussing their cases with media or insisting the 2020 election was stolen including longer prison sentences and terror enhancements.
Before the institution of Joe Biden’s authoritarian policies surrounding the First Amendment and the Stop the Steal rally, the only conviction on Grant’s criminal record was a single traffic misdemeanor.
Grant was about to begin his first semester in law school after graduating from NC State. He passed the Law School Admission Test and was accepted into a top law school with a merit scholarship that would have paid for 75 percent of his tuition costs. Instead, he was terrorized and detained by the FBI charged with 13 felony offenses for the brief fence incident and walking into the Capitol building and branded a domestic terrorist by the state-run corporate press.
The first 13 months of incarceration Grant endured at Northern Neck Regional Jail, a “correctional” facility renowned as one of the worst in the country employed with allegedly ardently racist correctional officers who routinely beat and torture inmates.
Trapped in hell, Grant attempted to reach his former attorney at least 30 times, the lawyer he spent thousands and thousands of dollars to retain did not answer his phone call a single time, but visited him twice while he was being enslaved for over a year in NNRJ.
