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Tucker Carlson may be able to fool gullible Fox viewers, but not federal courts [1]
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Date: 2023-03-08
The Justice Department is so unimpressed with defendants asking that their trials be delayed, in fact, that their official court filings amount to something akin to "verily, the prosecution invites the defense to get well and truly bent." Federal prosecutors are still not allowed to come out and say that directly, though, so they have to dress it up a bit.
As reported by Politico: "This Court should not commit to an indefinite trial extension for this Defendant, or for any defendants, based on the unsupported allegation that pertinent information may exist somewhere, but is not currently known to either the prosecution or the defense," the Department of Justice wrote in their response to a request by Jan. 6 defendant Ryan Nichols. And prosecutors are pointing out that defendants have already been provided with literally millions of government files, including security camera and body camera footage from officers at the Capitol that day. There's no reason to delay trials "based on speculation about whether or when" Carlson's hunt for the real criminals will produce information that wasn't handed over nearly two years ago.
That's what some of the Jan. 6 defendants—the ones in the most desperate straits after the government compiled lots and lots of footage of their violence—want. They once again want to put their trials on hold just in case Carlson finds "new" footage. But it don't matter, because Carlson releasing footage showing them being super-polite when they were not attacking police officers with fire extinguishers or bear spray or metal bars does not actually change the part where they did those things.
Let's face facts: the Tucker Carlson audience is made of people too gullible to even make it in your average doomsday cult. They'll believe whatever Carlson tells them. Federal courts, however, generally do not go for that sort of key-jingling, and the court response to any footage of defendants taking photos or singing sea shanties between attacks on officers is typically going to be "well then it's not relevant to this trial, is it?"
This was, however, the reason House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a man who has worked avidly to disrupt House investigations of the Jan. 6 coup and its contributors for two years running, gave Carlson and his producers "exclusive" access to the full trove of Capitol security tapes. Carlson and McCarthy are looking to sow even a little doubt about the videotaped actions of those who committed violence in their attempts to back the attempted Republican coup, just as Republicans continue to sow doubt on the legitimacy of elections themselves.
RELATED STORY: Kevin McCarthy gave Tucker Carlson Jan. 6 footage. Carlson went big with his lies
Carlson is still, by the way, painting Donald Trump's election loss as illegitimate. Even now, even after all the violence, and long after all the hoaxes were disproved as crooked lies. Carlson is a man entirely without shame.
x Tucker: In retrospect, it is clear the 2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy given the facts that have since emerged about that election. No honest person can deny it. pic.twitter.com/mrUWIfTlET — Acyn (@Acyn) March 7, 2023
He's a white nationalism-boosting pro-sedition hoax promoter. Lying is what he does. Spreading lies and propaganda is why Fox News puts him on the air.
The federal courts aren't going to buy any Carlson claim of "found footage," because he's a damn liar and it's been established in countless documents that he's a damn liar. Carlson and McCarthy both know that; the point of Carlson's brazen, ridiculous new lies is to portray even the most violent attackers on Jan. 6 as Republican martyrs when they almost certainly get convicted and thrown in federal prison.
If you can't prevent the prosecution of the Americans who attacked Congress in an attempt to topple American democracy, sow enough doubt about their convictions to turn them into heroes to the people who might next attempt such violence. Make sure movement believers know that if you attack lawmakers who oppose Republican supremacy, both the Republican media and even the Republican speaker will have your back. Hint, hint, hint.
RELATED STORY: 'Bulls*#t,' one Republican senator says of Carlson's depiction of Jan. 6
What do Americans really think about the issues? It turns out they are a surprisingly liberal bunch, as Rachael Russell of Navigator Research tells us on this week's episode of The Downballot. Russell explains how Navigator conducts in-depth research to fill in gaps in policy debates with hard data instead of pundit speculation. The challenge for Democrats is that many voters say they hold progressive beliefs but still pull the lever for Republicans. That imbalance, however, presents an opportunity—Democrats just have to seize it.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also recap the first round of voting in the race for Chicago mayor, which saw a progressive apocalypse averted; the resolution to the long-running uncertainty over the speakership in the Pennsylvania state House that saw Joanna McClinton make history; Rep. Elissa Slotkin's entry into Michigan's open Senate race, which makes her the first prominent candidate to run; and the inexplicable decision by conservatives to go dark on the airwaves for a full week following last week's primary in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.
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