Interesting that Reuters would outline the walk-backs. Even more interesting that the details of the walk-backs seem to prove the DOJ never actually intended to win any of these cases, but rather wanted to advance a political narrative about extremists through their earlier statements.
The approach of building a political narrative through false accusations and over-charging in the DOJ is the essence of Lawfare. The government has endless taxpayer resources to fuel their political weaponization of the judiciary.
The process of the charges then becomes the punishment by design. The targets are drained financially, sometimes physically detained under false pretense, and then the DOJ walks backwards when the judges finally ask for proof.
The process is the punishment for political affiliation. The DOJ is fully weaponized. The majority of Americans can clearly see this taking place.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Prosecutors made some serious claims after the deadly U.S. Capitol attack, saying they had evidence rioters planned to kill elected officials, suggesting a Virginia man at the building received directives to gas lawmakers, and accusing another suspect of directing mayhem on Jan. 6 with encrypted messages.
But the Justice Department has since acknowledged in court hearings that some of its evidence concerning the riot – carried out by a mob of supporters of former President Donald Trump to try to overturn his election loss – is less damning than it initially indicated.
[…] On Jan. 19, prosecutors said they believed Thomas Caldwell, a retired U.S. Navy officer from Virginia, had a “leadership role” within the Oath Keepers. The FBI, in a criminal complaint, described Facebook messages Caldwell allegedly sent and received “while at the Capitol,” including one urging him to turn on the gas and tear up the floorboards.
“‘All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas,’” it read.
A prosecutor in Florida read those words aloud in February in a bid to convince a judge to detain two of Caldwell’s co-defendants. Prosecutors now acknowledge that Caldwell was not even a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers and that they lack evidence he ever entered the Capitol.
There also are questions about the Facebook messages. Caldwell’s lawyer said in a March 10 court filing those messages were sent by two men who were more than 60 miles (100 km) away at the time and had no connection to the Oath Keepers. The comments were apparently satirical, albeit “tasteless,” his lawyer said, and Caldwell never responded to them. (read more)
This pattern of Main Justice overcharging based on fabricated or overblown claims is consistent with their exact same activity in the Trump-Russia investigation. DAG Rosenstein charged fictitious characters in Russia and then buried the entire indictment of a dozen people in the National Security Division, never to be heard from again after July 13, 2018…. Of course, just from the indictment itself, the media had the talking points they needed.
If you are old enough to remember the Soviet-era propaganda approximately five years prior to the Polish solidarity movement, you are old enough to have a solid frame of reference for July’s 2018 announcement from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
{GO DEEP}