Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Prosecutors late Monday began laying out their trial strategy for Jan. 6 cases in the clearest detail yet, indicating they intend to call multiple Capitol Police officers, a former Senate aide, a member of the Three Percenters militia who was granted immunity and the Secret Service agent who helped supervise then-Vice President Mike Pence\u2019s visit to the Capitol that day.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors revealed their proposed witness list<\/a> in the case of Guy Reffitt, a Texas man who was charged with storming onto Capitol grounds, attacking multiple Capitol Police officers and carrying a firearm. Reffitt is charged with civil disorder, obstructing Congress\u2019 proceedings, carrying a semiautomatic handgun to the Capitol and later, after returning home, attempting to obstruct justice.<\/p>\n Secret Service Special Agent Paula Wade will tell jurors about preparations for the Jan. 6 session and Pence\u2019s visit to the Capitol with his family members. Wade will also walk jurors through surveillance footage of Pence\u2019s evacuation.<\/p>\n \u201cWade will generally explain the \u2018emergency actions\u2019 that the USSS took in response to the riot: relocating Vice President Pence and his family members, bringing additional USSS personnel to the Capitol, and relocating the Vice President\u2019s motorcade,\u201d prosecutors say.<\/p>\n The witnesses also include three Capitol Police officers who say they attempted to stop Reffitt\u2019s advance with pepper balls and chemical spray.<\/p>\n Sgt. Adam DesCamp, Sgt. Matthew Flood and Officer Shauni Kerkhoff are expected to describe confronting Reffitt outside the Capitol as well as calling for and deploying their non-lethal weapons against him. Their testimony will be supported by surveillance video clips, radio clips and photos taken of their interactions with Reffitt.<\/p>\n A fourth Capitol Police official, Inspector Monique Moore, is also slated to testify. Moore oversaw the department\u2019s command center that day and prosecutors say she will discuss the riot\u2019s overall impact on the department, as well as its effect on the ongoing effort by Congress to count Electoral College votes.<\/p>\n The witness list also reveals that jurors will get a history lesson on the Electoral Count Act from former Senate aide Daniel Schwager, who was counsel to the secretary of the Senate on Jan. 6, 2021, and was on the Senate floor when rioters broke into the building and forced them to evacuate. Schwager, prosecutors say, will explain to jurors how the Jan. 6 session of Congress worked and its significance in finalizing the results of presidential elections.<\/p>\n The witness list underscores the complexity of the case prosecutors must lay out to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Reffitt breached Capitol grounds with the intent of disrupting Congress\u2019 Electoral College counting session \u2014 and that his actions contributed to interrupting that process. To do that, jurors must have an understanding of the complicated Jan. 6 proceedings and intricate procedures followed by the Capitol Police, the Secret Service and the FBI.<\/p>\n Reffitt\u2019s case is one of the more unusual to emerge from the Capitol riot in part because of his family\u2019s role. He was one of the first rioters arrested and charged with felonies after the Jan. 6 attack and has been held in pretrial detention<\/a> for nearly a year.<\/p>\n Reffitt\u2019s trial is slated to begin Feb. 28 and could be the first arising from the Capitol attack to come before a jury. But federal trials have been in flux and repeatedly postponed as the courts grapple with Covid-related restrictions and delays. Judges have emphasized they intend to prioritize trials for detained defendants like Reffitt.<\/p>\n The Justice Department revealed it plans to call Reffitt\u2019s two children \u2014 including his son Jackson Reffitt, who reported his father to the FBI in December 2020 and then secretly recorded him after he returned home from Washington in January 2021. Jackson Reffitt has publicly talked about his efforts in various<\/a>media<\/a>interviews<\/a> over the past year.<\/p>\n Both of Reffitt\u2019s children are expected to testify about what the government has described as threats their father made to his family to prevent them from reporting him to federal investigators.<\/p>\n In addition, prosecutors say they will call a fellow member of the Three Percenter militia group that Reffitt was part of. This associate \u201ctraveled with the defendant from Texas to Washington, D.C., and back between January 4 and 8, 2021,\u201d they say. The witness, only identified as R.H. in the new filing, was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will testify about how he knows the defendant, discussions he had with the defendant, their travel arrangements, the defendant\u2019s firearms and tactical gear, and the defendant\u2019s movements and actions.\u201d<\/p>\n