ВИБОРЧА ГАЗЕТА

Jury to Begin Deliberating in 1st Trial Over Capitol Riot

An armed Texas militia member led a “vigilante mob” that overwhelmed police officers and became the first group of rioters to breach the U.S. Capitol last year, a federal prosecutor said Monday at the close of the first criminal trial over the riot.

A 12-member jury is scheduled to begin deliberating on Tuesday for Guy Wesley Reffitt’s trial on charges that he stormed the Capitol with a holstered handgun strapped to his waist and interfered with police officers guarding the Senate doors. He also is charged with threatening his teenage children if they reported him to law enforcement after the attack on January 6, 2021.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Risa Berkower told jurors that Reffitt drove to Washington intending to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory, to “overthrow Congress” and to drag lawmakers out of the building. Reffitt proudly “lit the fire” that allowed others in the mob to overwhelm Capitol Police officers, the prosecutor said during the trial’s closing arguments.

“They were in an impossible situation — outnumbered, and they feared, outgunned,” Berkower said of police.

Reffitt, 49, of Wylie, Texas, didn’t testify at his trial, which started last Wednesday. Defense attorney William Welch didn’t call any defense witnesses after prosecutors rested their case.

Welch urged jurors to acquit Reffitt of all charges but one. He said they should convict him of a misdemeanor charge that he entered and remained in a restricted area. 

“That is what proof beyond a reasonable doubt looks like, but it ends there,” Welch said.

Reffitt faces five felony counts: obstruction of an official proceeding, being unlawfully present on Capitol grounds while armed with a firearm, transporting firearms during a civil disorder, interfering with law enforcement officers during a civil disorder and obstructing justice. The obstructing justice charge relates to his alleged threats against his children.

Welch denied that Reffitt had a gun at the Capitol and said there is no evidence that he engaged in any violence or destructive behavior on January 6.

“Guy does brag a lot,” Welch said. “He embellishes and he exaggerates.”

“Yes, Guy Reffitt brags,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Nestler countered. “And you know what he brags about? The truth.”

Reffitt was arrested less than a week after the riot at the Capitol. He has remained jailed in Washington for months.

Reffitt is a member of the “Texas Three Percenters” and bragged about his involvement in the riot to other members of the group, according to prosecutors. The Three Percenters militia movement refers to the myth that only 3% of American colonists fought against the British in the Revolutionary War.

On Friday, jurors heard testimony from a self-described Texas Three Percenters member who drove from Texas to Washington with Reffitt. The witness, Rocky Hardie, said he and Reffitt both had holstered handguns strapped to their bodies when they attended then-President Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally just before the riot erupted.

On Thursday, Reffitt’s 19-year-old son, Jackson, testified that his father told him and his sister, then 16, that they would be traitors if they reported him to authorities and said “traitors get shot.” Jackson Reffitt’s younger sister, Peyton, was listed as a possible government witness but didn’t testify.

On January 6, Reffitt had the holstered gun under his jacket, was carrying zip-tie handcuffs and was wearing body armor when he and other rioters advanced on police officers on the west side of the Capitol, according to prosecutors.

“Every step he took up the railing, the crowd came with him,” Berkhower said. “The crowd was energized and cheered him on.”

Reffitt is not accused of entering the building. He retreated after an officer pepper-sprayed him in the face, prosecutors said.

Berkower played surveillance video of the rioters who poured into the building while then-Vice President Mike Pence was presiding over the Senate. She said it was a dark day in American history, but not for Reffitt.

“He was ecstatic about what he did, about what the mob did,” she added. “What the defendant did was not just bragging or hype.”

Welch accused prosecutors of rushing to judgment. “Be the grownups in the courtroom. Separate the facts from the hype,” he told jurors.

More than 750 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the riot. A verdict in his case could have an enormous impact on many others. A conviction could give prosecutors more leverage over defendants facing the most serious charges. An acquittal could embolden other defendants to seek more favorable plea deals or gamble on trials of their own.

Over 220 riot defendants have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors. and over 110 of them have been sentenced. Approximately 90 others have trial dates. 
…

Momentum Grows in US for Russian Oil Ban 

U.S. lawmakers stepped up calls Monday to ban the import of Russian oil, cutting off Russian President Vladimir Putin from a key source of revenue in retaliation for the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

“How can we possibly be importing Russian oil and gas and giving the profits of those transactions to Vladimir Putin to pay for his war machine?” Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said on the Senate floor Monday.

Dubin introduced bipartisan legislation Thursday along with 11 other senators that would temporarily ban Russian oil imports along with suspending U.S.-Russia trade relations.

He said that if passed, the result of the legislation would be that “the world, including the United States, will likely pay more to fill our tanks at gas stations and heat our homes. We have to be ready for that reality. But that is the price today of defending freedom and democracy. The Ukrainians are paying with their lives; we may end up paying some more at the pump.”

In a Sunday “Dear Colleague” letter, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers the House was at work on its own companion legislation banning imports.

With energy prices already rising in the United States due to the invasion, lawmakers face concerns that such a ban could put more pressure on Americans facing rising inflation.

“The United States need not choose between our democratic values and our economic interests. The administration and the Congress remain laser-focused on bringing down the higher energy costs for American families and our partners stemming from Putin’s invasion,” Pelosi said.

The bipartisan House legislation, co-sponsored by Democratic Representative Ro Khanna and Republican Representative Nancy Mace, would permanently ban Russian oil imports into the United States.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is reportedly in talks with European allies to coordinate a ban on Russian oil and gas imports. Europe is even more dependent on Russian oil imports than the U.S. The White House said Monday there was an “active discussion” about the ban but that it could prove politically difficult for Biden domestically.

While there’s broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for the ban, some Republican senators have called for this opportunity to end American reliance on foreign oil and open up drilling in the United States to ease rising costs.

“Why would we be importing Russian oil, sending Russia $40-$50 million a day? That makes no sense. But choose our natural resources here in North America. We have the resources here. We should not be dependent on the Russian oil. We should not be sending them this blood money,” Republican Senator Rob Portman said on the Senate floor Monday.

Many Republicans have called on Biden to allow construction to resume on the Keystone XL Pipeline, the Canadian-U.S. oil pipeline system that was shut down over environmental concerns.

“We have the great fortune of living in a resource-rich country, and there’s no reason why we should rely on anyone else, let alone a power-hungry dictator for basic energy needs. Putin’s aggression has lit a fire under the U.S. and our allies. And we need to take concrete steps to end our reliance on foreign oil and continue our pursuit of energy independence at the same time, making sure that our friends and allies around the world have access to more than just one choice when it comes to their energy needs,” said Republican Senator John Cornyn, who represents Texas, a state that relies heavily on the energy industry.

The average cost of gas in the U.S. is over $4 per gallon, according to AAA, formerly the American Automobile Association.
…

Republicans Make Headway in Texas’ Booming Latino Communities

Democrats have long dreamed of flipping Texas from a bedrock Republican state to one that elects more Democrats to Congress and awards its mother lode of electoral votes to a Democratic presidential contender, something that hasn’t happened since 1976.

That dream has been buoyed by dramatic demographic changes in Texas, where the population has grown at more than twice the national average for the last 20 years, and people of Latin American descent account for 60% of that growth.

But Democrats have a problem. Latino voters, regarded as a key Democratic Party constituency, are showing a greater willingness to vote Republican, even in Texas’ southernmost counties along the border with Mexico.

In 2016, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received less than 28% of the vote in Hidalgo County, the most populous of Texas’ border counties, and one in which Latinos account for 93% of the population. In his 2020 reelection bid, Trump scored almost 41% of the vote.

Last year, Hidalgo County’s largest city, McAllen, elected its first Republican mayor in 24 years.

Such results may serve as a warning sign for Democrats ahead of November’s midterm elections that will determine control of Congress for President Joe Biden’s final two years of his current term.

Texas has long been critical territory for the Republican Party. The state sends the country’s largest Republican delegation to the House of Representatives and hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994.

‘Exciting time to be a Republican’

But Democrats have historically dominated at the ballot box in the land between San Antonio and the Mexican border — a vast, sunny scrubland where Spanish-speaking cowboys founded the first Texas cattle ranches a century before English-speaking settlers arrived.

Political observers predicted for years that Latino population growth in other parts of the state would boost support for Democrats in Texas. But for the most part, it hasn’t happened. In fact, while South Texas still leans toward the Democrats, Republicans are making inroads.

“It’s an exciting time to be a Republican,” said Adrienne Peña-Garza, the Republican Party chairperson for Hidalgo County. “The new generation is much more bold than I was.”

Peña-Garza is the first Latina to head the Republican Party in Hidalgo County. She told VOA she has critics who maintain that a woman — especially a Hispanic one —shouldn’t be a Republican. Yet, she says she has seen many Latina and Latino Republicans enter the political arena and is encouraged to see the party grow in her area.

Hildalgo County remains Democratic

Texas Democrats insist that they are not sitting idly by. Manuel Medina, state chairman for Tejano Democrats, the Latino wing of the Texas Democratic Party, said Democrats picked four Latina women to run for reliably Democratic seats in the Texas State House in Tuesday’s primary elections. He said he was glad to see more Hispanic involvement in the Republican Party, as well.

“That more doors are open for people to participate in the political system is a good thing. In general, it’s positive,” Medina said. “Hispanic women will lead.”

But he cautioned against reading too much into recent voting trends in Texas, pointing out that Democratic primary voters in Hidalgo County still outnumbered Republicans more than two-to-one on Tuesday. Despite Republican gains, the area remains largely Democratic.

Even so, Peña-Garza is optimistic about the Republican Party’s future in South Texas. She credited Trump for Republicans’ growing popularity in the region and noted that a stream of high-profile Republicans has visited Hidalgo County, including Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who drew 700 people to a local auditorium at 8 a.m. last year.

“It makes us feel included in state and national politics,” Peña-Garza said. “We have been voting Democrat for over 100 years. Has that helped us?”

Jason Villalba, chairman of the nonpartisan Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation, told VOA that a variety of issues have boosted Republicans’ fortunes in South Texas, including perceptions that Democrats are critical of law enforcement and want to restrict the fossil fuel industry — two major employment sectors in South Texas.

Villalba also contends that Trump’s “strongman” image played well among some Latino voters.

Villalba noted that until recently, turnout was often low among Hispanic voters.

“We were not able to be impactful,” he said.

Latino political clout growing

That is no longer true, as Latinos have grown in numbers and clout and are increasingly engaged in the political sphere. But they don’t vote as a bloc. Texas Hispanics include 2.5 million immigrants from Mexico, nearly 500,000 from Central America and 170,000 from South America — all of whom came with distinct viewpoints that influence the political leanings of their voting-eligible children.

According to Hector de Leon, a longtime political organizer and blogger in Houston, expectations for a wave of Democratic support amid the Texas population boom were based in part on incorrect assumptions from the national party that nonwhite voters would naturally vote Democrat.

“They just assume every person who is a person of color is going to behave the same electorally, and they got that completely wrong,” de Leon said. “That is continually driving their methods, and that’s why they may be losing more Hispanic voters.”

Those assumptions led to speculation as early as 2016 that perhaps Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee that year, could carry Texas. She lost the state to Trump by nine percentage points.

Looking ahead, a redrawing of Texas’ congressional districts based on the 2020 U.S. Census may give Democrats little to cheer in this year’s midterm elections.

“You don’t see progress being made by Democrats up and down the ballot,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Political Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “The idea that Texas is turning blue (Democratic) has been abandoned by most people, given the results.”  
…

White House Disavows Senator’s Call for Assassination of Putin 

The Biden administration is not advocating for regime change in Russia, the White House said Friday, after a U.S. senator called for Russians to assassinate President Vladimir Putin.

“That is not the position of the U.S. government and certainly not a statement you’ll hear from — coming from the mouth of — anybody working for the administration,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in response to a question from Voice of America.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, suggested in a televised interview Thursday evening that “somebody in Russia” should assassinate Putin. He repeated his statement Friday in another televised appearance on Fox News Channel.

“How does this end? Somebody in Russia has to step up to the plate … and take this guy out,” Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Following the interview, Graham posted on Twitter, “The only people who can fix this are the Russian people.”

“Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?” the senator wrote. Marcus Junius Brutus assassinated Roman ruler Julius Caesar, while German army officer Claus von Stauffenberg tried but failed to assassinate German leader Adolf Hitler in July 1944.

Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, called Graham’s comments “unacceptable and outrageous” and said they expressed “off the scale” hatred in the United States toward Russia.

He demanded “official explanations and a strong condemnation of the criminal statements.”

U.S. lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, also criticized Graham’s comments.

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz called Graham’s proposal “an exceptionally bad idea,” while Democratic Reprepresentative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota tweeted: “I really wish our members of Congress would cool it and regulate their remarks as the administration works to avoid WWIII.”

Graham introduced a resolution in Congress condemning Putin and his military commanders for committing “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” in Ukraine.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
…