Hide and seek should be a game for children, not for ruthless feds. But here we are. An American citizen, innocent until proven guilty, is fighting for his freedom against a government juggernaut hell-bent on framing him as a violent Jan. 6 insurrectionist. One crucial key to clearing his name, his lawyer argues, lies in 30 seconds of a Capitol surveillance video that prosecutors don’t want the public to see.
John Steven Anderson, 61, stands accused of “civil disorder,” “assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers,” “disruptive conduct” and other federal felonies related to his presence in a Capitol building tunnel where police officers pepper-sprayed pro-Trump marchers near the lower west terrace door. Anderson’s lawyer, Marina Medvin, has battled Swamp attorneys who have designated video of Anderson struggling to breathe and seeking help from cops “highly sensitive” and subject to a restrictive protective order.
As Medvin first decried in oral argument in April, “This is not the Soviet Union, and the government does not get to control the narrative of what happens in the courtroom. The weedlike growth of the government’s power over public information is outrageous and un-American and cannot be permitted to continue unchecked.”
In a written motion filed last month seeking to free the 30-second video clip, Medvin asserted: “While John Anderson is charged with assaulting and impeding police officers and theft of government property, amongst other accusations, the government’s evidence fails to corroborate the charges. The government’s evidence, instead, shows a man approaching police to seek medical attention after being chemically prayed by a member of the crowd and after being subjected to additional chemical spray released into the crowd by law enforcement. The video sought for release, and being blocked by the government, establishes Mr. Anderson’s defense.”
Bizarrely, the Deep State opportunists milking Jan. 6 for all its political worth argue that it would be a danger to national security to allow Anderson, the media and the public to have access to the 30-second exculpatory clip at issue. In response to Medvin’s motion, the government cites the so-called mosaic theory to justify protecting video footage from the Capitol police force’s closed-circuit video system. Every individual piece of video evidence must be protected from disclosure, the prosecutors’ argument goes, to prevent nefarious operatives from piecing together in aggregate the exact locations of the entire vast network of cameras.
The problem, of course, is that the FBI, prosecutors, anti-Trump Democrat impeachment leaders and their water-carriers in the liberal corporate media have all selectively leaked, published and hyped several other key videos when it suits their narrative purposes. “The government has made Capitol CCTV video public when it bolsters or conveniences their case,” Medvin pointed out. “The government has already utilized CCTV video in their prosecution of Julian Khater and George Tanios, two January 6 Capitol incident defendants, and has made the CCTV footage available to the public.”
Moreover, the feds have utilized still images from CCTV footage multiple times in other public court filings. They released critical footage to Democrat House impeachment managers in a concerted attempt to punish former President Donald Trump. The FBI website blasted Jan. 6 video clips online from all over the Capitol complex in its dragnet efforts to drum up public hysteria and hunt more suspects. And every major liberal press operation, from NBC to Buzzfeed to The Washington Post to CNN, has disseminated hundreds of videos that could be pieced together to construct a detailed “mosaic” of the U.S. Capitol security system. (A press coalition of those anti-Trump forces has even intervened in the Anderson case agreeing that the “highly sensitive” designation of the 30-second clip should be removed and that the government has offered no credible justification for suppressing it.)
“Surely,” Medvin pleads, “Mr. Anderson should not be prejudiced by the continued veil of secrecy over the video sought for release in his case simply because in this case the government does not feel the release is advantageous to their legal position. The government’s contradictory position in John Anderson’s case to their utilization of CCTV video in the cases of Julian Khater and George Tanios gives the government control over the defense and creates a disparity between the parties standing before this court, rendering the defense an inferior party to the prosecution; all the while, the two parties are to stand before the court as equals. … In Mr. Anderson’s case, the government is attempting to conceal video favorable to the defense to protect their unjust prosecution and to continue to unilaterally control the public narrative. Why should this be permitted?”
Why indeed? It’s increasingly difficult to celebrate America’s independence and its purported freedoms when such brazen injustices are committed with impunity in the nation’s capital. Land of the free? LOL. How about: Free the Jan. 6 tapes. Not just Anderson’s 30 seconds, but all 14,000-plus hours of them.
Michelle Malkin’s email address is MichelleMalkinInvestigates@protonmail.com. To find out more about Michelle Malkin and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2021 CREATORS.COM
Another government cover-up. If the federal government does not want critical evidence to come to light, for whatever reason, the prosecutors can drop the charges and free this man. Simply theorizing that a 30-second video of a confined space in the Capitol grounds could lead to people figuring out the location of a security camera is no reason for denying due process. This is truly outrageous and thoroughly un-American behavior by the federal government.
Karnick, you are correct, and all of this fed govt anti-liberty devilment makes very good sense when one looks at the govt — primarily the globalist DemoKKKrats — as being intentionally and actively WEAPONIZED against the LEGAL hard-working American citizens. Such anti-liberty intentions began a long time ago, but, they were put on GROWTH HORMONES during the 0-bama regime; where, under his ongoing “3rd term”, they are being even further entrenched and put to evil use by the Joe Dementia, Commie-la and their evil clown show.
Such behavior is what anti-liberty, centralized command and control — certainly not of, by and for the people democratic — govts do; where such, since at least the beginning of written human history, has been one of their defining universal characteritics.
IOW: nothing new here; just the modernization of tactics against individual unalienable rights; and, such will not stop UNLESS WE The People, like our Founders/Framers stood up and acted. And, no, I do not mean, at this moment, just yet, open revolt and revolution. I mean, particularly, that many more of us must come to educate ourselves by re-reading, understanding and appreciating the principles and values as expressed in our Founding Documents, and acting upon the “recipe for liberty” contained within.
This recipe could hardly be clearer, but, it requires that We The People are not ignorant — education is clearly part of our patriotic duty — regarding the meaning and partiotic requirements — duties — of fundamental Americanism.
Just assume video cameras in the Capitol are everywhere, as they should be – nothing to hide because there is full coverage all the time.
That is as bogus an excuse as I have ever heard. Only an Obama judge will buy it. SCOTUS – this position by our own government upends every protection granted by the US Constitution.
[…] Michelle Malkin on Jan. 6 Video Cover-Up […]
Gotta hand it to these swampers to continually come up with total nonsense to further their positions and to have it credibly accepted. What a load of crap to float an idea that our enemies or whomever else for that matter could locate a security camera so we cannot release exculpatory evidence. I call BS.
Move the cameras on a scheduled basis if its so detrimental to security.
I believe the fascist democRAT-Communist party, and specifically Nazi piglosi and upchuck worthless, are as dirty as dirt in this January 6 protest.
Perversion of an already thoroughly corrupt justice system – political persecution, mockup charges, suppression of evidence, denial of due process. This is how Communism works.
Michelle, you are a true patriot — one of today’s “Minute Women”, standing, with rifle and heart in hand, on that Concord Bridge — and I/we thank you for another reasoned, pro-LIBERTY expose.
Now for the “other shoe”; a “small” but critical other shoe: your opening paragraph, above, is excerpted as follows:
“Hide and seek should be a game for children, not for ruthless feds. But here we are. An American citizen, innocent UNTIL [my caps] proven guilty, is fighting for his freedom against a government juggernaut hell-bent on framing him as a violent Jan. 6 insurrectionist. One crucial key to clearing his name, his lawyer argues, lies in 30 seconds of a Capitol surveillance video that prosecutors don’t want the public to see.”
The 2nd sentence MUST READ: “An American citizen, innocent UNLESS proven guilty … “.
Again, thanks for your good patriotic work.
Excellent point!
This is Brady material and they must turn it over.