Trump Goon Pleads Guilty To Insurrection Charges & Agrees To Rat

0
1015

Graydon Young, who is one of hundreds of Trump supporters who’ve faced federal criminal charges in connection to their involvement in the deadly January riot at the U.S. Capitol, has pleaded guilty to two felony counts and agreed to provide information to prosecutors in connection to the case. Young is affiliated with the far-right militia group known as the Oath Keepers and is among over a dozen members of that group who have been dealt conspiracy-related charges stemming from their apparent premeditation of the Capitol violence. Even with his plea agreement, Young could face over five years in prison.

Young pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge and a charge of obstruction of an official proceeding. Young’s plea deal “factors in that the conspiracy involved extensive planning in scope and preparation, a major coup for prosecutors to secure as they continue to investigate the Oath Keepers stationing guns around the Capitol and coordinating their movements to attack Congress,” CNN notes. Although only a small number of Capitol riot defendants have pleaded guilty, Young is not the first individual with connections to the Oath Keepers to admit to federal allegations against them. A man named Jon Schaffer has done the same and, like Young, also agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors.

Video footage has emerged revealing none other than longtime Trump ally Roger Stone in the company of Oath Keepers on the morning of January 6. Discussing the video, however, Stone has characterized the individuals present as volunteer security guards. He claimed to ABC that he “could not even tell you the names of those who volunteered to provide security for me, required because of the many threats against me and my family.”

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders in Congress have been deliberating over the next steps in their own efforts to uncover the truth of the broader circumstances that led up to January 6. Republican Senators recently filibustered a bill that would have created an independent commission to examine the riot, despite the fact that well over two dozen House Republicans had supported the measure. Democrats are now considering forming a Congressional committee, with the power to issue subpoenas and the like, to look into the matter.

Trump inspired the riot with his lies that last year’s presidential election was somehow rigged for Joe Biden, and there’s also the question of what exactly he was doing at the White House as the violence unfolded. Long stretches of time went by without any comment from the then-president. When Trump did comment, he eventually explicitly justified what happened, writing on Twitter that “these are the things and events that happen” when an election is stolen — which didn’t actually take place, of course.