Proud Boys member receives 10-year prison sentence for US Capitol attack – live

A member of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House was sentenced to a lengthy prison term on Friday, as another waited to learn his fate.

Dominic Pezzola, who attacked a police officer and was filmed using the officer’s shield to smash a window, received 10 years from the federal judge Timothy Kelly in Washington DC, following his conviction in May for assault and obstructing an official proceeding. Prosecutors had sought a 20-year term.

Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, was to be sentenced later for crimes, including seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building.

The pair, described by prosecutors as “foot soldiers of the right [who] aimed to keep their leader in power”, were part of a mob seeking to disrupt the certification by a joint session of Congress of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides.

Sentencing Pezzola, Kelly said: “You were the one who smashed that window and let people begin to stream into that Capitol building and threaten the lives of our lawmakers. It’s not something I would have ever dreamed I would have seen in our country.”

Pezzola told the court he was “a changed and humbled man”, his “sorrow and regret … unimaginable”.

His sentence was among the lengthiest handed down to those convicted of offences linked to the Capitol attack, in which 140 police officers were injured.

Pezzola, of Rochester, New York, posted to social media a profanity-laced video of himself inside the Capitol, smoking a cigar.

Prosecutors asked for a 27-year term for Nordean, of Auburn, Washington.

Earlier this year, Republican speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy provoked outrage by handing over footage from the January 6 insurrection recorded by Capitol security cameras to conservative commentator Tucker Carlson – who, predictably, used it to downplay the severity of the insurrection.

McCarthy later said the footage would be “slowly” released to networks other than Fox News, and today, Politico reports House Republicans have released the rules by which the footage can be accessed:

Access is restricted to media organizations, non-profits, defendants in criminal cases related to the insurrection, their attorneys and people who were injured that day. People interested in the footage can view it on terminals set up in the Capitol complex, and request access to footage no longer than 10 minutes in length.

The conservative-dominated supreme court surprised Democrats earlier this year when it ordered Alabama to draw a second majority-black congressional district. But as the Guardian’s Sam Levine and Andrew Witherspoon report, the state’s Republican lawmakers are doing everything they can not to obey the ruling:

Just a few months ago, the US supreme court issued one of its most surprising rulings in recent memory.

In a 5-4 decision in Allen v Milligan, the court said Alabama’s congressional map violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act because it diluted the influence of Black voters, who make up about a quarter of the state’s population, but comprise a majority in just one of Alabama’s congressional districts. The justices upheld a lower court’s decision ordering Alabama to redraw its map “to include two districts in which Black voters either comprise a voting-age majority or something quite close to it”.

It was widely seen as a major win for the Voting Rights Act, a statute that the US supreme court has significantly hollowed out over the last decade. It was a victory that was supposed to give the Black belt, a historically Black region in the state that is among the poorest in the US, better representation in Washington.

The statute, a landmark of the civil rights movement, has been critical in increasing Black representation at all levels of government across the US.

But when Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature convened just a few weeks later, they ignored the mandate. Their new map still included just one majority Black district. It increased the percentage of Black voters in a second district to be around 41% Black, but continued to crack the Black belt, a historically Black region that stretches across the middle of Alabama, into multiple districts. Now, it is asking a federal court to approve that map and, if they don’t, the case will probably return to the supreme court.

When the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, many conservatives welcomed the decision with the argument that abortion access should be decided on a state-by-state basis. But as the Guardian’s Carter Sherman reports, Texas Republicans are trying to override the will of local voters to ensure the procedure remains restricted throughout the country’s second most-populous state:

After the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, district attorneys from major counties in Texas vowed not to vigorously prosecute people under the state’s anti-abortion laws.

Now, Texas has a plan to punish them if they don’t fall in line.

On Friday, Texas will enact Senate Bill 20, a law that forbids prosecutors from adopting a “policy” of refusing to prosecute particular types of crimes, such as abortion cases. Under the new law, these policies constitute “official misconduct” and could lead to prosecutors being removed from office.

This kind of legislation flies in the face of prosecutors’ normal ability to choose whether and how to pursue cases, said Miriam Krinsky, executive director of Fair and Just Prosecution, an organization that works to support local prosecutors. Krinsky called the new law “scare tactics”.

“This is not about seeking to see enforcement of laws,” said Krinsky, a former federal prosecutor. “This is about trying to erode the rights of individuals to make choices around their own personal healthcare. And that is incredibly sad, because the collateral damage of that political agenda is the erosion of democratic principles.”

Laws like Senate Bill 20 are the latest volley in a long series of battles about the role of small government in regulating abortion. Before the supreme court overturned Roe and abolished national protections for abortion rights, opponents of the procedure had long argued that states should be allowed to write their own abortion laws. Now, however, some powerful anti-abortion groups like Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America are calling for federal abortion restrictions, such as a 15-week ban.

Texas is far from the only state where prosecutors have said that they will refuse to go after people for violating abortion bans. Within days of Roe’s overturning, 90 elected prosecutors released a statement – organized by Fair and Just Prosecution –publicly announcing that they would “refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions”. (US abortion bans typically penalize individuals who provide abortions or help others get the procedure, rather than abortion patients.)

The Guardian’s Maya Yang reports on how Canadian LGBTQ+ rights and civil liberties organizations are speaking out about the rise in hostile laws and hate crimes in the United States.

Earlier this week, the Canadian government warned LGBTQ+ Canadian citizens about the risks of visiting the US due to a growing wave of anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

In an updated travel advisory, the government wrote that “some states have enacted laws and politics that may affect [LBGTQ+] persons. Check relevant state and local laws.”

It warned LGBTQ+ Canadians to “watch for laws that criminalise same-sex activities and relationships”, as well as laws that “criminalise people based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics”.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, the largest US LGBTQ+ advocacy group, as of May, more than 520 anti-LGBTQ+ bills had been introduced in state legislatures. More than 220 bills specifically targeted transgender and non-binary youth while a record 70 anti-LGBTQ+ laws had been officially enacted.

Speaking to the Guardian, Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale Canada, one of the country’s leading LGBTQ+ organizations, said: “We’re pleased that our government has issued this advisory. “I think it’s important for members of our LGBTQ community here in Canada to understand the issue …

“It is somewhat alarming when the neighbor is imposing and enacting these pieces of legislation. I would encourage people to be very aware of where they’re going and what the laws are in those states. If they don’t have to go, go somewhere else.”

A federal judge in Florida has dismissed a lawsuit seeking to rule Donald Trump ineligible for a second term in the White House, for his role in the 6 January insurrection.

The district court judge Robin Rosenberg, an Obama appointee, said in a written ruling that the plaintiffs, including Florida attorney Lawrence Caplan, lacked standing to bring the suit, according to the Sun-Sentinel newspaper.

Caplan told the paper he was “not surprised” and didn’t plan to appeal “because that’s not going to go anywhere”.

The suit, in district court in Palm Beach county, where Trump resides, said the 14th amendment to the US constitution barred those who had engaged in insurrection against the US from holding elected office.

Many legal scholars say the argument is sound, though some believe it was implemented only to prevent Confederates on the losing side in the civil war from holding office again.

ABC News reported on Friday that similar lawsuits are being prepared in several swing states, including Arizona, Michigan and New Hampshire.

A member of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House was sentenced to a lengthy prison term on Friday, as another waited to learn his fate.

Dominic Pezzola, who attacked a police officer and was filmed using the officer’s shield to smash a window, received 10 years from the federal judge Timothy Kelly in Washington DC, following his conviction in May for assault and obstructing an official proceeding. Prosecutors had sought a 20-year term.

Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, was to be sentenced later for crimes, including seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building.

The pair, described by prosecutors as “foot soldiers of the right [who] aimed to keep their leader in power”, were part of a mob seeking to disrupt the certification by a joint session of Congress of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including law enforcement suicides.

Sentencing Pezzola, Kelly said: “You were the one who smashed that window and let people begin to stream into that Capitol building and threaten the lives of our lawmakers. It’s not something I would have ever dreamed I would have seen in our country.”

Pezzola told the court he was “a changed and humbled man”, his “sorrow and regret … unimaginable”.

His sentence was among the lengthiest handed down to those convicted of offences linked to the Capitol attack, in which 140 police officers were injured.

Pezzola, of Rochester, New York, posted to social media a profanity-laced video of himself inside the Capitol, smoking a cigar.

Prosecutors asked for a 27-year term for Nordean, of Auburn, Washington.

Some interesting nuggets – of news rather than reconstituted chicken – have emerged from an interview between Tucker Carlson, once of Fox News, and Dave Portnoy, still of another controversial rightwing outlet, Barstool Sports.

Last week, Carlson’s interview with Donald Trump played as counter-programming to the first Republican presidential primary debate, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Trump has saluted the success of that gambit, and indeed remains miles ahead in the polls. But, it turns out, Carlson thinks both that Trump should have debated and that, at 77, the former president is too old to return to the White House.

Part of Carlson’s interview with Portnoy on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, now Carlson’s home, went like this:

Portnoy: “To me, if you’re voting on the president you want to hear him debate. He’s brilliant. He’s the best to ever play the political game. So to become president, I think it was the right move not to do it. But for the betterment of country, I think you should be on it.”

Carlson: “I kind of agree. I like the debates, personally.”

Portnoy: “I mean, how else are people gonna decide?”

Carlson: “The problem is that the news companies that host the debates” – Fox News hosted the first one, four months after letting Carlson go – “are so rotten and corrupt, and everybody knows it. The whole thing’s wrong. The whole thing is rotten through.”

Portnoy: “… I mean, to be honest, I think both Trump and Biden are too old … I don’t think you should be able to be that old to be president.”

Carlson: “I agree 100%.”

It’s not quite at the level of the Carlson text messages that were revealed in the Dominion lawsuit over Fox News’ broadcast of Trump’s election lies – “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” the host wrote, “I truly can’t wait. I hate him passionately” – but it might still land with a bit of a damp thud at Trump campaign HQ.

The day so far

A federal judge has ordered Proud Boys militia group member Dominic Pezzola to spend 10 years in prison for his violent actions on January 6, a sentence less than the 20-year term prosecutors requested. Ethan Nordean, a leader in the far-right group, is scheduled to receive his sentence later today, and prosecutors have asked that he be jailed for 27 years following his conviction on seditious conspiracy and other charges.

Here’s what else has happened today so far:

Georgia Republicans may decide to go after Fani Willis, the Democratic district attorney in the Atlanta area who last week indicted Donald Trump and 18 others on election subversion charges.

What does Ron DeSantis fear? A 15-year-old politics junky, apparently.

Dylan Quattrucci told police to “go hang yourself” on January 6. Now he works for the Trump campaign in New Hampshire, according to a report.

After sentencing Dominic Pezzola to spend 10 years in prison for his actions on January 6, Politico reports federal judge Timothy Kelly took a moment to point out the difference between the attack on the Capitol and the violence that sometimes occurred during racial justice protests in the summer of 2020:

Most of the protests that followed the death of George Floyd in May 2020 were peaceful. However, allies of Donald Trump have often invoked instances of looting or fighting that occasionally happened during the nationwide demonstrations to downplay the severity of the attack on the Capitol months later.

Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola receives 10-year prison sentence - report

Federal judge Timothy Kelly has sentenced Proud Boys militia member Dominic Pezzola to spend 10 years in prison for his actions during the January 6 attack, Politico reports:

The sentence is less than the 20-year term prosecutors had proposed. During the insurrection, Pezzola was captured on video using a stolen police riot shield to break a window at the Capitol. He was convicted of several crimes, including assaulting a police officer and obstructing an official proceeding.

Federal judge Timothy Kelly is now addressing Proud Boys member Dominic Pezzola at his sentencing hearing, Politico reports:

Politico reports that Dominic Pezzola is addressing the court as a judge in Washington DC weighs how long he should spend in prison for his actions on January 6.

Pezzola was convicted of several crimes, including obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting an officer, and prosecutors have recommended he receive a 20-year prison sentence.

As defendants in these case often do, Pezzola expressed remorse when addressing the judge:

Assistant US attorney Erik Kenerson reminded the judge of Pezzola’s actions during the attack, particularly how he broke into the Capitol with a stolen police riot shield, a now-famous image from the insurrection: