Pelosi’s aide is set to testify at the Jan. 6 trial of the defendant accused of stealing the laptop from the president’s office

Fleet’s turn at the helm comes at a difficult political time, just weeks after an assailant broke into Pelosi’s San Francisco home and assaulted her husband. The attack brought renewed attention to growing threats of violence against members of Congress — and in particular, Pelosi, who was the target of many who raped the Capitol seeking to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election.

In addition to his role as Pelosi adviser and personnel director on the House Administration Committee, Fleet served as a strategist and key adviser to the Jan. 6 select committee. Now, after two years of helping the panel investigate Donald Trump’s role in trying to overturn the 2020 election — and sending an armed mob to the Capitol — Fleet will play a direct role in one of those rioters’ prosecutions. .

Prosecutors should ask Fleet to describe the significance of the joint session of Congress held every four years on January 6 to certify the presidential election. He can also be asked about his own role that day, which was to help push back efforts by congressional Republicans to challenge the election results – a strategy that was shelved after rioters including Williams protested. broke into the building and forced Congress to flee.

Williams’ case has always been unusual among the nearly 900 defendants charged for their activities on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6. The video shows her taking an active role in the middle of the crowd on January 6, appearing to wave a wave of rioters towards the President’s office, where the video shows her among the gathered crowd.

She was later seen walking out of the Capitol wearing a shirt that read « I’m with Groyper, » a reference to supporters of white nationalist personality Nick Fuentes, whom prosecutors say Williams had become obsessed with before. January 6th.

Williams was in court last week as her lawyers tried to narrow the contours of what prosecutors intended to introduce – about Fuentes, allegations that she told friends she planned to sell Pelosi’s laptop to Russians and her toxic relationship with an ex-boyfriend who was among the witnesses who provided information to investigators about Williams’ actions on January 6.

The judge also considered whether to allow prosecutors to lead evidence that Williams also stole a hard drive and a hammer from Pelosi’s office, even though she is not charged with either offence.

Hundreds of defendants on January 6 have pleaded guilty to crimes ranging from simple trespassing to seditious conspiracy – a violent conspiracy to prevent the transition of power to Joe Biden. Hundreds more continue to negotiate possible plea deals with the government, leaving only a few dozen of the most serious cases likely to go to trial. Juries have so far returned guilty verdicts on every count in the roughly 30 trials that have taken place so far against those who breached the Capitol or attacked police officers on Jan. 6.

Williams’ trial is the first for a rioter known to have walked into Pelosi’s suite. She will face jurors at the same time as another trial – the seditious conspiracy case against the leaders of the Oath Keepers – winds up in the hallway of the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., just steps from the Capitol itself. same. Prosecutors say members of the Oath Keepers searched for Pelosi as they searched the building.

In both cases, defense attorneys raised concerns that the recent attack on Paul Pelosi could cause jurors to draw connections to Jan. 6 defendants like Williams. Her lawyer, Lori Ulrich, has urged a judge to stop prosecutors from playing a clip in which rioters can be heard chanting « Where’s Nancy? » – noting that the recent attacker is also accused of uttering the same threatening chant when he entered her home.

In the Oath Keepers case, defense attorneys suggested to jurors in Judge Amit Mehta’s poll whether they had heard Biden’s recent speech in which he explicitly linked January 6 to the attack. at Pelosi’s home, but they ultimately opted against it.