John Solomon: Oathkeepers Charges, Declass

First the easy part, which takes up the major part of the Lou Dobbs interview with John Solomon: Solomon confirms that the FBI docs on the Russia Hoax have been declassified, and he's just waiting for them to be distributed. That's most of what we have for now. However, in a brief article, Solomon states that there will still be some "modest" redactions. Those redaction issues were raised by the FBI on January 17, which looks like a last ditch effort to derail the declass:

Trump revealed in a statement issued by the White House that the materials were not previously shared with Congress or the public and he received them on Dec. 30 in a binder, determining they ought to be made public. The binder is about a foot tall, according to officials who have seen it.

"I determined that the materials in that binder should be declassified to the maximum extent possible," the president said.

The effort to release the materials, however, hit a bump when the FBI objected on Sunday to a complete release of the information. The president nonetheless ordered them released but allowed for some modest redactions to be made.

"As part of the iterative process of the declassification review, under a cover letter dated January 17, 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation noted its continuing objection to any further declassification of the materials in the binder and also, on the basis of a review that included Intelligence Community equities, identified the passages that it believed it was most crucial to keep from public disclosure. I have determined to accept the redactions proposed for continued classification by the FBI in that January 17 submission."

 

The first few minutes of the interview are, if anything, more important. The FBI has built a conspiracy case against several--at least three, perhaps more--individuals who belong to the Oath Keepers. and who appear to have acted as provocateurs in the events of January 6 at the US Capitol. As Solomon explains, it is now known that--contrary to claims by Mitch McConnell and Bluto Barr, the plans by the Oath Keepers to enter the Capitol were developed well before Trump's address to the protesters--at least as early as January 1, but possibly earlier. The significance of these facts that the FBI has uncovered is that the illegal activities that took place on January 6 had nothing to do with Trump's actual address to the crowd--the entry to the Capitol was long planned. Now, Bluto Barr will maintain that Trump's claims of election fraud for the preceding two months served as incitement. But those claims are too remote from the events in terms of causation to be used as evidence of "high crimes" or "misdemeanors." Moreover, they are protected by the First Amendment.

Here's the major part of the interview:

Obamagate Documents: @JSolomonreports says he has confirmed with the FBI & the White House that documents have been declassified as we await its release. #MAGA #AmericaFirst #Dobbs pic.twitter.com/09yPPUNtIJ

— Lou Dobbs (@LouDobbs) January 19, 2021

Solomon provides some interesting details about how the FBI made the case, working backward from intercepted communications on the day of the protest. Additional details on the FBI case against the Oath Keepers can be found in this CNN article: Members of extremist Oath Keepers group planned attack on US Capitol, prosecutors say. 

Here is a link to the actual 15 page FBI Affidavit.